Eltosian Kadath Posted October 3 Share Posted October 3 It has been a long time since I last played Three Houses. Back when it was first out I rushed my way through all four routes in way too short of time, and was so burnt out on this game that I felt a visceral hatred for it that I felt was a bit unfair to it even at the time. I was very happy to ignore this game for a LONG time, but after the thread about changing one thing about my least favorite Fire Emblem game, and finding Three Houses really did feel like my least favorite, it got my brain to percolating. It was finally time to replay this game, and try and give it a fairer shake than before. Time to replay it, and see if it was as bad as I remember it being, and make sure to play something else between the routes to hopefully mitigate the burnout this time around. My plan with this thread is to share my thoughts at the end of every part, my complaints, my compliments, and my general comments, and hear how others feel about the game in return. Those of you who chat up in the TeeHee thread know I have been sharing early thoughts over there, and this will sound rather similar, but at this point I have gotten to the end of Part 1 on a Hard Verdant Winds playthrough, and I feel this is the perfect place to start sharing my thoughts about this replay with people more inclined to actually like Three Houses, so without further ado, let me start with an expansion on what I felt needed fixing most about Three Houses back in the thread that started this retread. And that one thing I said I would want to fix about Three Houses was to add a mechanic similar to Fate's Branch of Fates, that way you didn't have to play through snoring clouds 3-4 times (depending on your willingness to save scum) to see the whole game's story. If the game were built that way to begin with, I might not have hated it as much, although I seem to remember there being a lot of rehashing of maps in part 2 as well, so it might not have prevented that feeling entirely. In the thread itself I wasn't sure how I would want it to work, but this replay has given me an idea, and it would be to change Part 1 such that instead of picking a house immediately, it is more designed similarly to Fates early game, where they alot three chapters to give us a taste of each of the four routes, with use leading the three houses on three missions apiece, and the "fourth" route involving us joining the faculty and knights on three missions as well for the church route. The early chapters are already designed generically enough that you could play them with any house, and the only chapter I feel they would really need to change to make this work would be the prologue, it would more be down to just allocating the chapters to the groups that felt most appropriate for them, with the split point right at chapter 12 where you decide which of the forces you commit to joining the side of in the coming war. This would even have the added benefit of ensuring you had some exposure to all the class members, so when Edelgard or whatever acts like the two of you interacted in any meaningful way in part 1, you actually would have, making the conflict more emotionally impactful. Now it would also change the monotonous grinding curve of the game, and the way a vast majority of recruitments work, but both of those mechanics kind of suck anyway. Speaking of which, let me express why I think the recruitment mechanics kind of suck, and would have much preferred a more traditional recruitment system. Three Houses discourages recruitment from a gameplay perspective in two big ways, first with deployment limits very close to your class size, and using the threat of the first part 2 chapter softlock at dawn to keep you from benching most of those initial classmates to make room for new recruits, although it does also encourage you to recruit bench warmers with its part 2 paralogue requirements and part 1 bonus rewards. It also discourages fun challenge runs in two ways, first this pushback against recruitment makes challenge run involving specific characters more of a hassle to navigate, but also the way it front loads recruitment, with part two recruits coming once in a blue moon as one of the ways it discourages ironmanning, although I can't blame recruitment alone on what makes it a worse than average game to ironman. While I dislike this discouragement of fairly normal challenge runs, they are more detriments to replayability, and shouldn't be the biggest deal on what is supposed to be a vanilla run like this. What isn't great on a vanilla run is that a vast majority of the recruitment requirements are just a form of grinding, and the micromanaging nature of Three House's grinding is going to be a recurring theme of the things I kind of hate in Three Houses. Now I am OK with the simple level requirements of the knights and faculty, that is a very basic form of grinding that doesn't require much micromanagement to it, and I can see the logic in restricting units with higher tier classes and/or abilities until it would be level appropriate. The recruitment I dislike the most is the combined stat and weapon/movement rank requirement. The stat requirement feels especially arbitrary due to the random nature of levelups, but admittedly I find most of those benchmarks fairly achievable, and you can grow stat boosters in the back garden (although realistically speaking you are going to need to look those up from outside sources, which isn't great for the game as a narrative experience as it is weakens the verisimilitude of the game), or drink boatloads of tea for the charm ones, so there are a few extra avenues for grinding that out. The weapon/movement rank requirements I hate for just how tedious, and requiring micromanagement the whole system feels. You can lower these requirements with supports, but the only way to meaningfully change most of the rank requirements, the ones I would most want to reduce, require me to reach a B support anyway, and support grinding up to B is already a means of recruitment, which really neuters that mechanic. Now I used to think grinding up supports was the way to go, but on this replay of the game I made the mistake of actually engaging with the mechanic's random elements at first, instead of save scumming them, and that really soured me on that method of recruitment. Due to how Three Houses discourages recruitment, I only tried to recruit Bernie (as she is my spirit animal) at first, and with only one recruitment to get, I didn't bother to save scum, as it felt like I had all the time in the world to do it. The first bit of save scummable RNG problems I ran into I found kind of charming at first, and only really soured on it when I started going for the paralogue benchwarmers later on into part 1, and realized it might not be intentional, as the reclusive Bernie was very reluctant to accept my invitation to tea. It took me the better part of a month to get her to accept an invitation, and if the tea invitation acceptance rate is based on the character, I would actually rather like this quirk as a means of characterization, but as later recruitments showed me it is both random and save scummable, and I don't know if I just had serendipitous bad luck, or if Bernie's reluctance was intentional. The RNG that made me really dislike this method of recruitment is that when a B support recruit joins you is RNG based. I waited for well over two month for her to join after getting to B support, to point that I ended up just spending a pair of Faculty Trainings (one of which I needed to save scum into a great to get enough useless weapon exp), to recruit her in time to do the funny option of making her my dancer. Later recruitments I would save scum (side note fuck Fernand's recruitment requirements, so sorry Lysithea I wont be seeing your paralogue this time around), and the way I felt forced to break the verisimilitude of the game's world to get a basic mechanic to work properly felt especially bitter given the way the game tries to maintain that in other RNG laden mechanics Now I have been rather negative on the game so far, so its time to talk about some things I think it did well, to emphasize why the RNG issues were such a letdown (don't worry, I will have more good things to say, I am just starting with Three House's weak point, the gameplay). This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I like the way the game in other places discouraged the cheesing of its mechanics. The most pointed example is the way they discourage the save scumming of certification exams by setting the RNG at the start of the month (I will have more negative things to say about class changing soon, but this isn't one of them). The way you can no longer cursor dance to change the RNG after divine pulses is another little example. Similarly I like how they use timers to discourage the cheesing of the advice box, and tea times, although these examples aren't really RNG related, and it randomizing with save scumming act to maintain that difficulty with cheesing (so you can't brute force the answer) rather than necessarily facilitating it. Sure there are still ways of cheating these systems, but making these forms of cheesing slightly more difficult is a level of care that is telling when compared to the recruitment mechanic, and makes it feel as if the reason recruitment suck in Three Houses is because it is a mechanic that the creators didn't really care about. I have never been the biggest fan of recleassing, I generally see it as a nice bonus incentive to replay a game (which is a good thing to have), but generally prefer to stick to base classes on most runs...which is so counter to Three House's philosophy on how things should work mechanically that this was never going to be among my favorites. On a vanilla run like this I would vastly prefer to mostly stick to "canon" classes, but doing so in Three Houses would literally require me to research what class you see the units in when you recruit them late from other houses, or when you face them in combat, and having to do that kind of research for a vanilla run sounds ridiculous. I guess there are also the unit's suggestions after lectures, but I have seen those suggesting what seem like contradictory advise already (Ignatz wanting to go both Sniper and Mortal Savant). Also the way you need to micromanage your weapon exp, and movement experience for class changing as well as regular promotion, with class exp added in to acquire vital skills makes the whole experience miserable. That is all before how easy it feels to fall into the very boring paradigm of Oops All Wyverns, (which I definitely did, like over half my crew are Wyverns) which is the sign of a very poorly designed class system...ugh I want to move on to something at least a little positive, as the way this game's micromanagement systems are designed compels me to engage with them in spite of the enjoyment I would have ignoring them. The maps are a lot better than I remember them being. To be fair, I think this is one of the places where replaying this game too many times too rapidly skewed my perspective in the past, and these maps definitely aren't perfect either. The way they use chests isn't great (I have never felt pressured at all to go after any of them in a timely fashion), and the way the game uses reinforcements is very stupid (when they spawn too close they are either useless as non-ambush spawns as you trivially wipe them out before they can act, or annoying as ambush spawns). Despite those quibbles the map quality is still an overall positive. Also I remember this game having way too many boss kill chapter, but part 1, its optional maps , and paralogues so far have provided enough variety of objective to keep it from being a problem (although I have been warned this is a bigger issue in part 2). Another positive for Three Houses mechanically is how the game's magic system works (excluding the fact that getting spells is a part of Three Houses horrible grind machine). Getting a reasonable discrete number of uses per map works really well, and keeps me from doing that silly too good to use hoarding of the best spells, while still making it a meaningful choice of which spells I use when. In very similar ways, beyond how you get them, I rather like combat arts as well, as another way of strengthening player phase. Time for some things that I have minor quibbles with before I move on to bigger fish. First off is Adjutant, as the mechanic feels mostly useless, beyond being another way to get some more units into the Three Houses grind machine. In a similar way the mission support from other houses option also has that useless feel, made even odder by it only being able to grind up supports. It feels like a half assed patch for the issue of how to get a unit over the C support hump after which you can start teaing them up to B. Battalions I love from a story perspective, as a way to bridge the logical gap between armies fighting and controlling a reasonable number of units, but I find they fall a bit flat mechanically. First off they are a whole new cog in the Three Houses grind machine as both something to level up, and change out as authority levels up, and while it is a far less annoying grind than some, I don't enjoy it being added to the pile. Gambits are their own mixed bag as well, as I rather like how the support oriented Gambits function, but when using them to attack I have real mixed feeling about how their accuracy works. There is also clearly an attempt to reign in the Oops All Wyvern problem with limited flying Battalions, but it is somewhat mitigated by an attacking Gambit's ability to freeze opponents (without the enemy getting a chance to retaliate) being at its most powerful when used by a unit that can canter and fly. I just don't think the penalty of not having a battalion is a strong enough deterrent against making too many fliers with how strong the game makes them (and for personal reasons I get far more joy than I should out of how many units I can give the Triangle Attack). Alright, its time to cover the big mechanical bugbear in the room, the Monastery mechanics. I kind of like the monastery portions of the game a lot, but I find that they are ruined by one major thing, Professor Level. First off, the way Professor Level increases your capabilities in the game's down time leads to a perverse incentive to maximize that Professor Experience in a way that turns the otherwise fun little fishing minigame into a chore where you save up bait for the extra experience event (fist full o fish), and then just ruin it by overplaying the minigame almost 200 times in a row to optimize Professor Exp. There are a few other micromanagey thing with regard to optimizing Professor Level experience as well, but the fishing minigame is just the easiest to articulate and by far the most egregious, and feeling the pull to optimize in this way makes the game less fun to play. That is before getting to the other massive issue with Professor Level, that getting it above C tier also leads to unfun behavior due to how much it lengthens the between time. I picked C rank for three big reasons, first getting one rank higher gets you to the point where you can now do multiple battles in a week (which is an exhausting way to stretch the between time, and below Maddening at least makes you feel overleveled after doing it); secondly getting two ranks higher gets to the point where you have more lecture points than half the deployment limit for the army (at least so far deployment limit hovered between 9-11), which leads to some nasty incentives where you either micromanage the bonus sources of motivations (thing like timing supports with the MC, manipulating MVPs, save scumming for end of lecture choices, or over engaging with lost items and gifts), or you feel pressured into doing even more explore moments than you should to raise motivation (which are made longer by the increase in activity point, leading to a nasty cascade) or else waste the lecture points; finally I find the 5-6 exploration activity points is just about the right number for them. Both battles and exploration scaling with Professor level then devalues Seminars which don't scale in the same way, made all the worse by the way they give out class/weapon experience decreasing as your ranks increase, making them effectively less valuable over time on their own, which is a shame as I kind of like them as a third option to balance out the other two, and I feel the mechanic has fallen off completely by chapter 6. It is a shame that such a good thing was ruined by Three House's desperate attempt to make you micromanage and grind everything. So far I have talked about the game mechanically, but I think we all know that the story was always Three Houses strong point, and truth be told future updates will probably focus on this aspect of the game (so hopefully they will be shorter?), although snoring clouds isn't all that interesting from a story perspective. First off, Fodlan has some solid world building attached to, no real notes to add, it is just quality stuff. Admittedly the game does not respect travel time in the slightest, which is odd considering it has a calendar system that could easily be used to account for that. Also the Serios Church's super elite knights policing the world makes for a weird position to start the game in, but I guess they needed some excuse for us to be involved in conflicts all over the continent during peace time while still being disconnected enough from the other powers to be the part 1 of all four routes. Plus it lets the most massive army on the continent sufficiently break itself upon the most elite army to keep either of them from dominating the world during the 5 year time skip. As for the characters I am using (Teach, the Golden Deer, Flayn, Cyril, and Bernie so far), I would say I like about 1/3 of them, don't feel strongly about another 1/3, and want to throw bricks at the last 1/3, so a real mix of characters so far. Now snoring clouds doesn't move the plot all that much, but there are a few points I want to talk about so far. First off Claude is a fraud; other characters will talk all the time about his wily schemes, and we are never shown him doing any of them. The closest we get is him cheekily foreshadowing the burning of the Grondor hill in the battle of Eagle and Lions, but I remember that point latter in the game...AND HE ISN'T EVEN THE ONE TO FUCKING DO IT LATER IN THE GAME. He teases us with talk about poison induced stomach aches that go no where. The bit where he talks Rhea into letting teach attack Jeralt's killer is especially grating, as he talks up how he has a brilliant strategy, and it isn't about revenge, only to admit to us not five minutes later that he has no plan at all, and it totally is just about revenge. This is beating a bit of a dead horse I guess, I definitely had this complaint before, but noticing the foreshadowing about Grondor fields was a detail I didn't remember, and is such a double edge sword of momentarily thinking this was a place where they tried to show his cleverness only for the future plot to make it explode in his face. If this game had any guts at all, they would have given the three house leaders more unique personal skills, with Claude's being a page right out of Fates with a DV like mechanic that can change the map in some way with his schemes. Another thing I personally disliked was how they handled the chapter with rescuing of Flayn, where you either had to make a weird story situation where you are just waiting for a month to rescue her, with Manuela bleeding out the entire time, or miss out on a full month of activities. I remember some attempts to excuse this back in the day, as this being done to reduce the writers workload, so they don't have to write alternate dialogue for everyone talking about things before and after Flayn is saved, and that excuse is made entirely bullshit by the very next week giving everyone alternate dialogue for before and after the fucking fishing contest. I guess it is nice that they give a token reward to try and encourage you not to cheese it, but the Professor Level grind has already proceeded to the point that multiple week are way more valuable than the items offered. I guess I can add a few more controversial positive opinions about the story, that I like how they handled the existence of divine pulse in the plot with Jeralt's death. I thought that was a good way of showing us a shorthand explanation for why that power isn't able to fix everything, so negative events can still happen in the plot. I have enough media literacy to not have to see 30 very similar failed attempts to change bad events from happening in the story, seeing it once was enough. Admittedly Sothis's comment about it after the fact was both counter productive, and came across as a bit insulting, like the writers thought they needed to spell things out egregiously explicitly for the children who lack that level of media literacy to get it. I also have a soft spot for the dramatic irony of Solon basically making a greater threat to his people by trying to off teach with the forbidden timeout corner magic. Two last very cold takes about teach to finish things off. First, the whole plot bit about teach being an emotionless robot before the story starts is just plain stupid. In a similar way the fall off a cliff to trigger to time skip feels extremely anticlimactic after we escaped from the magical void (that would have made for a far more interesting reason for a 5 year time skip). 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Shanty Pete's 1st Mate Posted October 3 Share Posted October 3 7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: And that one thing I said I would want to fix about Three Houses was to add a mechanic similar to Fate's Branch of Fates, that way you didn't have to play through snoring clouds 3-4 times (depending on your willingness to save scum) to see the whole game's story. That would be really cool and convenient. Particularly as a "New Game Plus" option. Let the player go back to just before the timeskip, and switch to a different route for post-skip. The option to go "all the way back", for players who want to do so, would still be there. 7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: In the thread itself I wasn't sure how I would want it to work, but this replay has given me an idea, and it would be to change Part 1 such that instead of picking a house immediately, it is more designed similarly to Fates early game, where they alot three chapters to give us a taste of each of the four routes, with use leading the three houses on three missions apiece, and the "fourth" route involving us joining the faculty and knights on three missions as well for the church route. I agree with not having to pick a house ASAP. One idea I had is, right after the Prologue, you get drafted as a Mercenary in the Knights of Seiros. Also, the "school year" hasn't started yet - just a handful of students, some from each house, are there for the "summer program". Your first few months would see you progressively exploring the monastery, while going on misdions with Jeralt (now a genuine Jagen), the few students, and some Knights of Seiros. After three months, the school year begins, and you get to choose which class you'll lead. That's when you start teaching and tutoring the students. The game progresses normally (albeit somewhat compressed) from then on out. But that way, you get to spend time with (some) of the students, particularly the main lords, before selecting a group to stick with. 7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: specific characters more of a hassle to navigate, but also the way it front loads recruitment Yeah, it sucks having... basically no post-skip recruitments, outside of Gilbert on AM, Jeritza on CF, and a handful of "re-recruitments". Characters that would make all the sense in the world to recruit, like Judith on VW or Fleche on CF, are totally forgotten about. Not to mention, characters like Holst and Margreave Gautier going completely unseen the whole game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zapp Branniglenn Posted October 3 Share Posted October 3 (edited) I'm not sure how one would handle a Fates-style menu choice, but I do think it'd be entertaining if the point you jumped in was mid-chapter 10. As Byleth carves their way back out and takes first steps into a different dimension. Your new playthrough starts right at that point of the battle. Unfortunately that's far too late for you to suddenly start recruiting out of house. Doing those units' paralogues before the impending deadline. And what would your units have access to? Not a single class mastery like usual recruits? Are they at level 19 like Recruited students usually are at that stage of the game? Have they been assigned appropriate skill ranks and battallions for the fight you're jumping into? Do they at least Support us at level B? The Silver Snow post-skip Maddening experience has me thoroughly skeptical that this game can support such spontaneous cutting of content and still be playable. Edited October 3 by Zapp Branniglenn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted October 3 Share Posted October 3 (edited) 7 hours ago, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: That would be really cool and convenient. Particularly as a "New Game Plus" option. Let the player go back to just before the timeskip, and switch to a different route for post-skip. The option to go "all the way back", for players who want to do so, would still be there. Bit of a problem there is that there's more game content pre route split than post route split. Be a bit weird to go back to the 65% mark or something (even higher in Crimson Flower). Especially if that would mean your whole army is autogenerated from that point onwards. Plus, what about all the part 1 exclusive paralogues? All of them would have to be rewritten to make sense in part 2 (though that would mitigate the content issue a bit, albeit by kind of nuking the very idea if paralogues for half the game). Though, similarly to the OP, I have worked out a chapter arrangement where you have a trial period with each house for the first six chapters before making a decision. But something like that couldn't really work right up to the time skip. 6 hours ago, Zapp Branniglenn said: I'm not sure how one would handle a Fates-style menu choice, but I do think it'd be entertaining if the point you jumped in was mid-chapter 10. As Byleth carves their way back out and takes first steps into a different dimension. Your new playthrough starts right at that point of the battle. Unfortunately that's far too late for you to suddenly start recruiting out of house. Doing those units' paralogues before the impending deadline. And what would your units have access to? Not a single class mastery like usual recruits? Are they at level 19 like Recruited students usually are at that stage of the game? Have they been assigned appropriate skill ranks and battallions for the fight you're jumping into? Do they at least Support us at level B? The Silver Snow post-skip Maddening experience has me thoroughly skeptical that this game can support such spontaneous cutting of content and still be playable. The best point for it I've heard is chapter 7, after the whole Death Knight kidnapping Flayn debocle. Primarily because Byleth can slot in narratively at that point as Jertiza leaves the school suddenly, so there's a job opening that needs to be filled. It also allows two chapters with each house+the prologue. And right after that chapter, if I remember correctly, White Clouds starts having the closest thing to an ongoing plot in part 1 with Remote village happening, then Jeralt's death and the forest etc. Edited October 3 by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dark Holy Elf Posted October 9 Share Posted October 9 On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: It also discourages fun challenge runs in two ways, first this pushback against recruitment makes challenge run involving specific characters more of a hassle to navigate, but also the way it front loads recruitment, with part two recruits coming once in a blue moon as one of the ways it discourages ironmanning, although I can't blame recruitment alone on what makes it a worse than average game to ironman. As something of a challenge run fanatic, I definitely disagree that 3H discourages challenge runs; in fact I find it an extremely friendly game to them. The recruitment system lets you get new recruits in any order (or not at all). The class system lets anyone be anything. The sheer amount of gameplay options allows you to win with artificially low stats in ways which are frequently impossible in other games. There are lots of levers you can go without, like combat arts or gambits or battalions or certain spells or divine pulse or the entire monastery; the list goes on. Broadly speaking, for any challenge run I can think up of for something like Blazing Blade, I can do a similar one in 3H as well... and then I can do a heck of a lot more as well. You mention ironman runs specifically, but (a) that's only one type of challenge, and (b) ironman runs are still eminently doable in 3H. The adjutant system even ensures that you'll have up to three ready-to-go units if someone dies. They'll be weaker than your main team, of course, but that's kind of the point of losing someone in an ironman run, isn't it? On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: On a vanilla run like this I would vastly prefer to mostly stick to "canon" classes, but doing so in Three Houses would literally require me to research what class you see the units in when you recruit them late from other houses, or when you face them in combat, and having to do that kind of research for a vanilla run sounds ridiculous. If it's something you want to do, I don't think it's that hard, or even needs research, really. With rare exceptions, everyone's "canon" classes are just what their highest weapon rank naturally pushes them towards, with a nod to their riding/flying/armour rank if that weapon is the lance or axe. I suppose this leaves an ambiguity for a few of the sword-users (e.g. should Felix/Petra go swordmaster or assassin?) but that doesn't seem like a big deal in the grand scheme of things. So I really think it's easy enough to do a run the way you describe, and in my experience many first-time players do something similar. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: The way they use chests isn't great (I have never felt pressured at all to go after any of them in a timely fashion), and the way the game uses reinforcements is very stupid (when they spawn too close they are either useless as non-ambush spawns as you trivially wipe them out before they can act, or annoying as ambush spawns). I mostly agree with these criticisms, with the caveat that I do think the chests work quite well in Chapter 4, specifically: their presence on opposite sides of the map coupled with the time limit encourages you to split your team, instead of overpowering one side, and I think that's a good thing. But I'm hard-pressed to think of another good example like this, and it's a real shame you never have to race thieves or similar. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: Alright, its time to cover the big mechanical bugbear in the room, the Monastery mechanics. I kind of like the monastery portions of the game a lot, but I find that they are ruined by one major thing, Professor Level. I have some disagreements here, the biggest one being the complaints about grinding-via-fishing. Like... if you want to do that, go nuts? I never would. Even on my craziest challenge runs I've never been tempted, which speaks to unnecessary it is; that's hours of my life I could be using on better things (like posting on Serenes, naturally). Maybe you feel the game should have saved certain players from themselves by not letting them do it, but on the other hand some players do enjoy the fishing mini-game (either the game itself or as a grinding tool) so I don't see a point in taking it away from them just to make a few players with no self-control a bit happier. (I guess putting a cap on the amount of prof exp you could get from it per chapter might help, but perversely that might also make this issue worse for me personally. At the moment, "get the max prof exp from fishing" is just so unthinkable to me that I would never do it, but if you let me get 500 prof exp per chapter from it max I mgiht be a bit more tempted to do it, and I would consider that to be bad. Personally I quite like its current use, which is pushing me over the top if I run into the otherwise frustrating experience of being <100 prof exp short of a benchmark.) That said I broadly agree that prof exp isn't a good mechanic. As you said, it encourages you to priortize that over all else. It helps make the non-explore options massively sub-optimal in the earlygame, and while I don't mind making "grind in aux battles" sub-optimal, the effect on seminars is unfortunate. I do think seminars have a niche, mind: they're great as a time-efficient way to gain skills (ironically, I actually find them better later in the game, even though they don't scale, because later on prof exp gets less important and support building is no longer an issue). On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: Another thing I personally disliked was how they handled the chapter with rescuing of Flayn, where you either had to make a weird story situation where you are just waiting for a month to rescue her, with Manuela bleeding out the entire time, or miss out on a full month of activities. Yes this is incredibly strange. There are so many easy ways they could have fixed it too. One of the easiest (not necessarily the best) would be getting a really good item for rescuing Flayn in the first week, and steadily less thereafter, and finally none for waiting the month out entirely. If you earned Caduceus and a big chunk of prof exp for rescuing Flayn week 1, I suspect most people would opt for that over waiting the month out, for instance. Instead the reward we get is so insultingly mediocre I don't even remember what it is. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: I guess I can add a few more controversial positive opinions about the story, that I like how they handled the existence of divine pulse in the plot with Jeralt's death. I thought that was a good way of showing us a shorthand explanation for why that power isn't able to fix everything, so negative events can still happen in the plot. I have enough media literacy to not have to see 30 very similar failed attempts to change bad events from happening in the story, seeing it once was enough. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: Two last very cold takes about teach to finish things off. First, the whole plot bit about teach being an emotionless robot before the story starts is just plain stupid. In a similar way the fall off a cliff to trigger to time skip feels extremely anticlimactic after we escaped from the magical void (that would have made for a far more interesting reason for a 5 year time skip). I agree with all three of these. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted October 9 Share Posted October 9 On 10/3/2024 at 4:14 PM, Eltosian Kadath said: On a vanilla run like this I would vastly prefer to mostly stick to "canon" classes, but doing so in Three Houses would literally require me to research what class you see the units in when you recruit them late from other houses, or when you face them in combat, and having to do that kind of research for a vanilla run sounds ridiculous I've actually already categorized all that information if you care to use it. Had to pick some kind of canon classes for my Fire Emblem stat inflation calculator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaky Jones Posted October 9 Share Posted October 9 On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: but after the thread about changing one thing about my least favorite Fire Emblem game, and finding Three Houses really did feel like my least favorite Congratulations. You won the thread. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: And that one thing I said I would want to fix about Three Houses was to add a mechanic similar to Fate's Branch of Fates, that way you didn't have to play through snoring clouds 3-4 times (depending on your willingness to save scum) to see the whole game's story. Snoring Clouds vs 20 hour roadtrip to bitchslap Napoleon (the entire game is the same 3/4 times and I'm wondering why I didn't play a better game) On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: I might not have hated it as much, although I seem to remember there being a lot of rehashing of maps in part 2 as well, so it might not have prevented that feeling entirely. In the thread itself I wasn't sure how I would want it to work, but this replay has given me an idea, and it would be to change Part 1 such that instead of picking a house immediately, it is more designed similarly to Fates early game, where they alot three chapters to give us a taste of each of the four routes, with use leading the three houses on three missions apiece, and the "fourth" route involving us joining the faculty and knights on three missions as well for the church route. I don't remember if I replied to your suggestion, but I've been saying this for years: Let the player try out each house. I was legit shocked that the game just starts and you have to pick a house. I thought it was poor design from minute one because while Fates is known as le bad story with funny seed man, at least you got to see bits of each world in the beginning. Here, all you can do on a first run is just trust what the house leader says off of a sparknotes summary while you have NO knowledge of each nation and their struggles or powers or funny cancer crests. Once you randomly pick a house, unless you chose Black Eagles because woman protag, you're just stuck with that house. You're locked into being there for that house to the bitter end purely from "Hey, that Claude guy's kinda quirky". I thought at least half of part 1 would be about choosing your house. Of course, the BIG reason for this is just because I want a branch of fate in which you skip this part because I don't like how big and slow this game is, at least in the start. No one likes 4 move nobles who all initially play the same followed by unnecessarily large maps (who made chapter 2 and where can I hurt them). Maybe it's fine on a first run where you FEEL like an academy professor teaching these scrubs to become war machines, but it's so SLOOOW and I never start feeling like the game starts until chapter 5 or 6, basically once you reach intermediate. I don't need the early game to teach me what battalions are, what monsters are, who the death knight is, what FoW maps are. Chapters 1-5 are very much a tutorial both on a gameplay perspective and a narrative one. "Here's Catherine and her bootleg holy weapon!". "Who is this strange cult?". "Western church and le Lonihilist! Pobre Ashe...". "Silvain brother le bully". While a lot of things that happen here do carry a lot of weight, it's mostly clear that the real plot doesn't start until after the Battle of Grondumbasses. Well except chapter 6. I love abandoning Flayn for studymaxxing. After all, that's when the new chapter music wave kicks in and the evil mole people make their presence known. I'd change chapter 1 a bit and then make 2 chapters dedicated to each house. Chapter 3 and 5 feel made for Azure Moon. They feel more like personal paralogues for Ashe and Sylvain anyways. Chapter 3 always brings up the tragedy of Duscur and Catherine does have ties to Faerghus. Chapter 4 can be Claude because that presents the Sword of Back Pain and Claude spends a lot of part 1 simping over the damn thing. Edelgard already knows of the pale disco night rejects, so it'd be better to have Claude be someone who actually discovers their first presence to ponder over anyways. Chapter 6 would be Black Eagles since it involves the Flame Emperor and I find humor in that being when team Ferdinand Von Aegir gets a turn with the professor. It helps build up to the tragedy of chapter 11 assuming you go SS afterwards. Really, I'd mainly be confused about chapter 2. I could see it being for either Claude or Edel. It's obvious I'm not the biggest 3H fan, so maybe someone else can pitch in. Chapter 1 would literally need to redesigned to a plot that fits one of the two routes that can slightly add worldbuilding and depth to Fodlan that the player is accustoming to or answer something the base game never really does about a given house. Point is, by chapter 7, you'd actually pick a house for real, and this is where the "Branch of Fate" would begin. Your first real battle would be the big battle of the 3, basically the same as the old chapter 1 in the base game. At this point, the game picks up because you're at least lvl 15 or so and paralogues are introduced. You're already in the middle of intermediate so you have more variety to choose and your default classes look more like a traditional "cavalry, peg, myrm, etc" instead of "noble, noble, commoner, noble...". I just cant stand the first half of part 1. That actually is Snoring Clouds. And it goes on for like 10 hours. With the monastery system, it usually takes me 2 hours per chapter. Any I can skip is a blessing. Would this fix 3H? Not even close, but it's a start and it's something that legitimately infuriates me. Seriously, how was I supposed to pick a house leader with ZERO knowledge? I practically flipped a coin. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: Speaking of which, let me express why I think the recruitment mechanics kind of suck, and would have much preferred a more traditional recruitment system. Three Houses discourages recruitment from a gameplay perspective in two big ways, first with deployment limits very close to your class size, and using the threat of the first part 2 chapter softlock at dawn to keep you from benching most of those initial classmates to make room for new recruits, although it does also encourage you to recruit bench warmers with its part 2 paralogue requirements and part 1 bonus rewards. Kaga weeps. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: It also discourages fun challenge runs in two ways, first this pushback against recruitment makes challenge run involving specific characters more of a hassle to navigate, but also the way it front loads recruitment, with part two recruits coming once in a blue moon as one of the ways it discourages ironmanning, although I can't blame recruitment alone on what makes it a worse than average game to ironman. 13 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said: As something of a challenge run fanatic, I definitely disagree that 3H discourages challenge runs; in fact I find it an extremely friendly game to them. The recruitment system lets you get new recruits in any order (or not at all). The class system lets anyone be anything. The sheer amount of gameplay options allows you to win with artificially low stats in ways which are frequently impossible in other games. There are lots of levers you can go without, like combat arts or gambits or battalions or certain spells or divine pulse or the entire monastery; the list goes on. Broadly speaking, for any challenge run I can think up of for something like Blazing Blade, I can do a similar one in 3H as well... and then I can do a heck of a lot more as well. He said FUN challenge runs Ironic that I would say this being a DSFE fan, but being TOO open with anyone being anything kind of ruins challenge runs for me. They feel more like an obligation. Do I have more fun restricting myself and going for extremely bizarre builds? Yes, absolutely. Zerker Wrys all the way. Terrible Fates builds are king. Reclassing is one of my favorite features in FE and many elitists I talk to hate that. So why do I not like it nearly as much in 3H despite admitting it makes the game more fun that a regular run? It's mostly 3H's core gameplay design that destroy it. Like "these are great ideas for a meme run! Too bad War Master Hanneman is stuck in 3H...." Tricycle Stores is so easy to break and everyone can just be the same hunter's volley dodgetank abuser that everything feels pointless. The maps are all nothing burgers. The most traditional challenge is borderline impossible because part 2 units basically don't exists past CF Lysithea and Gilbert. I literally have to make myself avoid good classes, avoid divine pulse, and avoid Ruben yelling at me for playing 3H instead of Berwick because I gotta deal with the bloody monastery again, but NOT using it just deprives me of the resources I need to make my shitty builds somewhat fun to use! I'm forced to use the crappy parts of the game to make the builds for an okay concept feasible. Otherwise, it's also shit. That's how I see it anyways. Like Kadumbledore said, character specific runs can't really be done, because either you're doing something like "I'm going to use all major crest users to kill their dark counterpart in VW endgame!" in which you're going through an incredibly tedious process of ranking your way to these kids with weapons you're never gonna use only to make them all bow wielding dracos that destroy their unique niche anyways, or you're like "I'm going teacher mode!" then you lose in chapter 13. Thanks game. Again, I know I'm basically a hypocrite because le big DSFE fan, but I stop caring about unit runs when everyone is the same unit. Even when I limit myself to 1 class per person, whoever I make a sniper is irrelevant. They're the "Hunter's Volley One Shot" and nothing else. Could be Caspar, Mercedes, Cyril, Maiden Woman from Awakening. Somehow, they'll feel less unique to me than an old man with 2 lines of dialogue in FE12 that I made a warrior with the same caps as Warrior Bord. My closest thing to a proper defense would probably be that with your lever analogy, I might have 10 levers with dozens of combinations, but I'd rather have 3 levers with each combination being enjoyable, then 20 levers but only 2 possible combinations give me any sense of FE high that many other game give me by default. Most levers are dysfunctional and only serve to destroy the game because when you make something as open as 3H is in a strategy game, you leave too much room for destruction of balance and limits that come with a strategy game. With other games, I go through challenges that work around the game's limits while running my own bizarre idea. In 3H, I'm basically doing a dev's job for them, turning 3H into what I'm trying to make a regular FE game. Anything else like ironman or [blank] only forces me to stare at the ugly mess of 3H's map design, enemy stat bloat, and abysmal ambush spawn emblem right in its unwashed face. Axe only? I guess I'm just using the same house as always and spamming smash while probably equipping skills that vantage wrath the game. It's not FE6 where I'm using all these different units you wouldn't normally run all at once, using mercs solely to run axes on promo and working around, using support bonuses and making each hit count for weapon rank, saving my swordreavers for heroes and struggling to get gaiden maps and make each use of Armads count. In 3H, just teach nothing but axe, play underwhelming map stages, use smash to never miss. Abuse auxiliary battles. Use your 5 billion gold to keep fixing your broken killer axe plus and whatnot. This isn't to say that 3H is a super simple game. I think many strategies revolving around battalions go underappreciated that help me a ton in no pulse runs, although then a challenge without them just because boring emblem, but somehow the usage of them makes everything else....redundant? Honestly, 3H game design is the hardest gameplay thing for me to describe by far. With other games, I could easily rant about what I think makes it fail on an objective degree of game design in a strategy rpg, but with 3H, it has a LOT of things that SOUND good in theory, but I can never enjoy because 3H always feels like a game that screams "throw everything to the wall and hope something sticks". That's exactly how I feel about the story too, but that's an entirely different topic. At the end of the day, it really does just boil down to "So you just don't like 3H's core design, that's your opinion" and unfortunately for me, that statement is nearly impossible to dispute. It is just my opinion. Only real thing I got to my case in Kadoth's defense is that most FE games, while bashed to death about how unbalanced they are, are typically functional enough to where challenge runs can be direct and to the point, while 3H is so easily breakable that you'll need to stack 7 different challenges on top of whatever idea you had just to prevent yourself from cheesing it which can be tedious or hectic even, and the most popular ideas tend to simply be unfun or ridiculous (I'd rather play Gaiden again than ironman 3H). On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: Due to how Three Houses discourages recruitment, I only tried to recruit Bernie (as she is my spirit animal) Allow me to help you FEEEEL like your spirit animal: On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: The maps are a lot better than I remember them being. To be fair, I think this is one of the places where replaying this game too many times too rapidly skewed my perspective in the past, and these maps definitely aren't perfect either. Somehow you're the biggest hater and I seem to be even more negative. That says a lot about me. I just can't enjoy a lot of these maps. Occasionally I'll appreciate an element I didn't before, but they feel so bland at the end of the day. They feel more like locations with enemies walking around them than map design with enemies structured around it. And of course, the ambushes. Dear sweet Lord... On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: First off Claude is a fraud; other characters will talk all the time about his wily schemes, and we are never shown him doing any of them. The closest we get is him cheekily foreshadowing the burning of the Grondor hill in the battle of Eagle and Lions, but I remember that point latter in the game...AND HE ISN'T EVEN THE ONE TO FUCKING DO IT LATER IN THE GAME. Spoken like a true Rubenio On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: He teases us with talk about poison induced stomach aches that go no where. The bit where he talks Rhea into letting teach attack Jeralt's killer is especially grating, as he talks up how he has a brilliant strategy, and it isn't about revenge, only to admit to us not five minutes later that he has no plan at all, and it totally is just about revenge. This is beating a bit of a dead horse I guess, I definitely had this complaint before, but noticing the foreshadowing about Grondor fields was a detail I didn't remember, and is such a double edge sword of momentarily thinking this was a place where they tried to show his cleverness only for the future plot to make it explode in his face. If this game had any guts at all, they would have given the three house leaders more unique personal skills, with Claude's being a page right out of Fates with a DV like mechanic that can change the map in some way with his schemes. Claude's the biggest missed potential in all of FE as far as characters go. I mostly like him for what he is, but wow is he given a centimeter of a stick. I will never forgive 3 Copes. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: I guess I can add a few more controversial positive opinions about the story, that I like how they handled the existence of divine pulse in the plot with Jeralt's death. I thought that was a good way of showing us a shorthand explanation for why that power isn't able to fix everything, so negative events can still happen in the plot. Was it the least favorite FE change thread or something else that had the long argument about that being a controversial inclusion for the story? I'm not going to bring that up again here. I've talked enough already. On 10/3/2024 at 12:14 AM, Eltosian Kadath said: Two last very cold takes about teach to finish things off. First, the whole plot bit about teach being an emotionless robot before the story starts is just plain stupid. In a similar way the fall off a cliff to trigger to time skip feels extremely anticlimactic after we escaped from the magical void (that would have made for a far more interesting reason for a 5 year time skip). I LOVE FORCED NARRATIVE PROGRESSION I LOVE FORCED NARRATIVE PROGRESSION I LOVE FOR- On 10/3/2024 at 3:33 PM, Jotari said: The best point for it I've heard is chapter 7, after the whole Death Knight kidnapping Flayn debocle. Primarily because Byleth can slot in narratively at that point as Jertiza leaves the school suddenly, so there's a job opening that needs to be filled. It also allows two chapters with each house+the prologue. And right after that chapter, if I remember correctly, White Clouds starts having the closest thing to an ongoing plot in part 1 with Remote village happening, then Jeralt's death and the forest etc. See? He gets my idea. Thank you Pyrathi man. I skimmed through the rest of OP's post. I mostly agree with the points and have already said about about it in the past. Don't actually HATE the game, but I tend to rant a lot about it, probably from how this game is easily the most hyped in the "community". Few cool ideas. Mostly poor execution. Boring protag, Sometimes cool story moments with fun batalion strats (you can tell what the one gameplay thing I really like about 3H is), and can we talk about when students ask you for help about their problem and you have to answer to what they WANT to hear instead of what they NEED to hear. You're disgusting Byleth Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted Saturday at 05:44 PM Author Share Posted Saturday at 05:44 PM I guess I shouldn't be that surprised that the thought that got me interested in replaying this game would garner the most attention. I am getting closer to the end of part 2, where I will probably have another big post after I am done, but I figured I can knock out some replies now On 10/3/2024 at 8:11 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: Yeah, it sucks having... basically no post-skip recruitments, outside of Gilbert on AM, Jeritza on CF, and a handful of "re-recruitments". Characters that would make all the sense in the world to recruit, like Judith on VW or Fleche on CF, are totally forgotten about. Not to mention, characters like Holst and Margreave Gautier going completely unseen the whole game It really is down right baffling, and there usually are quite a few character that would make sense for it. To use VW as an example, as that is the route I am doing now, and thus freshest in my mind, Judith and Nader should have been part 2 recruits, and add in some off screen characters and you are at least not seeing such a ludicrous drought. Or if they are allergic to adding in new playable characters, just add part 2 methods for recruiting other older characters, like an option to talk to some of the Blue Lions during the battle of Gronder to recruit them after the map if they survived or let specific staff or in-house character talks like Manuela talking Dorthea into defecting, or Leonie talking to Lindhart (as she is the one they felt the need to tack onto his paralogue arbitrarily) etc. On 10/3/2024 at 8:11 AM, Shanty Pete's 1st Mate said: agree with not having to pick a house ASAP. One idea I had is, right after the Prologue, you get drafted as a Mercenary in the Knights of Seiros. Also, the "school year" hasn't started yet - just a handful of students, some from each house, are there for the "summer program". Your first few months would see you progressively exploring the monastery, while going on misdions with Jeralt (now a genuine Jagen), the few students, and some Knights of Seiros. After three months, the school year begins, and you get to choose which class you'll lead. That's when you start teaching and tutoring the students. The game progresses normally (albeit somewhat compressed) from then on out. But that way, you get to spend time with (some) of the students, particularly the main lords, before selecting a group to stick with. On 10/3/2024 at 3:33 PM, Jotari said: The best point for it I've heard is chapter 7, after the whole Death Knight kidnapping Flayn debocle. Primarily because Byleth can slot in narratively at that point as Jertiza leaves the school suddenly, so there's a job opening that needs to be filled. It also allows two chapters with each house+the prologue. And right after that chapter, if I remember correctly, White Clouds starts having the closest thing to an ongoing plot in part 1 with Remote village happening, then Jeralt's death and the forest etc. On 10/3/2024 at 9:08 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said: I'm not sure how one would handle a Fates-style menu choice, but I do think it'd be entertaining if the point you jumped in was mid-chapter 10. As Byleth carves their way back out and takes first steps into a different dimension. Your new playthrough starts right at that point of the battle. On 10/9/2024 at 11:21 AM, Shaky Jones said: Point is, by chapter 7, you'd actually pick a house for real, and this is where the "Branch of Fate" would begin. I love how timing wise I am seeing the suggestion for roughly 3, 6, and 9 chapters pre-path jump here, as if the plan all along is to give you 1,2, or 3 chapters with each of the three houses. Also I will add that I rather like that suggestion from @Zapp Branniglenn, as the forbidden void magic really is an interesting point that they could have used for fun time shenanigan, but they just didn't. I still appreciate the dramatic irony of the moment, but the could have done other interesting things with it. On 10/9/2024 at 11:21 AM, Shaky Jones said: I'd change chapter 1 a bit and then make 2 chapters dedicated to each house. Chapter 3 and 5 feel made for Azure Moon. They feel more like personal paralogues for Ashe and Sylvain anyways. Chapter 3 always brings up the tragedy of Duscur and Catherine does have ties to Faerghus. Chapter 4 can be Claude because that presents the Sword of Back Pain and Claude spends a lot of part 1 simping over the damn thing. Edelgard already knows of the pale disco night rejects, so it'd be better to have Claude be someone who actually discovers their first presence to ponder over anyways. Chapter 6 would be Black Eagles since it involves the Flame Emperor and I find humor in that being when team Ferdinand Von Aegir gets a turn with the professor. It helps build up to the tragedy of chapter 11 assuming you go SS afterwards. Really, I'd mainly be confused about chapter 2. I could see it being for either Claude or Edel. It's obvious I'm not the biggest 3H fan, so maybe someone else can pitch in. Chapter 1 would literally need to redesigned to a plot that fits one of the two routes that can slightly add worldbuilding and depth to Fodlan that the player is accustoming to or answer something the base game never really does about a given house. If you are feeling lazy about changing chapter 1, I could see it as a Golden Deer chapter where as part of Claude's schemes he has snuck teach into the three way battle (perhaps disguising teach as a student, while paying them like the mercenary they are to win him the battle). It plays into Claude as a schemer willing to get help from unconventional sources to win, gives you a bit of a sense of the rivalry between the three factions in the three way battle, and how Claude's faction is the one least rigid in its hierarchies. That leaves chapter 2 for Edelgard, which feels fitting as she is both taking care of her own trash, and lets her make things a bit personal in killing the bandit that almost cutscene killed her, or her teach. On 10/3/2024 at 9:08 AM, Zapp Branniglenn said: Unfortunately that's far too late for you to suddenly start recruiting out of house. Doing those units' paralogues before the impending deadline. I kind of touched on this lightly, but it really feels like Three Houses included out of house recruiting as an after thought. The troop limit keeps close to house size, staff recruitment easily covers any holes you want to fill, chapter 13 is a cudgel to punish those that benched more than like one or two house kids, and you don't really get any comparable replacements in part 2, so you have to play catch up if you try replacing them after that chapter. Only in-house units even pretend to be part of the story, with out of house unit's absence as an enemy leaving the chapters they should be in emptier and less impactful. The paralogues feel like the only exception to that, but especially with the part 2 paralogues, it feels like a lot of the two person paralogues have one person that was just tacked on to fulfill a quota of every character having to be associated with one paralogue (the only notable part 2 exception to this is Annette and Gilbert which is all in one house anyway), and with only part 2 paralogues requiring both recruited, it adds an atrificial feel that makes recriuting seem like a poorly implemented after thought. Although I guess that is getting a bit ahead of myself, as I am starting to talk about some of my feelings about part 2 there. On 10/8/2024 at 8:24 PM, Dark Holy Elf said: As something of a challenge run fanatic, I definitely disagree that 3H discourages challenge runs; in fact I find it an extremely friendly game to them. The recruitment system lets you get new recruits in any order (or not at all). The class system lets anyone be anything. The sheer amount of gameplay options allows you to win with artificially low stats in ways which are frequently impossible in other games. There are lots of levers you can go without, like combat arts or gambits or battalions or certain spells or divine pulse or the entire monastery; the list goes on. Broadly speaking, for any challenge run I can think up of for something like Blazing Blade, I can do a similar one in 3H as well... and then I can do a heck of a lot more as well. I get the feeling me and @Shaky Jones are describing similar things here, but I might as well put it in my own words. More what I was getting at was the way it discourages challenge runs like "the crest are to blame, so no using crest holders". That means you are using a lot of out of class units, and Softlock by Dawn has a serious chance of living up to my joke name for it (chapter 13), requiring blind preps a chapter ahead of time with the handful of trained units you do have available, and if you slightly mess those preps up you better hope you still have a save from multiple chapters ahead of time. Or a classic challenge run I did to spice up my Lunatic Birthright playthrough of a ladies only run, and you run into the same issue, but with a far less Three Houses specific idea. Additionally, the anyone can be anything, and wield anything (with very rare exceptions) they want is more detrimental to challenge runs than beneficial. The point of a challenge run is to change the experience through constraints, and the way class and weapon type were restricted before led to additional interrelated constraints when you restricted one. As an example if you do the funny Axe only FE6 runs that brings with it little quirks like having no flier access, which classes get access to axes both at base and after promotion restricts who are valid units highly. Do an axe only run in Three houses and you don't see those kind of cascading constraints, you can use any unit in any class. Sure other games with reclassing tend to have different interrelated constraints, but they are still there in other games, for instance the Shadow Dragon axe only run has no ponies, and the class limit and male class-change split will an impact on who and how other units will be used and how they play. Sure you can add additional constraints to try and make Three Houses a game that is as interesting to challenge run as other games, but stumbling on the ramifications of those cascading constraints is a fun aspect to challenge runs in other games that Three Houses has removed a lot of. To use your lever analogy, sure Three Houses has more levers, but I have to pull 3-4 of them to do the same thing pulling one lever did in other games. Quote The sheer amount of gameplay options allows you to win with artificially low stats in ways which are frequently impossible in other games. Finally, I just want to emphasize how flat this statement falls to someone that likes to watch 0% growth runs. Basically every Fire Emblem game has been beaten on the highest difficulty with 0% growths, as all of these games give you options for dealing with the challenges they give you, in spite of people thinking they are impossible. On 10/8/2024 at 8:24 PM, Dark Holy Elf said: I have some disagreements here, the biggest one being the complaints about grinding-via-fishing. Like... if you want to do that, go nuts? I never would. Even on my craziest challenge runs I've never been tempted, which speaks to unnecessary it is; that's hours of my life I could be using on better things (like posting on Serenes, naturally). Maybe you feel the game should have saved certain players from themselves by not letting them do it, but on the other hand some players do enjoy the fishing mini-game (either the game itself or as a grinding tool) so I don't see a point in taking it away from them just to make a few players with no self-control a bit happier. (I guess putting a cap on the amount of prof exp you could get from it per chapter might help, but perversely that might also make this issue worse for me personally. At the moment, "get the max prof exp from fishing" is just so unthinkable to me that I would never do it, but if you let me get 500 prof exp per chapter from it max I mgiht be a bit more tempted to do it, and I would consider that to be bad. Personally I quite like its current use, which is pushing me over the top if I run into the otherwise frustrating experience of being <100 prof exp short of a benchmark.) I feel like you miss my point here, as the issue isn't with fishing, its that professor exp is a thing at all. You don't need professor exp to make fishing a relevant part of the monestary, it gives a valuable resource you can use to share in meals, or cook up for temporary stat buff (and the one I most cooked up was the +1 defense fish dish), and is a fun little timing game as well. It giving professor exp at all (or more accurately professor exp existing at all) is what ruins the fishing, as it makes it a part of the grind to optimize professor level. What I outlined is the most optimal way to grind up professor level; if you are meticulous with all the little ways you can gain professor exp, that techniques lets you cap it out before chapter 6, and even if you aren't being careful and just do the fish trick hitting A rank is trivial, and as you point out trying to curb optimal play with a per chapter exp cap would layer on different perverse incentives better tailored towards trapping you, just as the current method traps others. Personally I would prefer to have a set number of exploration, auxillary battle, and lectur point, or if they felt the need for a sense of progression tie it to how many chapters into the game you are instead of negatively impacting the monastery by making this extra thing to grind tacked on to otherwise functional mechanics. On 10/8/2024 at 8:24 PM, Dark Holy Elf said: Instead the reward we get is so insultingly mediocre I don't even remember what it is. The White Dragon Scarf (and yes I did have to double check the name, I only remember the white scarf part of it), an item whose effect is identical to Byleth's birthday present... On 10/8/2024 at 9:21 PM, Jotari said: I've actually already categorized all that information if you care to use it. Had to pick some kind of canon classes for my Fire Emblem stat inflation calculator. Actually, I kind of would. Its way too late for this run, but I might use it on some of the other routes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted Sunday at 12:50 AM Share Posted Sunday at 12:50 AM 7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: What I outlined is the most optimal way to grind up professor level; if you are meticulous with all the little ways you can gain professor exp, that techniques lets you cap it out before chapter 6 I find the most optimal way to grind professor level is to just shamelessly play New Game+ XD Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted Sunday at 12:53 AM Author Share Posted Sunday at 12:53 AM (edited) 3 minutes ago, Jotari said: I find the most optimal way to grind professor level is to just shamelessly play New Game+ XD Lol, I guess you got me there. Edit: I am saving New Game+ stuff for route three with my current plans... Edited Sunday at 12:55 AM by Eltosian Kadath Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted Sunday at 12:58 AM Share Posted Sunday at 12:58 AM 7 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: Actually, I kind of would. Its way too late for this run, but I might use it on some of the other routes. Here you go https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17yziWvEZA0eMv2d0eKUJizrnR-luHfDWMl2y5yy28Qs/edit?usp=sharing It's on the Three Houses tab which is far to the right. Marianne is never fought as an enemy in part 2 so I made her a Holy Knight so someone would use that class and Anna is never fought at all, so I made her a bow knight since it fit her proficiencies and, again, no other characters are bow knights (also matches her paralogue's bow knight spam, but I don't want to think about that chapter 😭) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted Wednesday at 12:30 PM Author Share Posted Wednesday at 12:30 PM PART 2 I have finished this Verdant Wind run, and much to my surprise I still have a bit to say about gameplay. I thought this entry would be almost entirely story stuff. The two big ones are how it really feels like the game just runs out of side content at about chapter 18 (congrats to Crimson Flower for being at exactly the length the developers could handle), and being surprised by getting some repeated map fatigue just from how Part 2 handles things. I will start by talking a bit about these two things first. First off with the way side content slowly wheezes to a halt by chapter 18, and to be fair it is a bit of a gradual process. First its that lost items are lost in the transition to part 2, removing one of the things you can do in the monastery. Then its the way they failed to stagger the unlock requirements for supports leading to the start of part two being an exhausting process of going through the ludicrous number of A supports that flood in as soon as the part starts. Honestly, that process was more exhausting than I remember it being, I had more than one play sessions of just letting supports play out as barring like 3-4 supports that weren't unlocked til slightly later in the story the rest of them pounced on me here, and there were only a couple of supports I put much effort into getting. I feel like they should have either staggered the unlock times with more of the supports so you don't drown in them from the start, or maybe make them a bit more difficult to get so you are actually gaining supports in part 2, although perhaps the issue with getting them so early is partially to blame on the increased battle points and exploration points from rising professor level (and with supports being one of the key things you can raise in exploration their quick removal makes that aspect of the game weaker as well). Then the paralogues start to run out, although to be fair, a big reason for that is Professor Level unlocking the ability to do 3 side maps a week. I was tempted to save the talk about paralogues for the end here, as they would make for a great transition into talk about map fatigue, but I have been going chronologically here, and the last thing to run out is monastery quest, although the two run out at similar times. Once I reached chapter 18 I was completely out of paralogues, the only quests they bothered to give was to sell Hilda some resources I already had plenty of, all supports I would likely get were already seen, there was barely a reason to look around the monastery, and this made it feel like the time between missions was made especially empty, like the developers had just run out of steam. The ludicrous amount of stuff max Professor level lets you do in a week certainly played a part in this, and as I mentioned before and in a response, I think the game would be better if they stopped around what Professor level C gives you, but that isn't the only cause of this issue. I actually want to circle back to one of the previous comments here On 10/8/2024 at 8:24 PM, Dark Holy Elf said: I do think seminars have a niche, mind: they're great as a time-efficient way to gain skills (ironically, I actually find them better later in the game, even though they don't scale, because later on prof exp gets less important and support building is no longer an issue). As I also found seminars more appealing after this point in the game, as they took less time and did not feel as empty as the other options, having stayed the same instead of the cycle of improving and degrading that the other options went through. Honestly, this last stretch of the game was a bit of a chore to get through because of this, and I am glad I planned on taking a break between runs. I was really expecting map fatigue to be more of a thing on future playthrough, and wasn't expecting to feel much of it on this first run. I did start feeling it a little bit thanks to 3 battle per week letting me see plenty of repeated auxiliary maps when I went for paralogues, but I was willing to give the game a pass on those. I even kind of liked it when they repeat maps for battles that take place in the same place, with the battle at Gronder field, or the paralogues where we return to Red Canyon, and the Holy Tomb. But then there was the pair of paralogues that unlock at the same time, that I played back to back (thanks professor level 🙄), take place in different place and use THE SAME GOD DAMNED MAP. Now I am talking about Foreign Land and Sky; and Forgotten Hero, and to be fair, they at least had the shame to try and disguise it by putting the starting points on the opposite sides of the map, drowning Forgotten Hero in fog, making me recruit from outside house to get both, and meticulously engineering Foreign Land and Sky to be the worst possible example of a map that changes objectives. If they had at least unlocked at different times, or I was only able to play one map per rest day, it might not have felt so insultingly egregious. The Sleeping Sand Legend paralogue also had the unfortunate feature of being a map that I knew very well from random auxiliary maps, which was its own odd source of map fatigue. As a map I didn't recognize before, and with an army made up of half fliers and a quarter mages, it was one of the Auxiliary battle maps that I rather enjoyed in spite of it being a desert, but that sure did suck a bit of the wind out of the Wind Caller's map, having it spoiled for me before even playing the real thing. For how much I was willing to forgive in this department, it still feel below my standards... Now onto some story related stuff, and the first big thing I have to talk about is the failure of Claude as a schemer, and the bizarre reason why I think it occurred. Although I think I want to start with the positive, as Claude managed to have two whole schemes to his name thanks to part 2. First using an off screen (implied to be partially Almyran) army to distract Gloucester enough to sneak past him to fight at the janky bridge. While I am praising the janky looking bridge map, I really appreciate the continuity of characters that is having Acheron, a man with real Erik from Elibe energy to him, return as an enemy after his part 1 stint as the boss of Lorenz's paralogue. Secondly Claude has his scheme to sneak into fort Merceus, and while I am tempted to joke that it was Hilda's scheme, he did add in a bunch of secret Almyrans, so I will give this one to Claude. The big thing is that the battle of Gronder field is the greatest failure of portraying Claude as a schemer possible (not to mention his utter failure to be shown as a scheme in part 1 in spite of being told he is a schemer). If the writer were even half way decent at portraying Claude as a schemer they would have had him goad Dimitri into throwing himself at Edelgard's army, and then sweep in while the two armies are weakened and distracted to deal with both in one fell swoop, lighting the hill on fire like he suggested in part 1 to leave them confused and burning while he strikes. Instead we see Claude being too incompetent to even investigate an army marching through his lands flying the banner of a dead man, being surprised when Dimtiri joins a battle Claude is about to wage against the empire, and us having to strike Dimitri down for reasons which are never explained. This whole chapter was written so badly, in such a mind boggling way compared to the rest of the game that I searched for some answer, and the best I could come up with was this. For reasons I can not explain someone decided that Claude was the good guy that couldn't do any morally questionable things in spite of being ostensibly a schemer, which often involves morally dubious actions. It is why Claude can talk about poison, but never use it, because that might be considered wrong. He can't do the obvious schemer move that would make the battle of Gronder Field into a three way battle that makes sense, as betraying Dimitri's trust to ensure the Kingdom never returns to prevent the unification of Fodlan that Claude needs, while damaging the Empire at its end would be morally dubious. The two schemes he does commit are harmless acts of misdirection to simply get his army to the battle field they intend to without causing extra harm. It even explains how judgemental he is about Edelgard's actions in one breath, and then talk about his lofty ideals that he admits would require the unification of the continent (and thus require the same bloodshed and war Edelgard's ideals need to achieve) in the very next breath. When compared to literally insane "kill every last one of them" Dimitri, miss perfectly happy to crack a few thousand human eggs Edelgard, or even horrific child experiments on the main character Rhea, the way the narrative tries to sanitize Claude into the one good guy baffles me. I also need to talk about the missile. On paper, I kind of like the idea of a faction that uses "magic" that is obviously just technology, the issue is that the Slithers are only portrayed that way in part 2, and it is kind of incongruous with how they were portrayed in Part 1. As it is, the Missile, and Shambhala itself for that matter, feels like it comes out of no where, and doesn't quite fit in the world, and with a little different presentation in part 1 I think it could have. If they foreshadowed this aspect of the Agarthans in part 1, having the abilities of Kronya and Solon be visually technology coded, perhaps Kronya uses a gun like weapon to kill Jeralt, if the forbidden Void magic looked more like a technological device is being activated, if the Demonic Beasts defending Kronya and Solon were the mech like Titanuses instead, having them communicate with devices reminiscent of cell phones or walkie talkies, etc. I think it would have worked far better. If framed that way, while the missile would be a shocking raising of the stakes, that the player would probably recognize as the slithers, it wouldn't feel like it came out of no where, and when Rhea starts adding some scifi hints to the lore it would fit in a little better. I guess while I am still here talking about the Agarthans, its rather awkward how we find out about them and their hideout from Hubert in a postmortem letter, the man has defied death at numerous times at this point, why not just have us capture him, and tell us himself before his execution, or if executing him is too morally dubious for Claude, have him lead us to the Shambhala, where the slithers kill him for his betrayal in a cutscene, or if the idea of capturing is too questionable, have him escape like always, and we track him back to Shambhala, where he admits to the slithers that it was his plan to lead our army into wiping them out before they kill him. I also need to talk about the utterly egregious way Dedue was handled in this route. He has this whole little side arc with him seeking revenge against Edelgard, declaring he will bring back her head, even showing up as a green unit on the map you face Edelgard...and they give him the equivalent of the mercy skill when he fights Edelgard. I even went to the effort of checking if he could kill her if she started combat with him at 1 HP, and he simply deals no damage and ends combat after hitting. In spite of what he says, he literally can not take her head, the game denies him that right, and it is a deeply disappointing moment from a story perspective. I guess there are a few quibbles to add that don't fit anywhere else, so I will go through them quick. First a lot of the A supports are awkwardly romantic, especially when you see the same character going through a bunch of them in a row. I found teach's obsession with finding Rhea, in spite of her having performed experiments on them as an infant that were intended to destroy their being and replace it with Sothis, bizarre. The tournaments really emphasized how pointless different weapon types were, as just using the person with the right stats for the tournament round, even if they had never touched the weapon type in their life was always the best option, even when I had someone with the weapon rank almost maxed. Now I have been doing a fair bit of negative things to say about the story here, so lets add a few positive notes. I found it really amusing how Flayn has to cut off both the saint beast from using her real name in her battle convos with them, and how she calls both of them uncle. The battalions you can get by visiting specific locations in Enbarr with specific characters was a fun little feature, and if you are looking carefully at the map it lets you know who needs to go where, and both tie into the characters back stories, with Flayn visiting the place her parents met, and Manuela visiting the old opera house. It feels a little randoms, but I rather like 10 Elites and Nemesis as a final boss, it just feels like a fun little call back to the deadlords, a classic reference they have called on before (like with the first part of FE7's final map), but it works for a fun little map with some historical weight to it in spite of being a bit random. This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I like that you don't decide on who each of the characters marry, it makes it feel like the characters have some agency outside the player (with the obvious exception of our avatar), and gives you one last surprise to look forward to in the ending. With that, I am taking a little break from playing Three House to play something else (in this case Metroid Dread) before going for a Maddening run of CF for the special opening screen, and continue my replay of Three Houses. Not sure if I will do a big update like this after both Part 1 and Part 2 of that run, or only after completing the CF run, but I guess it depends on if I have enough worth saying after Part 1. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted Wednesday at 12:52 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 12:52 PM 15 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: I also need to talk about the missile. On paper, I kind of like the idea of a faction that uses "magic" that is obviously just technology, the issue is that the Slithers are only portrayed that way in part 2, and it is kind of incongruous with how they were portrayed in Part 1. As it is, the Missile, and Shambhala itself for that matter, feels like it comes out of no where, and doesn't quite fit in the world, and with a little different presentation in part 1 I think it could have. If they foreshadowed this aspect of the Agarthans in part 1, having the abilities of Kronya and Solon be visually technology coded, perhaps Kronya uses a gun like weapon to kill Jeralt, if the forbidden Void magic looked more like a technological device is being activated, if the Demonic Beasts defending Kronya and Solon were the mech like Titanuses instead, having them communicate with devices reminiscent of cell phones or walkie talkies, etc. I think it would have worked far better. You're still going to have the massive issue that the ICBMs do absolutely nothing in the story. The Agarthans use them three separate times and only ever manage to succeed in blowing up their own fortresses -_- All three instances could be removed with basically no impact on the story, despite these things being planned early enough for them to commission anime cutscenes for them. It is really bizarre that they could introduce something that is such a massive game changer and have it impact absolutely nothing. Three Hopes just ignoring their existence entirely was one of its better writing decisions. 17 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: I also need to talk about the utterly egregious way Dedue was handled in this route. He has this whole little side arc with him seeking revenge against Edelgard, declaring he will bring back her head, even showing up as a green unit on the map you face Edelgard...and they give him the equivalent of the mercy skill when he fights Edelgard. I even went to the effort of checking if he could kill her if she started combat with him at 1 HP, and he simply deals no damage and ends combat after hitting. In spite of what he says, he literally can not take her head, the game denies him that right, and it is a deeply disappointing moment from a story perspective. I didn't know this. I guess they didn't want to make the map too easy by having Dedue kill her for you. Though, from what I remember, it's a struggle to keep Deddue alive and you end up getting nothing for it. So, much like a lot of stuff in Three Houses, he's just sort of there. 21 minutes ago, Eltosian Kadath said: It feels a little randoms, but I rather like 10 Elites and Nemesis as a final boss, it just feels like a fun little call back to the deadlords, a classic reference they have called on before (like with the first part of FE7's final map), but it works for a fun little map with some historical weight to it in spite of being a bit random. Truly the most classic Fire Emblem battles where at last we fight against the final boss the entire series has been leading us towards...Bandits! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted Wednesday at 02:01 PM Author Share Posted Wednesday at 02:01 PM 44 minutes ago, Jotari said: You're still going to have the massive issue that the ICBMs do absolutely nothing in the story. The Agarthans use them three separate times and only ever manage to succeed in blowing up their own fortresses -_- All three instances could be removed with basically no impact on the story, despite these things being planned early enough for them to commission anime cutscenes for them. It is really bizarre that they could introduce something that is such a massive game changer and have it impact absolutely nothing. Three Hopes just ignoring their existence entirely was one of its better writing decisions. I am going to disagree with you here, as they do serve a fairly clear narrative purpose here, as a clear and tangible threat to show why the Argarthans must be taken down now to ensure peace in Fodlan. Before this the mole men have always been a more nebulous threat, weird blood experiments, supporting the empire behind the scenes, some personal revenge worthy murder, but never really fielding sizable armies as major participants to wage war against, and by Claude's own ideals he should see what their culture has to offer. With the WMDs in their hands, now they are a threat that must be dealt with for peace and safety in Fodlan. Plus the later strike lets Rhea exit stage left without any of the Three Houses having to get their hands dirty, as her removal is necessary for any change to occur. 48 minutes ago, Jotari said: I didn't know this. I guess they didn't want to make the map too easy by having Dedue kill her for you. Though, from what I remember, it's a struggle to keep Deddue alive and you end up getting nothing for it. So, much like a lot of stuff in Three Houses, he's just sort of there. You definitely have to babysit Dedue to get him to pull off the kill, as anything with a magic attack melts him down into a little puddle, and he is definitely not strong enough to solo Edelgard without either plenty of healing support, added chip, or more likely both. 1 hour ago, Jotari said: Truly the most classic Fire Emblem battles where at last we fight against the final boss the entire series has been leading us towards...Bandits! I am tempted to say they are calling back to the first emperor of Archanea funding his conquests with thievery by how Nemesis is described as both King of Liberation, and Bandit 😛 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted Wednesday at 02:13 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 02:13 PM (edited) 1 hour ago, Eltosian Kadath said: I am going to disagree with you here, as they do serve a fairly clear narrative purpose here, as a clear and tangible threat to show why the Argarthans must be taken down now to ensure peace in Fodlan. Before this the mole men have always been a more nebulous threat, weird blood experiments, supporting the empire behind the scenes, some personal revenge worthy murder, but never really fielding sizable armies as major participants to wage war against, and by Claude's own ideals he should see what their culture has to offer. With the WMDs in their hands, now they are a threat that must be dealt with for peace and safety in Fodlan. Plus the later strike lets Rhea exit stage left without any of the Three Houses having to get their hands dirty, as her removal is necessary for any change to occur. If in a parallel world we got the plot as is just without the nukes, then I expect a total of zero people would be saying "Wait, why are we going after the baby eaters responsible for all the bad things in the game?". Doesn't even have anything to do with Claude given you do the exact same thing in Silver Snow as well. And, likewise, their actual impact on Rhea is negligible since she actually does survive in Verdant Wind and the fight was already taken out of her from her imprisonment. It's like they went out of their way to make things irrelevant by having Silver Snow and Verdant Wind be identical routes. Edited Wednesday at 03:03 PM by Jotari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eltosian Kadath Posted Wednesday at 03:25 PM Author Share Posted Wednesday at 03:25 PM 22 minutes ago, Jotari said: If in a parallel we got the plot as is just without the nukes, then I expect a total of zero people would be saying "Wait, why are we going after the baby eaters responsible for all the bad things in the game?". If the plot were the same and they didn't fire the nukes, the three most likely response I would expect are: wondering who the game was talking about, or wondering why these guy you already dealt with in part 1 are relevant again, or most likely of all to complain that it felt like some pointless padding of the game with far lower stakes after the real threat had been dealt with. Also the baby eater comment does not hold much weight when the game is perfectly happy to treat Rhea like an ally after the horrifying experiments she did to intentionally harm our infant MC, so why not let Claude project paper clip some these guys too. Sure they could have structured the game differently to make them work without the nukes, and the easiest way would be to face them before Edelgard, as without something threatening like the nukes to back them up, facing them after her would be a moment of extreme anticlimax. 22 minutes ago, Jotari said: And, likewise, their actual impact on Rhea is negligible since she actually does survive in Verdant Wind and the fight was already taken out of her from her imprisonment. It's like they went out of their way to make things irrelevant by having Silver Snow and Verdant Wind be identical routes. I always got the impression that Rhea dies of her wounds by the end if you didn't S support her, as she says she does not having much time left when she starts talking about the secret history of Fodlan, and all the characters who have close ties to her treat her like she isn't around anymore in their endings (especially Cyril, who is "unable to serve Rhea any longer", and with how he has been characterized could only happen when she is in the grave), and even in the ending she does have, it mentions how narrowly she avoided death. Sure they don't explicitly say she died, but it is heavily implied. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jotari Posted Wednesday at 10:22 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 10:22 PM 6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: If the plot were the same and they didn't fire the nukes, the three most likely response I would expect are: wondering who the game was talking about, or wondering why these guy you already dealt with in part 1 are relevant again, or most likely of all to complain that it felt like some pointless padding of the game with far lower stakes after the real threat had been dealt with. so why not let Claude project paper clip some these guys too. Sure they could have structured the game differently to make them work without the nukes, and the easiest way would be to face them before Edelgard, as without something threatening like the nukes to back them up, facing them after her would be a moment of extreme anticlimax. I genuinely don't think you would be. It's not like the conflict resolves with them in part 1. We see Thales throughout part 1 and he's the one who knows Byleth into the hole in the non a Crimson Flower routes while clearly shown to be working with the empire. If their ability to launch nukes is tantamount only to remind us of their existence, then I think that was already achieved by having the Death Knight present (who in the game we got is present in the same chapter and warns the heroes of the nukes for...reasons). 6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: Also the baby eater comment does not hold much weight when the game is perfectly happy to treat Rhea like an ally after the horrifying experiments she did to intentionally harm our infant MC. Actually genuinely think there should have been an Agarthan route. Their technology means that despite their methods they probably actually would have been able to elevate society the most if they won. Alas, giving us three fully fleshed out routes was beyond their capabilities and they tried to give us four. A fifth was never going to happen. 6 hours ago, Eltosian Kadath said: I always got the impression that Rhea dies of her wounds by the end if you didn't S support her, as she says she does not having much time left when she starts talking about the secret history of Fodlan, and all the characters who have close ties to her treat her like she isn't around anymore in their endings (especially Cyril, who is "unable to serve Rhea any longer", and with how he has been characterized could only happen when she is in the grave), and even in the ending she does have, it mentions how narrowly she avoided death. Sure they don't explicitly say she died, but it is heavily implied. I finished Verdant Wind after Silver Snow and I remember reacting specifically to the fact that Rhea lived as something of an unresolved thread (and highly questioning why she didn't go berserk and we fought Nemesis instead). But if Rhea needs to die or at least be taken out of politics then I think the improvement under Edelgard, which clearly did impact her. Course again we have a parallel of dangling plot points people are willing to accept in Azure Moon where we don't even see Rhea, and that is generally considered to be the most complete route. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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