Three Hopes General Discussion Thread

[Jotari]

11 minutes ago, whovian21 said:

I imagine the only reason her panel's not on fire is because they didn't feel like programming a tile to be both a Balista and a fire tile at the same time.

She just stands there on a burning hill for the rest of the fight and doesn't even try to leave, she absolutely burns to death on that hill, even if the game doesn't explicitly show it. It doesn't explicitly show any civilians dying in Fhirdiad either, but you can assume it happens. It may have been unintentional, but the developers haven't fixed it in any of the several patches they've done (including at least one to that specific chapter). So yes, Edelgard is 100% willing to burn her friends alive after dragging them into a fight they didn't want to be in. The fact that other people do it doesn't make it any better, although I don't think they burn anybody they supposedly care about.

Edelgard can also burn the monetary town in Three Hopes. It just gives that option to the player. And Rhea is indeed pissed about it. It could only have been put in there intentionally as an ironic parallel.

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That's another thing that kind of annoyed me about Claude's route in this game, when

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he's invading the kingdom and going on and on about his noble goals and that he's starting a war with somebody who hadn't made any hostile actions toward him because he just wants the church. He says he has no option but to fight Dimitri and get him to abandon the church, but again he doesn't even try to talk things out. You're not at war with him Claude, you can send a diplomat or something. Sure, he tries to spare any named characters (except Catherine because screw her I guess) but he still kills thousands of kingdom soldiers that just happened to be in the way and wanted to defend their homes because it's the most convenient way for him to get at Rhea without having to kill anyone in the kingdom he actually knows. Like, I get it's a musou game, but it still sort of leaves a sour taste in your mouth as you slaughter your way across the kingdom for very questionable reasons to kill someone who, again, doesn't actually care about Fodlan's relations with other countries. And when he's done, it may have all been for nothing anyways - Edelgard never commits to stopping her war with the kingdom and the epilogue leaves it up in the air, and Those Who Slither are still around with all their tools except Solon and they haven't wasted the Javelins on a pointless show of force like the morons they are in CF so they can just blast Claude with impunity and he doesn't have Rhea to take the fall for him anymore. He doesn't even manage to accidentally kill Cornelia and Thales like Dimitri does in Azure Moon.

It's admittedly kinda interesting to see him be much more morally ambiguous and screw things up rather than basically luck into a mostly-clean ending like he does in Three Houses, but it's also irritating to watch everybody just shrug their shoulders and be like "hopefully nobody we knew has to die" as though the normal common soldiers in the kingdom don't matter, which is the exact mindset Claude is supposedly against.

 

Spoiler

At least they do have some lip service for the Church making incursions into alliance land. But I agree. Stronger reasons for everyone to do everything was required all around.

 

10 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

War is the nature of the franchise, and sometimes it's justified, if not necessary. I'd argue this is one of those times. And no, it isn't worse. Not by a longshot. Edelgard weighed the collateral damage and human suffering of action vs. inaction, and came to what she felt was the lesser evil. A determination that was probably correct given everything we've seen in just a year of time, magnified over a millennea and counting. Rhea flat out does not care about collateral damage.

But it's not justified. That's the whole point of the conversation. Dialogue is never attempted. No one ever has the attitude of live and let live. Violence without talk is the sole tactic for Edelgard. Instead of just running her Empire the way she wants to and leaving the other people to run their countries the way they want to. She's acting like a colonial who has the white man's burden of civilizing the world by killing everyone who dares have a different view of how to live life, without even explaining why, because no one else can be trusted to decide how they want to live.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Jotari

[Fabulously Olivier]

9 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Edelgard can also burn the monetary town in Three Hopes. It just gives that option to the player. And Rhea is indeed pissed about it. It could only have been put in there intentionally as an ironic parallel.

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At least they do have some lip service for the Church making incursions into alliance land. But I agree. Stronger reasons for everyone to do everything was required all around.

 

But it's not justified. That's the whole point of the conversation. Dialogue is never attempted. No one ever has the attitude of live and let live. Violence without talk is the sole tactic for Edelgard. Instead of just running her Empire the way she wants to and leaving the other people to run their countries the way they want to. She's acting like a colonial who has the white man's burden of civilizing the world by killing everyone who dares have a different view of how to live life, without even explaining why, because no one else can be trusted to decide how they want to live.

The inner sanctum of the monastery is not the same as a whole goddamn capital city. The civilians don't even live in the monastery proper. It isn't the markets. It isn't the town around the monastery. And the students have been evacuated for years. The situation and the amount of potential civilian casualties is so laughably incomparable as to be a farce.

 

"B-but Edelgard also likes fire, b-baka!"

Edited July 23, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[Jotari]

11 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

The inner sanctum of the monastery is not the same as a whole goddamn capital city. The civilians don't even live in the monastery proper. It isn't the markets. It isn't the town around the monastery. And the students have been evacuated for years. The situation and the amount of potential civilian casualties is so laughably incomparable as to be a farce.

 

"B-but Edelgard also likes fire, b-baka!"

As is the number of civilian casualties between burning one city and starting a continental war lasting half a decade.

They also don't say innersanctum. They say town. And a town is where people live. Rhea herself even talk a about being unable to avoid collateral damage to the town when she start a using her own fire orbs in the same battle.

[Aedan7479]

Regardless of whether or not Rhea was open to discussion, I don't think Edelgard believes she was. And with Golden Wildfire,

don't forget it was the Empire that proposed the Alliance with Leicester, and how do you think they would've responded if Leicester declined? We see that Edelgard was still intent on conquering Leicester. Sure, Claude doesn't try discussing things with Dimitri or Rhea, but he decides to take the war into his own hands to minimise casualties.

Also, while no one ever tries conversing with Rhea,

all the lords discuss their ideals in the secret route, which I think is why I think it doesn't happen earlier from a gameplay perspective.

We definitely needed more of Rhea in routes other than Azure Gleam though.

[Fabulously Olivier]

12 minutes ago, Jotari said:

As is the number of civilian casualties between burning one city and starting a continental war lasting half a decade.

They also don't say innersanctum. They say town. And a town is where people live. Rhea herself even talk a about being unable to avoid collateral damage to the town when she start a using her own fire orbs in the same battle.

Yes, yes. I'm sure she burned plenty of towns for shits and giggles as she rubberbanded her army between priority forts and the great bridge for the better part of the conflict. 🙄

 

We see the war unfold, and the only times we see mass, intentional civilian casualty events are when TWSITD and Rhea perpetuate them. Because they are the actual villains of the game.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[Jotari]

20 minutes ago, Aedan7479 said:

Regardless of whether or not Rhea was open to discussion, I don't think Edelgard believes she was. And with Golden Wildfire,

 

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don't forget it was the Empire that proposed the Alliance with Leicester, and how do you think they would've responded if Leicester declined? We see that Edelgard was still intent on conquering Leicester. Sure, Claude doesn't try discussing things with Dimitri or Rhea, but he decides to take the war into his own hands to minimise casualties.

 

Also, while no one ever tries conversing with Rhea,

 

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all the lords discuss their ideals in the secret route, which I think is why I think it doesn't happen earlier from a gameplay perspective.

 

We definitely needed more of Rhea in routes other than Azure Gleam though.

I think the game also wants to believe Rhea is unwilling to compromise, it just does a bad way of actually establishing that. As has been pointed out, she is fine have Almryians, atheists and commoners at her school. The reason for this is kind of obvious. They wanted these characters in the game to establish them in the setting. But just didn't put a whole lot of thought into how that actually reflects on Rhea and her authoritarianism.

She even says she should have exterminated the descendants of the Elites so she's not overly attached to the crest system either. But that's part of the evil Rhea scenes where they basically just have her talk about killing people, again without reflecting what that really means for what she believes.

And then in Verdant Wind she even dies just step down and let Byleth take the reins of the continent. At least initially. Unless Bylethnis mortal I can't help but think she'd grow board and involve herself with everyone again after a few centuries.

17 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Yes, yes. I'm sure she burned plenty of towns for shits and giggles as she rubberbanded her army between priority forts and the great bridge for the better part of the conflict. 🙄

 

We see the war unfold, and the only times we see mass, intentional civilian casualty events are when TWSITD and Rhea perpetuate them. Because they are the actual villains of the game.

Edelgard is one of the villains of the game too. She's the one who works with the Agarthans and literally turns herself into a monster to act as the final boss. And yes, starting an unprovoked war is a prrtty unabigous villanous act. "She weighed the collateral damage and human suffering of action vs inaction and came to what she felt was the lesser evip", yes, yes she did, and that's the same logic literally every warmonger villain in both fiction and real life determines about their conquests. Ashnard, Medeus and even Zephiel all came to that exact same conclusion when they startred their wars. The only Fire Emblem villains who don't are the likes of Loptyr and Fomortiis who literally just want to cause as much pain as possible.

*That is not saying Edelgard's intentions or actions are as bad as those villains. That's not my point. It's that "I think I'm right" is the logic all villains work under and Edelgard is no different from the usual crowd in this regard.

Edited July 23, 2022 by Jotari

[Dark Holy Elf]

1 hour ago, whovian21 said:

I imagine the only reason her panel's not on fire is because they didn't feel like programming a tile to be both a Balista and a fire tile at the same time.

She just stands there on a burning hill for the rest of the fight and doesn't even try to leave, she absolutely burns to death on that hill, even if the game doesn't explicitly show it. It doesn't explicitly show any civilians dying in Fhirdiad either, but you can assume it happens. It may have been unintentional, but the developers haven't fixed it in any of the several patches they've done (including at least one to that specific chapter). So yes, Edelgard is 100% willing to burn her friends alive after dragging them into a fight they didn't want to be in. The fact that other people do it doesn't make it any better, although I don't think they burn anybody they supposedly care about.

 

Claude can light panels on fire when Hilda, Lysithea, Lorenz, Marianne, Raphael, Ignatz, and/or Leonie are standing. Same with the other routes, replace some names. For some reason you're only concerned when Edelgard does it.

Bernadetta does not "absolutely burn to death" on that hill. She does not take damage, that is a fact. If the devs had wanted to show her burning to death, the event would have turned the ballista tile into a fire tile.

[LoneRecon400]

3 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Given how we see the Central Church react to any sort of dissent over and over (Christophe Gaspard, Lonato, the Western Church, etc., etc.), the game clearly paints Rhea as someone with whom dialog is not meaningfully possible. That's the whole point of "I hope the students learned a valuable lesson of the fate that awaits those who point a sword at the the goddesss. "

Either you believe Lonato, Edelgard, Claude, the Western Church, and others, are just incredibly stupid for not trying to talk, or you notice the pattern here.

I mean, if anything that proves Jotari's point. I don't see how Rhea is the unreasonable one when Christophe tried to murder her, Lonato raised an army to murder her, and the Westren Church threatened to muder her (even if it was just as a feint.)

None of these people attempt to seek any alternatives to their courses of action and instead all insisted on coming out swinging as their first course of action. It would be one thing if Rhea actively antagonisized them or acted against their interests, but nothing like that happens.

Like Jotari says, there's not a case of Rhea actually having to negotiate with anyone and her acting unreasonable about it. Every singe case choses violence before she has even a chance to address their concerns.

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

Bernadetta does not "absolutely burn to death" on that hill. She does not take damage, that is a fact. If the devs had wanted to show her burning to death, the event would have turned the ballista tile into a fire tile.

We're talking about a development team that took out Fistbreaker because they didn't want to code monster weapons as their own category of weapons. It would not being surprising in the slightest if they just couldn't be bothered making a burning balista tile.

Not that it matters much. Edelgard does whatever she feels like she has to make her ideals reality. I don't get how Bernadetta really counts against her comparative to  everything else she does. Not evacuating Enbar in VW is a more apt comparison, but that's a blink and you'll miss it moment.

Edited July 23, 2022 by LoneRecon400

[Dark Holy Elf]

41 minutes ago, LoneRecon400 said:

I mean, if anything that proves Jotari's point. I don't see how Rhea is the unreasonable one when Christophe tried to murder her, Lonato raised an army to murder her, and the Westren Church threatened to muder her (even if it was just as a feint.)

None of these people attempt to seek any alternatives to their courses of action and instead all insisted on coming out swinging as their first course of action. It would be one thing if Rhea actively antagonisized them or acted against their interests, but nothing like that happens.

So just to clarify, you're taking the view that everyone who has ever opposed Rhea (and it's a long list, implicitly going back centuries) is just incredibly stupid for not trying diplomacy. That if one person did it, the entire conflict could be avoided? That sounds incredibly naive to me. There's no "smoking gun" evidence to prove you wrong, but I think your interpretation makes the behaviour of many characters in the game (everyone I listed) absurd. One or two of them could just be making poor decisions, but all of them?

I take the view that there is an established pattern of Rhea ignoring diplomatic entreaties at best, and punishing who she sees as "betrayers" at worst. It fits the available information and explains the behaviour of the characters in the game far better. And Lonato is a good illustration of her lack of interest in diplomacy: yes, he was raising an army against her, but she had him hopelessly outmatched militarily; everyone comments that Lonato has no chance of winning (and Lonato himself seems to know this). From such a position, she could have treated with him, prior to coming to blows. Instead she orders Catherine to kill him as an example to the students (read: future leaders of Fodlan) of the price to be paid for opposing her.

[Seazas]

3 hours ago, whovian21 said:

I don't think the burning of Fhirdiad is a workable point to bring up in an argument about the comparative morality of Edelgard and Rhea, considering the former also potentially sets her own allies on fire at Gronder, including one she supposedly considers a friend (it's admittedly a harder to trigger occurrence, but she will do it nonetheless). Setting Fhirdiad ablaze is an inarguably awful thing to do, but not one you can use to prop up Edelgard as morally superior (which is what I was arguing about).

 

Not at all. Rhea's already lost at this point and is rotting away in Edelgard's dungeon, some combination of Claude/Dimitri/Byleth are the ones in power. She still kills herself (by making somebody else do it no less) rather than admit she was wrong or try and help fix her mess.

Rhea already lost because of Edelgard's strive for change. Rhea would not listen otherwise, her being booted out of power and walking away is always a huge positive for Fodlan.

[LoneRecon400]

1 hour ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

I think your interpretation makes the behavior of many characters in the game (everyone I listed) absurd. One or two of them could just be making poor decisions, but all of them?

Lonato is a good illustration of her lack of interest in diplomacy: yes, he was raising an army against her, but she had him hopelessly outmatched militarily. From such a position, she could have treated with him, prior to coming to blows. Instead she orders Catherine to kill him as an example to the students (read: future leaders of Fodlan) of the price to be paid for opposing her.

How were any of those characters that were listed justified in their actions?  They were all confirmed to be manipulated by the Agarthans for their own uses, and they all decided that the best course of action was to put Rhea's head on a pike / steal crest stones for the power to do that. That is not a justifiable position. The church may cause problems, but none of the actions any of those characters took would have fixed any of the problems in Fodlan.

What Diplomacy could Rhea even engage in with Lonato to make him stop his rebellion?  The man isn't even fighting for a cause, he's just lashing out in vengeance for Christophe. What exactly do you think she could've have said to stop a man driven and blinded by his own grief?  

[Medeus]

3 hours ago, Aedan7479 said:

We definitely needed more of Rhea in routes other than Azure Gleam though.

Agreed, I understand they wanted to focus on the conflict between the three lords, but when you make a character and their organization very central to two of their motivations and leave that character mostly absent that does more harm than good. It's especially the case since Rhea was already pretty absent in non-CF routes in Three Houses after the timeskip, so seeing her more active in the war phase would've been more beneficial both to her and characters related to her.

[MagicCanonBalls]

About recruiting certain characters and support conversation

Spoiler

1. I played Claude's route first. Lindhart and Constance 1st support convo talked about how they both betrayed Empire. Hapi talked about how they got take into Alliance/Federation wings. Now that I am starting Edelgard's route, those support still maxed out and no conversations are available but obviously their dialogues won't be the same. Is there anyway to view those in-game or on youtube?

2. Edel's route. Is there any major decision that occurs during conversation, because so far I am at chapter 7 and I really disagree with her methods and the way she do things, so I am just skipping it really quickly, but I am scared that I might press too fast and make the wrong decisions.

3. About recruiting Gatekeeper. Articles said just have to beat Maddening once, but the game let you switch the difficulties around. Does this means doing every single battle in Maddening mode or only the final story battle?

 

[Sire]

1 hour ago, MagicCanonBalls said:

About recruiting certain characters and support conversation

  Reveal hidden contents

1. I played Claude's route first. Lindhart and Constance 1st support convo talked about how they both betrayed Empire. Hapi talked about how they got take into Alliance/Federation wings. Now that I am starting Edelgard's route, those support still maxed out and no conversations are available but obviously their dialogues won't be the same. Is there anyway to view those in-game or on youtube?

2. Edel's route. Is there any major decision that occurs during conversation, because so far I am at chapter 7 and I really disagree with her methods and the way she do things, so I am just skipping it really quickly, but I am scared that I might press too fast and make the wrong decisions.

3. About recruiting Gatekeeper. Articles said just have to beat Maddening once, but the game let you switch the difficulties around. Does this means doing every single battle in Maddening mode or only the final story battle?

 

Response:

Spoiler

1. Your can view Supports from the main menu. Go to Extras and then Support Conversations.
-- You will be able to choose what route to view the support on, as some supports have extra/changed lines depending on the route.
-- Some supports even mention other characters that can be recruited on that route, but I am unsure if the in-game viewer allows to see every variation of supports.

2.The only major storyline change is during Chapter 10, during that chapter's battle. The game will tell you that what happens there will impact the game's story.
-- As you played Claude's route already, it's about whether or not you decide to recruit Byleth.
-- As for major decisions during conversation, there are not any.

3. Gatekeeper is earned as soon as you play the 3rd route on NG+, and is given to you at Chapter 5.
-- So, since you completed Golden Deer and are on Black Eagles, if you play Blue Lions next you should automatically get Gatekeeper during Chapter 5.

 

[Burklight]

2 hours ago, MagicCanonBalls said:

About recruiting certain characters and support conversation

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1. I played Claude's route first. Lindhart and Constance 1st support convo talked about how they both betrayed Empire. Hapi talked about how they got take into Alliance/Federation wings. Now that I am starting Edelgard's route, those support still maxed out and no conversations are available but obviously their dialogues won't be the same. Is there anyway to view those in-game or on youtube?

2. Edel's route. Is there any major decision that occurs during conversation, because so far I am at chapter 7 and I really disagree with her methods and the way she do things, so I am just skipping it really quickly, but I am scared that I might press too fast and make the wrong decisions.

3. About recruiting Gatekeeper. Articles said just have to beat Maddening once, but the game let you switch the difficulties around. Does this means doing every single battle in Maddening mode or only the final story battle?

 

1. Yes. The extras section after the title screen lets you view all support conversations.

2. No.

3. Whatever article you read is wrong. You get Gatekeeper near the start of your third route. Difficulty doesn't matter. I'm pretty sure I did my third route on hard.

[whovian21]

12 hours ago, Dark Holy Elf said:

So just to clarify, you're taking the view that everyone who has ever opposed Rhea (and it's a long list, implicitly going back centuries) is just incredibly stupid for not trying diplomacy. That if one person did it, the entire conflict could be avoided? That sounds incredibly naive to me. There's no "smoking gun" evidence to prove you wrong, but I think your interpretation makes the behaviour of many characters in the game (everyone I listed) absurd. One or two of them could just be making poor decisions, but all of them?

I take the view that there is an established pattern of Rhea ignoring diplomatic entreaties at best, and punishing who she sees as "betrayers" at worst. It fits the available information and explains the behaviour of the characters in the game far better. And Lonato is a good illustration of her lack of interest in diplomacy: yes, he was raising an army against her, but she had him hopelessly outmatched militarily; everyone comments that Lonato has no chance of winning (and Lonato himself seems to know this). From such a position, she could have treated with him, prior to coming to blows. Instead she orders Catherine to kill him as an example to the students (read: future leaders of Fodlan) of the price to be paid for opposing her.

I mean, as it happens I do think Edelgard is stupid for not even attempting diplomacy, especially in Three Hopes. A lot of the possible arguments against Edelgard trying to talk to Rhea immediately fall apart when you remember that Edelgard can just fricking teleport away if things go badly, as she does multiple times in Three Houses whenever her ridiculous Flame Emperor crap fails. She already baits most of the church forces away with an "uprising", but it's not like she really has the element of surprise when she attacks the monastary. She could march her army into Hrym territory for any number of reasons - it's not like they don't have bandit problems all the time - and then just walk into the monastary and talk to Rhea (who at this point generally trusts Edelgard after she got the church to help with the coup in Enbarr). Tell her everything she knows about Those Who Slither (since she's already cut ties with them) and what they did to her, throw all of the evidence that Rhea's system isn't working in her face and tell her what she wants to do instead and that she needs help finishing off the Slithers first. If it works, the war is completely avoided except for a conflict with the irredeemably evil child murderer faction that was always going to happen anyway. If it fails, she just warps out and goes back to her army and does exactly what she was planning to do in the first place. It's not like the church can chase her there's an army in Hrym a stone's throw away that they now have to fortify the monastery for instead.

Edited July 23, 2022 by whovian21

[Fabulously Olivier]

22 minutes ago, whovian21 said:

I mean, as it happens I do think Edelgard is stupid for not even attempting diplomacy, especially in Three Hopes. A lot of the possible arguments against Edelgard trying to talk to Rhea immediately fall apart when you remember that Edelgard can just fricking teleport away if things go badly, as she does multiple times in Three Houses whenever her ridiculous Flame Emperor crap fails. She already baits most of the church forces away with an "uprising", but it's not like she really has the element of surprise when she attacks the monastary. She could march her army into Hrym territory for any number of reasons - it's not like they don't have bandit problems all the time - and then just walk into the monastary and talk to Rhea (who at this point generally trusts Edelgard after she got the church to help with the coup in Enbarr). Tell her everything she knows about Those Who Slither (since she's already cut ties with them) and what they did to her, throw all of the evidence that Rhea's system isn't working in her face and tell her what she wants to do instead and that she needs help finishing off the Slithers first. If it works, the war is completely avoided except for a conflict with the irredeemably evil child murderer faction that was always going to happen anyway. If it fails, she just warps out and goes back to her army and does exactly what she was planning to do in the first place. It's not like the church can chase her there's an army in Hrym a stone's throw away that they now have to fortify the monastery for instead.

"R-rhea-sama! I would appreciate it if you would not do a theocracy on Fodlan, because that's not very nice. Also, I'd really like it if we could have oil, printing presses, and medicine and stuff."

 

"Off with her head!"

Edited July 23, 2022 by Fabulously Olivier

[Azz]

I think its pretty nonsensical to debate who is good and who is bad between Rhea and Edelgard when at the end of the day, they are two sides of the same coin.

Both are shaped by their traumatic pasts and because of these pasts, have radical views of Fodlan that they push on to others, both are extremely secretive and are not opposed to lying to people who follow them to achieve their goals (nor against killing people who put up resistance) and, at the end of the day, both desire peace for Fodlan but have different ideas for how that peace can be brought about. To call one a hero and the other a villain just kind of defeats the point when they are both essentially foils of one another.

Personally I think Fodlan would be better without them. Rhea seeks to keep peace but fails to make any changes that benefit the people of Fodlan because she is so focused on bringing about the rebirth of Sothis. Meanwhile, Edelgard starts a war that ravages Fodlan for 5 years in Three Houses and even once Thales and Rhea are offed in Three Hopes, still continues in order to take over the entirety of Fodlan which now consists of three autonomous countries that really don't want to be one unified country. We can see, based of the endings of SS, AM and VW, Fodlan clearly ends up becoming a better place meanwhile in CF and the three routes of Three Hopes, the war still ravages and has no end in view. Also on a side note, a meritocracy is probably the worst way to rule a country but that's besides the point since neither Houses nor Hopes has any apparent desire to make serious political conversation which is fair enough, I don't play games for that shiz.

TLDR; neither Edie nor Rhea is a hero or a villain and Fodlan is better off without them and Godleth is the key to peace apparently if we are to believe the writers. At least, from what I can tell.

[Fabulously Olivier]

22 hours ago, Burklight said:

They are quite generous with stat boosting items. But you can still farm money more easily than stat boosters. Plus, a lot of times the class you want to actually use someone in isn't the same as the one they want to level in. Hilda, for example, really wants dex and lck, neither of which WL helps with. I waited for a +str growth month, classed her as a sniper and went from 1-120. Saved quite a few stat boosters.

I get Luck since she has Luna, but why Dex? She doesn't seem like a particularly critty character. Doesn't even have Wrath in her kit.

[Sire]

Finally finished Golden Wildfire. After about 173 hours, I beat all routes on my first round of playthroughs.
-- The time played does include some grinding (including grinding the demo for like 20 hours), so maybe subtract 30 hours. I guess the first route for doing everything may be 50 hours, with NG+ playthroughs going down to 40-45 for the other routes.
-- Now for Round 2 on Maddening! (DLC When?)

As for GW and my overall story thoughts, it's in the spoiler below.

Spoiler

Yeah, Golden Wildfire has the best finale. At first I thought it was a re-used map, but I think its actually unique! To think that I recognized some of the landmarks from the general battles, only to find that it was from one of the final maps in the game!
-- GW having a unique map for the final map does wonders, as one can only do so much with re-using Garreg Mach (SB & AG). While the "Boss Corridor" in Garreg Mach is cool, Azure Gleam's finale was not as fun due to the invulnerability phases on the boss. Scarlet Blaze mixes things up which is an improvement, but aside from the importance of Garreg Mach, the battle beforehand seems fairly standard.
== In other words, GW can make a map that is tailored for a final boss battle, while SB and AG were stuck trying to make Garreg Mach work.
-- That said, the hype from the finale is cut off abruptly due to the short text epilogue at the end of the cutscene. While it sucked on the other routes, I felt that sudden cutoff the most here in Golden Wildfire.

For a small side-story, in the Hour of Vengeance Byleth came close to dying several times (this is what happens when I left him as an Axe User vs a nearly capped out Shez). I managed to heal Byleth like twice, but then quickly realized Marianne did not have enough durability since she was using a Reckless Power weapon.
-- So, I ended up using Jeralt to smash through enemy lines. He was going to save his boy. "I'm coming, kid!"
-- Luckily, I managed to beat the map. While I haven't done a speedrun of the map in 7 minutes yet, I also haven't try-harded and just played normally. (Actually, in Records, I can just bring out my OP Shez, so that'll probably be how I'll do it...)

* * * * *

Story-wise, a part of me wonders if the Golden Deer still hold the "best overall ending," both in Three Houses and Three Hopes.
-- In the "Recruit Byleth" route, there is hope that the war might actually end sooner than anticipated. The only losers here is Rhea and the Church, with Catherine and Cyril being confirmed casualties (I am unsure if Rhea actually perished, or was simply defeated.) As the Empire and Kingdom were mostly at a stalemate, with the Federation being called to handle other tasks, I imagine the balance of power remaining the same, just without the Central Church.
-- The only thing here is that Edelgard still wants to unify Fodlan, so if she wants Fodlan under Imperial rule, conflict may continue. However, if the three House Leaders got together again to talk, perhaps the balance of power can be maintained as well as finding a newfound unity.
-- As an aside, TWSITD is technically still at large in GW, but the Empire is stable enough to wage a war against them, especially if the Federation continues to help out.

Meanwhile, for the Black Eagles, it seems the best ending for potentially unifying Fodlan.
-- In SB "good ending," the war may end, but its more about the Kingdom being crushed between the Empire and Alliance. While not outright stated in the epilogue, a part of me wonders if the Alliance may end up merging with the Empire as Claude goes over to Almyra instead (similarly to Crimson Flower in Three Houses, if he's spared), leaving Edelgard to manage Fodlan while Claude continues his ambitions.
-- However, there are also confirmed causalities, such as Ingrid, Sylvain, and Rodrigue.
-- Also, depending on interpretation, Thales and Rhea are either dead or missing. This can potentially lead to issues down the line if they are actually alive.
-- While I like the route because I've always been an Edelgard/Black Eagles supporter, I can imagine this path of bloody conquest not being appealing to some.

Now for the Blue Lions, its probably the best ending for keeping the status quo, although the Empire is significantly weakened. At least TWSITD seem to be handled for good in this route as Thales dies by Dimitri's hand.
-- AG's "good ending" has the Empire being crushed between the Kingdom and Alliance. However, although its not outright stated in the epilogue text, Claude may still want to make a move on the Central Church in AG. Depending on how that goes, Claude may do something or may just let Dimitri to enact his slow reforms while Claude goes to continue his ambitions.
-- There are also implied causalities, as I imagine Hubert was removed during the the TWSTID takeover while Ferdinand may be imprisoned or under house arrest. Edelgard herself is broken and has the mind of a child, and who knows if she will be able to recover back to her old self. However, for those who don't want to kill anybody, this route may be favored as I don't think the Blue Lions actually kills any playable character (Caspar can be spared if the map is played a certain way).
-- I enjoyed the route for the alternative view of the Kingdom and the political side. However, I think I still prefer Azure Moon from Three Houses more as an overall story. Azure Gleam isn't bad, it's just I preferred the Dimitri/Edelgard dynamic in Three Houses more than Dimitri managing the Kingdom.

* * * * *

Overall, I loved Three Hopes. While I still need to see the alternative routes (Kill Byleth) and see what that entails, I loved seeing the setting expanded, putting faces on characters that were only mentioned in Three Houses, as well as just seeing everyone again. The music remixes are wonderful too!
-- While Three Houses was not a perfect game (the monastery exploration kills the pacing), I absolutely loved the setting and world. Seeing it again in Three Hopes is great, and I wonder if they may revisit Fodlan way down the line like they did with Valentia and Archanea/Ylisse (Awakening referencing the first FE, Gaiden, and Mystery).
-- Back to Three Hopes, I guess my main criticism is the sudden cutoff and endings. Sure, they are a suitable stopping point, but the way it just abruptly stops is jarring. An expanded epilogue would do wonders if they really wanted to just end it there. // Also, I didn't see any real Sothis/Arval interaction, which is a great shame. It also sucked that Arval didn't get much development either, and the countepart just gets one or two chapters to showcase themselves before never being referenced again.
=== As for minor gripes, just let us use the unique outfits regardless of class. The Bonus Characters already do this (it's just a shame they don't get class outfits), but it feels wrong to use a character in what should be their promoted class but just having a generic outfit. Oh, and let them use their unique specials in their master classes too!

 

[Burklight]

30 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

I get Luck since she has Luna, but why Dex? She doesn't seem like a particularly critty character. Doesn't even have Wrath in her kit.

Burst of Resolve. Also, dex is a damage stat. Not nearly as important as Str/Mag, but if you're trying to min/max, dex should be on the list.

[Fabulously Olivier]

6 minutes ago, Burklight said:

Burst of Resolve. Also, dex is a damage stat. Not nearly as important as Str/Mag, but if you're trying to min/max, dex should be on the list.

Point taken. How much of a difference do those growth bonus months actually make? And I'm honestly not sure if Str or Mag or more useful bonus choices than ones like Def that are really good on everyone.

[ZanaLyrander]

3 minutes ago, Fabulously Olivier said:

Point taken. How much of a difference do those growth bonus months actually make? And I'm honestly not sure if Str or Mag or more useful bonus choices than ones like Def that are really good on everyone.

I think someone did an estimate a while back and it's like a 10% increase or something? Not a huge difference, but enough to be noticeable if you're leveling up several times.

[Jotari]

Departing from morality discussions for a second, is there any way to give class exp to the renown bought bonus characters other than just using them? I'd like to turn one of them into a trickster, but it'll be quite a slog getting the lower classes mastered if I can't just stick 'em in the training grounds.

Edited July 24, 2022 by Jotari

[ZanaLyrander]

2 minutes ago, Jotari said:

Departing from morality discussions for a second, is there any way to give class exp to the renown bought bonus characters other than just using them? I'd like ot turn one of them into a trickster, but it'll be quite a slog getting the lower classes mastered if I can't just stick 'em in the training grounds.

Sadly no, not that I know of. This is something I complained about, you can't use the training instructor on characters in the 'Other' category, which unfortunately will always include the three renown bonus character.