[NSW] Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes

[briareos_kerensky]

I wasn't particularly interested in the title but then reviews said it's one of the better musou, so I took the plunge even after barely playing a couple of hours of the first FE Warriors.

First, I must say that Three Hopes looks better than the Three Houses. Characters quickly ditch the black-and-gold school uniforms of the original for brand new outfits, and those are much more elaborate and varied in colour than anything the source material provided; existing outfits and unit appaerance in general has received a smll boost in visual quality here and there, like a bump or a glossy map. It's not much but it goes a long way in making FEW Three Hopes less cheap than Three Houses, especially when you factor in all other graphical improvements. Animations during cutscenes are the same between the two titles, but the horrible dome maps from Three Houses have been replaced with proper full 3D environments, and FEW doesn't mince too many world introducing the cast or the world, as it assumes you have played through Three Houses at least once.

Technically there are no new characters, but people just mentioned in Three Houses appear here with a face and a voice.
Several elements are in common between the to titles: renown points, training schedule, character support, and even item prices in shops. Despite being of a completely different genre, I felt right at hom in FEWTH thanks to all these touches.

On the performance side, I though much worse. Surely the game doesn't reach 60fps, but during the three battles I've completed (the game's prologue), I've never encountered sever slowdowns and if there was dynamic resolution I couldn't tell, as you are constantly moving and cutting down hordes of enemies.
All voice actors from Three Houses reprise their roles (at least for the Japanese cast), though there is no Ashen Wolf house to side with, only the three factions from the original strategy game.

Three Hopes doesn't feel all that different from the first FE Warriors or Hyrule Warriors, though I think the weapon triangle (sword>axe>lance>sword) is more influential on matchups, with squad leaders almost invulnerable to normal attacks from a weapon they are strong against.
The prologue flows without too many problems, there are a lot of tutorials (maybe a bit too many) about pretty much every mechanic in the game, and if you have experience in either FE or Warriors game, you'll find yourself at home almost immediately, after you have adjusted to the side you're not accostumed to.
The interface is a tad too big when playing docked, but on the other hand, everything is perfectly readable when handholding the Switch.

[briareos_kerensky]

A few more battles in and the game opened up, and I'm quite enjoying it.

After the epilogue you unlock a world map; each story chapter has one story mission needed to progress and a number of territories leading up to that, and you can skip some of the secondary missions and go directly for the story; the least number of territories conquered during a chapter the more renown you get, but territories give a host of other bonuses like extra items, additional spare activities points, and stratagems to using during the story mission.

For example during my first story mission I was able to use a stratagem

->Open Spoiler<-

to get an enemy character to my side, and to position one of my characters close to a mission objective that had to be defended.

There are other more "mundane" stratagems like calling for reinforcements or long-range support from siege weapons, and I'm quite pleased to see how well battles flow with all the stuff you need to take care of: orders, weapon triangle, side missions, one-way access points...it's quite a lot but thankfully the AI is good enough to at least work towards the main mission objective and doesn't need too much micromanagement.

I've played as all the characters of the House I've chosen (went for Golden Eagle, because Lysithea and Marianne), and all classes have a distinctive feeling and somewhat different play style: mounted units can trample infantry, flying units can cross points other units can't, and mages have a whole host of status effects that make them quite deadly in battle, even if a bit fragile.

Instead of tea time you have expeditions, which work exactly as tea time in Three Houses, but are a bit nicer to look at...seriously, I want Three Houses updated with this game's graphical engine, it's so much better than whatever powered the original strategy game.
The story is interesting too, quite different from the original and doesn't waste time getting into all-out war between the three realms.

[briareos_kerensky]

I'm forging on with Three Hopes, and I'm actually enjoying the game quite a bit. Sure, there is a lot of repetition and after a while you can anticipate what and how the game will throw at you during a mission, but playing through the game is nevertheless pleasant and requires that small amount of grey matter that elevates the game above a completely mindless button masher.

A huge part of me enjoying the game is the story, because Three Hopes feels better written than Three Houses, with less plot points rushed into the story only to be forgotten or resolved with a throwaway line, maybe in someone's support conversation or paralogue.
I also appreciate that so far the story is more focused on war and politics between three factions, each with their own goals, rather than the usual "let's save the world from the shadow dragon" plot of most strategy FEs. A lot of characters mentioned in Three Houses not only have a stronger story presence but end up playable in Three Hopes, and even how the governments of the three factions work is better explained. Three Hopes luckily takes a very different road from Three Houses in regards of the story and does its own thing while keeping true to characters' personalities.
Claude's storyline was the best in Three Houses and from what I've seen it's also pretty good in Three Hopes; like its predecessor a storyline is divded into two arcs, although there are no drastically changed characters between arcs, only renewed equipment, battalions, and access to unique classes for Shez (your character) and the faction leader.

On the technical side, the more I play, the more I see the resolution drops during battles and the sudden spikes to 60fps when single characters are portrayed on screen alone, but I still think this game looks far better than Three Houses in every aspect, and the art direction feels also less constrained by the graphical engine, with all characters dressing in colourful outfits but still retaining their own personal palette to clearly differentiate them from the others. At least in cutscenes, during battles it's kinda hard to differentiate them from standard enemies.
One thing I don't like is how "hidden" the save option is: bring up the pause menu, go to system (next to last option), the save option is there but it's the second choice after settings. It's not much, and the game autosaves, but having it on the main pause menu would have been better. Speaking of interface, there are other minor nags (like not being able to change classes or equipment in a unit's status screen but having to go to the convoy section instead), and when docked some menu entries could have been made smaller, but at least they still are readable when playing handheld.
Performance between handheld and docked is pretty much the same, with docked featuring better resolution.

I have now unlocked tier 3 classes (out of four), and I really appreciate how different every class plays, even when you are comparing similar stuff like brigands and warriors; more advanced the class, crazier the moveset becomes, and it's quite fun dealing with hordes of enemies when your axe-wielding units start spindashing across the battlefield, creating huge craters on the ground. Most characters have a special move (ZR) or passive abilities to differentiate them from characters with the same class. For example Bernadetta can freeze enemies around her, and Ignaz randomly splashes paint around the battlefield, said paint having the same elemental properties as magic (freeze/burn/stun); I must say that the paint effect is quite rough, it's not as refined as Splatoon, it's a giant mesh that doesn't quite conform to the underlying terrain with a constant colour and no particular reflection or glossiness properties, and at first I though it was a bug. Oh well.
Setting up your team before battle is very important if you want to achieve S rank, as you can leave AI-controlled alone rather than constantly switching to them. Getting S ranks is actually trickier than I thought it would be, as it requires clearing a mission within a certain time limit, killing enough enemies, and suffering less than a certain damage threshold. Damage is calculated across all the deployed characters, and AI kills go towards the kill count, but fitting clear time and kill count together proved challenging, and the game doesn't let you replay missions outside those in the current chapter.
Simply clearing a mission isn't particularly hard, and some side missions tend to have more lenient requirements for S rank if that S rank is tied to something (like opening an area on the world map).

I also like the training system: let's say a character is currently a mage in battle, but they can train as a cavalier instead, leaving battle proficiency unchanged while gathering bonuses from other classes without excessive battle grinding. Gone are weapon proficiency requirements, those come with the current class, and generally the whole class system feels more flexible and leaner, though this is also due to the game not allowing for as much grinding as Three Houses.

While I doubt I'll go through all available storylines as I did with Three Houses, Three Hopes is a (surprisingly) nice game to keep you busy while you wait for Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

[briareos_kerensky]

Golden Wildfire/Claude's storyline completed. Overall, nice experience with some pitfalls, mostly linked to the nature of musou games and minor interface nuissances.
Longer post incoming in the next days.

[briareos_kerensky]

OK, time for some closing thoughts before I dive into Xenoblade Chronicles 3.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Three Hopes. I like that characters and story seem better written than Three Houses, with some events (like Edelgard's ascension to the imperial throne) better explained; it's also nice to see secondary NPCs given a face and a voice, in addition to to characters who were faceless NPCs in Three Houses being promoted to playable units here.
The story develops in a very different way than Three Houses, and some events during the Golden Deer campaign surprised me, as they were never touched upon in the turn-based strategy original.
Unfortunately some character storylines aren't carried over in Three Hopes, like Bernadetta and Yuri...and there's no romancing. Booooh.
The game even lacks the classic character recap at the end of the credits, when you know what everyone did at the end of the war. You get one letter from the character you have exchanged an item with, and nothing more. I don't demand all Fire Emblems turn into Waifu Emblems like the last few games, but character recaps are a tradition for the series and it's sad to see them gone.

Surprisingly the game never gets too long in the tooth, even during the last chapters. During the opening hours you are constrained on what you can do, during the mid game you experiment with classes and units, and late game you are steamrolling the opposition with those 10 or so units you have focused on. Getting S ranks (and therefore better loot) becomes easier as your options and knowledge of the game increases, and developers had the correct idea of not burdening players with overly long secondary missions. Unfortuantely some of the later story missions are less elaborate that the mid game, though at that time you are appreciating the game is basically letting you go ballistic rather than holding you back with too many objectives.

Characters that specialise into the same classes also are varied enough to feel unique, which is especially important for mages, as Three Hopes is filled with powerful magic units. Some characters also get special classes based on who they are or the faction they are in, giving the army as a whole its unique feeling. There even new classes compared to Three Houses, and thanks to the reworked training system, you don't have to go through exams to get them. Three Hopes' system for classes and skills is much straightfoward and more appealing to use, and takes less time to fully unlock, giving everyone a mostly steady rise to power.

The weapon system, on the other hand is a bit too convuluted. Standard, unique, and relic weapons all need their own upgrade stones to be improved, and you gain those by trading upgrade materials for facilities or looted equipment. When you max out a weapon you can reforge it, then upgrade, and reforge it again. I don't know if there's a limit, but usually three "cycles" are enough to make even a lowly iron sword worthy of the final mission.
However to do this you need to go through multiple menus, and at times selection is not granular enough to quickly browse through lists. Also you cannot sell everything everywhere: the armourer won't buy your buillons or ingredients, you need to go to the merchant to unload those. And of course all vendors are in opposite portions of the camp. There is a fast travel option (with no loading times), but having to go through three or four vendors to get all you need is not something particularly pleasant, and I ended up doing it twice through my playthrough, which took a little less than 39 hours. Every other time, I just fished for the highest damaging weapon and sold the rest to clear inventory space.
Speaking of inventory space, you have the Supply Master, a vendor collecting everything you looted during battles. Sounds fine, but the Supply Master runs out of space and you need to get back to the camp to collect the loot, which is then stockpiled with all other items...so basically the Supply Master moves the loot from one pile to the other, a completely pointless task than just adds to the number of menus.

The combat is good, and all classes require a good mastery of light and heavy attacks to quickly deal with the enemies, and no character/class can go through a mission by simply hammering the light attack. This is particularly real for slow-attacking classes like mages, cavaliers, and armoured knigths. Alternating normal attacks with special attacks (that consume weapon durability, which in turn is replenished at the end of a battle) and, if a character has it, unique actions is paramount, and the only way to clear bosses and beasts.
Issuing orders so that units don't engage enemies they are weak against in also very important, though if you control them directly, it's easy to compensate for any weakness.
It is by no means a highly technical system, but it serves the game well for its duration.

I spent a few hours in NG+ as well, playing Eldelgard's storyline. You can choose whether to carry over character levels and support, while everything else (equipment, money, facilities upgrade status) is carried over by default. Upon starting NG+ you can also spend renown to unlock special weapons and equipment, along special characters that unfortunately can only be used when replaying battles already cleared, outside the main storyline.
Even with brand new characters, battles go down much faster because you can train everyone into advanced classes in the first few chapters (by chapter 4 I had two characters already and the highest unit tier) and equip unique weapons, maybe with boosted stats.
There's a cathartic charm in walking over anything the game throws at you, though NG+ does highlight one more downfall in the interface: when going through characters for skills and equipment, all characters are included, even those exclusive to the previous playthrough or those not unlocked yet. This is because those can be used in skirmishes, but it just piles on the already existing clutter of weapons, salvage, skills, equipment, and characters.

While I don't see myself to come back to complete all storylines like I did for Three Houses, Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes is a nice game.