[NSW] Fire Emblem: Three Houses

[briareos_kerensky]

You'll get more chances to fight him, and in all encounters he's quite strong, but at least three characters will be able to hurt him;

->Open Spoiler<-

in my case they were Edelgarde, Hubert, and Bernadetta, in addition to myself. The item carried is a Dark Seal, used to promote characters to the Dark Mage class.

[Kotatsu Neko]

I've been playing a little of this and I'm pretty mixed on it. Visually it really is extremely weak. The monastery looks like PS2 geo with a couple of higher res textures on it, and the frame rate is frankly a joke. For something so basic to run so poorly really isn't acceptable and I'm genuinely surprised Nintendo would let it pass through cert. In the battles themselves the frame rate is a little more stable but visually again, it's just really, really poor. Drab, uninspired environments completely devoid of any artistic flair or art direction. It fluctuates between 1080p and 900p often and the already jagged, non antialiased visuals look even worse at a lower resolution.

The game I think is pretty poor for a Fire Emblem title. The school thing I just don't get, other than I guess a desire to make a Harry Potter knock off. The repetitive structure of having to teach lessons then randomly wander the same ugly monastery environment to pick up side quests grows boring quite quickly. The saving grace are the battles themselves, but I've found the difficulty all over the place there. I'm playing on classic mode and literally on the fourth of fifth battle of the game I was being single hit killed by some bog standard enemies, meaning my party is now a couple of guys down. I'm a little further into it now and it's much easier. It just feels unpolished.

I really liked the 3DS FE games, but this one so far is a bit of a dud for me.

[Cepp]

I'm just over 20 hours in, the time's kind of flying by now. I'm feeling it tbh.

Casual/Normal is too easy though. The only battle to give me any issues was the Field of the Eagle & Lion. Casual/Hard is probably the better option for most people since you'll get a nice challenge without having to deal with permadeath.

From a story perspective the game seems to have a lot of replay value with the different houses. I don't think I'll be replaying it straight away once it's beat but I'll most likey go back to it again in the future.

[briareos_kerensky]

Yes, the more you play, the more the game clicks, especially when you learn how to balance seminars, battles, and Monastery exploration. From chapter 8 onward story battles also become more interesting as far as terrain, objectives, enemy placement, and reinforcments are concerned.
There are

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four campaigns available, one for each house, and one for the Church.

I'm in the closing the Black Eagle campaign but like you I'm not sure if I'll replay any other house right away, especially with Astral Chain hitting soon. Once I finish the campaign I'll post some final impressions.

[Cepp]

Yes, the more you play, the more the game clicks, especially when you learn how to balance seminars, battles, and Monastery exploration. From chapter 8 onward story battles also become more interesting as far as terrain, objectives, enemy placement, and reinforcments are concerned.
There are

->Open Spoiler<-

four campaigns available, one for each house, and one for the Church.

I'm in the closing the Black Eagle campaign but like you I'm not sure if I'll replay any other house right away, especially with Astral Chain hitting soon. Once I finish the campaign I'll post some final impressions.

Interesting,

->Open Spoiler<-

I just found out about the church, it'll be interesting to run through the game siding with them. BTW, did you choose to kill Edelgard in the tomb? I saved her but I'm wondering if there's much difference if you do as Rhea asks.

[briareos_kerensky]

->Open Spoiler<-

From what I gather that would have put you on the Church route. I still have to do it myself, I want to complete the Black Eagles' storyline first.

[Asura]

Casual/Normal is too easy though. The only battle to give me any issues was the Field of the Eagle & Lion. Casual/Hard is probably the better option for most people since you'll get a nice challenge without having to deal with permadeath.

I would never have finished Awakening in casual mode. The permadeath, for me, turned what would've otherwise been quite a pedestrian experience into an absolute roller-coaster of emotions.

[Cepp]

I would never have finished Awakening in casual mode. The permadeath, for me, turned what would've otherwise been quite a pedestrian experience into an absolute roller-coaster of emotions.

I didn't want to invest a lot of time into battles and end up restarting due to characters dying. They've all been very brisk though and the game is easy so it was a mistake in hindsight. I'm 25 hours in now though so that will have to wait for my next playthrough.

[Asura]

I didn't want to invest a lot of time into battles and end up restarting due to characters dying.

The thing is, if you play Classic Mode, and you can see past that... Okay, I'm not the sort of person who would be so arrogant as to say "you're enjoying it wrong" because Casual Mode exists for a reason and people get different things out of playing the same game.

However, in my case, really forcing myself not to reload was a big part of what made it entertaining. I lost a character about a third of the way through, a Pegasus Knight who I really liked; I made a miscalculation that resulted in her taking the bullet for a bunch of other characters and dying valiantly. The thing I loved about the game was how these things can happen, and how they're so unique - there's no reason to believe anyone else lost that character on that mission in the same way. That makes the story of victories and losses my own personal Fire Emblem story which dwarfed any of the narrative the game actually presents, in terms of how much it affected me emotionally.

Due to the way I invested in characters, some of whom survived and some of whom died, Fire Emblem genuinely felt like something like Band of Brothers, where you come out the other side feeling like you've really lived through a war, even if it's just a fantasy.

[Cepp]

The thing is, if you play Classic Mode, and you can see past that... Okay, I'm not the sort of person who would be so arrogant as to say "you're enjoying it wrong" because Casual Mode exists for a reason and people get different things out of playing the same game.

However, in my case, really forcing myself not to reload was a big part of what made it entertaining. I lost a character about a third of the way through, a Pegasus Knight who I really liked; I made a miscalculation that resulted in her taking the bullet for a bunch of other characters and dying valiantly. The thing I loved about the game was how these things can happen, and how they're so unique - there's no reason to believe anyone else lost that character on that mission in the same way. That makes the story of victories and losses my own personal Fire Emblem story which dwarfed any of the narrative the game actually presents, in terms of how much it affected me emotionally.

Due to the way I invested in characters, some of whom survived and some of whom died, Fire Emblem genuinely felt like something like Band of Brothers, where you come out the other side feeling like you've really lived through a war, even if it's just a fantasy.

I get the appeal, I really do.

Investing time and and xp into a character only to lose them was too much with the gba game though. I just couldn't do it, it's not like you could infinitely grind like you can here.

Perhaps on my next playthrough though.