Fire Emblem Three Houses Thoughts - Part 1: Initial Impressions

Hello! Welcome to the first in what will be a multi part review/thoughts/ramble series on me talking about my experience with the newest Fire Emblem game: Three Houses. I wrote a long write up about Fire Emblem Fates after I finished playing all 3 of its paths, so it feels only fitting that I do the same here. However, unlike Fates, in which I did short write ups following the first and second paths and a deep dive only after finishing all three paths, with this I’m going to right out of the gate have a lot to share. I’m going to ramble a lot about the game and speculate on my overall thoughts on the whole package, which could change from subsequent playthroughs. This will be long, so I’m not sure how much I will have to say after doing other playthroughts. I might have a lot to add to my original thoughts, or simply a few quick things to say. We will see where this goes, but for now, let's talk about Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

 If I had to sum up Three Houses, I would say this. It is a flawed game, with many noticeable issues. Despite this, Three Houses does some really interesting and unique things that makes it, to me at least, way better then all previous Fire Emblem games. There are a lot of reasons why, the story and characters being incredibly interesting and nuanced being a big one. However, I would say that more then those, the big factors that made my experience with this game so satisfying were the monastery, and the prevalence of choice.

First, the Monastery. In simple terms, what makes the monastery so great is that it brings a strong slice of life element into a series that otherwise had little of it, previously focusing on big battles, story, and progression. Thanks to the monastery however, in Three Houses you are given much time to breath, relax, and take in the story and its progression at a much slower pace. This results in the story feeling more engaging and interesting then any of the previous games. Instead of events happening one after another, you can talk to all your characters as you progress and get their thoughts on where things are going. You can see how the events of the story have impacts on the world and its characters through how they reflect and change their daily routine, subtle changes you can only notice by stopping to speak with them frequently.

Interesting note: as I played through the monastery, it struck me as being incredibly similar to the hub (or My Castle) of Fire Emblem Fates. In your castle in Fates, you have a garden you can go to for vegetables each day, you can go to a fishing pond for fish each day, you can go to a mess hall and eat food with your teammates, you can go to shops or a forging station, you can go to a spa, you can hang out 1 on 1 with a character, and you can talk to the characters within the hub, and they will say short quirky things. All of these are in the monastery in Three Houses: you can fish, garden, shop, eat with characters, invite them to 1 on 1 teatime, talk to them and listen to their interesting dialogue, a sauna was added as DLC, etc. The monastery feels like they took the hub from Fates and expanded it dramatically.

What I loved so much about Fire Emblem Awakening, the first game in the series I really got into and loved, was that you didn’t just do battle after battle, but you took breaks, watched support conversations between your characters, got to know them outside of the main story, learn their quirks and personalities, etc. This wasn’t much of a thing in the older Fire Emblems, and as I said in my write up on Fates, I liked that that game expanded on what Awakening did with the hub.

 

I noticed my love of this dichotomy; of progressive battles vs slice of life relaxing, most notably when I played the final 3DS game: Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. This was a remake of an old Fire Emblem, and it showed. There were few supports, and much more battles, which I found to be repetitive and boring. When the story wasn’t grabbing me, I gave up on the game. It made me appreciate that the former 3DS games tried to make Fire Emblem less about battling and the main story and more about side stories, characters, etc. With this in mind, it is clear that Three Houses continued this trend with the monastery. I liked this, because having these nice breaks to hang out and get to know your characters made the entire world feel more alive and interesting, and like it has its own thing going on outside of the main story. It played an important role in the game's story, characters, and world all leaving more of an impact on me then I expected.

This leads to the second thing I loved about this game: Choice. In my Fire Emblem Fates review, I complained that that game lacked choice, and any you had felt inconsequential. Awakening on the other hand had choices that really stuck with me, so much so that they are what I remember most about that game, and are central to why I found Awakening more memorable then Fates overall. I wondered how Three Houses would handle this, and wow was I impressed. You make so many little choices throughout the game that have no right answer, such that I was completely absorbed into the experience as I constantly made choices of what I wanted to do and how I wanted to play the game. It was incredibly fascinating then to discuss the game with others and find that they played it in a completely different way then I did.

There are big choices that deserve mention, but it’s the little things that kept me going. For example, I loved that during each month every character had unique dialogue to say, and a lot of them, I’d say around half, would give you a choice of dialogue. One would result in boosting your support with the character, while the other would not. These choices were surprisingly hard, I could not believe that there was never a time when I would get five or so right in a row, because these characters could be so difficult to understand. Additionally, because getting that small boost in support isn’t a big deal, I never felt punished for picking wrong or like I had to restart, especially since I would make the choices I thought were best. These choices, despite how little impact they have, left me lost in thought and wondering how to answer them far too many times. My favorite ones were when I knew the correct answer to a question that the character I was speaking with would like…but it wasn’t the choice that I would say, and as someone who likes role playing in games, I was conflicted. I had to really think, and I like that the game made me pause and wonder what kind of person I am. By making these choices narrative based rather then gameplay based, it really tests you in a unique way that games normally don’t: how well you know these complex characters. These are the sort of choices I don’t see in video games outside of visual novels, and it’s one thing I love about those games. Having narrative rather then gameplay choices means you can get it wrong and that’s fine, and they are choices that say something about you. Having these all over the Three Houses experience really got me engaged with the characters and overall narrative.

Great choices however aren't restricted to the narrative, the gameplay also deserves mention. Fire Emblem has always allowed you to choose what classes to make characters as they grow, but only from a small given list, with only two or three choices max. In this game however, you can make any character any class and have anyone wield any type of weapon, which is just…incredible in the freedom it gives you. More then that, the monastery gives you a set number of weekends each month to use on one of several activities: explore, battle, seminar, rest, or skip. All of them have their pros and cons, there is no right answer and everyone is going to go through each month of the story differently, and I loved that. I looked forward to the start of every month, as I loved getting to plan out what I wanted to do each week. There would be weekends which had special events for both exploring and battling, so I had to simply choose what I thought was best. The amount of choice in this game makes it one of the most engaging video games I’ve played. I couldn’t stop playing or thinking about it when I put it down.

With that in mind, I wanted to talk about my first playthrough of Three Houses, specifically, what I would consider the big choices of the game, the ones that made me think long and hard, why I made the choices I did, and what I think it says about me. Please enjoy (Spoilers are light to none, I was aware of the existence of these choices before I first played the game, but nothing more, and that is all that is mentioned below):

Final Playtime – 136 hours

Difficulty – Normal & Casual

This should come as no surprise if you know me. Playing this game and discussing its difficulty led to me discovering a simple way to explain why I love easy games so much. Easy games provide you with more choice then hard games, because in easy games, you have the choice to not play optimally. You don’t have to play the best way, you can play it however you want, and I prefer a game with more choices to one with more challenge.

Path – Golden Deer

Choosing which house to pick was difficult, and I thought long and hard about it. Before deciding, I spoke with all the characters and had also looked up the characters online for a basic rundown, no spoilers of course. I also read about the general vibe of the three houses, and after it all, I was still conflicted. With Black Eagles, Edelgard fascinated me, and I liked their emphasis on magic. Blue Lions seemed the least interesting to me, but they had Mercedes, the character who jumped out the most to me as my type and the one I wanted to marry. But then there was Golden Deer. I really took to Claude and how laid back he seemed, and I also greatly connected with the themes I got about Golden Deer. It seemed to be more pacifist, more willing to run from fights and avoid confrontations, and attempt to win at a safe distance using bows. As a non-confrontational person myself, I related to this. Not only that, but from the basic rundown of the students and from talking to them, I found myself drawn to the Golden Deer ones the most. Ignatz for example was the male character I took the most liking to, so with this limited understanding of the houses, I decided to pick Golden Deer.

Recruits – Mercedes, Annette, and Petra

When it came to recruiting characters, I didn’t want to recruit that many, as I figured that would make the story better. But one character I definitely wanted was Mercedes for well, reasons stated above. So I spent my initial monastery time working to recruit her. However, during my initial encounters with her, I learned that Annette was her best friend. Upon learning this, I felt bad about recruiting her, knowing that I’d be separating her from her house and best friend. So as a way to help, I decided to also recruit Annette. I really liked this, because it was the first instance in which my plans were changed due to the narrative. When I planned out how to play the game as I progressed, I always took the narrative in mind and tried to role play it as if it were real. So even though I thought of recruiting other characters, I thought Mercedes would feel more welcome and happier in my house if her best friend joined as well, so I recruited her instead. In this way my team felt like it grew organically, and I liked that.

After I recruited them, I had time for one more student. Since Mercedes and Annette were both from Blue Lions, I turned to Black Eagles. There, Petra was the character who I took the most liking to. Perhaps as someone who is learning Japanese and knows the struggles of speaking a language you aren’t fluent in, I related greatly to her language struggles. At the same time, I also liked that of the Black Eagles cast she seemed the most unique, as she came from Brigid, an island not part of the Empire. As someone that has moved to different countries frequently and now finds himself in Canada as an American, I was drawn to her because she was a foreigner. There were times in which she would struggle to adjust to the Fodlan culture, and I couldn't help but relate, and that won me over. So, as my last student, I recruited Petra!

Dancer – Hilda

This was a fun moment, another in which I made plans, only to have the narrative throw it out the window. While I was using my team, training them, and starting to plan what classes I would make everyone, I was aware that you would get to pick a dancer at one point. I had planned Ignatz to be my dancer, as I thought it would be a fun twist to have a boy dancer, and also thought it suited him. When I think of a Dancer character, I think of Olivia, who I married and loved dearly in Fire Emblem Awakening. She was shy and timid, preferring not to fight and wanting to instead help others passively, so I saw this as the dancer archetype. Ignatz had a passive personality, so he would be perfect!

...Boy was I wrong, when the date came to pick a dancer and I spoke with him, he did not want to do it, saying he was well…shy and an introvert, and dancers had to be outgoing and friendly since they were all about helping others. This…made me realize I let Olivia completely cloud my view of dancers, and that there is more to them then I thought, as he was right, dancing isn’t for introverts! But then….who was I to make my dancer!? Following my style of playing, which is doing so based on the narrative, I asked all my team members and gauged their reaction. As I got their thoughts, Hilda jumped out at me, as she seemed excited by the idea of being a dancer, and I also thought it suited her. However…up to that point I had been training her solely in using the axe, while the dancer specializes in sword play and magic, which she had no experience in! But then the great freedom of Three Houses came in, and I realized I could have her be a dancer but still just use axes, so I did! Though I was not done customizing Hilda and doing some cool stuff with her, but…that will be in my second write up. For now, I enjoyed once again having a wrench thrown into my plan and having to adapt to the narrative.

 

Byleth - Healer

This was fun, especially with how much I have learned I differed from how others did this. With your character, you can have them specialize in any skill, though they are set to excel at Sword and Faith. I went along and excelled at these paths, but the more I played, the more I found myself focusing solely on Faith (healing magic), with Sword taking a back seat. This was because as I progressed through the story, role played as a teacher, I found myself enjoying being a Healer only more and more. I wanted to guide my students, but not lead them. I wanted them to lead, experiment themselves and find their own destiny, while I watched from the background, running in and healing when they asked or it was necessary, but otherwise letting them be. It reflected my desire to be a passive teacher who guides his students rather then leading, and I liked this a lot.

With that in mind, let me conclude with one last point. Fire Emblem Awakening was my favorite Fire Emblem. What I really loved about that game, more then anything, was that it did a great job of making me feel like I had a family with a loving wife and children. I felt a strong bond and connection to my family members in that game that I had never felt before in a game, and it really made that experience stick out. I wondered if Three Houses would be able to replicate that, not thinking it would since you cannot marry until the very end of the game. However…I was thinking about it the wrong way. What makes Three Houses special, is that rather than try to replicate those strong bonds felt in Awakening, it goes for a completely separate bond: that of the student and teacher.

This worked splendidly. Since you spend so much of the game helping to guide your students to grow, change classes, and understand them, it felt like you had your own class of students that you helped to find what they wanted to do in life and be the best teacher for them. I loved getting to teach the Golden Deer students and see them all in cutscenes together, it felt like we were all a small class, growing and learning together. Not only that, but with the time skip and teaching segments, I got to see my students grow and develop first hand, and it made the journey feel special for everyone. By the end, I felt a close mentor like connection with my students, that like Awakening, I don’t think I’d felt from a video game before, that kind of complex emotion and bond. I love that Three Houses did this, it makes it such a special game to me, as much as Awakening, maybe even moreso.

With that, this write up comes to a close. However, I am not done talking about my first playthrough. In the next part I will go into spoiler territory, share my thoughts and experiences with the Golden Deer narrative, my big issues with it, and speculate on how I will feel about the game as a whole.