Now what is Fire Emblem: Three Houses? It's the latest game in a very long-running series of turn-based strategy games that combine an anime inspired art style with medieval folklore and culture, developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo. The series first started gaining traction when Masahiro Sakurai, creator/director of Super Smash Bros decided to add Marth and Roy (the main heroes of the original Fire Emblem and Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, respectively) as playable characters. Interest waned for a while, with the series as a whole under performing and Nintendo threatening to shut down the series if Intelligent Systems couldn't make a smash hit. Then they made 2013's Fire Emblem: Awakening, a game so good it revitalized interest in the franchise and managed to become one of Nintendo's best-selling properties, alongside Mario and Legend of Zelda. Fast forward to 2016 and Fire Emblem Fates is released, a game that can best be described as, "the Last Jedi of video games." I say this because for every person who likes Fates, there is another person that hates it. Granted, the main reason for the division is due to Fates putting a stronger emphasis on romance and shipping (along with some... Questionable design choices), and not focusing enough on the story and characters (which is what the franchise is known for). I bring this up, because a lot of aspects of Three Houses' design seemed to be a deliberate response to the criticisms of Fates, while refining the parts of Fates that actually worked.
Our story begins with a mysterious woman and an old man with a whip-like sword duking it out in the middle of a gigantic battlefield. The woman overpowers the old man, demands vengeance for an incident in the "Red Canyon" and violently murders him with a dagger. This raises a lot of questions, such as who these people are, or why the woman wants revenge so badly. The game does provide satisfactory answers for these questions, depending on which campaign you're doing (more on that later)/ But for now, the game fast forwards 995 years into the future, and it's here we get to create our character, who I shall refer to as Byleth for the remainder of the post (since Byleth is the default name). One thing I will criticize Three Houses for is it has very limited character customization. Sure, you can change Byleth's outfit provided you have the DLC, but none of those are unique to Byleth specifically. Additionally, you can't change the face, height, eye color, hair, or hair color (the last one being tied to story reasons). You can only change the gender from male to female, and change the name if you so wish. Coming off the heels of Awakening and Fates, which both had very thorough customization options that really make your character unique to you, it is mildly disappointing. On the bright side, because of the preset designs for male and female Byleth, they can actually appear in fully animated cut-scenes without the game hiding their face (Awakening had your character wear a face-concealing cloak, Fates had every cut-scene take place from a first person perspective).
After creating our character and having a dream/vision of an elf-like creature calling herself Sothis, Byleth and their father Jeralt run into three students at the nearby Garreg Mach Military Academy. Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude. These three have been out on a field expedition into the nearby wilderness, only to get attacked and pursued by bandits. Which admittedly is the start of every Fire Emblem. Byleth and Jeralt, being a family of famous mercenaries, decide to help the students out once the bandits follow the group into the village Byleth and Jeralt have been staying at. During the battle, Byleth pulls a "Get down, Mr. President!" on Edelgard and takes a lethal blow meant for her. Sothis appears, freezes time, and scolds Byleth for their recklessness. Sothis then elaborates more on what she is (basically she's a Goddess of Time) and because her soul is attached to Byleth's body, she can't risk letting Byleth die because she herself would also die. So she uses her Goddess powers to rewind time, giving Byleth a chance to strike down the last bandit before he can overwhelm Edelgard. And before you ask, Sothis' time powers mostly exist to explain in-universe why the player can rewind turns in battle to undo mistakes. Additionally, Sothis establishes that there is a limit to how far she can rewind time, and some events will happen no matter how much time manipulation you do.
After the bandits have been dealt with, the three students take a moment to introduce themselves properly, and they waste no time establishing their main personality traits. Edelgard is ambitious, proud, and plans things out thoroughly. Dimitri is a kind and gentle soul housing a hidden dark side. And Claude is a mischievous trickster who likes riling people up (especially Edelgard and Dimitri) for kicks and giggles. At their request, Byleth and Jeralt visit Garreg Mach (pictured above) and get roped in to working for Archbishop Rhea, leader of the Church of Seiros. Oh yeah, now's a good time to explain the world-building. First of all, I love how much effort they put into the world-building. Compared to the rest of the series' many locales, the divided continent of Fodlan (where the game takes place) feels like it could be a real place. But anyway, Fodlan is divided into three major countries; The Empire of Adrestia, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance. These countries have more than a few centuries worth of bad blood between each other, but the Church of Seiros, the dominant religion of Fodlan, is the one thing keeping everybody from warring with each other. Additionally, all three countries have a strict class system, with the nobility possessing magical birthmarks known as Crests that grant a person special abilities (such as super strength or a healing factor). Crests are hereditary and thus, political marriages to add a Crest into a noble family's bloodline are quite common.
After a quick tutorial on how to roam around Garreg Mach, Byleth is recruited as a professor for the Military Academy, the justification being that since Byleth has spent their whole life wandering the land as a mercenary, they should be competent enough leaders and fighters to teach the next generation of Fodlan's knights and soldiers how to not suck at combat. So now the player makes a choice, one that affect the rest of the story campaign. Which of the Three Harry Potter-style School Houses do you want to be headmaster of? Edelgard's Black Eagles, Dimitri's Blue Lions, or Claude's Golden Deer? This decision will impact the entire story, and dictate where Byleth's loyalties lie once things inevitably go wrong and war breaks out. This is a Fire Emblem game. A Fire Emblem game that doesn't involve war is like a Legend of Zelda game that doesn't let you break pots. It's against the law.
Anyway, an important thing to consider is that each campaign offers a wildly different experience depending on who you choose to support. And what's interesting is that while each campaign is great at what it tries to do, each one can incomplete due to the fact that some events only really make sense when you see that event from a different perspective. Edelgard's campaign is dramatic, delves deepest into Fodlan's geopolitics and reveals the Church's dark side, but by far the shortest of the three at only 18 Chapters. Dimitri's campaign almost never touches upon the politics of the world at all, since it instead focuses on Dimitri's character development and how his past trauma affects him currently, but is so laser-focused on Dimitri's group (and Dimitri himself) that you never once confront the mysterious cult that harasses you throughout Act 1. Claude's campaign is the one that offers the most "complete" look at the lore and backstory and lets you hunt down the cultists responsible for kick starting the plot in the first place, but Claude's group is so detached from the overarching conflict that almost the entire war in the game's second act happens in the background.
If I was to make a criticism that applies to all three campaigns, it would be that they all share the same first 10 or so Chapters. It isn't until you hit Chapter 11 do the differences start to add up. Granted, the Chapters aren't exactly the same. They are the same missions, but the context being adjusted to make more sense for whichever campaign you're doing. Example, you always be sent to suppress a violent rebellion led by Lord Lonato, an early-game antagonist. The Blue Lions are more conflicted about fighting Lonato, since he is a lord from Faerghus, the Blue Lions home country (the students are organized based on their homeland), on top of being the adoptive father of lovable wannabe knight Ashe. Claude's group meanwhile cuts down Lonato's rebels without a second thought, since they don't know Lonato on a personal level and are just following orders. Anyway, while Act 1 being mostly the same for each campaign is fine if you only want to play one campaign, if you want to do multiple runs to see all the branching story lines, the first 10 Chapters can get really repetitive.
Oh, and they made DLC for Three Houses, including a fourth faction known as the Ashen Wolves. The Ashen Wolves don't get a full campaign of their own, but the optional side missions to unlock them make it so they will work for whichever of the three original factions discover them first. Said missions are some of the most challenging in the entire game, and are generally recommended that you wait until you're more familiar with the game mechanics rather than jump right in. Just a thing to keep in mind.
The story also relies quite heavily on the concept of moral ambiguity for its conflict. All three of the main characters are sympathetic and charming, but depending on the campaign you're doing, they can take a radical turn for the worse. Edelgard goes from virtuous freedom fighter to violent war criminal, for example. Dimitri eventually gives in to madness and rage no matter what, but Byleth's influence is the only thing that can heal his broken mind. Claude is the only character who doesn't really go down the path of darkness, even if you don't choose his House. Part of the reason for that is because both Edelgard and Dimitri are still hurting from past trauma (which I won't spoil here), and kind of need Byleth to help them process that trauma in a way that DOESN'T involve stabbing their enemies in the face with a magic sword. Claude, meanwhile has already made peace with his trauma before the game even begins. Which is both the best thing and worst thing about Claude's campaign. He's a character who already went through character development before the story even begins, which means the Claude you get at the start of the game doesn't really grow or change, because he's already done that in his backstory. That's not to say that Claude is a bad character. He really is a joy to watch. But he stays more or less the same regardless of what happens.
But on the subject of characters themselves, let's talk about Byleth specifically. Byleth is an interesting take on the custom Player Character. They are not the main hero of the story, nor are they the central lead. They serve a supporting role no matter what campaign you choose. Byleth can best be described as the sidekick or advisor to whichever character they support (think like Gandalf or Dumbledore, but younger). They are also the only character in the game who is not fully voiced, with their only speaking lines being battle-cries and one-liners during combat. Instead, most of Byleth's dialogue is portrayed through text boxes that let the player choose how Byleth responds in conversation. One issue I have with these text boxes is that they only really come in too varieties. Either the options all mean the same thing, but worded differently ("Alright" vs "Of course" for example), or the choices do differentiate, but selecting them ultimately doesn't matter. Some of these dialogue options are mostly used to test how much the player paid attention to the lore, but then you have choices like deciding whether to head West (which puts the group closer to their objective, but getting there means passing through enemy territory) or East (which is safer but takes longer). You go East no matter what. Apparently the reason for these "fake" choices was because Intelligent Systems tried to have branching scenarios INSIDE of the campaigns, and in this instance, going West would have raised the difficulty of the next few areas, but shortened the campaign by a Chapter or two. But Intelligent Systems bit off more than they could chew with that project, so they settled with giving the player one really impactful choice that affects the entire story right at the beginning and some meaningless choices for flavor, than try to have branching scenarios in a game that already has branching story lines. These "fake" choices are simply a remnant of an idea that Intelligent Systems sadly didn't have enough time to see to fruition. But aside from these "fake" choices, I do feel that Byleth is a step in the right direction for how Fire Emblem should handle custom Player Characters. Just give them a little more customization options (and voice acting) and they would be perfect.
The rest of the cast however, is near perfection. Each campaign starts you out with eight playable characters (although you can recruit additional party members as you play through the game) and out of all the Fire Emblem games I've played (Awakening and Echoes), Three Houses has the best supporting cast. Even characters that I thought I wouldn't like at first won me over. ...Okay except for Anna, but that's because her existence is a continuation of an in-joke at Intelligent Systems (the joke being that they put a greedy, red-haired woman named Anna in every game they work on) and as such she doesn't have the depth of the rest of the cast (she doesn't even have Supports). And Three Houses is a game where the more you use certain party members, the more they grow on you. Take Dorothea as an example. At first, I didn't really care for her, since she admittedly made a bad first impression (she's a flirty songstress looking for a romantic partner to elevate her status from poor commoner to noblewoman). But as you use her and see her Supports (optional cut-scenes showing various pairs of characters interacting with each other), you learn behind the moxie and flirting, is a woman deathly terrified of dying alone and being forgotten all because she wasn't born into power. The reason she wants to marry into nobility is not out of greed, like I assumed on first impression, but because she was a street orphan who had to endure the worst of what Adrestia's (and by extension, Fodlan's) class hierarchy had to offer, and never wants to go through that experience again. Then there's Lorenz, a noblemen who at first glance embodies all of the "stuck-up blue-blood" stereotypes one comes to expect out of a rich kid. But unlike most nobles, he doesn't look down upon commoners, and feels it is the responsibility of those in power to help those who are powerless, and in a way is more "noble" than the actual nobles.
Oh, and now to talk about the most famous thing this game's story does. Halfway through the campaign (at the end of Chapter 12) the game fast forwards five years into the future, and almost every party member gets a redesign to show how much they have aged since then. This combined with how every Chapter takes place over the span of a month, reinforces what I feel is the central theme of Three Houses. Time. Sothis is, as mentioned, a Goddess of Time and grants Byleth the ability to rewind turns in battle to undo mistakes. Edelgard wants to work towards a brighter future, but refuses to learn from the mistakes of the past. Dimitri is haunted by an incident in his past that is slowly shattering his psyche, and he is unable to move on to a brighter future without external help. Claude is a man who lives in the present, never letting his past control him or worrying about what the future brings. So in a way, the three main characters embody both the good and the bad parts of the three stages of time; Past, Present, Future.
And can you believe that I haven't even touched on the game play yet? This game is a behemoth, especially when you want to discuss or analyze the story. Anyway, as previously stated, each Chapter takes place over the span of a month, with the player getting to decide what to do on weekends. You could explore Garreg Mach, letting you talk with your party members, do side-quests, go shopping for new/better equipment, or just partake in activities around the academy to bond with the rest of the party more easily (such as inviting them to lunch, or hosting choir practice). You could instead invite another teacher at the Academy to host a seminar, which prevents you from exploring the whole facility but it is the only way to improve the abilities of both the House you support as well as Byleth themselves. Alternately, you could take a few of your favorite characters out for an auxiliary battle, letting you train them up for the big battle at the end of the Chapter. Finally, you can choose to spend the weekend resting, which restores motivation (more on that later) for all party members and repairs Byleth's unique weapon (the Sword of the Creator) but completely skips over the weekend. Personally, resting isn't really that good in my opinion. It rarely maxes out a party member's motivation, and only adds an additional five uses for the Sword of the Creator instead of fully repairing it. Honestly, I found it more worthwhile to raise motivation through activities done in Exploring and just paying the blacksmith 5,000-6,000 gold to fully repair the Sword of the Creator. Seminars meanwhile start off good in the early game, but their usefulness drops once you hit the later stages of the campaign, since Seminars never get upgraded (while Exploring and Battles do). I feel like Seminars would be really good if the number of Seminars you can do on the weekend increases as you play the game. But in this hypothetical scenario, make it so the same party member cannot attend multiple Seminars to keep this new version from being overpowered. But Seminars are still better than resting, and if you just want to blitz through the weekend, go with a Seminar instead, since in that case at least some of your party members are improving.
During week days, you decide what aspects of your party members to train up (swordsmanship, horse riding, magic, etc), as well as assign two students to partake in a chore around the facility (patrolling the perimeter, clearing out debris, etc). This game in addition to having a really good set of branching stories, also has a lot of min-maxing, and even if you did use a character on a previous play through, you can try investing their skills elsewhere and run a different kind of build. In fact, with very few exceptions, any character can become any class, regardless of how much sense you have to not make to justify it. Want to put the incredibly nervous and anti-social Bernadetta in a suit of heavy armor and have her fight on the front lines? Go for it. Want to make hyperactive hot-head Caspar into a cleric that supports the rest of the team from a distance? Knock yourself out. How about giving the pacifistic and clumsy Mercedes a katana and having her sneak around like a deadly panther? There's nothing stopping you. Just keep in mind that some characters are better suited to certain roles than others. Like, there's nothing stopping you from trying to put Dimitri's stoic butler Dedue on a horse and charge into battle as a cavalry unit. Just remember that Dedue has a natural weakness for horse-riding, so he might not perform as great as say, Ingrid, who has a natural affinity for horse-riding and thus would get better results from being made into a cavalry unit.
Battles are done in a turn-based format, with characters moving along a grid. When standing close enough to an enemy, you can attack it. Doing so brings up the Battle Forecast, showing you the most likely outcome of engaging that specific enemy (such as whether the enemy can fight back or even how likely you can hit them to begin with). New to this game are aggro lines, red lines showing you exactly who an enemy will attack when it is their turn. The general rule of thumb is to keep more fragile characters like your clerics and snipers out of the aggro lines, and force the enemy to engage your bulkier characters, such as armored knights or wyvern riders. Additionally, when attacking an enemy, you can choose to use a Combat Art, a returning feature from Echoes. Combat Arts use up more durability (weapons will break if overused) but have an additional effect, such as dealing more damage or giving your attack extra range.
On top of this, every character has a personal skill that encourages different strategies and part compositions. Said skills are based off of the character's personalities. The shameless womanizer Sylvain has a personal skill that raises his stats if he stands next to a female party member. Stoic lone wolf Felix gets to add +5 damage to all attacks he makes, on the condition he doesn't have a Battalion (generic soldiers that can accompany party members for stat boosts) assigned to him. Lazy scholar Linhardt gets to heal himself for free, assuming he doesn't move around at all. The list goes on.
The last major element of the battle system are the Gambits. They can only be performed by a party member with a Battalion assigned. These attacks hit hard, stun enemies, and break through the shields of the brand-new Demonic Beast enemy type. They can also only be used once or twice per battle, and if multiple characters are within range of the target, the effect of the Gambit is multiplied by the number of allies in range (capping out at 4 people). I really like this mechanic specifically because not only is it cool in concept, the execution makes it a valuable asset in battle that you save for when you need it most.
Oh, and for the people that liked the romance aspects of Fates, Three Houses does have some romantic elements. Unlike Fates the romance isn't tied to game play at all, aside from the tea party mini-game (in which you try to guess conversation topics that interest the party member you invited) letting you build up Supports more quickly. So for the people who play Fire Emblem for the character interactions, tough-but-fair strategy game play and story-telling (like me), they are free to ignore it. Which I find is a good compromise. Want to ship the party members together because you think they would make a good couple? Go for it. Don't feel comfortable shipping what are essentially college students together? There's nothing stopping you from keeping things platonic (heck, even some of the pairings are meant to be platonic and are explicitly non-romantic, such as Lysithea and Hannaman). Gone are the days of making sure characters you don't like get hitched so you can unlock another party member later *cough cough* Tharja. *cough cough* ...Huh? Did I ship anybody in my play through? Well Ashe and Petra hooked up, but I wasn't actively trying to pair them together and they kind of just accidentally got shipped together. Same with Felix and Ingrid. But Hannaman and Manuela was a pairing I 100% did on purpose because I thought it would be funny (for context, Hannaman and Manuela spend pretty much the entire game bickering over everything, no matter how trivial).
As for the presentation, this is honestly the weakest aspect of the game. The game doesn't look bad per se, and the character designs are amazing, and the fully animated anime cut-scenes are gorgeous, but the in-game graphics are a little underwhelming. Like during regular conversation, expect each party member to cycle through the same three or four emote animations throughout the game. What's worse is that some of the emote animations are shared by multiple characters. Sylvain and Claude have the same "casually rest both hands behind the head" animation for example. Mercedes, Dorothea, Rhea, and Hilda all share the same idle pose, and the same "happy" emote. Not a deal-breaker in the slightest, but it is something to keep in mind. But in regards to the graphics, the worst thing I can say is that the environments clearly didn't get the same level of care that went into the character designs. Like the marketplace has a stall selling fruit, but the fruits are a flat 2D stock photo textured onto the inside of the baskets, rather than fully modeled fruit. Again, not a deal-breaker, but if you are actively looking for things to poke fun at, the graphics are an easy place to start.
On a more positive note, every time a chapter begins you get a mural depicting medieval/Celtic artwork while the narrator recaps the events of the story or describes lore, and it looks amazing. Additionally, the fight choreography during battle is also a joy to look at (which is the entire reason why I refuse to turn animations off, even if it would save time). Especially as you start promoting your group into the late-game classes. Example, promoting a character into an Assassin has them hold their sword in a reverse grip ( upside down), and all of their attack animations change to reflect this. And critical hit animations are always quite the spectacle. Though the nicest looking thing in the game, for me at least, is the User Interface. Just the way it's stylized is visually appealing.
In regards to voice acting, Three Houses has one of the best English Dubs of any game out there. I can't really speak for the Japanese version of the game (aka the original translation), but there's a veritable all-star cast. Cassandra Lee gives Sothis an archaic, sophisticated (Sothis-ticated?) speech pattern, so you get the juxtaposition of this green-haired 10-year-old speaking with more wisdom (and more sass) than the actual leader of the church worshiping her. Then you have Joe Zieja, a man who has embraced his role as the most comedic of the three main characters and really brings his mischief to life. Chris Hackney is probably the best voice actor here, as he manages to switch from his friendly, wholesome mannerisms and then lets that charm devolve into bloodthirsty rage, then come to peace with what happened in the past and become a better person for it in the end. Honestly Chris Hackney's performance as Dimitri is part of the reason why he's my favorite character in the whole game (right behind Linhardt).
As for music, this is a highlight of the game for me. The main theme, Edge of Dawn, is a vocal track with a tiny hint of dub step (now you know why this game is sometimes called Dub step emblem) that foreshadows almost every major event in the story, to the point where listening to the song in retrospect puts a more somber feel to the song. I also quite like the background music in the Support Scenes, as they all do a good job setting the mood (from upbeat flutes for sillier scenes to sharp piano notes for serious scenes). And then you some of the crazier parts of the soundtrack, like God Shattering Star, which is an Italian opera ballad combined with a full orchestra, and it works. Oh, and the music that plays when you confront the mysterious spoiler-filled cult responsible for most of the game's disasters is done entirely in techno music, which fits the cult well, since they they're leaps and bounds ahead of everyone else in terms of technology.
In conclusion, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is by far the best of the "modern" Fire Emblem game. It's a massive game with 200+ hours of content. And this is before adding in the branching story lines. Heck, the game even manages to strike a fine balance between what people liked about Awakening, Echoes, and Fates, without sacrificing overall quality. The only objectively bad thing you can really say about the game is that the graphics tend to be a mixed bag. But other than that, the game is near perfection, and I personally recommend giving this game a shot. Now here is where I would put a final score, but after thinking on it and realizing that the lowest I ever rated a game was 5/10 (and how I usually rate games in the 7-10 range), I have decided to scrap the 1-10 scale in exchange for a new rating system. This rating system is instead phrase-based, with the ratings going "Send this to your enemies without context" (equal to 1-3 out of 10, "A good time killer, but nothing more" (4-6), "This close to Greatness" (7-9) and finally, "Enough to make a grown man cry, and that's okay." (10). With that being said, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is Great Enough to make a grown man cry, and that's okay.
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