Replaying Fire Emblem Three Houses (again)
If you have any interest in games, specifically console
games, you may have heard of Fire Emblem. If there is the off-chance that you
don’t know it, Fire Emblem is a tactical role-playing game franchise. What’s a tactical role-playing game? It’s basically games that feature a grid map where the placement of units brings you to either triumph or ruin. But
that’s putting it really simply.
Something like this:
I was not a big fan of strategy games as a child and that
aversion has followed me into adulthood. I sincerely believed that I would
never touch a game of the tactical genre in my life. Then, Fire Emblem: Three Houses
(FE3H) came out last year as the latest installment of its franchise.
A short description: Fire Emblem: Three Houses takes place in Fodlan, a fictional country that is governed by three separate powers which are the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, The Adrestian Empire and the Leicester Alliance. The game revolves around the main character who becomes a professor overnight at the Officer Academy located at Garreg Mach monastery. The students at the Academy are put into three houses (hence the name), the Blue Lions, the Black Eagles and the Golden Deers, sorted according to their place of birth. The new professor is required to choose which house to lead that will ultimately change the course of the game. For the sake of the game, the player can recruit students from other houses with a few exceptions. What that means is that you could basically get almost all characters in your house.
This game was huge. It gained a lot of following from
long-time fans and even newbies to the series. It was inevitable that it made
its way onto my radar. The 'invasion' started small: a Dimitri fanart on twitter, a FE3H
analysis video recommendation on YouTube, simple things. Nothing strong enough to make me
curious. However, as time passed, more people I follow on Twitter got a copy of
the game. In fact, one of my friends was addicted to it. Before I knew it, I
reached a point where I find FE3H content once every five tweets. It invaded my
Youtube recommendations as well, at least one video about it every time I refresh.
Of course, it took me a while before I actually explored
what it was, a packed schedule one of the many reasons for this. In fact, I
thought I wasn’t going to play the game myself. So, I decided on the next best
thing: Watching someone else play it. In the free time that I have in excess
due to a certain pandemic, I found a streamer I liked and watched him play the
game. It’s a testament to the streamer because he was very good at his job. He
was the kind to explore the game, going through various strategies and kept me
hooked the entire playthrough. He was one of the main reasons why I decided to
play the game.
In the same month I finished watching the 60+ parts to his
playthrough, I borrowed my brother’s copy of Fire Emblem: Three Houses and
started my very own journey.
The game in itself had a good story to it with interesting
characters. Having a preference for chivalric tales, the medieval vibe of the
game pulled me further in, bumping Three Houses higher in my list of favourite
games.
This brings us to what I really wanted to talk about: My
addiction to this game.
To give a bit of context, the only game I played more than
twice from the beginning is Pokemon. Replaying a game from the beginning is
tiring since you have to go through the same dialogue and cutscenes over and
over. I replayed Persona 3 Portable and Persona 5 once and only to get to the
secret boss. As interesting as those games were, apart from which romance route
you choose, the story doesn’t change that much (unless of course you want to
see the bad ending but even then, you can restart from a save point to return
to the true end).
Yet, I find myself playing Three Houses for the third time
now.
My main reason is to get all the endings since the story diverges most after the time skip (which was revealed by the trailer so not a spoiler)
but I whole-heartedly thought I would stop after the second route. It’s not the
game, it’s just me. I’m not really the kind to revisit a game a day after I
complete it. If I replayed a game, it would be a whole year after I completed
it. That was not the case with Fire Emblem: Three Houses.
So why? Why do I find myself replaying Fire Emblem: Three
Houses four times back-to-back? What made it so easy for me to pick up the Nintendo Switch and start Three Houses every day?
Here are my reasons:
1. The Renown System /New Game + features
Fire Emblem: Three Houses has the New Game + feature which means after you complete a route and reach an ending, you get a clear-data save file. From this save file, you can unlock certain stats as a reward for your finishing the game. Some of the things you can unlock in Three Houses include support levels, skill levels, professor levels and class abilities which help in harder difficulties. In fact, if you have this unnecessary need to recruit everyone, New Game + has you covered. If you reached an A support with say Ferdinand in your previous game, you can unlock it at the cost of 1800 Renown Points. This will help increase the possibility to recruit Ferdinand. It’s expensive but hey, you do you. (I know I did that in my Blue Lions playthrough).
Professor level - determines how many actions you can take in one day
Support levels - increase recruit possibility of a unit
Skill levels - self-explanatory, a unit's skill levels in combat (e.g. bow, swords, offensive magic/reason)
Class abilities - the abilities a unit has acquired from mastering a class
Crest item - items that bestow the effects of a crest to its holder *only accessible through NG+
With these features, you can reach high skill levels faster which makes getting to a specific class that much easier. It feels like cheating sometimes but if you are on Maddening, it might be the way to go. Especially if you are like me, a complete beginner to tactical games, the new game + feature is a life-saver!
2. Support conversations
The highlight of this game for me. Support conversations are
interactions between units, revealing their thoughts and reactions to certain
people and events. They are triggered by support levels between the characters and are accessed from the menu. Some characters are locked in specific routes, namely the
House Leaders and their retainers which means there’s always some new
conversations you can get in each new route you play. Hilda is the only exception
in that she can be recruited in any route except Crimson Flower (Black Eagles
route 1).
These conversations give more depth to the characters that affect their likability since let’s be honest, the main story provides more exposition for the house leaders rather than the other members. Really, two lines at most for each cutscene does not give enough of the supporting characters. That’s why I love the support conversations and that I aim to get them in every playthrough. I played the game three times to get every possible conversation and plan on one more playthrough just for the fun of it.
3. Exploration of the classes
This is pure fun. I do this thing where I instruct my units
in subjects atypical to them like making Ferdinand a Wyvern Lord or Shamir an Armored Knight or Caspar a healer. Weird things and probably the worst class to
put the characters in. It takes a lot of time to instruct each of them but the
payoff was satisfying. Fortress Knight Bernadetta makes me laugh for whatever
reason but it sure makes the experience that much more interesting.
Now that I have played this game, I have this desire to play
more tactical games. I surely want to play the past Fire Emblem games but
nowadays, it’s not easy to get those games unless it was made available on the
Switch. I'll think about it after I finish my current playthrough.
A little something I'd like to share: I have yet again been corrected in my assumptions. My life is a series of ‘You won’t know until you try’. I thought I disliked many things until I gave it a chance and when I did, I find myself liking it (sometimes too much). I’m sure I will continue to be met with these corrections and I can’t say I mind it.
You learn something new every day be it about yourself or something else.
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