I'll be brief.

Aren't hobbies supposed to pass time, instead of filling it? What it means to finish a game? Specifically, I almost never finish at 100% of progress games for lack of practicality, but if you consider the games I play, like Tactics Ogre, and their inane prerequisites for a 100% clear, you can see where I come from. One thing is achievement hunting, one thing is saying "yep, there's nothing else left in this for me". Hope I make sense.

Why then does Fire Emblem: Three Houses, or as the fans call it, 100% Walkthrough, ALL ROUTES, keep locking content behind routes? I understand the need to have a complex and definitive experience, with no clear canon, but the clumsiness and game design show another picture. There's three routes in the game, of which ... only one could be considered necessary. Repetitiveness of gameplay loop between monastery trips, fun for the first five minutes, and recycled battle maps can do only so much good for enjoyment.

I felt like I had to play this game just to be done with it and it's not a good indicator of enjoyment and fun. I stepped back, took a break from games altogether, came back last week and cleared all routes. It's frustrating, yes, because there's merit in it. There's a sparkle of good characterization, clear understanding of what makes a good Fire Emblem, but then it's snapped back to reality thanks to awkward choices.

Here's a couple examples:

- I feel like this game is bloated with content, while keeping to a single route and developing that single one Blue Lions would've done wonders, it would've addressed so many odd moments in the other routes as well. No spoilers, but if you know, you know.
- There was no need to choose the route to pick so early in the game. I hope you enjoy playing the same 10-12 chapters each new game!! when there's also BUILT IN a way to borrow units around your level. Huhhhh let me PLEASE have all units have that standard build and let me skip half the game please.
- Map design is barren. There are probably two or three good maps, and while other games in the franchise like Awakening like to at least present you a set piece, Three Houses really likes to put you through unimpressive ground and grass textures all the time.

These kind of flaws really shine through once you realize, in order to experience the full brunt of the game, you have to play through all three four routes. It leads to confusion, it leads to frustration; for goodness' sake choosing the Golden Deer faction because you like their characters (fair enough) is paramount to NOT understanding important plot points because it takes for granted that you've played the other two routes, and now you're ready for a third point of view.

I understand where the love for the game comes from. The soundtrack is stellar, the game's very accessible and the battles and classes are very hands-off, reward experimentation and being able to influence units' growth is also very fun. The characters and themes of the game give a lot of think about and offer interesting counterpoints to each other in their support conversations and there's no clear best or worst unit in terms of balance, characterization (except a very dull middle aged man) and build. Still, no reason to put permadeath when all characters are supposed to be important, but you do you, "Intelligent" System, this kind of game design doesn't incentivize iron man runs, at all.

I don't want to be bitter, I think I liked this game. I'll talk about the DLC in another review, at least I'll be able to skip all the monastery chicanery and jump straight to the maps, which made me not want to play the game ever again after 200 hours.

8/10
Não irei detalhar ou me aprofundar tanto nesse comentário sobre three houses.

O primeiro ato é bacana, tanto em gameplay quanto narrativa, funciona.
Mas aí vem o segundo ato.
Sendo curto e direto, só a golden deer é uma rota muito boa.
Ainda que tradicional, é BEM EXECUTADA.
O drama dela não é tão potente, mas o suficiente, os personagens dessa casa são todos memoráveis e carismáticos, as fases são um misto, algumas é só encher linguiça e outras são boas e a fase final é AWESOME.

Azure moons tem um drama muito falho e um tom mais agressivo e cruel falho também....
Os diálogos dessa rota são muito edgy, mas eles não beiram o inacreditável, apenas é forçado, existem muitos elementos nessa parte que são utilizados para deixar toda aquela situação mais crivel, mas temos um problema, os plot twist dessa rota realmente não me agrada e deixa uma questão no ar que não é respondida em nenhuma outra rota, nem nessa... triste.

No fim azure moons tem alguns personagens que acho carismático e alguns que não tanto mas tem uma bom background e desenvolvimento, então suave.

Num geral as fases dessa rota são exaustivas, mas são boas, com exceção de 3 mapas, mas aí suave.

Eu realmente não gosto de azure moon, pois é uma rota pretensiosa, mas eu sinto que ela consegue debater algo, mas o texto e o diálogo é forçado e muito conveniente num nível alto, ainda assim uma boa rota.

Agora a rota da edelgard, lixo.
A duração dela é curta o suficiente pra não desenvolver o suficiente os temas e a trama e fica algo flácido, sem dúvida foi um desgosto quase tudo nessa rota, tirando os personagens que mais uma vez carismático e bom desenvolvimento.

A conclusão tem um ponto interessante, mas sendo sincero eu não, eu importo, não tem impacto suficiente e fiquei indiferente.

Terminei com gosto amargo.

A good evolution of the Fire Emblem formula, and I think one that in time will remain one of the franchise's highlights.

There's a lot wrong with it. Despite splitting its story between four routes, actually playing them all is kind of a nightmare, because most maps repeat between them and going through all of them will cause massive burnout. I should know, I did them all in a row, it was an awful idea. I don't like Byleth as they are, and think their presence takes focus away from the more interesting side of the story, which is the politics and the leaders of the Three Houses.

But ultimately, it's an interesting step forward for the franchise in terms of gameplay, and a pretty great story overall. A flawed game, maybe, but a worthwhile one anyways.

One of my favorite games in the franchise. The story is really interesting backed by how in depth Fodlan is as a world, the characters are for the most part 3 dimensional people instead of just bland anime tropes. Garreg Mach is a fun overworld, and while the calendar system doesn't reach the highs of something like Persona, it's fun in it's own way and I do like it's inclusion.

I love the sandbox feel of this game, being able to meld my units in anyway I want for wackier builds on lower difficulties or optimizing units as much as I can for Maddening. I think the multiple routes also encourages this since you can use totally different teams in every route to make each playthrough feel fresh. It's why I've played this game so many times, don't get me wrong I get the complaints about the routes being half baked, but for me I think the pros outweigh the cons.

I hear a lot of people nowadays especially with Engage being out say the game's too easy, and yeah, it's for sure one of the easier games in the series, I feel like Maddening is difficult enough to give me a challenge without making me want to tear my hair out in frustration, like Hard 5 Shadow Dragon or Lunatic+ Awakening. And unlike Maddening Engage I don't feel like maps overstay their welcome by an entire hour. Also being able to easily skip a good chunk of the annoying maps helps a ton.

I will say I'm not HUGE on the map design but it never gets to Awakening or Birthright levels of bland. Some of the character writing can be cringe (Bernadetta) even if most of it IS good. The game for sure has weaknesses but with all the good it has and has done for the series I don't blame IS for dick ridding it so much.

Three Houses has the best cast out of any Fire Emblem game, a very memorable soundtrack and an interesting narrative.

While the monastery might look cool and engaging at first with all the activities, after a couple of hours you'll realize it's basically just filler content to artificially extend the game's length. This is especially a problem if you plan to play through the game multiple times to experience all the different routes, as the monastery always stays the same with a few minor changes depending on your current house.

The gameplay itself is also weaker than what entries like Fates or Engage have to offer, as many units in the different houses feel very similar (with different passive abilites) and some students easily overshadow others in terms of general usefulness.

Despite these issues, I would still absolutely recommend at least one playthrough of Three Houses to experience the game for yourself - it's hard to describe. I can just say that the characters and soundtrack have stuck with me a long time after finishing the game.

This is the game that is responsible for me falling in love with tactic/strategy games. I remember blasting through the game during my exam season and being unable to put it down. The branching story is amazing and currently I've only played Edelgard's route but I have been feeling tempted to try and play the other two. I loved that the main character is a teacher and the dynamic with the students is adorable. All of the characters were well written and evolved throughout the story. The combat is super addicting and engaging. The music and art were also on another level. An amazing all around game.

Getting more in-depth into the issues with the class system, at first glance its designed so that any unit can go into any class and for the most part, they’ll preform their role in that class well. Adding to this, every unit has a different set of spell lists, combat arts and different innate talents in certain abilities, and weaknesses in others. A select few characters also possess hidden talents which when maxed while turn that ability from a neutrality into a talent, in addition to unlocking a skill related to that talent. On paper this sounds like a highly customizable system, but in practice it fails to encourage this customization. Despite the many class options most of them do not gave much to set them apart besides the mastery skill they grant once you master said class, and even those suck outside of a select few. It leads to a system where you get given a wide range of options, with a select fee of them being the implicit “correct” option. For instance Lysithea despite having a hidden talent in swords is geared exclusively toward the fully magic oriented class tree of Warlock > Gremory. It isnt helped that many of the class choices for certain weapon specializations are bad, leading to strange combinations. For instance any units that prefer to use swords do not have any master class options that help buff their sword usage outside of the magic focused mortal savant class, and have to rely on the inferior swordmaster advanced class. The biggest obstacle in class customization being gender locking. Certain classes are flat out unobtainable if the character is a guy or a girl, and some of the genderlocked choices happen to be the best for certain unit types. Gremory is by far the best magic type class, yet is accessible to women only, leaving any male magic oriented characters with no option except the vastly inferior mortal savant or dark/holy knight. meanwhile the best physical combat class, War Master, is male exclusive, despite there being a large portion of female characters that are heavily oriented toward being a war master, and have to contend with being stuck in warrior or becoming a Wyvern Lord. In the end, the experience becomes less like you are customizing characters and more like you are customizing classes.You could try to attempt to make some of the niche choices work but they will preform far far worse and will require far more resources to make them into those niche choices. In the end, most people playing the game, be they casual or Veteran, will end up slotting the same characters into the same classes, rather than having a variety of them.

I loved this game at first but the more I played it the less I liked it. You choose one of three houses at the very start of the game. No matter which route you pick the maps and plot will be the same, the only difference being your students. You can easily recruit students from other houses though aside from one or two people which are locked to a certain house. On my second playthrough I recruited every recruit-able person before even halfway through the game. So what house you pick doesn't really matter at first.
After the halfway point the three routes split to be completely different. The Black Eagles route feels unfinished. Not only is is significantly shorter than the other routes, but the story also doesn't have a true conclusion. We know there's still more people to fight, but we don't get to do it.
The Black Eagles route has a route split right at the halfway point for you to instead join with the church. This route is pointless as it has the same maps and cutscenes as the Golden Deer route aside from the final map. Don't bother with it. However, you might accidentally end up doing it because it's easier to get forced into this route than to do the actual Black Eagles route.
The Blue Lions route is the most unique and finished route in the game, but the story mainly hinges on a misunderstanding, which is especially annoying if this route isn't your first. As the player I clearly know the answer and could solve the conflict in a single sentence, but I don't get to and instead I just watch the world burn.
Also this game has one of the worst maps in all of Fire Emblem: Hunting By Daybreak. As I mentioned it's very easy to recruit other units, so in my second playthrough I used units from different houses. However, this is the only map that makes you use only units from the house you chose at the start, regardless of if you've leveled them or not.
Anyway, it's almost a good game. The characters are detailed and their side stories are often pretty interesting, but the gameplay has huge problems. The common route is too long, the monastery parts are repetitive, the class system encourages units to often pick the same class, etc.

Three Houses might possibly be the most divided I have ever felt with a game. For everything amazing this game does, there is something terrible that meets its match, and I am not sure it fully balances out.

This is the most in-depth world building and character writing we have seen in the series since Tellius. But the actual story is terribly told, paced and structured so it doesn’t hit as it should. Unit building is complex and free form, making it one of the most flexible and customizable games in the series. But the map design is weak, and balance is out the window, making for a mediocre gameplay experience that sacrifices unit individuality in favor of little substance. This is one of the most ambitious games in the entire series, with fully explorable environments, in-depth unit building, and three different stories with their own unique casts! But the monastery drags, unit building is tedious, and it’s arguable this should have been a game with two story paths at most. It has some really standout female writing for a JRPG, building some extremely strong willed and memorable women with some great social commentary of the patriarchy! BUT…but actually I don’t have anything bad to say about this. Edelgard hype is justified, she is unlike anything else I have ever seen in the genre. But everything else, and I mean, EVERYTHING ELSE feels like great ideas with questionable execution at best.

Three Houses is frustrating because it’s close to being the excellent game it tries to be, but at the same time it's also so far away from its lofty ambitions. It’s even more frustrating this is the most popular game in the series, because it tries to be more of a life-sim RPG hybrid than the strategy game series I actually cared about. A real fear of mine was that this would be the direction of the series going forwards, and while Engage thankfully proved me wrong (for now) this will always be a dark sheep in the franchise for me.

Three Houses is a mess I respect, because its sheer ambition is commendable, but a mess nevertheless. As a tactical RPG it is mediocre, and as a narrative experience it wobbles. Deserved Three more years in the oven, me thinks.
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I have had some specific beef with this game for the longest time, to a point I refused to buy a Switch and play it, even as a massive fan of the series. As an addendum I will post some of this beef as scattered thoughts, so that you can hopefully understand why it’s one of my least favorite games in the series.

-This is without a doubt the most viscerally ugly game I have ever played. I have hated the work of Chinatsu for the longest time, long before TH was announced, and her work here is just as terrible. I find most character designs painfully dull, if not outright repulsive. The graphics and presentation are somehow worse? Poor cinematics, poor textures, poor scene direction, poor menus... This is a game that makes me mad over how ugly it is.

-The concept of playing as a teacher, with your students as the rest of the playable cast, was off-putting to me. When you add being able to date them into the mix, regardless of their age, it’s genuinely uncomfortable. I will clarify I don’t judge people for not sharing my sentiment, I am aware it’s a personal thing.

-I have played and enjoyed plenty of homophobic, transphobic and well, generally morally questionable games, but Three Houses is one of the only ones that genuinely made me FURIOUS over how its male gay romance options were treated. It’s a pity because this game was a giant step for lesbian romance in FE.

-This is partly my fault for pirating this on the Deck, but the text size is TINY. I haven’t played a game that strained my eyesight this badly in forever.

-Hottest take? I think the overall cast is a mixed bag and I can’t agree with the common fanbase perception of being the best in the series at all. The house setup understandably sets the entire house as the main characters for that specific route, but the reality is that some characters are a lot worse and irrelevant than others. I think Blue Lions are probably the best of the three main casts, I am generally positive on most of them and their chemistry as a group (at least from the little I saw), but I found some real stinkers in Black Eagles and Golden Deer that negatively impact the experience in a way the series had never struggled in the past. Most Fire Emblem games have some really bad characters, but they were rarely the ones shoved at the player’s direction. It’s important to remember the series was explicitly built in a way where you could create the army that you wanted with your favorites, and it worked beautifully. Choosing a whole cast of characters you know nothing about at the start of the game that hopefully you like to carry the huge majority of the narrative is ass backwards to the philosophy of the series.

-I touched on it before but I really dislike how manual unit building and everyone being a blank slate is a core element of the experience. Fire Emblem is at its best when each character feels unique and interesting. Stats, skills, levels, classes… they can tell so much about a character with no words. I think how effortlessly the series flew over concerns of ludo narrative dissonance was a strong reason why I fell utterly in love with it. I am not going to deny experimentation isn’t great and healthy, but this is a similar case as Radiant Dawn and Genealogy for me, where the experimentation directly hurts core elements of the experience I love and replaces it for… a half assed teaching simulator I didn’t want.

-Three Houses’ premise, tone and character interactions fall apart in a conceptual level that bothers me a lot. Why are the heirs of these three territories participating in mercenary missions and putting their lives at risk? In fact, why do the nobles push for their children to join the monastery, instead of breeding armies of crest babies? Why can the students move between houses so freely without no political repercussions? Why are most of the students interacting with each other so casually, when they are directly interacting with high-rank nobles that could (and will) completely shape their future? If you don’t take your premise seriously, it’s hard to take anything seriously.

-I still love this franchise in its current state, but probably the most boomer doomer elitist thing about it I can state is that the turn wheel may have permanently damaged the series. It was already bad in Echoes. It’s terrible in Three Houses and it directly affects the game design in very negative ways. Why do so many people defend it? Guys, this is not the Classic vs Casual debate, this actually affects the core game design of the entire experience. I try to completely ignore the turn wheel in my playthroughs (and fail, because it’s so damn tempting), but I cannot ignore terrible enemy reinforcement spam if I play in Maddening. Let’s not even mention how the narrative bends around it’s inclusion very poorly.

Extremely ambitious in scope, with an utterly fascinating world and lore (seriously, the backstory is incredible) with a fantastic cast of characters and a top-tier soundtrack, it's hard to go wrong with this game. It's easy to see how it got as blisteringly popular as it did.

The biggest flaw is in the Monastery exploration being on the clunkier side, and the first half of the game being the EXACT same on all the story routes, meaning that attempting replays to see the other sides of the story is a tough pill to swallow.

Route: Azure Moon

A great game with annoyances that slowly pile up until you're positively relieved that it ends at all. The White Clouds section was a delight and felt vastly different from other FE titles. Love it or hate it, it is a great divergence from the formula. I like the additions of gifts, which provide a quick solution to the problem of accumulating support points. Lost items are annoying and rarely give helpful hints, but they provide a helping hand when Byleth is strapped for cash. The teaching mechanic is fun early on, and the saint statues help spice up stat choice, e.g. You could play it safe and teach Ignatz bows, or take a chance with axes since you have an applicable bonus! Monastery activities are varied and equally amusing, with the copious amount of voice acting providing life to many lines. The combat is great too, with animations being appropriately flashy and exciting whenever a crit is announced. None of the maps really stood out to me, but watching units coordinate and perform with gambits and adjutants always kept things fresh in my run.

The characters are probably the most praised part of Three Houses, and for good reason. I certainly grew attached to the Blue Lions, whose checkered pasts made for compelling drama as the game went on. Even outsiders like Lysithea enthralled me, as their connection to crests and concepts gave weight to the world of Fodlan. The supports are a mixed bag of slapstick and trauma dumping, though I will say that they land more often than not. Understanding why characters like Felix act the way they do can be rewarding, even if duds like the Annette - Mercedes support linger in the background.

The negatives are straightforward: it's too long, the music is passable at best, and the story beats can be awfully contrived to justify being in that fucking monastery for another month. I don't believe that the cast is gonna sit in a classroom or around a war table, listening to Byleth teach basic tactics for 6-7 months straight in the middle of a war (most of them are adults btw), but the game just does. The charm of raising stats shriveled up quickly in the war phase for me, it was just too much investment for repetitive results. I'd watch a cutscene of Dimitri/Gilbert discussing battle plans, some incisive strike would be decided, then one loading screen later I'm back to the godforsaken monastery for a month, force-feeding my units +1 health steak and watching them bitch about dead parents in supports.

Even so, I love it. It's a twisted mess of great characters and combat, a fully fleshed-out world, and a jumbled parade of everything else. Three Houses is a grand saga worth playing, though I doubt I'll revisit it anytime soon.

After clearing two routes (Black Eagles, Golden Deer) at 290 hours, I feel like I can properly talk about this.

It's a good game. After the rather weak political struggle in Fates, 3H goes hard on crafting an intricate and morally layered conflict that splits into four paths to follow. The story has its problems, but it puts its whole heart into what it's got, making it easier to miss or forgive the flaws. It's also got good visual presentation and endearing characters to recruit.

I think the most likely experience with the four routes is that the first one will feel like your real story, while any further playthroughs will have more ideal armies, thanks to the New Game Plus features. They let you continue a completed save file with various things, like your Renown, and allow you to spend that Renown to automatically raise a character's skill level to S or level their support with Byleth to A. You'll also have a better idea of how to teach your units the second time around, probably. I got through Black Eagles just fine, but my 10 fliers in Golden Deer were another story entirely.

The biggest problem with the four route system is that a significant chunk of every single one of them is exactly the same. If you feel like playing several or all of them, White Clouds may just drive you nuts. After that, though, there was enough story variation between the two I completed that it felt worth it. There were plot revelations in each that didn't come up in the other one.

This is definitely the most dense FE I've played, and that was to its detriment at times. Sometimes it felt really padded out that one chapter's main battle didn't just lead into the next one (especially at the end of Golden Deer!), and even spending the month on Skip doesn't make it go by that quickly. Prepare to either not think much and not recruit many characters, or spend a lot of time deciding how to teach your units and bonding with them around the monastery. Maybe that'll even be more fun to you than the chapter finales?

I liked it a lot, ultimately, when I felt like it wasn't just wasting my time. I would love to know how much of my 290 hours was just waiting on loading screens, though. I'm sure it'd be horrific.

This is one of the more conflicting Video Games I've played in my time. This game has the best gameplay of the series, but some of it's worst maps. This game has some of the best characters of this series and compelling moral conundrums, politicking and relationships, but it's story suffers from being spread out in four paths that don't feel complete with forming plot holes and a silent protagonist in a game already that feels like it's trying really hard to emulate Persona's least compelling aspects. The game has the most content in the series but it has so much repeat content in that and a new central mechanic that gets repetitive really quick.

I think on balance this is a good game. I also think it's very deeply flawed and truly held back from greatness by them doing multiple story lines instead of just picking a path and focusing all around that. For the record, I would have picked either the Blue Lions or Black Eagles for that role depending what direction they wanted to go.

Looking back after Engage's release, it's clear to me that the best idea would be taking like everything Engage did but giving it this games story and character writers, just limit them to not doing a path split again. As for Map design, it's really just the most bland in the series and doesn't help with the issue of repetition in a game that is this long.

This game is still really good in my opinion, regardless of it's flaws, the cast is enduring even if they all need therapy, the gameplay itself is the best FE has ever been, and the OST is an absolute banger. I'd just recommend playing the game's paths separately from each other for your own sanity and well being...

also Edelgard did nothing wrong and Claude is hella hot, that's all.