This review contains spoilers

Took me a full year and a half but! Three routes defeated!

A highly ambitious story and the most "war is FUCKED" story Fire Emblem's managed for in a while. Its a story with awful power structures, how they're created, the tragedy that emerges from them, and how people try to fix them. And the game creates a lot of fascinating characters who have to exist within that dynamic.

The structure of the game and the separation into different routes is a really ambitious and fascinating route of world-building. You can't get the full story unless you play each route and understand each person's role in the wider tragedies at play. Byleth's role is to pull these people away from making too many mistakes. You can't understand Dmitri's violent rampages without playing Azure Moon, you can't understand Edelgard's pain without playing Crimson Flower, and you can't understand Byleth's origins and Rhea's massive psychological issues without playing Silver Snow.

Which is why I'm sad to say I flat out don't think there's anything interesting in Claude's route. Its the centrist option- I'm sorry, but that's the vibe I walked away with. Genuinely almost wish I didn't play it because I... served my time! I'm not playing Silver Snow! I'm looking up the details on it. I'm done, I played 160 hours. I know I just spent a bunch of time praising how incredible the world-building structure of the game is but its also just too damn long.

And at the same time as all that, narratively... 3H is kind of a mess sometimes! I'm not entirely sure it realizes what kind of story its making. AM is a cool little tragedy about a fucked up little dude, but then it kinda falls apart into not really any commitments into what the wider story is about. CF and SS are more central into what the power structures are and how they could be dismantled or enforced. Claude is just irrelevant. He's an outsider here. They maybe should've kind've dropped his route to focus on the others or just... give him SOMETHING to make him memorable.

Anyway, I'm not into getting into the discourse about this two years late to the game. Other stuff- My brain completely short circuits everytime I reached a time skip, making me completely drop the game for several months. I just dead ass stop playing. I must also do a time skip.

I think more characters shouldn't be recruitable if you're on another route. Some people who just inherently do or don't want to change the status quo. Stuff like that.

I dunno, despite the complaints, I really enjoyed my time with it. Its a fun game. Anything that takes 160 hours should have things to talk about.

Reviewed on Oct 24, 2021


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