This review contains spoilers
I wasn't sure how to feel about this initially. It's an alternate timeline thing where all the events from Three Houses didn't occur, so all the things you loved from the game this is based on are purely fictional in this universe. It's not uncommon for franchises to do this, but to be such a direct alternate timeline to a specific title, as opposed to typical, random, non-canon fanservice fare, is going to come with a lot of baggage. For instance, if a character doesn't present themselves in exactly the same way as we remembered and loved about them in this alternate timeline, it can be a bit irritating.
For example, Claude does something incredibly out of character, for who he was in Three Houses, about halfway through the Golden Deer route. It is preceeded and followed by Claude being way more of a dickhole than he ever was in Three Houses, to the point he almost felt like parody. My Three Houses hot take was that Edelgard was fucking terrible and people who liked her were probably just horny or something. She was a warmonger who didn't care how many people died, so long as she took the church down. Perhaps I'm misremembering, but Claude felt like the perfect foil to that. In Three Hopes, he's just fucking Edelgard. Meanwhile, Hilda felt pretty shallow in Three Houses, but she ended up being by far my favorite character in this one, due in part because there seems to be more focus in how others play off of her, especially given how significant her brother is in the plot. And the giggle following her Warrior Special is one of the top 10 pieces of recorded voice of all time. They remove the giggle if you promote her to the flying class, so I demoted her specifically to hear the giggle. It's incredible stuff.
I don't have anything else to say. It's a fun musou game. It's too long, but it makes for a solid romp. It's not a particularly interesting take on the cast, as movesets are determined more by the character class than the characters themselves, but there are plenty of classes to keep things feeling fresh. Just need to be more careful at how you write your characters if you're gonna be pulling these stunts. I think Age of Calamity did a solid job, but that had the benefit of all the characters in the source material being ass. Claude deserves better than this. 4/6
For example, Claude does something incredibly out of character, for who he was in Three Houses, about halfway through the Golden Deer route. It is preceeded and followed by Claude being way more of a dickhole than he ever was in Three Houses, to the point he almost felt like parody. My Three Houses hot take was that Edelgard was fucking terrible and people who liked her were probably just horny or something. She was a warmonger who didn't care how many people died, so long as she took the church down. Perhaps I'm misremembering, but Claude felt like the perfect foil to that. In Three Hopes, he's just fucking Edelgard. Meanwhile, Hilda felt pretty shallow in Three Houses, but she ended up being by far my favorite character in this one, due in part because there seems to be more focus in how others play off of her, especially given how significant her brother is in the plot. And the giggle following her Warrior Special is one of the top 10 pieces of recorded voice of all time. They remove the giggle if you promote her to the flying class, so I demoted her specifically to hear the giggle. It's incredible stuff.
I don't have anything else to say. It's a fun musou game. It's too long, but it makes for a solid romp. It's not a particularly interesting take on the cast, as movesets are determined more by the character class than the characters themselves, but there are plenty of classes to keep things feeling fresh. Just need to be more careful at how you write your characters if you're gonna be pulling these stunts. I think Age of Calamity did a solid job, but that had the benefit of all the characters in the source material being ass. Claude deserves better than this. 4/6