i think three houses is a step in the right direction for a franchise that has become a hollow shell of itself barring the one remake we've gotten since the start of "modern" fire emblem, but ultimately three houses is just "okay" and another entry that confirms that the series, while not necessarily on a consistent decline in quality, struggles to reach too much higher than awakening and fates.

in terms of actual gameplay, there's a lot to be said about the fact that it is blatantly unfinished based on the state of the individual routes, but that isn't really here nor there for me. regardless, this might be the absolute worst game in the series in regards to the actual game. if any fire emblem game has me thinking "i'd honestly rather play binding blade right now, that game was more well designed" then there isn't much positive to say gameplay wise. some of the most bland and uninteresting maps the series has to offer, and in between these maps, you have the monastery. the monastery is honestly the 2nd worst thing fire emblem has ever done, only losing out to fates somehow making its already weak story worse to let you fuck your siblings. not only does it break any flow that you might have somehow managed to build up gameplay wise, it makes the execution of the story fall on its face completely. i can not get invested in this continental conflict when after every minor skirmish we go all the way back to the monastery in the center of fodlan to do tedious chores, just to go all the way back to the front lines the next day. at least other fire emblem games that use a base camp had the decency to have the base camp make sense for the story instead of a static area you go back and forth from.

in terms of other things this game does worse than other games, the support system is at its absolute worst in this entry, leaving crucial character development exclusively in them while letting you do as many as you want. you might think this would let characters get more development and growth or whatever, but instead it makes it so these characters are in this groundhog day loop in regards to progressing as characters/people. the worst thing fire emblem ever did to the support system was remove the limit on how many supports a unit can have. aside from that, the characters are pretty alright and you're bound to find a few that you latch onto. they aren't jugdral or even blazing blade levels of good, but they aren't awakening/fates levels of bad either, they actually tried this time.

in terms of characters, the lords are actually really well done for the most part. some of the best moments in the game come from the conflict of edelgard and dimitri who are two insanely compelling characters, some of the best lords in the series even, but the game decides that they were a bit too interesting for a modern fire emblem and makes sure any interesting aspects of them are shoved to the wayside by the end of the campaign with dimitri easily getting the short end of the stick with how much they ruin him. your main character byleth is also literally nothing and honestly i prefer it to corrin at the very least, i'd rather the my unit be boring than insufferable, especially with how three houses can be with character writing. in that regard the game also struggles and fails to make characters like rhea sympathetic to anyone who actually paid attention to her character for some reason which has never made sense to me, pretty sure none of the lords other than seteth are too particularly happy that she is around and in a position of power. i could go on for hours about how odd the writing is for three houses, but i won't because outside of the base flimsiness that's apparent with it i do like a bit of it.

in terms of stuff i actually liked, the game has a lot of really cool concepts and i honestly think it's one of the best in the series at a conceptual level. there's some small stuff like the game itself feeling vaguely like a love letter to genealogy of the holy war in a lot of ways, which is somewhat appreciated even if it fails quite a bit to capture anything that game had, but the perceived attempt at least inspires a small amount of home for the future of the series. in regards to what is unique to three houses, if you play the game right (i.e. not poaching too many/any of the students from other houses or only grabbing a few that have obvious connections to another student) the 2nd half of the game has a ton of really great character moments, with the excellent track "paths that will never cross" accenting each encounter. seriously, please play three houses this way, it makes the game so much more enjoyable. the soundtrack also has a few bangers like "god shattering star", a song that you can tell they made because of how good echoes's "lord of a dead empire" was.
there's also a lot of moments from this game i absolutely love, practically every important cutscene that has both edelgard and dimitri in it is at least to an extent a contender for my top 10 fire emblem moments, and claude is pretty great too even if he's fumbled in every route that isn't his own. the ashen wolves from this game's dlc are also some of the best modern fire emblem characters and they made repeat playthroughs way less insufferable.

in the end, fire emblem three houses to me is at its core a confirmation that awakening and fates' mutual success was all intelligent systems needed to treat the two as a soft reboot for the franchise that would influence how the series progressed in the future, with remakes seemingly exempt. it's not a revelation i'm happy with and in a way it feels like something i care about is dead outside of the memories i shared with it and the absurd high quality they seem to only want to relegate to the remakes, but there are still nuggets of something good that will keep me attached to it for a long time. not sure if i think that's a good thing though. the next game in the series, engage, is a delayed anniversary title and the leak that gave us a ton of engage info months and advance stated a fire emblem 4 remake was also being worked on, so it's going to be a while until we can truly say where fire emblem will be going from here, but three houses at the very least can give me a small amount of hope that there will be things to like as the series goes forward, even if it continues to stray from its glory days.