Played 57 hours of Fire Emblem: Three Hopes. I only completed Golden Wildfire but I may play the other 2 routes one day.
Me personally, I think this is a huge improvement from Three Houses from what I've played. For one, it helps a lot that the main protagonist, Shez is voiced and I feel like they have a lot of personality compared to Three Houses' protagonist Byleth that barely said anything and they was a silent character. And even when Byleth did speak and act in Three Hopes, they came off as very robotic and stiff.
There are a lot of similarities between the two games. Loads of supports (although I feel like Three Hopes have less than what you can get in a single playthrough) and I personally feel like the characters are far more likable and enjoyable. They still have thier flaws but it isn't as obnoxious or irritable compare to thier Three Houses counterparts. In fact, I like a few characters better now because of Three Hopes. The overall world-building, lore, and character writing are just as fantastic as it was in Three Houses. It's filled with plenty of political detail and depth.
You have a campbase that functions similarly to the Monastery but it's far more streamlined, smaller, and compressed. All of the services you can use such as training and cooking to boost support points, abilities, and class levels to a blacksmith to enchant weapons, and plenty of shops to buy items and trade resources to use to increase the functionality of these services. It's more focused without the fluff such as minigames or doing quests inside the campbase.
The huge difference is the gameplay since it functions like a Warrior game, you mainly do missions such as capture strongholds, defeat commanders and bosses, defend NPCs, and defeat a number of enemies within a certain time-limit. It can be repetitive but thanks to the game's class system and every character have thier own unique abilities and special attacks. There is some variation to the combat such as using different weapons and magic to attack. Not to mention you can still level up and increase stats just like any other Fire Emblem game. So while Three Hopes went from SRPG to musou action, it still retains the Fire Emblem DNA especially found in Three Houses.
My biggest complaint is very similar to one of my biggest complaint in Three Houses, the main story is incomplete and it ends in a cliffhanger, at least for Golden Wildfire but I will assume the same for the other two routes as well. I can easily say the plot is better well paced, there is a stronger focus on the epic political war drama between the nations and the routes drastically split off faster than in Three Houses. However, it is just unsatisfying to see how not all story beats presented does not get resolved or fulfilled.
Not to mention the game heavily assumed you played Three Houses since the game quickly breeze through the academy arc and many events that happened during that time are referred to a lot in conversations. So anyone that hasn't played Three Houses would be left out of the loop a lot despite the two games having separate timelines.
Overall, I can say while the action gameplay can be hit or miss for some people depending on your preference for Warrior games and it does improve on some of the flaws in Three Houses while retaining some of the same mistakes, I say Three Hopes is a worthy playthrough if you want more content within the world of Foldan.
Me personally, I think this is a huge improvement from Three Houses from what I've played. For one, it helps a lot that the main protagonist, Shez is voiced and I feel like they have a lot of personality compared to Three Houses' protagonist Byleth that barely said anything and they was a silent character. And even when Byleth did speak and act in Three Hopes, they came off as very robotic and stiff.
There are a lot of similarities between the two games. Loads of supports (although I feel like Three Hopes have less than what you can get in a single playthrough) and I personally feel like the characters are far more likable and enjoyable. They still have thier flaws but it isn't as obnoxious or irritable compare to thier Three Houses counterparts. In fact, I like a few characters better now because of Three Hopes. The overall world-building, lore, and character writing are just as fantastic as it was in Three Houses. It's filled with plenty of political detail and depth.
You have a campbase that functions similarly to the Monastery but it's far more streamlined, smaller, and compressed. All of the services you can use such as training and cooking to boost support points, abilities, and class levels to a blacksmith to enchant weapons, and plenty of shops to buy items and trade resources to use to increase the functionality of these services. It's more focused without the fluff such as minigames or doing quests inside the campbase.
The huge difference is the gameplay since it functions like a Warrior game, you mainly do missions such as capture strongholds, defeat commanders and bosses, defend NPCs, and defeat a number of enemies within a certain time-limit. It can be repetitive but thanks to the game's class system and every character have thier own unique abilities and special attacks. There is some variation to the combat such as using different weapons and magic to attack. Not to mention you can still level up and increase stats just like any other Fire Emblem game. So while Three Hopes went from SRPG to musou action, it still retains the Fire Emblem DNA especially found in Three Houses.
My biggest complaint is very similar to one of my biggest complaint in Three Houses, the main story is incomplete and it ends in a cliffhanger, at least for Golden Wildfire but I will assume the same for the other two routes as well. I can easily say the plot is better well paced, there is a stronger focus on the epic political war drama between the nations and the routes drastically split off faster than in Three Houses. However, it is just unsatisfying to see how not all story beats presented does not get resolved or fulfilled.
Not to mention the game heavily assumed you played Three Houses since the game quickly breeze through the academy arc and many events that happened during that time are referred to a lot in conversations. So anyone that hasn't played Three Houses would be left out of the loop a lot despite the two games having separate timelines.
Overall, I can say while the action gameplay can be hit or miss for some people depending on your preference for Warrior games and it does improve on some of the flaws in Three Houses while retaining some of the same mistakes, I say Three Hopes is a worthy playthrough if you want more content within the world of Foldan.