January 21, 2020

Fire Emblem: Three Houses

January 21, 2020/ Josh DeWolfe

Misc & Gameplay

The sim elements do add a little bit of “oomph” to the normal Fire Emblem systems. When you unlock a new class, it feels good to know that that happened because of your decisions, even if they were pretty minor decisions
I definitely appreciate that so many of the game’s activities are centered around knowing the characters and their likes / dislikes, it really pushes you to get to know them better
Your ability to appeal to increase support with students ramps up so dramatically that, it feels a bit silly. At the start of the game it feels like this epic task to slowly and methodically win someone over from their house, comparatively, 30 hours later you can easily bring someone from no support up to A or B. It cheapens it a bit.
I have to admit that, the ability to see a preview of what each enemy is going to do, is really nice. Like, you could always suss it out pretty easily in previous games, and it was easy to abuse. So it’s nice that they just accepted that and streamlined it
It would be nice if they were waaaay more upfront about how magic works & who can use it. It’s really confusing to learn spells you can’t currently use, especially since there’s no class restrictions on weapons
It seems kind of absurd that you can win a weapon tournament and not gain any weapon experience for it
There’s so much to keep track of in this game, that I have this constant nagging feeling that I’ve forgotten something
The class progression in this game is kind of disappointing. Lots of classes don’t have an obvious path in the next tier up, and in particular, the master tier is just awful. It feels like half my army has to suddenly care about lances and riding, because the closest equivalent to an upgrade is “vaguely the same thing as what you do now, but on a horse”
Fishing is such an ill-conceived activity. It’s cool that there are special events and stuff, but being free, I feel encouraged to grind it out because it gives professor exp, but it takes like 20-30m a month, and you can’t really do too much with all the fish you catch
It’s kind of weird how by the end of the game you have so many action points, and you slowly realise that, there actually isn’t a lot to spend them on, when early on, it feels like there’s so much to do that it’ll never get done

Structure & Narrative

Everyone seems to go along with the idea of joining this monastery without much apprehension. Byleth has never heard of them, and Jeralt has been hiding from them for 20 years, but all the knights have to do is ask and they’re like, yup
They really don’t seem to try too hard to hide the fact that the church is kind of shady
It’s super freaky that the nameless church guards and such all look like soulless zombies with a nefarious-looking shadow, in their portraits. Feels foreshadow-y
It’s kind of weird how, the natural inclination seems to be to try and recruit characters from other houses first and foremost, which leads to you focusing on other characters more than those actually in your house
This game really is blunt with it’s foreshadowing, it’s kind of wild
It would be nice if they gave you a bit more visibility on how many battles you can do in one venture, or lessons in a lecture, because those values just kind of secretly go up. I was surprised when I could do 2 battles instead of 1, and if I’d know that, I may have planned my time differently
There’s a part in chapter 11 of the Black Eagles route where you’re given a hard story decision just for talking to a character. You don’t get the decision if you don’t talk to them, but if you DO, there’s no way out of it. It immediately ends your day without warning, and so if you aren’t ready for it, you kind of just waste a lot of resources without warning or anything and it sucks
I’m not really a fan of the way the support conversations are in this game. Every single A level support is essentially characters declaring their love for each other, which is fine, but when you get to the end of the game and start seeing the same character miraculously fall in love with 3 people at the same time, it feels a bit weird, and it’s strange that none of these relationships just end in friendship
I think it’s really neat how all the characters you recruit from other houses have a real narrative in part 2 of the game. In part 1 it’s just like “oh haha I love you professor, nobody is going to acknowledge how it’s weird that I’m abandoning my friends”, but it gets actually deep and introspective in part 2, despite there being no guarantee you would recruit those characters
It’s really cool how in part 2, you can have your students train you. It’s a little weird since you’re still giving them lessons, but it’s a really neat, subtle way of acknowledging the crew’s growth, professionally, but also as people and allies
There kind of just isn’t much to do by the end of the game. You have a whole month to train and prepare, and it really just feels like killing time
Just in general, this game feels so drawn out. Compared to old Fire Emblem games that were cutscene > battle > cutscene > battle, a lot of months in Three Houses you end up doing 2 exploration sequences, 3 lectures, and as many as 6 battles BEFORE you get to the actual story mission. Story missions are actually such a small chunk of your time spent in this game.

UI/UX

The Inventory menu confuses me, it’s like a little itty bitty menu in the middle of the screen when you already have this giant book open taking up 40% of the screen
Why does this game need a dash button, why is there a slow mode, please no dash buttons unless there’s a reason to not be dashing
Why does leaving an area require you to interact with the arrow pointing towards the door, rather than actually interacting with the actual door???
I like the text bubble over the head of people with notable conversations is red, whereas plebs do not have that detailing
Why is the name of the area you are highlighting in the fullscreen map placed OVERTOP of the area? Surely if you are highlighting it, you would want to actually be able to see said area
Whyyyyyy is the roster a list of cards you flip through one at a time? I 1000% would like to be able to see more than 1 character at a time, even if I can only see the details of a single character at once
When someone levels up a skill in a 3 person activity, it doesn’t seem to say who leveled it up, which is confusing, since there are 3 people gaining skill exp?
Maybe I’m just missing something, but it seems like there’s no easy way to see what’s in your item convoy. This includes when you’re in a shop - it doesn’t seem to indicate how many of an item you already own, which is super frustrating for things like beginner/intermediate seals
When you’re selecting who to eat the daily special with, you see who likes the meal as well as their motivation, but if you’re selecting a special meal, motivation isn’t shown at all
I feel like this minimap is real hard to use. I’m constantly switching between the ½ screen map, and the zoomed out minimap (and thereby skipping past the zoomed in minimap every time). Full map is the most useful, but hard to use once you’re moving. Zoomed out map is ok when you’re moving, but useless for a bigger view of the monastery
It’s so hard to just get an overview of your team and what their stats are
Why is reclassing hidden under the “inventory” menu?
Can one really not do certification exams when in exploration mode? It seems so odd to restrict it to only being done from the highest level menu the game has
Using stat up items is so annoying, I don’t think there’s a single screen in the game where you can see both the unit’s stats as well as their inventory, so I don’t even get to see what the stat is before OR after, without exiting and going to a separate menu, what an awful lack of feedback
The way the various doors and gates in the cathedral work is so frustrating. I find myself standing infront of them praying they actually open so frequently - as if it isn’t already bad enough how long it takes to explore the whole cathedral every month
I really wish I could look at what are the requirements for class certification before doing a lecture, considering 100% of my goals are driven by those requirements
How is there no way to look at your class experience from the stat menu LOL
It doesn’t look like there’s a way to see motivation, either???
It’s so weird that when you get a professor level up, if you’re currently exploring, you don’t gain an activity point. It even says “you can now do more activities,'' which is technically a lie, because you have to wait until next month
For whatever reason, when you’re in the sell menu, it doesn’t have the normal item menu format like in the inventory / convoy, with the tabs across the top. It’s kind of disorienting to suddenly have everything combined into a single list
It would be nice to be able to see what my renown is, and like, it’s really weird that you get a whole bunch of it way before you even have the opportunity to use it
It seems like the game remembers which characters you have set as adjutants between battles… But not who those adjutants were assigned to???
I wish there was a way to see my characters’ support levels and available support partners from the status menu, particularly so I could look at it when selecting adjutants
It’s super neat that there are weapons that have special effects if the wielder has a particular crest, but I can’t see my characters’ crests from the inventory screen
It’s weird that choir practice is the one activity that doesn’t seem to increase one’s motivation, even though you’re clearly shown your characters’ motivations while doing it
For whatever reason, when picking a meal to eat together, it only previews you up to 6 characters who like that dish, but in reality there are basically always 8+ who do. The preview can even show you only 5, when there are really like 7+. Why! If there are 7 people who like it, why would you show an empty space in the preview??