Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Mr E

Time to start a thread for this!

This is out tomorrow.
The review embargo is at 3pm today.

From the Director :

“To end the game with just one of the three houses, it took me 80 hours. I did not cut the vocals or cutscenes, of course. So if you want to do the three paths, it can take you more than 200 hours, ” said Toshiyuki Kasukihara.

There is also a new game+, and there is a very hard mode being released as free DLC after launch. So yeah - lots of content in this game.

E3 Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADaRsEhTB70

Yakult

Never played any FE game but looking forward to picking this up tomorrow!

Heard the game was "leaked" a few days ago too.

nix

I've been wanting to try a fire emblems game out for awhile now, i actually thought the other Fire emblem game (Warriors) was just your traditional fire emblem game, but it justs action beat em up it appears? Like Hyrule warriors is to Zelda?

So I should just ignore Warriors and go with Three houses... right?

Mr E

Yep, Warriors is a Musou game (button mashing against thousands of enemies, with some strategy elements).

This is more like a traditional Fire Emblem game.

Mr E

The review embargo just lifted.

9/10 seems to the the general consensus. Great stuff.

skerry

Skimmed over a few of the reviews as I'm at work but as said above a lot of 9/10 and 5/5's coming in. Looking forward to giving this a lash when it arrives.

Mickeroo

How do these games play exactly? Never touched a Fire Emblem game before and only picked up a switch this week.

Mr E

Turn based RPG with lots of story elements, great anime graphics and very deep strategy.

Look up fire emblem three houses gameplay (or review) on youtube. It will explain it better than I can.

Mr Crispy

Mickeroo wrote: »

How do these games play exactly? Never touched a Fire Emblem game before and only picked up a switch this week.

Pretty much in the same boat, but this review helped me get the basic gist (it was the first one that popped up in my feed, so there could well be better vids out there at explaining stuff).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_TdjV4nN7Q

Xenji

Mr E wrote: »

Turn based RPG with lots of story elements, great anime graphics and very deep strategy.

Look up fire emblem three houses gameplay (or review) on youtube. It will explain it better than I can.

I would not be calling it turn based or people will think it is more like traditional RPG games, it is a tactics game in the same vain as Disgaea, Valkyria and Advance Wars.

Mr E

A tactics game that you play turn by turn? Splitting hairs, Xenji.

Xenji

Mr E wrote: »

A tactics game that you play turn by turn? Splitting hairs, Xenji.

Ah now tactical RPG is a genre in itself, imagine it somebody claimed Tactics Orge was a turn based RPG :eek::P

Banjo

In fairness, I'd as much sympathy for the consumers who were horrified by the Tactical aspects of Tactics Ogre as I'd have for the ones who were appalled by the game having Ogres in it.

Yakult

Anyone know of Argos are stocking this? Nothing on the website as of yet...

nix

Yakult wrote: »

Anyone know of Argos are stocking this? Nothing on the website as of yet...

They are usually slow with putting up new releases, my guess is it will be on their site come Monday.

Mr Crispy

I don't know if Irish stores automatically stock the same stuff as in the UK, but the British stores definitely have it. Looks like they're just slower updating the site as nix says.

RobbingBandit

Was there a stock shortage on this not much around anywhere

Xenji

Mine arrived today, but I will not have it till tomorrow morning when it is in the Parcel Motel.

I do not think there should be a shortage, Fates was the best selling game in the series to date so they know there will be a high demand for the game.

johnf26

Gamestop didnt get it on stock today(kilkenny)said the shipping company delayed it that they would have it Saturday or Monday and 10e off for people who pre ordered it.

Xenji

If anyone is planning on using English voices Nintendo are releasing a future patch to remove Chris Niosi (Byleth) from the game after a string of sexual assault allegations.

Xenji

So it turns out that Intelligent Systems played only a small part in the development of the game and instead it was Koei Tecmo who were the primary developers, led by Kou Shibusawa who created Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Nobunaga's Ambition and was also a co-producer on Nioh.

It throws up the question as well as to what Intelligent Systems are working on if they could not fully focus on this, a new or remastered version of a Paper Mario or Advance Wars game?

skerry

How are folks getting on with this? I've only played just over and hour and liking it so far. Just exploring the monastery, fairly chilled. Voice acting is very good. Just at the part where I choose my house, think I'll go with the Blue Lions.

Xenji

I am about half way through with it, there are really no bad games in this series and this is no different. Went with the Black Eagles as they seemed to have the more interesting characters and they play the way I like at the start, the difficulty is starting to increase now but no grinding is needed if you do everything in the monastery correctly.

It also has a nice collection of Japanese voice actors from various anime and you can clearly see how having a different studio handle most of the game development has refreshed the series a bit.

skerry

Xenji wrote: »

I am about half way through with it, there are really no bad games in this series and this is no different. Went with the Black Eagles as they seemed to have the more interesting characters and they play the way I like at the start, the difficulty is starting to increase now but no grinding is needed if you do everything in the monastery correctly.

It also has a nice collection of Japanese voice actors from various anime and you can clearly see how having a different studio handle most of the game development has refreshed the series a bit.

Cheers Xenji, good to get insight from someone who's got decent experience with the series. This is my first Fire Emblem game and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in.

I'm going with the English audio cos, unlike most JRPG's where the English can be intolerable (looking at you Xenoblade 2), I think the FE voice acting is done very well so far.

As far as battles go I've only played the prologue one so can't really comment on that side of it. I did read an article with a little bit of background on the different houses and saw that the story with Black Eagles is supposed to be one of the better ones but your a bit squishier at the start so went with Blue Lions as I think they are supposed to be pretty good for people not used to the series. Will see how it goes, its a big decision considering they're quoting around 80hrs for a play-through.

johnf26

I think my partner is addicted,shes already put in 60 hours and an her 3rd reply

Mickeroo

johnf26 wrote: »

I think my partner is addicted,shes already put in 60 hours and an her 3rd reply

I thought each play through was a minimum of 60 hours?

Xenji

Mickeroo wrote: »

I thought each play through was a minimum of 60 hours?

You can do it in around 40-45 hours if you are used to the series on the first play through, I say for newcomers or people playing on hard it would be closer to 60, each of the following routes after the first play though should take about half the time.

Xenji

skerry wrote: »

Cheers Xenji, good to get insight from someone who's got decent experience with the series. This is my first Fire Emblem game and I'm looking forward to getting stuck in.

I'm going with the English audio cos, unlike most JRPG's where the English can be intolerable (looking at you Xenoblade 2), I think the FE voice acting is done very well so far.

As far as battles go I've only played the prologue one so can't really comment on that side of it. I did read an article with a little bit of background on the different houses and saw that the story with Black Eagles is supposed to be one of the better ones but your a bit squishier at the start so went with Blue Lions as I think they are supposed to be pretty good for people not used to the series. Will see how it goes, its a big decision considering they're quoting around 80hrs for a play-through.

Yeah you are right about the Black Eagles at the start, but Hubert and Bernadetta can both end up one hitting most enemies after a short period of time as a monk and archer respectively, then you have Ferdinand who you can quickly get his riding up to be a Cavalier and you can have Dorothea as a Warlock.

Have your MC focus on swords, Casper and Edelgard on Axes and Armour and finally Petra on Swords and riding to get her as a Pegasus Knight and you will have a very balanced team, plus you have a dedicated healer in Linhardt.

Also do not forget to max out classes before you change them as you will get permanent stat boosts for doing it.

johnf26

70hours

chrislad

I'm about 10 hours in, and I'm really enjoying it. I was a bit skeptical, but you really do end up caring for the students, and what could have been a grind, is actually a very interesting leveling system, with some great dialogue.

skerry

Xenji wrote: »

Yeah you are right about the Black Eagles at the start, but Hubert and Bernadetta can both end up one hitting most enemies after a short period of time as a monk and archer respectively, then you have Ferdinand who you can quickly get his riding up to be a Cavalier and you can have Dorothea as a Warlock.

Have your MC focus on swords, Casper and Edelgard on Axes and Armour and finally Petra on Swords and riding to get her as a Pegasus Knight and you will have a very balanced team, plus you have a dedicated healer in Linhardt.

Also do not forget to max out classes before you change them as you will get permanent stat boosts for doing it.

I'm early days yet cos I don't remember any tutorials coming up on leveling particular skills or focusing on classes, least not that I remember.



Only just finished the first mock battle in the Monastery. Need to look up how to work on recruiting but I'm guessing its a bit early for that too. I hear Lysithea is supposed to be one of the better ones to recruit, think she levels fast or something.



Enjoying it so far, first FE game so taking my time to get used to the mechanics. Think I'll stick with Blue Lions and maybe keep Black Eagles for another play-through

skerry

Man there is a lot to take in in this game. I feel like I'm winging my way through it. Only level 7 so early days I guess but I'm finding the layers of mechanics a bit overwhelming at the moment. Finding the level 5 training battles a tricky to finish without losing a team member so not holding out much hope for when things get serious.

Picked Blue Lions and I'm finding it hard to figure out what class certain characters should be. Ashe is next to useless so no clue what to do with him.

Hoping it all starts coming together soon cos I'm finding myself spending more time trying to figure out what to do than actually just enjoying the game.

Xenji

skerry wrote: »

Man there is a lot to take in in this game. I feel like I'm winging my way through it. Only level 7 so early days I guess but I'm finding the layers of mechanics a bit overwhelming at the moment. Finding the level 5 training battles a tricky to finish without losing a team member so not holding out much hope for when things get serious.

Picked Blue Lions and I'm finding it hard to figure out what class certain characters should be. Ashe is next to useless so no clue what to do with him.

Hoping it all starts coming together soon cos I'm finding myself spending more time trying to figure out what to do than actually just enjoying the game.

Do you have Nintendo online, it's handy for newcomers to the series if you do, it will show the percentage choice of what people picked on your free day, you should only really be spending one day in the monastery once you gain a couple of activity points and then using the rest of the month for battles.

Make sure to use the choir and meal option every chance to keep motivation up and use gifts as well, if you are not sure what class Characters could be look at their goals as it should give you some indication.

You mainly need one solid tank with an axe, a dedicated mage, a dedicated Archer as they are the best class in the game for raking up lots of kills, one of each the riders and a full time healer, your MC should focus on swords as should one other member, once you get access to the dancer class later in the game it is a must as well.

I think about half way through the game all my students were at level 23 at a minimum and some were in the high 20s.

skerry

Xenji wrote: »

Do you have Nintendo online, it's handy for newcomers to the series if you do, it will show the percentage choice of what people picked on your free day, you should only really be spending one day in the monastery once you gain a couple of activity points and then using the rest of the month for battles.

Make sure to use the choir and meal option every chance to keep motivation up and use gifts as well, if you are not sure what class Characters could be look at their goals as it should give you some indication.

You mainly need one solid tank with an axe, a dedicated mage, a dedicated Archer as they are the best class in the game for raking up lots of kills, one of each the riders and a full time healer, your MC should focus on swords as should one other member, once you get access to the dancer class later in the game it is a must as well.

I think about half way through the game all my students were at level 23 at a minimum and some were in the high 20s.

I've been using the online suggestions alright which are handy. Should I be doing more than one training battle a month so? Did one last night and noticed I still had an activity point afterwards but it was too late do didn't jump in to another one.

Seen prompts every now and then that certain team members are able to take exams but not sure why those ones are ready to take them and not others, just seen the red circle beside their name. Only remembered your last post last night when you said to max out a class before changing up so will remember that next time. I thought if the student had an intermediate seal then they could do an intermediate exam but it seems I'm not at the required level yet so will stick with beginner classes and work up.

Any idea at what level I get rider classes, are they intermediate classes? Haven't seen much mention of riders in tutorials apart from group activities to clean stables etc. I must not be using archers effectively either cos I find them the least useful. I keep my one archer away from the front but he only does minor damage and is super squishy, maybe I need to level him up a bit more.

I think my team diversity isn't too bad based on what you said above. I have an axe wielding tank, couple of lancers, swordsman, dedicated healer (Mercedes who is quite good). I also have an offensive mage but I'm working on recruiting Lysethia for that role. Where I am letting myself down though is I seen to have a couple of team members at level 7 and then ones I don't tend to give as much attention to are at level 2 or 3. I'm guessing I should keep levels as even as I can across the team.

Quick question on recruiting, do you concentrate on getting Byleth to focus on the required skills to recruit or can I recruit them by spending time/ giving gifts alone? Seems a lot of chopping and changing to get required level in various weapons when I really want to keep him as a sword user.

I think I'll spend some time this evening having a refresh of the tutorials cos there are some I've forgotten altogether, like why the bandits always seem to counter me twice for every time I attack them.

Definitely enjoying the game but it is a steep learning curve and I'm only picking it up for an hour here and there so hard to make decent progress and soak up all the mechanics they introduce. I think its a game I would enjoy far more on a second playthrough when I have a bit more confidence in what I'm doing and have my head fully around whats going on.

Mr E

I think for a game like this, you need to commit to longer play sessions at the start.
If you play for 15 minutes and then go play something else, you'll run into trouble.

skerry

Mr E wrote: »

I think for a game like this, you need to commit to longer play sessions at the start.
If you play for 15 minutes and then go play something else, you'll run into trouble.

Minimum I'd play it for is an hour. I just play something else if I've got less time than that. Will try get a couple of hours in this evening if I can and try get the basic stuff nailed down. There's definitely some basic tutorial stuff from the beginning I've completely forgotten. Only remembered after the training battle last night that I can change team member placement before a battle which would have helped massively last night as it was one of the ones that splits the team into two from the start. Need to refresh myself on gambits and battalions too.

Xenji

skerry wrote: »

I've been using the online suggestions alright which are handy. Should I be doing more than one training battle a month so? Did one last night and noticed I still had an activity point afterwards but it was too late do didn't jump in to another one.

Seen prompts every now and then that certain team members are able to take exams but not sure why those ones are ready to take them and not others, just seen the red circle beside their name. Only remembered your last post last night when you said to max out a class before changing up so will remember that next time. I thought if the student had an intermediate seal then they could do an intermediate exam but it seems I'm not at the required level yet so will stick with beginner classes and work up.

Any idea at what level I get rider classes, are they intermediate classes? Haven't seen much mention of riders in tutorials apart from group activities to clean stables etc. I must not be using archers effectively either cos I find them the least useful. I keep my one archer away from the front but he only does minor damage and is super squishy, maybe I need to level him up a bit more.

I think my team diversity isn't too bad based on what you said above. I have an axe wielding tank, couple of lancers, swordsman, dedicated healer (Mercedes who is quite good). I also have an offensive mage but I'm working on recruiting Lysethia for that role. Where I am letting myself down though is I seen to have a couple of team members at level 7 and then ones I don't tend to give as much attention to are at level 2 or 3. I'm guessing I should keep levels as even as I can across the team.

Quick question on recruiting, do you concentrate on getting Byleth to focus on the required skills to recruit or can I recruit them by spending time/ giving gifts alone? Seems a lot of chopping and changing to get required level in various weapons when I really want to keep him as a sword user.

I think I'll spend some time this evening having a refresh of the tutorials cos there are some I've forgotten altogether, like why the bandits always seem to counter me twice for every time I attack them.

Definitely enjoying the game but it is a steep learning curve and I'm only picking it up for an hour here and there so hard to make decent progress and soak up all the mechanics they introduce. I think its a game I would enjoy far more on a second playthrough when I have a bit more confidence in what I'm doing and have my head fully around whats going on.

You can do as many as you feel necessary at the beginning, think of it as grinding, but when you get the extra battle point you should only be doing those missions that require points, plus all the rare monster ones, I usually do 4 battles per month and then the main mission.

Yeah you should try and keep your levels constant, my main, tank and archer are all closer to level 30 currently as they get used the most, but you have to keep leveling up the others as well so they can get better classes, have higher level ones do the starting damage and have the lower levels then pick them off and in no time they will increase in level, if you don't they can easily be one shotted as the game progresses.

Also remember if you are struggling you can temporarily recruit an extra member from one of the other houses for a month, I have not bothered recruiting anyone extra permanently to my house yet as I will most likely play through all 3 houses, it is not really necessary for your first playthrough and I would just focus on your own team and their skills, presents only work for motivation and connection, most characters if you did want to recruit them permanently require you to have a minimum skill grade before they will join.

You get the cavalier class at the intermediate stage, the same with the pegasus knight, but I would leave that till you can use Flayn later in the game. As for the class changes the requirements are not just the level, but also the grades they have with the likes of swords, faith ect...you will see when you want to upgrade a class the percentage chance you have, if you meet the requirements and it is 100% you should go ahead and upgrade, maxing the previous class first though.

skerry

Xenji wrote: »

You can do as many as you feel necessary at the beginning, think of it as grinding, but when you get the extra battle point you should only be doing those missions that require points, plus all the rare monster ones, I usually do 4 battles per month and then the main mission.

Yeah you should try and keep your levels constant, my main, tank and archer are all closer to level 30 currently as they get used the most, but you have to keep leveling up the others as well so they can get better classes, have higher level ones do the starting damage and have the lower levels then pick them off and in no time they will increase in level, if you don't they can easily be one shotted as the game progresses.

Also remember if you are struggling you can temporarily recruit an extra member from one of the other houses for a month, I have not bothered recruiting anyone extra permanently to my house yet as I will most likely play through all 3 houses, it is not really necessary for your first playthrough and I would just focus on your own team and their skills, presents only work for motivation and connection, most characters if you did want to recruit them permanently require you to have a minimum skill grade before they will join.

You get the cavalier class at the intermediate stage, the same with the pegasus knight, but I would leave that till you can use Flayn later in the game. As for the class changes the requirements are not just the level, but also the grades they have with the likes of swords, faith ect...you will see when you want to upgrade a class the percentage chance you have, if you meet the requirements and it is 100% you should go ahead and upgrade, maxing the previous class first though.

Appreciate the advice Xenji, will get stuck in later and see how I progress. I'll see how far behind some of the lower level team members are and if I've messed things up too much I might restart. Only 6 or 7 hours in and have a save just at the point when you pick your house.

skerry

Played for a couple of hours last night and had a much better time of it than I'd been having earlier this week. Focused on training battles for the most part and breezed through the two I was having difficulty with originally. My archer is now an integral part of the team and got him up 5 levels to be on par with the rest of the team by letting him mop up kills for the 2 battles. Maxed out his starter class and turned him into a fighter. No wonder I thought he was crap, he was level 2 .
Think I was getting caught up in all the different activities and losing focus on the important stuff like y'know, leveling my squad and things like that Looking forward to getting stuck in tonight now to see how I get on with the end of month mission.

skerry

Is it just me or does it take a long time to max out the Beginner classes? I know the advice is to max out before changing, but I have Dimitri as a Soldier and its been prompting me to reclass him as intermediate class of Cavalier for a while now. I've been holding out but I don't see any class ability listed for maxing out Soldier and thinking at this stage I'm probably only hindering myself by not reclassing as I'm losing out on progress on the Intermediate class. Could do with a couple of mounted units. Says a good few team members are eligible to class up, but apart from maxing out the starting classes quickly, the beginnner classes are taking a good while.

Cina

I'm addicted to this! Well into my first playthrough now and I can definitely see myself doing more of them.

Not sure I made the right choice picking Edelgard's house first as the story it's supposedly less fun and more serious than the other two.

I did think these games were supposed to be hard though, it's so easy on normal/classic. I'll definitely have to up the difficulty on my next playthrough.

chrislad

Cina wrote: »

I'm addicted to this! Well into my first playthrough now and I can definitely see myself doing more of them.

Not sure I made the right choice picking Edelgard's house first as the story it's supposedly less fun and more serious than the other two.

I did think these games were supposed to be hard though, it's so easy on normal/classic. I'll definitely have to up the difficulty on my next playthrough.

I'm finding the same - I'm not too challenged on Normal/Classic, but it's a good starting point to move onto the next playthrough. I think I'm nearing the end of Act 2 with the Blue Lions at the moment.

gibgodsman

Honestly, I have been a gamer all my life, 25 now, stupidly good PC which I built myself, 3 screens, expensive chair, all the goodies, Ps4 Pro, Xbox One, Switch.

I have not enjoyed playing a single player game since Mount & Blade warband, and even that is open world and sandbox so it doesn't really count.

Fire Emblem Three Houses has brought my love for games back. So much time playing stupid Multiplayer games because the thought of starting a single player game while working 40+ hours a week doesn't work for me.

Without a doubt the best game I have played since the good days of Final Fantasy 7,8,9, and 10.

skerry

Have to say I'm having a great time with this too. The gameplay loop is just so damn satisfying. There's been a lot of comparisons of the social aspect to Persona 5 but as much as I enjoy Persona 5 when I play it, I end up doing a palace and dropping it again for ages, it just doesn't hold my attention for long enough. This on the other hand is like crack, there's alway something interesting to do and your not tied to doing the social thing all the time with the options of training battles and other activities to take part in. It was a bit of a learning curve at the start for me, but there's plenty to do without it being overly complex.

Playing Blue Lions and have just recruited Dorothea and Lysethia so I'm not putting any more effort into recruiting other students now unless there's a need to recruit other faculty members but don't think I'm far enough to worry about that yet. Have Ingrid as a Pegasus Knight now and she's gone from weakest member to MVP in most battles.

Voice acting and characters are top notch too. Find myself getting drawn into the support conversations and I thought they would be a chore to listen to, but their written and voiced so well even the characters I wasn't too fond of have interesting arcs.

Also, they say Dastards a lot

Yakult

Anyone else is playing with the Japanese voice over instead of the English?

Really enjoyable game I have to say!

Cina

it's just so damn GOOD. like the poster said above, it's basically a drug in gaming form, so hard to pull away from, and it doesn't help that it's on a console you never need to be pulled away from!

I've found the English voices pretty good myself, certainly most better than some recent Japanese games, here's lookin' at you Xenoblade 2 and Persona 5!

chrislad

skerry wrote: »

Playing Blue Lions and have just recruited Dorothea and Lysethia so I'm not putting any more effort into recruiting other students now unless there's a need to recruit other faculty members but don't think I'm far enough to worry about that yet.

I didn't recruit too many, but I didn't get these two. They wish I had recruited them now

chrislad

I apparently finished the Blue Lions campaign last night! 26:55 on the save game clock, so I wasn't expecting the ending, even though it seemed like it was going to happen! I did this on Normal/Classic (last mission actually the toughest, lost 3 people vs 1 for all the rest of the campaign) - I'm going to start with Edelgards House on Hard/Normal now, so I can concentrate on tactics without worrying about losing people. Last campaign will be the Hard/Classic mode.

skerry

chrislad wrote: »

I apparently finished the Blue Lions campaign last night! 26:55 on the save game clock, so I wasn't expecting the ending, even though it seemed like it was going to happen! I did this on Normal/Classic (last mission actually the toughest, lost 3 people vs 1 for all the rest of the campaign) - I'm going to start with Edelgards House on Hard/Normal now, so I can concentrate on tactics without worrying about losing people. Last campaign will be the Hard/Classic mode.

Did you skip a lot of cutscenes or something? I'm 25 hrs in and only starting chapter 7. Damn tea parties distracting me

super_furry

Finally got started last night and went with Black Eagles. I already think the Yellow Deer guy is a dick - far too chipper.

chrislad

skerry wrote: »

Did you skip a lot of cutscenes or something? I'm 25 hrs in and only starting chapter 7. Damn tea parties distracting me

No, not the story ones (maybe a couple of the support ones that seemed to be going nowhere) - Maybe because I didn't realise there were battles you could do without using points, but I ended on Professor level B+, and I think it was about 140 battles or so.

I'm not complaining in the slightest, just surprised after hearing all the 60 hour per house comments. I'll probably have to focus a bit more on bonds etc in the harder playthrough so it will take longer. With normal, it was generally easiest to front load Blythe, Dimitri, and Catherine, who would take down most with one turn, and use the other squad as back up/cover. I think I finished on level 53 for the professor, and close enough for Dimitri.