Fire Emblem Three Houses reviews: Meta: 89, OC: 89

[Jumpin]

I liked Awakening overall, but I had some issues with it - as I did feel kind of tricked in my first playthrough playing it with the expectations I had from previous games in the franchise - my initial reaction was very negative for Awakening:

1. The story was clearly a lot more nebulous than previous games. Strategy RPGs tend to tell some of the best semi-linear stories (linear, but with the player able to effect the details fairly significantly based on who lives/dies, what decisions the player makes, who the player recruits). Awakening seemed to throw the sort of grand narrative other strategy RPGs (most notably Fire Emblem Blazing Sword, Ogre Battle 64, and Final Fantasy Tactics) have. Even some of the weaker stories, like Shadow Dragon seemed to have stronger stories than Awakening.

2. Characters were MUCH harder to get. In older Fire Emblem games on a standard level you could add 1-5 characters on a single map throughout the game, so losing a couple here and there wasn’t devastating. In Awakening, if you lose characters it seems to ruin the game. They designed the game with this casual mode, and then rather than using casual mode as a tack-on for noobs they made traditional mode as kind of a “see we haven’t forgotten about our fans, now here’s a really shitty mockery of the sort of game you want to play.” - And Birthright was very similar in Fates, and even Conquests was not really up to par (or close to it). Essentially, in Awakening, you had to do one hard level in order to get one character, so playing traditionally it wasn’t worth getting the kids at all because you'd have to expend sometimes 2-3 characters to get one and NOT advance the story. What did Awakening do to fix the small trickle of ACTUAL characters? Add in a bunch of nulls who have no participation with the plot.

3. WAAAY too much grinding. Fire Emblem used to be one of those RPGs designed not to force in grinding. It was very refreshing where you could get a game with a lot of difficulty to do perfectly, but able to finish it with few problems. But Awakening mandates it, and throws in random encounters and repeatable levels you really shouldn’t ignore.

4. Relationships - seem rather empty for the most part. In older games there was a lot more uniqueness among the relationship text than Awakening. They seemed a lot more special. At best, the relationship text in Awakening was for a large part only a gimmick to lead to having children.

I think Awakening is a good game if you play on casual: it is a shitty game if you don’t. Casual is REALLY easy, but not playing casual is super annoying.
Older Fire Emblem games are significantly better with the writing.
While balance can be hit and miss on older Fire Emblems, the non-casual mode of Awakening is the worst balanced FE game I ever played.

Awakening does not have a grand and epic feeling narrative, it is more like a B-RPG story built up of substandard sub-plots in the same universe. Basically, with strategy games: strong linear stories or strong emergent storytelling (basically pick up the elements and form your own narrative: ala Breath of the Wild, Xenoblade Chronicles X, Dwarf Fortress, Crusader Kings): Awakening does neither well. It’s literally a series of weakly connected scenarios.



I found Awakening was most fun as a pretty open ended army/dream team builder using casual mode. For that I found the game a lot of fun on my second playthrough after the first one which was perhaps the most miserable experience I had playing an FE game. But I built an armada of flyers with extraordinary strength, and I had a lot of fun doing that.

In short, FE:Awakening is a good game, but it is a very different sort of game than the old Fire Emblems, and experiences players should resist the temptation to play the mode advertised to be designed for a traditional experience: don’t play it it’s a trap! Older FE games are strategy adventures at their core with RPG mechanics being on the outside, while Awakening is more like an RPG core with strategy elements on the outside layer.


Anyway, how is three houses? Is it more like the epic adventure of FE traditional, or is it more like “casual” (Casual mode isn’t actually casual) RPG that is Awakening?

And before anyone whines about Awakening being better and the only way for the series to move forward: I’m not trying to argue otherwise. I am fine with the old Fire Emblems being ported or remade: I have plenty of material to replay and satisfy. I am more interested in seeing what kind of other experiences they can do with the license.