Club Nintendo

[JWeinCom]

RolStoppable said:

JWeinCom said:

I agree with most of this. I actually liked the Garreg Mach sections of Three Houses because it let you get to know the characters even when you weren't using them in battles. But, it did take a long time and sometimes I really just wanted to get to the actual gameplay. Being able to flip back and forth helps even though I would have liked the camp segments to have more features. But, I do like how the facilities, equipment, and upgrading characters all tie together. It's way more intuitive than the character upgrade systems in FE Warriors and Hyrule Warriors. Plus, there are more ways to develop bonds between characters aside from the main characters, so Manuela doesn't have to die alone now. 

Coherent is the right word for the story. Everything makes sense, but it just doesn't have the same impact as three houses. Particularly in the conflicts. In three houses there were deeply personal issues driving the action in addition to the general military conflict. Here, that's not really present. For instance, so far no mention has been made of Dimitri's connection to Edelgard. The story still works without it, but is just not as interesting and it doesn't feel as climactic when they battle. 

Dimitri's connection to Edelgard doesn't come up in the Black Eagles path, but it has already been hinted at early on in the Blue Lions path.

I don't have an issue with the story complaints you've made so far; I think your problem is that you are looking at Three Hopes as a standalone game and as such tend to blend out the knowledge of Fodlan and its characters from Three Houses. While there are obviously plot differences between Three Houses and Three Hopes, the characters are portrayed almost identically between both games, so I don't pretend that I don't really know them yet. That's why it's impactful all the same when certain opposing characters choose to die on the battlefield and won't allow themselves to be recruited. One such instance in the Black Eagles path:

Spoiler!

There's a battle involving Jeralt's mercenaries where the game makes note before the battle that a crucial decision can be made here. I ended up killing Jeralt which significantly changes a later battle where you could potentially recruit Leonie. It starts out by her fighting on your side due to a common goal, but then she ends up getting poisoned; you can activate the strategy to recruit her by offering her help via your own healers, but she decides to refuse because your army is Jeralt's murderer. Her stubbornness seals her death by poison and it's tragic.

There is a bunch of characters who cannot be recruited no matter what due to their ideals, but Leonie is actually a recruitable character on Edelgard's route.

It's not just that I'm consciously disregarding the stuff I know from Three Houses, it's that in this telling, a lot of the relationships are just different because of things that did or did not happen.

Spoiler!

For instance, there doesn't seem to be any indication that Edelgard ever acted as the flame Emperor, or that if she did Dimitri knew. So there issues with eachother are purely political here. They tried to suplement that by making me kill poor Ingrid, but it's not the same.

Likewise, Edelgard never invaded the masoleum to steal the crest stones, so there is less of a personal element to her conflict with Rhea. 

In this case, the struggle is just two political entities vying for control. And it's fine, it's coherent, it just doesn't have nearly the punch it did in three houses.