FIRE EMBLEM

probably not, no

i'm not letting myself get three houses until i free up a substantial block of time for it

The player also has free time events, where they can socially interact with students and build up relationships with them. Building a relationship is done through Support actions, with actions and dialogue choices impacting a character's Support level. If the relationship is strong enough, this can lead to the two marrying after a story-based time skip event.

o_O

o cool an ephebophilia simulator, thx nintendo

that stuff isn't new but i think it's all adults this time unlike the 3DS games

reviews !
https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-07-25-fire-emblem-three-houses-review-a-tactical-masterclass

https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2019/07/25/fire-emblem-three-houses-the-kotaku-review

Edelgard

EDGELARD?

this game is really exposing how many people have never encountered that name before

I'm sorry. ._.

this game is very french

so much talking

professor trashcan getting into the swing of things now...... still not sure I understand the fundamentals of the battle system. should probably read a guide. advance wars' system was much more transparent to me

thinking of trying this one on hard/casual instead of normal/classic, awakening was simultaneously easy and stressful on the latter which is a combo i don't love

My secret shame is that I never really understood Advance Wars

My two FE experiences (on the DS and the Wii) ultimately just reminded me of box-pushing puzzle games.

fire emblem is the most popular tactics rpg because of the character-focused stuff not because it transcends the laboriousness of tactics wargame gameplay in any way

apparently this one was mostly made by the koei tecmo team that made all the romance of the three kingdoms games, instead of by intsys, which explains a lot

i really love this game so far (about 5 hours in, have only done maybe 3 actual battles). i can't believe i've never played a fire emblem before. this is ridiculously up my alley (FF Tactics is still one of my all time faves)

does anyone have a good link for general battle tactics? so far i'm just using common sense tactical RPG/wargame moves - grunty units (axes, swords) in the front lines, archers and magic protected behind them.

also what house are you all? i went with black eagle (edelgard), but 90% of that was because i like hubert a lot for some reason. he also has good authority/battalion leading skillz

i haven't picked up the game yet but planning to go blue lions

https://kotaku.com/controversial-voice-actor-chris-niosi-will-be-replaced-1836754541

I played Fire Emblem Heroes on iPhone for ages and loved it until it became apparent that all my tactics had been terrible and it would have taken forever to fix. Apparently the new characters are in the mobile game now...is that enough to return? Idk. Has anyone played both and know how the Switch game compares? Do I need to buy one?

I'm about 5 hours in too - black eagle, w/edgelard & professor trashcan

best website i've found so far for reference information and tips/guides:

https://samurai-gamers.com/fire-emblem-three-houses/

for example i appreciate the straightforward nature of these recommended class paths for each character: https://samurai-gamers.com/fire-emblem-three-houses/recommended-classes/

I’m about 4 or 5 chapters in now - no idea what is going on story wise. I think I’ve been a bit flippant with some characters too - was a bit of a bummer when caspar died because I just didn’t pay close attention to his HP :/

KM are you instructing manually? and if so how are you choosing what to instruct? I did it once and it seemed confusing so have just been going auto

yep, manual instruction all the way! i haven't tried auto yet

the first step is to make sure each student has reasonable Goals. the game sets them for you by default, but they can be adjusted.

when instructing, i start with the students who have the highest motivation (a sad reflection of a real life bad teacher). direct instruction completely drains a student's motivation meter, so it's good to let it build up to 3 or 4 before instructing.

after choosing the student to instruct, i usually focus on the skills listed in their Goal (e.g., Sword and Authority). however, there are other considerations - blue arrows up indicate a better chance of the bonus experience, red arrows down mean slower learning. and a little finger icon means that the teacher is especially adept and so the teaching is more likely to be successful.

good tips
https://www.kotaku.co.uk/2019/07/26/tips-for-playing-fire-emblem-three-houses

important to treat your students with wonka-esque compassion in this game

I keep killing them :/

RIP caspar
RIP hubert
RIP mercedes

I wanna run 2 u

tbf killing them is very wonka-esque

doesn't this one have a rewind ability so you can avoid killing them even on classic mode

awakening was funny when it would drop like a level 1 teenage girl in my squad at the start of a mission and i would immediately accidentally get her one-shot killed

it does but who can be bothered

am I supposed to rewind to just before the strike that kills in the hope they whiff next time to or do I have to rewind all the way back to the last move taken with that character and not place them in such peril next time?

the latter would be how you would use rewind to save them

RIP

I would rewind to your own birth and lay a better fire emblem foundation with your life.

you are all dead to me (like many of the recruits of the black eagles who have unfortunately perished at the hands of my complacency and all-round bad play)

|||||||| do you use multiple save files? rewinding is an option, after losing someone mid-battle, but if you run out of rewinds or just forget, you can always just load the save file before the battle and try again.

i haven't played a fire emblem before, but i would guess that by mid-end game it'll start to get really difficult if you've lost someone like Hubert who has strong batallion skills

hubert is dead* let it go move on

*I swear he turned up in a cut scene last night

(no multiple saves, no rewinds. normal/classic. )

Hubert has passed away to another dimension

i saw Hubert at Trader Vic's

usually on normal your guys that don't die eventually outpace the enemies in strength by enough that it becomes less perilous

RIP dorothea

omg

who is still alive? your house is turning into the alamo

new dn is ||||||||..._____|||...________

edgelard and professor trashcan

sylvain and some other no marks

i refuse to talk to sylvain due to his tendency to objectify the women in his life

The first time you see him, Edelgard does tell you to avoid him (a few chapters ago). This time though there's a whole cinematic where he goes up to you and says "only one of us will survive" or something to that effect, so I assumed we would actually fight!

Played it again and dammit, you were right - it DID say the win conditions upon starting the battle

Certain classes can/can't do magic, yes? My Byleth is developing Faith but can't cast Heal because he's a Thief, I think...

yes, that's right. you can change classes at any time as long as you meet the conditions, can even go back to older classes

death knight is beatable in all showings if you know the game systems well enough. i did what the game told me and avoided them but even if i had attempted a kill i'd have failed horribly

Beat the game, loved it. Hungry to do it again, and re-recruit my sleepy favorite Linhardt so he can actually survive the final battle.

Does the BIG CHOICE that happens in Chapter 10 only seem to happen in the Edelgard/Black Eagle route? Definitely chuckled when the game came to a halt twice and explicitly said "THIS WILL DRASTICALLY CHANGE THE STORY OF THE GAME", followed by an excellently Feel-Bad route of heroically killing all your former classmates.
I looked it up and it seems like it won't happen in the Yellow/Blue routes, making this... four playthroughs. Yowza. Thank goodness there's New Game+.

I both like and dislike the fact that there's still so many mysteries about Byleth, Rhea, etc. even after 50 hours but it's also spurring me to play again, so mission accomplished, Intelligent Systems.

Is this as hard as, say, Wargroove?

Haven't played Wargroove but I wouldn't call this very hard. Nowhere near XCOM level, but like that game, massively satisfying once your little army become godlike warriors. Also there's a time-rewind mechanic that you can buff up throughout the game, and I greatly find this preferable to the infinite-save/reload paradigm for these games.

Most reviews pegged Normal difficulty as being too easy, so I played on and Hard found it all right, though the beginning could be a bit rough. Some of that is due to obscurity, like, the game is not incredibly clear about what weapons/units have advantage over others, and some of the class system is hidden for a while. But this game seems designed for NG+ since you have to play it at least 3 times to get all the story, so I wonder if it's even easier on the second goes. Still, RIP Linhardt.

Around chapter 8 in my second playthrough. NG+ almost feels like cheating, especially since I lost patience and bought my professor level back. That means you can more easily regain student motivation, do three battles per weekend, etc. Also went with "Casual" this time and boy, the game feels very different when you're not in panic rewind mode trying to save every student.

Still love it though. Recruited Catherine, Shamir, Sylvain (lol female Byleth can recruit him immediately with no requirements because he's thirsty as hell) and Ingrid to my Alliance faction. I admit though I still feel more attached to my Black Eagle students and I'll go back for some if I make it to playthroughs 3 and 4.

$35 at Best Buy and Amazon, so I'll be picking it up today.

I'm confused so far!

get used to it

Yeah! Even looking at beginner guides is overwhelming.

foolishly, I put it down about 25 hours in - going to try go back to it, all the wee systems are a bit intimidating though

kinda tempted to just start over

always look at the combat forecast before engaging, especially hit% and double attacks
unintuitively, equipping ligher weapons (iron instead of steel sword) often helps because you can double during player phase or avoid being doubled during enemy phase

i forcibly put it down after my first playthrough because i could easily sink 300 hours into this thing, tactics games are my weakness. it also helped that the monastery sections are a slog, stupid busywork that could well be handled by menus instead of navigating a 3d space and that all 4 routes are apparently very similar in map selection

yeah this definitely became that sorta thing for me, I'm 100+ hours in. hard to tear myself away

ulysses, i hope you kept on the Edelgard playthrough because iirc there's a big storyline branch path that doesn't happen with the other houses

yeah edelgard route splits in 2 but confusingly gives you 2 BIG WARNINGS; the last one is pretty clear what's about but the first one less so and very easy to miss (it requires monastery boredom) and missing it immediately locks into one of the story paths

I wish they'd release some of the earlier FE games on switch. guess I'll pick up the NES FE that's coming (to show support for this) but I'm not expecting great things. need those GBA FEs

give us the advance wars games while you're at it, nintendo

I feel like I'm getting the hang of it now, as I'm starting to customize the skills of someone of my students.

I haven't been able to unlock the blacksmith yet, though, so am I stuck buying new weapons of downgrading to training models for my units?

you'll get the blacksmith by Month 5, i think? (at which point you never really need to buy fresh weapons as there's an Forge upgrade path for all of them if you have the materials.) just buy new weapons as you need until it opens

PRO-TIP: I was selling all my Broken weapons for 1G (Lances, Swords, etc.) since once you get past Iron level it doesn't often feel worth forging. WRONG. Some Broken weapons that you get are secretly unique and will upgrade to a different or higher level weapon altogether - the description will tell you if this is true, it'll be separated in the list from the other broken swords/lances/etc.

I'm getting back up to speed. just need to relearn all the classes and battalions stuff

I have my first vacation in a couple years over Thanksgiving--9 days I have to figure out what to do with.

Reading this thread has me thinking trying to get back into Fire Emblem might be the call. I think I'm bad at games that don't have a "right" path, and upping the difficulty could be just what I need. I think I tried playing through on Normal the first time around and no decisions felt consequential.

going by FE veterans, hard mode in this game is on par with normal for older entries and you can (permanently) drop the difficulty setting midgame but not the other way around. no reason not to start on hard

Yeah definitely, Normal/Classic is what I would recommend if you've literally played any other game in this genre.

The thing you can't change midway is Casual vs. Classic, the latter being perma-death. The game feels VERY different with perma-death, if you're like me and want the whole story and all the relationship talks and such and will rewind over and over again to play a "perfect" game so everybody survives. (Though on the final battle, I had one death and just let it go.)

So, I say go with Classic for well, classic feels and disappointment whenever one of your brats kicks the bucket

(That said, second playthrough, I'm doing Casual, since the game only gets easier with NG+ anyway.)

I want to remark how fun it is that you straight up won't get all the answers about your students, even within your house. A lot of the interesting reveals seem to happen when you pair students from different houses or the Monastery instructors. Definitely a lure for completionists - very JRPG, I suppose. At the same time, I can see why many people complain about the story, since on one playthough you never get a full picture.

yeah having Meaningful Choices is definitionally incompatible with being able to see everything in one pass. in this case it's probably descended more from visual novel routes than the CRPG type games that term is associated with though

hah, "meaningful choices" might be overselling it a bit, but yeah, VNs are the more accurate lineage

I just unlocked tournaments which is loads of fun even though all my house is too underleveled to win.

For 1-1 instruction, is the idea to teach students until you've depleted all of their motivation (i.e. grad school)?

yup. you want to only teach the ones with a full motivation bar to maximize your teacher point usage
then refill the bars on monastery days with meals/gifts/activities

Just finished chapter 11(?) and OMG WTF Edie, so furious at you rn, if I had you in fantasy, I'd cut you from my team, I also had another game-related question but I can't remember it now either.

Heh. So what did you choose?

I sided with her thinking maybe that was the de-escalation route, and when creepy Hubert magicked me away, I reset the game immediately. I'll be picking Rhea's side in all likelihood, but I'll keep the save right before the choice is presented.

Yeah, that's what I did. (There is no de-escalation route. FIRE EMBLEM! *jazz hands*) No regrets, though - I bonded with that crew so i was happy to play it out. I'm saving the other choice for my final fourth playthrough, someday.

Part 2 makeovers: Pretty tragic all around. Dorothea at least got rid of that stupid hat, and that gown is nice except for the backlessness. Ferd needs a haircut BADLY. I wish Ferd's voice actor was better; he's so often my MVP that I feel a little bad skipping his dialogue so often. Bernie's haircut IDK what is going on, but I love her all the same (and just recently made her a paladin after letting her toil as an archer all this time, which I think may have been an enormous opportunity cost in pwnage). I didn't think that I'd get much use out of the latecomers, but Seteth and Flayn have been great; I benched Lin in favor of green haired anime girl because her white magic is so much more usable than his, and I get the sense that any flying unit borders on OP.

What class path did you go with Ferdinand? He was garbage all the way through my run, hated him. And yes, the flying units are generally pretty awesome; didn't figure that out until playthrough #2.

Cavalier > Paladin, with the latter being where he really took off. (I'm currently still leveling him into a Great Knight.)

Hitting me hard with the emotions now! RIP Edie, and Ashe and the other students I've now killed because they were all too damned picky about my stats to transfer to my class, and, after the Shambhala mission, maybe Rhea (but I suspect she'll pull through). Speaking of, that mission spikes the difficulty up -- nothing unmanageable, and honestly a welcome change of pace, but clearly it offers much less room for screwing around. I still deliberately delayed finishing off the boss so that I could get my Assassin (Petra) to mop up all the chests -- I'd actually just promoted her to Falcon Knight, but reclassed her down to Assassin again solely for Locktouch. In hindsight, I missed her expanded movement range, and I wish I'd been grooming Ignatz as my backup Assassin instead of letting him languish on the bench, which is where Linhardt deserves to be -- he's too damn squishy to be anything but a healer, and even then, he still has to be in the thick of the action to heal, when someone else like Flayn has Fortify and Dorothea has the adjacent autoheal + much better reason spells.

Having just beaten the game, one of my predictions in the previous post is obviously, hilariously wrong.

I needed a palate cleanser from Bloodborne frustrations and started my NG+ last night. Aside from the interminably slow beginning, I'm looking forward to knowing just what I'm doing in the early stages of the game; I also picked up on a lot of plot details this time around.

So I couldn't get out of the first Garrag Mach mock battle (5v5v5)! The strategy on Normal difficulty of sending Byleth headlong into a bunch of enemies doesn't seem to work anymore. Any suggestions?

creep, overuse the R2 button all the time so you don't move your units within enemy attack range and move your guys slowly. i actually barely used it until my second playthrough...

Three Houses is really addicting isn't it? I sat down to play it last night and suddenly it was 2am. 😬

https://kotaku.com/fire-emblem-engage-nintendo-switch-trailer-direct-1849529563

Feel like there's no way this could reach the euphoric highs of Three Houses/Three Hopes but I'm still in

My first replay of Three Houses really stalled out because I just couldn't summon the energy to deal with the life sim grind, so with that in mind, should I grab Awakening? I thought the tactical side of 3H was good but shallow/easy.

I just couldn't summon the energy to deal with the life sim grind

3H is supposedly toned down, "hard" is old-school FE normal, "normal" is easy.

the monastery is a complete slog, i've never played any of the older games but i hope the unit management is 100% done with menus instead of wasting time walking from place to place and skipping dialogue boxes