I recently finished Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and it surprisingly had a big effect on me. I find myself thinking about it a lot. I posted a longer-than-average review of it, but I had some extra thoughts that I thought I'd muse about here.
Let's start with Edelgard, who I said was a polarizing character. I've seen all sorts of commentary and interpretations on her character around forums and such. While many of these comments have some validity, something that speaks to how well the game did in creating a grey character, I've seen some say that she's "literally Hitler." Okay, this might just be 12-year-olds invoking Godwin's Law, but in the small chance that these people are trying to be serious...honest question. Do they know who Hitler was? I'm being serious here. Hitler wanted to elevate a "master race" above everyone else. Anyone not part of the master race would be subjugated or killed. Edelgard's goals of bringing down the nobility and creating a meritocracy are the exact opposite of that. Edelgard wanting to conquer/unite the continent by force doesn't make her Hitler. Second. Someone asked me how I would've handled Three Houses's plot, since I wrote so much on how much it failed. Well...short answer? I'd cut Claude, the Golden Deer, and the Leicester Alliance. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against any of them, but I think Claude's backstory has the least to do with the main plot of the game. He's someone I'd actually like to see star in a sequel, where the continent is united under one banner and comes into conflict with Almyra. Claude's backstory about wanting to open relations with Almyra fits right in here. So if I were handling Three Houses, the Golden Deer characters would instead be in one of the other houses. We'd either follow Edelgard's quest to unite the continent to enact social reforms or Dimitri's quest to defend the continent against Edelgard. In either case, after one of them wins, the focus would shift to the Agarthans. In Edelgard's route, she intended to destroy them from the beginning, so she does exactly that. In Dimitri's route, he would find out the truth of the Agarthans' involvement, realize he'd been played, and resolve to destroy them. I'd delete the Flame Emperor stuff, because that stuff is stupid. I'd also rework Rhea and make her a regular Archbishop rather than a secretly >1000-year-old dragon. She can still be fanatical. She could still be behind Sothis's awakening because that goal has been passed down from Archbishop to Archbishop or something. Third. Someone found it funny that I gave the game an A, but spent most of my time discussing things I hated. I do admit it's strange, so I guess I should list out some specific things I liked about the game. Let's see...I liked most of the characters. Raphael's so jolly, Ingrid and Leonie are both awesome tomboys, Shamir has these deadpan-Aubrey-Plaza vibes that I love, Bernadetta is Bernadetta... The soundtrack is great. Visually, the game looks amazing. The gameplay also allows for highly customizable tactics, since you can build your characters however you want. Build characters based on personal skills and stats. Pair characters that synergize with each other. Have Lysithea Warp Edelgard into the middle of a bunch of physical attackers, watch them all swarm her during Enemy Phase and do 0 damage each, and laugh. That last one doesn't really require any brainpower, but it's fun regardless. I also like the monster encounters. They're like miniature raid bosses and you have to position units and attack from different directions and coordinate. It's great. I think I will eventually replay the game, maybe once I figure out how I want to think about the plot so the idiotic elements don't drive me up a wall. I'll end with some statistics that I compiled for reasons I don't fully understand except that I'm weird, get over it. Kill ratio records Binding Blade: Lilina, at 69.9% Blazing Blade: Canas, at 86.6% Sacred Stones: Artur, at 88.1% (mostly due to Slayer, which does super-effective damage against monsters, and the endgame is pretty much all monsters) Awakening: me, at 86.0% Three Houses: Lysithea, at 89.7%, the grand record so far |
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