The BIGGEST Problem With Three Houses
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- Опубликовано: 16 фев 2024
- RUclips threatened to take away my Ad revenue in 30 days If i didn't make a video this month. So, I decided to chose violence and make one with an obnoxious title and thumbnail! # houses is a game I want to love but my god, there's just so much of it. And I'd never thought i of all people would be saying this but... It makes me yearn for Fire Emblem Fates, a game I basically made a career out of hating. I'm sorry babygirl, you're beautiful.
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Fates Footage is thanks to Pheonixmaster1, love all the stuff you do for the community bro! xoxo.
All copyright belongs to their respected owners and the content in question is regarded as fair use for critique and commentary under the copyright law of 1976, no copyright infringement is intended. 
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Hi everyone, I'm back!
please have patience with the audio quality - I think my headset has reached the end of its service career. goodnight sweet prince. In my haste to get this made and the fact that since i haven't been making a ton of videos, I wasn't able to invest in a new one for this video. BUT in a world where i can get back on the content horse it's probably what i will purchase with any cash this video makes me.
- Zerk
Blud uploads when he wants to💀🙏
@@theeeveesquadd1370 who invited my man blud? bro thinks he's on the team.
@@ZerkMonsterHunter cmon we all know I am on the team
That's fine, brother, but... you still haven't used "Dancing in the Starlight" in a video.
@@hanafuda oh we're still on this, even now?
For me, three house’s biggest issue was forcing you to roam the monastery between every main story beat where my castle was optional and could be accessed at any time.
All goes back to that gameplay structure, baby! gotta roam the monastery to invest in your units for that endgame difficulty spike.
One thing I loved about my castle was how quick you could get from end to end. You run at light speed across the whole thing in 5 seconds. I also think the pixel sprites work really well for something like this. Also cool how you could press the R button and it zooms in to a 3d view of your Castle which was really dope.
You can literally skip this. Its completely optional
@@indecentthinking not without seriously gimping yourself, especially on harder difficulties
@@firenze6478 but you can make the same argument in reverse. My castle was optional but completely beneficial. It just feels a bit… pointless to argue about something thats not really a negative. Monastery you can skip around to so travel time really isnt an issue, aside from the first few chapters where you have to unlock fast travel. Idk. I really dont understand the gripe about it.
it makes perfect sense, but it still feels surreal to me that fates and even three houses are now pretty old fire emblem games
yeah.... yeah....
Three Houses is almost five years old wow
5 years is still recent
@GenMars in geological time yes, but most of my audience is in the 18-25 category meaning 5 years is somewhere between a quarter and a fifth of their entire lives!
@@ZerkMonsterHunter sounds like hyper consumerism to me, but alright ¯\_〳 •̀ o •́ 〵_/¯
Fates' only (easily noticeable) blunder was the story itself, like, everything in Fates is basically perfect:
- Graphical Fidelity? Check
- Characters? Check
- World? Check
- OST? Check (my fav FE OST by far)
- UI/UX? Check
- Gameplay? Check
- Maps? Check
- Unit Variety? Check
- Presentation? Check
I could keep going for hours on how much Fates did right, but it's the story they just messed up badly, "A story about a hero born in Hoshido but raised in Nohr, sees both sides go into conflict and has to choose which one to ally with" is such a good foundation for a story with potential to be a success, and IS knew it, so they made it be in all the promotional material and stuff, but when you actually get to play it with the expecting of this story, they just fumbled it, and while everything else is basically perfect, it's *The Main Thing They Were Promoting* that fell short, so this lead to the majority of people dismissing the game, like when you open the fridge looking for an apple, you grab one and it has like a third of it rotten, you would of course just feel disgust and then throw it at the garbage bin, but if you look closer, you can just cut off the rotten part and eat the rest of the apple which is perfectly fine to eat, though at the end, you'll feel less satisfied than if the whole apple was fresh, *That* is Fates' problem.
It's all this, why I consider Fire Emblem Fates, one of the worst best games I've ever played.
well said!
What helps Fates is how the 'prologue' is really short, only 6 chapters and are all easily skippable after the first go, and that's before you just make a save dedicated to the choice itself if you're just gonna use the same corrin.
But the 3H academy is like, 40% of the game, and honestly outside of character interactions things are very much the same, with the same major plot beats making multiple playthroughs feel repetitive. And that's before duplicate maps, which are present in both games true, but things at least function differently between the Fates maps vs 3H where so many maps are duplicated.
I had no issues playing all three routes in Fates almost back to back, but I got so bored in my second playthrough of azure moon that I dropped the game like half way through the second arc.
yeah that about sums up most of my argument in this video lol
@@ZerkMonsterHunter The consequences of posting a comment before finishing a vid. But yeah, I do agree
@@Castersvarog that just proves that this sentiment is more common than the majority of fetubers would lead one to believe, they are too worried about superficial aspects of the experiences to dig deep, which is probably also why fates is so underrated
to this day there is no confirmation of what type of dragon anankos was and it keeps me up at night
To this day, we still don't know what the continent Nohr and Hoshido take place on
I just call it Fatesland tbh
I believe Anankos is known as a “Silent Dragon”.
@@Vegeta241 yea but what even is that, fell? divine gone demon? shadow? his daughter lilith is known as an astral dragon, is that what he is also? he, corrin and lilith seem to be linke to water so were they equivalent to a water tribe of dragons? are they astral because of their control over dragon gates? are they mage dragons since their dragon attacks do magic damage? the first dragons are also known in the wiki as first divine dragons, does that put them in the very beginning of the timeline? and so on
@GenMars I always just took them as a fell dragon but on a much weaker scale from the others being as the only other dragon we see is the one who make the fire emblem(the yato) and thus I can guess is a weaker divine dragon or a extremely powerful Manaki
@@insidechaos4913 I can see that
Everyone treating Fates like Thanos did to Nebula: "Perhaps I treated you too harshly"
yeah
I always knew it was good, the popular opinions on the fe community tend to be wrong
I mean Fates story is still pretty bad, like really really bad. And Conquest has good gameplay and I feel like it should have been the only route.
@@goroadachi9489 what makes it bad?
@@GenMars The lack of world building, the character beats, the characters themselves. Like the Vallacurse is just an awful plot device that I just can’t even fathom how dumb a writer could be to make that.
And Revelations especially has terrible map balancing, and pacing. You have units that join broken and most that are functionally useless
That part about Blue Lions being played early destroying any replayability is so true, like why do I care about Sylvain and Ashe's family dying in Academy Arc when they're not in my team?
Perfectly fair and as such it really goes to show that for a large part of Academy Arc/White Clouds they favored the Blue Lions in having more of a connection to the story with chapters 3 and 5. Maybe what they should have done is that while some chapters have to of course share between all 3 like chapter 1 and 7, but made certain paralogue's take place in the main story like Dedue's Duscur chapter for the Blue Lions instead of being an optional choice with it replacing chapter 6 for the Death Knight in making the search for Flayn a Golden Deer chapter instead because for them she's like an honorary deer member as I could be mistaken/misremebering, but I think she appeared more with the group in scenes and would have made Claude's inquiry into her and Seteth's deal make sense as being an exclusive chapter to the Golden Deer and given how Claude's agenda is trying to learn about Fodland's secrets and that his group gets the Scooby Doo like chapter to themselves would have helped mitigate how similar all 3 houses for part 1 feel.
I've been pretty passively writing a "canon" route for Three Houses where as much as possible of what's seen in each route makes it into the story. The biggest change is with Part 1 and instead of teaching 1 class the whole time, the classes cycle with every chapter. The Mock Battle is with the Golden Deer, The Kostas chapter is with the Black Eagles as Edelgard has unfinished business with him and can't let him leak, and the next one is Blue Lions. Repeat that order until you're in the underground part and select BE with BL because Byleth trusts Dimitri more than Edelgard after her post-Jeralt-death talk (which all House leaders have with them), giving the cool cutscene.
I won't get into the Part 2 plans because that'll take too long, but the final battle for each route does happen, with slight changes. The order they happen in is AM > CF > VW > SS
are you planning on publishing this or have already? i love “rewrites” like this!
@@tsuki3752 I don't really know where I would post/publish it tbh 😅
Right now it's a really bare bones summary somewhere in my files. One day I plan on getting around to playing all the routes at the same time chapter by chapter and writing every unique story beat in detail before I write anything like a script (if that's what you're looking for). In terms of "non-absolute-essential" plot points, pretty much all I have is a list of who I plan to have die
@@gg_sam7847 i'm assuming they mean like write it into its own story and post it to like ao3 or something
Execution is also a factor Fates succeeded in. In Fates, all 3 routes have a clear and distinct gameplay and story identity. Even when maps are shared between the routes, the placement of enemies, enemy unit types, playable units, point in the game they take place in, and even map objectives are often different, making the same map feel wholly different depending on the route. Meanwhile, Three Houses not only has all maps in White Clouds be the same (the only difference being the final one swapping your placement and enemies fought if you side with the Flame Emperor) and even then, the route split still features a lot of the same maps, with the same objectives, placements, and even story beats occuring in the main plot. Crimson Flower shakes this up the most, but there's still enough repeated locations to where it's noticable, especially since they're all visited in that half of the game. Azure Moon, Silver Snow, and Verdant Wind do a lot of maps in a similar order, often fighting against the Empire and the Slither Boys, with only a few chopped and changed ones, and even then, the chapter difference between them is minimal. Look at say, he difference between when Dimitri attacks the Great Bridge of Myrddin vs when Claude does, and then compare it to when Birthright Corrin goes to Izumo vs when Conquest Corrin goes to Izumo. Despite the maps being shared, the difference is night and day.
These are elements that personally, for me, made Three Houses one of the weaker entries in the series. It really doesn't *get* what a route split can accomplish, and kind of squanders the feature altogether, which really nukes replay value from orbit. No wonder the game's so easy to burn out on, the route split itself is barely a route split, and you repeat yourself so much it's like anime groundhog day.
well said!
In regards to copying your save file, it’s actually “almost” perfect in Fates. By choosing to start from the branch of fate, if you change Corrin’s gender for whatever reason; yes, *Corrin’s* levels will carry over. However, Felicia’s levels *won’t* transfer over to Jakob, and vice versa. Which could be a struggle if you are going from Birthright to Conquest if you are planning to still use your maid/butler.
Yeah honestly playing though fates and 3 houses mutiple times. While i enjoyed the story of 3 houses more due to the secrets within secrets. It felt lacking as the routes felt so samey to one another
While fates is very different overall and since the gameplay is way better it makes playing through it more enjoyable overall. The maps are very unique and honestly a ton more fun.
3 houses are the same maps and it gets exhausting yo try and stay awake when playing the exact same maps with only a little bit of changes
Fates also repeated some maps, But even there it's less noticeable because you're load out of units is so different thanks to the
Different classes based on each nation.
@@ZerkMonsterHunter even then it's not a problem as the routes have such unique stages it's hard to tell for the most part.
Conquest we get some very nice early maps. Hoshido some unique stuff like the ice one and revelation it's an entire area overall
3 houses is basically the same especially when you have all the other house units making their paralougues samey.
Overall 3 houses is especially bad as nothing is different when it's exactly the same overall. Even the classes are so general as while being so open it's lacking.
You have a point. 3H worst point is the battles, but i disagree with the replayability of the game. I finished it 3 times, and i will eventuales finish the 4th route. The think is 3H is a game in which you should not replay it just inmediately. I took 2 years between each playthrough, and i enjoy it a lot.
Fates only reedeming point are battles (and only the hard difficulty really). Yes, the way it's structured is better, but the horrendous story ruins it all
I like story but fates is the game i come back to to this day and 3h really fell off for me. I tried over and over to get to the end of another route. All the classes feel boring and the same, the game is ugly as sin, the monestary is slow.
Fates has a truly terrible story but, its not a thing that ruins the game. Because here we are a decade later still laughing at it and meming it. Discussion of how one would fix it is a lot of fun and comes up a lot and while thats technically misplaced praise, it is totally true.
Also better maps, simpler but more fun characters, infinitely better designes, better graphics and art and classes feel like they matter a lot more, the strategy is vastly deeper, the supports are peak, my castle was fun and let you have wacky ability sets for fun, generic units were a dope distraction, dragon vein was interesting, two of the games were a damn good challenge, the Nohrian royal family are the absolute definition of fire emblem characters, daggers and knives are pure genius, theres no stupid batalions, theres good crit animations, trigger skills still existed.
Like yeah sure fuckin Leonie is a better character than like Charlotte. But I bet more people remember Charlotte.
Maybe Oboro is a better leonie comparison? Either way.
Awakening is also better but not by as much gameplay wise, awakening has boringer maps but better unit management and units and a still good story and fun
Awakening is like, my nostalgic favourite and Robin is the obvious best Avatar I like a lot of its elements fates copied more in that, future kids for one are way cooler and very interesting and i do think it was important for establishing the excellent leveling and ability system
Fates and awakening have similar character quality, awakening makes them stand out by story relevance a bit more and fates by expressive designs
Anyway Engage is the best. Just, even with nostalgia for the others it's obviously engage, even if CQ is my favourite
@@alejandrosunshadow6041 well even the writing for some of the routes I found basic at best. It's funny some people I see in the comments in this vid say the game can only be played once when the game itself forces you to play through the first half at least 4 times and how many similar to the same story beats it has. 3 houses I wouldn't say is overhyped but I will say it's not as strong as it could have been for the plot.
Wish 3 houses at least put us in a different spot on the map so we can say "wow this feels different" as we are literally playing a different army and it could make it fun to see if a map gets easier or harder depending on starting position.
Fates also has a lot more cast flexibility with how you can use capture units and amiboo in your cast while also the prologue gives you a small story to grind corrin and azura so you are ready for the routes especially conquest. I wish 3 houses just skipped the first half if you already played the route like edegard and church. The gameplay is honestly so basic for 3 houses as opening up all the weapons just makes things a lot less interesting
I spent over 100 hours on my first playthrough of Three houses. After beating it the idea of having to spend another 1/3rd of a playthrough in the academy portion of the game having to retread all the same steps as before (especially meandering about Garreg Mach) to try and fill in the missing parts of my first playthrough completely turned me off of starting another route.
Same, but I'll do the other routes eventually.
Im loving the Fates appreciation here. It was my first FE game and I love seeing some love for ot from the community
My favorite Fire Emblem title is Three Houses and I agree with this. I feel like Three Houses was so busy trying to lean into the lore so much (as well as customization) that it more or less put replayability to the wayside. And with how Crimson Flower got handled, it's even suggesting to me development wasn't quite clean at a point. Still one huge fix would have been to let people start a game right where houses can be selected...or to disable tutorials to help save time. Whatever the case, the first half of Three Houses is very hard to replay, because the War arc in comparison is as traditional as it gets: barely any stopping and starting, and for the most part its more game.
Speaking of starting and stopping, a lot of activities maybe could have involved a group of allies instead of having to pick one or two at a time?
Meanwhile, Fates, even though it had 3 different paths (versions) came out feeling very much more focused. It doesn't exactly need to stop the flow of gameplay every so often to bring up a tutorial that you can put away right after, and I think part of it is because it doesn't lean on optimization and building as much as Three Houses does. Fates feels a lot faster and easier to play in this way and more.
well said, totally agree!
You have to play Scarlet Blaze of Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes that should be the entire story of Crimson Flower done right.
Welcome back, hope life’s been well for you.
It’s funny how Fates has an option to skip the prologue chapters even when it barely takes any time to reach the route split.
There are two issues why I think Fate does the route split better and doesn’t cause burnout like Three Houses does. This is my opinion and I’ve never played 3H, so feel free to correct.
The first is that Fate’s route split happens so early on that the sameness doesn’t happen as bad.
Fate’s route split, The Path is Yours, happens on chapter 6. But each route has 22 unique chapters, meaning the prologue only takes up a 25-20% of the route.
And because those first 5 chapters are so short, you breeze past them when on a new route.
Where as 3H’s route split, Outset of a Power Struggle, happens on chapter 12. But each route is only about 9-10 chapters, meaning half the route is the prologue.
Meaning each time you play a different route, half that route is the same as the other 3. And because there’s so much to do in 3H, that prologue feels like it drags on after the first playthrough.
The second is that each of Fate’s routes is it’s own game, meaning you can only play one route and feel like you got a complete experience. Where as 3H, each route is like a piece of a puzzle.
In my senior year of high school, my friend had a 3DS with Birthright, and I played and beat it many times that year. Even though I never played either Conquest or Revelations, I can say it was a complete package.
Which makes sense because in order to play the other routes, you’d have to buy them. So if someone only played Conquest, it makes sense and the route answered most of the questions.
But with 3H, each route reveals more to the story of Fodlan and it’s history. And because all 4 routes are playable on the same game, it incentives you play the other routes.
And if someone only played Crimson Flower or Azure Moon, then they are missing out on the other 75% of the game. And you would question why they didn’t do the other routes.
well said, and good to be back!
The farther away from Houses we get, and the more we learn of the back-end development process, the more comfortable I am saying that Houses... was sort of a hot mess in development because of Nintendo's demands ("Create a school setting with a calendar system"), IS's ideas of what they wanted to pull off (supposedly 10K years of lore and mysteries), KT's ideas of what they were doing, and a rushed development schedule that was undermined by having two companies trying to fast-track four different stories and still going over budget and time by a year.
Had Houses been given all the time in the world and a better director with a firmer hand, I'm really curious what we would have gotten, but as it stands, there's a lot that ages poorly when you try to balance multiple playthroughs. And it's definitely got some potential - I love the gameplay and challenge of Cindered Shadows, but playing the exact same chapters for half of the entire game four times is... painful.
TH has a shitty route split because it was added in development too late as a why not
Fate wanted route split and knew it
That’s why fate is made for it while TH has some of the worst route split I have ever seen
The development wasn’t rushed the game was delayed multiple times KT was just extremely over ambitious and never stopped adding new stuff to polish what exist
Just look at how many mechanics this game has, it’s like they tried to have every mechanic in the series and never bothered to put them correctly, they don’t even understand dismounting in the slightest and they sure never bothered to make all these mechanics work well together
Fire emblem fates still holds a special place in my heart as my first fe and generally one of the first games I got really attached to as a kid, so it's great seeing it talked about!
I think the post time skip 3 houses are not that different either. sure the story is slightly different but VW and AM for example shares 8 maps of the total 10 and the reason you go to those maps are similar
The general set up for the time skip and tte scenario is the same 3 times only CF is different.
There is enough meaningfully different in the post skip that I don't mind as much. had the Academy arc changed about as much as.
Those I don't think we'd be here.
I'm finishing up a DND campaign inspired by Fates soon (basically meshing all three routes together) and starting to plan one set in Fodlan, where the Academy arc will have the party be a combined group of students from each house as a sort of strike team. I kinda wish the game did something like this, where maybe you don't have every lord and their closests buddies for each map, and then you choose who to ally with at the end of the academy arc. But then you loose all the numbers go up stuff, so I dunno
that sounds so fucking cool!
@@ZerkMonsterHunter Thanks! Only one of my players is an FE fan, so she gets fanservice, the other players have no idea whats going on and are having fun, and I get to write fanfiction without actually writing fanfiction lol
I myself am planning on DMing a Three Houses inspired campaign for my friends. It's gonna be set after Azure Moon with them being students that later have to deal with the remnants of TWSITD
I'm writing too a sandbox campaign in Fodlan which is set after Azure Moon. I'm happy to see this franchise inspire us DM to write.
I plan to add Nohr and Hoshido in my world (far east after a deadly desert in Almyra), too bad the map isn't very detailed in Fates but at least I can add what I want
While prolly annoying on repeat playthroughs, I thought it would be cool if an alternative three houses had every character playable in the academy arc, and the route you get would be based on a points system where depending on what characters are supported with the avatar and what story and tactical decisions are made will determine which route you'd get. Sort of a mixture of the FE 6 route splits and SMT alignment system. It would also pair with the side material such, as Feh, where Byleth is the teacher for every student simultaneously.
I think another problem is presentation
Fates's cutscenes still hold up this this very day where 3H ironically enough tries to look like an anime but ends up looking very wonky and weird looking in most areas. This was an issue I had with SoV but the fact 3H had this issue disappointed me as well. It was a little too late for me for 3 Hopes cause I'm just reminded this is how the base game's cutscenes could have been
I'm glad the style of cutscenes from the 3DS era and Heroes came back for Engage
This was something I really noticed just editing this video! totally agree!
i think another major aspect that makes the route split in fates more satisfying is that there are fewer repeated maps unlike three houses. yes some of theres a couple reused maps throughout the paths but the objectives and strategies used are generally completely different to each other unlike three houses which tends to feel the same after a while. the class system between the paths in fates also compliments the route split because you have access to entirely different groups of classes save for your corrin and silas, kaze and felicia/jacob which makes the two paths much more fun (and revelation even better because you can have class options like wyvern oboro).
yeah for sure! the fact fates kits you out so differently along the paths really makes all the difference.
@ZerkMonsterHunter yeah totally, I really like the idea of the class system in 3H but the best classes are so much better than the worst and so easily accessible compared to fates that all of my armies in my 3H playthroughs ended up looking basically the same. I think they were so heavily focusing on the story and the sheer amount they wanted to cover that they overlooked any problems they might have encountered from basically making the same game 4 times
You know I keep meaning to invest in a switch to give three houses a go but every so often I find myself picking up fates to do the next 100th or so playthrough on all the routes but despite that I still havent seen all the S rank supports (somehow...) theres just something irresistable about the Fates story, I've done it hundreds of times but I never really tire of it.
Side note: some of my friends call Three Houses "Betrayal Simulator" which I find hysterical.
This was not a name I expected to see in my RUclips feed, but I’m pleasantly surprised
It's late at night where I am right now and took a chance to watch this video. And holy crap, this was a crazy watch. It perfectly explained why I never finished Fe3H years ago and even now. I literally stopped at the point where you had to pick a student for a ceremony dance or something. I didn't even reach the time skips as I was fixated on ensuring my units were getting better, getting supports done, and just doing everything around the monarch that it...honestly became a chore and I was disinterested. I got burnt out...😢😢
Fates on the other hand, I was always interested constantly from wanting to know each side of the story. You unlocked a funny memory as I do remember saving some files before making the choice to side as it made another playthrough much more bearable. And just thinking about having to restart Fe3H with a fresh new alliance each run and going through the same chapters regardless, I honestly don't know if I'll ever finish that game. Thank you for expressing the same feelings I had about the game, it was amazing but definitely can produce burnt out quickly.
happy you liked the video! I'm glad I was able to help put your feelings into words.
I played 3H for the first time around a year and a half ago, I did Azure Moon. I'm more of a story first and gameplay second kind of guy, so I loved the game. But it took me 65 hours to finish the thing, so I was like "not doing that again right now" and left it for later.
A few weeks ago I started my second run (Verdant Wind), I'm currently on the last chapter, and I honestly love it even more. 3H is the first FE game that I might like more than my all time favourite (Path of Radiance). But I'm not replaying it inmediately. I'll let the game rest, play other things, and probably in a few months come back for Crimson Flower or Silver Snow.
What I want to say is, I'm probably enjoying the game as much as I do because I'm letting it rest between playthroughs. I would get burnt out otherwise. That didn't happen to me with Fates (I did them all in one go), but I honestly didn't enjoy that game nearly as much as I'm enjoying 3H.
yeah that absolutely sounds like it helps, I did my runs back to back, so the effect was very pronounced on my end.
5:40 Lets also not forget
Corrin has more personality than Byleth... and if either one were a real person (in a hypothetical situation), I'd be more likely to talk with Corrin, over talking with Byleth (BOTH genders) I'd talk to Male and Female Corrin over Male and Female Byleth.
I'd talk with their superior 3 Hopes Avatar counterparts, Male and Female Shez
Byleth is just awful as an avatar character. Once they were removed from that aspect, they became 10x better. in both 3 Hopes as a sort of rival character, and then Engage as an Emblem.
well said, Certainly an argument to be made, but not the focus of this video!
Honestly, just some of my own personal thoughts with both Fates VS 3 Houses. To be completely honest, I rarely if ever see anyone praise Fates, and for me, Fates was the first Fire Emblem Game I beat (not the first I played, I played Awakening and Sacred Stones first but never beat those, I did beat them eventually, Sacred Stones a year or 2 later after beating Fates (thanks to me not wanting to play Smash 4 3ds every day during my school lunch with friends) and then Awakening of which had gotten much worse due to being forced to do Lunatic Classic, which if it were an Ironman run, I'd have to restart the prologue nearly 900+ times.
But Fates was something that the only reason why I didn't keep playing it was because I was repeatedly playing the Revelations Route and attempting to create a sort of online meme team which consisted of 4 Avatar Corrins. But even then, Fates did everything better than 3 Houses.
Character Customization (you can name Corrin as long as like 12 characters, which is amazing since my actual name is actually fairly long. )
Byleth you are limited to exactly 8 characters, which is 1 less than my own name)
I feel like the way they used the characters in the cutscenes worked better than what we got in 3 houses.
Avatar Corrin has nearly 1 million+ different combinations and you would be dead before you even attempted all of them. There are not as many combinations with Byleth, nor even Robin, Shez, or Alear.
Now... something I think that would have made 3 Houses more enjoyable (besides a secret Golden/Revelations Route unlocked after doing each class route)
Would be to have unique missions for each class. as well as split routes for each path. Edelgard's is perfect, save for it being slightly longer. You either team up with her or team up with Rhea.
Claude's Route - legit 3 Hopes gave us the "what if Claude sided with Edelgard" Give us that sort of route, and have it be determined on what we do.
Finally, Dimitri's Route - have the normal Blue Lions route stay the same, but take the option of attacking the empire over conquering the kingdom as the other path. In this one Dimitri has gone fully mad, and despite your best efforts, it's agreed upon that you have to end Dimitri to save him from losing himself fully.
With the acadamy arc or the first half, vary what missions pop up.
Maybe Kostas is a Black Eagles exclusive map
while Lord Lonato and Miklan and the Lance of Ruin is a Blue Lions exclusive and Claude has the kidnapped Flayn arc.
Only the mock battle, Battle of Eagle and Lion, the Dance, and where Jeralt is killed and Byleth goes Super Saiyan. If each route, regardless on what you picked gave you some unique maps and missions, it would make the first half more interesting. What if Claude has to deal with some Almyran Pirates who have decided to attack his home, and he has to defend against them, all the while keeping his identity a secret.
Honestly, if IS does another game like 3 Houses, I honestly feel like they should at least do more with making each route unique. Or at least give us a secret true route that is unlocked after clearing all other routes. But even if they didn't do that (because they would never do another Revelations-like route since tons of FE fans hated it) just having each route have some variation even in the early first half would be worth it. That's honestly what made me replay Fates over and over again. That tutorial part is easily skippable but yet it is something you can do. It's an option. 3 Hopes honestly is the superior 3 Houses option in every single way. It does a few maps that are the same before each story route shifts entirely. Take the positives of both 3 Houses and Fates and you could probably have a really good multi-route Fire Emblem Game.
@@ZerkMonsterHunter
@@goldenyoshistar1 great writeup, I think I agree with several of the points here.
I’m so glad that i finally see someone with this opinion, I’ve always felt like I was alone in how I felt about three houses and I’m glad that’s not the case
I still like a lot of things about three house, and to me it occupies a similar position to FE4 for me: I played it, I liked it, I see why other people are madly in love with it, but it's not a game I have any desire to revisit.
As time has gone on and especially after Engage has come out, it definitely feels like 3H is starting to sour a bit for a lot of fans. Especially when it comes to replayability, it seems to be pretty low for a lot of people which is ironic considering it has 4 routes.
It is nice to see a lot more fans start giving Fates its flowers and all of the good things those games did.
The issue is the devs apparently didnt think players wouldn't actually want to play through all three routes, at least not in succession. Feels like a huge oversight cause in games with branching storylines i cant think of any example where players wouldnt want to play through each version. They also have you pick your house in the beginning which is a bit misleading because it makes you feel like each academy route should be different. Maybe they shouldve had the academy route be like a soft lyn mode where you take different classes to different missions and then pick a house going into the war arc and in that window let you recruit a few of the other units you want. That way you could go from the split like in fates instead of playing the same game with different core units every time.
yes, exactly!
I'm glad Fates has the Branch of Fate option on the menu, so we don't have to play through the whole tutorial again. I've finished 3 houses like 20 times and playing through the same "prologue" is so exhausting.
Fates gameplay felt silky smooth while 3H felt slow, is it just me?
No it's not just you. i've made this whole video about exactly that
For me, the lack of weapon triangle and lack of class diversity, which is the issue with full customization, made it a little staler, but at least there weren’t any useless units this time
@@firenze6478for a game that emphasizes customization as much as TH it’s really fucking stupid to destroy any reason to have a balance team with no WT and dismounting and any class with any weapon
Some really great points here! I especially like your discussion about how the games' priorities influence their requisite strengths. I've often felt a similar sense of burnout when considering a replay of Three Houses, and this video does a great job of unpacking at least a good chunk of why that might be.
thank you so much! glad you enjoyed!
Welcome back Mr. Lyn guy online, I totally agree with you. Fates ended up being one of my favorites cuz it gets route split just right where I feel like I’m playing three routes and not 3 different games. That’s also why I’m so demotivated to play the other 3 Houses routes. I already spent too much time optimizing and spending regular time in the Monastery when I first did Edelgard’s route that I just don’t wanna spend so much time doing the same thing before with 3 other routes.
"Mr. Lyn Guy Online" ah well,, some things never change I suppose.
glad you liked the video and yeah I totally agree, optimization's only fun the first time unless you're an optimizer.
Yo can't watch right now but glad to see you back and that you aren't dead!
I know this wasn't brought up but in fates there is even a option to skip the proloug and make your corrin how you want so if you wanted to min max you only have to do it once and go straight to the split and as you stated the cost of the rented units is so small its not even a factor. This takes the argument of how you would play on a DS so how its even intended to be played
for real, that was so convenient
I started with the blue lions arc, I want to attempt the others. But after what you have mentioned, I’m a little worried about the academy route. Right now however, I am finally finishing the last route of fates, revelations. One mistake I can correct in next playthrough of 3H, is that I placed relatively little value on doing stuff around the academy, therefore, I had plenty of exp, strong units, and many resources, unfortunately, as a result, I missed out on increasing my professor level considerably, so despite having all of the resources, I didn’t have the ability to acquire the best possible equipment and other things of importance you can acquire, only by increasing professor level. So I suppose I could play 3H at least one more time before it gets boring.
I completely agree with your points in this video. The only part of the route choices I prefer in 3 Houses compared to Fates is the fact that you get everything with 1 purchase compared to getting a game + DLC in Fates to get all routes.
When I first played 3 Houses I started with Black Eagles and did the Silver Snow route and I really enjoyed it. But when I finished I wanted to see the other routes so I started a new game and did Golden Deer because I liked many of the Golden Deer characters during my first playthrough. But it didn't take long for me to get bored of the game because the academy part of the game was basically the exact same game I had played less than a month earlier. At the same time I didn't want to skip any of the story because I didn't want to miss out on the things that actually made the paths slightly different. It ended with me dropping the game for more than 2 years before coming back and finishing Verdant Wind, and never doing the last 2 routes. It also probably didn't help that Silver Snow and Verdant Wind have a lot of similarities even after the time skip. Another big problem I have is that for your first playthrough of the game, you don't really get to know any characters before you choose a house to teach. You basically have to choose the path based on a small amount of story with the house leaders, a cutscene showcasing the 3 houses and a single conversation with every student. So I ended up choosing Black Eagles basically just because I liked Edelgard more than Claude and Dimitri at the time, only for the Black Eagles ending up with my least favorite group of students halfway through the game.
In Fates I have finished both Conquest and Birthright 2 times each, and I don't have Revelations. I don't really enjoy Fates much, but that is more because of the stories being poorly done and Corrin being a really boring character IMO, but I like how easy they made it to replay another path after you finish the game. First of all there is an option to skip right to the path choice when you start a new game, so you can skip the prologue on repeat playthroughs. And because it is so early, unless you purposefully funneled exp into someone like Rinkah on your previous playthrough of the prologue because you were playing Birthright only to start from the branching path and choose Conquest, it won't be that big of a problem. The stories of the paths are different from the moment you choose your path. And even though Birthright and Conquest share some maps, they can feel different because of the enemies, your unit option, and when in the game it happens. For example the Ice Tribe Village map happens pretty early on in Conquest, but it is more than halfway through the game in Birthright.
In short Fates is significantly easier to replay both because of a short prologue that can be skipped, but also that the paths are different from the moment you choose your path, with different stories, maps and characters. In comparison 3 Houses makes it a pain to play every route because half the game has the pretty much the same story with some differences before you even get to the things that make every route unique.
I absolutely agree the separate versions kills a lot of the magic. hopefully that can be remedied with a rerelease or something of fates, thankfully if 3H is any indication they're unlikely to ever pull that shit again.
I totally agree. I'm looking at my save file, and I have a cleared game save file of 96:53 for my FIRST playthrough. I decided to play maddening, on the same route and unlocking all available characters, and I'm on chapter 19 with 268:21 (total hours). It's definitely just my playstyle, but I am NOT touching another route... just so that I can wait 60 hours to see Dimitri basically get offscreened after I spent like 200hrs playing on his route?
I think I liked playing through Three Houses chapters more than Fates, with all the canto spam and caduceus, but I much more prefer using a bunch of heart seals than micromanaging who gets to take care of the pegasus while feeding my entire army just so that I can train them just so that I don't miss an 83% chance to unlock an advanced class. Also give them all gifts so that they can max their supports faster.
the more time passes the more it seems like fates was the best one afterall
life's gone upside down.
Now, I never played Fates, as I'm one of those who got on the FE train at Three Houses. I get what you are saying.
I think one of the things they should/could have done for the first White Clouds portion of the game is to have each House have different missions each month, other than for the main story beats (The Holy Mausoleum, Flayn etc.) The other House leaders will often discuss them having other missions, so you'd get hooks to want to see those too.
Ever noticed how most of the early missions are centered around the Kingdom? Lenato's rebellion and Sylvain's Brother. Why not have these be Blue Lion specific?
Then let us have Empire specific tasks for Black Eagles, and Alliance specific for Golden Deer.
Further more, I think every rout should allow you to go down the Silver Snow path. The game tries really hard to make you think the Flame Emperor could be any of the three house leaders, but it falls flat. Have it so that it's pushed harder, so that you either feel sympathy for the House leader, or suspect them of being the Emperor. Have them all have motivations which makes you go "erm no?"
Then, for the love of god make it so that each path you go down if you side with the House leader let's you redeem their darker side. Blue Lions is a great path because it feels complete. Dimitri goes down a dark path, and you save him. Black Eagles... don't even let you help Edelgard defeat the people she's actually wanting to defeat! Instead it's Verdant Wind and Silver Snow who takes on those who slither. If you ask me, the two last missions of Verdant Wind belongs in Crimson Flower. Meanwhile I think Claude should harbor more resentment towards the church and his path ending in the Emaculate One fight. (Since he is the only one who talks about the dragon during White Clouds!)
great idea! that would totally work!
Those last couple of points you mentioned, Three Hopes kinda did funny enough.
@@samwill7066 I haven't played that, and well I'm not too fond of Warriors games, so I will probably not play Three Hopes.
Honestly I can agree with basically all of your arguments you have drawn up in this video. In fact I also got pretty burnt out when I first played Three Houses and it only took me playing Engage to bring me back to it since I wanted to play a game I actually enjoyed (I really don't like Engage).
To be honest though I can't think of a way that the route splits could have been improved upon considering how the game is structured. You could have Byleth tutor each of the classes for one chapter before choosing which class they wish to teach (and the route split) but that'd be very hard to keep track of as well as have biases based on map difficulty or unit feel. You could shorten the time between the route split but then you'd need to speedrun the pre-war contexts which would likely ruin the pacing of the game. You could simplify and shorten the Monastery phase, but there are players who enjoy that aspect of the game.
Interested to hear your thoughts on what you think the best solution for this would be.
Initially when plotting out the script for this video I included a Section where I gave my suggested fix for the root split. But I couldn't really come up with anything that preserved the narraative hook or the slow burn nature of 3 houses and those were things that I really like about it's story. I decided to instead focus the video down on just discussing the mechanics of progression.
Perhaps one day I'll come up with a good enough idea!
Thanks for this video. It made me think of why I liked Fates a lot more than Three Houses despite Three Houses being my favorite in the series and I think you hit the nail on the head.
My dad and his best friend both said they want less talky talky and more action and I think that's exactly what explains the issue with Three Houses. Too much investment in either talking or doing other things and less gameplay. The supports are a huge example. Engage at least had way more gameplay to invest in rather than just doing a ton of shit at the Somniel to it's defense.
Anyway, I really feel bad that none of the people I talked to about Fates before are around. The meme sharing, the discussions about fixes and other stuff... it just all sucks that I can't go back to then.
Sigh. Man, I gotta be honest this video was a bit of a depressor for me, thinking back on things like this. Though I won't keep ramblin' on! Thanks for the video, dude! Makes me want to play Fates again!
hopefully there was enough nostalgia in here to make your day a little better!
@@ZerkMonsterHunter I have Birthright in my 2ds atm, so yeah. Thanks, though, my night is fine I just get sad thinking about certain things like this is all xD Thanks though
I wholeheartedly agree, it's reallyf unny because In three houses I got him day one and til this day I haven't finished all four routes (Verdant Wind is the only one left) and yet Fates which I also got day one I still find myself replaying it to the poing i got +700 hours spent on it (though I must admit learning how to mod the game reignited my passion for it) but still when you look past the story Fates is such an easy game to pick up and play whenever you want with a pretty fun gameplay and still pretty sizeable customization even if it's not even close to the freedom you got in future games while three houses having very long maps, interactions and the time you have to spend in the monastery makes it feel so tedious that you get tired before reaching the new content that awaits for you post time skip, in my experience I probably did the worst and played Azure Moon first then Crimson Flower and Silver Snow one after the other so you can get why I wasn't too enthusiastic to do it all over again for Verdant Wind despite how much I wanted to see Claude's story
'Investment' isn't all about unit optimisation, although that doesn't hurt; the big thing Three Houses wants you to 'invest in' the choice (singular) that the narrative is built on. Given how absolutely batshit insane The Three Houses Discourse (tm) has been, this was clearly wildly successful.
Fates is my favorite Fire Emblem game and I keep coming back to it. Whereas I got burned out from Three Houses (and Engage) pretty quickly.
As a Fates fan, this makes me happy.
Conquest is my favorite game in the FE series!
I do enjoy the writing, I love the gameplay, characters (yes even Corrin), music, and everything else!
There is nothing I hate about Conquest! Aside from being able to S Support siblings and child units but still!
Yes it has flaws, but I love it anyway!
I don’t really like Birthright because I prefer bonds to blood and love the Nohr siblings, but its music is amazing.
I never understood the hate towards it besides "Oh look Camilla has boobs so thats the only reason people play" "you can S Support the siblings" (I'll admit thats a bad part but I already said that), "Oh its new so it sucks", "Corrin is bland how dare a character make mistakes"
I understand the localization issues and the stupid "buy three different games" shit, but I rarely saw any of that as criticism.
And Corrin isn't perfect but their flaws aren't adressed, only "Well I wouldn't do that, even though Corrin is naive, stressed, and forced to command an army with no experience of course they make bad decisions"
Conquest Corrin 🤝 Edelgard
"The only way to save my continent is to conquer it"
flawless logic!
Amo Three Houses, cambió mi vida. Mi única queja es que el academy phase es el mismo para todas las rutas y eso me impidé hacer dos rutas seguidas porque me pongo burn out, tengo que jugarlas con varios meses largos de diferencia entre rutas
no hablo español :(
Nice video. I didn't get what you were saying with the gameplay route structure vs story route structure at first, but you explained it well🙂
While this point wasn't super relevant to the main topic of the video, I wanted to say that I feel like Fates' localization caught some strays here that it didn't deserve. I'm not going to act like I can read Japanese and know its original script by heart, but by my understanding, the vast majority of changes made by the localization were "tonal changes", which don't really adjust the story at all, but rather throw some jokes in the dialogue here and there, which I don't think there's anything wrong with, or changes that actually made things better, or simply less... squicky. I'm a massive fan of Fates, but trying to blame the localization for the shortcomings of the game's story has always felt like copium to me.
Anyways, like I said, this was a good video, and I really liked it.
A friend of mine is going line by line over the Japanese script of fates and what we found looking at it is the Japanese script is just really dry and straightforward when directly translated. the localization, for lack of better description basically upped the goofiness, and as a result the actual flaws of fates narrative (undercooked villains, over-reliance on traitor plots, lack of worldbuilding) are exasperated
I think that we're probably trying to say the same thing here, then. The localization didn't "ruin" the story or make it worse, but might've raised some people's ire.
I will say that I don't particularly think that "undercooked villains, over-reliance on traitor plots, or lack of worldbuilding" are the biggest issues with Fates' story. Most of Fates' villains, while not morally grey or anything, are pretty well-handled. Out of all the major ones, you could ironically enough argue that Garon is the worst; I quite like Anankos, Iago, Hans, and Kotaro as villains. "
The traitor plots aren't the greatest, but I think both the Zola and Anthony ones are pretty good, and serve to demonstrate the differences between the Birthright and Revelation versions of Corrin. Birthright by itself is certainly too reliant on them, though. I'd agree that Fates' world-building is weak.
It‘s a bit ironic to me. I started my FE experience with letsplays of the old games, before playing awakening as my first game when it came out. And I loved it. Then fates came out, and I mostly loved it, but the route split also made one of my favorite parts of the game, supports, „worse“, because I couldn‘t have every unit in one playthrough anymore… heck, even revelation robs you of scarlet and izana and there‘s nothing you can do about that, even though they marketed it as a joined route! And while narratively, some MCD does make sense… I can live with scarlets, somewhat, but izanas felt so forced!
Then 3H came out.
And all that lead me to starting 3H… finding it‘s first 2 chapters decently interesting, but also a bit of a drag… and dropping the game. Because I was dreading not having everyone again. I know that‘s a very me specific thing, but it just made me less hyped for the game. Plus I like the anime artstyle of awakenig and fates a lot more than 3H, but that‘s also just a matter of taste.
that's certainly an interesting perspective! being able to have everyone is a part of an appeal for some for sure, thanks for sharing!
For the average joe who would just play once and then shelf a game, I think Three Houses is the perfect kind of entry point for those types of people as was mentioned in the video.
For me personally, Three Houses holds a very special place in my heart because of what it meant to me when I first played it. Three Houses I believe was the first installment in the series where it was a simultaneous worldwide release. US, JP, EU, you name it, I think everyone was at an equal starting ground. This made discussion for it FANTASTIC. Serenes Forest, GameFAQs, RUclips, Reddit, even fucking 4chan were all discussing the game as if we were all knights of the round table. There was very minimal shitposting (as in, posting just to piss everyone off. People would meme Felix being edgy, , Ferdinand von Aegir, Marianne waifu memes, but those were just for fun.) Regardless of what route you chose at the start, everyone was discussing their run as they went, and I even remember my first run being Silver Snow, people were asking me what the hell the "Resistance Army" was, as opposed to being affiliated with the Black Eagles.
Someone I know mentioned that you can only play Three Houses once, and I think I understand what he means now. You can play other routes once you finish one, but that very first route you do? That's gonna be your special experience that you can only experience once. I'm personally very glad I was able to be there during the initial release, because I don't think any other game since then (not even Engage) has been able to capture that feeling of the entire world being blind to a game, and everyone slowly working together to dissect it. Hell, I remember people were calling me a liar when I said I got Hilda while on Black Eagles (well, the final month before Silver Snow.)
Also, I don't think Three Houses had the obstacles of Smash and localization acting against it. Corrin in Smash 4 really soured people from what I recall (just check the official reveal like/dislike ratio,) and because Three Houses was worldwide, you didn't really have people get the game early to compare localization differences, but I do think Three Houses was very tame when compared to what happened with Fates. I do remember Three Houses had some questionable things, but I would honestly say that 90-95% of its localization was fine.
absolutely agreed, a lot of the "magic" of 3H wears off after a first playthrough. And I think that's why a lot of people are very ride or die for whichever house they chose on their first one.
I would also like to add that the prologue and first 2-3 chapters on the birthright and conquest routes actually have a compelling story/world/characters and kept me interested when I first played and even on replays. The prologue can be skipped but it still is interesting, compelling, short and sweet when u replay from the very beginning. The story doesn’t get bad until halfway into the games. Obviously not as great story as 3H but gameplay is better on replays.
I played more fates than three houses, and antedotes are the highest form of evidence, as they say. I haven't been interesting in FE content in a while, until recently to kinda see what was happening with the modern games. Listening to the problems with the various game systems across the FE franchise inspired me to play through octopath traveller which has been gathering dust in my switch's memory since its release, like 6 years ago. Remembering a game you bought in the past is basically getting a free game after you wasted money, which makes it the most efficient way to buy a game. Normally when I lose track of the point of my comment I delete the whole thing but here, have the stream of consciousness.
Upon looking through your channel, the last time I actually watched might have been when I was in high school, wild. Man I wish youtube didnt delete the old indications of watchtime :/
I've been making videos for a long ass time (since fates came out!) and i myself was in high school back then, times do be changing.
3 Houses route structure could have easily been fixed if they just used an actual higher education school structure where teachers aren't limited to one class. In Japan I'm pretty sure the class stays in the classroom and only the teachers switch out for each subject. You could have time to teach any student, learn more about each house, and move the decision to right before Edelgard attacks the church. Thus you can start right there in subsequent play throughs and not get burned out.
Honestly i had the same thoughts you did and questioned how they messed up in 3 houses. I only completed 1 route because i don't want to go back to the academy again. Even the decision placement was ridiculous because you get time to learn about characters and use them in Fates before you decision. 3 Houses gives a Shallow intro to each character and forces you to pick a house before even using them. It just is a worse structure all together.
Fates has the best gameplay in the series in my opinion. It’s a shame they couldn’t get ahold of any writers to give it a story.
The majority of optimizers I know (me included c:) prefer fates anyways (Well, conquest specifically). The absolute-absolute freedom in build decisions in three houses feels like decision paralysis, and as the majority of build-related decisions are made in the monastery it leaves the actual map to map gameplay without any connection to it. In fates, the supports you build and the weapon ranks you gain are crucial parts of builds which require careful maneuvering to squeeze the absolute most out of in each map. The act of implementing an interesting build is much more involved, and requires planning around conquest's maps. Also, because unit customization comes from pairing them up with each other (and because class change seals are quite limited until the lategame), each build decision has to be carefully weighed against all the other possible choices. And they can be made much more spontaneously than three house's long term class investment system. You can change a unit's class in reaction to attempting a difficult chapter, into something better suited for the specific challenge. The prime example of this is cq 19-21, a set of chapters made far easier by reclassing Xander to a Wyvern Lord, even though it gives up his amazing 1-2 range sword.
huh, neat
An excellent observation. It isn’t something o myself noticed. I do understand the burnout feeling. I started with Blue Lions myself before going through Golden Deer. The fact that I had to go through the Academy Arc again was alright for me at first but it was a slog to get through for Crimson Flower, the route I absolutely detested in this game. I somehow managed to get through and play Silver Snow and haven’t touched the game since. I had to take the game in chunks because it was just a slog at times.
But for Fates, I find myself replaying it often, with Conquest being my preferred and favorite route. It doesn’t feel like a slog to me and I enjoy playing it. I always wondered why it was I never went back to 3 Houses despite me loving it so much and now I understand why. Totally valid points man.
absolutely agree, it's the third academy phase that kills it, pretty common sentiment i've seen, and I myself experienced.
Were glad your back zerk and i am a private chef and building my pikmin- fall out ratchet and clank inspired game with the income to polish my beta. I am happy your alive an well
damn bro, continue to Cook!
@@ZerkMonsterHunter I will sir if you ever come to TN I'll have a seat for you. Also my level is like pre time skip Sanji, mix of Ban, and season 2 Soma from Food Wars at the moment plus I started a apprenticeship with a Michelin quality Chef.
She's like my Zeff/Shanks plus she helps translate if a girl is wasting my time
*edit- She's...
Guess I'm just built different since I beat all 3 routes and silver snow(made a separate save right before the decision) in a row and did a Blue Lions maddening run when that first came out and then a Cirmson flower maddening NG+ (Which I personally think is the games best/most fun difficulty).
Also, while I do agree with a lot of the points in this video I feel like it's kind of unfair to compare the approach to routes in these games when one is really 3 separate games you are meant to spend full price on 2 1/2 times while the other is 1 singular full price game. I definitely agree that 3H could have had more differences in its 3 routes but that would have required them to basically make 3 games and sell it for the price of 1
fair enough, though I do disagree about Fates being 3 separate games, but I think that's a conversation beyond the scope of this video
I'll admit, I'm not too thrilled about the player avatar being the main character. I prefer bwing the tactician in the background, like in FE7, or a friend of the main character, like in Awakening. That said, you did convince me that there is something positive about Fates, and for thst, i tip my hat to you, sir.
Im up to 6:21 in the video so far. So far, I like it. I just listened to your explanation of the "hook" of Fates, and I said out loud to myself, "Man, that's good". Then immediately after that in the video, you said that makes a damn good hook.
Although, I'm way too old to be a zoomer, 3 Houses is my first FE game. Just beat Silver Snow. I have a save point for Crimson Blood, so no biggie. But I have been feeling the weight of 2 more complete playthroughs if I want to experience it all. I can see your point on that.
i started with three houses personally i played all 4 routes and enjoyed them i haven't play fates and realy want to play it i hope it gets remastered on switch or switch 2
I think it's even worst, three houses' gameplay in the academic arc doesn't change that much, all it changes are the characters and some dialog, the chapters are the same, plus every character starts with the same class, so in the first few chapters you're quite literally replaying the first portions of the game with different supports
For as much as I like three houses, I only played the golden deer path, because I didn't want to replay the whole academic portion again, but with different characters
I think 3 houses needed a bit more time in the oven, most obviously with crimson flower/ silver snow being a bit half baked. A couple unique missions for each house would have done wonders for the replayability through the different houses.
Branch of Fate was genuinely one of my favorite new inclusions next to turn wheel and engage rings. Skipping the slower early maps is sooo nice, and I wish you could skip a lot of 3H's early maps.
Agreed! I'm sure there was probably a way to make that happen, but alas here we are, hopefully the next FE game with routes like this follows Fates' model!
6:10 Fates always made me feel that the real choice was between bonds and doing the right thing. Especially since (spoilers)
the Hoshido royals and Corn aren't even actually related
that detail, was and forever will be a cop-out
I agree with your points here. In this game when you pick a house, you're actually just choosing who you want to be friends with. (Except for Sothis & Jeralt) Byleth has no canon friends, he chooses his allies and enemies. Also, it can feel time-consuming to get past Part 1, especially since on my playthroughs I like to force my students on what skills to learn, what future classes they become and who ships with who because that's what good teachers do :). I'm sure Persona 5 feels long to play as well since both of those games have similar mechanics when it comes to non-battle gameplay, being the calendar system. At least you can skip the repetitive dialogue although for me it's getting through all the battles I select on a Sunday, including paralogues.
Despite all that, Three Houses is still one of my favourite games because it feels worth it to get to those separate stories that feel intriguing and deep. That's a category that Three Houses did better than Fates, the story. I got really invested into the arcs of most of the students and staff alike and wanted to support them (pun intended) and their goals. I like the fact that there's no canon route for Byleth, he carves his own (Sothis said a similar thing to him in the Academy Phase). There's no perfect golden ending like Revelations and how the narrative is interpreted can be left up to you, the player. You believe what you want to believe. As for me even though I'm a hardcore Crimson Flower fan (despite how short the route is) and personally love the Black Eagles, I still enjoy the other routes and their characters for having uniquely different campaigns and personalities.
Lastly, If I may defend the Three Houses Fodlan Universe one last time, I recommend that you should definitely check out Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, a game set in an alternate world with a completely different story, with the same characters you know and love, that continues the branching paths concept but feels more like how Fates did it. Playing that might fix your problems. Enjoyed the video👍(and well done to anyone who read all of this.)
don't get me wrong - I still love a lot of things about 3H the world and characters are fantastic, I just can't stomach the repetition. overall well said and I'm glad you liked the video!
as for three hopes, I had enough of a bad taste in my mouth from both the first warriors game and the 3H burnout I experienced I never picked a copy up, maybe at some point I'll give three hopes a whirl, but for now I think I need a different game as a pallate cleanse.
@@ZerkMonsterHunter No worries, it's aight. I do wish Three Hopes got more recognition since I massively enjoyed the different gameplay, Fodlan having more world-building and the new characters introduced, especially the twist with the new protagonist. It got me hooked. The time it was announced was around the time I finished my first playthrough and was on to the second. And when the game released I played all of the routes in a row completing it first over Three Houses. It didn't feel as time-consuming since it sends you straight into the story and adventure. Maybe not the best for beginners who plays it before Three Houses as Three Hopes assumes you know the main gist of the plot and its characters.
SPOILERS FOR THREE HOUSES!!!
As for 3 Houses, ironic you say the Blue Lions had the best Academy Phase, because for me I picked Blue Lions (I wanted Ashe as my student back then) on my first playthrough and got bored and stopped at the ninth chapter (Jeralt dies) because Dimitri and his friends felt a bit generic. Then I picked Golden Deer because Claude and fully finished his route easily. I enjoyed my time with it (fighting Nemesis was so cool). Thirdly I picked Black Eagles, being interested in Edelgard's dreams and goals since I felt sorry having to kill her, (I know it doesn't make sense in Verdant Wind since you never teached her but it still had me crying the first time). I already found out that there was a route split since I saw the heart-beating decision on JohneAwesome's Let's Play and him invading Garreg Mach with Edelgard on his side, I didn't know about the Holy Tomb chapter. Funnily enough I thought I failed to join Edelgard since you still have to fight her without her mask. I thought attending her coronation was the wrong decision, I was grateful to be wrong. I then played Crimson Flower but couldn't finish the final chapter. As someone who still calls myself a beginner at Fire Emblem, I couldn't beat it with two attempts at hard difficulty. I spoiled myself the Crimson Flower ending feeling happy yet disappointed at myself for never completing the route. On the other hand I had a blast bonding with the Black Eagles way more than the Blue Lions. At that point I just said fuck it and spoiled the stories of Azure Moon and Silver Snow since I couldn't find the time to balance playing Three Houses and doing school stuff, especially having to go through the Academy Phase two more times! I wouldn't pick up the game again until a year later. Since I already knew the whole story I just played for shipping purposes and to just have fun with the gameplay. I did Silver Snow at a normal difficulty and finished the whole thing, ending still left me devastated :(. Currently 7 months later I'm now trying to finish Crimson Flower at normal difficulty again but also made it New Game+, making some meme builds like Bow Caspar.
In a nutshell, my relationship with this game has been a lot of breaks between routes which proves your point about getting burned out from the repetition. Meanwhile, I completed all routes of Three Hopes pretty quickly since the war begins there way earlier.
I am pretty much a 17-year old casual Fire Emblem fan right now and it's difficult for me to get into the higher difficulties as Three Houses is my first Fire Emblem game and since I've only played that and Three Hopes the gameplay still feels a lot complex for me to actually be good at strategising. (I always found chess hard to play despite being interested in it's concept too). I'll probably do Azure Moon as my last route to play and then buy Engage (even though I've heard negative things about it I still would want to have a joyful experience). Fire Emblem as a whole to still so new to me but I am adoring the franchise and watching people play it :)
Even as someone who didn't play Fates, i felt the split and replayability of the game was much better than 3H. Which I loved. Might try it one day. Its splitting the paths into games that turned off people. Hopefully if Fates gets a release, all 3 paths can be in one game.
God, this is the funniest way you could come back. I respect the fuck out of it lmao
thanks lol
This was one of the improvements found in Three Hopes; the game split is only a couple of chapters in so there is little redundancy replaying the game story-wise.
haven't played 3 hopes so I can't attest to it myself but this seems to be the common sentiment!
@@ZerkMonsterHunter You should since Three Hopes improves on some other things as well. I loved the game and was really disappointed that it had no DLC.
The only thing I think Three Houses does better for the lore split is that you don't have to buy each path. Even then, the fact that half of the chapters are the same between all routes may have something to do with it.
As much as having to buy all paths is annoying, I'd rather have to buy Fates different paths than the Three Houses paths
Also nice how Fates gives you the option to skip the Prologue chapters if you want to jump right into another path. If that were an option in the 3 Houses NG+ that would've alleviated a lot of the issues I feel
Honestly, while the repetitive and boring Academy half is indeed Three Houses' biggest issue, the next-biggest issue is the calendar and activity points system - greatly reducing how much freedom the player has, for building support and grinding classes. I, for one, don't like being limited, so this was a major pain in the arse. I prefer being able to choose how much I want to grind, thank you very much Intelligent Systems, and the calendar makes no sense anyway (why is every story-progressing mission on the last day of the month, huh? That's unrealistic as hell).
I've seen 3H compared to Persona, but...*snort* that's laughable. Persona allows the player to act freely on every day of the week, aside from those with story events, not just Sundays.
The third-biggest issue is, well, the classes. For one, we're back to gender-locked classes after Fates effectively removed this bullshit, with only females getting access to the best magical class (Gremory), despite Linhardt being a great male mage (for example). For two, every character has access to every class (gender permitting - eurgh), which means it's possible to end up with a party full of wyvern riders or something.
Why this is a thing, when Awakening and Fates both did classes a hell of a lot better (making characters distinct by limiting their class options - and for Fates, tying a reclass branch to their S-Support, allowing for increased replayability), is beyond me.
Funnily enough, my optimizer friend loves Fates but despises 3 Houses lol
huh, interesting!
I think a very key difference I felt between fates and three houses was somewhat intent. In fates there are lines in both main routes pondering what would’ve been the case in the other route and both have a lot of unanswered questions that really are only resolved via the other routes. The inclusion of a golden route is also telling. Fates wants you to experience it as a whole. Whereas I never got that sense with three houses. Sure some things are less fulfilling between routes but the only time I felt like the game was pushing me to play another route as well was the two separate black eagles paths. I feel like with Fates the routes were written for general audiences to view as compliments to each other. With three houses they feel like substitutes that only hardcore players will go out of their way to play all of… which makes it funnier to me that fates did the dumb separate game release thing while three houses did not.
Fates' cutscenes and dialogue sequences aren't massively shorter than Three Houses' or Engage's, but they are a bit shorter, and more importantly, they're parsimonious. The downside is that the world and its characters feels poorly established sometimes. The upside is that I rarely feel like characters are saying things that the player can see on screen, or worse, saying lines for literally no reason, like they do in almost every Engage cutscene and a decent chunk of Three Houses ones.
Worldbuiling quality has been a huge knock against both fates and engage. 3H went a little nuts with it and Echoes, Echoes is fan-fucking-tastic. I agree, there needed to be more, better thought out, and explained lore.
I might've been helped out on the burnout front by accidentally winding up on silver snow on my first run. It's probably the weakest route storywise, so it made playing each route after that feel pretty rewarding. I haven't played through the game since i beat the DLC chapters, though. Three houses took up a lot of my time cheering me up during a very rough time for me, so it'll always have a special place in my heart. I do definitely understand how the game can burn you out, though. It's probably an instinctive part of why I haven't played the game for so long
Either way I love both games and I'm still playing Fates till this very day. You don't wanna know the hours...🤣
Yooo, yer back me matey!
I actually played every route, with blue lions being my last and honestly i found TIRING to play all of it, I don't know how fates made me play it all with me wanting to play MORE while three houses made me wish to finish it as early as i could so i didn't have to go through it all again
you know, i think this video answered my question of why i stopped playing FE3H silver snow on madning , it got me burned out so bad i have mental paralysis every time i think about resume it
i think that's also why it made me stop playing 3 hopes even though that's a diffrent game play
Interesting analysis. I find the discussion interesting in terms of why I dropped both as someone who enjoys optimizing to a point.
I dropped Birthright at a very specific gameplay moment. At the final boss of a late game level, Takumi died to a stray crit. I wanted to reset because Takumi was the best unit I had gameplay-wise, but I didn't want to because I did not care for his character at all. I dropped the game after that.
For 3 Houses, there was no particular moment. I got to the second Battle of Gronder Field with Blue Lions. I was enjoying the story, characters, and main chapter maps a ton. But I didn't feel the urge to play after because I knew that my next several hours of gameplay would be me taking the same monastery path again, doing random side battles, and figuring out how to distribute my character's time. And I knew if I skipped it, I'd fall behind in the power curve and make the rest of the game harder.
damn that sucks with takumi, and why the turnwheel function exists nowadays lol.
I started with Silver Snow then did Blue Lions. I tried to do Golden Deer but I kept getting bored and coming back months later only to restart again and never make it to the time skip. I wanted to do Crimson Flower last as a full recruitment from NG+ having trained every unit in the game but I just find the Golden Deer characters uninteresting to me compared to the other 2 houses. I kinda wish it was just Blue vs Red. With Crimson Flower and Azure Moon being the only two routes and both being more fleshed out and different. 3 Hopes story was interesting but I just don't like the gameplay so did not finish it. Now 2 full playthroughs is insane for me I am pretty sure I have only finished 1 other FE game and that was a romhack called Sacred Echoes combining my two favorite games in the series FE8 and Echoes. I have played every game in the series outside of the Archanea games and Gaiden but never seen the end credits. Even my beloved Sacred Stones and Shadows of Valentia which I have probably started over a dozen playthroughs of each, I have never finished. I hate Fates the most because it triggers my FOMO the hardest out of any of the games and I had to buy the game 3 times.
I believe in you, you'll see some credits one day!
@ZerkMonsterHunter well I was just saying I beat 3H twice, so that is pretty good for me. Not many games keep me interested for a full playthrough. Got really close with FE4 and PoR though. Think got to chapter 26 in PoR and like 10 in FE4.
The old games are still so good. Even compared to today. I recently re bought a new 3ds xl and got fire emblem awakening which I knew I loved but re playing it is a joy. It's amazing how good the game is, so fluid, simple and fun while still having strategy and tactics. getting back to 3 houses after playing some fire emblem awakening actually felt clunky. Which is weird because awakening is so much older of a game, but I'd say is better.
But to your point, I'm liking fire emblem conquest so far, and I'd like to get birthright in the future and play thru that, 3 houses is a good game, but yes to me personally and seems to you as well the home base activities feel tedious.
So an issue that fates does have is the seperate game cartridge, I wish the 3 game on one cartridge limited edition was more available.
i think its very funny that three houses is about unit customisation but fates still did that better
three houses' class and skill system had potential but it leads to most every unit feeling homogenous whereas in fates all characters have their base and heart seal class, but you can get into other classes by investing in S or A+ supports, which you only get one of per character, making your decisions a lot more meaningful and you really have to plan it all out if you want to maximise unit potential by grabbing certain skills or jumping into certain classes
I like the academy phase, mainly cuz resources are limited so your decisions matter way more. I start to get bored at the end game cuz my units are always beefed out the ass, but only now a days since i have over 1000 hours in the game. The repetition of chapters 1-10/11/12 whatever, dont bother me cuz it makes sense that the school year is obviously the same, and the lords provide enough of their own influence that theres different aspects to focus on to keep yourself occupied
you have a stronger will than I my good fellow.
I start skipping months by the end cause I usually get everything done early in the academy phase
@@GenMars yeah ill do like 3 meals, flowers, and then just end the day cuz i cant be bothered doing the arena or other stuff since i really dont need it by that points. sometimes though ill just tutor byleth to try and max out a random weapon skill to possible do a weird build in a new game + run but usually not
@@ramones1314 so relatable, I always set up a byleth experiment for ng+ after timeskip, rarely follow up on it tho, sword and faith are too good
@@GenMars for real, especially cuz i love sacred power so i always just end up doing the enlightened class. those are my favourite skills to play around, sylvain, hilda, flayn, leonie, seteth. most fun i have with strategy
I concur. The way the story is structured makes it hard to understand why the other lords and students you did not recruit are hurt when facing you.
To play devil's advocate, I think that aspect really comes through on subsequent playthroughs.
He's back 🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽
❤
You do you man but it took me over 1000 hours (did you know the save file has a maximum of 999:59) to get bored/burnt out, including playing through every route at least twice and blue lions like 5 times, and that’s just including carrying stuff over to a new game+ save file. I also played through the entirety of two routes on new game that’s not included in that time.
It took you that long to do like 10 route runs? I did more on that with fates and awakening to get S rank on everyone through playthroughs in probably way less time.
Hey more power to you! As I mentioned in the video for people who like making different builds and leaning into the customization the repetition is minimalized heavily. I'm more of a Story/character player, and I get real burnt out on repeating story content.
@@ZerkMonsterHunterI think three houses has better characters and story than fates by a mile, and I don’t even think fates deserves as much hate as it gets.
@@ivanbluecoolabout like 12 + cindered shadows
@@ninjakirby777 still. I did 6 runs overall and couldn't get that much time in even when I stall to do the renown farming. So doubling my time wouldn't even cut that close.
The dlc isn't even that long either. I just found it a task rather than much to do more than once. Though it's better handled than engage dlc where you have to keep doing it. Wish it was one and done for every future playthrough
it's been 84 years...
Great video! I did love Fates, even when it was popular not to. One thing which I think is important that I think 3H does correctly that there's no Canon path. Some people asked why in 3H and 3Hopes there is no golden path. The developers responded that because then the other paths would be meaningless. I still think that the Nohr story path is the superior of the two opposing Fates routes, but my no means can I say that it is what I would choose over Revelations. I like the fact that I can help Claude achieve his dream, and that makes the choice feel meaningful.
Instead of a Unified Path I would have loved a Valla path, taking down both nations. That would have been an interesting twist on the FE Narrative.
Another issue with the route split in Three Houses is that the dialogue choices incentivise you to not skip cutscenes. Of course you can always skip them anyway, but just missing on the little red hearts and having purple hearts instead can, in my opinion, make you feel bad about it. It is a known law of game design that players, if given the chance, will optimise the fun out of a game and it's on the designers, not the players, to prevent that.
"players, if given the chance, will optimise the fun out of a game and it's on the designers, not the players, to prevent that."
fuck, that's good.
@@ZerkMonsterHunter I can't find the original quote, but to give credit where it is due it comes from Sid Meier and Soren Johnson, the designers of Civilization IV. The exact quotes were "given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game" and "one of the responsibilities of designers is to protect the player from themselves"
Fates is also on the 3ds, so it was more or less designed with the idea that you play a mission for an hour or two and then you pick up later. Most hand held games are made with this philosophy. Reminds me of the developers of metroid fusion, who had to consider that a gba has batteries that need to be replaced and only last for so long. So the developers design the game in clearly defined sectors, the entrances which had the navigation room and a save station right away, as well as adding more save stations in general. In contrast, 3h is a console game, IS made it with the idea that players would dedicate longer play sessions to it. Lastly, fates from the ground up was designed to have dedicated routes. Three houses originally was going to have at the minimum silver snow. Turns out when you plan from the outset, things tend to be executed better. Shocking, I know.
I actually did the same thing without even thinking about it. Literally the same situation, I didn’t get through golden eagles. Fates/Revelation really did feel different for each version. Plus it lets you skip the tutorial if you want.
You know what iced this discussion?
YOU CAN BRANCH OF FATE, I think it might be locked behind some sort of completion but you can skip the first six the first 6 chapters off the jump and go right to the route split
Actually, it's only locked behind getting to Chapter 6 in the first place. So it's completely possible to have played all three routes twice but only played the Prologue once.
Branch of fate skipping also required having all three paths available iirc, and since revelation was special edition only for about a month if you played at launch you had to get by copying your save.
@ZerkMonsterHunter Nah you only needed to get past chapter 6 in any route
Now choosing the routes was dependent on the ones you owned
However if you only had CQ for example you could BoF to c6 if you wanted to regardless
I think that Fates did the rout split better because you get to know both sides pretty well, the first 6 chapters serve to give you a sense of how the siblings of Nohr are different from Hoshido and vice-versa, then the branch of fate becomes a very tense moment as you need to choose between the two families that love you. In Three Houses is just: "hey choose between one of these three student groups that you just met, lol"
I feel like you can't really avoid it because how investing into units is part of the core gameplay loop
while from a narative perspective it would be amazing to have a caracter you spend so mutch time with choose to stand against you would make it even more memorable gameplay wise what would happen is players would either get frustrated with loosing one of there stronger units or they would avoid interacting with the system to avoid it from happening
yep! that's exactly what I mean when I said "unit investment softlock" It's also why I cut a whole section up the video out - Where I attempted to propose the way I would fix 3 houses and it's root structure but I just couldn't find one that satisfied me!
The counterargument here is you can literally make it support locked
Like unless X character really likes you there is 0 reason for them to narrativly side with you.
A perfect example would have been in that Dimitri cut routesplit section
Where Felix/Dimitri has absolutly no reason to side with you if you choose the opposing option UNLESS they like you a lot
I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "unit investment softlock" but I'm not sure if I can agree. If you make an effort to recruit characters that you like and your army at the midgame consists of only a few people from your original house, the first chapter after the time skip might actually be impossible.
If the reinforcements you receive in this battle are based on the units that you used in the previous chapter, this problem wouldn't exist. However, the reinforcements you get for this chapter are the members of your original house and they might be level 10.
the first half of your comment explains exactly what I meant by unit investment softlock. and like you mentioned there are ways around it - but then we run into the problem of why didn't the devil implement them?
Putting aside Revelation route for a moment, there is one big narrative difference between the two that I appreciate Fates' version of more. Playing Birthright then Conquest (or vice versea) makes you ally with certain characters in one playthrough only to have to fight them in the next. The ability to recruit any non-Lord or retainer into your House in Three Houses undermines much potential drama.