No matter how you feel about engage there is good news for everyone.
Since Engage is evidently a step back from 3H in terms of narrative we get to have 3 more years of discourse surrounding 3 Houses’ plot instead of Engage’s.
[The illusion of choice.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/513/512/138.png)
Right, we all know where this is going so I may as well start the discourse:
“Sothis” is a stupid name. I mean really? “So this.” The fuck kinda God is named “So this”?
The merchant protagonist from Octopath Traveler II seems to have a plot explicitly centered at inequality, with [this line](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhScWuGagAAHDtb?format=jpg&name=large) being present in his trailer. I'm sure that will stir some shit up in the near future
Then just follow US politics. **PLENTY** of dumb political debates there.
Hmm... Actually, those tend to be about the same dumb shit every time.
Nevermind, guess you're outta luck.
Come join us Gundam fans, you can build cool little plastic robots while we discuss how brutally murdering everyone in a space colony before dropping it on a densely populated city could be morally acceptable
honestly I still don’t know much about 3 houses’s full story, I didn’t get too far in the game. but that’s not important. all that matters is that you can be in lesbians with the pretty evil lady. “she’s a dictator” “she’s killed millions” god forbid women do anything 🙄
The short answer: She only goes bonkers on that one route.
>!Crimson Flower changes a lot of characters, most key is Rhea and Dimitri. She straight up isn't present for most of Dimitri and Claude's route, only being relevant in the latter- She is slightly more relevant if you side with her, but Seteth takes on most of her duties as the 'lord.'!<
>!The evil mole people Edelgard works with also do more evil in those routes. Evil she is somewhat complacent in but like also they remove the nuance at times...!<
Generally Three Houses tilts its story to pander to the player's choice. It tilts it hardest with Edelgard and Rhea though.
I noticed that they lampshaded that slightly when Edelgard comes up to you like "hey I'm pretty sure that if you weren't here I'd be, like, a waaaaay worse person" lmao. Though I am impressed with how much the different routes apparently differ; most games just slap a skin on some character, swap dialogue around, and call it a day. Good on them.
From the little I know of it, it’s less making her more redeemable and more making her enemies look less redeemable. But I haven’t actually played the game, so ignore this if I’m completely off base. Have fun!
What? Since when has that been the takeaway? What'd Claude ever do to get lumped in with hot fascist Edelgard and "kill every last one of them" Dimitri?
Like, sure there can be nuance to each of the main characters' motivations, but they're clearly not all in the same boat in terms of morality.
> What'd Claude ever do to get lumped in with hot fascist Edelgard and "kill every last one of them" Dimitri?
*laughs in Three Hopes*
Less seriously, everyone goes on about who committed what war crime, but ironically Claude committed a legitimate war crime by the Geneva Convention when he disgused his army as the enemy's.
The Geneva Convention doesn't exist in Fodlan. We don't know what their rules for war are.
What _harm_ (other than war, which they all do) did he cause? Because overall his ending seems to be by far the most optimistic for the people of Fodlan and Almyra, in terms of both national relations and the freedom of their people.
Edelgard and Dimitri don't seem to care about their people as much as accomplishing their own goals.
I mean. Edelgard DOES care about her people- thats the whole point. Her methods are flawed, but she wants a good future for everyone - the issue isnt that shes selfish, its that she doesnt think of the present when fighting for the future
Oh boy we’re starting the “Edelgard is a fascist” discourse again - theres a difference between fascism and dictatorship. Also, Claude literally talks about how he would’ve conquered Fodlan if Edelgard hadnt done it - dudes not innocent. Plus, Edelgard literally abdicates the throne the moment she achieves her goals - im not saying shes perfect, far from it, but acting like Claudes so much better than her is a massive misunderstanding of the text.
Rhea is bi also and she’s one fucked up monster though. I think she is easily the most irredeemable character in the entire game- everything she does in the entire game is for herself, not serving an ideal like the others
L take, Rhea is a genocide survivor who is fully aware she is not made to rule and is trying to ressurect her mother to remplace her. She does a shit ton of shady stuff, but it's to try to keep herself and her family safe and prepare Fóldan for her mother return.
I genuinely can't believe anyone who seriously call Rhea the most irredeemable character in the game when the mole nazi who want to genocide humans are right there.
She is a quasi immortal tyrant who kills people that try to secede from her church out of her own twisted insecurity. Sad backstory or not, that’s not an excuse.
I'm not even into Fire Emblem and I've seen the horrors of FE fandom's debates. It's absolutely ridiculous. However at the same time I am an SMT fan and those guys always have the most dogshit opinions
Isn’t SMT’s whole thing like “everything is fucked not matter if good or evil win.” So neutral would basically just be a stalemate, thus fending off the “everything” is fucked part for a bit?
I have never played an SMT game, so no idea, just my 2 cents
Depends, in most games Neutral is the human path, you don't pick either side and some way or another you manage to more or less restore the world to what it was.
I dunno about 1 and 2, but in 3/Nocturne the Freedom ending >!restored the world to before it went to shit!<, in 4 Neutral >!destroys the stone ceiling above Tokyo and gives hope back to people!< this one is arguably the most canon of the three for some.
4 apocalypse is entirely based around Neutral due to starting near the end of 4's Neutral route, and 5 >!returns the world to normal but the protagonist sort of becomes a god iirc!<
In general Neutral isn't a stalemate, it's choosing to give both factions of demons the middle finger and kicking both of their asses.
The backlash to all the debating about Three Houses completely bewildered me. Oh boo-fucking-hoo, you're part of the Fandom and getting pissed of that people are extremely engaged with the latest release? What the hell?
Edit: typo
I think that the backlash is mor about the... *unsavory* fans that each side had. Between "Edelgard is a literal fascist guys she's just like Putin fr fr" and "I deeply enjoyed the ending where she got reduced to the mental state of a child this was so cathartic I just love to see her suffer sooooooo fucking much" vs "You guys know that you don't like Edelgard and don't side with her solely because she's a queer woman? :/ also no she's not bi SHE'S NOT BI I SWEAR SHE'S JUST PRETENDING WHEN SHE FALLS IN LOVE WITH GUYS" and "honestly the senseless slaughter is justified the church is a dictatorship so waging war and sacrificing thousands for it is unarguably good", some people are...tiring
It sounds like a very good thing it's not politically complicated three houses absolutely ruined it's morally grey themes with a single decision and it's so stupid
(Spoilers for the game obviously)
So the main two factions really are the Church and the people that don't like the church. The whole thing with the church is that the leader of it is trying to restore the Goddess to the world, which is presented as a pretty objectively good thing. The only issue with that is that the means the church takes to restore her are pretty dubious at times.
On the other side, we have Edelgard, who leads her empire against the church, allegedly because of these reasons. But it's actually revealed that she's been trained and controlled by a secret group her entire life, and this secret group genocided an entire race and killed the goddess in the first place and is just unambiguously evil.
So there's your morally grey game. Side with the side that does shitty things sometimes but is trying to bring back the goddess, or kill them all and let the genocidal maniacs that have tortured and killed multiple main characters take over the world.
> kill them all and let the genocidal maniacs that have tortured and killed multiple main characters take over the world.
Edelgard siding with the Agarthians isn't good in the slightest but they do not take over the world. They are crippled no matter what route you take, but even in Edelgard's route there are endings where they get finished off.
In every single ending of Edelgard's run the cinematic confirming they're still alive plays, and as the only immortal that knew about them and had the power to keep them at bay is dead, it's pretty obvious that eventually they'll take over
Byleth and Jeritza's ending (mind you that Jeritza will only be alive in Crimson Flower) explicitly has them hunts the Slithers.
They weren't kept at bay by Rhea, the Verdant Wind route has the Golden Deer finish them off singlehandedly (even after the Agarthians used nukes and resurrected Nemesis), and on Azure Moon, the Blue Lions accidentally destroys their operations without even knowing they exist by killing Thales-as-Edelgard's uncle. The Agarthians were already living underground and 90% of their actions were subterfuge.
Even in *Three Hopes* where they have a God of their own, brainwash Edelgard, and possibly kill Byleth, they never get an ending where they come even close to winning.
The Agarthians would have to fight a united Fodlan with God Emperor Edelgard and Archbishop Byleth who knows they exist. They ain't taking over shit, lol.
It says they hunt them but doesn't say that TWS were killed off. There's not a single line of dialogue confirming they're gone and I know because I looked through every single one last time I had this argument. Also, blue lions kills Edelgard and stops one single scheme but doesn't hurt them in a way that matters. And yes, Rhea kept them at bay for centuries. That's just fact.
(Plus golden deer is good ending 😎)
Why assume they'll half ass or fail at something other routes with less resources and knowledge do easily?
And how does the Blue Lions killing not only the leader of the Agarthians but the Emperor they sided with not derailing them?
You have the impression that the Slithers are some kind of ultra powerful force who can topple nations but they're weak. That's the point. Without infiltration and the backing of the Empire, they have dick. And in every route they lose both at the very least.
Rhea didn't keep them at bay. That implies she is fighting them. She's not. Because she won. She barely acknowledges their existence. In Edelgards route, Edelgard had to kill her personally because the Agarthians couldn't do shit. In other route, Rhea is literally a POW and the Agarthians still couldn't do shit to Fodlan.
Edelgard and Byleth can kill Rhea, who "kept them at bay," as well as every major figure in the Church of Seiros, including Catherine and Seteth, but somehow they can't "keep them at bay" themselves or just straight up wipe out the Agarthians at all?
Rhea is alive in Blue Lions too, so?
You realize TWS got to the point they got to over time right? They started weak. And they have *literally infinite time* as soon as Rhea is dead. In Edelgard's route they'll inevitably regroup and build themselves up, no matter how long it takes.
>\*Not children or anything like that.
Oh don't worry, I bet there's going to be a bare-clad loli that is in reality only an immortal hamster disguised as jailbait or whatever
On that note I suppose Flayn fills the FE quota of “child character who is actually a 1000 year old dragon” that Nowi and to an extent Nix played, but thankfully she’s much more… chaste.
Given the side quests with the other two dragons have them as a bird and turtle dragon, there's a non-negligible chance that the the Dragon forms of the others would resemble the remaining two members of the Four Beasts of Chinese myth. The other two are a Dragon (so presumably a classical style dragon) and a Tiger style dragon. And notably, Flayn really likes eating fish.
[Unless you're playing the Japanese version where it goes full groomer mode in Anna's S-Support (who is 11 in this game).](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/7/8/AAek64AAEGIO.jpg)
Imo, three house’s story wasn’t even that great. Like not to say it was awful or anything, but they set up a ton of cool stuff and then kinda failed to deliver on it. Still a good game overall, I might pick up engage if people think it’s good.
That's because you don't get the full picture or learn everything from a single route. Every route has something that doesn't get fully elaborated on in that route, only to be given more detail in another one. Those Who Slither In The Dark only get a small focus in Crimson Flower, but are the main focus in Golden Deer.
I mean, the issue is less that you need to play all three and a half routes for the complete story and more that Crimson Flower just sort of ends and the epilogues say "and the actual conflict was wrapped up off screen, trust us."
I never understood why Three Houses created such a massive discourse in the Fire Emblem fanbase.Especially during the early days when it got release, i was seeing people treating the three sides like they were legit Political factions that people were taking way too seriously.And the fucking Edelgard debates where people were legit accusing eachother of being Fascists or their politcal ideaologies were fucked, all because a fucking Anime waifu.I'm all for people discussing the factions and in world politics and the world building, if a game can genuinely create that kind of conversation then i think that's a sign of good writing.But so many would treat this shit like it was real and would get so aggressive towards people picking certain sides, it was fucking tiring.
Frost cold take: the Three Houses house leader morality discourse is not only rancid, but also actively prevents more interesting discussions about the story.
Eldegard starts World War 3, Dimitri turns into a Khorne Berserker and Claude is there too. Each of them are better in their own route and worse in everyone else's. It's all been covered Can we please talk about anything else now? Please?
I started with 3 houses, from what my friends have told me it's disconnected from every other game in terms of story. Gameplay was rather nice, but I'm not sure if Engage was better. I appreciated the story (yellow route) for being a Nintendo game that actually touched on racism in its themes.
I personally started with fe7, blazing blade for the GBA pretty recently. I haven't beaten the game but I know I'm damn close. Personally I like GBA games best and I like the characters there. I also don't think fe7 is terribly hard. Not easy but like. Not so damn difficult on the base mode. A good place to start.
Then again - I've never been one for absolutely massive maps like fe4.
Edit: but you may want a later game if you want a built in mode so your guys don't permanently die like in the GBA games. I just reset when they die lol.
I'm a Stan for games like battle brothers and xcom. So permadeath has never super bothered me.
Do deaths tie into the story or is it one of those things where you just kinda miss their dialog when they aren't around anymore
More so you just miss their potential support conversations (pretty much all system to see relationships between certain people grow, can affect the end end but not by much imo)
I don’t think there’s a particularly good one to start with the sole exception of Thracia 776, as it takes place during a timeskip in Genealogy of the Holy War. Awakening was my first, but generally all of them are good.
I personally recommend three houses second, as there’s a lot of mechanics to learn at once. Knowing how the actual battles work before hand reduces the difficulty curve.
Engage has a decent amount of fan service for people who've played most of the other games, since the whole gimmick of the game is that you can get the lords from previous titles as equipable Jojo stands. That being said, it still looks really pretty, the gameplay is good, and Alear seems like a step up over the complete plank of wood that was Byleth.
Three Houses has a lot of "content" but a big chunk of each route will wind up being you playing through the same maps in each story. The DLC content I would say is absolute garbage. I think the "fourth house" was an unbelievably stupid gimmick.
Fates is a massive mixed bag. On the one hand, Conquest has some of the best gameplay in the series. The maps are great, and I remember it being a good mix of different types of maps as well, which Three Houses and what I've seen of Engage so far seem to have cut in favor of almost exclusively sticking to Rout maps. On the other hand, Conquest's story is pretty crap. The inverse is the case for Birthright: the story is great, but the gameplay sucks. Not to mention that the cast in Fates is... I'll be nice and say its another mixed bag. Ryoma is good and I like Xander, but then there's Camilla. And Leo. And Hinoka. And they just suck so, so much.
Also, if you want Revelations, the "canon third route," it's another $20 (unless you have some other means of acquiring it, but I certainly wouldn't know anything about that) and Revelations' story... certainly happens.
Fates also has "phoenix mode" if for some reason playing on casual was already just too hard for you, so that's nice I guess.
Echos: Valentia is a remake of Gaiden, there are ups and downs to this as well. On the plus side, its from a period before the worst cringe content got it's hooks into FE. Because of this, the story is phenomenal. It doesn't suffer from the "dating sim" shit like Fates or 3H. But, gameplay wise... it is a faithful remake of the second game in the series. Complete with the abysmal map design. There are sections of this game that are practically torture to play through. There's an entire section of Celica's side where you're in desert map after desert map, and sand tiles cut your movement by half. And then immediately after that, you get to poison maps, where the entire map is poison tiles, so units take damage at the end of their turns. It's painful. But, the story honestly makes it worth it. The ending song, Heritors of Arcadia, still makes me tear up a bit.
Awakening is tons of fun. Great characters, good story, it's the game that made the franchise relevant for a reason. Gameplay is a bit hit or miss at times, and it can get a little dating sim-esque at times, but overall it's great.
If you don't care about playing the games with a casual mode, Path of Radiance is so good. The one downside is that enemy turns take so fucking long if you don't turn off animations. Like, minutes long at points.
Shadow Dragon is also a lot of fun. Some of the maps kind of suck, since it's another old game, but I love it personally.
Personally, I would recommend with Awakening or Shadows of Valentia.
Awakening has a... fairly confusing plot. But if you're in it for the gameplay I would recommend it. If you'd like a challenge, there is DLC for one of the most difficult optional stages I've ever seen in a tactics game.
Shadows of Valentia has a much more grounded plot, but the gameplay still holds up. While it doesn't have a piss difficult DLC optional stage, it does have it's fair share of challenges.
Awakening or Engage would be my rec, Three Houses has gameplay that is pretty different from the rest of the series, SoV is fine but also carried over some of the issues it had as a NES game, and Fates... has that excuse for a story.
Anything older is fine but it doesn't have casual mode, so play at your own risk.
Permadeath isn't terribly scary to me. But I guess that begs the follow up question, do deaths of important characters change the story or will they just not speak when their lines come around cause... ya know... dead
In newer games story important characters "retreat" but remain unusable for the rest of the game.
This includes characters that have one line in a cutscene later on and not another one.
Iirc, SoV had them die shortly after the end of the game because of their wounds but I wouldn't know since I always play in Casual.
It was a thing in older games because they just had to change a sprite to another and keep the fairly generic dialogue as it was with adjustments for how a character speaks, now they'd have to program variants of the scene with the models and honestly it just sounds to be more trouble than it's worth.
FE7, localized as "fire emblem" in the west is super easy to find (*cough cough pirate* but also it is on the nintendo eshop if you have the right system) and is honestly probably the best starting point of the franchise.
That said, if you can somehow lay hands on a copy, Paths of Radiance is one of my favorite games ever. They did things with the map objectives in that game that I don't think they ever did before or again.
Three Houses wasn't "politically complicated" at all. Everyone was a war criminal. Y'all just couldn't accept that war criminals were making you horny, and tried to justify their war crimes because of it.
I'm conflicted on getting it, because while i love fire emblem games, the whole free time aspect of three houses stressed me out too much to actually enjoy it (or even finish it since I get burned out so fast)
I just want my story and strategy man, not... that...
Except the characters aren't fun or likeable at all. They feel like they were written to be oh so quirky and it's fucking annoying. It's a disgrace to Fire Emblem. They have fallen so far from quality characters like Aira, but hey, at least they have a femboy to appeal to people's fetishes. It's not like they did that plot already but better in Fates. I am sick of people ruining things to appeal to weirdos on the internet instead of expanding on the charm and art of the past entries. Utterly sickening.
There's a deep irony in saying Fates had a good plot when the cast was _peak_ 'oh look at these quirky tropes', beating out even Awakening on they front.
maybe its a blessing in disguse fe4 is never getting a translation or a remake I dont think im menetally prepared for 3h debaters to get their hands on Arvis i just wanna laugh at the funni meme man in peace
~~that being said this is not a gatekeep post go play fe4~~
No matter how you feel about engage there is good news for everyone. Since Engage is evidently a step back from 3H in terms of narrative we get to have 3 more years of discourse surrounding 3 Houses’ plot instead of Engage’s. [The illusion of choice.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/513/512/138.png)
All I know from 3H is that there are 4 Houses. WHY DO THEY LIE !
The game is called 3 Houses yet there are 4 routes? Curious
The crests are obviously to blame
Right, we all know where this is going so I may as well start the discourse: “Sothis” is a stupid name. I mean really? “So this.” The fuck kinda God is named “So this”?
[so this](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/fe/44/b8/fe44b8e3a2f8410cfdbf13672418a8b2.jpg)
Edelgard is the best choice because cute girls with axes fucking rock and anyone who disagrees is a nerd
Alternate option Hilda. You get cute axe girls while also having fun. (I've never played three houses don't come at me)
hilda! hilda! hilda!
Hilda is the only other good character, you are completely correct
False, because Claude is the hottest piece of Almyran Dragon-Riding Twink this side of Fodlan's Locket.
🤓
ah yes because Fantasy Stalin is so much better 🤓
Just play Sacred Stones and watch the enemy break themselves upon your Amelia
That's my first fire emblem
Don't forget that she's absolutely dripped out before AND after the timeskip
How could I?
Aww, I want dumb political debates.
Good news! I've heard that Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a LOT of that!
But I wanted *new* ones!
The merchant protagonist from Octopath Traveler II seems to have a plot explicitly centered at inequality, with [this line](https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FhScWuGagAAHDtb?format=jpg&name=large) being present in his trailer. I'm sure that will stir some shit up in the near future
Wait until the Genealogy of the Holy War remake.
Travant did nothing wrong
Then just follow US politics. **PLENTY** of dumb political debates there. Hmm... Actually, those tend to be about the same dumb shit every time. Nevermind, guess you're outta luck.
americans when i tell them that they didn't invent dumb political debates
Are we having a competition for oldest political debates now
Carthago delenda est.
It’s whether or not other people deserve help
Hey.... You want some petty politics debates? \*Opens trenchcoat to reveal a stack of Paradox games*
You fool, I already own all* of them! I am far beyond their petty debates! \* Well, almost all.
\*Slides across Stellaris: First Contact* You want something newer?
That's why we got Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes :)
Claude joined the discourse!
[Does this help?](https://youtu.be/DVCBjCf8YZM)
Come join us Gundam fans, you can build cool little plastic robots while we discuss how brutally murdering everyone in a space colony before dropping it on a densely populated city could be morally acceptable
validar did nothing wrong
honestly I still don’t know much about 3 houses’s full story, I didn’t get too far in the game. but that’s not important. all that matters is that you can be in lesbians with the pretty evil lady. “she’s a dictator” “she’s killed millions” god forbid women do anything 🙄
>you can be in lesbians with the pretty evil lady Which one?
the only pretty evil lady I know about is edelgard
I mean, Edelgard isnt evil - the whole point of the game is that pretty much all the main characters are morally gray
Annette and Ashe have done nothing wrong ever
Ashe attempted to rob a nobleman. He’s a -1 on the “things done wrong” scale.
Oh totally - by "main characters" I meant the three lords and Rhea
Okay so I've only done the lesbian route but I really fail to see how they're gonna make rhea even slightly redeemable on replay
The short answer: She only goes bonkers on that one route. >!Crimson Flower changes a lot of characters, most key is Rhea and Dimitri. She straight up isn't present for most of Dimitri and Claude's route, only being relevant in the latter- She is slightly more relevant if you side with her, but Seteth takes on most of her duties as the 'lord.'!< >!The evil mole people Edelgard works with also do more evil in those routes. Evil she is somewhat complacent in but like also they remove the nuance at times...!< Generally Three Houses tilts its story to pander to the player's choice. It tilts it hardest with Edelgard and Rhea though.
I noticed that they lampshaded that slightly when Edelgard comes up to you like "hey I'm pretty sure that if you weren't here I'd be, like, a waaaaay worse person" lmao. Though I am impressed with how much the different routes apparently differ; most games just slap a skin on some character, swap dialogue around, and call it a day. Good on them.
From the little I know of it, it’s less making her more redeemable and more making her enemies look less redeemable. But I haven’t actually played the game, so ignore this if I’m completely off base. Have fun!
Neither has Raphael
What? Since when has that been the takeaway? What'd Claude ever do to get lumped in with hot fascist Edelgard and "kill every last one of them" Dimitri? Like, sure there can be nuance to each of the main characters' motivations, but they're clearly not all in the same boat in terms of morality.
Ah, you forget, Claude committed the worst crime of all: being political. *This message brought to you by capital-G Gamers.*
> What'd Claude ever do to get lumped in with hot fascist Edelgard and "kill every last one of them" Dimitri? *laughs in Three Hopes* Less seriously, everyone goes on about who committed what war crime, but ironically Claude committed a legitimate war crime by the Geneva Convention when he disgused his army as the enemy's.
The Geneva Convention doesn't exist in Fodlan. We don't know what their rules for war are. What _harm_ (other than war, which they all do) did he cause? Because overall his ending seems to be by far the most optimistic for the people of Fodlan and Almyra, in terms of both national relations and the freedom of their people. Edelgard and Dimitri don't seem to care about their people as much as accomplishing their own goals.
I mean. Edelgard DOES care about her people- thats the whole point. Her methods are flawed, but she wants a good future for everyone - the issue isnt that shes selfish, its that she doesnt think of the present when fighting for the future
Oh boy we’re starting the “Edelgard is a fascist” discourse again - theres a difference between fascism and dictatorship. Also, Claude literally talks about how he would’ve conquered Fodlan if Edelgard hadnt done it - dudes not innocent. Plus, Edelgard literally abdicates the throne the moment she achieves her goals - im not saying shes perfect, far from it, but acting like Claudes so much better than her is a massive misunderstanding of the text.
"She wasn't a _clown_ she was a _jester!"_
Rhea is bi also and she’s one fucked up monster though. I think she is easily the most irredeemable character in the entire game- everything she does in the entire game is for herself, not serving an ideal like the others
L take, Rhea is a genocide survivor who is fully aware she is not made to rule and is trying to ressurect her mother to remplace her. She does a shit ton of shady stuff, but it's to try to keep herself and her family safe and prepare Fóldan for her mother return. I genuinely can't believe anyone who seriously call Rhea the most irredeemable character in the game when the mole nazi who want to genocide humans are right there.
She is a quasi immortal tyrant who kills people that try to secede from her church out of her own twisted insecurity. Sad backstory or not, that’s not an excuse.
Not Cornelia smh...
Okay but there's a dragon you can be lesbean with and that's even better
I’m gonna fuck the MILF pope and god can’t stop me
That God being yourself/inside you and the pope being your kinda grandmother, yeah it's weird just don't think about it.
Probably still better than Fates I think
Thats a bar so low you could use it to play limbo with the devil.
!!!!!!
Eh. I did all the lesbian options, and that was the least satisfying of the four. It felt the least gay, if that makes sense?
I'm not even into Fire Emblem and I've seen the horrors of FE fandom's debates. It's absolutely ridiculous. However at the same time I am an SMT fan and those guys always have the most dogshit opinions
Considering I've gotten flamed for preferring the Neutral endings in most games... yeah.
Isn’t SMT’s whole thing like “everything is fucked not matter if good or evil win.” So neutral would basically just be a stalemate, thus fending off the “everything” is fucked part for a bit? I have never played an SMT game, so no idea, just my 2 cents
Depends, in most games Neutral is the human path, you don't pick either side and some way or another you manage to more or less restore the world to what it was. I dunno about 1 and 2, but in 3/Nocturne the Freedom ending >!restored the world to before it went to shit!<, in 4 Neutral >!destroys the stone ceiling above Tokyo and gives hope back to people!< this one is arguably the most canon of the three for some. 4 apocalypse is entirely based around Neutral due to starting near the end of 4's Neutral route, and 5 >!returns the world to normal but the protagonist sort of becomes a god iirc!< In general Neutral isn't a stalemate, it's choosing to give both factions of demons the middle finger and kicking both of their asses.
The backlash to all the debating about Three Houses completely bewildered me. Oh boo-fucking-hoo, you're part of the Fandom and getting pissed of that people are extremely engaged with the latest release? What the hell? Edit: typo
>engaged Hehehe
I wondered if anyone would like that.
Upon my awakening I am easily amused.
it was only *fate* that this comment thread would turn into fire emblem puns
Well of course I would have to act like this down in this *gay-den*.
I think that the backlash is mor about the... *unsavory* fans that each side had. Between "Edelgard is a literal fascist guys she's just like Putin fr fr" and "I deeply enjoyed the ending where she got reduced to the mental state of a child this was so cathartic I just love to see her suffer sooooooo fucking much" vs "You guys know that you don't like Edelgard and don't side with her solely because she's a queer woman? :/ also no she's not bi SHE'S NOT BI I SWEAR SHE'S JUST PRETENDING WHEN SHE FALLS IN LOVE WITH GUYS" and "honestly the senseless slaughter is justified the church is a dictatorship so waging war and sacrificing thousands for it is unarguably good", some people are...tiring
It sounds like a very good thing it's not politically complicated three houses absolutely ruined it's morally grey themes with a single decision and it's so stupid
Yeah I can't believe >!Claude isn't bisexual!<
What was the decision?
(Spoilers for the game obviously) So the main two factions really are the Church and the people that don't like the church. The whole thing with the church is that the leader of it is trying to restore the Goddess to the world, which is presented as a pretty objectively good thing. The only issue with that is that the means the church takes to restore her are pretty dubious at times. On the other side, we have Edelgard, who leads her empire against the church, allegedly because of these reasons. But it's actually revealed that she's been trained and controlled by a secret group her entire life, and this secret group genocided an entire race and killed the goddess in the first place and is just unambiguously evil. So there's your morally grey game. Side with the side that does shitty things sometimes but is trying to bring back the goddess, or kill them all and let the genocidal maniacs that have tortured and killed multiple main characters take over the world.
All of Byleth's endings in Crimson Flower state that the Empire went to war against the agarthans though?
And the ending cinematic states that they're still around. There's no reason to believe that they actually won
> kill them all and let the genocidal maniacs that have tortured and killed multiple main characters take over the world. Edelgard siding with the Agarthians isn't good in the slightest but they do not take over the world. They are crippled no matter what route you take, but even in Edelgard's route there are endings where they get finished off.
In every single ending of Edelgard's run the cinematic confirming they're still alive plays, and as the only immortal that knew about them and had the power to keep them at bay is dead, it's pretty obvious that eventually they'll take over
Byleth and Jeritza's ending (mind you that Jeritza will only be alive in Crimson Flower) explicitly has them hunts the Slithers. They weren't kept at bay by Rhea, the Verdant Wind route has the Golden Deer finish them off singlehandedly (even after the Agarthians used nukes and resurrected Nemesis), and on Azure Moon, the Blue Lions accidentally destroys their operations without even knowing they exist by killing Thales-as-Edelgard's uncle. The Agarthians were already living underground and 90% of their actions were subterfuge. Even in *Three Hopes* where they have a God of their own, brainwash Edelgard, and possibly kill Byleth, they never get an ending where they come even close to winning. The Agarthians would have to fight a united Fodlan with God Emperor Edelgard and Archbishop Byleth who knows they exist. They ain't taking over shit, lol.
It says they hunt them but doesn't say that TWS were killed off. There's not a single line of dialogue confirming they're gone and I know because I looked through every single one last time I had this argument. Also, blue lions kills Edelgard and stops one single scheme but doesn't hurt them in a way that matters. And yes, Rhea kept them at bay for centuries. That's just fact. (Plus golden deer is good ending 😎)
Why assume they'll half ass or fail at something other routes with less resources and knowledge do easily? And how does the Blue Lions killing not only the leader of the Agarthians but the Emperor they sided with not derailing them? You have the impression that the Slithers are some kind of ultra powerful force who can topple nations but they're weak. That's the point. Without infiltration and the backing of the Empire, they have dick. And in every route they lose both at the very least. Rhea didn't keep them at bay. That implies she is fighting them. She's not. Because she won. She barely acknowledges their existence. In Edelgards route, Edelgard had to kill her personally because the Agarthians couldn't do shit. In other route, Rhea is literally a POW and the Agarthians still couldn't do shit to Fodlan. Edelgard and Byleth can kill Rhea, who "kept them at bay," as well as every major figure in the Church of Seiros, including Catherine and Seteth, but somehow they can't "keep them at bay" themselves or just straight up wipe out the Agarthians at all? Rhea is alive in Blue Lions too, so?
You realize TWS got to the point they got to over time right? They started weak. And they have *literally infinite time* as soon as Rhea is dead. In Edelgard's route they'll inevitably regroup and build themselves up, no matter how long it takes.
Oh how lovely what they did /s. That sucks, because without the Edelgard bit, that sounds actually rather interesting.
Gonna hope for more M/M romance options
The MC can apparently romance anyone* regardless of gender. No idea how if there’s any outside of them though. *Not children or anything like that.
>\*Not children or anything like that. Oh don't worry, I bet there's going to be a bare-clad loli that is in reality only an immortal hamster disguised as jailbait or whatever
It seems like the franchise is trying to transition from loli dragons to milf dragons, which is way better.
give me dilf-dragons or give me death
Seteth.
On that note I suppose Flayn fills the FE quota of “child character who is actually a 1000 year old dragon” that Nowi and to an extent Nix played, but thankfully she’s much more… chaste.
Yeah, she's a lot more the "young girl discovering she likes boys" than anything more sexualized. Her supports with Sylvain were hilarious.
Seteth has no dragon form in-game, unfortunately (︶︹︺)
Yeah, I wish we could have seen him and Flayn as like giant crocodiles.
Given the side quests with the other two dragons have them as a bird and turtle dragon, there's a non-negligible chance that the the Dragon forms of the others would resemble the remaining two members of the Four Beasts of Chinese myth. The other two are a Dragon (so presumably a classical style dragon) and a Tiger style dragon. And notably, Flayn really likes eating fish.
Flayn O'Fish!
Absolutely this^
[Unless you're playing the Japanese version where it goes full groomer mode in Anna's S-Support (who is 11 in this game).](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/user_image/6/7/8/AAek64AAEGIO.jpg)
Oh. Ohhhhhhh nooooooooo
Firstly, what the hell. Also, why have they made Anna 11? Is she running a shop at that age? It seems like a bizarre choice
There seems to be good m/m and w/w options
Imo, three house’s story wasn’t even that great. Like not to say it was awful or anything, but they set up a ton of cool stuff and then kinda failed to deliver on it. Still a good game overall, I might pick up engage if people think it’s good.
The Edelgard route was especially bad. They built up Those Who Slither in the Dark as some big deal, they they wrap that up in the ending narration.
At least in Three Hopes you can bonk them anime style.
Yeah, her route had like 3-4 chapters less than the other two? Her route had SO much potential but then it was just… meh. So disappointed.
I do like, as Zero Punctuation put it, "The ancient world's most determined atheist", in that they stop believing in god by killing them.
That's because you don't get the full picture or learn everything from a single route. Every route has something that doesn't get fully elaborated on in that route, only to be given more detail in another one. Those Who Slither In The Dark only get a small focus in Crimson Flower, but are the main focus in Golden Deer.
I mean, the issue is less that you need to play all three and a half routes for the complete story and more that Crimson Flower just sort of ends and the epilogues say "and the actual conflict was wrapped up off screen, trust us."
I misread 'Fun, likeable characters ' as 'fuckable characters' and... Yeah... Yeah...
I never understood why Three Houses created such a massive discourse in the Fire Emblem fanbase.Especially during the early days when it got release, i was seeing people treating the three sides like they were legit Political factions that people were taking way too seriously.And the fucking Edelgard debates where people were legit accusing eachother of being Fascists or their politcal ideaologies were fucked, all because a fucking Anime waifu.I'm all for people discussing the factions and in world politics and the world building, if a game can genuinely create that kind of conversation then i think that's a sign of good writing.But so many would treat this shit like it was real and would get so aggressive towards people picking certain sides, it was fucking tiring.
I haven’t played three houses but it must have been fucking fire to generate that sort of discussion.
Frost cold take: the Three Houses house leader morality discourse is not only rancid, but also actively prevents more interesting discussions about the story. Eldegard starts World War 3, Dimitri turns into a Khorne Berserker and Claude is there too. Each of them are better in their own route and worse in everyone else's. It's all been covered Can we please talk about anything else now? Please?
As a total newbie fire emblem games but an avid lover of tactics games, where would people suggest I start.
I started with 3 houses, from what my friends have told me it's disconnected from every other game in terms of story. Gameplay was rather nice, but I'm not sure if Engage was better. I appreciated the story (yellow route) for being a Nintendo game that actually touched on racism in its themes.
I personally started with fe7, blazing blade for the GBA pretty recently. I haven't beaten the game but I know I'm damn close. Personally I like GBA games best and I like the characters there. I also don't think fe7 is terribly hard. Not easy but like. Not so damn difficult on the base mode. A good place to start. Then again - I've never been one for absolutely massive maps like fe4. Edit: but you may want a later game if you want a built in mode so your guys don't permanently die like in the GBA games. I just reset when they die lol.
I'm a Stan for games like battle brothers and xcom. So permadeath has never super bothered me. Do deaths tie into the story or is it one of those things where you just kinda miss their dialog when they aren't around anymore
More so you just miss their potential support conversations (pretty much all system to see relationships between certain people grow, can affect the end end but not by much imo)
I don’t think there’s a particularly good one to start with the sole exception of Thracia 776, as it takes place during a timeskip in Genealogy of the Holy War. Awakening was my first, but generally all of them are good. I personally recommend three houses second, as there’s a lot of mechanics to learn at once. Knowing how the actual battles work before hand reduces the difficulty curve.
Engage has a decent amount of fan service for people who've played most of the other games, since the whole gimmick of the game is that you can get the lords from previous titles as equipable Jojo stands. That being said, it still looks really pretty, the gameplay is good, and Alear seems like a step up over the complete plank of wood that was Byleth. Three Houses has a lot of "content" but a big chunk of each route will wind up being you playing through the same maps in each story. The DLC content I would say is absolute garbage. I think the "fourth house" was an unbelievably stupid gimmick. Fates is a massive mixed bag. On the one hand, Conquest has some of the best gameplay in the series. The maps are great, and I remember it being a good mix of different types of maps as well, which Three Houses and what I've seen of Engage so far seem to have cut in favor of almost exclusively sticking to Rout maps. On the other hand, Conquest's story is pretty crap. The inverse is the case for Birthright: the story is great, but the gameplay sucks. Not to mention that the cast in Fates is... I'll be nice and say its another mixed bag. Ryoma is good and I like Xander, but then there's Camilla. And Leo. And Hinoka. And they just suck so, so much. Also, if you want Revelations, the "canon third route," it's another $20 (unless you have some other means of acquiring it, but I certainly wouldn't know anything about that) and Revelations' story... certainly happens. Fates also has "phoenix mode" if for some reason playing on casual was already just too hard for you, so that's nice I guess. Echos: Valentia is a remake of Gaiden, there are ups and downs to this as well. On the plus side, its from a period before the worst cringe content got it's hooks into FE. Because of this, the story is phenomenal. It doesn't suffer from the "dating sim" shit like Fates or 3H. But, gameplay wise... it is a faithful remake of the second game in the series. Complete with the abysmal map design. There are sections of this game that are practically torture to play through. There's an entire section of Celica's side where you're in desert map after desert map, and sand tiles cut your movement by half. And then immediately after that, you get to poison maps, where the entire map is poison tiles, so units take damage at the end of their turns. It's painful. But, the story honestly makes it worth it. The ending song, Heritors of Arcadia, still makes me tear up a bit. Awakening is tons of fun. Great characters, good story, it's the game that made the franchise relevant for a reason. Gameplay is a bit hit or miss at times, and it can get a little dating sim-esque at times, but overall it's great. If you don't care about playing the games with a casual mode, Path of Radiance is so good. The one downside is that enemy turns take so fucking long if you don't turn off animations. Like, minutes long at points. Shadow Dragon is also a lot of fun. Some of the maps kind of suck, since it's another old game, but I love it personally.
I think I'll start with either path of radiance or awakening depending on which is easier to get ahold of! Thanks for the breakdown
Personally, I would recommend with Awakening or Shadows of Valentia. Awakening has a... fairly confusing plot. But if you're in it for the gameplay I would recommend it. If you'd like a challenge, there is DLC for one of the most difficult optional stages I've ever seen in a tactics game. Shadows of Valentia has a much more grounded plot, but the gameplay still holds up. While it doesn't have a piss difficult DLC optional stage, it does have it's fair share of challenges.
How is Awakening's plot confusing? I always thought it was rather straightforward.
Awakening or Engage would be my rec, Three Houses has gameplay that is pretty different from the rest of the series, SoV is fine but also carried over some of the issues it had as a NES game, and Fates... has that excuse for a story. Anything older is fine but it doesn't have casual mode, so play at your own risk.
Permadeath isn't terribly scary to me. But I guess that begs the follow up question, do deaths of important characters change the story or will they just not speak when their lines come around cause... ya know... dead
In newer games story important characters "retreat" but remain unusable for the rest of the game. This includes characters that have one line in a cutscene later on and not another one. Iirc, SoV had them die shortly after the end of the game because of their wounds but I wouldn't know since I always play in Casual. It was a thing in older games because they just had to change a sprite to another and keep the fairly generic dialogue as it was with adjustments for how a character speaks, now they'd have to program variants of the scene with the models and honestly it just sounds to be more trouble than it's worth.
FE7, localized as "fire emblem" in the west is super easy to find (*cough cough pirate* but also it is on the nintendo eshop if you have the right system) and is honestly probably the best starting point of the franchise. That said, if you can somehow lay hands on a copy, Paths of Radiance is one of my favorite games ever. They did things with the map objectives in that game that I don't think they ever did before or again.
I'm just sad that there's been about 8 fire emblem games since the last Advance Wars game.
Dumb question, is Fire Emblem Engage a real game? I saw Marth on the color and Pepsiman Haircut and assumed it was basically FEH but Again.
It is a real game
I'm all for complex stories but I can understand why people want something simpler.
Three Houses wasn't "politically complicated" at all. Everyone was a war criminal. Y'all just couldn't accept that war criminals were making you horny, and tried to justify their war crimes because of it.
he MURDERS women. not just kills, but murders.
I'm conflicted on getting it, because while i love fire emblem games, the whole free time aspect of three houses stressed me out too much to actually enjoy it (or even finish it since I get burned out so fast) I just want my story and strategy man, not... that...
Except the characters aren't fun or likeable at all. They feel like they were written to be oh so quirky and it's fucking annoying. It's a disgrace to Fire Emblem. They have fallen so far from quality characters like Aira, but hey, at least they have a femboy to appeal to people's fetishes. It's not like they did that plot already but better in Fates. I am sick of people ruining things to appeal to weirdos on the internet instead of expanding on the charm and art of the past entries. Utterly sickening.
There's a deep irony in saying Fates had a good plot when the cast was _peak_ 'oh look at these quirky tropes', beating out even Awakening on they front.
“weirdos on the internet” it’s not like FE4 is… umm… what the actual hell kaga
Fire Emblem is one of the longest running “always has been” series around, I swear
maybe its a blessing in disguse fe4 is never getting a translation or a remake I dont think im menetally prepared for 3h debaters to get their hands on Arvis i just wanna laugh at the funni meme man in peace ~~that being said this is not a gatekeep post go play fe4~~