Fire Emblem is currently one of my favorite gaming franchises of all time, but it wasn’t always like that. Prior to 2021, I hated the series because I had a few bad experiences with the gameplay of the older games. But I gave Three Houses a shot In 2021 and fell in love with it instantly. I was thinking of the game while doing my review of The Rising of the Shield Hero, and I wanted to revisit it.
The gameplay is pretty standard for a turn-based SRPG. You move your units around the map, and each unit has strengths and weaknesses based on the type of weapon that they use. At the start of the game, you only have access to a handful of units based on the house you choose at the start, and a few other units. You unlock more by increasing your support with units and then recruiting them to your house in subsequent playthroughs.
The gameplay is a lot of fun and has its quirks. But many of the mechanics found in SRPG’s are the same. Since then I’ve played Disgaea 7, Unicorn Overlord, and The Hundred Line -Last Defense Academy, and the fundamentals are always the same. I loved the battles and training my units, but that’s not why I loved the game so much. My heart belonged to the story, characters, and soundtrack.
Most of the games I play are fun because of the gameplay or other aspects. Persona, Trails, and Final Fantasy were the only ones I really played before this that had any large scale stories. But Three Houses blew them all away. You start off as a mercenary named Byleth who saves some teens from a group of bandits. They are actually students at the Garreg Mach Monastery and are all part of royalty.
You end up becoming a teacher there and you have to choose which house you want to lead, and that significantly alters the story. The game is broken into two parts. The first one doesn’t really make a difference to the story, with the only differences being the dialogue from your students. But the actual story of the game kicks off after the end of part one depending on which house you pick.
I thought this was a cool mechanic because it basically turned into three separate games. When I chose one house and beat the game, I had no problem with doing part one all over again just to get to the new story stuff because it was that good. My first playthrough was with the Black Eagles and took more than 40 hours. But I had no problem doing part one all over again with the Blue Lions just to get to the new story stuff because it was so good.
Speaking of new playthroughs, there’s a resource called Renown that boosts your stuff during subsequent playthroughs. If you have the DLC, you can earn unlimited Renown before the end of your first playthrough by reading this guide. This will help because getting stronger will simply allow you to get through part one faster.
So much care went into the crafting of each route. The writers didn’t half-ass anything for the sake of moving on to the next route. Every chapter is full of emotion and interesting moments. Just the main story alone has so much going on, and would have had enough to make three separate games. But that’s just the main story, every character has a novels worth of content, and there’s so many.
Each house has eight units that you can use in battle, but they all have their own place in the story and their own lore. In part one, all of them have their own progression and dialogue. Then in part two, their stories, fates, and dialogue change drastically based on which route you went. But you can also talk to them casually and individually raise your friendship with each of them. This leads to even more dialogue and cutscenes.
I’ve never played a game that had so many characters that I loved so much. By the end of my second playthrough, I loved Ferdinand, Bernadetta, Leonie, Seteth, Sylvain, Ashe, Rhea, Catherine, and Shamir. So many characters that I’d die for. Plus each character is fully voiced, and every voice actor does a fantastic job. Before the game came out, Veronica Taylor and Cherami Leigh were the only two names I recognized. But the game turned me into a big fan of 16 actors because of how good their performances were.
Lastly, the music is another reason that I love the game so much. None of the songs are truly catchy in the way that some game soundtracks are. But many of the songs transcend beyond being just a game soundtrack and more into an actually good song. Not that many games can pull that off.
Maybe it’s because I put more than 200 hours into the game, so I heard every song 100 times. But I love them all. Songs like Fódlan Winds, Blue Skies and a Battle, and The Long Road are phenomenal. Plus there are many more iconic songs. I remember two weeks after I started playing I stayed up all night, and I couldn’t go to sleep because it was already morning. So I went for a two hour walk and was just listening to the soundtrack on repeat. That’s how good the music is.
The gameplay of Fire Emblem Three Houses is a lot of fun, but beyond that, the game is a masterclass on storytelling, writing, and dialogue. It’s one of the biggest games of all time in my opinion because you’re basically getting an anime and multiple movies while playing a game. The cost never goes down but it doesn’t really have to when you can push 200 or more hours. If you’ve played it before, go back and play it again. If you haven’t played it yet, what are you waiting for?
10/10