I am not new to the Fire Emblem series but it definitely has been years since I picked up the latest installment. In fact, I think the last one I played was back on the Gameboy Advance. At that age, I do not think I enjoyed the gameplay of Fire Emblem and it's strategy / RPG components. But after deciding to buy a Nintendo Switch, I decided to dive back into the series with its latest installment Fire Emblem: Three Houses. To my surprise, Three Houses provides a great narrative, an assemble of great supporting characters, and gameplay that is as addicting as it can be challenging.
Story
For context, Three Houses brings you the continent of Fodlan, which it's landmass is home to three rival nations currently at piece with one another: the Adrestian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance. In Three Houses, you play as Byleth, a mercenary turned professor at the Garreg Mach Monastery, home to the Church of Seiros with an officer's school for students from each of the country's three nations. As the new professor, you decide to lead the officer candidates from one of the three houses (The Blue Lions, Black Eagles, or the Golden Deer) and train them for the battlefield on behalf of the Church.
Without going into spoilers, the story is split into two parts. The first part focuses on your time as a professor at the Monastery and dealing with the political tensions arising against the Church. The second part is determined based on what house you decided to lead at the beginning of the game, which increases the replayability of Three Houses (I only did one playthrough with the Blue Lions at the time of this review). Throughout the 40-hour campaign, I never felt the story dragged or became uninteresting. That being said, I will say the first part was more interesting to me since I like the political themes that were being discussed against the Church as tensions rose across the country. While the main story is engaging, it's also helpful that the characters are also just as interesting. No matter what house you choose, each house has a set number of students as well as a determined leader among them. As you continue through the campaign, you have the opportunity to interact with your students to learn more about their past, what they want the future to be, as well as identify other characteristics hidden within. While you do choose to lead one house, you are still able to engage in deep discussions with most of the characters outside of your house that further adds to the overall engagement in Fire Houses' world. Even Byleth is an interesting character; though he does not speak as much as the other characters, it is quite interesting to see the mysteries of his past come to light.
Gameplay
The Battlefield
What Fire Emblem is known for is it's strategy / RPG gameplay. The series has always been about war and how to effectively manage your comrades on the battlefield and Three Houses is no exception. Every time you go into battle, you have to be strategic and move your forces knowing what obstacles might come in your way. Depending on the arena and the enemies you have to defeat, splitting your forces to develop an ambush may be the better approach compared to a full-on assault. I quite enjoyed the feeling of reviewing the map and creating a strategy from the beginning only to see that I have to revise mid-battle in order to accomplish my goal.
Combat itself is pretty straight forward: you move your characters across the map and defeat the enemy soldiers (or even beasts). What is gone from older Fire Emblem games is the weapon/magic strength rules are gone. That was probably one of the more frustrating mechanics I could not get used to when I played (probably) 15 years ago. Lances beat swords, swords beat aces, axes beat lances - it all sounds so simple until you get into the gameplay and you forget or miss one enemy that has the weapon that will kill your ally. This was incredibly important because in Fire Emblem your fallen allies do not come back to life at the end of battle, which adds to the overall strategy. While there is a Casual option where your allies do come back from falling in battle, I went with the Classic option to get the full Fire Emblem experience. However, I do appreciate the ability to rewind time during battle to undo any mistakes that could lead to the death of your team. It helps avoid those incredibly frustrating deaths that you could not get back. Though these two options are nice to have, I am happy to say that I found the gameplay still challenging. While I will admit that I did grind my allies where they were 5-10+ levels higher than the recommended level of the mission, I still found some areas quite challenging especially towards the end where you fight all sorts of enemies in large gatherings.
In addition to these mechanics, there is also weapon durability. Each time you attack with your weapon, the durability starts to decrease. Combat arts, which are more powerful attacks, are a nice addition to the combat but also require more durability points to use. While you can repair your weapons at a blacksmith, you cannot repair during battle. It's important that you make sure each character's weapon is thoroughly maintained (or at least has a backup weapon just in case). Another great mechanic are battalions. Each character has the potential of hiring and using battalions in battle. These can be extremely powerful attacks that could turn the tides of a battle if you are surrounded by multiple enemies or facing more dangerous threats like beasts or dragons. Though their strength is balanced through their chances of missing their target and the need to replenish (AKA repaying them) prior to battle.
Outside the Battlefield
When you are not in battle, you return to your role as professor. These areas take place over the course of a month, with a mission awaiting you at the end of month. The major portion of this month is through instructing, which allows you to work with your students and build up certain skill sets you want them to use during combat. This also adds to the strategy as you can determine which students become mages, archers, ride on horseback, wear heavy armor, or become an agile sword master (just to name a few). Throughout your instruction, students will even come up to you to focus on certain skills they are interested in. You can either accept their path or choose your own for them. Outside of instruction, you have the ability to explore the Monastery (which gives you the option to do some side quests and interact with your students on a more personal level), engage in seminars with other professors to focus on specific skills, or take your students into battles to level up grind. You can even take a weekend to rest your students to increase their level of motivation (and, therefore, become more susceptible to skill development) for the upcoming week of instruction. Depending on what you do can easily determine if your next mission / battle is easier or if it becomes a serious challenge.
Graphics
Three Houses switches between beautiful scenes and less-than ambitious, repetitive battlefield maps and backgrounds. Throughout the game, you will come across some brilliant cutscenes with characters and battles that makes you feel like you are watching an anime show on your Switch. The game can definitely be beautiful when it wants to be and it shows during these cutscenes. However, majority of the scenes between Byleth and his students / allies are the characters animating in front of a background. It makes the game feel less immersive, which is disappointing compared to the outstanding visuals in those rare cutscenes. The other repetitive area are the battlefield maps. The side quest battles are usually in one of three or four small maps. While I can understand the size of the maps being small, it would have been nice to have a few more maps to switch up the visual. While the main mission battlefields are different, I would have liked to see more visuals at is relates to the state of the country. There are way too many grasslands and cities / towns not decimated by a war that has overtaken the country.
Verdict
Overall, I was impressed by how much I enjoyed Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Sure the maps and backgrounds leave something more to be desired but the engaging story, well-developed characters, and an addicting combat system makes Three Houses also a must play. If you are into strategy / tactical games, I would recommend this. If you are interested in trying out this series for the first time, I would still recommend it because of the gameplay mechanics that make it easier to redo unforeseen deaths in the battlefield (as a person who has not played a Fire Emblem game in over 15 years, I fall into this category).
Score: 9/10