Fire Emblem Three Houses Review
Perhaps the greatest struggle as a teacher is the disappointment of knowing that you can’t send your students into battle. But thanks to Nintendo, I can imagine a world where that struggle is over: my students, armed to the teeth and ready for war, charge nobly at the enemy lines. When it’s over, we eat lunch in the cafeteria or go fishing.
This game has it all.
Fire Emblem Three Houses is a strategy game where you take on the role of Byleth, a teacher at the Garreg Mach military academy, preparing your students to survive a continent about to be ripped apart by war. The game has three main selling points: exciting, strategic combat; a wide, charismatic cast of characters; and multiple distinct stories.
The game’s combat is simple enough to play, but strategies can quickly become complex as you level up your students, open new pathways, and find new weapons and abilities. You start with a top-down map of a battlefield and a handful of students. You and the enemy take turns organizing your troops and attempting attacks. Later, mobility becomes an issue: soldiers on horseback can outpace foot soldiers. Soldiers on wyverns can fly even further, but are easily shot down by archers. Gameplay can be addictive. I spent 50 hours in this game over the course of a few weeks.
…Then I spent another 50 hours a few weeks after that, but that came down to the characters. You choose one Hogwarts-esque group of students to play the game with: Black Eagles, Blue Lions, or Golden Deer. Each house starts with eight students that you can learn about, lead to victory, and help grow. What’s really genius about the system is that with your help, the characters build relationships with each other: characters that fight together or study together in their off-time build “Support” status with one another. Mechanically, that means they’re more likely to succeed in combat near a close ally. Within the game, though, the characters have little story arcs where they learn more about each other and grow closer as friends. These conversations are so fun. It’s like a book series where every character gets to grow and show off their backstory, and it was absolutely my favorite part of the game. Winning a battle is a thrill. Helping two friends repair their friendship after years apart? That’s just good for the soul.
Despite this character’s ENTIRE VIBE, he’s actually a pretty good friend.
That brings us to the story, which is probably the weakest of those three selling points. The art style and plot are very inspired by anime. Big moments are punctuated by yelling and magic that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Your enemies’ motives are often confusing or incomplete. Partly this is by design: there are four possible story paths you can go on depending on which house you choose and how you play, so each one only gets a piece of the puzzle. That’s a great reason to go back and play again, but it’s also a bit of a bummer to spend fifty hours working on a game and realize that you need to start over to answer a lot of your questions. That said, completing the game with any team feels rewarding and really helps you get attached to the characters.
Three Houses isn’t a perfect game. There are some distractions from the main combat that don’t yield a lot. Some of the characters aren’t as interesting as others. And, heck, sometimes the storyline may feel a little overdone. But I sure was excited to spend 100 hours with this game, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t going to go back a third time. I give this game 4 child soldiers out 5. Beware of dragons and feelings.