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Played the demo and was genuinely shocked to learn Monica and Kronya are different people (are we spoilering things in the demo? Feels like plot revelations within the prologue would be fair game, but maybe not!). I think it helps soften Edelgard quite a bit to show her risking her whole plan to save one friend, and also retroactively makes her seem even more stone cold that she could handle acting natural around one of her "allies wearing a skin-suit of someone who admired her so much. Edelgard's coming off as a lot less dark and "ends justify the means" this time.
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Jun 10, 2022 22:38
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Carlosologist posted:I like how in Scarlet Blaze we over throw the government in Chapter 3 My guess, not having looked at any of the datamining stuff that's out there, is that this time the three different routes are before the midgame and they'll come together for a combined route for the latter half. As such, the first half might be a speed run of many of the events of the war from Tree Houses, the same way the school stuff got condensed down to two battles. Might explain how they'll handle "recruitment", if they're just divvied up for the first half then everyone's available for the second half. I haven't played through all three routes offered in the demo yet, but the impression I've got so far is that they may not be mutually exclusive - that is, aside from Shed joining a different side, they might all be happening simultaneously. Dolash fucked around with this message at 05:47 on Jun 11, 2022 |
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Jun 11, 2022 05:45
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mandatory lesbian posted:Shez is so cool, and by cool i mean a complete dork Saw a fun idea somewhere on the difference between Byleth and Shez, where Three Houses is how Byleth sees battles - as chess matches that focus on positioning and matching the strength of their different commanders against the enemy's officers. Three Hopes is how Shez sees battles, as chaotic melees with hundreds of dudes pouring in from all sides while they focus on giving the enemy leader the old ba-boom.
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Jun 11, 2022 17:30
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Sydin posted:Hubert has an A support with Monica of all people, lmao. Of course, they have to compete for the role of Top Edelgard Simp.
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Jun 11, 2022 18:55
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Sydin posted:
This seems less like a response to criticism and more like evidence that they don't need to spend as long establishing the characters and their dynamics with a drawn-out school simulator since that's already a game you can play if you want. They almost seem to wink at that in the Crimson Blaze plot, where Dorothea has a camp conversation worrying about having to fight their friends soon and Shez can point out that the officer school closed after three weeks two years ago, so they're acquaintances at best. The comparison to Persona 5 Strikers feels apt, in the sense that the game feels like a bit of a victory lap or extended edition for fans of the original. Everybody's dads showing up doesn't feel like it was rectifying an inadequacy in the first game, it feels like the developers saying "did you want to see if Caspar and Lindhardt's dads act exactly the same as their sons? They do!" I could believe we'll learn there's some kind of time shenanigans going on, with Arval existing and being attached to Shez being the pivot point. In the original timeline, Shez is just a fashion-disaster young punk mercenary that Byleth cut down before Three Houses even began, but this time Arval exists and has been paired with them. Are they maybe an Agarthan super-weapon? A contingency sent back in time by Those Who Slither In The Dark in the event of their defeat, meant to stop Byleth and Sothis from stopping them? Or could all this have been Byleth and Sothis's doing, maybe using their Divine Pulse in an attempt to craft a better outcome for Fodlan?
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Jun 14, 2022 04:39
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mabels big day posted:FEW was like this except you only got convos at A rank and nothing else, and even then not every pair had them. So this is technically an upgrade to that It's definitely a bit of a step back from Three Houses' level of Support Conversations, though, which is a slight disappointment for people tuning in for More Three Houses. It sort of tips their hand about which support pairings are the most important for various characters based on which ones got cut (RIP Annette and Felix). It'd be good to know more about the recruitment system and whether paired endings are still a thing. Grinding everyone in the same house up to C in the demo just for the sake of it will definitely have an impact later if the other houses' characters become available.
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Jun 14, 2022 17:08
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CharlestheHammer posted:Though I think teacher student dynamics are kind of hard to say are a thing when we are talking about literally royalty and nobility. Though I’m not 100% sure if they are all nobility Much as there's no such thing as ethical consumption under capitalism, there's no such thing as equal relationships under feudalism.
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Jun 15, 2022 02:23
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Metis of the Hallways posted:Oh I definitely felt that. The classes really are not as tightly knit as they were in 3H proper, so it feels a little strange when they suddenly reunite. It's obviously a conceit you just have to accept for the game to work, but it's certainly rough. I actually wonder if this might get explained as the result of Time Shenanigans. While it's still possible this game just a flat-out alternate universe with no explanation needed, the bit Arval says about "the cycle" plus Sothis and Byleth's existing access to Time Magic suggests it might turn out that this game is some kind of alternate timeline produced by someone trying to meddle with the outcome of events in Three Houses. If that turns out to be the case, it could be that peoples' memories and perceptions are bleeding through from the original timelines, in basically the same way that our own perceptions of the characters are the product of having played the first game. It's a bit of a stretch, but even Dorothea's camp conversation where she bemoans the idea of fighting former classmates only for Shez to say "Uh we only knew them for three weeks what are you talking about" kind of feels like it's hinting at this. Basically just make the in-universe reason for why they can skip a bunch of the setup and bonding the same as the real-world reason, because they already did all that once.
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Jun 15, 2022 15:15
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lunar detritus posted:Three Hopes really shows how much of an afterthought Golden Deer was. Gotta create an invasion because there was nothing to use from three houses. I don't know about that, I thought it was cool to see more about the Almyrans given how big a part of Claude's backstory they are. Meeting Shahid and getting a glimpse at the sort of politics Claude/Khalid has been dealing with over there went a long way to explaining why he's always seemed so distracted in Three Houses - he's basically got two different Fire Emblem games going on at once and has to keep running back and forth between them.
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Jun 16, 2022 15:24
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Claude having limited power to raise troops from among the Alliance lords leading to him relying more on mercenaries like the player, Shamir and Leonie (and Raphael I guess technically but he's more like an old school friend along for the ride) is a good, well-grounded part of the world. It's basically the reason real lords had to rely on hiring professionals over raising their own armies, and it fits Claude's leadership style. The two years Shez spends basically couch surfing the Alliance while Claude tries to keep them around in case of trouble down the road are kind of fun to imagine.
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Jun 23, 2022 17:55
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Hellioning posted:I mean, consistency with Three Houses I guess? I might be wrong but I think they're talking about Three Houses there, Three Hopes's Scarlet Blaze route seems much more fleshed out and equal to the other routes (I think?). It's kind of fun that one lesson seemingly learned between games was honestly nobody cares about Church Route, give the people more Edelgard Was Right route.
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Jul 4, 2022 17:34
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Does it seem like all the different routes are deliberately leaving things open for a future DLC? They essentially all end with the three main factions still intact and the three main leaders still alive, albeit sometimes in pretty varied conditions. The alliances differ, but they're all in a range of tension and trust. You could plausibly do a post-game that introduces a new villain or new wrinkle to events in Fodlan, and no matter what route you're starting from the differences could be hand-waived a little. The Empire's still around, regardless of whether it's ascendant or in decline.
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Jul 4, 2022 19:23
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Sydin posted:I think there's way too many differences plotwise to handwave them all together for a universal story continuation DLC. Not just in terms of where each of the lords is at and the state of the war/nations of Fodlan, but also simply who is and is not alive. A lot of characters unavoidably die and who those are changes from route to route. It'd be pretty hard to continue the main story itself, true - the war is in very different places, sometimes even depending on how things shook out with Arval and Byleth - but they might be close enough as a starting point for turning things in a new direction. Three Houses added Abyss and the Ashen Wolves in a route-neutral way (albeit in a special pre-timeskip side story), if the armies had to travel to a new country or deal with another country invading Fodlan, it'd probably work. I particularly think there might still be room to explore Shez, Arval, Sothis and Shambhala in a DLC. You can always get around the Slither bigwigs being dead with the way they talk about their "flesh" being spent - maybe they just clone up some new bodies. That way them and their nuke stockpile can continue to threaten the world until somebody takes down Shambhala directly. Epimenides seems to be some kind of AI creature, so they can always load another of them from backups too.
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Jul 4, 2022 20:25
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On a side-note, put Leonie down for "most improved" this time around since her Jeralt-worship is a little more interesting when playing someone with a grudge against Jeralt instead of his kid. Her paralogue with Jeralt and Byleth actually did something fun with the premise and did a lot to characterize Byleth, you can more easily imagine what they were like growing up. Leonie and Shamir were also fun to get each character's perspective on what being a mercenary is like (Leonie admiring how dead inside Shamir's become and thinking she has a long way to go shows she's still terrible at choosing who to look up to). They didn't really change her character much, but at least the circumstances led to more interesting interactions.
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Jul 4, 2022 20:43
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galagazombie posted:The biggest problem with Arval is we don’t get any resolution to it. Hell Arval isn’t even the one who betrays you. Epicenter makes it clear they’re different people, he just shows up, says “lol time to die Arval sucks to be you.” And then dies himself while refusing to explain anything that’s going on to Shez. Shez doesn’t even get to say goodbye to their brain buddy or have a melodramatic “But what about our friendship? You broke my heart Fredo!” moment. Did they even die? I mean, gameplay and stoty integration can be a little loose sometimes, but you can keep manifesting their power afterward, even in cutscenes like when Shez helps Claude bring down the Immaculate One. I got the impression Arval might still be in there, dormant if nothing else.
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Jul 4, 2022 22:25
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It turns out wars in Fodlan are like the Condottiero mercenary wars in Italy's 15th century, where everyone was a professional so as a professional courtesy the actual fighting was relatively bloodless. Look, this is just our day job, don't get all bent out of shape for the sake of a bunch of feuding aristocratic children.
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Jul 5, 2022 21:05
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It's actually pretty interesting to me how the tide seems to have shifted from Three Houses to Three Hopes regarding the routes. Originally, it seemed like the writing defaults to supporting the church, where the Golden Deer route is sort of an awkward reworking of the Church route and the Edelgard route is obviously underdeveloped, treated implicitly as a villain route. The Blue Lions manage to feel like the most "default" Fire Emblem story, as well as perhaps the most well-developed route. This time around, it's the Blue Lions who are the odd ones out, requiring a bunch of awkward plot contrivances (Edelgard getting brain-zapped, yikes) to get back to the status quo of Three Houses. There's no Church route, Claude's a wildcard in the other routes but in his route he's implacably anti-church now for the same social revolution reasons as Edelgard (he fully becomes the new King of Liberation on the Talitean Plains - an amazing reversal of his Three Houses plot!). Edelgard's route is now fully fleshed out, and feels the most proactive in terms of the plot and factions orbiting around her actions. It's just interesting to see how Three Houses' reception by the audience and some time to mull over the story has led to a shift of the fundamentals. The greater focus on the political nitty-gritty of who controls which exact territories really brings the geopolitics of the setting to life (suddenly knowing all the minor noble houses of the Alliance and where they are on the map matters).
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Jul 6, 2022 18:04
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I think Dimitri and the Kingdom in general are good characters for giving more depth to the conflict, and having Dimitri not be consumed with bloodlust is important in a more geopolitically-focused story in order to keep the focus on the contrasting visions and beliefs of the three leaders. This Dimitri's able to articulate his genuine belief in the status quo and being a "good king" within the established system, which puts more of a human face on the forces resisting Edelgard's social revolution than Rhea ranting about heretics does. The ending of Golden Wildfire where the implicit agreement of the three leaders is that Dimitri retreats westward, away from the church, so that Edelgard can pin him down while Claud takes out Rhea is such a great political moment. Even to save the kingdom, Dimitri can't bring himself to publicly or even privately admit to abandoning the institution to which he feels indebted, his beliefs demand that he couch it in a geopolitical stalemate that is still clearly costing lives. He claims abandoning the church will collapse the kingdom, but he's clearly just as afraid of change as the rest of his people. When Claude presses him on how he would also benefit from ending the crest-based system of aristocratic rule by removing the burden of responsibility that's crushing him, he instinctively rejects it, saying he agrees as a person but cannot as a king. He's fully a miserable subject and product of the system, and can only be carefully backed out of it by force.
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Jul 7, 2022 20:09
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Rand Brittain posted:Ultimately Dimitri is just not particularly cerebral and isn't really qualified to sit at the table with the heavily-armed poli-sci majors and discuss the ideal social structure. Even if he's less insane this time, Dimitri is still full of self-loathing - he readily admits he's unworthy to be king and only really good for war. The ideals of chivalry and duty he's raised to believe in have essentially led him to believing he ought to lose, and in both of his routes it's up to his close friends and followers to snap him out of it. This doesn't really change his politics, though, it just makes him more functional within them. Since this is a game and not an actual politics simulator, I totally get the appeal of siding with this tragic figure and prioritizing his and his friends' journey of personal growth and self-actualization over what's actually best for Fodlan in the long-term. Some folks just like fixing up a sadboy. It's kind of telling how hard the story has to twist this time around to accommodate that (the Edelgard stuff is just embarrassing), and in a game that's more focused on Fodlan as a place of politics and war instead of deep lore mysteries, I think he works best as an antagonist in the other routes.
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Jul 7, 2022 21:18
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galagazombie posted:I think people take some of Dimitris lines out of context a lot, like the popular one currently is the one about “not needing new freedoms” which if you just see the screenshot that people always post looks bad, but he’s actually talking about how his country is in the middle of like eight civil wars and telling his retainers he wants them all out of a job will start eight more. Think Shez’s convo with Edelgard where they tell her “Yeah you say that in ten years everything will be wonderful but my children are dying because of your war today”. It's easy to overread some of his comments, but there's still a lot of important implications in there. In the secret chapter he fully says one reason he's against abolishing the church is it would remove the divine right of kings - which isn't to say he loves the idea that he's in charge because he's the goddess's chosen and most favored, but it does mean that he's worried about the consequences of weakening the legitimacy of his government that's already had a succession crisis or two in his lifetime. To be fair, all three lords are the product of their upbringing and experiences. Edelgard in particular got her insight into the true nature of power in Fodlan and iron resolve to change it from the same place she got her belief that only she can be trusted to execute that change, and that any price is worth paying for it. A lot of people understandably wish she could've taken a more collaborative approach, but a less disciplined and committed Edelgard wouldn't have made it this far in the first place, at least as anything but a puppet.
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Jul 7, 2022 22:41
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It's very comparable to Persona 5 Strikers, both in being a Warriors-style spinoff/sequel and essentially being written and paced as extended bonus content for people who just want to hang out more with this setting and these characters. If you go into it with that attitude, I think it works pretty well. You definitely need to fall into the overlap of Warriors and Three Houses fan, though. My girlfriend beat every route of Three Houses but bounced off the Three Hopes demo over the gameplay.
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Jul 14, 2022 17:53
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"Tricks you" feels a little strong, the people who didn't know Three Hopes was a follow-up to Three Houses or who expected it to ease them in like a stand-alone title anyway seem like a pretty small cohort - I didn't play the Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity, but was it also dependent on knowing the characters from Breath of the Wild?
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Jul 14, 2022 18:05
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I gave the whistle to Leonie because her ability is perfect for someone who just wants to play on easy and mash attack to win - extending the length of Shez's combo when they're already way overleveled and armed just turns you into a lawn mower.
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Jul 17, 2022 17:30
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Nobility as a concept is fundamentally underpinned by violence, even moreso than the crests. Proving you can kill on behalf of the status quo before you can inherit your title speaks to the sort of "natural order" that Rhea wants to maintain in Fodlan. An interesting facet of Edelgard's revolution is the desire to rationalize and equalize society by replacing nobility and crests with meritocracy, but not replacing a top-down hierarchical structure where power is held and projected downward by force (literally an empire, after all). Claude seems to have more of a commitment to collaboration and power-sharing over the raw use of power, but it was interesting that his reform from the Alliance to the Federation was mainly about centralizing power for himself to bypass long roundtable debates, and Claude's actual commitment to a less violent world that runs on consent of the governed is a fun thread they play with. It's a fun scene when Claude decides to open up his planning process to include his friends and allies, that they find they're just as prone to scheming as he was (I think Hilda says they're all turning into "mini-Claudes").
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Jul 18, 2022 19:00
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I think the three endings are too varied to make a straight-up follow-up sequel to (mind-wiped Edelgard in Azure Gleam is pretty hard to bounce back from), but there's also something odd about how all three try to leave the state of the war in a "similar" place that makes it feel like they want to add post-game expansions or additions that could work for all three routes. The fact that all of the major factions still exist, even if some of them have lost their leaders, and the war is still ongoing, leaves enough in place to work with. Any alliances between the three factions (mainly between the Alliance/Federation and the Empire or Kingdom) are tentative enough that they can either be quickly broken or just referred to once or twice to clarify how they're not interfering with whatever story's at hand. In Three Houses, setting the major DLC story before the time-skip was an easy way to smooth over story differences, but it also benefitted by being set in a new location, involving new characters and fighting new enemies. An example of how they could do this in Three Hopes would be a post-game expansion campaign against Those Who Slither In The Dark that involves invading Shambala and fighting Nemesis. Even in Scarlet Blaze, Thales got the "nobody could've survived that!" treatment, so he could always just come back. That's just one example of course. I think the main hint is just how the endings collectively feel compared to the ones in Three Houses, which were willing to project well into the future. The way they hold back from describing what happens next after the final missions in Hopes feels intentional.
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Jul 19, 2022 18:37
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