Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes: debating our headcanons and fanfictions

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes: debating our headcanons and fanfictions

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Bloodly posted:

Wait then. Then how did Byleth end up coming to the Church's attention?

All the murders, most likely.

So far, the game has not unlocked for me.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2022 05:07

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 05:20

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

It looks like putting everybody in their preferred class is the proper choice because if I do not do it, the game punishes me with suboptimal fashion.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2022 08:35

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

It's nice to see our Fodlan pals again, but so far, this game has the exact same problem as Age of Calamity: there's absolutely no difficulty or strategy involved on Normal, and if you turn it up to Hard, there's still no difficulty or strategy, but the enemies take four times as long to die.

# ¿ Jun 25, 2022 01:25

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Barreft posted:

His VA in battle

'wha-? what am i doing again?' etc everytime. like fucker you know what you're doing, hit people!

They're really kind of going hard on the idea that Caspar is a moron. His support with Dorothea is basically:

CASPAR: I'm going to read books so that I can become smarter and more well-rounded!
DOROTHEA: Oh, no! Caspar, you're supposed to read the books, not eat them!
CASPAR: That is... literally what I just said? Did you really think I was going to shove a book down my throat?
DOROTHEA: Let me tell you a story. Once, a meatheaded general read a lot of books and became smart and cool.
CASPAR: Yes, that is kind of what I was already planning to do when we started this conversation.
DOROTHEA: Unfortunately, by the time you get any smarter, the war will be over and it'll be too late to help your career! Unless I help you.
CASPAR: Thanks, Dorothea! Where would I be without you?

Except unfortunately he's not being sarcastic.

# ¿ Jun 26, 2022 02:03

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I kind of get the impression that Shez was all-in on vengeance at first because they didn't have a lot going on in their life, and losing people they were moderately fond of made them angry and vengeful, but once they formed some stronger bonds vengeance pretty quickly fell by the wayside in favor of maintaining those new relationships.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2022 18:34

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I feel like if Hanneman and Alois aren't playable, it's mostly because the game is already showering me with more recruits than the story knows what to do with or I have time to use. I'd like to use Manuela more, but frankly I'm about to drown in mages and bishops.

# ¿ Jun 28, 2022 21:43

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Finished Scarlet Blaze and got the bad end. Kind of surprising that there is such an unambiguous Bad End that's so easy to get. Apparently this is what happens if you don't recruit Byleth, which I evidently couldn't do because I didn't recruit Jeralt, which I didn't do because on Normal he was dead before I got a prompt to do anything but kill him.

I also feel the need to note that Rhea actually became less dangerous in her final boss form, largely because she was more or less completely unable to move in that confined space and had nothing to do except spam weak AoEs fast enough to make it hard to get off a combo.

Difficulty has been a little wonky. I got frustrated with Hard early on because it felt like it was mostly just bumping up enemy levels without doing anything else, so I went back to Normal so I could blow through it faster. As the game went on I feel like the battles were complex enough that I might have found Hard more satisfying.

Caspar was the unambiguous favorite, with strength so monstrous that he could more or less delete any general with War Strike.

Other things I liked about this game:

It's openly and unambiguously gayer than the original.
Shez is actually a really likeable and interesting protagonist, so it feels like they really took the complaints about Byleth to heart.
The many arguments about political theory and meritocracy where nobody notices the unofficial nobility of people with anime hair, who are clearly superior to anybody who does not have anime hair.
Speaking of which, I think this version manages to be much more clear about Edelgard's political manifesto, which is "I am going to end feudalism and install a continent-wide bureaucratic meritocracy no matter how many people I have to kill to do it, and I do mean that literally."
It was inevitable that this game had fewer supports than other games, but it improved them hugely to have them not be tied to Exactly Three Conversations. I also liked that a lot of them basically served as supplementary plot progression, rather than floating in ambiguous place and time.
The voice acting continues to be superb. I gave all my stat-boosting items to the Empire's bright minister as a memorial token, although the stats seemed to matter less than dropping him into Holy Knight, which is much more entertaining than Paladin ever was.

Things I did not like so much:

The base camp is kind of annoying to navigate and would honestly be better if they just replaced it with a menu. I did appreciate how fast the warp around it is, though. Basically no loading time.
There are just too many RPG elements to keep track of. Too many weapons, too many items (honestly I never ran out of ingredients even when I never bought any, so they might as well not exist).
I recruited most of the persuadable characters because I felt bad for not doing so, but most of them had no part in the plot afterwards and just hung around the camp feeling awkward, being loving miserable, and making the menu screens harder to navigate.
Giant monsters are extremely boring to fight.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2022 07:04

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Zore posted:

No, they explicitly say that his dad was behind the whole scheme but didn't give the go-ahead to do the dumb 'run monsters into people' plan. That was someone lower down. But he was behind the plan to 'attack' merchants with deniable mercenaries to force them through his lands for economic reasons. They weren't supposed to necessarily kill most people though, just scare them. The mercenaries themselves came up with the idea to run groups of monsters into the merchants instead and it got signed off on by a lower level functionary. And everyone was fine with this until the inevitable happened and Count Reigen and a bunch of merchants got completely slaughtered.

But the scene ends with Lorenz and Ignatz absolutely still blaming Lorenz's dad for it. because he set the whole thing in motion and was ultimately responsible even if he didn't explicitly say 'you should kill those people'.

The impression I got from the Three Hopes scene was "Slithers did it but Count Gloucester was never going to say that because it would make him look stupid and also because noblesse oblige means it's his responsibility either way." Nobody actually mentioned the Slitherers; I just kind of wound up assuming that because they're the go-to for mysterious poo poo like that.

# ¿ Jun 30, 2022 19:31

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

It would not be entirely unfair to say that Monica is Edelgard's stalker who gets rationalized into being her secretary after she turns out to be extremely good at all the jobs she keeps appropriating unto herself. A little unfair, yes (in particular because Hubert really only avoids looking like a stalker because he inherited a hereditary role as her second-in-command... even if he killed a man to get it).

# ¿ Jul 1, 2022 04:25

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

So, what exactly is Maddening difficulty like?

# ¿ Jul 1, 2022 05:32

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

chiasaur11 posted:

Yeah. That applies way more to Byleth. Disliking Shez's design is just regular disliking a design.

I mean, I think it's definitely accurate that nearly every character in the game has a very expressive design that tells you something about them:

Ferdinand's design tells you that he's more self-confident than a human has a right to be.
Marianne's design tells you that she's five minutes away from a serious nervous breakdown.
Hilda's design tells you that she will absolutely complain about how you got your blood all over her while she was killing you.
Hubert's design tells you that he was raised from birth to be an evil vizier.

By comparison, Shez' design really only communicates that he's a Nice Guy with Protagonist Hair.

# ¿ Jul 3, 2022 03:17

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I think the really big difference between routes, and an interesting, well-written one, is the way Shez has a totally different relationship with each house leader. Edelgard was very "you, sweet mercenary, are a critical part of the Empire's war machine and a special treasure of my heart." Now I've moved on to Golden Wildfire and Claude ruthlessly exploits me and turns me on and off like a light switch. Goddess alone knows what Dimitri's going to be like.

# ¿ Jul 4, 2022 04:24

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Overbite posted:

I�m on like chapter 7 or 8 and I still don�t have a invert phys/mag sword for my assassin lysithea. I�m gonna have to farm for it and that makes me sad.

And I want more shez games. Less talk more ham.

Mastering Mortal Savant gives her the ability that inverts every weapon to use Mag.

# ¿ Jul 5, 2022 13:39

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I think my favorite bit of Dad Facts is that Bergliez and Hevring have exactly the same dynamic as Caspar and Lindhart, except that they genuinely hate each other.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 15:14

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Eimi posted:

Really? I never got that impression, least on SB. It felt very friendly rivalry. Like the bit where Hevring goes to Bergliez isn't him hating the guy as much "Oh great, here we go again."

I mean, they're professional about it, and I think Duke Bergliez may be a bit oblivious to it, but I'm pretty sure Count Hevring really does despise him in all the ways that Lindhart pretends to hate Caspar's bullshit.

# ¿ Jul 6, 2022 15:22

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

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.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 20:56

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

At the end of the day Edelgard is just impossibly nice for a realistic emperor on a war of aggressive conquest.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 22:36

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

By "nice" I specifically mean that Edelgard is entirely sincere about not desiring personal power except as necessary to achieve her benevolent social goals.

As for Monica, the other timeline is the one where she let Monica die because she decided it was her best option. In this story we see that when she decided she had a shot at savong her, she took it even over Hubert's objections. She was willing to sacrifice her, but also willing to go out of her way to save her.

# ¿ Jul 7, 2022 23:18

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Wait, preferred class comes into it as well? I was looking forward to being able to pass on Fimbulvetr and Bolting from Marianne and Holst, and was disappointed to get them to level 3 and see that none of them was teachable, so I just assumed that elemental magic isn't trainable.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 15:14

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

It also gives a much more visible notification after the combat is over while it's passing out job XP.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2022 16:35

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Augus posted:

Hubert wondering why Lady Edelgard put the airhead mercenary in charge of the war chest, his blood pressure steadily rising as he goes down the list of army expenditures, seeing thousands of gold being dumped into surprise birthday presents for soldiers, paying redundant battalions that are perpetually on standby �because we never know when we might need them�, forging priceless swords that are tossed away a week later because they were far outclassed by something we found lying in the dirt, making the army�s best archers train to use battle axes because �they�d look cool in big armor�

You shut your mouth.

Hubert understands that this is how logistics works. That, and murder.

# ¿ Jul 9, 2022 00:53

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Edelgard may or may not have done anything wrong, as the RNG decides.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2022 19:57

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I'd like to see some funny maps with events like "Hilda sat down and is having a tea party in the middle of the battle! Escort Holst to the Tea Room to get her off her butt!"

Eventually all of your generals are drawn into the tea party vortex, so you have to solo a complicated map.

# ¿ Jul 19, 2022 22:21

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I feel like every game since the first Hyrule Warriors has suffered from having less strategic decisions to make � I can't recall any mission since then that was as difficult to figure out a way to get through as the one where you unlock Zelda's level two baton.

Three Hopes is at least better on that score than Age of Calamity was.

# ¿ Jul 21, 2022 20:13

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Epi Lepi posted:

Finished AG and man, y'all weren't kidding that the ending is 30 seconds long lol. What the hell is up with that.

Dimitri repeatedly says in AG that change can't come while the Kingdom still can't even feed its populace and even if he agrees that the Church is iffy the Church is what gives him the right to rule and without them there'd be endless succession wars. On one hand he's sort of valid, but on the other he's the prototypical person of privilege telling the oppressed that they just need to be patient cause it's not the right time for change.

I think there's also a certain amount of Dimitri saying "I would literally have to declare war on my own vassals to implement the reforms you're demanding" and Claude and Edelgard responding with "no worries, bro, we already declared war on your vassals so you don't have to; just put the loving spear down."

# ¿ Jul 23, 2022 02:18

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Clawtopsy posted:

Ferdinand and Hubert really steal the show in 3 Hopes. It's tragic what happened to Billy, but it really is a performance that outshines 3 Houses by such an incredible margin.

Three Hopes really benefits from being able to skip the "I am seventeen years old and kind of obnoxious" phase of the story.

# ¿ Jul 23, 2022 02:58

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

ChrisBTY posted:

Byleth earned the loyalty of the entire next generation of Fodlan's rulers in 3 Houses though.

Ultimately all the problems of the three houses could be sorted out if they just had the chance to talk, and Byleth is a really good listener.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 20:26

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

DC Murderverse posted:

Actually the game would have been most interesting if Shez and Raphael were running an inn and everyone else came on vacation to hang out

Three Houses is basically alchemically-designed to be a perfect breeding ground for coffeeshop AUs.

# ¿ Jul 26, 2022 22:05

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

Honestly, making those guys playable would not improve the game. It gives you too many characters already.

# ¿ Oct 21, 2022 03:59

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# ¿ May 16, 2024 05:20

Rand Brittain: Mar 25, 2013; "Go on until you're stopped."

I'm honestly kind of happy they weren't because frankly the game has too many characters already and adding several more who are very slightly different from the ones I already have would make the bookkeeping and upgrading elements even more tiresome.

# ¿ Jan 21, 2023 23:06

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