FIRE EMBLEM 16: Three Houses Retrospective - ShaneBrained

[Music] two years ago i began this retrospective series with a single goal to get to fire emblem three houses at the time the game was newly announced and due to a self-imposed rule that i have of always trying to play series in order i thought i'd finally be able to fill in the blind spot that i had for the fire emblem series that i'd carried throughout my whole life if i was going to be playing every game in order i thought why not make some videos along the way getting to this point today that i can finally talk about the game can only be called a journey i have now had the opportunity to play all prior 15 fire emblem games in release order and finding out what the big deal was about each entry all on my own i have watched the big names of this franchise come and go new creatives take over before leading the series in new directions i've seen the entire franchise nearly die before being unexpectedly resurrected and then riding a huge wave of success to even greater sales and popular heights that's how we got here today the games have been fun yes but no other experience i have ever had as a content creator has been nearly as fulfilling as this series not including this video my fire emblem retrospective currently sits at over 13 hours and 30 minutes of content thank you for staying with me for so long everyone this is it we made it i am finally going to talk about fire emblem 3 houses [Music] ok i don't really know where to start in a word fire emblem three houses is monumental similar to awakening and fates three houses upon its release immediately exploded in both sales and popularity at least at the time of this video's release there has been no new fire emblem game yet announced so the fire emblem community over the last two years has been filled with constant discussion about this game in particular to the point that many people are really sick of hearing about it sorry but in those two years i wasn't there i was playing the other 15 games and making this series so yeah i think it's my turn at the end of the day i ultimately completed 5 full playthroughs of fire emblem three houses for this video once on normal three times on hard and once on maddening the four paths of three houses are called azure moon crimson flower verdant wind and silver snow which respectively correspond with you siding with the blue lions class black eagles class golden deer class or the church of cerros my order was this first i did silver snow on normal second silver snow on hard third azir moon on hard fourth crimson flower on hard and fifth verdant wind on maddening altogether i have put more than 250 hours into this single game and i feel fully ready to cover it in detail for you today in order to do so in this video i will be running through this game's development history tackling all different parts of its story before running through my own analysis of each plot to finish i'll be taking a deep dive into three houses gameplay to discuss the many new additions and how they are both linked and divergent from the rest of this long-running series all before finishing by giving my overall thoughts about this monumental game we have an enormous amount of topics to get into today i am so happy to say let's get started production on the next fire emblem game aimed directly at releasing on the upcoming nintendo switch began immediately after the release of the previous game in april 2017. the concept of bringing fire emblem to the nintendo switch had actually been around ever since the console's announcement but had been shelved in favor of the shorter development time that echoes a remake of the second game in the series would take with that project out of the way the upcoming fire emblem switch became the top priority with the team aiming for an end of 2019 release date at the latest with this in mind brainstorming for what this next game should even be could begin but as the initial stages of development dragged on and on it began to look like hitting a 2019 release date was going to be impossible fortunately at the exact same time as this initial planning the studio at koei tecmo was finishing development on fire emblem warriors a spin-off game that was the second nintendo ip collaboration for their popular battlefield action series the head of koei tecmo's team ninja yosuke hayashi was contacted asking for the team to jointly develop the next fire emblem with intelligent systems one of the original founders of koei the legendary designer and producer ko shibusawa brought along his team to help out and they were well known for making strategy rpgs such as nobunaga's ambition and the romance of the three kingdom series as koitechmo rounded up their own employees who were massive fire emblem fans intelligent systems provided their own staff including several designers a composer and a programming advisor given koshigesawa's team's reputation in the srpg genre it was no surprise that they could develop this kind of game at a very rapid pace and in turn the content of the upcoming switch fire emblem began to grow and grow eventually exceeding about double what intelligent systems originally thought they could put into it seemingly any idea that anyone on the team had koitekmo could make happen early on the team joked about making a fire emblem academy in-game however soon that idea caught on and the developers themselves got more and more excited as the game's concepts all seemed to fall into place with each other other features such as the ability to have tea with students and faculty of the games academy were also added in such a way a random idea that was soon made very real by the joint efforts of this mixed development team towards the end of development the game's subtitle in japanese read as fukusetsugetsu a four kanji idiom remarking on the beauty of the four seasons was eventually chosen as the game follows four main characters who inevitably go separate ways this theme of different dynasties falling apart also reflected the heavy three kingdoms era themes which refers to the famous three kingdoms period from which much of chinese actual history and mythology stems from to this day these themes naturally mainly bled into the project from the koe tekmo developers however this too began to feel like a natural fit over time to the intelligent systems team while the influence of outside developers allowed this next game to tread into territory that no fire emblem had gone into before simultaneously it also looked backwards at its own series in particular at the fan favorite fourth game genealogy of the holy war this inspiration came in a multitude of forms perhaps most notably in the game's crest system which calls back to fire emblem 4's holy blood the list of these references goes on and on and on while the storytelling and gameplay took massive shifts so did the work behind the artistic design for this upcoming game's world and characters chinatsu kurahana known for work on some well-known japanese visual novels such as utta no prince sama was chosen as the main character designer of the game while kazuma koda who was known for their work on bayonetta ii and nier automata handled the concept art this time the cutscene work went to sons again who specialize in cgi animation despite the massive project that this game became the joint team was able to develop it relatively quickly compared to previous fire emblems especially considering the massive amount of content that they managed to jam in there what would become the 16th mainline fireamong game was originally slated to be released in 2018. however during nintendo's e3 2018 presentation they revealed that it would instead be pushed back into early 2019 which would later be pushed back again to july even with these two release setbacks the game was still far ahead of its original proposed late 2019 goal eventually on july 26 2019 fire emblem three houses released worldwide and it was immediately met with both high praise from reviewers as well as very favorable sales it quickly became the highest selling game in japan that week and surprisingly it also achieved immediate success in the western market as well easily eclipsing the previous echoes shadows of valencia's more modest sales and reception as of march 2020 the game has now sold more than 2.87 million copies worldwide making it the best-selling game in the entire fire emblem franchise eclipsing even awakening and fates eventually an expansion pass was announced and released adding additional characters monastery features costumes and new classes into the game over the course of the next six chapters of this video i'll be covering the story of this game in full starting with the white cloud section that applies to all players run-throughs of this game split into two parts and then going through the four different part two paths in this order if you want to jump past that and just get to my own analysis you can use the time code that can be found at the top of the screen if however you want to avoid all story spoilers whatsoever you can use the time code at the bottom of the screen to jump straight to my gameplay analysis sections alright i think that's all of my base is covered let's jump in in three two one [Music] on the outskirts of a battlefield somewhere in central fodland a young mercenary named byleth was having a strange dream in the dream they saw a young girl waking up on a stone throne who briefly examined them before eventually returning back to her slumber this odd dream was suddenly cut short when bileth was awoken by gerald their father and the leader of his own band of mercenaries among which bileth was also a renowned member before they got much time to discuss bilis odd dream an alert suddenly came to geralt three young students claude dimitri and adelgard had arrived at their camp stating that they had become separated from their own school group due to a recent bandit attack and were requesting aid from the mercenaries and fighting back against them geralt quickly recognized their uniform as belonging to the nearby garrick mock a centrally located monastery known for housing the headquarters of the church of cerros as well as a prestigious multi-nation officers academy geralt and bileth wasted no time in lending their support and were together with the three young students to take out the bandits and their leader costas although it seemed like the bandit leader had been downed without warning he suddenly jumped to his feet again brandished his axe and ran right at an unprepared edelguard before edelgard took the mortal blow byleth suddenly came to her defense throwing themselves in the way of the fatal attack just before the blade sunk into their flesh time itself seemed to just stop once more in the same kind of dream they'd had before the young green-haired girl reappeared this time introducing herself as sothus after scolding byleth for a bit for being so reckless with their own life sothis then offered to turn back the hands of time and to give bilath another chance at this which of course they eagerly agreed to true to her word time indeed rewound and this time bileth was able to step in front of edelgard more prepared striking down costus with their own prepared attack with the danger now passed at this time a retinue of knights of saros suddenly arrived led by their commander alois this overly familiar knight quickly recognized geralt explaining that he had looked up to him back in the days when geralt himself was the captain of the guard at garrick mock before apparently he had abruptly left and been gone for the last 20 years running his mercenary company alois insisted on inviting the group back to garrick mock as did the three grateful students who all invited byleth into their service revealing themselves as being very much associated with the three major countries of fodlin claude invited them to serve the leicester alliance a conglomeration of noble families that ruled the lands to the east and were responsible for the golden deer house at the monastery dimitri offered them a place serving the holy kingdom of fargus a rugged monarchical land to the north which was responsible for the blue lion's house lastly edelgard offered them service with the adrestian empire a vast empire spanning the whole southwest of fodlin which sponsored the black eagles class unable to give an answer for now byleth and geralt's mercenaries simply agreed to accompany them back to garrick mock together they set off talking and bonding along the way eventually the massive monastery came into sight and as the students settled back into their quarters gerald and byleth ascended to the head chambers finding the archbishop of the faith of ceros lady reya who was joined by her advisor seth after a tense meeting where geralt showed a lot of reluctance about coming back into the employ of the monastery he ultimately did accept the recently vacated position of captain of the guard as for bileth due to alois's recommendation lady raya decided to give them a position as a professor at the officers academy a somewhat shocking move given both their youth and unfamiliarity without having much of a choice bileth did accept the position and soon learned that they would need to select one of the three houses to lead the side that bileth chooses at this point determines what direction the second half of the story will go although the paths don't majorly diverge until quite a bit later i will let you know when it does after picking their house bileth settled into their new life as a professor learning the ins and outs of garrick mock while also tutoring their students by the week as they went about this every month vilith was given a task to complete by the school and would carry out these missions with their students who gradually became stronger and stronger under buy less expert tutorship an early mission had bileth and company travel to the red canyon where the group finally finished off costas the bandit here in the canyon bayleth had a bit of a confusing conversation with sothis who remarked how they both seemed to recognize this place but had never been there before the next month brought a new mission where byla's class this time helped put down a rebellion being led by a lord lenato a minor lord from the kingdom of fargus who had reportedly been against the central church of sarros for some time it was in this battle that they witnessed the power of catherine another night of saros wielding her sword thunderbrand which was one of the legendary weapons known as the hero's relics with her help the group managed to take down lord leonato discovering a note on his person that revealed a plan to assassinate lady reya after delivering this information back to garrick mock violet's class next got ready to defend her during the most likely time to strike the day of the rite of rebirth sure enough on this day they found a group of thieves and assassins below the monastery attempting to steal a certain item out of the tomb of saint saros thanks to biles intervention they ultimately managed to stop them even outmaneuvering a mysterious black-clad death knight who wielded power far beyond their own at the end of this conflict byleth managed to stop the group's leader from recovering the item that they were seeking apparently another one of the heroes relics which was known as the sword of the creator this weapon it turned out was the holiest of all these relics said to be a gift of the goddess herself that only one person in all of history had ever been able to properly wield incredibly when bileth took hold of the sword the weapon began to glow revealing that for some reason bileth was capable of wielding it where none others currently living could after using this power to finish off the leader for good bileth returned back to lady raya to report their findings continuing to surprise time and time again reya seemed happy to see that the sword was in the hands of bileth and entrusted to them as its new caretaker her advisor seth seemed utterly shocked at the idea given how dangerous this weapon in particular was they spoke then of a man known as nemesis from long in the past the previous wielder of the sword of the creator although he had originally used its power for good later on he used it to plunge the world into war until saint saros founder of the church herself slew him in battle and took it back despite how dangerous it was rhea still confirmed that she had faith in bileth seeing them being able to wield it as a symbol of it being meant to be in their hands so with this new powerful weapon in hand bilith's life continued to go on as normal throughout the year they continued to take their class on monthly tasks secured back hiro's relics from unworthy wielders as well as put a stop to a rampaging beast that was born from an unworthy wielder trying to use the relic day by day bileth also came to understand the nature of crests in this world which were essentially special bloodlines which could trace their roots back to the titular heroes of yore bilith learned primarily from their students just how much the different families and societies around fodlin put a tremendous amount of value in connection to a bloodline having these crests thanks to a researcher at the school they also learned that their own crest was the most rare of all the crest of flames on one of these months another wielder of an extremely rare crest setteth's younger sister flain went missing this naturally sent the students of the school into a panic as bilis class a rush to try to locate her eventually they did manage to track her kidnappers down finding both the same death knight from before and also his leader another mysterious masked figure calling themselves the flame emperor although flame and another student taken by them monica were returned unharmed the flame emperor's group managed to teleport away before baileth could learn anything more after taking some more time to study and train their group next had a major mock battle with the other classes before going on to investigate a strange occurrence at the village of hermeyer in this small town byleth found many villagers going berserk and starting to attack each other while a new group sat from afar overseeing this outright panic fighting this time side by side with their father bileth managed to cut through the perpetrators all before facing off with the leader of the group the mage solon who all this time had been masquerading as thomas the librarian of garrick mock after sending him fleeing and ending the attack byleth and gerald were visited by the flame emperor yet again who expressed their own disgust with solon's attack despite them being in some way associated with them the flame emperor then offered to let bilath join them saying that with the power of the sword of the creator they wouldn't need to associate with people as disgusting as solon's group despite this strange proposition baileth ultimately refused shortly before the flame emperor teleported away again after returning back to the monastery rhea thanked byleth for their help as always and assured them that she would have her own knights investigate further into these events it was during her own well wishing to buyleth that she spoke a name that they had somehow managed to not hear out loud until right now she spoke the name of the goddess that saint saros's religion had been in service of this whole time that name was sothus naturally this confused both bileth and the sothus in their head the significance of this of somehow the goddess sothus returning through the world through bileth in some manner would be central to the life of not only bileth but of every citizen of fodlin in the coming years for now though they could only try to keep moving forward much like their students they could only take each day one at a time and by now over half a year living in both tranquility and intrigue at garrick mock had already flown by the white clouds of peace still lingered overhead however the events to come in the latter half of the year would soon see them darken [Music] without a lead to go on for now bilith's life continued on as normal teaching classes training students and in the next month experiencing the lovely white heron cup event towards the end of the month this tranquility was shattered as there was suddenly a report of a demonic beast attack at the school to which both byleth and their father rushed to in order to save as many as possible in the conclusion of the battle gerald had just seen that monica was safe when she suddenly turned on him using a special dagger to stab him mortally in the back despite bileth using the limited time powers granted to them by sothis to try to save him the intervention of monica's ally the leader of this mysterious group talis stepped in to make sure that her assassination was successful then teleporting them both out with gerald dying in their arms bileth cried tears for the first time in their life bringing a smile to gerald's face for the very last time over the next month byleth learned from their father's notes about the strange circumstances that surrounded their birth how their mother had died shortly after having given birth and how she had apparently given her life for bileth in some capacity after they were born following this event bileth even as a baby never laughed or cried at all and after examination by a doctor geralt also discovered that bileth didn't even have a heartbeat terrified that lady raya had done something to his child gerald faked byleth's death using a fire and then shortly thereafter left the monastery with bileth secretly in tow eventually reyes knights were able to track down the group responsible for gerald's death and bileth and their class eagerly volunteered to participate in the counter-attack against them despite everyone agreeing that this was most likely a trap to ensnare byleth still reya understood that her own knights were run thin at the moment and agreed to let them go within a place known as the sealed forest byleth and their forces did find the girl formerly known as monica and those supporting her and cut through any opposition until they got to her soon finding out that her real name was cronia after finishing their fight victoriously against her solon reappeared using the ailing cronia's life to assist him in casting an extremely powerful spell creating a magical darkness that grasped onto byleth imprisoning them in a void of no escape in one fell swoop solon had managed to rid the world of them and the sword of the creator within this darkness bileth was left with only sothus's voice in their head as company without any way out of this situation bilith and sothus made an agreement one that would take a toll on the rebuilding goddess using her godly power sothus would be able to free them but without a body of her own to use it she would have to relinquish all of this power to bileth intertwining their souls as one with no other choice the two agreed and biles body surged with the full power of a god reflected in their hair turning from blue to green using the sword of the creator they bent reality itself cutting through the darkness and using this rip to return back to the physical world to the rejoice of their friends and the utter panic of solon who now knew he had to do whatever he could to kill byleth here and now with one final push byleth faced off against solon and his reinforced troops and yet again bested him sending him teleporting away once more as sothis and baileth were one the voice of the goddess could no longer reach bileth however they kept this to themselves as they returned back to garegmok to an overjoyed rhea who seemed blissfully happy to have confirmation that byleth had indeed truly been given power by the goddess she stated that the next step was now to have bileth visit the holy tomb where apparently they would receive a divine revelation that would tell them all what to do next with the trip to the holy tomb scheduled for the end of the month it was at this time that baileth was invited by edelgard to witness an important event in the adressdian empire she was going to be given the crown by her father becoming the new leader of the addrestian empire in secret before others in her land could oppose it eventually the rest of the month passed by and byleth their class andrea visited the throne of the goddess the one sight the entire gergmock monastery had been built to protect however to reya's dismay when bileth sat upon the holy throne nothing at all happened from this exact moment events in the holy tomb play out slightly differently if bileth chose the black eagles class and also strictly sides with edelguard and to jump to that timeline you can use the time code that i'll put up in the top right of the screen for all other paths the group was then surprised to have this moment interrupted by the flame emperor appearing with a group of adrestian soldiers ordering everyone to surrender while they obtained the many crest stones that were held in this place refusing to obey this order byleth then fought back against the adrestians and took on the might of the powerful flame emperor also managing to best them in time with a mighty hit they managed to knock the mask off of the flame emperor's helmet revealing that they had been none other than edelgard this entire time giving hardly any time for bilat's group to react edelgard quickly fled with hubert of the black eagles class while the rest of the forces of garrick mock reeled from the ramifications of this reveal back in adrestia in one of her first acts as the official leader of her nation edelgard declared war on the church of cyros claiming that they had seized power by deluding the people of fodlen changing history where they needed to increase their own followers wealth and power knowing that it was only a matter of time before edelgard would be back for the next month byleth and their class did their best to prepare knowing that they soon would have to face off against the might of the empire the largest military force on the continent sure enough when the attack came despite their best efforts the forces of garrick mock could do little to stop the overwhelming force from overrunning their monastery at this time rhea met with bilath telling them that she had chosen now to leave the safety of the monastery in their hands afterwards she then abruptly transformed into a massive white dragon known as the immaculate one using this new power reia jumped into the fray unleashing considerable destructive power against the adressians the addresstians were not unprepared for this and quickly sent a wave of demonic beasts at her temporarily holding her at bay it was only thanks to the intervention of baileth that she was freed from this plight however by exposing their own position bileth was then able to be targeted by talis who with a powerful magic attack sent them tumbling off a massive crevasse where they fell helpless into the darkness it was there that bileth stayed for the next five years without their knowledge the battle of garegmok came and went nobody found their body and eventually many long years of war crept by with still no victor in sight garrig mock monastery became abandoned merely a shell of its former self in the wake of the massive battle on the day of the millennium festival the very day that a professor and their class had agreed to meet again no matter the circumstances unbeknownst to any above by leth awoke once more the path that they took from here and who would be waiting for them above had already been decided by the choices of their past to go to the blue lion path azure moon you can use the time code at the top of the screen to go to the golden deer path at verdantwind you can use the timecode in the middle to go to the black eagles path while siding with edelguard crimson flower you can use the second middle time code and last of all to jump to the black eagle's path when you side with reya and not edelgard known as silver snow you can use the bottom time code i'll be moving on first to the blue lion's azura moon path in three two one [Music] waiting above in the monastery was prince dimitri although from a single glance bileth could tell that the years had drastically changed him after losing his homeland to an imperial plot back in fargus the prince had wandered living only to slay as many soldiers of the empire that he could constantly searching for a way to kill edelgard as broken as he was dimitri nevertheless found his way back to his old teacher and the two soon teamed up again before long they were joined by gilbert a loyal knight of fargus who had decided to stay by the prince's side as well as the rest of the blue lion's class who like dimitri kept their promise to reunite here settling into garrog mock as their new base this renewed army of fargust next teamed up with setheth and the former knights of garrick mock who wished to aid in their efforts but also to rescue the lady reya who had disappeared ever since the battle five years ago as their first order of business they needed to seek out allies as they knew that they required all the help they could get to take back their former lands from the empire's puppet ruler cornelia to accomplish this they soon reunited with lord rodrigue who counseled the group on how to proceed from here he also tried to warn demetri away from letting his grief for those that he had lost dictate his actions in the future with rodriguez wisdom at their side a plan was hatched to first retake the great bridge of murden from the imperial forces there which would certainly ease up the pressure on the leicester alliance and with the alliance better able to resist the imperials they hoped that this disruption of the power balance would give them an opening to invade which could possibly fulfill the bloodlust that dimitri had for taking edelgard's life at the bridge they faced off against the young but great adrestian general larislava a major supporter of edelgard and though they put up a good fight they ultimately managed to slay her and her forces securing their first main objective in setting up for their next attack which would be an assault on the imperial stronghold of fort mercius the group was stunned to learn that their messenger to the alliance was brutally murdered naturally this was all a deception however this confusion led to them ending up against each other along with fighting edelgard's forces at the same time in a three-way battle at grander field the same place where these three houses had once held a mock battle half a decade ago in what became known as the battle of the eagle and lion dimitri and bileth's army emerged victorious their victory however was short-lived immediately following this a loyal imperial soldier who was sister to the general randolph that dimitri had killed earlier tried to assassinate the prince and his life was only saved by lord rodriguez taking the blow in his stead as this father figure bled out in dimitri's arms rodrigue wished for his prince to find a reason to live that was not just for revenge the sincerity of his request stunned this confused young man considering his future options with a much more sober perspective dimitri decided that it was not right to purely seek revenge against edelgard when there was an entire nation of innocence waiting for their prince to come back to them and set them free rather than heading straight for the adrestian capital dmitry instead set his sights on taking back fargus launching an attack on the capital city of ferdiad where cornelia was based although the siege was very tough cornelia could not stop the return of the righteous prince and soon she was struck down from this new position dimitri and bileth's group now had a much higher chance of taking on the empire however before they sought this out they were contacted by claude who requested their aid with his own imperial attack after successfully defending him the former leader of the golden deer class and current leader of the leicester alliance chose to step down from his position leaving all of his responsibilities to the kingdom of fargus officially combining the two nations at last the stage was set for the final confrontation with edelgard and with an incredible wave of momentum dimitri and bileth led their forces to fort mercius the only thing left to do now was to confront edelgard in inbar the adrestian capital after arriving they soon discovered that edelgard was willing to use any method to achieve her victory and so utilized the power of both of her crests to transform into a hideous but powerful monstrosity giving the kingdom army an uphill battle that after much suffering finally led to them facing off against her and defeating her at the very end dimitri tried to give adelgard one last chance for peace but this offer was responded to with a dagger as she refused to compromise even one bit dimitri finished off his former friend with the death of adelgard peace was restored to fodlin with bileth's group having managed to defeat knowingly or unknowingly every threat to their new domain lady reya was soon found with an inbar but due to her having become severely weakened from her imprisonment she passed on the role of the archbishop to bilath while prince dimitri stepped up to become the new king of the united fodland together these two shaped through both sacrifice and suffering from their journey led the people of this new united nation with wisdom and with grace [Music] waiting above in the monastery was claude still sporting the same strong smile as before now that the pair were reunited shortly afterwards true to their word the two were also joined by the old members of the golden deer class using the monastery as the leicester alliance's new home base claude now the leader of the alliance after his grandfather's death began the steps to begin raising up their army although he had successfully avoided all-out war with the empire all these years now with bileth returned it was time to tip the scales after joining forces with the remaining staff of garrick mock this new army first struck out by repelling an initial imperial assault following this by reinforcing their group with troops led by judith who was known as the hero of daphnell and an extremely important figure in the alliance together the group's next gambit was to attempt to take the great bridge of murden allowing for a more unified leicester alliance thanks to their clever maneuvers the attack was successful defeating the imperial general larislava in the process with a way into the empire's territory successfully open claude assigned judith to hold the bridge while he and bileth seized this initiative to go back into alliance territory and convince its disparate lords to support them as one group with both the proven command of claude and bileth who was recognized as the successor to lady rhea all of the alliance lords threw their lots in with them meaning that the only thing to do now was to strike back at the empire as one unified force when the day came for the invasion to begin their foes did not stay dormant with edelgard meeting them at grander field meanwhile an unknown army marching under the banner of the kingdom of fargus which had long since lost their war with the empire also appeared revealing that despite reports dimitri was still alive and also seeking edelgard's head dimitri was even willing to fight both claude and bileth if they impeded his path in the slightest the clash at grander field turned out to be extremely bloody with all three sides taking massive damage however at the end of the day it was the leicester alliance army that sealed the victory sending edelgard into retreat sadly dimitri during this fight acted blindly due to his bloodlust and charged after edelgard despite his many injuries and soon met his own end on the battlefield as several imperial soldiers finished him off with the victory for the alliance at grander behind them claude and byleth's forces next marched on fort mercius entering it with a clever ploy to disguise themselves as imperial reinforcements after being let into the fort the group began their surprise attack which soon won by opening the fort up for their own reinforcements to come in even though their tactics were effective their victory turned out to be short-lived as a massive magic strike came from the sky obliterating the fort and any of those frinder foe who were still inside it even with this scorched earth retribution the leicester alliance army still needed to march on inbar as soon as possible as winning the battle there would mean ending the war entirely in a massive invasion the alliance army was able to force their way through the imperials who were holding on to their capital and soon took their fight right up into the imperial palace clashing with edelgard in her throne room when all was said and done as powerful as the empress was edelgard was finally finished off by byleth shortly after their victory lady raya was also soon found although she had become extremely weakened from her five years of imprisonment with edelgard's death the war was definitively over however they soon learned that for the safety of future fodlin their battles were not done yet in a letter that was passed on to them by hubert shortly before his own death defending inbar he revealed the existence of another secretive group a threat that had slithered in the dark all this time it was this group who were responsible for the deception that led to gerald's death many years ago and were in fact a hidden force who would continue to plague fodlin with or without the empire still standing as long as they were able to scurry away to their hiding places and remain dormant it was only a matter of time until they would re-emerge and create more chaos for the land revealing their home base as an underground city known as shambhala hubert gave claude and bilath everything they would need to root out this group seeking them out deep underground the alliance army seized on this opportunity and found talus the leader of their group hiding out exactly where hubert's information pointed them although those who slithered in the dark wielded advanced magic golems and a small personal army claude and bileth still emerged victorious before meeting his end tullus made one last attempt to take his foes out and did so by opening up the ceiling and calling down multiple javelins of light to strike them the same magic that had obliterated the mighty fort mercies rhea in an act of self-sacrifice transformed herself into her dragon form and flew up to meet them taking out as many of these javelins as she could before eventually becoming overwhelmed and falling back to earth heavily injured even though she had succeeded in defending her friends unbeknownst to the group for now the energies released by this caused a tomb far below shambhala to stir where the only other holder of the crest of flames a now resurrected nemesis slowly emerged nemesis as revealed soon after by rhea had been a bandit king one who had been responsible for the attack on reyes ancient home of xanado where her and the other children of the goddess sothus had lived he had nearly gone on to do much more evil in the world after this until rhea who was then known as saint saros led her own army to battle against his forces and slew the so-called king of liberation since her victory over him rhea admitted that she had not always made the best choices however it was time for her to pass on the responsibility of leading fodlin to a new generation in other words it was now up to bileth and claude to defend the entire continent and soon reports began to come in of a new army emerging from the ruins of shambhala led by the resurrected nemesis accepting their responsibility as the guardians of this land claude bileth and all of their loyal allies made one last stand against the army of nemesis the strength of this king of liberation was truly unreal but once the leicester army were able to slay his powerful generals they were finally ready to approach the deadly king through effort and teamwork to nemesis's great surprise he was finally defeated for good after years and years of battle it was time for the fighting in this land to stop in the years that followed not only fodlin but the lands beyond which had assisted in the war united under the charismatic leadership of claude and bileth these two heroes led the land into a new age one that was defined by equality and peace [Music] with the flame emperor exposed as edelgard and seeing the viciousness in rheya's response byleth knew where their allegiances lie stepping away from the archbishop bileth took their place next to their students however in doing so they earned the ire of rheya who quickly passed judgment upon them she transformed into a massive dragon and was set to unleash her full wrath against them unable to face this kind of power just yet baileth's group retreated regrouping at one of the imperial army's provisional camps nearby even though rheya and the church of sarros would be a vicious opponent widely supported by much of fodlin adelgard who is acting now as the emperor of adrestia decided that it was time to declare war against the church in order to set the land free from their influence which had secretly controlled the land for its own benefit renaming their team now to the black eagle strike force their group quickly met up with many of edelgard's generals who then mobilized the adrestian army into action their primary target of course was garrig mock monastery leading to the same massive siege that closes out the first part of this game for every other path however this time from the other side while the strike force was able to fight their way up to rhea a similar fate to all other possibilities awaited byleth as a blast from her dragon form sent them tumbling deep deep underground although the battle for gergmock was one edelgard was unable to find byla's body and in the confusion afterwards rhea managed to retreat to the holy kingdom of fargus where she took refuge over the next five years war continued to rage across the continent until the day of the millennium festival five years prior byleth and their class promised to reunite here no matter what and now miraculously deep below the monastery by leth awakened quickly making their way up to meet their old friends with bileth returned edelgard could now hope to break the stalemate that the war had entered dimitri to the north had been successfully leading a defense of rhea and the church while claude to the northeast through skillful diplomatic maneuvering had made it impossible for the empire to lean on the neutral leicester alliance seeing no way to move forward while the alliance continued to be a thorn in their side the renewed black eagle strike force decided to attack claude first as taking him out of the fight would allow for the other noble families of the alliance to freely back them although the alliance army led by judith who was a famed fighter did give them some pause ultimately the strikeforce was able to fight their way into claude's home base finding a blockaded and thoroughly prepared capital with nothing else to do but engage the black eagles started their siege and eventually claimed victory over the famed tactician with the surgical removal of claude from the alliance as predicted the nobles throughout the rest of the land quickly fell into line having avoided most of the fighting throughout these five years the alliance was a source of fresh new fighters to reinvigorate the empire's war on the church where they could now focus all of their aggression the final step however was briefly halted as the strikeforce had to return to garrick mock to stop a major assault that was led by setheth and flame who severely damaged the imperial cause by defeating several of edelgard's best generals however in bileth and edelgard's counter-attack both setteth and flame also met their own ends with garrick mock re-secured the group could turn back on track and decided to first take out cornelia who was a major player in the empire and secretly a member of the same group that were responsible for the attack unremire village and the assassination of geralt although edelgard had allied with this secretive group under the guise of the flame emperor she had always meant to break away and defeat them when given the chance and while it was still plausible that she was only attacking cornelia as a way to weaken the kingdom this attack turned out to be the perfect first step with cornelia taken out the way to the kingdom capital of ferdiad was now open and the black eagles finally launched their assault meeting the kingdom army and the knights of sarros both at last in open combat on a rainy battlefield the strikeforce finally faced off against both demetri and rhea taking on their loyal and powerful followers as well as the leaders themselves after much bloodshed including finally taking down the frighteningly powerful dimitri reya who now decided to go by her true name of saros despite extreme reluctance was forced to retreat rallying her remaining troops within the walls of the capital with one last push philath and edelgard led their army into the city and took on the full power of the archbishop in her dragon form called the immaculate one it was only by working together that this group finally was able to slay this horrible beast with the last of the children of the goddess slain the power maintaining byleth's life which had been given to them long ago by rhea shortly after their own birth finally gave out leaving edelgard to cry over their lifeless friend as the power of the goddess finally dissipated inside them bayleth's actual heart began to beat for the first time and soon their hair returned to its original color signaling both the return of bileth as well as the beginning of a new age without the influence of the goddess and the church with the war finally finished fodlin unified under edelgard and bileth edelgard acting as the new leader of fodlin at last implemented her dream of eliminating the class system allowing all citizens whether they had a crest or not to finally be treated as equals as she did this she also began to wage war against the secretive group known as those who slither in the dark hoping to finally wipe them out and prevent them from having any influence in this new hard-won age the battle against them with bileth at her side would come in time but for now these two leaders of the land could settle into the new unprecedented world that they had created [Music] waiting above in the monastery was edelgard clearly grown colder but more powerful in the five years that had passed bitterly the two crossed swords but at the moment neither could see this fight through to the end both being unwilling to fight to the death just yet adelgard sadly took her leave of her former professor and friend stating that the next time they crossed swords it would be the last without one of the three houses to back them bileth was left alone in the cathedral however they were soon found by seth who was still holding on to the hope of finding lady raya who had disappeared after the battle for garrick mock five years ago joining them in this task was none other than the former black eagles class minus edelgard and hubert of course who all chose the cause of their former professor over the questionable direction that their country and families were taking with the crest of flames representing them this new group immediately needed to fight off a preemptive attack by the empire and upon achieving victory they claimed garrog mock as their new base even with this initial victory sateth and bileth both knew that they were in no shape to take on the full imperial army and instead resolve to send messengers to any reliable lords in the kingdom of fargus or the leicester alliance as with either of their support their group might actually stand a chance their first goal they decided would be to contact judith a lord of the alliance known as the hero of house daphnel following their secretive contact the group traveled into the fiery plains of alel where a brief ambush stalled them until they were able to successfully meet with judith who promised them her support at the same time in this conversation judith also confirmed what they had all feared rhea indeed had been dragged away by the addresstian army five years ago and was likely being held in the capital with judith's group now backing them they decided to refrain from contacting the kingdom and instead advance against the empire directly as they still viewed the empire controlled portions of the kingdom as being too much of a threat to do so they first moved against the imperials holding the great bridge of murden a key point for them to take as holding it would open up the imperial held lands to their own invasion while also allowing them to move more freely in the north without the threat of being attacked from behind shortly after securing the bridge with a tough fight the group was approached by gilbert a loyal knight of the kingdom who once fought alongside bileth during their year teaching at garrick ma gilbert represented the part of the empire that remained loyal to dimitri and although the two groups were currently unable to band together setteth at least offered some support allowing the kingdom to use the bridge they had just claimed for dimitri's forces to make their own strike against the empire while the armies of edelgard dimitri and claude would go on to meet at grander field the renewed knights of saros instead made their next target the imperial fort mercius where the death knight himself led the defense within this fort the group faced off with him again and after defeating him the fort appeared to have been claimed this sadly was not to be as the death knight on a whim warned the knights about an oncoming destruction that they had not detected soon from the sky above several javelins of light rained down on the fort obliterating it in its entirety while this had been happening their allies and the empire and alliance had suffered their own setbacks as the battle of grander field had been very costly for all three nations including with dimitri who had lost his life even with this setback at fort mercius and their allies being severely weakened thanks to the damage that had been caused to adelgard's forces the way to inbar the imperial capital was still open for them at last the final attack could commence and although hubert led a masterful defense it wasn't long until bileth and seth's forces cut their way through all his resistance and were finally facing off against edelgard in her throne room as expected she did put up a worthy defense but at the end of the day it was byleth who struck her down putting an end to the war soon rhea was indeed found alive in the capital and although she was extremely weakened she was at least alive and together the knights all returned back to garrick mock to support her recovery while the battle between the three nations had come to an end a posthumous letter from hubert revealed that there had been another party influencing all of this conflict a hidden enemy known as those who slither in the dark rheya who had her own knowledge about this group revealed that they had always existed in fodlin since ancient times having likely been responsible for nemesis a conquering bandit who had slain many of the children of the goddess in the past and who had nearly claimed the sword of the creator for his own until saint saros had stopped him and took it back the knights of saros acted upon hubert's information and hunted down the mysterious group in their underground city of shambhala after finishing off talas the leader of the group in a final act of desperation he used his magic to both open up the ground above them and call down several more javelins of light hoping to wipe out the knights in one final move unwilling to let her allies or bileth fall victim to this trap reya swiftly transformed into her dragon form and defended them and although she was successful she herself was caught up in many of the explosions causing strange energies to seep into her body even after all of this incredibly reia was still alive although she knew now that she was on her last legs without her to lead fodlin into the future everyone knew that the only person who could take over her role would be the one who had been seemingly chosen by the goddess herself that being bileth despite reya's confidence in them byleth wished to have some time to consider this after a month had passed and rhea was finally able to leave her bed chamber she asked for byleth to meet with her before hearing bileth's response rhea told them the full truth about their birth and how she was connected to bilath's family rhea in a sense had been involved in the creation of bileth quite heavily though not through reproduction but rather the production of their mother ever since the goddess had left the world in ages past rhea had sought to bring her back using her own powers to create artificial humans who might be able to play host to the crest stone of the progenitor god geralt had fallen in love with one of her creations the twelfth one citri and the two soon gave birth to a child who of course would be bileth as citrie was suffering from complications from the birth ones that would soon claim her life she pleaded with rhea to save her child who was not breathing and had no heartbeat rhea agreed and she ripped the crest stone out from citrie's body and placed it into bileth who miraculously began to breathe this however was not where their only connections ended geralt in the past had also been terribly wounded and was given a donation of reyes blood in order to survive reya's blood coming from someone who was not exactly human altered geralt's body giving him an unnaturally long life so in a way by leth through both their mother and father was directly connected to rhea which is why their body was able to successfully house the consciousness of sothis with all of her secrets finally laid bare rhea next asked if bileth would use the power they had been given to succeed her leading fodlin onto the right path which she knew that she had strayed from due to her obsessions before reya could finish this thought the time that she was holding onto ultimately ran out and in a shocking fit of madness she suddenly turned into her dragon form the immaculate one however this time she was not in control at the same time as her rampage began all throughout garrett mock those who had received reya's blood also began to transform into mindless beasts turning the monastery into a surprise battlefield this left only byleth and the knights of sarros to defend the innocent people trapped here and additionally losing herod mean tragedy for the people of fodlin who at this point could not hope to contain such a monstrous rampaging threat for the last time the knights and the former black eagles fought together working in tandem to bring rheya down to an end that she greeted with a smile knowing that her work through bileth had been successful if bileth could take down the immaculate one fodlin did indeed have a protector who could accomplish any task as rheya passed on byleth accepted their role in leading the land uniting fodlin as a new nation under the church of cerros the fighting was over and it was now time for reconstruction under the watchful eye of the true inheritor of the goddess's will also if you s support rhea she just kind of lives afterwards for no reason it sort of defeats the purpose of silver snow's narrative with bayless empath being inheriting both rhea and the goddess's will without themselves being overshadowed by edelgard demetria claude doesn't make a lot of sense but uh yeah i get it [Music] like with everything about three houses the first hurdle when it comes to discussing it is sorting out how one is meant to approach the sheer enormity of what all this game and this story has to offer for me i want to start with the biggest positive and that would have to be the many characters in this game that you get to talk to fight alongside and also have nice cups of tea with when i look back now at my journey through every fire emblem game more so than any story beat it's the interesting characters that excite me the most from game to game which is why i spent most of my time with 3 houses very happy i had an extremely charming cast to constantly learn more about part of my attachment might be due to the simple premise of this story since in part one you spend a year as an actual professor at garrick mock which allows you to see each unit not only as one of your fighters in battle but also seeing them just hanging out at school which also reinforces just who they are exactly simply seeing that this one character tends to hang out in the library or this one in the cafeteria does a lot of leg work that before could only be implied in little bits and pieces and support conversations and that is of course if you even took an interest in those characters at all since you're going to be at garrett mock anyway you kind of can't help finding out what everyone's all about there's also indirect discovery about the characters as three houses does sneak in a lot of little details around the environment such as certain items which happen to be in each of the characters rooms while for time's sake i do want to keep my overview of the characters pretty general right now i can't help but bring up a few of my favorites so in no particular order some of my favorites would have to include from the black eagles hubert bernadetta and petra from the blue lions de dew felix and mercedes from the golden deers raphael lysethia and marianne and from the rest of the cast manuela aloise and shamir of course it probably goes without saying but the three class leaders as well as rhea setteth and flain are also in my favorites list the nice thing about this game in particular is that even if i look past the ones that i really liked for various reasons i honestly can't pick a single other character that i actually dislike or even find especially uninteresting each and every one of them once i eventually got to know them better had some kind of appeal that made me happily dig further into their stories to now start moving beyond just the cast we can start to discuss something that i have really enjoyed watching evolve as i made my way through this retrospective series and that is in seeing how the storytelling methods of this franchise have continued to grow and how this particular story stands out or falls short first off i just have to say that due to three houses incredible sales numbers and therefore simple numerical popularity quite similar to fire emblem fates this entry is also a hotbed of discussion in particular a lot of debate centers around adelgard and whether her motivations make up for the way she went about things many participating in these discussions often assign themselves to a single side and i 100 am not here to join in that debate i don't have interest in picking a side nor am i here to reinforce who you think was correct or not as i said i enjoy all of these characters but more so than just picking who i feel was right or not i find it more interesting to try to focus on the bigger picture and put all of different story paths into one discussion in my mind all of the characters do a lot of things right and a lot of things wrong and that's good they're characters they should make right and wrong decisions that's why they're interesting let's move on so the bigger question that i want to tackle is does three houses successfully deliver a satisfying narrative somewhere in all of its many paths in a nutshell i think the answer is on paper yes the twisting tale of three houses does offer an intriguing as often as it is predictable narrative all set in what is the most skillfully established world ever seen in a fire emblem game fodlin in particular is a big win it feels remarkably thought out and fun to learn more lore about it's not necessarily as detailed as other contemporary rpg settings but for what is essentially the backdrop of a strategy game they really went above and beyond part of this game's success in establishing its setting comes from its main location garrig mock serves as a meeting point where the player and byleth can learn about all of the people and all of the nations in this continent all at once as a setup to a game that's premised on the player picking aside and sticking to it this is a very good way to tee up that choice better so than the series has ever done before i do have one little issue though and that is personally i really wish that the game gave you more time to spend at garrick mock understanding the culture and characters of each of the sides before asking you to make your choice on which group you're going to go with a better place for it actually would have been maybe about halfway through part one if not best being at the very end of it doing this i think would have also helped with making part one less of a slog on repeat playthroughs even though i do think that on the whole the introduction to the world via garrick mock is an extremely strong way to set up the later game needing to play through this section three to four times minimum in order to be able to see all of the part two paths is a huge misstep one that is tragically going to create some resentment for what i think is easily the game's strongest section honestly there is not nearly enough differences between each of the houses runs in the white cloud section to justify locking the player to their house so early on really about the only exclusive content there amounts to a few private conversations with the members of your house and on rare occasions a few more interesting scenes with some minor plot lines such as dimitri's little plot line where he recognizes a weapon that he gave to adelgard which serves as an early hint to the flame emperor's true identity so for as much as i really like part 1 despite the repetition that it unfortunately becomes in later playthroughs as it is right now the way that the game treats white clouds as a exclusive segment for each of the houses kind of feels like it was a lot of unnecessary work work and time that the developers may have been better served into putting into part two because honestly every single part two path has some form of major disappointment for me that biggest disappointment came right away when i quickly realized that the second half of the game was just going to repeat the setting and structure of the first half every single path has the player returned to garrick mock regardless of how much or how little sense this makes even though in part 1 the setup with bileth only setting out on their missions at the end of the month sometimes stretched believability particularly in the chapter where flame gets kidnapped using this again in part two is where it really started to get monotonous for me this wasn't something that i narrated in my story synopsis chapters but if you haven't played the game then just know that between every single major event i said you just have to imagine that bilath and the group return back to garrick mock and just sort of hang out while other stuff happens in the world for the next four weeks don't get me wrong though i really do love the living as a fantasy military professor life however i really do think some kind of shake up just in setting alone would have really helped all the part two sections perhaps just by giving the player a similar map in the capital cities of each of the houses that they side with with only silver snow using garrick mock a second time which would feel quite thematic for a player that is choosing to side with the church having not looked at any spoilers for any of the other runs this was something that i was kind of expecting to happen in one of them and i can't tell you how much my face lit up when i saw during my crimson flower run bileth and company actually did go to a temporary military camp to set up the final chapters of their part one finally i thought the game was doing something different but nope as soon as you hit part two it's back to the basically unchanged garrick mock map the monotony of this setup really just seems like a symptom of what i feel is this game's biggest problem quite simply over ambition the exact same thing that ruined the story of fates that over ambition comes across in just about every frame of this game that you see keeping the topic on garrett mock we have the fact that this game goes to great lengths with some incredibly expressive artwork to establish the changing look of fodlin as the seasons pass and yet the look of garek mock never ever changes with the seasons there's no snow or cherry blossoms or anything i know this may have required essentially four different garage mock maps if not more but for how much work and writing went into making this setting feel alive even with thematic names for each month and special holidays based on its own ancient history it's frustrating that we never get to feel it for ourselves even just aesthetically in the game's most frequently explored place my second major gripe when it comes to the over ambition and how that left a lot of things looking very cheap has to be the stretched background images in all of the game's dialogue scenes this is something that just looks distracting when you see two characters talking and the camera movement causes the background tables to distort unnaturally it kinda takes you out of the scene you're focusing less on what the characters are saying and more on just how terrible the game looks it can look okay in the outdoor settings but any indoor scenes it's just a really bad choice i kind of get it for a bulk of the time and past fire emblem games many scenes could be made just using character portraits and background images this game has beautiful 3d models and they didn't want to use just artwork for conversations still i don't know what it would have taken to get enough space to allow the characters to have their own conversations in just a few 3d environments but anything would have been preferable i can't believe that these made it into a finished product clearly some standards had to be lowered in order to be able to fit everything in that they wanted to and as i mentioned before a lot of these happen to all come to a head in part two chapter previews are simply recycled month art and also usually having almost nothing new to say another thing happens to be that azure moon verdant wind and silver snow all have incredible full motion videos to show byleth running into the class leaders while crimson flower gets nothing just still scenes and the terrible looking story conversations it feels like an afterthought as if the developers didn't understand that crimson flower is probably the game's most important story path for a lot of players while we're on the critique train let's just throw in here how silver snow and verdant wind are pretty much just copies of each other which feels just weird because here we have seth always happening to come to the same plans as the master strategist that claude was supposed to be it also makes me wonder if any players happen to play these two paths first and then maybe we're put off from the game thinking that the other two paths were just going to be clones as well verdant wind isn't really that bad of a path it just kind of feels bad that there's another path here that is exactly the same as it i feel like silver snow should be the afterthought and yet it got a beautiful full motion video to introduce us to it and has some really important reveals at the very end of it even with the various reveals that are locked in the later parts of whatever houses run that you choose three houses for the most part isn't a game of separate paths just for roughly two-thirds of it different perspectives on the same events it doesn't matter which class you choose you are going to see grander field the bridge of murden fort mercius inbar all of it i did like seeing them all for myself but it was really rough for me to keep my interest up sometimes and honestly i don't think i would recommend going down every path to almost anyone in case you were wondering when it came to my own story enjoyment silver snow would be the lowest by far followed by verdant wind in third it's not verdant wind's fault i don't think but that's how it shook out crimson flower would then come in second and yes i did enjoy a zero moon the most it's kind of a given though azure moon feels like the only path that was actually finished crimson flower despite being equally fascinating to me was way shorter than the rest and literally cuts out before the story is even over when i think about everything i experienced altogether i just feel sad and frustrated by how much potential was wasted as i said the game is really good on paper i wish that they'd finished it so here's my final take two playthroughs is a minimum just play through azure moon and crimson flower in whatever order you like and you'll have pretty much seen the whole story and the best content of the game you can then branch out the verdant wind if you're still hungry for more silver snow can then be a final run if you're feeling truly committed and want to see where everything takes you this might be a little bit rough after completing verdict wind as the two paths are pretty much identical except for the final battle but still i do think that this is the best order for the most amount of players with the storytelling of three houses behind us let's move on and cover the many new gameplay systems and alterations that our adventure to fodlin brought us [Music] as i've gone over in some previous videos over the course of making this series i have inevitably noticed a trend where whenever the fire emblem series jumps to a different console to begin a new era of games the initial game on that console has tended to be a major trailblazer making good use of its brand new player base to alter what exactly fire emblem is we saw this quite notably with fire emblem 6 the binding blade which trimmed off the series fat to make a scaled-down version of fire emblem and then of course with fire emblem awakening which swung the doors wide open for just about every excess in the book when it comes to three houses it doesn't take more than a few glances to see that this trend also holds true and this version of fire emblem ups the rpg part of the strategic rpg genre it's set in by giving players not just an army an inventory to look over but also a home and a job that it behooves its players to take an interest in for improving the strategic part of the gameplay of course there's no better place to begin picking apart the gameplay of three houses other than tackling right away what is easily its most significant change i'm talking of course about garrick mock monastery where all players can easily spend about a third of their entire playtime in the most basic sense garrick mock is just an evolution of the same fort system that fire emblem has been struggling to implement ever since path of radiance on the nintendo gamecube while the last game to really take a shot at this fire emblem fates made its hub world a little barely explained pocket dimension and a slightly ignorable feature fire emblem three houses goes all in on the idea you cannot ignore garrig mock even if you tried even if you were determined to just skip it and have the game auto choose your decisions for you the developers purposefully i suspect made trying such an option wildly inefficient throughout all my playthroughs i don't think it's overestimating to say that i've probably spent at least 40 hours of real time in garrett mock that might actually be lowballing it a little bit of course if you know anything about me or maybe have seen the fates video you can probably already predict my reaction to the monastery i don't know why but explorable hub worlds and games just really appeal to me even after the stupid amount of time i've spent wandering around garrick mock i never really got tired of it there were some things that i definitely did start to feel would be better served by just being a menu item but on the whole i love wandering around that school part of this might be due to my own personal history one of the best years of my life was spent living abroad and exploring every corner of the quite remote campus where i lived and the barely populated region that surrounded me living bioleth's day-to-day life as abstracted as it is has the same appeal to me as some of the best boarding school type stories yes i did love schmoozing my way around garrick mock poking my nose into odd corners or rooms that i wouldn't have any reason to go to and also just checking to see where people wound up from month to month however that doesn't mean i'm blind to the problems that it definitely has even though i kinda like it i can only imagine the feelings of another sort of player one who finds the forced addition of a place like this into a strategic rpg very unwelcome especially how all the other systems even returning systems of fire emblem tie into it to work what i mean by this is demonstrated by talking about the new way that the game handles supports so first of all just like any other entry you can of course increase your units bonds by using them close to each other in battle three houses thankfully give support point bonuses to units who are within range of the same target and not simply adjacent to each other this is a great way to build relationships with the units that you already have to use however a big part of three houses with students in other houses that you can recruit to your side means that the player also needs a way to increase bonds with characters outside of their starting house there is a system to borrow a single student from another class for a single month and although they don't get any experience due to the support bonuses in battle it's a great way to reach out across the aisle however this is not an efficient way to try to recruit everyone at the school and for many reasons it is highly beneficial for you to try to recruit all the characters that you possibly can in the first half of the game keep in mind that a new unit in your army is not only just a new unit additionally by having as many characters recruited as you can you gain access to all of their paralogs which of course have very valuable rewards for example basically every person who plays three houses should really recruit lorenz as his paralog gives one of the best items in the game the staff thirsus that thing gives you plus two to your magic cast range pretty ridiculous on its own but made even better with other boons to cast range you could live without it but using something like this is just a lot of fun and a huge appeal to the gameplay whether you like it or not if you want to have more fun in the battles then you'd better be ready to put some mental power towards having regular meals with your own class members and also other people you want to recruit possibly having some tea parties and wandering around the school to find lost items or gifts that you can then give to the various students for players who just want to get to the battles already it's easy to see how gergmock's hub enforcement is exactly what they don't want in this game and i genuinely do feel bad for them yes i want to go fishing i want to feed all the cats and dogs i want to have awkward sauna mini games but it still sits in the back of my head that while i continue to soak in the pretend life of being a professor at this awesome monastery not everyone wants to spend their time this way i guess if we're going to be at the monastery anyway then it's about time that we talk about class [Music] [Applause] [Music] the unit class and well literal class system from the outside seems pretty foreign to every game that's come before it in fire emblem i know when i was first seeing snippets of three houses as i was making my way through the prior games i really couldn't imagine how in the world all of this came together and would still feel like fire emblem although the way that bileth can raise their skills as well as other character skills through lessons and seminars at garrick mock doesn't quite have the same feel as simply just honing all those same skills only in battle it's actually not as different as it might seem what we really have here is the same systems as before and then a thematic school menu system that works to give you some bonus experience that can be applied manually by the player in whatever manner they see fit i guess in a way it's not all that different from the bonus experience system in path of radiance however the bonuses in this game go towards weapon or riding experience whereas in that game it just gave you levels in the three houses context the most apt comparison to how the teaching system works is just to put it side by side with my description of the support system in the previous chapter you can continue to just raise your unit's weapons and riding skills on the battlefield however in this game those increases only account for about half of what is total accrued the other half comes from activities at garrick mock for both by leth and the units under their command every week in game you will start out by having class with your students which is concluded by a more direct menu that allows you to select your units and then train them in specific skills with the number of students you're able to train being specifically locked to your current professor rank when you're directly tutoring your students like this you have a chance for a bad good great or perfect result reflecting randomly how well your student took in the lesson and how many skill points they gain in any given month you're typically able to have at least two to four chances to teach your students and how motivated your target student is each week will allow you to teach them for shorter or longer you can also set certain training priorities per student as well as inducting students to special jobs which will increase their armor riding or flying from week to week these bonuses need to be selected but after that they're automatic getting the most out of this powerful training system means learning how to manage your entire classes motivation levels and understanding how to choose whether you want to go on optional side battles from week to week have interested students attend a seminar for specialized larger than normal experience have everyone just rest for a 50 motivation boost or go explore garrick mock usually the best choice is the final one where with only a few gifts to your students or a couple action points spent in the cafeteria you can quickly get everyone fully motivated again and ready for maximum gains on the next class day this of course quickly can become a grind however anything less than this efficient play is really not going to cut it when trying to keep up with your enemies on the game's more challenging difficulty settings maybe this is why normal mode is so mind-numbingly easy they wanted to have a version of the game where you can just rest and take half gains during your classes depending on the player this might be a satisfying management task or just a chore like with the previous systems it is an enforcement on all players to participate in the monastery activities the ability to raise up student skills completely manually does have some interesting benefits on the upside you can very easily catch up some units that are not quite getting as many chances to fight or get them ready for other classes that they otherwise would not be able to get any experience for once i was eventually able to get my head around the way that the teaching system worked i figured that i was going to be in for a really good time this game sort of had the route planning of a fire emblem fates mixed with the freedom of the ds fire emblems where you can choose very freely what class you want your units to be for the most part that is what we got at least up until a point from the basic classes to the advanced classes this system does work as intended you can take your units in whatever direction you want and it is very freeing and fun as usual you will want to synergize your choices with a unit's own personal skill however in three houses you also need to contend with their personal proficiencies for example some units are naturally better with a sword and will get an experience boost during your lessons if you train them on that on a side note i really wish that players were able to better choose what bioleth was proficient with in the way that previous games let you choose what your avatar would be good at but anyway even though this teaching and class system as a whole seems very ideal i do have two main issues with how this all works first of all it frustrates me that the game quite simply doesn't tell you what skills you can get for mastering a class it also does the same thing with hitting certain weapon ranks it's all a mystery until you actually achieve it however once you do get the skill or combat art the game doesn't mark where it actually came from you might think it's obvious since the skills immediately unlock after the announcement of you mastering a class or hitting a certain rank however in this game you get tons of notifications all the time especially in teaching weeks and it can be really easy to forget if you're going to plan out a powerful skill build in three houses you are definitely going to want to have a second source of information to sort it all out for you because the game certainly doesn't this is my second main gripe with the system obscuring information as i said from the basic to the advanced classes the game system works as intended but until you're able to unlock them the prerequisites for the classes at the master level are completely hidden and they really do have some wacky requirements first of all we have things like the falcon knight needing a sea in swords and wyvern lords needing a sea in lances this is sort of a different point but flying characters have a really weird path in this game for example there is no male flying class until you get to the advanced classes and there is no pegasus equivalent for females in the advanced classes either instead i guess pegasus knights are just supposed to pivot to a wyvern and axis in the middle of their build which is part of why them suddenly needing a sword again although classically associated with pegasus knights can still be a bit of a surprise maybe master classes shouldn't be called master classes as they are all some kind of mixed class again a large amount of your total proficiency experience comes from bileth slowly tutoring each unit thanks to me screwing up my first playthrough with this in my later playthroughs i did know that my magic users would need a full a in riding from the start which is enormous by the way considering that there are no magic riding classes before this at least without the dlc i also knew they would need a c in lance's which is a weapon that i would have never thought to equip them with it's pretty easy to get blindsided in the late game where you suddenly find out that you should have been training your units a different way all along call me old-fashioned i guess but i really don't like feeling like i need to always play fire emblem with a second tab open three houses is a really great portable game however sometimes the knowledge of my missing out on efficiency due to me not sitting down in front of a tv and a laptop meant that i felt kind of tied down every time i wanted to play that's why i eventually broke down and made this all of the information that the game made tedious to remember or flat out wouldn't show me in one place yes by the way i don't have a printer once i had this at my side it became remarkably more enjoyable for me to guide every one of my units to wherever i wanted them to get to without needing to rack my brain every class week making successful builds is one of the most satisfying parts of the later fire emblem games and i just wish that we were at a point where the game itself would realize that and help you facilitate it instead of keeping its most interesting rewards behind blinders even though i've now covered two humongous alterations to the fire emblem formula three houses is just jam-packed with a whole lot more than this let's attempt to cover all of the rest of it and finally near the end of this thing next [Music] even though this section of the video is meant to house all of the smaller parts of the gameplay experience on offer that i didn't think were significant enough to devote entire chapters to a few of these do still represent very radical changes to the series they just need less words to explain for example the new battalion and gambit system they massively change how you approach many problems in a way that i haven't yet seen in this franchise also i freaking love them although i didn't realize how much i would like them at first let's take a step back early on in three houses you will gain access to an additional kind of well i guess it's easiest to consider it an item but it's basically an equippable little group of many soldiers who are not represented in battle from the regular top down angle although they can be seen if you go into the zoomed in warrior style angle that is pretty much impossible to actually play the game in anyways equipping battalions to your units gives passive buffs to certain stats depending on the type of battalion they are and also give you access to certain tactical actions which are called gambits gambits function a bit like weapon skills but are more limited having a set number of times they can be used per battle a unit hit by an offensive gambit loses the ability to move and lowers their stats by 10 as well as having other effects like damage over time by being on fire or forcing the target to reposition depending on which battalion you equipped and what gambit came along with it there are defensive and support gambits as well which can be equally if not more powerful than the offensive ones group heals are nice and all but the really good stuff comes from support gambits like impregnable wall which turns all incoming damage to one a literal life saver on hard mode and especially on matted mode or there's also stride which gives all units in a very large area plus 5 movement for the turn which mixed with some high movement classes can let you storm around the battlefield with incredible mobility this kind of power is why uses of these gambits are limited by not one but two different systems in addition to simply having maximum uses per battle battalions also have their own kind of health bars that go down as your unit gets damaged stopping you from using them any longer if the battalion's health bar runs out on normal having battalions and gambits at all kinda confused me normal is already a cakewalk for anyone with even a modicum of fire emblem experience and when you don't know how to get the really powerful support battalions the offensive gambits especially just seemed like extra stuffing and an already packed game when you can pretty much always kill any enemy with one attack a somewhat more powerful move that enemies can't counter attack to and also usually die instantly from seems pretty unnecessary it wasn't until i got to hard mode and beyond that i started to understand what they were there for when enemies are actually a threat the ability to stop their oncoming charge in its tracks is a huge advantage one that you need to master in hard mode and move beyond mastering in mattering mode in order to succeed gambit powers are fueled by the new charmstat this was part of the reason why my maddening run was full of just as much tough combat as there were frequent tea parties a side activity that can increase your and your guests charm helping you out against normal foes isn't the only well implemented use for them this system is also built directly into countering the last major addition that i somehow haven't mentioned yet the new demonic beast enemies while demonic beasts at first seem to be nothing more than multi-square bodied enemies it is the way that offensive gambits with their often multi-square targeting attacks play into breaking down these beasts shields that cover each square of their body work together brilliantly the main area that you hit immediately breaks while the other areas affected become half-broken if you manage to break them all the beast will be stunned allowing you to pound on them with impunity and trying to break through their multiple health bars learning about how to synergize my gambits not only tactically from their effects but also geographically from their effect areas became its own enjoyable dynamic to me and even though demonic beast encounters can tend to get a bit spammy especially in certain paralogs and late game missions the possibility of this enemy type showing up does do a good job of forcing players to remember to pack enough offensive gambits to be ready for them you can't just bring all the overpowered support ones keeping things vague in order to avoid story spoilers in this gameplay section i will just say that the few battles against demonic beasts that were even larger meaning the ones that take up three by three squares were even more enjoyable for me to puzzle out on how to break their guards and deal with them they require a whole other level of gambit coordination often straining your ability to even still break them when your maximum uses get close to being used up these were probably my favorite boss fights in the whole series with the biggest features of three houses covered it's time to start winding down with a list of the few odds and ends that i feel i need to mention before we get to the finish line first of all i'm not really sure that i like having the weapon triangle system be only barely present the way it functions now is that no weapon has an inherent advantage against any other type when hitting certain weapon ranks exactly b for the triangle weapons your unit can learn an ability either ax breaker sword breaker or lance breaker by equipping this skill in one of your limited skill slots it allows you to have a 20 hit bonus and a void bonus when fighting a unit holding the classic weapon type that they counter while it's nice that a form of the weapon triangle is still in there i don't really like this implementation the triangle system works well because it doesn't interfere with your build having to give up a whole skill slot just to still interact with it is pretty simply not worth it especially for units who use multiple weapon types i guess if you're building a character that stops at the advanced classes and never move on such as swordmasters for swords and fighters with axes then the breaker skills are maybe worth having otherwise this is just kind of a lost system that i think i would have preferred more holistically included the most common way you interact with it now is being a victim of it as on harder difficulty modes they often give it to your enemies for free so even though you probably aren't benefiting from it it is still something that you need to be very aware of thankfully being aware of what skills your enemies have at all is something that is a lot easier to recognize thanks to the next little detail that i really like normally i find it very tedious to constantly check up on enemy stats in other fire emblem games but in the later games which start adding skills to the characters there's also the additional tedium of looking at and remembering what enemy units have what skills that can totally wreck you for example if there's a thief type unit out there that can just walk right through your battle line and one hit kill your healer one probably underrated change that three houses has is just simply the fact that for the first time ever we are playing a fire emblem in hd with an hd resolution comes a whole lot more pixels and hud space for information now with a single glance at the screen you can very clearly see these skills something that was possible on the 3ds but i find a lot easier here on a better hud and also being on the screen that i am actively focused on as i said it's a small thing but i found it really nice and i noticed it making my harder mode playthroughs more enjoyable than i thought they were going to be i almost forgot to mention the new threat range system a small but impactful little quality of life change being able to see lines of aggression suddenly link you and your foes is brilliant it prevents the player from making a lot of stupid moves due to them not taking the time to measure out every single enemy's distance and then combine all of those in their head i spent so much time with 3 houses that i almost kind of forgot that these were a new thing but i think they're wonderful next up the new fist weapons are just really interesting they are fairly newcomer friendly unlike the addition of daggers and kunai into fire emblem fates and these fist weapons can be really powerful but once you start to realize the value of mounted and flying units especially in this entry eventually these fist weapons which can't be used when mounted get left in the dust even if they do get outpaced i think they're a successful weapon type edition that i certainly wouldn't mind seeing return okay now let's talk crests and crest weapons they're kind of neat i appreciate how they are revisiting of and also a reigning in of the holy blood system of fire emblem 4. crest users are important to have in your army but they don't mean that those units completely overshadow other characters crests don't make your units inherently better they just have some better weapon choices however overusing those weapon choices is also better managed here than in fire emblem 4. while you can still repair them they are a lot more expensive both monetarily and also material wise to keep on bringing back to full if you manage to recruit every single character and go on lots of paralogs you will probably still have enough crest weapons to make it not such a big deal to lose one or two and not bother repairing it but even then in a lot of cases they weren't always my preferred weapons next up i gotta mention i kinda have a problem with how few maps there are in this game i say i kind of have a problem because i know three houses was way too over ambitious from the start and maybe i've just accepted that however the thing about the reused maps here that actually does get me is that not only are they the same layout but most of the time they're the exact same deployment even when the option for changing things up is wide open take for example the battle at gronder field all three armies approach the battle from a different direction and yet every time you come back to play through this map on a different playthrough you will always start on the north side of the map all it would take to give this map even a slightly different feel would be to just have a consistent direction that each army arrives from and then allow you to tackle the map from that direction speaking of repeated maps i guess this is a perfect time to fit in one last dig here at the rightfully maligned chapter 13 reunion at dawn a terrible map with a massive difficulty jump that does not allow you to choose who comes in and where this can be a game ender if you're playing on any of the higher difficulty modes especially on managing mode my own maddening run through it was only possible due to me already knowing what was coming and of course i was running a bit of a meme all flyers build that allowed me to just hide out of the way and either avoid or take on the dangers it had completely at my own speed by the way yes flying units are as broken as they've ever been in three houses cavalry are nice but a whole army of flying units all with reposition is some of the most silly fun i've ever had if you haven't try it out last up this is something that was kind of on my cutting room floor but i wanted to fit it in anyway yes i did buy the expansion pass for three houses and originally i planned to make a whole chapter about it the side story segment of seven additional chapters is a nice little mini campaign and it gives players a brief chance to meet the four new playable characters and try out their new classes also the story basically spoils a large amount of the big final conversation of silver snow making a playthrough of this game's worst path feel a lot less necessary nice after the side story was over i was then pretty disappointed to see that it was not at all canon i do see why it can't be it's story does require players to be stuck in it from start to finish and if put alongside the main game it could make them feel trapped if they wanted to go back to what they were doing before still the solution that they ended up on is just kind of weird we spend seven chapters learning about these new characters who i did like a lot but then when it's over and we go back to our main game file moments later although the characters are now recruitable they are then meeting by leth for the first time and our relationship has to start all over again moving on the classes that the dlc brought were all very interesting although like with the brawler the infantry based ones like trickster and warmonk do end up seeming kind of paltry in comparison to the dark flyer and valkyrie where the true power lies the dlc is also where side activities like feeding the cats and dogs and garrick mock come in which is an odd little system where you feed the animals and may get an item reward this gives some good value to things like collecting meat and the side missions and also the lesser fish that you get from the fishing mini game the other main garage mock edition from the dlc is the sauna which while its mini-game is a bit random is really fun to succeed at as a successful trip means you're going to have an even more effective teaching day with that student later on last thing on the dlc the new abyss area that is added is neat but also a bit pointless i really enjoyed using it as an alternative hub in the side story content but when i was back in the main game i found that it only added some niche features that were locked behind its really long load time features such as getting the occasional free but damaged weapon in the junk pile viewing your unit ratings if you're curious from the mysterious teacher and also using the pagan altar which allows you to exchange your renown which is a slowly building currency of sorts that you previously mostly spent at the saint statues but here can use for items it can certainly be a bit broken to suddenly get things like multiple brave weapons really easily if you're just sitting on renown but since any player who would have that much is probably on new game plus anyway i really don't mind it overall i did really enjoy the dlc it does feel a bit thin for its price but in order to feel that difference i held off on adding it until i was already in my third run of the game and i can definitely say that a run with it and a run without it do feel very different and i enjoyed myself more when i had all of its features available and there we have it everything i want to say about fire emblem 3 houses is finally out it is time now to wrap up not only this game but this entire retrospective series with one final chapter [Music] back in the winter of 2018 yes 2018 my channel was in kind of a transition period i had just finished all my coverage of hyrule warriors and fire emblem warriors the latter of which was my first experience touching anything related to fire emblem at that time i was more known for short guide videos however repeating the same formula over and over again especially for the humongous rosters of warriors games had me feeling very creatively unsatisfied i wanted to do something different with my channel after a couple of months the time had finally come in march of 2019 i returned to youtube simultaneously changing my channel name from gamesbrained to shane brained and announcing the passion project that i had decided on the fire emblem retrospective me a person who had never played any fire emblem game going through the entire series one by one never looking at what would be coming in the future so i always would have a fresh take on every entry fire emblem warriors had wet my appetite for the series however it just so happened that a new entry in the main series would be coming out later that year of course you already know that game was fire emblem three houses now this is kind of ridiculous but at the time i actually thought that i might be able to finish all of the games in the series as well as the retrospective videos all within the same year sure it went a little bit long and 2020 and 2021 were a complete mess but if you ever think you take a long time to get anything done well maybe you can feel a little bit better now when i finished making the first videos in this new series they had very little success at all nothing compared to what i could get by simply covering anything warriors for example the original fire emblem 1 retrospective got about 2 000 views in the whole first month whereas my warriors videos could get about that in the first day over the course of the next two months that same first retrospective video went up by another 800 views meaning that that one video over the course of one quarter of a year earned me about in youtube revenue of three dollars for a project that i spent weeks on and wanted to somehow grow into a whole new direction for my life on youtube with its original reception i really didn't know if i could continue this project i decided that fan funding would have to be the way to go and so i set a goal that was similar to about how much i would make on a bad month in youtube a hundred dollars each month through patreon this wasn't going to be enough to really make a big difference but it was also for me to see if people even cared what i would have to say about the series at all what i discovered back in 2019 was that even though i would not see a significant growth in subscribers as i became wholly focused on this one series the fire emblem community had passion you in some form or another found your way to my channel and whether you took the next step to become a patron or simply kept coming back time and time again you are the ones who have stuck by me often with patience as the length of these videos grew far beyond my initial idea and i really can't thank you enough for that fire emblem three houses is the end of the road but when i think about it now i mostly just see the journey that i took to get here this series is kind of beyond me now you are the ones who have been waiting long enough it's about time for me to finish this off now i think in my analysis i probably came off as feeling way more negative on three houses than it actually sits in my mind like with many other entries in this fantastic series it maintains the feeling of fire emblem while also grasping wildly at so many new ideas that it nails with precision or frustratingly misses the mark on but in a way that you can totally see what they were going for and just wish that they had been able to better execute in totality some frustrations here and there do not outweigh the incredible amount of great experiences that i had in playing this game it's hard if not impossible to nail everything or even close to it when going this far into unexplored territory and honestly i really praise the developers for trying to go so far out of their comfort zone while other modern series choose to stagnate fire emblem keeps trying to go beyond and i respect that it's silly to ask whether i recommend this game or not of course i recommend three houses it is a fantastic game one that i wouldn't say is necessarily right for everyone to love but one i would definitely say is right for everyone to try even with the absurd amount of time that i put into it i know for a fact that someday i will experience it all over again this is the game that i have anticipated for longer than any other game in my entire life and considering the journey i had along the way and just how special it was to me in ways just as personal as not i did not make the wrong choice at all thank you for helping me take the right direction and well um that's that's it everyone uh this is not the end of this channel nor even fire emblem things related on it thanks to the many people who pitched and support the series i have hit all my patreon support goals repeatedly far enough to secure videos covering the other fire emblem spin-off games that i promised such as tokyo mirage sessions fe fire emblem warriors and all of the shozokaga games from after he left intelligent systems those being a tearing saga berwick saga and vistaria saga those videos will have a full look at each game however i'm thinking about covering all of them in the course of 2-3 videos also i will be covering the new nintendo warriors game fire emblem warriors three hopes although that will at first be on my warriors only channel warriors dojo in addition to all this i'm also planning on turning all of the story synopsis chapters in my retrospective videos into separate releases on chainbrained story synopsis are a whole genre of videos on youtube and i just happen to have 16 very detailed synopses of the fire emblem series and i figure a lot of people would probably like to know what happens in these games some of these might require some tweaks such as new voice recording so that i can fix some of my early mispronunciations and possibly some new editing maybe not though some of those early editing jobs are kind of charming after all of that's said and done well i guess i'll have to decide what i'm gonna do next i do know that i want to have more patreon polls to help me decide what projects to go with if you want to have a part in the future of this channel then as always you can check out my patreon link in the description and on screen right now and that's it i've said it all before and i'll say it again one last time thank you so much everyone see you next time love you all shane brained out big thank you to my top patrons dink dw7 still rules henry gutierrez john morrison ryan poe and shin liu as well as to all my other patrons if you'd also like your name to join this list of people supporting the channel please check out the link in the description thank you all very much

Channel: ShaneBrained

Views: 116,980

Keywords:

Id: N7SmZ-OoPf0

Length: 109min 5sec (6545 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 23 2022

Reddit Comments

[u/Master-Spheal]

Man, it’s been a hell of a ride going through his retrospective series. Him finally getting to Three Houses still feels a bit unreal. Definitely one of my favorite series of videos on YouTube! I’m really interested to see his future videos on the Kaga Saga games. Whenever I see opinions on those games, it’s almost always from people who are huge Kaga fans, so seeing an opinion on those games from someone who’s not from that crowd has me curious.

[u/PossiblySpara]

"Final" might be a bit of an exaggeration. He has mentioned that he intends on doing retrospectives on:
TMS#FE
FEW1
TRS
BWS
VS1
That being said, seeing him reach 3H now is definitely exciting! This retrospective has been one hell of a ride to watch, and I can only imagine just how much hard work Shane put into every video.

[u/DragoCrafterr]

Incredibly underrated yter