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Media: Fire Emblem Three Houses
As previously mentioned, I bought Fire Emblem: Three Houses! Between work and moving I haven't had a lot of time to play (so there shouldn't be very many spoilers here by virtue of, I don't know them) but ahhhhhh I am enjoying the game a lot. This is the most fun I've had with a Fire Emblem game in a really long time and I feel super stoked about it.
I still don't want anyone to talk to me because I don't want spoilers or bias when I've only played through six chapters but I also! Want to talk about Fire Emblem!! So I'm going to yell into the dreamwidth void a little.
Friends tend to forget that I like Fire Emblem, because I don't do fandom for Fire Emblem. It's always been really funny to me, since I've been playing since Blazing Blade was first localized for the GBA. I own a copy of Path of Radiance and of Radiant Dawn, y'know, the games that sell used for greater than what they cost new. Fire Emblem has always been a staple of my videogame experience growing up but it's not like... My favorite franchise.
As strategy RPGs go, Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and Disgaea were the "gridded tactical" games I really went hard for, and they are the games I'll immediately rev up for when they come up in fandom discussion. I don't do fandom for them directly, with the characters from those series, but I have made multiple AUs set in the FFTA world or borrowing aspects of the Disgaea setting. They are the games I do fandom for. With Fire Emblem, I really just want to murder things super dead and not blend it with other media I'm interested in.
And I am having SO MUCH FUN making things super dead in Three Houses!!
That's what I would want to talk to friends about. I want to know what house people chose first, what sex they chose for Byleth, who they chose to romance as Byleth, which units they chose to recruit from other houses, how they chose to class and spec their units... I really love the mechanics and the numbers and I'm enjoying a lot of the changes that have been made between previous entries in the series and this game, so I'd really love to chat about that!
But I'm also finding myself more endeared toward the characters in this game than I've felt with any previous Fire Emblem. It has always been true that I love the characters in any Fire Emblem entry in direct proportion to how successfully they make things dead. It was true this time; I set out to choose my house based on the mix of its students because even knowing I could recruit from other houses, that wouldn't happen until well after I imprinted on my initial batch of soldiers. But every house had characters I was very interested in, at first blush, and ones I was less excited about. None seemed like the above and beyond best mix of kids.
So I accepted that I am a joke and wanted fem!Byleth to romance Edelgard and went with the Black Eagles, and now I love every single member of my house because they are GOOD AT MURDER but they're also just, sincerely endearing??
My friend Michael is the one person I've really talked to about Three Houses because he's the same kind of player as me, very focused on stats and mechanics and min-maxing things, and we both had the same impression of the characters in this game. Typically, Fire Emblem characters are tropes. Each character is The Food One or The Moe One or The Foppish One and even if you become endeared to them, a lot of them are fairly two-dimensional. With Three Houses, every character has their trope but they do seem to have more nuance than in past games. As Michael put it: each character has at least two-point-five dimensions.
We also joked about how you can almost always find Your Trope in these games; Dimitri is laughably a Michael Type of character and Felix is equally a Katie Type of character. I told them that as much as I love everyone in my house and lots of the others besides, I didn't think anyone was dead on a Lira Type of character.
Then I thought about Hubert a little bit more.
And then I stared at my hands, and despaired. I don't! Want! Hubert to be my Three Houses representation!! But he's basically an evil priest so I think I'm fucked. Blue Lions has Dimitri and Dedue, who is the classic Loyal Knight who would do anything for his lord out of honor and fealty, up to and including laying down his life. Black Eagles has Edelgard and Hubert, truly my kind of lord/vassal dynamic, because Hubert will do anything for Edelgard, anything she asks of him -- provided he believes it is in her best interest. I love that sort of cool, calculating servant, the kind with ideas of his own who needs to be kept in line by a strong, smart lord who is more than his match.
I tried to float Hubert by Yrin like, Fire Emblem made a boy just for you~ And a pointy dark mage is a Yrin type but I absolutely fucking played myself.
Annnnnnd this is the closest I've ever gotten to fandom-ing Fire Emblem because like, I don't really ship Hubert and Edelgard, I don't want them to fuck and I don't want to read fic, but these are definitely Character Meta Thoughts about this stupid fucking evil mage and I don't! Deserve this!!
Anyway, Hubert is really good at murder so I also love him as a unit.
I love the changes to the battle system?? This game removed the weapons triangle and removed spell books and I can really get behind those ideas both mechanically and from the mindset of "the new version is more realistic." It's really silly that a mage has to carry a book in order to use magic and that the book ~wears out~ so that eventually the mage can't use their magic any more. It makes much more sense for the mage to be able to use their magic a certain number of times per encounter which grows larger as they grow stronger and more experienced. And archers are actually good now?? I feel that, previously, some classes were objectively worse than others. Now, it feels like all classes are good and it's just a matter of choosing the correct tool for a specific engagement.
I'm pretty sure I'm speccing all of my kids in about the way the game encourages you to do. I have been trying to unlock their hidden talents more because I'm a completionist than because I know I especially want XYZ character to have ABC skill. I accepted Sylvain right off when he decided he wanted to follow Hot Lady Teacher into her class and have been working to recruit Felix, Ingrid, Lysithea, and Leonie. I might go for a few more as MC ends up talented enough; for these four I've been grinding up support levels so I won't need as high skill/stat levels but past a point I might just, actually have the correct amount of skill/stat some other characters want. I like! Working on goals!!
I've been joking with Max that this is Persona Emblem because the monastery exploration system feels more in line with Persona than with anything that has previously existed in Fire Emblem and I actually really like it. I love the stupid fishing minigame!! Every free day when I've chosen to explore I've been buying out all of the bait from the merchant who will sell it because I love this stupid repetitive timing game. I told Michael that it pays for itself because I always catch rare enough fish that would sell for the amount I spent on bait and he was like "but you haven't sold them, have you?" because everyone knows that's how videogames work. You just hoard shit unless you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO sell or use it!!
I just, like this game a lot. I rarely have the energy and motivation, these days, to play through an entire RPG and even if I'm going really slowly because I overthink every move in battle and need to make sure I've visited every place and talked to every person during exploration, I feel! Like I will actually finish this game!! Maybe not four times to do all of the routes myself but if I just actually finish one route and START a new game plus I will be really proud of myself.
I love Fire Emblem. I love Three Houses. I love all of my new murder babies and I love Hubert's supports thus far with Edelgard and MC and I'm so excited to play more and experience more of this world.
Maybe talk to me about Fire Emblem but be gentle because I'm a baby and don't understand how shipping works but I guess possibly I could be tricked into it this time.
I still don't want anyone to talk to me because I don't want spoilers or bias when I've only played through six chapters but I also! Want to talk about Fire Emblem!! So I'm going to yell into the dreamwidth void a little.
Friends tend to forget that I like Fire Emblem, because I don't do fandom for Fire Emblem. It's always been really funny to me, since I've been playing since Blazing Blade was first localized for the GBA. I own a copy of Path of Radiance and of Radiant Dawn, y'know, the games that sell used for greater than what they cost new. Fire Emblem has always been a staple of my videogame experience growing up but it's not like... My favorite franchise.
As strategy RPGs go, Final Fantasy Tactics Advanced and Disgaea were the "gridded tactical" games I really went hard for, and they are the games I'll immediately rev up for when they come up in fandom discussion. I don't do fandom for them directly, with the characters from those series, but I have made multiple AUs set in the FFTA world or borrowing aspects of the Disgaea setting. They are the games I do fandom for. With Fire Emblem, I really just want to murder things super dead and not blend it with other media I'm interested in.
And I am having SO MUCH FUN making things super dead in Three Houses!!
That's what I would want to talk to friends about. I want to know what house people chose first, what sex they chose for Byleth, who they chose to romance as Byleth, which units they chose to recruit from other houses, how they chose to class and spec their units... I really love the mechanics and the numbers and I'm enjoying a lot of the changes that have been made between previous entries in the series and this game, so I'd really love to chat about that!
But I'm also finding myself more endeared toward the characters in this game than I've felt with any previous Fire Emblem. It has always been true that I love the characters in any Fire Emblem entry in direct proportion to how successfully they make things dead. It was true this time; I set out to choose my house based on the mix of its students because even knowing I could recruit from other houses, that wouldn't happen until well after I imprinted on my initial batch of soldiers. But every house had characters I was very interested in, at first blush, and ones I was less excited about. None seemed like the above and beyond best mix of kids.
So I accepted that I am a joke and wanted fem!Byleth to romance Edelgard and went with the Black Eagles, and now I love every single member of my house because they are GOOD AT MURDER but they're also just, sincerely endearing??
My friend Michael is the one person I've really talked to about Three Houses because he's the same kind of player as me, very focused on stats and mechanics and min-maxing things, and we both had the same impression of the characters in this game. Typically, Fire Emblem characters are tropes. Each character is The Food One or The Moe One or The Foppish One and even if you become endeared to them, a lot of them are fairly two-dimensional. With Three Houses, every character has their trope but they do seem to have more nuance than in past games. As Michael put it: each character has at least two-point-five dimensions.
We also joked about how you can almost always find Your Trope in these games; Dimitri is laughably a Michael Type of character and Felix is equally a Katie Type of character. I told them that as much as I love everyone in my house and lots of the others besides, I didn't think anyone was dead on a Lira Type of character.
Then I thought about Hubert a little bit more.
And then I stared at my hands, and despaired. I don't! Want! Hubert to be my Three Houses representation!! But he's basically an evil priest so I think I'm fucked. Blue Lions has Dimitri and Dedue, who is the classic Loyal Knight who would do anything for his lord out of honor and fealty, up to and including laying down his life. Black Eagles has Edelgard and Hubert, truly my kind of lord/vassal dynamic, because Hubert will do anything for Edelgard, anything she asks of him -- provided he believes it is in her best interest. I love that sort of cool, calculating servant, the kind with ideas of his own who needs to be kept in line by a strong, smart lord who is more than his match.
I tried to float Hubert by Yrin like, Fire Emblem made a boy just for you~ And a pointy dark mage is a Yrin type but I absolutely fucking played myself.
Annnnnnd this is the closest I've ever gotten to fandom-ing Fire Emblem because like, I don't really ship Hubert and Edelgard, I don't want them to fuck and I don't want to read fic, but these are definitely Character Meta Thoughts about this stupid fucking evil mage and I don't! Deserve this!!
Anyway, Hubert is really good at murder so I also love him as a unit.
I love the changes to the battle system?? This game removed the weapons triangle and removed spell books and I can really get behind those ideas both mechanically and from the mindset of "the new version is more realistic." It's really silly that a mage has to carry a book in order to use magic and that the book ~wears out~ so that eventually the mage can't use their magic any more. It makes much more sense for the mage to be able to use their magic a certain number of times per encounter which grows larger as they grow stronger and more experienced. And archers are actually good now?? I feel that, previously, some classes were objectively worse than others. Now, it feels like all classes are good and it's just a matter of choosing the correct tool for a specific engagement.
I'm pretty sure I'm speccing all of my kids in about the way the game encourages you to do. I have been trying to unlock their hidden talents more because I'm a completionist than because I know I especially want XYZ character to have ABC skill. I accepted Sylvain right off when he decided he wanted to follow Hot Lady Teacher into her class and have been working to recruit Felix, Ingrid, Lysithea, and Leonie. I might go for a few more as MC ends up talented enough; for these four I've been grinding up support levels so I won't need as high skill/stat levels but past a point I might just, actually have the correct amount of skill/stat some other characters want. I like! Working on goals!!
I've been joking with Max that this is Persona Emblem because the monastery exploration system feels more in line with Persona than with anything that has previously existed in Fire Emblem and I actually really like it. I love the stupid fishing minigame!! Every free day when I've chosen to explore I've been buying out all of the bait from the merchant who will sell it because I love this stupid repetitive timing game. I told Michael that it pays for itself because I always catch rare enough fish that would sell for the amount I spent on bait and he was like "but you haven't sold them, have you?" because everyone knows that's how videogames work. You just hoard shit unless you ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO sell or use it!!
I just, like this game a lot. I rarely have the energy and motivation, these days, to play through an entire RPG and even if I'm going really slowly because I overthink every move in battle and need to make sure I've visited every place and talked to every person during exploration, I feel! Like I will actually finish this game!! Maybe not four times to do all of the routes myself but if I just actually finish one route and START a new game plus I will be really proud of myself.
I love Fire Emblem. I love Three Houses. I love all of my new murder babies and I love Hubert's supports thus far with Edelgard and MC and I'm so excited to play more and experience more of this world.
Maybe talk to me about Fire Emblem but be gentle because I'm a baby and don't understand how shipping works but I guess possibly I could be tricked into it this time.
no subject
i got to Hubert and then skimmed past since i'm not playing Black Eagles yet, but some of his lines and deets in Golden Deer route and in Fire Emblem Heroes have... piqued my interest, i'll leave it at that lol