It’s not a secret that I’m a huge Fire Emblem fan, it’s my favorite franchise of all time. I’ve beaten each and every game from the 16 main entries, and I did beat all 3 existing spin-offs too.
So, It’s been a great ride to enjoy all of this for years; I’ve become a witness of how Awakening and Fates rescued the franchise, or how SoV gave stuff for the all the veteran players.
And then there was Three Houses, the 16th entry, released on switch on 2019. Back then everyone had high expectations, and when the game came out, it instantly became a favorite of many seasoned players. And yet, it also caught the attention of a huge new wave of tacticians, rookies who never experienced the franchise before but enjoyed the game as well.
Gameplay-wise, it approached with sets of cool ideas from the past (equiping items like shields/rings, skills, combat arts, weapon refines, paralogues) and it provided new means for strategy as well (gambits, combat VS giant monsters, new combat classes, teaching system, monastery exploration). It went further with the dating sim aspect too, so it pleased a lot of new players who wanted some peace after clearing some hard maps/challenges.
But the key and core for the game’s success was not the gameplay by itself, it was actually the story, deep character writing who got everyone’s praise. Like never before, units became more alive than ever, characters had a full background, personalities and growth.
And all of the previous formula became the asset for the game’s huge success, it sold 3.40 millions of copies (at the time of this writing), easily beating what Awaking or Fates did before. Then, it was just natural that the game deserved some representation with Byleth on Super Smash Bros Ultimate (released as DLC fighter on early 2020). And no surprises when the main cast showed up on Fire Emblem Heroes either, it was just predictable as it was obvious.
At that point, Three Houses became more than just a game: it became a brand, just like Awakening/Fates did before. And, as any brand, it’s just logical that the company behind it will leverage it, milk it to the fullest.
This, inevitably, led us to the development of FEW: Three Hopes, a spin-off, a mousou, hack and slash fast paced game, including, of course, most of the Three Houses cast and the Three Houses setting.
And this is where the problem began. I wrote 3 Houses was released on July 2019, so it was almost 3 years with no news for the next main entry. So, when FEW 3 Hopes was announced on Nintendo’s Direct 2022 (1st), it was just a big letdown, but not a surprise by any means.
But why is it a letdown? Because:
-The first Fire Emblem Warriors was fully dissapointing, a product of a succesuful brand called Fateswakening. And it was a forgetable game because it almost left out the emblem of Fire Emblem: the strategy. Weapon triangle exist, but the focus is just about executing some combos to endlessly fight groups of enemies. And while some little unit customization exists, the battle system gets old quite quickly, it gets repetitive everytime, it becomes a generic hack and slash product instead of an actual Fire Emblem.
-Fire Emblem Warriors not only failed at the gameplay, it was a huge mess when it came to plot/new written characters. So, unlike main entries, Warriors provided zero motivation to continue progressing with a messed plot.
-I’m not a Three Houses fan and will never be. The game actually has huge flaws and the fans just ignore it because the plot/cast are very good, carefully executed. But doing great at this aspect doesn’t mean we can accept failures on the gameplay. I’m talking about the most obvious weaknesses: repeating time and again White Clouds, each time we want to play a different route. And yet, we are going to repeat a lot of maps, most of them actually, while playing completely different paths.
-I’ll always believe Three Houses is overrated, it is not the best game the franchise has provided by any means, and not just because of the reasons given here. It’s because it doesn’t represent real challenge and many players have already discovered how to quickly beat even the toughest maps. And it’s because IS has proved they can’t handle route splitting correctly when it comes to gameplay.
-After almost 3 years, we deserve a main entry already: FE17, not a spin-off to make easy bucks through the brand called FE3H.
-Even if I loved Thee Houses, there is no guarantee that the gameplay will be fully improved on FEW3H, compared to the previous iteration.
Consoles Universe 