‘Fire Emblem: Three Houses’ is Nintendo at its most flirtatious
The drama comes quickly in “Fire Emblem: Three Houses,” the latest in Nintendo’s wonderfully weird, soap opera-worthy sword-and-sorcery fairy tale franchise.
A teacher introduces her medical practice by also noting that she’s single and ready to mingle. A student lays the groundwork for doubting that you’re truly your father’s daughter. An academic administrator says, “We try to avoid discrimination based on social status,” but, well, you know how the upper class can be, so get used to it.
And then there’s the professor who can’t borrow a book without returning it full of crumbs and grease stains.
Who has time for what may or may not be an oppressive religion, a tenuous peace agreement that threatens to send an empire into a war and a ghostlike creature who randomly appears to rewind time, a female specter who is keeping you alive even though she introduces herself by essentially saying she isn’t sure why she’s even bothering?
Part “Game of Thrones” and part “Harry Potter,” with way more comically disastrous rom-com elements than either of them, “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” can be a lot to manage. But it’s the best sort of overwhelming — a romance that’s also a high school drama that’s also an incredibly complex fantasy strategy game that also provides a sly dose of political commentary.
There’s no shortage, for instance, of members of the establishment who seem to like the way things are, which gives the game an underlying generational tension that mirrors our own political discourse. But regardless of age, the most likable characters in “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” are those with the idealistic belief things can get better, repeatedly reminding us that the old way of doing things isn’t necessarily the best way.
“Just because someone is special doesn’t mean their children are special too,” says one student. That’s for sure. “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” throws a major decision at players in its opening moments, asking the player to become a professor to one of three factions in a sort of warrior-magic boarding school for the chosen few. It’s not a series for the indecisive, unless you’re ready to replay it trying multiple choices and paths (hand raised!).
The similarities to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry from the Potter series is impossible to miss, and it’s easy to spend more time in the first half of the game wandering the school — fishing, tending to horses, dining with students, playing matchmaker, offering lectures — than it is doing battle.
It’s not idle busywork, though. These conversations allow the player to recruit students from neighboring houses and learn who is an upper-crust, institutional brat and who truly wants to make a difference in the world.
With a core story that could take 80 hours or more and then two alternate paths that could add 160 hours if one wants to be a completist, “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” is probably best devoured over the course of a few months, if not an entire year.
After all, when the last game in the series was released, 2016’s “Fire Emblem: Fates,” I was faced with a dilemma: catch up on “Game of Thrones,” start “Westworld” and explore a host of other appointment television, or play “Fire Emblem: Fates.” I went with the last, which made small talk at work events difficult, but I was far from alone. Nintendo has said “Fire Emblem” games regularly sell between 1 and 2 million copies and tend to appeal to those in their 20s and 30s. See? I clearly made the mature choice.
Having played about 30 hours of “Three Houses” since its release July 26, I’m resigned that, even when I “finish” it, I’ll have seen just a fraction of the characters, plot and romances.