The Long Game
Progress reports on the games we can’t quit, featuring the charming Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Good job the base game is so substantial, because Three Houses’ Season Pass hasn’t been great value so far. The first spuriously named ‘wave’ amounted to a single outfit for the male and female Byleth, while further additions have been similarly inessential – a clutch of auxiliary battles, a handful of bonus items, and the installation of a sauna that lets you see your favourites out of those clothes your £20 just bought you. A ploy to lower expectations before hitting us with the good stuff? Perhaps. Either way, Cindered Shadows comes as a pleasant surprise – this eight-hour add-on is a self-contained side story that’s probably worth the price of admission alone.
Its premise makes liars of its creators, introducing a fourth house – the Ashen Wolves – which exists within a secret community beneath Garreg Mach Monastery. With the house leaders and a few units in tow, you’ll fight alongside them in a standalone story that fleshes out the main game’s lore. The newcomers are all capable fighters. Leader Yuri belongs to the new Trickster class, whose Foul Play ability lets him swap places with a friendly unit – handy for getting wounded allies out of harm’s way. Balthus, a buff War Monk, is a powerful brawler who can also heal.
If Three Houses was an accessible entry point to the series, this is one for, well, those who care enough about Fire Emblem to pay over the odds for some new clobber. These are the toughest battles since Fire Emblem Fates’ Conquest campaign – partly for the sheer volume of enemies you’ll face, but also because in limiting the social elements, Cindered Shadows doesn’t let you use lessons to improve battle performance. It’s another fine example of Intelligent Systems adapting Fire Emblem’s mechanics to fit its narrative: Abyss is a literal underclass, after all, and so its inhabitants can’t lean on an expensive education and top-of-the-range equipment to get them through, instead relying on strong organisation and shrewd use of limited resources. Funds can be topped up with bullion from defeated enemies, but for the most part you’ll spend it on repairs and battalion replenishments, visiting the blacksmith to bolster existing kit rather than buying new. There’s a degree of thrift in the expansion itself, too, with a few familiar maps cleverly reworked into fresh challenges.
Its integration with the main game leaves something to be desired – events are glossed over, though its characters are recruitable before the mid-game timeskip. We’ll want Yuri, at least, by our side when we find time to go through the Golden Deer campaign. This concentrated dose of the series at its most tactically demanding will keep us going until then.