‘Three Houses’ game stays true to its roots
“Fire Emblem” is a video game series with a long and venerable history, and “Three Houses” more than lives up to its reputation.
This is a game that stays true to its roots while also not being afraid to experiment with some bold changes. “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” puts you in the role of a mercenary-turned-professor at a prestigious military academy and cathedral. Think something like Hogwarts, but where the students moonlight as soldiers in life-ordeath battles against monsters, bandits and heretics.
The first part of the game has you learn the ropes as a fledgling professor. Your first task will be to choose one of three houses, each representing the three nations on the continent — the Black Eagles, the Blue Lions or Yellow Deer. You’ll guide your students’ education in the combat arts, as well as your own, while competing against the other houses. As the year at the academy unfolds, the alliance of the three rival nations, which seems idyllic at first, begins to tear itself apart.
There’s a huge cast of characters in “Three Houses,” with dozens of students and a number of professors and religious leaders to interact with, each of whom has a complex personality — and a background that only unfolds over time.
No two play-throughs are going to be the same, as each character has various areas of strength or weakness, and you as the professor guide them into their roles. A character might have talent in swords and also in attack magic, for example. It’ll be up to you to decide whether to have them focus on the sword, or the magic, or attempt to specialize in both — or go in a different direction entirely.
There are two phases in the game — the daily academy life and combat. While at the academy, you as the professor will talk with students and staff, complete errands, go fishing, eat meals together and invite people to tea parties. As your rapport with people grows, they’ll open up to you, telling you about their lives, hopes, dreams and fears.
Forging strong bonds isn’t just for roleplay purposes, however. It will help you recruit other students to your class, and there are combat bonuses when characters who support each other strongly are near one another.
Combat consists of tactical, turn-based action, with each side taking all of its turns before the action switches to the next combatant. Characters will be able to move a certain number of squares and then attack within a certain range beyond that, depending on weapon or magic type. Characters have a variety of statistics, such as health, strength, dexterity, speed and defense, that increase as they progress through combat. Their other skills, such as skill with a sword, lance, bow, riding and more, increase through combat and also your tutelage as a professor.
While actions — and their consequences, such as death — are permanent, there is a substantial safety net. You’ll have access to something called a Divine Pulse, which allows you to rewind combat and try a new tactic, but its uses are limited per combat. Without that, if one of your students falls in battle, they’re gone permanently.
Experienced players will want to go with harder difficulties — the normal difficulty didn’t present much of a tactical challenge, although there were a few dangerous surprises.
All in all, this is a game with an incredible amount of detail and world-building, and it’s fully voice-acted, with scripted cut-scenes and solid battle animations.
The way combat takes place has been redone from past “Fire Emblem” games. It used to be more of a rock-paper-scissors affair, with certain weapon types strong against certain other weapons. That’s mostly out the window, although some weapons and attacks do have advantages or disadvantages based on whether the enemy rides a horse, wears armor or rides a flying mount.
A word of note: This is not a game you can expect to beat in a weekend or even with a week-long rental. To complete the game in its entirety (and to reveal everyone’s secrets and motivations) requires playing as all three houses, plus a fourth play-through. A single playthrough as the leader of the Blue Lions house can take more than 70 hours. All told, you can expect a solid 200-plus hours of play.
The only negatives were that you as the main character are not voice-acted, and in many cases are railroaded along in the story, with other people telling you how you feel. And some of the choices you’re asked to make are illusions — at one point, I was asked by a seeming villain to join his cause. On a whim, I said yes — and his response was that he did not believe me.
But overall, it’s hard to argue with the game’s compelling story and dramatic characters, and “Fire Emblem: Three Houses” is highly recommended.