This review contains spoilers
Sort of quick note: I've only finished Golden Wildfire as of writing this, so I'll only be talking about my experience with that route. Obviously, as a Fire Emblem giganerd, I do plan on completing every route; I just started Scarlet Blaze, but probably won't finish it until after I finish Nirvana Initiative, which I'm trucking through right now. I will update this after I complete everything in the game.
This was the biggest surprise of the year for me so far. When this game was revealed in February, I was fully expecting it to be just a fun time waster I could grind for several dozen hours like every other Warriors spin-off not named Persona 5 Strikers. To some extent, it is that, and I'm more than glad with that, I love dumping way too much time into these games. What I didn't expect was it to actually be a genuine contender for my game of the year and my new favorite Warriors spin-off game.
I'm gonna start with the elephant in the room: Shez. I LOVE SHEZ. I haven't seen everything he has to offer yet, since I have only finished one route, but this dude could very easily land a spot in my favorite video game characters list. Continuing the trend of this game surprising me, Shez is one of the most lovable dumbasses I've ever seen, and fills the shoes that Byleth left behind as the Fódlan protagonist role, I think at least, significantly better than Byleth ever did. I kind of wish Shez was always the protagonist of Three Houses, but then again, we wouldn't have those amazing duels against Byleth, so I guess it's fine. He has genuine relationships with the other characters instead of just being the most idolized brick wall of all time like Byleth was, and his mercenary background and Arval powers gave him some great dynamics with other characters, like Leonie and Hapi. Also, that bit near the beginning of the game that's probably been memed to death already about Shez jumping off of a fucking cliff to get stronger, TWICE, and Arval saving his dumbass both times, broke me. That was a surefire sign that Shez was going to be my biggest highlight of the game. Apart from Shez; I picked Golden Deer in my first run, and seeing new sides to these characters felt like meeting them for the first time all over again. I already liked most of the women of the house plenty enough (hell, Marianne and Lysithea are among my top favorite video game characters period), but the additional characterization that Hilda, Ignatz and Lorenz got (especially Lorenz, this game does him a lot more justice than Three Houses did) made me appreciate them a lot more. Holst actually existing now (and actually being a major character in the story, which sure as hell surprised me), along with some of the nobility mentioned in Three Houses, is also a pretty nice addition. Unfortunately I can't say the same about the odd one out among the Deer in terms of everything I just spoke about, Raphael; I can probably count on my hands the amount of lines he spoke that didn't mention food or muscles throughout the entire game's 40 hour runtime.
With the actual story itself, it had some pretty bad pacing issues, with everyone going from one place in Fòdlan to the next place halfway across the continent, and a bit too many times where they're right on the brink of victory, but then something bad magically happens and they have to retreat, but that's about it. I liked this game's version of Claude much more than Three Houses' version, where he kind of just existed for the sole purpose of having a third route with all the giant lore dumps. This game's version of Claude shows his tactical brilliance time and time again, and also puts him on the same level as Edelgard in terms of wanting to make his ambitions reality, willing to do some horrible shit to make it happen, which he rightfully gets called out on by the entire house. His arc is genuinely really good in this game, they knocked it out of the park with him here.
I love Warriors gameplay, and (in terms of the crossover spin-offs, at least) I think this is the strongest it's ever been. Persona 5 Strikers was more of a Persona Action RPG than a Warriors game, and I wasn't too fond of what I've played of Age of Calamity. This game combined what worked about the original Fire Emblem Warriors and the sandbox-style unit building aspect of Three Houses and it works better than I could have possibly imagined. The skill system is gonna keep me playing this for at least a hundred more hours, maybe even longer. There are so many funny builds I've made and many more I want to try out, and this game actually giving me the ability to access my save file after saving clear data, something Three Houses lacked and was easily my biggest issue with that game, makes that possible. I do wish there was actual postgame content, like every other Warriors spin-off I've completed before this, but I'm guessing there's gonna be DLC down the line anyway, so I don't mind for now. The other routes will keep me occupied until then.
This was the biggest surprise of the year for me so far. When this game was revealed in February, I was fully expecting it to be just a fun time waster I could grind for several dozen hours like every other Warriors spin-off not named Persona 5 Strikers. To some extent, it is that, and I'm more than glad with that, I love dumping way too much time into these games. What I didn't expect was it to actually be a genuine contender for my game of the year and my new favorite Warriors spin-off game.
I'm gonna start with the elephant in the room: Shez. I LOVE SHEZ. I haven't seen everything he has to offer yet, since I have only finished one route, but this dude could very easily land a spot in my favorite video game characters list. Continuing the trend of this game surprising me, Shez is one of the most lovable dumbasses I've ever seen, and fills the shoes that Byleth left behind as the Fódlan protagonist role, I think at least, significantly better than Byleth ever did. I kind of wish Shez was always the protagonist of Three Houses, but then again, we wouldn't have those amazing duels against Byleth, so I guess it's fine. He has genuine relationships with the other characters instead of just being the most idolized brick wall of all time like Byleth was, and his mercenary background and Arval powers gave him some great dynamics with other characters, like Leonie and Hapi. Also, that bit near the beginning of the game that's probably been memed to death already about Shez jumping off of a fucking cliff to get stronger, TWICE, and Arval saving his dumbass both times, broke me. That was a surefire sign that Shez was going to be my biggest highlight of the game. Apart from Shez; I picked Golden Deer in my first run, and seeing new sides to these characters felt like meeting them for the first time all over again. I already liked most of the women of the house plenty enough (hell, Marianne and Lysithea are among my top favorite video game characters period), but the additional characterization that Hilda, Ignatz and Lorenz got (especially Lorenz, this game does him a lot more justice than Three Houses did) made me appreciate them a lot more. Holst actually existing now (and actually being a major character in the story, which sure as hell surprised me), along with some of the nobility mentioned in Three Houses, is also a pretty nice addition. Unfortunately I can't say the same about the odd one out among the Deer in terms of everything I just spoke about, Raphael; I can probably count on my hands the amount of lines he spoke that didn't mention food or muscles throughout the entire game's 40 hour runtime.
With the actual story itself, it had some pretty bad pacing issues, with everyone going from one place in Fòdlan to the next place halfway across the continent, and a bit too many times where they're right on the brink of victory, but then something bad magically happens and they have to retreat, but that's about it. I liked this game's version of Claude much more than Three Houses' version, where he kind of just existed for the sole purpose of having a third route with all the giant lore dumps. This game's version of Claude shows his tactical brilliance time and time again, and also puts him on the same level as Edelgard in terms of wanting to make his ambitions reality, willing to do some horrible shit to make it happen, which he rightfully gets called out on by the entire house. His arc is genuinely really good in this game, they knocked it out of the park with him here.
I love Warriors gameplay, and (in terms of the crossover spin-offs, at least) I think this is the strongest it's ever been. Persona 5 Strikers was more of a Persona Action RPG than a Warriors game, and I wasn't too fond of what I've played of Age of Calamity. This game combined what worked about the original Fire Emblem Warriors and the sandbox-style unit building aspect of Three Houses and it works better than I could have possibly imagined. The skill system is gonna keep me playing this for at least a hundred more hours, maybe even longer. There are so many funny builds I've made and many more I want to try out, and this game actually giving me the ability to access my save file after saving clear data, something Three Houses lacked and was easily my biggest issue with that game, makes that possible. I do wish there was actual postgame content, like every other Warriors spin-off I've completed before this, but I'm guessing there's gonna be DLC down the line anyway, so I don't mind for now. The other routes will keep me occupied until then.