Three Houses might possibly be the most divided I have ever felt with a game. For everything amazing this game does, there is something terrible that meets its match, and I am not sure it fully balances out.
This is the most in-depth world building and character writing we have seen in the series since Tellius. But the actual story is terribly told, paced and structured so it doesn’t hit as it should. Unit building is complex and free form, making it one of the most flexible and customizable games in the series. But the map design is weak, and balance is out the window, making for a mediocre gameplay experience that sacrifices unit individuality in favor of little substance. This is one of the most ambitious games in the entire series, with fully explorable environments, in-depth unit building, and three different stories with their own unique casts! But the monastery drags, unit building is tedious, and it’s arguable this should have been a game with two story paths at most. It has some really standout female writing for a JRPG, building some extremely strong willed and memorable women with some great social commentary of the patriarchy! BUT…but actually I don’t have anything bad to say about this. Edelgard hype is justified, she is unlike anything else I have ever seen in the genre. But everything else, and I mean, EVERYTHING ELSE feels like great ideas with questionable execution at best.
Three Houses is frustrating because it’s close to being the excellent game it tries to be, but at the same time it's also so far away from its lofty ambitions. It’s even more frustrating this is the most popular game in the series, because it tries to be more of a life-sim RPG hybrid than the strategy game series I actually cared about. A real fear of mine was that this would be the direction of the series going forwards, and while Engage thankfully proved me wrong (for now) this will always be a dark sheep in the franchise for me.
Three Houses is a mess I respect, because its sheer ambition is commendable, but a mess nevertheless. As a tactical RPG it is mediocre, and as a narrative experience it wobbles. Deserved Three more years in the oven, me thinks.
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I have had some specific beef with this game for the longest time, to a point I refused to buy a Switch and play it, even as a massive fan of the series. As an addendum I will post some of this beef as scattered thoughts, so that you can hopefully understand why it’s one of my least favorite games in the series.
-This is without a doubt the most viscerally ugly game I have ever played. I have hated the work of Chinatsu for the longest time, long before TH was announced, and her work here is just as terrible. I find most character designs painfully dull, if not outright repulsive. The graphics and presentation are somehow worse? Poor cinematics, poor textures, poor scene direction, poor menus... This is a game that makes me mad over how ugly it is.
-The concept of playing as a teacher, with your students as the rest of the playable cast, was off-putting to me. When you add being able to date them into the mix, regardless of their age, it’s genuinely uncomfortable. I will clarify I don’t judge people for not sharing my sentiment, I am aware it’s a personal thing.
-I have played and enjoyed plenty of homophobic, transphobic and well, generally morally questionable games, but Three Houses is one of the only ones that genuinely made me FURIOUS over how its male gay romance options were treated. It’s a pity because this game was a giant step for lesbian romance in FE.
-This is partly my fault for pirating this on the Deck, but the text size is TINY. I haven’t played a game that strained my eyesight this badly in forever.
-Hottest take? I think the overall cast is a mixed bag and I can’t agree with the common fanbase perception of being the best in the series at all. The house setup understandably sets the entire house as the main characters for that specific route, but the reality is that some characters are a lot worse and irrelevant than others. I think Blue Lions are probably the best of the three main casts, I am generally positive on most of them and their chemistry as a group (at least from the little I saw), but I found some real stinkers in Black Eagles and Golden Deer that negatively impact the experience in a way the series had never struggled in the past. Most Fire Emblem games have some really bad characters, but they were rarely the ones shoved at the player’s direction. It’s important to remember the series was explicitly built in a way where you could create the army that you wanted with your favorites, and it worked beautifully. Choosing a whole cast of characters you know nothing about at the start of the game that hopefully you like to carry the huge majority of the narrative is ass backwards to the philosophy of the series.
-I touched on it before but I really dislike how manual unit building and everyone being a blank slate is a core element of the experience. Fire Emblem is at its best when each character feels unique and interesting. Stats, skills, levels, classes… they can tell so much about a character with no words. I think how effortlessly the series flew over concerns of ludo narrative dissonance was a strong reason why I fell utterly in love with it. I am not going to deny experimentation isn’t great and healthy, but this is a similar case as Radiant Dawn and Genealogy for me, where the experimentation directly hurts core elements of the experience I love and replaces it for… a half assed teaching simulator I didn’t want.
-Three Houses’ premise, tone and character interactions fall apart in a conceptual level that bothers me a lot. Why are the heirs of these three territories participating in mercenary missions and putting their lives at risk? In fact, why do the nobles push for their children to join the monastery, instead of breeding armies of crest babies? Why can the students move between houses so freely without no political repercussions? Why are most of the students interacting with each other so casually, when they are directly interacting with high-rank nobles that could (and will) completely shape their future? If you don’t take your premise seriously, it’s hard to take anything seriously.
-I still love this franchise in its current state, but probably the most boomer doomer elitist thing about it I can state is that the turn wheel may have permanently damaged the series. It was already bad in Echoes. It’s terrible in Three Houses and it directly affects the game design in very negative ways. Why do so many people defend it? Guys, this is not the Classic vs Casual debate, this actually affects the core game design of the entire experience. I try to completely ignore the turn wheel in my playthroughs (and fail, because it’s so damn tempting), but I cannot ignore terrible enemy reinforcement spam if I play in Maddening. Let’s not even mention how the narrative bends around it’s inclusion very poorly.
This is the most in-depth world building and character writing we have seen in the series since Tellius. But the actual story is terribly told, paced and structured so it doesn’t hit as it should. Unit building is complex and free form, making it one of the most flexible and customizable games in the series. But the map design is weak, and balance is out the window, making for a mediocre gameplay experience that sacrifices unit individuality in favor of little substance. This is one of the most ambitious games in the entire series, with fully explorable environments, in-depth unit building, and three different stories with their own unique casts! But the monastery drags, unit building is tedious, and it’s arguable this should have been a game with two story paths at most. It has some really standout female writing for a JRPG, building some extremely strong willed and memorable women with some great social commentary of the patriarchy! BUT…but actually I don’t have anything bad to say about this. Edelgard hype is justified, she is unlike anything else I have ever seen in the genre. But everything else, and I mean, EVERYTHING ELSE feels like great ideas with questionable execution at best.
Three Houses is frustrating because it’s close to being the excellent game it tries to be, but at the same time it's also so far away from its lofty ambitions. It’s even more frustrating this is the most popular game in the series, because it tries to be more of a life-sim RPG hybrid than the strategy game series I actually cared about. A real fear of mine was that this would be the direction of the series going forwards, and while Engage thankfully proved me wrong (for now) this will always be a dark sheep in the franchise for me.
Three Houses is a mess I respect, because its sheer ambition is commendable, but a mess nevertheless. As a tactical RPG it is mediocre, and as a narrative experience it wobbles. Deserved Three more years in the oven, me thinks.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have had some specific beef with this game for the longest time, to a point I refused to buy a Switch and play it, even as a massive fan of the series. As an addendum I will post some of this beef as scattered thoughts, so that you can hopefully understand why it’s one of my least favorite games in the series.
-This is without a doubt the most viscerally ugly game I have ever played. I have hated the work of Chinatsu for the longest time, long before TH was announced, and her work here is just as terrible. I find most character designs painfully dull, if not outright repulsive. The graphics and presentation are somehow worse? Poor cinematics, poor textures, poor scene direction, poor menus... This is a game that makes me mad over how ugly it is.
-The concept of playing as a teacher, with your students as the rest of the playable cast, was off-putting to me. When you add being able to date them into the mix, regardless of their age, it’s genuinely uncomfortable. I will clarify I don’t judge people for not sharing my sentiment, I am aware it’s a personal thing.
-I have played and enjoyed plenty of homophobic, transphobic and well, generally morally questionable games, but Three Houses is one of the only ones that genuinely made me FURIOUS over how its male gay romance options were treated. It’s a pity because this game was a giant step for lesbian romance in FE.
-This is partly my fault for pirating this on the Deck, but the text size is TINY. I haven’t played a game that strained my eyesight this badly in forever.
-Hottest take? I think the overall cast is a mixed bag and I can’t agree with the common fanbase perception of being the best in the series at all. The house setup understandably sets the entire house as the main characters for that specific route, but the reality is that some characters are a lot worse and irrelevant than others. I think Blue Lions are probably the best of the three main casts, I am generally positive on most of them and their chemistry as a group (at least from the little I saw), but I found some real stinkers in Black Eagles and Golden Deer that negatively impact the experience in a way the series had never struggled in the past. Most Fire Emblem games have some really bad characters, but they were rarely the ones shoved at the player’s direction. It’s important to remember the series was explicitly built in a way where you could create the army that you wanted with your favorites, and it worked beautifully. Choosing a whole cast of characters you know nothing about at the start of the game that hopefully you like to carry the huge majority of the narrative is ass backwards to the philosophy of the series.
-I touched on it before but I really dislike how manual unit building and everyone being a blank slate is a core element of the experience. Fire Emblem is at its best when each character feels unique and interesting. Stats, skills, levels, classes… they can tell so much about a character with no words. I think how effortlessly the series flew over concerns of ludo narrative dissonance was a strong reason why I fell utterly in love with it. I am not going to deny experimentation isn’t great and healthy, but this is a similar case as Radiant Dawn and Genealogy for me, where the experimentation directly hurts core elements of the experience I love and replaces it for… a half assed teaching simulator I didn’t want.
-Three Houses’ premise, tone and character interactions fall apart in a conceptual level that bothers me a lot. Why are the heirs of these three territories participating in mercenary missions and putting their lives at risk? In fact, why do the nobles push for their children to join the monastery, instead of breeding armies of crest babies? Why can the students move between houses so freely without no political repercussions? Why are most of the students interacting with each other so casually, when they are directly interacting with high-rank nobles that could (and will) completely shape their future? If you don’t take your premise seriously, it’s hard to take anything seriously.
-I still love this franchise in its current state, but probably the most boomer doomer elitist thing about it I can state is that the turn wheel may have permanently damaged the series. It was already bad in Echoes. It’s terrible in Three Houses and it directly affects the game design in very negative ways. Why do so many people defend it? Guys, this is not the Classic vs Casual debate, this actually affects the core game design of the entire experience. I try to completely ignore the turn wheel in my playthroughs (and fail, because it’s so damn tempting), but I cannot ignore terrible enemy reinforcement spam if I play in Maddening. Let’s not even mention how the narrative bends around it’s inclusion very poorly.