I'm a life long Fire Emblem fan. I've come to terms with the fact that there's many, many flaws in almost all entries in the franchise. I'm a firm believer that you can love something while still admitting it's faults, as well as dislike something while singing it's praises.
In the case for Three Houses, I think it is a cesspool and exacerbation of almost all the flaws of the franchise to date, in a way I never thought possible.
It's frankly too deep and complex of a discussion for me to cover every aspect that I've found annoying and/or frustrating with the game(none of which are difficulty based, this is a notably easy entry which is not necessarily bad).
In short, this game does a disservice to the franchise. Indie projects have more polish and care put onto the gameplay systems, experiences, menus, and UI, meanwhile 3H invested all of it's time and energy into the teen-school drama dating simulation visual novel. In concept I never hated this, I just accepted it as something that wasn't in my taste, but seeing what the game turned into as a result, has soured me on it. It significantly and negatively impacted so many of the systems, experience, and story in directly noticeable ways.
As far as fit and finish, the game isn't laggy, nor buggy, no visual errors to speak of. It's potentially unjust to give it a score as low as I have, because normally that would be for true disasters of games. But I think in the context of this game franchises history, the simplicity of the core gameplay and story elements(which could still be done in bare-minimum 2D pixel graphics, no voice acting, etc) and be a great game, this is such a pitiful and disappointing missed mark. They failed to read the room of what people likes about Awakening and Fates, they failed to jump on the trends and direction that gamers and specifically anime-inclined fans wanted, instead, everything came up short for everyone.
The best part about this game is that it was successful enough(somehow) to warrant another main game entry in the series.
In the case for Three Houses, I think it is a cesspool and exacerbation of almost all the flaws of the franchise to date, in a way I never thought possible.
It's frankly too deep and complex of a discussion for me to cover every aspect that I've found annoying and/or frustrating with the game(none of which are difficulty based, this is a notably easy entry which is not necessarily bad).
In short, this game does a disservice to the franchise. Indie projects have more polish and care put onto the gameplay systems, experiences, menus, and UI, meanwhile 3H invested all of it's time and energy into the teen-school drama dating simulation visual novel. In concept I never hated this, I just accepted it as something that wasn't in my taste, but seeing what the game turned into as a result, has soured me on it. It significantly and negatively impacted so many of the systems, experience, and story in directly noticeable ways.
As far as fit and finish, the game isn't laggy, nor buggy, no visual errors to speak of. It's potentially unjust to give it a score as low as I have, because normally that would be for true disasters of games. But I think in the context of this game franchises history, the simplicity of the core gameplay and story elements(which could still be done in bare-minimum 2D pixel graphics, no voice acting, etc) and be a great game, this is such a pitiful and disappointing missed mark. They failed to read the room of what people likes about Awakening and Fates, they failed to jump on the trends and direction that gamers and specifically anime-inclined fans wanted, instead, everything came up short for everyone.
The best part about this game is that it was successful enough(somehow) to warrant another main game entry in the series.