Fire Emblem: Three Houses (50$/60$)

This is another drawing I did

It’s very bad

Fire Emblem three houses is the best game in the Harry Potter franchise.  As you may have already heard, this is a large departure from the original anime style tactics games that past Fire Emblem games were.  So the developers said screw it and made a dating simulator the main game and then added in the RPG story based gameplay as a sort of bonus game within the game.  But as we all know a Harry Potter dating sim is doomed because forging life like romantic relationships with anime teens is normally something that will get you on a watch list.  So they made it so you were the same age as the students, you're still their professor so you can bone faculty too.  

All jokes aside, the game is great.  The combat is fun.  The relationship side game is unfortunately very addictive. It is long, entertaining, and has a large amount of replay value. Just like my new anime waifu Petra.  She is a goddess.  50$ out of 60$.  

So the thing I like most about this game is the combat.  Fire Emblem has a history of having some of the best tactics style combat, unit composition, and inventory management even amongst peers like XCOM 2 and Mario Vs. Rabbids.  If you want to get into the systems than you can and you will feel stronger and cooler than any other anime teen out there.  However, if you don’t love it you don’t have to do deep dives of keeping your characters probably outfitted and prepped for battle.  I was not a fan at first.  But after losing a few fights I found myself getting more and more into the system.  But that was not the only reason I became more enveloped.  The story and characters are good however it must be said that it is full of anime tropes.  But the characters are solid if albeit stereotypical and the story has enough choices that it keeps you entertained for the entire game.  But not only that, there are four different endings to the game with the nearly 2/3rds of the game being completely different based on the choices that you make.  It took me 47 hours to get to the final battle, and that was just one play through.  A full completionist can get over 100 hours of content with minimal rehashing of gameplay.  The combination of the fun stories and great combat make getting to know the characters of Hogwarts a side effect of playing your way through the main story until it gets to the point where you legitimately feel bad when your anime crush gets hurt by an enemy in combat, or your tank boy who is your ace in the hole, dies to some magic bullshit.  It’s cheesy, it’s corny, but it all works together very well and I’m ashamed I enjoy it as much as I do.

The reason I am ashamed of my joy is because they do lay on the anime bullshit really thick to the point where you will have to push past it if you are not into that weeb shit.  In addition to that, the game drags in between the story missions that come after every three other missions.  In Between those story missions you will flirt with the students and faculty and explore the monasteries' open world.  The problem is this open world is god awful.  There is almost nothing to do outside of talk with the students who pick static locations to stand while doing nothing.  This might be excusable, but they keep these positions until the next story mission.  The result is the monastery feels like a snapshot in time instead of a living and breathing world.  It honestly feels like it could be replaced with menus and for the most part, it is if the player chooses to use the menus instead.  Everything that needs done outside of the menus, which is not much, can be fast traveled to in seconds and sped through even faster.  Compared to a world like Yakuza’s which is filled with minigames to play and master, it makes you wonder why they included the open world.  The answer is to give you a place to date your biggie titties anime goth GF.  Only those dates really just amount to asking them on a tea time that lets you choose tea and conversations.  Only the tea choice doesn’t matter, and the conversation is a timed selection between three canned topics that are supposed to vibe differently with each character you are talking too but sometimes it feels completely random.  Not only that but the reward is just being able to take pictures of them doing a unique tea drinking animation.  That is what love is in Fire Emblem.  And did I fall in love with Petra? Ya. Does it detract from the main game? No.  But if you are making a dating sim make a damn dating sim with legit activities or minigames.  Every other date outside of tea is a cutscene with no interaction and therefore no gameplay.  It does take away from the game’s gameplay loop which can lose it’s draw after 50 hours since the open world and date system are half assed.  

But if that is enough for you, then holyshit this game is going to be one of the best games you ever played.  You get to know and customize your classroom of heroes on a deep level.  You fight with them in battle and you might even feel for them if you can look past the anime exterior. And again if they gameplay loop can keep you entertained for the 50 hours or so it will take you to beat one campaign, then you can literally get 100 hours of gameplay from this game of fresh content unlike a game like Skyrim which may give over 100 hours of gameplay if you replay the majority of the same missions.  So according to my 1$=1 hour, this game should get 100/60$.  But I’m not a weeb.  I might die for Petra and she may be my phone wall paper because she is fit as fuck, but the shallow overworld, story, and date system drops it’s score to a 50/60$.