Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes (24th June)

[Jonnas]

I finally was able to try the demo today. I definitely enjoyed a lot of what I played. Some stray thoughts:

• The plot goes haywire immediately after Kostas, that's wild. So, if the Chapter 1 bandit dies early, everything changes? Love it.
• If Byleth never showed up, Jeritza would be the third professor... Pfffffft!
• This might be the lack of Musou experience talking, but I'm finding Normal Mode far too easy so far.
• I got an ASS ranking right on the 2nd Mission. Damn. Don't think I can repeat that one, either.
• I love Holst He's all I wanted out of the character
• Shahid merely existing and name-dropping Khalid made me so giddy, you have no idea.
• Shamir joins the Deer All we're missing is Cyril
• Claude's wyvern can breathe fire. It may just be a reference to his exclusive Battalion Art, but... are all wyverns in FE actually capable of this?
• Favourite characters to use so far are Shez, Claude, Leonie, Lorenz, and Shamir. Ignatz and Raphael have plenty of potential, but I haven't fully clicked with them yet
• They just gave us a kickass remix of Apex of the World right at the end of the Prologue, huh?

I wasn't fully planning on buying this, but I think I'm on board now.

19 hours ago, Glen-i said:

OK, yeah. I never would've guessed that was him! That dude has amazing range, and between Monster Hunter Rise and now, this. It's great that he's getting some proper gigs!

Hell yeah! On top of everything else about Holst, it's ProZD voicing him? Truly amazing. He had voiced Darros the Pirate in FE Heroes before, but that was a minor character. Really happy that he got a more prominent role in the series.

Before this, the most important role I knew he did was Hwang from Soul Calibur VI. ProZD is definitely leaving his mark.

Also:

 

[Glen-i]

9 minutes ago, Jonnas said:

I got an ASS ranking right on the 2nd Mission. Damn. Don't think I can repeat that one, either.

I would be absolutely astonished if there wasn't a way to redo all missions. Especially since this uses a ranking system, with rewards tied to S ones, at that.

As for the difficulty, well. I can only speak from experience with the first game, so while it may be relatively easy to clear missions, getting the S ranks is what will provide the difficulty as you progress. There were plenty of times I went in with a strategy, only for some sudden event to change things. I would then use that foreknowledge to tweak my plan if I didn't quite S it the first time.

It's not just button mashing, it's where you button mash, and how efficiently you do so, while also telling the AI controlled characters where to go through the pause menu, and maintaining a balanced army, so you're ready for any formation you might see in the future.

I would buy this next week, but MH Rise is getting that DLC then, and that's gotta take priority, unfortunately. Will have to wait until I get more money after that.

[Ike]

You unlock the ability to replay missions after beating the mission where the demo ends.

[Jonnas]

Did anybody else purchase the game, or just me?

On 26/06/2022 at 1:20 AM, Jonnas said:

Favourite characters to use so far are Shez, Claude, Leonie, Lorenz, and Shamir. Ignatz and Raphael have plenty of potential, but I haven't fully clicked with them yet

Swap Shamir and Raphael and my opinion remains the same. Shamir's style becomes incredibly hard to use in tougher encounters (because whenever you gain control of a character, every enemy nearby bum-rushes that character), so she's been a struggle. Raphael already clicked though, and I'm having a blast. It helps that he's the most mobile foot character, surprisingly enough.

Ignatz's getting there, still haven't figured out exactly which attacks are meant to splash paint. Lysithea also feels a bit messy and unfocused (the way her attacks spread so much), but in her case I think that's the point.

I've also been figuring out Hilda and Marianne. They're excellent as adjutant/support attackers, but I'm starting to see what they can do as point characters as well.

PleaseletmeplayasJudith

[Glen-i]

2 hours ago, Jonnas said:

Did anybody else purchase the game, or just me?

I wish. There's too many things coming out in the next month, and I can't afford it all. It was basically between this and Mon Hun Rise's DLC, and well, one of them is more focused around online play, and I routinely play with Mokong on it, so my choice was basically made.

This wouldn't be much of a problem, if it wasn't for Xenoblade coming out soon as well, so I'm gonna have to make another choice then.

I'm kinda miffed that Splatoon 3 swapped dates with it now.

Edited July 4, 2022 by Glen-i

[Jonnas]

Well... I reached the end of Golden Wildfire Part 1 before my holidays, and the plot implications have been on my mind.

Spoiler

Damn, without Byleth and that entire year of peacetime school, Claude goes down a real dark path. Dude decided to dismantle the democratic institutions in his country and crown himself king as if he were Napoleon. Furthermore, the way he treats Shez here and how he treated Byleth in Houses are night and day: he was forthcoming with Byleth, but very secretive with Shez.... probably because this Claude is overly arrogant and narrow-minded, a dangerous combination for someone as clever as him.

Plus, the way he killed Shahid is giving me some chilling "villain backstory" vibes. He killed whatever kindness remained inside him, and vowed that not even a brother would ever deter him.

Furthermore, the rest of the Deer all seem to be worse off than they were in Houses: Hilda isn't growing into the independent reliable woman she was in Houses (because Holst & Balthus keep hogging her time), Lorenz has become a surprisingly spineless and sycophantic Count, Ignatz hates his career, Marianne's therapy has been forcefully stunted, Lysithea hasn't opened up to anybody about her fears, and Raphael - while still cheery - reminds me a lot of Boxer from Animal Farm right now.

That leaves Leonie as the one who isn't worse in Hopes than she was in Houses. That's probably because she had already sorted her life out before school.

Yeah, I find the differences from this game to Houses to be fascinating. I wonder what someone just entering this game first would think of its plot.

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, Jonnas said:

Yeah, I find the differences from this game to Houses to be fascinating. I wonder what someone just entering this game first would think of its plot.

Well, seeing as you asked...

Now, I've already finished Golden Wildfire (and the other two routes... Azure Gleam twice...) , so I won't state all of my thoughts, but...

Spoiler

The first few chapters, before the two year time skip, was completely incomprehensible to me. I imagine it was a very abridged version of the school section of Houses to remind people of some important details, but I had no idea what was going on. Some more context for this was provided as the game went on, but at first, complete confusion from me.

I had some basic knowledge of Claude beforehand, a somewhat neutral force in proceedings who's apparently quite skilled in strategies when he's not being upside down, so I was quite shocked when he just declared himself King of Leicester. I initially put my surprise down to me not knowing the intricacies of Houses, but now, thanks to your post, I realise it's the change of circumstances Shez caused. In a "what if" scenario like Hopes, I see that as a fun plot device, playing with people's expectations like that.

Speaking of that, let's talk about Lysithea. You might remember someone explaining to me that even though she can totally batter the Death Knight, her personality was easily the worst of the bunch, and while she does have some moments, I once again found what I heard to be inaccurate to what I saw. I kept thinking "She's not that bad, Lorenz is much worse", in an entertaining kind of way, mind. Lorenz is that kind of pompous arse that's fun in a fictional story.

A lot of the other Golden Deer crew were pretty standard fare, as far as I can tell. They're great characters, but obviously play the B-list crew here, who don't impact the main plot too much, but instead flesh out their character through support conversations and paralogues. Which is fine, it's Fire Emblem, some characters are gonna be more important then others.

That didn't stop Holst from upstaging them all and becoming my second favourite character in the game though (A certain Ashen Wolf character gets that top spot). He's constantly making me smile. He's awesomely competent, and is not above employing funny sarcasm in the middle of a fight. I do wonder if it was because most of his character is established in Hopes, so it was much easier for me to see his character develop compared to the others. SungWon Cho did a phenomenal job with Holst, not that I'd ever be able to tell it was even him if he didn't tweet about it.

 

[Jonnas]

On 29/08/2022 at 4:29 PM, Glen-i said:

Well, seeing as you asked...

Now, I've already finished Golden Wildfire (and the other two routes... Azure Gleam twice...) , so I won't state all of my thoughts, but...

  Golden Wildfire, up to Chapter 9 (Hide contents)

The first few chapters, before the two year time skip, was completely incomprehensible to me. I imagine it was a very abridged version of the school section of Houses to remind people of some important details, but I had no idea what was going on. Some more context for this was provided as the game went on, but at first, complete confusion from me.

I had some basic knowledge of Claude beforehand, a somewhat neutral force in proceedings who's apparently quite skilled in strategies when he's not being upside down, so I was quite shocked when he just declared himself King of Leicester. I initially put my surprise down to me not knowing the intricacies of Houses, but now, thanks to your post, I realise it's the change of circumstances Shez caused. In a "what if" scenario like Hopes, I see that as a fun plot device, playing with people's expectations like that.

Speaking of that, let's talk about Lysithea. You might remember someone explaining to me that even though she can totally batter the Death Knight, her personality was easily the worst of the bunch, and while she does have some moments, I once again found what I heard to be inaccurate to what I saw. I kept thinking "She's not that bad, Lorenz is much worse", in an entertaining kind of way, mind. Lorenz is that kind of pompous arse that's fun in a fictional story.

A lot of the other Golden Deer crew were pretty standard fare, as far as I can tell. They're great characters, but obviously play the B-list crew here, who don't impact the main plot too much, but instead flesh out their character through support conversations and paralogues. Which is fine, it's Fire Emblem, some characters are gonna be more important then others.

That didn't stop Holst from upstaging them all and becoming my second favourite character in the game though (A certain Ashen Wolf character gets that top spot). He's constantly making me smile. He's awesomely competent, and is not above employing funny sarcasm in the middle of a fight. I do wonder if it was because most of his character is established in Hopes, so it was much easier for me to see his character develop compared to the others. SungWon Cho did a phenomenal job with Holst, not that I'd ever be able to tell it was even him if he didn't tweet about it.

 

 

Spoiler

The first few chapters are less an abridging and more like... if a Harry Potter spinoff started with a new character breaking Sirius Black out of prison, proving his innocence, and unmasking Wormtail, instead of everything we saw in Philisopher's Stone. And Harry himself never appeared in the narrative. That's what the first couple of chapters are in this game, hence why everything seemed to fall all at once.

Lysithea is considerably more bearable in this game. She's much more patient with people outside of her one pet peeve (whereas in Houses, she'd scold, yell at, and bully people over every slight annoyance), and she's more involved in the political side of things. Meanwhile, Lorenz was a snooty, obnoxious kid who grows to have a surprisingly solid set of benevolent (if highly conservative) beliefs. In here, he never fully outgrew the snooty kid phase, and he's barely more than weak opposition to Claude.

Holst went from "funny off-screen badass" to just "funny badass". I love that he's just as rowdy, muscular, and dorky as I imagined him, and also has pink hair. He also seems to have replaced Hilda as Claude's second-in-command and nobody in the fandom seemed to notice. I love him, but that's exactly what's happening.

Edited August 31, 2022 by Jonnas

[Ike]

Are there any benefits to resetting a unit's level to zero, or is it just a chance to re-roll level up gains?

[Glen-i]

14 minutes ago, Ike said:

Are there any benefits to resetting a unit's level to zero, or is it just a chance to re-roll level up gains?

OK, so I actually looked into this a bit already. How leveling up works is that every character has sort of "base stats" that you'll be guaranteed to have.

So, as an example, Shez at level 50 is guaranteed to have at least 40 strength (Not his actual strength, just go with it for now)

However, with each level up, the game checks what class Shez is, and then uses that to determine if any stats get some bonus points.

So if Shez is an Asura, he'll have, say, a 25% chance for his Strength to get an extra point on a level up.

Generally speaking, Master Classes have a higher chance of getting these bonus stats then the lower ones.

If you level reset, and then keep that character in the Master class you want them to be, you'll likely have a character whose stats are far better then one who you didn't specialise.

Keep in mind though, that any stat gains you got from using items or certain survey spots are kept on a level reset, so don't worry about losing that.

That said, it's not super necessary, it's just for those people who like to min/max stuff.

Edited September 18, 2022 by Glen-i

[Ike]

Cheers. I figured you could abuse the master classes for better growth rates.

In the original FE Warriors you got materials, but I guess it doesn't make sense in this game.

[Ike]

Ok, finished my first run through with Scarlet Blaze and honestly the ending felt a bit underwhelming.

Spoiler

Rhea and Thales clash and the bridge collapses and they both vanish. Next scene you get a letter from the unit with the highest support. End credits?

The story hasn't ended as there's stuff to do with the Kingdom are still unresolved. It feels like Three Houses were the story ends without dealing with Those Who Slither in the Dark.

Not sure if I killed Thales too quick or because it's my first playthrough, but nothing about where Shez got their powers (which she still has even though Arval left) even though Shez literally said this might be their last chance to find out. 

I feel like the combination of elements from Fire Emblem (Three Houses) And Musou genre works really well here and if probably my favourite Warriors game. It helps that this game isn't as grindy (but still a bit). I was surprised I was able to complete all the facility upgrades in one run. A bit surprised there was no attribute inheritance on the weapons.

Some other random thoughts which may be spoilery:

Spoiler

I'm glad Ferdinand didn't turn out like his father. I respect him more after the events of the game.

Ferdinand's & Lorenz's (and Constance was there too I guess) paralogue dialog was hilarious. The mission was fairly bland, but at least it did something a little different.

Edelgard & Linhardt's B support was also hilarious, but mainly because of Edelgard fawning over the cat.

Couldn't get "All S Ranks" due to missing a mission in chapter 14 which I'm guessing if to do with the "bad" ending.

Would have liked to see more with Sothis. Things seem to be hinted at but never fully explored. I'm guessing that happens if you don't recruit Byleth. I saw the alternate cutscene and she actually spoke.

Playing Blue Lions now as I want to see what the students are like. From my limited exposure to them so far, I don't seem to like them that much.

[Glen-i]

49 minutes ago, Ike said:

Playing Blue Lions now as I want to see what the students are like. From my limited exposure to them so far, I don't seem to like them that much.

Check the renown shop if you haven't already. A few things get added on your second playthrough.

[Ike]

12 minutes ago, Glen-i said:

Check the renown shop if you haven't already. A few things get added on your second playthrough.

Aye, I got them. They carry over with a new  New Game Plus save, right?

[Glen-i]

1 hour ago, Ike said:

Aye, I got them. They carry over with a new  New Game Plus save, right?

Yep, it all gets kept from now on.

Granted, three of them can mostly only be used when you're replaying missions through the record keeper.

[Ike]

Soundtrack getting a release on 22nd of March (in Japan)!