A Great Game That Feels Unfinished. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes REVIEW (Spoiler-Free)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2022
- There are NO story or secret character spoilers in this gameplay focussed review.
In this review, I go over the gameplay of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes and give my praise and criticism of this game's systems and mechanics. These are all my opinions and your mileage with the game may of course vary.
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Join Fire Emblem™: Three Houses characters as you engage in massive battles across Fódlan
Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, and other Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters return to put their combat expertise on display as you revisit a war-torn Fódlan.
Cut through hordes of enemies as characters from the Fire Emblem: Three Houses game. Take down dozens of foes with Edelgard’s axe or Dimitri’s lance, or blast enemies from a distance with Claude’s bow. Slash, swing, and spear your way to a brighter future for Fódlan.
Step into the shoes of Shez, as they meet Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, and other Fire Emblem™: Three Houses characters as you fight for the future of Fódlan. Align with a leader to build and command an army in 1 vs. 1,000-style battles and deep strategy.
#fireemblemwarriors, #FireEmblem, #threehopes - เกม
Thanks for watching! Hope you enjoyed. And always remember that these are just my opinions of the gameplay and your mileage may vary. With that said, I'm going to be enjoying a nice break! If you want to help support the channel, please subscribe :) and let me know what YOU think of the gameplay of Three Hopes! Likes and comments go a long way for this video to be found in recommended tabs!
Happy mashing fellow warriors!!!
You forgot to mention that your now a kingdom traitor by going scarlet blaze first.
Just another rush job by modern Nintendo. Every step forward they take with most of their major releases, these greedy suits at the top of the food chain will just as easily whip their employees into rushing out nonsense that takes us two or three steps back.
I think it’s time we come to terms with it, Nintendo has fallen, and is rotting as a greedy husk that will eventually go so far with their cheap greed that even major titles will be tainted. This is why I’m concerned for the new Pokémon games because they’re already in jeopardy after the debacle with Sword and Shield and the Gen 4 remakes, ya know?
@@ramenbomberdeluxe4958 I agree this game does have issues but...I think you're taking it too far. The game is genuinely good and fun to play, and the amount of content can't be denied especially with the classes they included for the insane roster. I don't think anyone was genuinely expecting all the students but they did it and then some!
Also, did you miss Pokemon Legends Arceus? That game, from what I hear, is considered really good. I also wouldn't say they are in "jeopardy" considering how much money the Nintendo Switch is making.
it literally down grade three houses lore story plot with cut content added lol
@@TheGamersState Perhaps for this specific example? You’re right. It’s still a fine game but…I dunno, after a conga line of botched minor releases, I’m just skeptical of Nintendo. Who knows what will happen if a major release fails hard again?
I feel like I could describe three hopes’ current state as: “done but not finished”
That’s the perfect description, lol
I think you’re on to something, and I’m liking the idea cause the endings do make it sound like there will be more fire emblem three hopes with how it ended. I pray to the goddess sothis that they make one hell of a good dlc that adds a ton of stuff and it’ll finally feel finished
I always thought that locking the secret characters in only replayed missions is a huge mistake, and not being able to use characters that are unrecruitable from other routes in NG+ is such a weird choice
Another thing about the game is the weird sudden endings, it's honestly not very satisfying....its like the progress bar hitting 90% only to then freeze forever
But from aside those complaints, this game is pretty much amazing in every way.
Even the original the original fire emblem Warriors like you use characters who weren't recruited at that point
The recruitment bias is also on full display. Azure Gleam has a stupid amount of route exclusive characters while Golden Wildfire gets what? Two not counting Claude?
@@Superluigi881 I mean Azure Gleam only has one exclusive character who is newly playable in this game, and that's Rodrigue. Everyone else is either a Blue Lion, which for story reasons have very few members recruitable elsewhere, or a member of the Church, which for story reasons don't join the Empire or Federation. It all makes sense. I'm just glad it wasn't my faction that got shafted this time with the amount of playable characters.
I really wish I could use the characters I transferred form NG+ to story missions. It would be great to see my carried over Dimitri teaming up with Edelgard. Or using the three special NG+ characters throughout the main story
@@LFPman exactly! I wanna use all 3 of the house leaders together but unfortunately you can't do that but only in the record keeper
The worst part of the game’s plot is the under utilization of Byleth/Sothis’s fued with Shez/Arval
Prob because you can kill byleth
Would be better if there was a complete route Split if you recruit byleth or not
tbh it’s hard to even call it a feud considering it’s all but dropped like 6 chapters into the game
that’s true, Sothis barely even shows up
This warrants a Byleth route.
I 100% agree. I would love to see a Story DLC where Byleth is the main character of their own route and see the story play out from their perspective. I know this might be difficult since you have to account which main story route is taking place, but I think it's still doable. Especially if it's a shorter path like how they did the Ashen Wolves in Three Houses, like 8 chapters or so
My biggest issue with the game is the inconclusive endings. They're garbage. I get that they don't want to invalidate Byleth's part, but they could've made 'em a requirement for the good endings if they really needed to.
I liked the direction they took with the ending. Quite refreshing and different from the "they won and all lived happily ever after" you see in most FE games
@@skazka3789 The issue is that none of the routes have an actual 'ending', happy or not. One of the biggest criticisms of CF in Houses was that the route abruptly ends and then you're told that the rest of the plot happens later, and in Hopes that happens in all 3 routes, with AG being the closest one to conclusive but still having a number of things left on the floor
@@Pwrplus5 The inconclusiveness of the endings was a conscious writing decision, I like it, others not so much. To each to their own I guess
@@skazka3789 You have weird tastes
@@skazka3789 abrupt ending rarely is a writing decision, it's almost always write didn't know what the hell they gonna do
The biggest problem with this game (story wise) is making all endings intentionally unfinished. As if there's half a game left. Which feels even worse considering how well thought out most of the story is by building on the lore and world. Answering all these questions left from 3h but then making even more for dlc or "Three houses" actually being three games set in fodland
I suspected that 3 Hopes was meant to build up a 3rd Fodlan game
@@paladinslash4721 I'm calling it Fire Emblem three Heroes
Maybe it'll be an rts game?
@@TiaValkyrie nah battle royal between every house
its because the devs were scared they would piss off Byleth fan boys by having Shez shorten the 5 year war. Shez wasn't allowed to outshine Byleth or get their potential love interests from 3 houses.
One very minor detail that I love in Three Hopes is that characters' eyes will randomly shift around to look at different things during cutscenes. It just makes them feel much more alive. That was one of the main reasons why I hated Tea Time in Three Houses, because characters staring wall-eyed at the camera can get pretty unnerving after a while.
One aspect I was disappointed in was characters only having 1 unique special animation.
In the first Warriors game you had a unique Warriors special, Awakening special and a Lead Pair-up special.
It was also kinda lame to see units being locked to a single weapon for classes. If you wanna use Crusher as Annette, you have to change her to an Axe unit and lose access to all other magic attacks. She also loses her unique animations too..
One of my biggest gripes is losing unique specials when you change classes!
I'm honestly happy to an extent that not all classes can equip all weapons again, but they went overboard with it.
Wouldn't it have been better if it were like in older titles, where most classes usually had 2-3 available weapon types?
Hope there will be possibilities of dlc route including new classes, lore, and more
Considering that both FE3H and Warriors had DLCs along with just about every other fire emblem game I’d say chances are very good
Yeah I miss playing as Anna, Cyril, Alois, Hanneman & Gilbert plus I’d like to see other characters become playable like Count Bergliez, Nader & Judith.
Hopefully they add the rest of the ashen wolves classes and a few more on top of that
Hopefully they make a spinoff game of Hanneman. He's so sexy.
I would add also characters to be playable in FEWTH as dlc. I know it could also be characters form those who slither in the dark. Being Thales,Solon and Kronya. Yes Alois,Cyril and Hanneman and more. Costume’s like rhea’s original outfit not the serios. Post five years costume’s for black Eagles, blue lions and golden deer. A costume for shez the matches post five years or not. More routes, new classes to play. So that you know lore is connected to the routes.
Weirdly enough, one of my favourite things in the game is that stat caps are all the same. Something about Dedue being an insane mage makes me happy.
What has hurt the replayability for me has been the forced inclusion of Shez in EVERY story mission. Doing a maddening mode run with certain characters felt stunted due to only having 3 playable units to customize. I wanted to do a church-based unit run but that left me with having to choose 3 of Seteth, Flaynn, Catherine, and Shamir. Additionally, some maps also have specifc units you need to use ON TOP of shez being required, so I essentially had 2 playable units i could pick from for it.
In 3 houses, yeah byleth/your lord was often required to be deployed, but you were actively controlling the entire roster so it didnt bother me. All i want is to be able to make shez a secondary unit or just not be forced out like I can with auxillary battles.
What you Can Do is make shez protect a random bastion that won't be attacked or something
That honestly reminds me of how much a disaster Ingrid's sidequest in Houses was for me. Because I wanted to bring my lord, Ingrid took a slot(despite being basically a playable NPC, lol) and Dorothea also was forced despite how she has no significance in the actual mission itself.
You forgot one very important thing. And that is I thought when I first saw the game that Arval and sothis would interact together. And have there own story. The whole time Arval wants to end the Ashen Demon by doing so would kill sothis. I thought those two would meet and fight each other or something. Another big miss opportunity for the developers.
It was likely planned but the devs didn't have time likely due to the higher ups telling them to finish the game early, hence the copy-pasted segment that changes nothing.
@@Buglin_Burger7878 still that part out just felt wrong you know. That would’ve made a great story. Again without that part why was Arval so obsessed with taking out the Byleth? It felt like Arval knew about sothis and wanted her gone or something. Like sothis was the only threat in his way to achieving his goal. Anyway it still is a huge waste in my personal opinion.
It wasn’t in the game because the energy generated from the sheer snarkiness of a conversation between Arval and Sothis would have ended the world.
I mostly agree, except on ONE major point.
"... having truly unique characters like Fire Emblem Warriors did..."
While you went into it a little bit, I feel like you were looking at it in reverse. You did me a favor by using the archers as an example, since Sakura was my most played character for a number of reasons I no longer remember. So I definitely have some thoughts to go into about your comparison.
In FEW, Sakura and Takumi are identical outside of two things. The first is stats; Sakura is more mage-like in her stats, meaning she wants, at bare minimum, a weapon with "Topsy Turvy" to make her weapon scale with Magic instead of Strength. The second is item; Takumi can only hold a Vulnerary/Concoction/Elixir/Bond Charm, while Sakura also has the option of holding a staff instead. Meaning that, at best, Takumi gets +1 slot on his weapon since he doesn't need Topsy Turvy, while Sakura can heal other characters. This is literally the only difference you can really tell between the two in battle, outside of how they look. You do not magically play the two any differently due to any difference in stats. Yes, Luck affected the chance of skills like Luna and Lethality and was thus good, but you weren't just NOT going to take those skills on characters with lower luck, they were too important to pass up on; *every single ability was a passive booster, there was no active effects.* And since everyone could learn every ability, it was entirely a matter of the small optimizations, like "Okay, this person has identical Str/Mag, so I should give them the skill that raises stats based on how close the two are." It had zero impact on how you actually played the character. The only point I'll concede is the "Strong (X)" weapon modifiers, which powered up specific strong attacks, which, if used, basically forced you to spam one specific combo far more than adapting on the fly to what was happening.
In Three Hopes, Bernadetta and Ignatz are polar opposites despite being the "default" archers (alongside Ashe but I'm doing two-person comparisons.) Bernadetta gets a crit rate boost in the circle for her ability so she benefits more from Range+ to poke at enemies normally outside her range and freezes anything that's too close. She also benefits from being unmounted, since Cavalry moves around a lot while attacking. Ignatz, on the other hand, excels as a close range skirmisher who's constantly knocking enemies back due to Dreamer's Paintbrush splashing damaging paint everywhere, so knocking enemies back is more damaging than trying to keep them close for longer combos. He also excels as a cavalry unit so he can more easily give chase to keep sending enemies flying. When commanding the AI to do things, Bernadetta deals bonus damage to enemies who are attacking a base she's defending, while Ignatz takes less damage when attacking a base, once again showing how the exact same movelist provides far more variety than it ever did in the original.
In Three Hopes,
1) Unique Abilities change playstyles on a fundamental level, and need an accessory slot to transfer them which limits other build options if you go that route. Also, Merc Whistles are one per playthrough, so unless you're speedrunning NG+ you're not building teams around this.
1.5) See point 1, about Crests and Crest items. Sure, you CAN give Shez the Freikugel and Kalpa Dragon Sign, but then they can't ALSO use the Warm Scarf from Sylvain. You need to pick and choose, so the ability to pass things around is not robbing anyone of their individuality, and is in fact an equalizer to try to help some characters you don't like the playstyle of.
2) Yes, everyone *can* hit those stat caps... but are you *going* to without stat booster items and NG+ blitzing for events like "select someone to get +5 Mag" on the war map?
3) Notice how not everyone learns all the exact same abilities for the same classes; the game literally will not let you run the same setup on everyone. Shez not getting Dual Onslaught is a great example, since Shez has great Strength AND Magic even without stat boosters, so it would have been much more potent on them than someone whose stats lean much harder towards one than the other.
I feel like the entire point is that FEW had a postgame mode where you could use anyone and had more limitations on challenge maps (Such as only being able to deploy mounted/infantry units, only characters from certain games/families, etc) so the game felt more like there was an endgame, while in Three Hopes all these optimizations feel pointless outside of Maddening Difficulty; we only have the main story. As such, the FOOS (First Order Optimal Strategy) is to look at what works in the earlygame (in my case, Facetanking with Lorenz until I can get Sylvain's scarf) and continue to rely on it without looking at what else works (Such as Lysithea whose entire point is to send enemies flying in groups so they all explode together, overlapping their damage AoEs to obliterate every enemy caught in it instantly, ergo a completely different playstyle that shines in completely different ways.
This game desperately needs it's own version of History Mode or something.
This was a very thoughtful and thought-provoking comment. Thank you
Potential spoilers warning
TBH my biggest gripe with the game is the amount of unplayable characters and scripted deaths - like, for example, Miklain's scripted deaths and unplayability even when his appearance seemed to actually hold story significance as element of broader portrayal of social changes in Ferghus. Let's be honest, the entire genre stems from Dynasty Warriors where saving characters AGAINST HISTORICAL EVENTS was pretty much commonplace even if often difficult and every character that wasn't outright generic was playable.
I mean, sure, there is some feeling of game being unfinished like what you mentioned and some strange support decisions (like, for example Mercedes mentions Constance multiple times and has a paralogue with her but can't go beyond C support) so I guess they focused on delivering code on time and will likely end up adding remaining characters and extra supports in updates/DLCs, but
Scripted deaths was great for me, a lot hit me in the feels
Definitely one thing that could have been added is secondary weapons. The rest of the special classes, Byleth Whip moveset, certain (outside of prior route exclusives & character that make no sense) characters that should have been available recruiting and ALL THE ASHEN spicy classes and more special ones
(Cough cough the two PROGENITOR GODS)
Hell, even if they do die leave them playable! FE has been no stranger to this in the past, and the mechanics already in the game make it very easy to catch up characters should a member of your main team die.
A lot of previously established character pairs that had supports in houses didn’t get them in hopes. Constance has a lot of dialogue with Jeritza and Mercedes because they’re childhood friends which was in their supports in the original games. Yuri and Bernadetta are like that too. Same with Hilda and Balthus. I don’t really think the supports are indicative of the game being unfinished since I genuinely think they just wanted to do a lot of new support combinations in this one past the absolutely obligatory ones like all the house members together or stuff like Shamir/Catherine or Seteth/Flayn. I think the vague endings are much more indicative of the game being unfinished anyway (and the hero thing in the video too). Wouldn’t be surprised if we get class dlc at least.
With that said, agreed on certain characters being unplayable being frustrating though. Judith is especially bizarre since she’s just around for the majority of Golden Wildfire. Miklan also feels like a missed opportunity. Also Rhea in the main story.
“Mercedes mentions Constance multiple times and has a paralogue with her but can’t go beyond C support” *What.* There is so much wrong with how supports were handled here…
Honestly I agree with pretty much all of this, especially in regards to the topic of Newgame+. The only content in terms of maps that’s given is two paralogues, and oddly two of the 4 Newgame + characters were excluded from this. I do wish that maybe they’d have given this game some more time in development. The highs are really high but the corner cutting is just really apparent whenever I see a random Hero hanging out in the training grounds, or think about How Holst is clearly designed for a class not in the game
You got me on Holst because I never did think he would have been Hero, but looking back his outfit fit more like one than a Swordmaster 😯 (which I always thought he looked odd as Swordmaster, I had always wondered what class he was supposed to be)
Technically, 3 of the 4 NG+ units are excluded from paralogues. Yes, Gatekeeper has one in theory, but he's not part of that battle at all, neither deployed nor as an NPC.
Is anyone else angry on Sylvain being a holy knight and not a dark knight? I mean, he had a budding talent in reason on Houses :(
Yeah, I’m with you on that one - especially when Rodrigue is also a Holy Knight and fills the role much better. The one that got me was Caspar’s preferred master class class being wyvern lord rather than war master, like wtf?
I watched GW's ending out of context and thought "Wow, that sucked." Then I played it myself and saw it in context... and thought "Wow, that sucked." And the other route endings don't fair much better. Then again "ending" is misleading. Because it's not an ending. The game just fucking stops unresolved.
And leaving Byleth out of the second secret chapter was odd. They really should have been present also. Even if just as a green unit.
I had a somewhat similar experience. I heard GW sucked, thought "it can't be that bad" played it and said "wow, it was that bad."
I agree, Byleth was underused. When I saw the spell of Zahras I was like "only the power of Sothis can make you escape this ! Byleth's going to save the day !".
But no. Byleth isn't there, and therefore has no interactions with the lords. A little frustration because since 3H I want Byleth and the 3 lords to fight together outside of the academy...
funny seeing literally everyone say GW sucked when i enjoyed lmao
GW was my first and I also was very underwhelmed. I was wondering if the writers were trying to imply that things would ultimately have worked out better if Byleth had been the professor as originally happened in the OG game, but then I played Scarlet Blaze and thought that ending actually worked out better for Edelgard so now I'm not sure what to think.
@@adriahrin3284 I enjoyed the playthrough on the whole, but the writing imo fell apart in the later half and the ending was just terrible. It felt like we went all over Fodlan to accomplish very little and then kill Rhea just because screw her that's why.
Just finished my first play-through. I went the Leischter route. Got to the end and thought “wait… where’s the rest of the story?”
I don't think the Merc Whistle negates the unique personal skills necessarily. You still only get one of those per playthrough, and equipping the resulting accessories is a trade-off, with e.g. anti-effect shields being unavailable if you use that. Still, the personal skills do play more into the unit feel rather than the mechanics. Ingrid's pegasus C4 makes enemies explode with ice while Hubert's personal makes them get spontaneously poked with darkness. Both basically just give you some more elemental damage, but half of the fun is the spectacle and that's very distinct between the two.
yeah, the majority of characters benefit so much from a +10 accessory, weakness negating shield or a prf accessory that the personal skill replacing items aren't worth equipping. Yuri, for example, has a terribad unique skill, but he also has the fetters of dromi, making replacing it a bit of a crapshoot.
@@Highstar25 Yuri and Ashe are two prime candidates for ability replacement items, Ashe has the worst ability in game though. No contest! The fact that it does nothing to commander enemies is legitimately terrible, so sad that they did my son like this
@@joeyjose727 It rustles my jimmies so much that Yuri, Flayn and Seteth are all screaming to have their crappy abilities replaced... But they ALL have preferred accessories! Likely an intentional balance thing but still, they did that to Yuri but let Balthus be that damn strong with no caveats?
Eh. Yuri’s ability can be pretty nice if you know how to use it.
I've played through all the routes(except GW) twice each, with and without Byleth; so here's what I've got.
Scarlet Blaze(First route): A very solid route that doesn't do anything creative. Its doesn't make any big risks or make any story decisions that really push the envelope. However, what it sets out to do, it does competently. The ending feels the most open ended, what with the war with the kingdom still going and that eyebrow raising "No way they could've survived that" death at the end; however it implemented the Byleth differences the best out of routes, even if its still done clumsily more often than not.
Azure Gleam(Second route): With by far the best first part of the whole game, Azure Gleam's beginning is phenomenal and sets up fantastic growth for not only Dimitri, but the entire Blue Lions cast and more. However, due to poor execution with some admittedly interesting ideas in the second half, Azure Gleam became the hardest to pin down in terms of quality. It has terrible implementation of the secret chapters and Byleth, and their inclusion actively makes parts of the story make less sense, leading to the non-Byleth version being the better of the two story wise. However, it met many of the criticisms towards Azure Moon(lack of TWSITD payoff, poor execution of Rodrigues' death and its aftermath, and so on) in stride and allowed for great character development on the part of not only Dimitri or Felix, but the whole cast. Not to mention nice characterization for Rhea, even if it was often too subtle for its own good. Azure Gleam, higher highs than any route, and lower lows than them as well.
Golden Wildfire(Third Route): I never expected I'd be saying this, but this is my favorite route and it made Claude my favorite lord. I adore Dimitri and Edelgard, but the realization of Claude as his own entity in the story, which wasn't done in Verdant Wind, is incredible to watch. Claude's development and being able to see his mind at work really helps show off the Master Tactician that was missing in Three Houses. Claude's own ideals are shown off and allows him to distinguish himself as something more than "Edelgard but nicer". He seems to me to be the most human of all the lords, exhibiting doubt and frustration while being allowed to develop genuine flaws in a way that he was refrained from doing so in Three Houses. While I think Azure Gleam's first half is better, Golden Wildfire's is still close and unlike Azure Gleam it doesn't become so shaky afterwards and remains consistently good throughout. Claude's natural skepticism and defiance also lets him stand out against the powerful personalities of Dimitri and Edelgard when they interact, especially when he lowkey calls out Edelgard to her face just before allying with her. Before this, Claude was well below Dimitri and Edelgard in terms of lord rankings, but that sort of humanity and character depth that he was allowed to have makes him seem like more than just the "Pretty upside down meme boy". His role in the war is also the most interesting, being the most determined to end the war on his own terms, rather than capitulating to anyone else while also setting up his own designs. Its official, I now Fear the Deer.
My biggest disappointments are the lack of proper implementation of Byleth and the secret chapters and the lack of resolution for all the stories. I also would've like a Route split where you could join the Slitherers, maybe put it in Azure Gleam since that would be a nice parallel to Black Eagles in Three Houses and it is the most involved with the mystery of the Agarthans(compared to the other two).
I agree with the lack proper implementation of byleth. I was hoping he could have support conversation with the other characters aside from shez and jeralt, like the lords for example. It kinda make his recruitment feels not worth it. Though his A support with jeralt was really touching, i do hope IS done more than just jeralt and shez in the upcoming dlc
Based Golden Wildfire enjoyer
Golden wildfire enjoyers are chads
This is probably the fairest and most accurate take on SB and AG that I’ve seen. People give SB to much credit for being the most competent and consistent without looking at the glaring issue of how how boring and uninspired it is. It takes no risks and does little to differentiate itself from CF to the point that at the end I wondered what the point of it even was. While everyone always calls Azure Gleam outright bad due to its disrespect to Edelgard which, granted, I take issue with but also understand that it does a good job of setting up Thales as a more credible threat and showing him to be the true villain pulling the strings behind all of Fodlan’s issues. Despite Edelgard’s treatment Azure Gleam does so much well regarding Faerghus and the Blue Lions that it’s unfair just to dismiss everything in the route as bad just because of Edelgard.
There are a ton of things I can say about the plot, some good, most bad, but when it comes to gameplay, I appreciate how much easier it is to get class skills from classes you may not want units to actually be in, and I like that male magic users aren't completely screwed out of a non-mounted Master Class. Still, I wish Advanced and Master classes could have the option to equip 2-3 weapon types, and that Relics and Sacred Weapons could be equipped by units with the correct Crest regardless of Class.
EDIT: I honestly miss Garreg Mach as a large hub area to explore, and I loved the Monastery as a second home for the characters.
Yeah, Hard mode has a very wonky early difficulty curve to get used to at first, but I think it's worth the ordeal once you figure out how to abuse the mechanics of the game.
Also I never imaged the weapon seller would become completely useless. Like, she's kinda useful in the early game but once you've gotten enough weapons from maps, there's not much reason to buy stuff from her.
Yeah, I originally thought that weapon forging would probably need multiple copies of the same weapon (or even just weapons of the same category) to increase might and durability, so that's where the weapon seller would find more use. But no, she's kind of just... there.
Hard difficulty being overly hard in the early game before becoming manageable in the mid-late game?
Wow. It really is Fire Emblem.
It bothers me that weapons sell for practically nothing.
There is one niche use for the weapon seller. You can buy weapons from her and then convert them into smithing stones at the supply thing.
@@Luankachu that’s a waste of money and way less efficient than just trading the building materials you no longer need.
On the difficulty point, I actually just straight started in hard mode, and had a blast start to finish. One of the things that the higher difficulties in this game do is drop better equipment. And having a good forge goes a looooong way towards making up the level differences on the higher difficulties. My current NG+ maddening run of Azure Gleam features a team of units between levels 35 and 50, but because they're all packing either regalia or fully forged relics, their damage output can keep with the absurdly over leveled enemies.
*Spoiler warning*
I love this game over the first warriors for sure, they made things less convoluted like the character level up progression and the characters were, in general to me, more fun to play as than the OG warriors. I also felt like the story was a lot stronger because we had these already developed characters with an already developed story. The OG warriors didn't really even feel like it had a story, just fan service to popular characters at the time. So much to the point I still can't even remember the story of that game because it was all over the place.
However Three Hopes did leave me upset in a few aspects
1. I cannot STAND how some characters will appear in their normal outfits in classes as the AI but not when you control them. Dedue will have his personal outfit controlled by the AI even when he's on horseback, he will not if you control on Horseback, as seen when his clone shows up in the secret Byleth chapter he has his personal outfit on even on horseback.
2. All of the campaigns end way too abruptly, Dimitri's being the only one that feels like an ending. Claude's and Edelgards feel like they're should be another cutscene or battle afterwards.
3. They did absolutely nothing with Hedgemon Edel which made no sense. She showed up once and in a cutscene and then... that was it. They didn't even explain how they were suddenly able to control her like that.
4. If you save Byleth the story still pretends like they don't exist, they appear like 1 more time and that's it, despite being hyped up as a character
5. Too many paralogues that separate the characters and just straight up put you at an huge disadvantage just because you were leveling up that character I.E. Lorenz, Ignatz, and Rachael's paralogue, as it he has a stupid strict timelimit, that on new game ++ I still struggle to get an S on because those 3 cannot kill the enemies fast enough without my help this is on hard mode and I had to use so much money to level them up. Same with the Shamir, Jeralt, and Catherine Paralogue, as you HAVE to have prior knowledge of where enemies will spawn because they are retreated and are on wyverns so they will easily outrun you.
6. The Byleth and Shez rivalry goes absolutely nowhere. If you save Byleth Sothis just doesn't ever speak again, and if you kill Byleth you literally strike them down and then nothing happens, Shez regrets his actions, for no reason I might add because you spend 9 chapters making it your goal, then out of nowhere Shez is like "I just don't think that was the right thing to do" for literally no reason. I also get super annoyed at Shez constantly saying how Byleth is stronger than them after Iiteraly beat them in like 3 different chapters
7. They did not think characters like Annette and Seteth through. In Three Houses most classes can use almost all weapons, this worked for Annette who is a mage and her Hero Relic is an axe, she can use magic and her axe in her mage class... you cannot do that in Three Hopes she has to have one or the other. Then there's Seteth who literally is shown riding a wyvern and holding his perf weapon in cutscenes, but he cannot do that in game because there is no wyvern class that allows you to use lances. It makes no sense at all.
Minor extra one, but they really need to find a better way to implement some of these characters into the story. Every character seems to play so larger part of the story than they did in Three Houses... except for Ignatz and Raphael. They always seem so one off with Raphael always talking about food or muscles and Ignatz only talking about being a knight. Leonie mildly suffers from this but at least she has her connection with Jeralt. Mercedes had the same issue as she doesn't even talk in very often in most cutscenes. Every other character seems to play a huge role now due to their family connections to the story, or even the location they are in like Dorothea's opera company even now paying a bigger role. Lindhardt is a great example of how they CAN give people bigger roles because of his crestology studies being more important now.
All and all I love the game for what it is, I'm over 100 hours in, but there's definitely room for improvement
In the 6th one, Shez doesn’t beat Byleth in a one-on-one until the bad ending. First encounter, they retreat after fighting enough. Second encounter, Sothis saved them, and third encounter (the “route split”) requires Shez to NOT defeat Byleth to get the good ending.
Storywise Shez never beat her, however they did manage to rout Jeralt Mercs.
@@paperluigi6132 yeah and it's dumb that it's considered a "bad ending" because I chose to listen to Arval and wipe that smug grin off Byleth's face
I wonder why they ditched the whole "Adventure map" thing that Hyrule Warriors had.
That was really fun and dlc brouuht a lot of stuff in it, so many maps that you have a lot to do to finish it
Costumes, weapon upgrades etc
And thats what the endgame in HW was, there's also a bunch of extra things like bossrushes, killcount rack ups and whatnot
I think FE3H would benefit greatly from a "free" mode where you can use all your units (without the weird "auxtillery is where everybody can be chosen")
I had hopes they wouldn't lock characters out to JUST that, because it's a warriors game.
I was waiting for the.... "fanfic everybody works together" path because THAT ONE paralogue hints to it very much...
The same problem happened with Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity. You had this awesome roster of characters but you pretty much run out of things to do even before you max out any of them. This game and that really could have done with an Adventure Mode equivalent.
@@TheGamersState At least Aoc let you basically play every character at ANY time other than a handful of story missions
I am sad about the lack of dlc like a "free mode" for AoC, too..
But it had definitely more to do than 3Hopes by itself as NON story content.
Of course 3 Hopes wins in story content tho
@@Cheremia despite AoC lacking content, three hopes made it worse lacking content
My first playthrough was also Scarlet Blaze and it was some of the most fun I've had in a game, but my new game plus Azure Gleam has just been a complete slog to get through cause I feel like I've already done everything the game has to offer. I know the idea of a golden route is not liked by most people, but I think this game would've been better with just one route.
I just bought a bunch of vanguard whistles and rushed the main quest.
I partly get why people don't want a golden route but at the same time I think they are too closed to the idea to my liking. Yes, I know 3H's story is about perspectives, how no one is absolutely right or wrong in a war and how it's just that a series of unfortunate misunderstandings lead to a full conflict. But that somber and "more realistic" experience if you will is something that Three Houses already handles. It's not a bad thing Three Hopes followed that lead, but it also wouldn't have been bad if it decided to follow a golden route where everybody cooperates to ultimately vanish TWSITD for good. At the end of the day, Three Hopes is a spinoff, a product of fanservice to give fans a sweet treat of the cast they already love. So why not commit to it to the very end and give them a happy closure just for fanservice? Age of calamity did it so it's not that it was off the table from the get go.
Again, it's not bad Three Hopes did not do that, but it wouldn't have been terrible if it did. If you want to keep the original, more somber experience, Three Houses is still here.
@@necasa4919 To be fair, we were pretty jaded regarding golden routes because of Fates: Revelations.
@@shinigamimiroku3723 Yeah, apparently fates was not to the liking of everyone. I liked it tho. But while Fates was a mainline game, Three Hopes is just a spinoff. I get it is not to everyone's tastes but again, Three Houses is still here to deliver the more raw experience.
I'm split, on the one hand a Golden Route dlc could help salvage the game's plot, but I don't know if I trust the writers to make a satisfactory one. And even if they *did* make it good, it would feel kind of scummy to have to pay for a better ending.
Just finished up Edelgard's and Dimitri's run and about half of Claude's and I must say too much protecting people on Dimitri's run very punishing when you start on hard mode. My biggest complaint is the extra unit's can't be used in main story maps nor can they be added to the trainer. They don't have support talks with each other which is fair for story reasons but I don't see the harm of letting me have my 3 lords work together in my story.
I wish they gave seteth a wyvern class cuz seeing him on a wyvern weilding his sacred relic but in game only calvary can optimally use Seteth use his sacred weapon.
Everyone is focused on Seteth not being able to use his spear but it's worth mentioning that it's perfectly designed for Ferdinand, his crest-bearer and will let him solo most of SB. This does require NG+ since the spear is acquired in AG but does translate to an immediately broken Ferdinand with no investment
@@Pwrplus5 “Everyone is focused on Seteth not being able to use his spear but it’s worth mentioning that it’s perfectly designed for Ferdinand” Oh, you mean the guy you can’t recruit on routes where Seteth is available? The fact that you need ng+ to have a fitting wielder for that is a really stupid design decision, as is Annette being unable to use Crusher and have access to spells at the same time. The way some of the sacred and relic weapons were handled is one of many complaints I have with this game; they probably should’ve delayed it to fix things like this.
@@AzureGreatheart plus seteth has that gauntlet that has his crest...
It doesn't help that the logic behind the abrupt endings sucks. It's nice that you don't want to "invalidate Byleth's story", but that doesn't mean you should end every ending in your game with a massive anti-climax. And that's being charitable and taking them at their word, rather than going with the idea that they've purposefully held any sort of satisfying conclusion back for paid DLC.
Honestly, even if Shez's Story "Ends" It doesn't really invalidate Byleth's story anyways since I'm pretty confident that even if Shez ended the conflict, Fodlan will be in a much better state regardless of which route Byleth chose compared to Shez just because Byleth is Byleth.
Don't want to invalidate Byleth's story? Then maybe have Byleth actually contribute in this game. Either you recruit them and they become just another face in your army or they die. I was under the impression Byleth changed the ending when I started out but they don't.
AG is the best in this regard since the whole point is to uncover the truth of the Tragedy and stop the slithers, and you do just that so it's pretty straightforward. But the fact that the Arval stuff is completely optional (which also means you can just not kill Solon) and isn't incorporated into the story that is all about fighting twsitd is really dumb, not to mention that its the only route where you side with Rhea but of course she, Byleth, and Jeralt will conveniently never interact.
@@Superluigi881 You're right, they made it sound like without Byleth the story would have a massive change...
Nothing changes though. You don't do 3 fights. The plot is resolved in the exact same way. There is no real change at all.
its unlikely the dlc will fix any of this.
I thought the game had some major problems. Notably:
* Rhea is only playable in NG+
* Rhea has no support convos
* Rhea is mostly story-irrelevant
* No Church route
* Golden Wildfire just sucks in general
* Rhea deserved better.
What's wrong with Golden Wildfire? I haven't done any of the other routes yet, but I think I'm coming to the end of it and I've really enjoyed it so far. The politicial discussions, characters like Lorenz and Hilda having more story significance, Holst, and Claude ACTUALLY SCHEMING! I love Three Houses but I think the writing has greatly improved in Three Hopes (apart from the supports) and I'd rank Golden Wildfire so far above every route I've done in Three Houses (every route except Silver Snow), not that it doesn't have its issues. Claude's brother kind of falls flat, Claude takes Edelgard's side and starts hating the Church waaaayyy too fast compared to Verdant Wind where he's mostly pretty neutral on it and I don't like how he gets to sidestep some of his character development if you recruit Byleth in Chapter 10. I think Judith probably should have died either way. Apart from that though, I think Golden Wildfire is very well-written and fun so far.
It’s so funny bc while there’s like 100 hours plus of gameplay, I still feel like “damn. I really should have the option to play any map I have completed from any route from the main menu with any character I’ve unlocked”
It’s why OP pirate warriors 4 and Age of Calamity are still my favorites. The post story stuff is just so open and accessible.
At the very least tho I was really impressed with how well the game translated 3houses elements.
The characters, the battalions, the unique skills, and many of the classes.
man I love musou games and I think we’re eating pretty good lately.
@kollie79 why are you making excuses for what are simple expectations lol
I think if they add a fourth route where everyone can be used and add characters like hanneman, Cyril, Judith, Alois, Nader and others will complete the game. Also let you purchase training points or earn more post game.
one of the most baffling things about the class system is that the infantry Axe classes basically reused/adapted Lissa's move set from the first FE warriors and the same is also true for the infantry bow classes however in that game we also have Leo and Elise as Horse mages but they didn't reuse that to have the Valkyrie class in this game despite mages being the only class path with 1 master class
The unique aspects of each character kind of begins and ends with the class specific abilities certain character unlock like Lysithea and Lorenz unlocking Proficient Witstrike. After playing all three of the good endings, I do wish the secret character were deployable and had more to it. The weapon locked aspects were a bit annoying as well. With tenacity, all characters can learn almost every magic/art through peer training.
The armorer is actually useful in that if you end up with excess money and a dearth of ore, you can buy weapons and trade them to the supply master for smithing stones.
For disclosure purposes I want to note I’ve only played through Dimitri’s route and recently started Claude’s (moving to a new place and reading the Warhammer Fantasy 6e rulebook which is a thick book took a lot of my time).
There are things I like about Three Hopes such as making the female version of the MyUnit look good as opposed to female Byleth’s design (I know that’s personal preference but it is a complaint I have been if I’m in the minority), a story for the Kingdom that i was hoping for, fun gameplay and other things.
There are definitely problems though. I won’t say by biggest problem since it has to do with the ending and I’m not going to spoil it but let’s just delay I was left with many questions about what comes next.
I strongly agree with you take on Three Hopes. It’s a phenomenal game but when you’re able to look at it objectively, from a gameplay standpoint and a story telling standpoint, you’re can clearly see that there are very positive aspects and equally negative aspects to it in addition to just feeling like it’s simply incomplete. The lack of post game content is seriously disappointing and it does make me really sad that we do not have a dedicated Church Route like Three Houses’s Silver Snow.
The combat is FUN and theres always a feeling of satisfaction from getting to finally build your characters in the exact way you want to build them, equipping various abilities learned from multiple classes and what not, but even then, it’s bothersome that the classes lock you into using only one specific weapon type. In Three Houses I always recruited Dorothea and loved getting her to Gremory while equipping the Levin Sword on her and now I can’t do that here.
And while I appreciate the heavier importance placed on Forging Weapons, not only is it extremely costly in the sense that Gold in this game is super tight, but other mechanics like Battalions were unnecessarily overshadowed and relegated to Type Advantage buffs which is a real shame.
Three Hopes is still easily one of the most fun games I’ve played in a long time but sadly it suffers from feeling like an incomplete product that could’ve been even better if the devs had more time to work on it. But hey, here’s to hoping for DLC content that’ll perhaps remedy some of those negatives.
I wasn't aware as many people had issues with the story, although I do understand the issue of things just kinda ending abruptly.
NG+ I didn't mind either with the use of Vanguard Whistles. My first playthrough was on Hard, then my next playthroughs to see the next route stories were on Easy and that cut back a lot of playtime to experience the story and collect missions for the Record Keeper. Then I exclusively used Record Keeper to play through Maddening mode, which gave a lot more use to the Renown characters so I never had an issue with them other than maybe not being able to Train them.
Also having played all versions of Hyrule Warriors (including AoC) and some of FE Warriors 1, I vastly prefer the weapon system in 3 Hopes to those older titles. Its much more braindead but I never found it fun to spend almost half my playtime simply unlocking the best weapon and also smashing as many good modifiers onto it as possible which also required thousands upon thousands of kills with other weapons to unlock said modifiers. 3 Hopes doesn't have the depth of weapon forging the other titles have but frankly I never found that part enjoyable in the first place.
My biggest gripe so far as you mention is the lack of a postgame. Something like Adventure maps from Hyrule Warriors DE or FE Warriors history mode, while grindy and time consuming, at least gave unique rewards on a scaling difficulty curve. In 3 Hopes S ranking a map on Easy will award the S rank reward for all difficulties, so replaying the mission on Maddening is pretty much just fluff to get an achievement and put the S rank stickers on the mission for the difficulty. There's basically no actual tangible reason to play Maddening cause it doesn't offer anything new, just a harder experience for the sake of it.
EDIT: I have a lot more to say about this game but I realized the post got away from me
It's unfinished and azure gleam is hot garbage
I've heard people say stuff like that but honestly I felt Azure Gleam was the best of the 3. Golden Wildfire irked me in the 2nd half but thats my major story complaint.
Care to explain why you feel Azure Gleam is so awful? Id like to know why people dislike it cause maybe I'm overlooking something.
@@NeoMusicGamer I could offer a major guess, it is established that everyone knows Edelgard is mind controlled, we even saw her as some horrifying entity when she gets caught. In the final fight... she is not in that form once. The characters also talk down to her like she is willingly fighting and blame her.
Remember in the recruit Byleth route they even flat out talking about it in the other world.
So imagine that you just saved her from the mind control, she is on the ground traumatized and likely to be executed by the church in part for the stuff she did while mind controlled... she calls out for Dimitri using the childhood name she knew him by while being unable to move or stand.
Shez wants to approach or do anything, Dimitri turns Shez away and leaves Edelgard to die and suffer for things she didn't do. Suddenly all the negative thoughts about Dimitri and how twisted he is means you may have helped a monster become a ruler and puppet of a church.
When you then look at the story from other routes you can see Edelgard was manipulated a lot in the Azure route. Meaning she was tricked by others into doing bad, she was a victim. She died a Martyr for the things Slither did.
It is fitting too given that when fighting her you fight Thales I believe his name is who in the fight keeps on hiding behind her.
I wish I'd seen this before I bought the game. Even though this video is 3 months old, 3 hopes has had no additional content dropped or even mentioned.
This was a great summary! I had such a blast with Scarlet Blaze, playing for almost 90 hours on that alone, but once it was done I was just so shocked that no other modes opened up. It seems like a huge hole in an otherwise amazing time.
The fact there's no "Free" mode/Challenge modes where you can use whatever characters you want really makes me prefer FEW 1 over this.
There it is. It's in the main campaign.
People, Record Keeper exists
I mean once you finish a map you can play it any time with any characters even on a new save file so ?
It's not the same, I'm looking for something like Adventure mode from Hyrule Warriors or History Mode from FEW 1
@@JustGenso oh i 100% agree
I had a lot of fun on my first playthrough, but story wise (especially regarding Byleth/Sothis) I really felt like there was a lot of potential left unused. But I'll save those thoughts for your eventual story/lore based videos!
I enjoyed my 3 routes, done with different difficulties (normal, then hard, then Maddening) but yeah, there're some points that feel... Empty.
The fact that map gives a certain amount of EXP for your character, and is the same in every difficulty, is absolutely messed up. A level 2 enemy will give the same EXP amount as a level 100 unit (normal/maddening). It makes the game waaaaaaaaaaay too slow in the beggining of Maddening mode, forcing you to use the Training Grounds to level-up at least to level 40 all your characters if you don't wanna see them die in the first battle by sending them try to take a stronghold.
The lack of endgame is also sad. Having to do the other routes is ok (imo), but at least give us something real to make us play all the characters we want, not juste like "re-do all the chapters you've done but now you can play anyone". A 4th route would have been cool for this game, even tho it would've gone against the Three Houses "law". There're some part where all the House leaders say that they may be fighting together to fight a commun enemy. It would have been nice having a route where you can play them all, not just a random hidden chapter
And at last, all the ending feel off. Dimitri's ending is wtf, Edelgard's feels weird, and Claude's is... Mmmh... "Claude" ending. Same as Three Houses, I don't understand why Claude's end seems to always be the right ending. Like none dies, Fodlan'll be free from its rulers and Edel and Dimi can stop fighting.
It started well, with the Almyra chapter, but... I don't know, it went weird at some point
Still, this game was really fun to play, and i'll definitely keep playing 👌
I honestly have to agree. I honestly can't motivate myself to play the other two routes because... I won't really get individual characters. Like sure, I get the story, but to get that story I'll have to play for ca. 50 hours per route.
I was honestly shocked when they announced that there would be a class system with no individual movesets. I was shocked to the core if I'm being honest and I would personally say that the game especially suffers because there is so little class diversity. Like in my one run I ended up with Shez as Azura, DImitri as Great Lord, and Byleth and Jeritza in their individual classes, but other than that I had 1 Great Knight, 2 Mortal Savants, 4 Bow Knights, 4 Holy Knights, 8 Gremorys, 1 Falcon Knight, 2 Tricksters, 1 Dark Knight and 1 War Master with several of them having been in the other classes as well. The class building system is incredibly unbalanced due to the sheer lack of available classes. Like why do we only have one magic master class when you get a total of 8 mages, even in the route supposedly centered around knights? Also some characters join so late that you barely get to use them (you don't even necessarily want to as those units will have to be leveled up...) and classes being weapon-locked honestly doesn't make it better. I think they would have needed to do an individual moveset for each character's favourite classes or at least have created such a wide range of classes that you'll have a maximum of 3 units in the same class at the same time (endgame amount of units). Like someone come and explain why I should suddenly start playing with Gremory Constance when I already have 6 other Gremorys who are just as good or even better on the team.
NG+ could also have been better if I'm completely honest. It's extremly poorly balanced and doesn't really offer any new opportunities for the player (you basicly just get the chars you already played with at an insanely high level, but the whole sense of progress within the unit-building is lost. Also it's entirely useless if you use it on another route as you'll have one insanely overpowered part of your cast and one "normal" half which is certainly quite annoying and also quite counterproductive in regards to my fun if I'm being honest.
Also, the End of the Story was entirely unsatisfying. It was like they run out of time to continue the story an then just said "Whelp, let's just write 3x4 lines about the war continuing but y'all are not gonna see or play it." If they don't deliver a good post-story game in the form of a DLC I'm not gonna play any of the routes soon. Like why would I to see the kind of the same text 3 times...
Have not played the game yet, but as a Warriors gamer at heart I’ll say that post game and features are integral to long term play of these games. I have hundreds of hours put into Dynasty Warriors 8 and it’s expansion Xtreme Legends. I have 150 hours in Fire Emblem Warriors playing all difficulties, as well as history mode. To hear that 3 hopes has little to no post game outside replay doesn’t bode well. I love the Warriors games and I loved 3 houses, so I looked forward to this title, I’m hoping I still enjoy my time when I decide to pick it up.
If it makes it any better, every route by itself is about 50 hours if you don't skip the side missions so you should still come out with around 150
@@Kris-ds6wj That’s a little better 👍🏼
My biggest problem is that they 3rd wheeled Claude AGAIN even in his own route. He either side with the empire or the kingdom and there's no in between, he can't stand on his own ground without having to rely on the other two. I would've love to see him destroy the central church without having to allied with the empire, butttt this is IS we're talking about... They bound to have lacking in writing always. Although I'm happy that they somehow expand his backstory and reveal one of his half sibling in the game, but i feel like they could've done more with him. His paralogue story is actually really good and i genuinely enjoyed seeing him telling judith the truth about himself and tiana.
Secondly, WHY AREN'T CYRIL, NADER, JUDITH AND GUSTAVE ARE PLAYABLE?! WHY? I WANT THEM
@methodius--9405 to be fair, hyrule warriors age of calamity DLC were announced 6/8 months after release, so calling it cancelled is a bit too early. Most game nowadays especially from Nintendo always have DLC, we just need to be patient
Am I the only one that’s left unsatishfied with the ending of just getting a letter with no romance like the first one?
You're not. I was disappointed that there weren't S Ranks in the game but I suppose that makes sense because this is a spinoff. I've only gotten two final letters so far (Byleth and Annette's) The latter of which I'm choosing to interpret as possibly romantic down the line but yeah it does leave a bit to be desired
@@NestOfThought Glad to hear I’m not! yeah doesn’t it? It needs a DLC, but I wonder if there’s a DLC for a spinoff…
oh my god *someone else speaking positively about the original warriors*
that game fucked hard
It did, it was just mired by alot of terrible decisions like the copy paste characters
I picked Edelgard's route first because I was excited to play through all of Edelgard's story. My biggest criticism with Three Houses is that they didn't finish Crimson Flower. We're just told that it all eventually happens off screen. Boy was I disappointed when the narrator said Edelgard went to continue the fight off screen and left the story even more open ended than Crimson Flower.
It almost feels like they released an unfinished game and will eventually expect us to pay money for the end of it.
Imagine a free update to finish the game
i was looking into buying this game and wanted to say this was the best review by far I watched. most of the other ones were just full of genericness rather than covering the actual indepth and crucial aspects of game mechanics like you did. thanks for making this.
Spoilers for Endgame shenanigans:
But before that, some non spoiler things:
Hard mode is definitely something you will probably enjoy more on New Game plus, even if you revert the character levels of everyone on that route that you can use, because by then, you have upgraded your base to the max, so can level up your characters classes quickly. Allowing you to use your higher level weapons much earlier on, and mitigating the need to be near as high leveled as the game probably expects you to be.
and Maniac mode knows it's designed around New Game Plus, considering the level of the battles, and the rewards you get from battles.
Alright, all the people who don't want to see spoilers gone? Ok good
This game acts as if defeating the main antagonist is the only thing the player cares about, even though in all endings, the war doesn't... end with the death of the antagonist, in the case of GW, they honestly should have had either a really long ending cutscene, or another chapter that shows the end of the war or something like that, AG basically ends with the main Antagonist going down, but... like... it just doesn't feel good. and it sounds like Crimson Blaze is missing half its game based off the ending lol. (Even though CB has the highest level for the final fight in the game.) (This also could be the ending you get only for the bad ending though, I haven't done the good ending yet for CB, and no one try spoiling it for me either.)
There's also a surprising amount of characters you just, don't get access to play, ie, Alois, Gustave, Count Bergliez, Count Hevring, Cyril, and a surprising lack of playable villains, cause, come on, would have been kinda cool to play Kronya or Thales, yet you can play as the Gatekeeper if you beat 2 of the 3 stories and get to Chapter 4 on the 3rd story, now that's a pretty cool way to hide an unlockable character, there should have been more characters like that for beating certain routes, at the very least as unlocks for post game fun.
If there is some good things I can say at least, the story up to the lackluster endings is, pretty good for modern FE standards, each side, minus those who Slither in the Dark, and maybe the Church, are all fighting because they know what's best for their region, and each of their philosophies because of it, come very quickly into direct conflict, like Edelgard wanting to force mass reforms on the continent quickly, but Dimitri trying to stop her because changes of that magnitude, that fast would very badly affect the continent (The kingdom most of all), but he doesn't see the reforms as a bad thing in long term, just a catastrophe waiting to happen at the speed Edelgard is trying to cause this to happen. How about that, actual decent grey area in a Fire Emblem game and not just pure black and white.
And while I do see some people complain about this in the comments, I think it's interesting not being able to recruit everyone in this game on a single route, we don't have a situation like FE Fates where everyone says that Shez is always right and just joins their cause, unavoidable character deaths also adds more to the motivations of certain characters that you're up against in the story, do you think that Dimitri would be as motivated in CB to stop the empire if you didn't take Ingrid's life while you were trying to retake Ariahnrod?
Last thing, why on earth does this game tease Hegemon Edelgard in AG and never use her for a fight?
Tbh I really agree with this review. I love Three Hopes and everything about it. I think Shez is a fresh restart when it comes to avatar characters and the most charismatic avatar character next to Robin. I really love the new character timeskip designs and the new characters they properly shown in this game. The stories are really interesting to witness and know more about. Everything seemed to go really well, but man they really rushed the final climaxes. If I'm gonna be honest, it seems like Azure Gleam is the only story to feel completed (but tbf I haven't beaten Scarlet Blaze yet so that might change).
And the new antagonist they introduced seemed to be really interesting but besides a paralouge explaining a little bit about them, we still don't really know that much. Hopefully with DLC they'll expand a little bit more on the game's shortcomings.
I thought the end of the the route I played so far was underwhelming. It didn’t really answer the question of what the outcome truly was. And the supports that I had built between characters didn’t play out at all as they had in Three Houses. So it took such a hit on the story that it was pretty soured.
I would have loved a personal skill for Ferdinand to reflect his love for weapons where you could equip him with an axe and lance and switch between them in battle (whilst I do like his skill already)
I wish that the mage characters unique specials weren't locked behind the Gremory and Dark Mage/Bishop classes. There are so many magic characters and only so few magic classes that all play the same for them to be using the same generic Warrior Special. I also think it sucks that you still can't use some characters unique models on Mounted units, (and Hilda can't use hers for Assassin either 😒) especially since you can see every character model on a horse during an expedition.
As a Warriors game, I hate how characters are pretty much the same. What makes these types of games great is how unique every individual character fights, with their own combos and specials. Every character is copy-paste in terms of move sets in this game. Aside from the trait abilities that may or may not trigger, every person who uses a sword for example, is gonna have the EXACT. SAME. COMBO. Nothing that sets them apart. Also how restricting the game is in terms of characters. You unlock them, but only for replaying old missions, in the same route (although no point when, again, everyone has the same move sets.) For a Warriors game, it's lacking in the individuality of it's characters in combat as well as a separate mode that most warriors games have. Story wise, I feel it's fairly rushed. For a FE game with warriors combat, its ok. I liked Age of Calamity, and despite no separate mode, I enjoyed it. It had a good story (up to a certain point), with it branching into an odd, but ok alternate timeline for BOTW. But this game fails its Warriors side. Cookie-cutter fighting styles just really bother me in these types of games.
Fire Emblem Warriors as a general concept just has so much potential
Even though it's a hack and slash, giving orders, at least in harder difficulties, can actually feel important. But then, aside from big story maps, there's a severe lack of unique challenges. And that's pretty much the same for the OG Warriors, but even that game has more unique map types, so-
I could go for way more classes, I could go for a wider variety of mission objectives, but like the most important part for me is just POSTGAME. I enjoyed the game, I WANT TO KEEP PLAYING. And NG+ honestly doesn't feel the same
I've thought up some mode where you start with a small party or even one unit, and gather units as time goes on, character additions like ALOIS where is ALOIS and other Three Houses characters that got demoted here, maybe even the new lords shown off- I wouldn't even mind if some copied abilities from other characters at that point, Matthias could just have Sylvain's Gordian Stroke, and some other support ability- and he's ready to go in my eyes. I just want things to DO that still feel rewarding. A lofty goal to work towards that isn't "Beat it but it's harder now I guess"
I agree with some of your criticisms. I'm on my 3rd playthrough now. Well I finished all 3 routes but now I'm working on finishing Scarlet Blaze with a character recruit I missed last time. I was a huge fan of the original Hyrule Warriors and felt OK with Age of Calamity. Never played the original FE Warriors. But while I do love Three Hopes, I'm feeling the repetetiveness as I reach the 120 hour mark.
Admittedly I’m expecting the story to pick up and really finish with dlc. It’s a Warriors and there’s going to be dlc, do I think it’s a bad move. Yes, I’m just expecting it. But yeah not being able to use your other units in the story in NG+ is so dumb. Especially for the unlockable/purchase characters for NG+ bc I want to use them but it would require a repeat
I'm 275% through the three stories, loving the game so far
The main problem I have is the ally UI, you have to babysit your other 3 units in the pause map menu to keep them on task, a lot of times I've been caught up in a main story mission only to realise my other 7 units have completed their objective and are idle or have adandoned their position to run all the way to my active character
Missing a lot of excellent classes too, and appearence customisation is lacking - surely 3 Houses character models could have been made available?
We did a full co-op run through all routes, yellow-blue-red. It was a bit all or nothing. When we swapped to Maddening, it took impossibly long. When we went back down to Hard, we just mindlessly ran through the entire game. But honestly, it’s not that bad since that mindless rushing might just be the intent of Warriors games.
The class roster felt like it had sooo many holes in it though.
PS: Even in Co-op, it was seemingly lagless! I think they made character models run in lower frames during high intensity moments, rather than slow down the entire game.
On Maddening my allies are fine without any grinding. On the training grounds I developed Shez into a Priest while maintaining her Asura class. If needed she can warp in and quickly to heal either an ally or villager. So far my allies rarely get routed and they get the job done. I got plenty to do on a second playthrough. I develop other classes on the returning characters. While building the new ones up. I enjoy my second playthrough maybe even more.
My personal opinion is probably 9-9.5 out of 10. I loved so much of it and had a blast, but there were a couple minor bits that knocked it down a little bit.
One was the treatment of Edelgard in Azure Gleam. This is coming from someone who wasn’t the biggest Edelgard fan in houses, but man did that route do her so dirty.
Also I think certain things were just kinda too grindy at some points.
But overall, the game is super damn fun
I also wanna see Flayn and Seteth's dragon forms 😩😩😩
Gotta say this review was on point how I felt about the game and I only did one story run for the blue lions. Replay is kind of lacking after you grind on your first play through especially with the protagonist.
Definitely agree with the lack of post game. After my fiancée finished Azure Gleam and got the bonus characters and weapons I just had a huge feeling of "now what?". Especially since going to the war map only shows the final battle and nothing more popping up. It does feel better than Fire Emblem Warriors and Age of Calamity, but can't say it was perfect
I totally agree with you, it was a very fun game. I love that it was a Fire Emblem game that I can play without having to put to much thought into it. Mega fan of the series and have been playing since I was kid and I have to say that this was a refreshing take on the game. And is definitely a good game to tied me over until the new one comes out.
So I don't want to do any commentary on story for anyone that still hasn't played it but I totally agree with your statement about the hard or maddening mode. Knowing I was playing a hack and slash , I decided I wanted to challenge myself a little more and choose hard on my first playthrough. Honestly grinding my units through the ridiculous gaps, which is basically just replaying the same map over and over again until I either get enough money to level or they level up outright made the game feel ridiculously sluggish. It was to the point where I put myself onto the easiest mode when doing my other two routes with ng+ cause I honestly couldn't be bothered with the gameplay and just wanted to see if they made any improvements to the 3h storylines.
As a long time Dynasty Warriors fan as well as a Fire Emblem fan: you summed it up. This is a lot more polished than other Warriors games, including recent entries in Koei Tecmo's main series. There are great loredumps and great characterization for some characters, particularly Ferdinand, Lorenz, and Sylvain in their respective paths. The paths themselves, however, feel unsatisfying as endings (particularly Azure Gleam), and the recruitment choices are pretty lackluster, as only the same pool of characters can be convinced to surrender, and only in Scarlet Blaze do the choices really make sense.
It feels like there is
I love Golden Wildfire route and the start of Azure Gleam is absolutely brilliant. But once I got to Scarlet Blaze. Felt the exhaustion from the gameplay. My main nitpicksis the underutelization of Byleth, the Church and Rhea. Like they could have been the best antagonist ever and instead largely forgotten after and the gameplay is repetitive. I was only invested in the plot and hated going through each chapter. I enjoyed Shez because they add flavour to being a protagonist. But the replayability is nonexistent. After Scarlet Blaze, there isn't a need for me to play it again.
With the many flaws of Three Houses, I did enjoy the new game plus feature.
Currently taking a break from Scarlet Blaze and might return in the future.
THANK YOU for talking about the lack of postgame content. Age of Calamity had the same problem and it’s ridiculous for both of these sequels to have so much less than FEW1 and Hyrule Warriors
I agree with the takes here. For me, this game is mostly positive with some glaring negatives, but overall I had fun. I was most interested in the story aspect and overall, I mostly enjoyed this retelling of the story.
It does feel like KT intentionally withheld content for DLC, so I’m hoping they continue to support the game and we get more content.
Great review, Ghast. I agree with a lot of your points on the game. I've definitely run into the same problem I did with Three Houses'** multiple route runs in that after a while I really feel like I have to force myself to sit through the grind/monotony to enjoy what I'm really there for - the story content. The problem I've found with Three Hopes is that I hit that "Okay, I have to sit down and grind this game out" feeling at the tail end of my first playthrough, which is much earlier than I did for Three Houses. There's a lot to love about Three Hopes, I just feel like it's a bit bloated altogether. Too many systems and battles that take too long to do, especially when there are three routes to play. IMO, there's no reason to have 8 auxiliary battles in a chapter when the Story map is also literally going to take me an hour to finish. Maybe it's because I just don't have as much free time as I used to, but sometimes there's just too much repetitive content for me.
I had the exact same feeling with age of clammy. Which later got a dlc to fill up the game and polish off the tedious aspects of the game with new mechanics and methods. So i get the impression three hopes is getting this treatment too.
I think Three Hopes is better than the original in almost every way. I do have some criticisms. For one, the game creates a lot of excuses to go back and load into the camp in between battles, which really affects pacing. You have the extra activity and training points, collecting owl feathers, collecting supplies, and having to use the trainer to acquire and change classes as you master them in battles. None of these things can be done on the map - they always force you to load into camp and then fast travel to a bunch of repetitive places 100x throughout a playthrough. I really wish the camp menu was accessible on the map without having to load in and deal with navigating it, even if you're fast travelling.
When replaying the game on another route, I wish they didn't lock away all the camp features for like 6 missions. That seems unnecessary. Everything should be unlocked after the prologue in new game+.
The lock-on camera is really finicky. It tends to target captains and named enemies by distance rather than picking the one in front of you. This can cause the camera to spin around and target something else, even if it's behind you. This implementation is wrong - it should always target what is front of you.
Also, the lock-on camera should not acquire a lock to a different target after you kill a captain. This was so frustrating to move forward and have my camera spin around due to locking on to an enemy I never locked on. What's worse is that it's inconsistent - it sometimes auto-locks and it sometimes doesn't. I hated that I could not turn this off.
I also agree that this game needed some kind of epilogues and post-game.
honestly rhea as a ng+ character makes me stupid happy but the fact that her animations arent from the actual saint class and are just mortal savant make me sad
also really disappointed she doesnt have archbishop as a class cus (at least) my rhea has higher mag than strength
The real purpose of the Armorer is to buy weapons to donate to the Resource Manager for smithing stones, then to trade for building materials to upgrade your camp. or if you need to it, or to buy various smithing stones. You won't need to do this after your first playthrough, but it's basically a requirement if you want to fully upgrade that camp on your first playthrough.
I was honestly expecting them to reuse the warriors assets, even if only post game unlocks.
It would've been great to unlock tiki or corrin to play as they felt the most unique to me.
mild spoilers
I’m really mad the shields don’t appear in battle. I recall being super excited after obtaining the Aegis Shield in Three Houses, and I loved how cool it looked on Felix’s model. Now, it’s just poof gone whenever he entered gameplay battles. It’s there in cutscenes (as is the Sword of Moralta which you don’t get until later), and it just makes no sense to me.
Another big gripe I had playing through Scarlet Blaze NG+ is that I couldn’t use the secret unlockable characters in battle. I hadn’t poked around with the auxiliary battles, only the mock battles at the training grounds. I’ve only just started using them as I go back and S rank some of the battles I didn’t previously for the rewards. I was also very mad that you could only recruit a set crew of characters unlike Three Houses. I was really upset when I had to kill Ingrid and Sylvain, especially.
The game also felt unfinished. I was very disappointed with the way SB just suddenly BOOM was over, and though I haven’t beaten GW yet, I felt more accomplished beating AG. I feel that the Lions will continue to be my favorite house and route in this game. I also got very aggravated when the characters would say something but the text onscreen had one or more words wrong (I found Hubert’s dialogue to have that error often). That’s just a minor thing I’m personally picky about.
I also agree that the lack of postgame content (aside from repeating auxiliary battles from previous routes) makes the game significantly more boring after finishing that first run. The combat gets repetitive, like Three Houses, but at least you could have more options for classes and weapon choice in the first game. That was a mistake on the developer’s fault.
I hope there will be an update or DLC for this game later on down the road that patches these flaws. I overall very much enjoyed the game and the secret secret character of my second NG+, but there’s so much standing out that I’ll probably finish this last route and set the game aside for a while. I much prefer Three Houses over Three Hopes at the current moment
So, the game is designed around you manually using your units for the most part, which does reduce the need of level ups in general. But i can see how someone who prefers to let the untis do their own thing would need so many level ups.
Okay I only finished SB route and haven't watched the video and I already agree, it feels like sb and what I've done in AG so far feel like it's setting up for a DLC golden route and that would explain why the dlc classes were missing. But the game is a LOT of fun but yeah even when I got the true ending for SB I was still like SUUUUUPER left wanting more
one of my biggest problems that you didn't mention is the lack of map diversity in the game
the fact that outside of a few maps like Enbarr castle, Fodlan's Locket, and Ailell most of the maps get reused over and over not just in side missions but paralogues and multiple story missions on the same and different story routes all in totally different locations makes it feel a lot less important
while I don't mind reusing segments of maps for the side missions since those are not important enough to build new maps for seeing the same few maps get repeated over and over in story missions and paralogues makes it all feel a lot less impactful when something emotional is supposed to be happening or just makes you feel like your repeating the same thing over and over with slightly different dialogue since most reuses don't offer anything different in terms of obstacles only changing the starting point and/or enemy placement
minor spoilers:
the map where you rescue Monica gets reused way to much not including the many times it gets reused for side missions there are: 4 main missions and 4 paralogues set here
the forest map has: 4 main missions and 5 paralogues
bigger spoilers:
looking at this its hard to see these maps get reused for these plus so many minor side missions and not feel it's all redundant
for example it's hard to get the proper feeling in the Edelgard paralogue when you're in the fort Monica was trapped in being told this is the place Hapi was Experimented on and that the cells there are like the ones Edelgard was trapped in especially when not only is this the design as the cell Monica was trapped in that Edelgard had no reaction to earlier in the story but also Baron Dominic uses this map as well and if you use the secret stair case on that map you just find Annette waiting in that dungeon room which adds to the whole not feeling important at all thing and/or having some serious questions for what Baron Dominic is trying to do with his Niece
another example is that Gronder field and the Tailtean plains use the same map as each other making 2 important locations feel like they're no so special at all while also sharing the map with some random field in Scarlett Blaze where you fight Rodrigue
I finished my third play through last night, and was hoping there'd be something unlocked at that point. While I can't be mad at a game that gave me 153 hours of gameplay, I am hoping there's some DLC later on that helps fill some of the story out. What happened to Patricia? Who are Shez's parents an adoptive mother? Who'd win in a hotdog eating contest, Raphael or Ingrid?
I have MANY issues with this game, story wise and character wise. Gameplay wise tho, it's pretty fun to play and more enjoyable than I'd expected. My only issues are with the NG+ renown locked characters. Why are they so restricted? It doesn't seem like there's much point in having them at all. Wish Rhea had been playable in AG, and not locked to a renown only.
I really like how you worded that the whole cast doesn’t really feel unique. Because of the class system causing many of your characters to feel the exact same due to having the same animations, it’s hard to say one characters is more fun than another. Also the fact that Gilbert, Alois, Cyril, Hanneman, and Anna were all cut from being playable despite how easy it would be to do so because of the class system is really sucky.
As for the treatment of hybrids. Yeah. I wish you could equip 2 weapons and the unit switches around with it. Or have access to one weapon to define your moveset but u are free to use combat arts of both weapons. Id rather a bow assassin than the annoying movement of the thief assasin sword users.
Hopefully there is dlc that adds a post game sorta feature. That would round out this game. Like 5 or 6 new classes a post game feature with everyone unlocked would be real nice.
I’ve been playing it slow, picked a randomly and started Azure Gleam first. I’ve missed Shez and Rodrigue support and Dimitri and Mercedes support, I looked them up online and I have no clue why I can’t get them in game.
When I bought Three Houses, I sat down and played each route back to back to back. After beating my first playthrough of Three Hopes, I couldn’t be bothered to play another one. Not even the promise of unlocking gatekeeper if you beat two routes could entice me.
you need to beat all three routes for gatekeeper lol 💀
My main 2 problems with the game are the endings for each route that come out of nowhere before the story even feels finished, and Azure Gleams final boss being Thales and regular Edelgard, despite a cutscene much earlier showing her being turned into her Hegemon Husk form
The fact there isn't any S supports, which has been standard in most FE games, most of the endings end with "and then they did more stuff which you won't get to see" instead of actually....doing it, and coming to a better ending, and that there isn't any free/challenge/arena modes, and leaves a lot of questions about your avatar makes me feel like the game is unfinished, or they are waiting to release the rest as DLC. One thing I would of liked to see is a mounted sword/tome class
Yeah, no sword cav, no lance wyvern, no dark fliers or tome cav either. Its a mess
I believe S-Supports only appeared in three games in the entire series, so I wouldn't say "most".
I like the game, it's fun. However, I also dislike the game because if feels rushed, incomplete and quite lacking storywise.
Things I absolutely disliked about the game:
1) The entire mystery of Arval and Shez is basically a nothingburger;
2) The admission by the makers of the game that they didn't want to overwrite Three Houses' story led to them making something rather underwhelming past the prologue (the stories for each of the routes are okay but really could be better if they wanted to try more);
3) Byleth and Jeralt generally being misused or underused (who makes a scenario where you need to recruit certain characters to access certain stages but said required characters don't even have a role in said chapters? It's ridiculous);
4) the fact that we don't even unlock a route to play after finishing the game (ideally, we could have gone with Edelgard's route being the only playable route and finishing it would unlock both Dimitri's and Claude's routes; after finishing those we could unlock either a route for Byleth and/or Shez);
5) (this is more of a gripe) the missed opportunity for including introduction clips for unlocking/recruiting characters (they did it in FEW and HW so I don't see why they shouldn't have them in this game)
6) We don't have a different game mode like challenge or history mode (heck, I want to play the Shez single-handedly beating all three houses in the battle of eagle and lion just to see what kind of banter would be there)
I hope the DLC at least gives us a challenge or history mode because this game sorely needs it.
I thoroughly enjoyed the demo as the Golden Deer and was about to buy this game, then an indie game got in the way. After that I didn't feel like getting Three Hopes anymore. That indie game sure deflated my almost-impulse-buy.
personally i'm fine with the lack of postgame, i already have to play the game 3 times i don't wanna do more lol. haven't finished my first playthrough but it's so far very enjoyable. i guess the characters could be more unique but i disagree with their unique abilities, even if they all serve the purpose of dealing more damage, it's make them feel different from each other while playing and changes the way you use them 🤷🏽♂️.
I wish new game + worked more like it did in Three Houses; being able to do ng+ without automatically being OP was such a good design decision in that game, and I wish this game let you buy previously achieved class masteries and skills with renown.
I loved the stories of three houses so it was a no brainer I was gonna get this game for the story aspect alone. I’m in my first play through and it’s a struggle to want to continue with the combat system being so repetitive. (This is my first warriors style game) it’s good to hear you can skip the auxiliary battles in later play throughs, because 6 or 7 of those to progress the story is a drag. I agree with the lack of class diversity and ability to use different types of weapons in classes. Overall though I like the game quite a bit!
Love how he mentions to keep the comments spoiler free since it’s a spoiler free review, and people aren’t doing that at all. Oop
Because the games out long enough who cares
@@crimm7597 You misunderstand me entirely lol. I was pointing out the irony. It is a simple request tho. What I do wish is the spoiler FILLED reviews and lore videos would start happening already.
I'm currently playing through this. Was pretty hyped to discover that I could play through as Monica, given that her character was a (presumably dead) afterthought in the original.
Honestly I'll probably just play through this once, and I'm just a casual gamer who puts no emphasis on "builds", and I've never played Warriors, so I have nothing to compare this to which in my experience would make this seem inferior or inadequate. What I really cared about going into this was recreating the magic of Three Houses. Some parts of this feel a little hollow in that regard, but for the most part it has lived up to what I expected.
I actually enjoy the part where every unit can be used in anyway. For exemple, I HATE Bernadetta (unpopular opnion, I know.), and without Crest Stones, she would be the only one to get a better use from The Inexhaustible.
This way I can get the fun out of building Mercedes as a healer assassin(Trickster), if I want. Or I can have pretty much any 8 unites I love on my team and still have diversity on their builds... I can get Ashe (my favorite unit) and play pretty much any combat style I enjoy the most (shame about gender lock, tho... I'd love to play him as a Dark Flier on Three Houses and hopefully on future Three Hopes DLC) even using Heroes Relics if I wish to.
What I do feel sad about is the weapon lock for each class, since on Three Houses I had so much fun on runs like: Full Armored Play Through. And I could still use any weapon. But I do understand it would might be harder to make so Pegasus Knights had moves a bit different for Swords, Bows and Axes to match the players desire.
Anyways, loved the video! Thank you for sharing your thoughts!
P.S: My Ashe is a Bishop(sometimes Warlock) with Petra's personal skill and Crest of Macuil. And I love that I have the option to do crazy stuff like that. ♥
I'm really hoping that there'll be a dlc with another route and more playable characters and classes.
maybe other characters but not another route.