Fire Emblem Three Houses Review: Gameplay Impressions, Videos, Speedrunning Tips

Fire Emblem: Three Houses for the Nintendo Switch feels like a soft reboot of an old favorite.  

Long-time players of the historic series will find plenty of grid-based strategy combat to whet the appetite in expected fashion, albeit with a few notable tweaks. But developer Intelligent Systems decided to make a tactical gamble of its own by leaning heavy into RPG elements, meaning branching storylines and relationship juggling on a grand scale. 

The result is a Harry Potter-style RPG experience better than that title has ever done it surrounding the usual Fire Emblem grid-strategy experience with shocking depth and replay value. 

Fire Emblem games usually fare well as standalone games, but the all-encompassing nature of Three Houses is a great time to jump into the series. 

Graphics and Gameplay

Visuals are where Three Houses might catch some serious flak. 

On first pass, the anime-style looks are superb. The palette is diverse and engaging and characters pop off the screen. The cutscenes are unexpectedly strong and look like they're taken right out of a Netflix show, though they seem to run at a different framerate than the game itself. 

The same mostly applies to the battles out in the field, too. The basic grid overlay belies the superb visuals. When zooming in and seeing each character with their surrounding battalions in action, it's almost as if viewing a different game. 

Environments are where things struggle. Textures in the Monastery are a muddy mess at times, as are scenes out in the wild. These obviously take a backseat in importance to the characters, but the fluidity of the combat and priorities seemed to juice the Switch for all its worth. 

Presentation through sounds is superb, though. Where handheld versions of the series didn't always voice much, this powerhouse console edition has solid voiceovers for everything.

The music is engaging for most fights, if not a little repetitive, and the effects and sense of depth on the battlefield gleaned from the design really pop with something like an Astro A10 headset, which deepens the immersion. 

For starters, in gameplay, the story unfolds through an almost sports-games styled calendar system. From there, on a weekly basis, players can choose to explore the school, take part in optional battles, put on a seminar led by one of the characters or simply rest. 

This structure naturally leads to a story-progressing battle at the end of each month. The seasons pass and the story weaves its tale, though the highlight is the risk-reward element to how a player chooses to prioritize their time. Choosing to railroad through side battles could mean missing out on events in the school and chances at progression. Choosing to rest can heal up and motivate, but certain battles and school events will be missed. 

The general gameplay loop within the school is a fun diversion from the meat of the game, which will always be the battles. Players can run around exploring the school, and everything has a purpose. Partaking in choir practice, for example, ups the skills of those White Magic practitioners. 

Besides events like choir and culinary pursuits within the school, there are weekly events where players can assign three characters to tackle a task. One event levels the Heavy Armor stat for all involved characters, which is good for those gunning to serve as knights on the battlefield. 

More benign things exist within the school structure, too. Romance options are here, like in most RPGs, and are a nice feature. But they can quickly dive into the realm of the silly, especially when sitting down for a one-on-one in a tea-party setting, which is as strange as it sounds.

Other side pursuits include playing a guessing game with lost items, which build relationships with characters and motivate them. There are also weekly tournaments in swordplay and otherwise, where players can throw their best in the skill area into the fight for rewards. 

The player character has an instructor level, too, which impacts performance and relationships with students and their motivations. 

Frankly, we would be here all day listing out every little detail about the school setting. There are books to read in the library, a full-blown marketplace and fish to catch at the harbor. Perhaps the overarching point is that while the decision to go this route is an interesting one, it could end up as one of the game's more polarizing features. 

The school sections can be fun but can devolve into the tedious realm quickly. Some players are only going to pick up a Fire Emblem game for the best-in-class grid-style strategy combat. And while players can only focus on that on a weekly basis via optional side battles, it's hard to not feel like players are missing out on critical items and progression if they skimp on the Harry Potterish school loop. 

On the field of battle, Fire Emblem's rock-paper-scissors system is gone. The rewarding gameplay loop where sword beat ax, for starters, is no more. Some weapons are still more effective or worse against certain types of enemies, but it's only the surface of the gameplay now. This is still the grid-based combat players know and love, but the system has expanded in all sorts of solid directions. 

Durability is still in and plays a role in the greater thought process of a playthrough. Should a player secure the one-hit-kill on an enemy and break a special sword, or risk character's lives by using a different weapon to secure the kill in two turns? 

And the risk is there—permadeath is in again. Players don't have to play with this switched on, but Fire Emblem wouldn't necessarily feel like its true self without it. Spending so much time building relationships, only to have a character die forever in a silly side battle, is absolutely crushing. Call it a brilliant feature—that's one way to make every battle and every turn within those battles feel important. 

Luckily, players can switch that off if they don't want it, and there are plenty of other helpful quality-of-life items. There is an optional rewind feature with limited uses built into the narrative. The screen is crammed with helpful info at all times, including but not limited to chances of hitting, effectiveness, whether a move puts a player into enemy range and how much damage they'll take. It truly goes on and on. 

Besides general strategic unit play with loads of classes (solider, rider, ax wielder, magic, archer etc.), players can attach battalions to characters and level them up. These boast varying limited-use abilities that inflict minimal damage on the character using them and add another layer of strategy. Players will also have the ability to assign adjuncts to certain characters, which lets an understudy accompany the character around and help out while still earning experience. 

This all sounds deep, if not overwhelming. But the game takes it slow, and the first half or so of the story really gives players a chance to dive in and digest everything. Really, running through on normal mode is a bit of a cakewalk, with only the last few fights really presenting a big challenge. 

That said, players need to pay attention to what the game is telling them. The A.I. will punish mistakes hard. This is war, after all, and no, the A.I. doesn't care if a player's friend is about to be lost forever. 

While the loss of a typical well-known system to series fans sounds like a bit of a drag at first, it's clear once the game really gets going that it was a necessary evolutionary step, and the game comes out as fun and replayable as ever for it. 

Story and Features

Fire Emblem games operate mostly independent of one another, so players who have yet to dip into the series can do so without hours of reading about the storied franchise. 

The gist is simple: Fodlan is at war. Three powerful border states and a church called the Church of Seiros are naturally rubbing shoulders and leading toward conflict. At face value, it's supposed to start innocently enough in a school setting before a five-year timeskip (which the game and marketing hasn't hidden at all in the run-up to release) and total war breaks out. The effort to marry gameplay structure and narrative into a contrast like this is, at its most basic, respectable.

Players assume the role of Byleth, a new professor at the church. That church, coincidentally enough, brings aboard the most promising nobles from each of the three houses surrounding it, and players have to choose which one they align with, which has major implications on how the game and story plays out—including which class of students the players will spend the most time with. (Note: Players can try to recruit characters from other schools, but it's not simple, so choose wisely in the early hours of the game or plan on multiple playthroughs). 

There isn't much here onlookers wouldn't expect from an anime-style RPG story. The player's character is special, to say the least, and plays the biggest role in how things unfold. That's all well and good, but the silent protagonist problem has struck again. 

This wouldn't be so bad if the game handled it better. Silent protagonists can work when the supporting cast is superb and the game displays it well. Instead, Three Houses focuses on the player's character while they choose dialogue, then they have to sit through the muted character shaking or nodding his or her head for every single interaction. It's silly given how much the protagonist means to the story and one of the worst examples of silent protagonists released in a game lately. 

This does need to come with a disclaimer: The supporting cast is amazing. Three full houses gave the developers an opportunity to create unforgettable characters.

Those who take the time to meet them all will come away happy to do so. There are some stereotypical characters and one particularly annoying one who is a little too on the nose—with her never wanting to leave her room or interact with other human beings. But for the most part, the cast is arguably the best in Fire Emblem history and worth getting to know, as their fleshed-out stories go a long way in making sense of why they are the way they are. 

On this topic, recruiting characters from other classes was difficult and never felt necessary. It never felt like it was about adding a must-have class because players can outfit their own house with almost any sort of unit they want—it always seemed to be there simply to let players choose a character they like more than one of their own house members. From a tactics standpoint, it didn't seem overly worthwhile. 

Whether the story has a good ending is in the eye of the beholder, though the multiple paths possible through merely one of the three houses will leave players wanting to come back for more. Thankfully, a new-game plus mode lets players bring over their experience and get rolling right into the tale again. 

Massive layers of depth is the overall theme with Three Houses. The class system from past Fire Emblem games has been shuffled around to incorporate the schooling-system gameplay, for example. To evolve a character from the initial Commoner or Noble class, there is a level requirement, a Seal requirement (obtainable item) and a Certification the character must pass (automated with a percentage of success). 

And changing classes is as critical as it has always been in the series. Tired of the typical plodding infantry? Make one of those characters become a rider on a Wyvern or otherwise, giving them more mobility on the field, quick attacks and the ability to move after attacks, serving as a scout of sorts and diversifying the arsenal. 

And that's just one example. Ranged units can focus on being snipers. Magic classes can focus on several different styles, not to mention support or assault. 

In the Switch functionality department, let's just say the console is a dream format for a Fire Emblem game, as expected. Those who grew up with the series on mobile devices will probably play it in nothing but handheld mode, where it really shines. Unlike some other Switch releases, it's never hard to determine what's going on as the action unfolds. Docked mode on a big screen isn't bad either, of course, though it does feel a little more plodding moving through menus and with the cursor. 

Three Houses does implement some interesting online functionality, too, though it's limited and not wildly in use as of this writing. Certain spots on battlefields where other online players have perished give players a boost (and a warning). It's also fun to see percentages provided alongside certain big decisions and classifications. If nothing else, the info serves to show who the most popular of the 30-plus characters are. 

Speedrunning Tips and Appeal

Fire Emblem has been a fun niche speedrunning area for a long time. 

Given the skill it takes to barrel through the story mode or individual challenges quickly, as well as the individuality of each run thanks to expansive rosters, this shouldn't come as any surprise. Three Houses releases at a great time, too, thanks to the ascent of speedrunning and platforms like Twitch. 

When it comes to speedrunning Three Houses, subsections will probably be split into any-percent runs on different difficulties, if not different categories for each house. 

And while it might seem like a slog to attempt a run through what can sometimes be lengthy exploration trips to the school, a run will almost entirely rip these segments out. 

To the game's credit, the school and management stuff is heavily streamlined if a player chooses to play it that way. There are typical menus for all merchant-style happenings, fast travel is always available while exploring, and players can simulate seminars and automate instructor periods. Players can even speed up the progression of the calendar each time it comes up. 

On the field of battle, there are menu items available to skip battle animations, cutscenes and even entire enemy phases. These are awesome quality-of-life traits but also key to best-possible times. 

Strategically speaking, a diverse cast is going to key great runs through the campaign on all difficulties. Archer and other ranged units will also come in handy, as will healers with gambits that have a wide area-of-effect range, as opposed to healing a single unit per turn.

Keep in mind mission structure varies, so missions where it simply says the goal is to take out the commander means carving the quickest path to said commander instead of worrying about things like chests and enemies far away from the objective. 

More in-depth approaches will emerge once runners get their hands on the release and dive into a deeper-than-usual system of customization and character loadouts among the three houses, never mind the differing paths available. In time, sub-one-hour runs will likely emerge as they have in the past for recent releases. 

Conclusion

Fire Emblem Three Houses establishes an incredible rhythm few games can equal. Even if the school sections aren't for everyone, coasting through those to the next engagement and the sheer scale of the replay value is an impressive feat. 

With superb grid-based combat and a lengthy RPG-styled dose of replay value, Three Houses is an easy call for players who enjoy what it has to offer. It's a full-fledged juggernaut of an experience for the Switch that has predictably stomped into its niche and slammed down a flag.

Three Houses might have some trouble with the messaging thanks to the school segments, but that in lockstep with everything else it offers marks the revitalization of the franchise, if not the best entry in the series to date.