Fire Emblem Three Houses Isn't an April Fools Joke! (My Thoughts)

[Chase]

It's another year, and I'm going to end up buying another video game that releases in a strange time window because....it's freaking Fire Emblem. I think.

 

Positives

 

• In Fire Emblem Fates, we were last introduced to the a world where two kingdoms had significant familial ties to an individual, and the world building was focused on the two families, that individual, and a mysterious singer. Fates was my first introduction to Fire Emblem as a franchise, so the Google Maps- inspired world map didn't bother me because I wasn't accustomed to continents and places actually having names. In Three Houses, we not only have the continent already established as "Fodlan", we have three different regions with different governmental structures, every place on the map being the name of a noble family, and we know that a religious institution holds great power over the entire continent. This draws historical overtures to Europe's medieval period, where the land was mostly a feudal society that was also under the great power held by the Holy Roman Catholic Church. While the outfit designs are more of a mix between fantasy and Renaissance-period attire, the world seems set for a major story to take place. This is important to keep in mind, because the smaller more focused setting of a combat academy we the player teach at can dwarf any potential for major rising action to occur in favor of "slice-of-life" "school days" shenanigans. The world is big enough for something important to happen, and detailed enough already to expect it to happen across the whole of Fodlan. That prospect is exciting.

 

• The school setting (which I feel I need to establish is a COMBAT OFFICER'S ACADEMY and not a high school, even though we all know Japan is going to make many of the characters within seem like mere high schoolers) seems to play a significant role in the lives of our three "Lords", and it has an INCREDIBLY in-depth "Fire Emblem" purpose when it comes to building up your units. It seems like you and your....roughly 9 or 10 students of choice (depending on which house you choose to teach) will be a natural progression from Fire Emblem Echoes five Villagers, except everything - from using a weapon, to moving in heavy armor or riding a mount while being able to fight effectively, to even leading formations of common troops* is its own stat that each student will need to devote time to increasing. That means that your starting army is VERY customizable, while also making all of those skills seem immersive to the school setting and realistic. If you are a fan of Awakening and Fates' child unit mechanic that let you customize their skillsets, this Combat Academy-based customization will scratch that itch. If you're not a fan of what having such child mechanics does to the story, well this -PROBABLY- will replace that feature given how in-depth it is, and how the roster of students seems to number over the amount of 2nd generation units in Awakening and Fates...unless the game has a reasonable time-skip.

 

• The 'Fire Emblem' strategy game we all know and love looks really great. Weapon durability last seen in a Awakening is back. Pair-up seems to be replaced with getting bonuses potentially from the formations of each individual's common troops (kinda like Advance Wars) as well as supports when other units are nearby or using "Gambits." The cell-shading and art-style and battle animations all look pretty great considering its a Switch Fire Emblem, and the only hope here is that there are enough of these battles to feel like it is a Fire Emblem game, and not....Renaissance Persona or something.

 

• The school hub...looks really good. It's massive, and explored in an over-the-shoulder dungeon crawler experience like you see with Echoes except the camera can probably be moved to view just how massive it looks. This part of the game looks like it was designed to be played connected to the TV for maximum immersion, and I love it.

 

• Avatar characters are a bit of a touchy subject among the Fire Emblem community, but I've always played with them save for Echoes (which is my favorite game in the franchise). I like the role the Avatar seems to play in the story as former merc-turned-teacher with strange imaginary friend. There may be the risk that the Avatar in this game has too much importance at this point, but I can't say that it will drag the game down for me personally because I enjoyed Fates and Awakening just fine. Male Byleth...looks freaking awesome. Female Byleth looks fine to me, and I think her design will grow on people once the "she's too unprofessional to be a professor" complaints go down. There's intentionally sexy designs like Camilla - and then there's F!Byleth, who - to me - looks more like a combat "teacher" even though she has an exposed navel. If there's anything I see wrong with her, it probably is that she was getting a test run during the Direct and isn't actually finished yet.

 

• We can fight enemies...with punching weapons. It's an FE after my own heart! Seriously though, the weapons in this game might be the best thing bout it.

 

• Music.

 

Concerns

 

• We know that Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude are heirs of their respective regions, but so far we know that only the Avatar has plot importance while our three lords are just....Officer's Academy students. The plot SHOULD fix this as the game moves on from the introductory period at the beginning, but as of right now these characters seem empty.

 

• I'm hoping that Nintendo was just pulling the plot punches in the Direct and that we haven't seen anything substantial story wise...because otherwise the biggest enemy we have to look forward to is some dinosaur looking thing with one those "crests."

 

• A lot of people that like to play Fire Emblem are big on emphasizing "Low Turn Count". This game doesn't quite look very friendly for LTC-ers, because none of the students have any "stats" revealed, and instead may only have what appear to be strengths and weaknesses that are tied to "learning" certain abilities. This may leave the game open to be cheesed by having your entire army be made up of a certain class as the most effective option to win in the least amount of turns, and it also means that people who just want to play Fire Emblem will be in the school trying to achieve that perfect army for a good deal of time, which may make it seem like the school setting is too important for some.

 

• Lack of recruitable units along a journey. Since the days of Marth, finding your allies as you went along on your quest has been a substantial part of Fire Emblem that carried through all the way to Fates. The sheer amount of young nobles you get to enlist into your forces at the start of the game seemingly leaves very little room for different characters, and since all of your students don't seem to be fleshed out as characters yet, this is probably my biggest personal concern so far.

 

[Wolfox]

Nothing about weapon arts being back? I for one am happy to see those make a return

[Chase]

1 hour ago, Wolfox said:

Nothing about weapon arts being back? I for one am happy to see those make a return

• I don't know a WHOLE lot about Combat Arts in Three Houses yet - and I wasn't one who used them in Echoes all that often - so I'm kind of neutral on them at this point. They seem to work a bit differently in that instead of siphoning a unit's HP, they might cost more weapon durability per strike. That sounds pretty good if obtaining weapons is not too difficult in the game.

 

• From what I've seen so far, the school setting, while somewhat unrealistic on its own (hopefully the game removes us from the combat academy for some reason, especially for many years as Edelgard seems to hint at in the E3 trailer) seems to be a very decent place to develop relationships in a strictly support sense. I prefer support conversations to be more "slice of life" than "in the heat of battle" because it allows for the characters to expound a little bit about themselves. With Echoes, what saved the "in the heat of battle" supports was the emotions of the voice actors. Having both Full VA and "slice of life", in-depth supports is a new experience, and one that I think is the best of both worlds.

 

• The Avatar has a backstory that allows for them to be an interesting support partner. No. Really. You know how other characters can just bring up something in their past, but Robin and Corrin both had some kind of amnesia and that it relegated them to being a wall for the other person to climb? Byleth's past as a mercenary allows them to draw experience from his past and gives him/her the opportunity to BE the one climbing the wall in supports. Not only that, Byleth is also the bridge character between Sothis - the imaginary suspiciously manakete-girl looking friend - and the rest of the cast, so the only way people can know about Sothis is through Byleth telling them about her. This makes for some potentially interesting Avatar-centric supports where they previously were too vanilla on average. Unless of course, this protagonist be silent. Which...is possible too, I guess. Some people think that's a good thing. I don't.

[Chase]

*bump*

 

These thoughts are going to center on some of the VERY RISKY POTENTIALLY UNCOMFORTABLE issues raised by Three Houses due to previous practices in the Fire Emblem franchise. While none of the scenarios are actually "graphic" in nature, they do lead to usage of the imagination and/or raise concerns when talking bout behaviors that are not considered appropriate by all or even most people today - so I'll be hiding these thoughts behind a spoiler tag so as to avoid discomfort.

 

Yes, we're talking about the Avatar and potential S-Supports here.

 

Spoiler

First, let's establish what we know about our army and the immediate details we have about "us."

 

Byleth is the son/daughter of a mercenary who, after some kind of event, awakens a strange power and meets Sothis, a mysterious being that only appears in his/her mind. Shortly after all of these events, Byleth randomly receives an offer to teach at Garreg Mach monastery, specifically the art of war. Garreg Mach monastery is the home of the Church of Seiros, as well as the church's own knights, which host the Officer's Academy - which is some sort of mish-mash of the United States' Army Academy at West Point/Naval Academy at Annapolis (universities that services those who wish to become officers in the US Armed Forces) or your country's equivalent, A Japanese High School setting, actual war deployment, and Hogwarts.

 

The two "risky" issues that Fire Emblem is teetering on the brink with due to previous franchise directions are these. Student-Teacher intimacy, and ....Japanese Rope Bondage..specifically involving those who have the appearance of a minor.

 

• Starting with the Japanese Rope Bondage thing, we look yet again at Sothis. Sothis' outfit design seems to have drawn attention from people who are criticizing outfit appearances, particularly because of how generally negative previous young manakete characters have been designed in the past ...well, specifically ONE of them... While Sothis seems to dress a bit more modestly than said manakete on the surface, people have pointed out that her outfit has drawn inspiration from the ornate designs found in Japan's bondage scene, which have been embraced by Western BDSM cultures. While Sothis may be 1000 years old or more, as usually is par for the course with dragons in Fire Emblem, she looks like a young girl and behaves like one to an extent.

 

Of the two topics, this one regarding Sothis seems to just be complaining for the sake of complaining. At the very least, it would seem like there is a misuse of the Japanese language when talking about the rope design found on Sothis' clothing, and that it could actually just mean "ornate tying" in the same sense that we in the west have names for different kinds of knots. If the rope IS significant to the plot (and it absolutely could be.... in every shot we see Sothis she seems to be on some kind of stone throne and may be unable to leave that place, perhaps being tied to it in some way), then the aesthetics have purpose and will have a satisfying resolution later in the game when we find/recruit/simply rescue her. Or perhaps she's some form of the Goddess that is bound not only literally but in terms of power and form.  Still, the issue that seems to be drawn here is not kinkshaming those who are into BDSM, but combining such a non-mainstream sexual activity that plays on power levels with children. So, it's easy to see where others are a bit concerned here.

 

• Speaking of power dynamics that may seem improper, Byleth being a teacher in a Fire Emblem game while also being the game's Avatar character has raised concerns that Awakening and Fates' S-Support mechanic will return in totality, including having children with other units. A plurality of the forces the Avatar will be fighting along side will be Byleth's own students, While some of the students may appear to be younger than Byleth, the bigger issue is that being able to S-Support someone in our class will normalize a normally very inappropriate relationship according to society because of the strings that are attached. This has spread even further to Female Byleth's default design, which gives her bare shoulders, arms, collarbones, and navel, along with impractical clothing from the waist down for combat, that fans allege is only there to sexualize Byleth as a character, which in a school setting would be cause for discomfort. Here's a list of some implications brought by student-teacher relationships.

1. It is unethical due to the immense amount of power a teacher has over a student's future. Teachers can use their status to take advantage of a student in this manner (i.e. exchanging grades for a student offering their body to the teacher for explicit purposes.)
2. It's a breeding ground for inequality in the school setting (A student who is in an intimate relationship with the teacher may receive favoritism and preferential treatment apart from the other students.)
3. It's a gateway to other offenses. (pedophilia)

There are only two reasons this makes sense to me, but I have to admit that execution could only make those who are nervous incredibly justified. Firstly, Fire Emblem hasn't been afraid to challenge the status quo here in the west (marrying siblings comes to mind), and lastly, that student-teacher relationships are a MODERN issue whereas things like Xander marrying Charlotte despite being the Crown Prince of Nohr and she being a commoner are seen as more of a past issue (even though we still have monarchies...beside the point.) Professors I know have talked about how they have annual seminars that touch on the importance of not getting into intimate relationships with their students - even with those who are well beyond the age of consent.

 

Admittedly, I am at peace with the possibility. If it happens, I feel like the story will create a general bond that is stronger than the initial "Teacher and Class" relationship we see with the characters so far. I believe the appropriate way to refer to our students is "our allies", just like one did when they played through Awakening - because the story will dramatically shift and the school is not truly the central setting of the story, but all of Fodlan is. I believe in my heart of hearts that the combat academy isn't supposed to be understood in the anime trope sense even though it will be and the game may not do itself any favors at certain points. I also think that our role as "Teacher" shouldn't be the end-all understanding of Byleth. - and I am most sure that no support is going to be written in a way that Byleth, yes, even well-endowed Female Byleth, is going to appear predatory.

 

[doombotmecha]

Oh Jesus Christ I totally missed the point about Sothis's outfit. Sometimes I really wonder about IS....