Fire Emblem: Three Houses

200 hours
It is the best switch game no doubt, and fav personal game ever so far for me.

This game is absolutely incredible. It's a niche game, which is why it took me a long time to finally sink my teeth into it, but once I did I didn't want it to stop. This is my first fire emblem game so I want to cater my review to new comers of the franchise just as myself, as veterans of the series don't need my take on this game. The game to start of feels overwhelming for sure, so I recommend your first play through be on the easiest difficulty to ease you in. I also suggest doing some research for what house you want to start with, and after choosing do some research as to how to build your students and who to recruit as well. After a bit of following some simple guides you'll get the hang of the game and you'll fall into a routine and you'll be fine. Now as for the review of the game itself. It runs extremely well and the visuals are amazing. The gameplay is also really satisfying seeing the progression of everyone you're training. The best part is definitely the story and the characters. There's a whole bunch of lore for the story, the world, all the characters it's amazing. The characters themselves have great backstories to them, and the overarching plot is also great. The best part of it I'd say is how everything is connected. The characters seems as though they are just thrown together, and as time passes and you play more, you can clearly see the thought put into everything to have everything develop and interconnect together. The only reason this doesn't get a 10 is that to actually experience everything this game has to offer, you need to play through this very long game 4 separate times, and having the first half be the same every time. It just sucks that to learn everything about this incredible story and world you have to go through a tedious process. This is a game I will come back to after a long while multiple times to fully play each route, so it adds replayability I guess, but it does suck you dont get everything in your first playthrough which will be the most special. For newcomers wondering I went with Golden Deer and I do recommend it as the characters are incredible here from my view and you get a very nice picture of the overall plot

Not as fun as the others in my opinion.

Favourite Strategy game of all time.

Nintendo really pulled everything out for this one. The game's main drawn comes from the large cast of morally gray, complex characters. This game is really an example of how video games as a medium can support a humongous cast of characters and still offer the time it takes to get you to care about all of them. 99.5% of all the dialogue is voiced (and voiced well) so it feels like your watching real people talk instead of just dialogue boxes flying across the screen. Even characters that appear as one-note end up having all these complex layers once you get to know them. I almost killed off Lorenz on purpose when I first started the game, but he ended becoming one of my favorites because of the development he gets in his support conversations.

The actual gameplay part of the game is very engaging as well. It's rewards smart tactics and punishes bad decisions in ways that may sense. Every class in the game feels useful and like it can play a role in whatever strategy you cook up in your head. Also having the ability to teach students different skills helps allow more creative and unconventional tactics not possible in older Fire Emblem titles. This mechanic also ties in organically to the story and it makes you feel like you're the effective teacher the game paints you as. Fire Emblem purists may disagree, but I think that divine pulse is a very well welcomed mechanic to the game. It allows the player to make mistakes and learn from them, while also not being prone to abuse since you can only use it a limited number of time. Also, most people just reset their console when a unit died so this just makes the game's flow more natural for those players.

The game is super replayable with 4 different paths that offer different perspectives on the story unfolding, and they're each as long as one standalone game. Admittedly, the first half of each path have the same exact missions, but the different cast of characters you get with each playthrough makes it feel fresh.

All in all, this is the must play RPG for the Switch.

9 just bc the monastery parts were too long