E3 2019: Class Is In Session In ‘Fire Emblem: Three Houses’
The next installment in the Fire Emblem franchise is right around the corner with Three Houses, the first mainline console game in the series since Wii’s Radiant Dawn in 2007, (or 2016’s excellent Tokyo Mirage Sessions if we’re including spin-offs). Ahead of its July 26 release, the strategy RPG’s Switch debut was heavily detailed during Nintendo’s E3 Treehouse presentation, showing off its school setting and the ways we’re able to interact with the students both both on and off the battlefield.
As Byleth, a professor at a military academy that enrolls students from three different kingdoms, players will take the unique role of mentor to their military units. Seemly expanding heavily on the social aspect of the game, each student can develop in a variety of ways depending on how you teach them. For example students will be inherently skilled at certain class types, such as magic, sword or axe wielding. However, if you feel like your current army is lacking coverage in a particular area, you can encourage your class to take up studying a new combat type. With enough lessons and a final examination, characters can eventually take up entirely new class types, replacing the Master Seal item that upgraded character classes in the past.
Beyond combat functions, getting to know your students has strong implications for both the present and the future of your time at the academy. Through optional conversations, figuring out the senders of confidential questions through a feedback box and addressing student concerns, their motivation in battle will increase alongside their trust in you. This is important going past graduation since as expected, the three kingdoms will eventually go to war following a five year time skip. As an attempt to avoid awkward and inappropriate classroom romance, it’s after the time skip that your character can romance their past students, which is still kind of creepy. Even creepier is that your relationship as student and teacher helps plant the seeds for future options, but this can be completely platonic. In fact, if you have students you were particularly fond of that are part of a house that you’re fighting, having enough influence with them can lead to them changing sides to fight at your side. This also goes for your faculty, since you can get to know other teachers and learn skills yourself from experts in areas you’re weak in.
If it wasn’t clear already, Three Houses will still be a turn based combat RPG at its core. The battlefield has also seen a variety of changes, both visually and through combat. When two units clash, the camera zooms in on the same location that they’re standing on, creating a seamless transition between the overhead grid and the combat animations. This also leads to more detailed environments during combat as opposed to the background changing to a generic field like in past games.
Speaking of past games, the combat borrows many mechanics from 2017’s 3DS remake, Fire Emblem: Shadow of Valentia. Like in Alm and Celica’s adventure, each unit will have special abilities that are tied to their weapon and class. Rather than drain HP, a controversial choice to say the least, weapon durability returns. This leads to weapons weakening when used, especially after using special attacks.
While Classic Mode returns, which brings back he permanent death mechanic that the series is known for, the turn wheel mechanic, now known as the Divine Pulse, returns. This allows you to rewind bad moves for a limited amount of times during a battle. This way, if an enemy gets a lucky critical hit that kills your favorite student at the end of an hour long battle, you can back up a few turns instead of losing the character permanently, (or soft resetting if we’re being honest). Or you can skip this problem altogether and turn off perma-death. Whatever.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is looking like an almost overwhelmingly large game, making it the first time we’re looking forward to summer school! With so many characters to meet and teach, three story paths and multiple ways to tackle challenges, the series’ Switch debut is likely to impress.
