Kaser Focus: Concerning Fire Emblem Warriors

July 30, 2022

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Kaser Focus: Concerning Fire Emblem Warriors

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Yeah, I’m going to talk about Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes — only a little bit late. I got the game on launch day, and considered doing a review of it. But then I got distracted by other things, and kept telling myself to play a bit more of it. Now, here it is, a month later, and I’m not sure where the time went. So, to keep myself from looking like too much of a Johnny-Come-Lately, I’ll just give my short thoughts here. I feel like it’s been a relatively slow week anyway.

In short, Three Hopes is a fantastic new spin on Three Houses’ plot. It offers space to explore characters and storylines for which the original game had no space. Its gameplay isn’t for everyone — it tries to add a certain level of strategy to the Musou gameplay in order to fit the Fire Emblem brand which I feel is unnecessary. And I think it lacks Three Houses’ replayability. But it’s still fun, and offers yet more facets to a tale that was all about perspective and who’s telling the story. It’s also cool to see Byleth, the previous player character, as an antagonist. Three Hopes emphasizes something Three Houses didn’t address to my satisfaction: How terrifying it is that a mercenary of indeterminate origin or loyalty has a direct, unassailable connection with the world’s deity.

If the game has one major weak point, it’s Shez, the player character. I understand their intended role in the story: A point of entry for new players, and a jack-of-all-trades to fill Byleth’s spot. But Shez feels like they’ve been shoehorned into the story and it’s not natural. In Three Houses, for example, Byleth had to work for years to gain Black Eagle’s mage Hubert’s trust, and yet he’s chummy with Shez almost immediately. I would have enjoyed the game more if the stories focused on the three lord characters — Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude — and showed how they handled themselves without Byleth or Shez acting as their moral compass. It seems like a minor point, but I honestly got tired of Shez after a few chapters of one route.

In actual game news, the Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic remake is reportedly on ice. I’m not necessarily weeping for it, but I do wonder what’s going on with it. How will one remake one of the most interesting RPGs of all time? Perhaps Aspyr themselves are asking that question. We also got to see some new titles from Annapurna, and I’m all about the new dino game The Lost Wild. Finally, a new rumor is rolling around that GTA VI will feature a female character, and let it be known that I asked for this four years ago — so I’m happy! As for me, I’m going to try out Xenoblade Chronicles 3 this week. My husband, a big Digimon fan, also promises to let me know if Digimon Survive is any good.