Discussion Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Writeup

[Christi Junior]

This is very much the sequel to my Three Houses thread, so if you jump straight into this writeup without reading my thoughts and reflections on Three Houses, there might be some context missing. That said, I definitely tried to make this writeup hold up on its own, and I also made greater efforts to ensure it read more like one of my regular writeups, despite reusing a lot of stuff I originally wrote on the Fediverse.

Now, THIS is a game that really took me by surprise! Originally, I wasn't really interested in Fire Emblem: Three Hopes, despite being such a big Three Houses fan – to me it just seemed to be a Warriors-style Golden Route for Three Houses, and one of the things I respected about that game was the fact that it *didn't* give you some DLC Golden Route like Fates did, there's no way for all the main characters to have a happy ending or even survive. A Golden Route essentially invalidates all other routes and will almost inevitably be viewed as the True Ending, so that really wasn’t something I was interested to see happen to Three Houses. Also, while I don’t mind the Warriors/Musou-style hack and slash gameplay, that certainly wasn't a big selling point for me either.

Oh, and the game was announced during the Nintendo Direct where fucking XENOBLADE 3 was first revealed, so no points for guessing where all of my attention was focused for the next few weeks.

However, over time it turned out that Three Hopes was actually going to be an alternate history Three Houses, with 3 unique routes of its own, and with Byleth being much more of a side character or even an antagonist. The main character this time around is a brand new mercenary Avatar character, Shez, who is accompanied by a mysterious young boy named Arval who seemingly resides in her head and grants her supernatural powers – very similar to what Sothis does for Byleth in Three Houses. The story of Three Hopes quickly starts diverging from what went down in Three Houses, with it being Shez instead of Byleth who ends up rescuing the three house leaders, and who becomes part of the Officers Academy. This somehow causes a butterfly effect that eventually leads to big shakeups in the Adrestian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus AND the Leicester Alliance, and causes Fodlan’s great war to begin 2 years later than in Three Houses.

What REALLY sold me on this game though, was its eShop demo. It was really meaty, covering a fair few chapters, and it also allowed you to set up multiple save files so that you could try out each of the 3 routes, enabling you to easily get some 15 hours of gameplay out of it, which is more than a number of full-price releases offer. And your save data from the demo can be transferred over to the full game, which is always a welcome feature.

But of course, it was mainly the sheer *quality* of the game that the demo exposed me to which won me over. Three Hopes didn’t feel like a mere Warriors game with a FE:3H skin, hell, it didn’t even feel like some lesser 3H spinoff – this WAS Three Houses, only with Warriors gameplay and set in an alternate continuity. Everything about the writing and characterization rang true, and it just felt like such a real and authentic Three Houses experience that it for me instantly elevated Three Hopes to a must-buy game, as it essentially provided Three Houses with 3 brand new routes.

Not only that, Three Hopes develops and further expands the world of Three Houses in a way that feels completely natural and seamless. People you only heard about in the 2019 game, like Hilda’s brother Holst, or the fathers of Lorenz, Sylvain, Caspar, Linhardt and Bernadetta show up here as actual characters, and instantly feel like they’ve been here forever (I frequently find myself mistakenly thinking someone like Count Gloucester had already appeared in Three Houses). Underexplored bits of world building from Three Houses, like the threat from Sreng that Faerghus faces, or even details as minor as Annette and Lorenz having been classmates as the Royal School of Sorcery in Fhirdiad, also end up getting their fair share of attention. All these deep cut references just further underscore how Three Hopes feels like a love letter to fans of Three Houses – the more you were into that game, the more you will enjoy Three Hopes.

That said, it would be unfair to claim that Three Hopes only appeals to people who already loved Three Houses, because Hopes actually IMPROVES on the previous game in so many different ways:

- Fully Unique Routes: It's only the first 3 tutorial missions of the games that aren't unique to the House you picked, already by the last mission of the prologue you're getting into route-exclusive territory. This stands in sharp contrast to Three Houses, where basically the whole first half of the game is the same regardless of route, you just have a different party and see some different cutscenes depending on which house you chose.

- Much Better War Campaigns: The game getting so quickly into the War portion of the story also means that Fodlan's great war finally gets the treatment it deserves. Azure Moon aside, the war campaigns in Three Houses were pretty much smooth sailing, a Tim Tebow "All He Does Is Win"-style series of victories until the war is over, only this time the win streak was real, not just a meme. Edelgard literally wins the entire war in just 6 battles, (the Alliance is defeated by the second post-timeskip chapter). In Three Hopes, the war truly ebbs and flows, as you experience stunning triumphs, pyrrhic victories and surprise retreats. Shifting loyalties and shocking betrayals are also something you'll have to deal with, and while in Three Houses, Dimitri was the only Lord to truly have a character arc, in Three Hopes that kind of storytelling is much closer to being the norm for your Lords, with CLAUDE actually being the standout character this time around, even if not always for the right reasons (more on that later).

- Better cutscenes: Somehow Three Houses had uglier and choppier FMV cutscenes than Awakening and Fates (tho that trend did seem to begin with Echoes), but in Three Hopes the cutscenes look way better, and the game delivers some really epic and memorable action scenes.

- Better protagonist: Maybe this is a hot take, but I don't really like Byleth in Three Houses. Apart from some good moments in Azure Moon, her S-Support with Dimitri and some refreshingly ruthless kills, the character is just a creepy mute with some serious Mary Sue tendencies. I won't deny that female Byleth is very bangable, but as a character there really isn't much to latch onto. Shez is far from perfect, and I'm really not a fan of Fire Emblem avatar protagonists in general, but Shez at least actually speaks, has a backstory we get to take part in, and clear aims, not to mention something of a personality. Also, much less of a Mary Sue; I think a clear example of how Shez is handled differently from Byleth is the way Byleth is immediately appointed as a teacher by Rhea, while Shez just enrolls at the Officers Academy as a regular student. The character is comparable to someone like Robin in Awakening in terms of being pretty well implemented, so while I'm still not a fan of Avatar protagonists, I'd definitely say that Shez is one of the better ones.

- Better Byleth: And at the same time, despite playing a significantly smaller role than in Three Houses, I also like Byleth herself way more in this game! The character actually talks here, so that's a big positive right off the bat. It's honestly surprisingly neat to finally see her properly converse with the likes of Jeralt and Sothis. Other than that, you truly get see how Byleth earned the "Ashen Demon" title, like holy hell, the character comes across as such an unstoppable beast, and that's before she unlocks her Sothis powers or acquires the Sword of the Creator. Byleth is actually really fucking cool in Three Hopes, truly a case of less being more.

- No Monastery filler: The Base camp system in this game is literally EXACTLY what I wanted in Three Houses - a relatively small camp where you can train, develop and talk to your characters, not this massive area with lots of filler content, and then almost nothing worthwhile to do.

 

[Christi Junior]

Of course, there are also plenty of things that Three Houses does better: it has better Supports overall, way more customization and depth, and obviously, the Warriors gameplay isn't for everyone. That said, I'm super impressed by just how high-effort of a spin-off Three Hopes turned out to be, it's easily better than something like the much more hyped-up Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (and not just because the framerate is way more consistent).

As for the actual Warriors gameplay, it’s quite good: being able to seamlessly swap between your 4 deployed characters at any time (and command as many as 8 during the big story missions) ensures that the hack and slash gameplay feels a lot less mindless than it’d otherwise risk becoming, as you’re frequently swapping between characters and directing them towards new objectives or targets, taking advantage of the weapon triangle and other attributes in the process. And obviously, the whole Power Fantasy aspect of this type of game, letting you mow down hundreds of mooks with your overpowered warriors (who you’re usually also quite attached to due to the strong cast of characters) is inherently at least somewhat fun and exciting.

The character roster is on the whole pretty impressive, but there are some glaring shortcomings. I do think it’s awesome that the 4 Ashen Wolves characters, as well as Jeritza, have been promoted from DLC characters to base game characters, and the fact that each route boasts its own brand new exclusive playable character (Rodrigue for Dimitri’s route, Holst for Claude’s route, and Monica for Edelgard’s route) is also really cool. Playable

Spoiler

Jeralt (complete with Byleth and Leonie Supports)

was likewise a great surprise. However, all these newcomers make it all the more disappointing that a number of Three Houses characters have actually LOST their playable status. Now, Cyril was always one of the most disliked Three Houses characters, so he's no great loss I guess, and while I really like Alois, I think his very different role in this story at least somewhat justifies his lack of availability. But Hanneman no longer being playable, despite Manuela being available from the start Edelgard’s route post-timeskip? Nah, that’s just some bullshit! Anna is also the kind of character you’d REALLY expect to be playable in a game like this, especially since not only did she eventually become playable in Three Houses, she was apparently playable even in the first Fire Emblem Warriors game.

The bigger issue however has to do with the lack of true character variety. A game like Age of Calamity might have had a smaller roster, but every character there felt truly unique, and often had various gimmicks and quirks to further help them stand out. In Three Hopes, sure each character has his or her own set of special abilities and boons, but they’re generally not all that impactful, and it will be usually be whatever classes you select for them that most heavily impacts how they play. And wouldn’t you know it, Three Hopes has actually removed a number of fun classes that were available in Three Houses! And Three Houses wasn’t necessarily all that amazing in terms of class variety itself – for starters, there was no Manakete class (despite there being MULTIPLE excellent candidates among the characters available), and this relative lack of class creativity has had a negative ripple effect that ended up hitting Three Hopes pretty hard. There are still some neat unique classes mind you (Claude’s Wyvern Master class) is again a standout), but in terms of providing a wide variety of playstyles, Three Hopes kinda disappoints.

On the other hand, the game does still boast plenty of customization options, and allows you to train, build and utilize characters in some interesting ways. I tend to be pretty conservative with my own builds, but during my last couple of playthroughs I did become increasingly adventurous - for example turning Hubert from a Dark Bishop into a Dark Knight, after noticing that the Arrow of Indra lance would allow him to actually make full use of his mighty magic stat even as a physical attacker. Annette’s Hero's Relic functioning the same way similarly allowed the best Blue Lions girl to work great as a Wyvern Lord. Most interestingly, during my New Game + playthrough of Dimitri’s route (in order to unlock a specific bonus Paralogue with major lore implications) I decided to train the Boar in magic, and eventually found out that Holy Knight Dimitri with the right supportive skills (some gained from being trained in those mage classes) is quite the formidable user of Thoron, which provides him with an amazing ranged attack to go along with his incredible close combat prowess.

Basically, while Three Hopes could definitely stand to provide the player with more and more varied classes, as well as more unique characters, character building is still fun and rewarding, and also helps make the naturally somewhat grindy, repetitive Warriors formula more fun and interesting.

Also, this game’s soundtrack is absolutely wonderful, arguably SUPERIOR to that of Three Houses. Not only are the remixes of Three Houses songs almost uniformly excellent, but the new songs slap hard too (the Ashen Demon is such a fucking awesome track!). The absence of God-Shattering Star is of course a major omission, but the songs that ARE available are so good that I’m still inclined to favor this soundtrack over the one in Three Houses.

 

[Christi Junior]

Now for this game’s routes: In the case of Three Hopes, I went in the opposite order from my Three Houses playthrough, with Dimitri’s route (Azure Gleam) being the one I played first, while Azure Moon had been the last main Three Houses route I tackled (I only got around to the Church route much later). Obviously this was due to me loving Dimitri and the Blue Lions so much, and not knowing at the time whether I would even play through more than one Three Hopes route (lol), I obviously had to go with best boy.

Azure Gleam is an interesting beast. You could argue that Three Houses already did such an amazing job with Dimitri that Azure Gleam was very restricted in terms of what ground it could even cover without just rehashing Azure Moon, which had effectively used up all the best story material. In the end, Azure Gleam ends up feeling like a much more safe and traditional Fire Emblem story – while Azure Moon was the story of the game’s Lord character first descending into madness and becoming a deranged killer, followed up by his redemption arc, Azure Gleam is ultimately about a broken man gradually becoming willing to rely on others and beginning to heal. It’s still a good and powerful story, just not nearly as exciting as what preceded it. Furthermore, Dimitri’s story no longer stands head and shoulders above the rest, due to both Claude and Edelgard’s routes being handled way better in this game than in Three Houses.

That being said, the writers still do a commendable job given the constraints they had to deal with. Azure Gleam finally gives us a chance to see Dimitri the King in action, and we bear witness to how some of his signature policies, like rapprochement with Duscur and finding better uses for talented individuals without Crests, begin to bear fruits. Dimitri also finally gets the chance to openly confront Those Who Slither In The Dark, which was very cathartic after all this time.

However, what I found most satisfying was the fact that in Three Hopes, Dimitri’s character development and growth isn’t facilitated primarily by the Avatar character Shez, but by Dimitri’s closest friends Dedue and Felix. As much as I love Azure Moon, Dimitri’s change of heart being so heavily reliant on Byleth never did sit completely right with me – in Three Hopes, Dimitri’s actual turning point is way better handled, and involves the people closest to him. Felix especially benefits from the increased spotlight (Dedue’s importance to Dimitri was already well established in Three Houses), since a lot of Three Houses players straight up didn’t pick up on the fact that he’s supposed to be Dimitri’s best and closest friend and supporter, even as he’s also his sharpest critic. In Three Hopes however there can be no question how important their friendship is - and while I do think that Dimitri’s Supports in Three Hopes are overall disappointing, with a pretty one-sided, repetitive focus on how Dimitri is working himself into an early grave, his A-Support with Felix is absolutely FANTASTIC, finally enabling Felix to understand Dimitri’s struggles and transforming their friendship into what it was always meant to be.

I must also note that while Azure Gleam is not as obviously superior to its competition as Azure Moon was, there’s still a good case to be made for it being the best route in Three Hopes. For starters, it’s the single most unique route, sharply diverging from the path that both Claude and Edelgard’s routes take. Admittedly, certain characters do end up being pretty poorly handled (Hubert and Ferdinand are apparently both killed off-screen, like, really nigga?), and Edelgard fans will probably greatly resent her fate (she doesn’t actually die, since Three Hopes is loath to kill off any of the Lords, but she is reduced to a pretty pitiable state). Even so, I gotta say that after playing all three routes in Three Hopes, Azure Gleam definitely feels like a breath of fresh air.

Moreover, Azure Gleam EASILY boasts the largest number of Exclusive characters, not only due to being the only route that gives you access to the Church characters Seteth, Flayn and Catherine, but also because the Blue Lions students are the ones who are the most loyal to their country. I’ll expand on this point later in the writeup, but for now I’ll just say that while Azure Gleam will allow you to recruit a number of popular Black Eagles and Golden Deer characters, Ashe and Mercedes are the only Blue Lions that the other routes will have access to – and Mercedes still can’t be recruited on Claude’s route.

Finally, while Three Hopes doesn’t have a whole Bonus route like Three Houses did, the way you end up handling Byleth will change how the story develops (though the actual ending of the route only changes on Edelgard’s route). If you successfully

Spoiler

recruit Byleth and Jeralt

, you get a couple of extra chapters and complete the Arval storyline. However, if you fail to do this, Byleth will instead become Shez’s mortal enemy and kill a named character belonging to your faction. On Edelgard’s route, the sacrificial character is just about the safest and most uninspired choice possible. On Claude’s route, the character killed is someone you might actually care about, while the cutscene itself is really slick and well-directed. And in Azure Gleam, it’s an *actual playable character* of yours that Byleth murders. Now, this might at first sound like a bad thing, but in terms of storytelling it obviously makes for by far the most memorable and effective scene of the bunch, and it’s the event that has the greatest impact on your troops.

I’m still not sure that Azure Gleam is the “objectively” best route in Three Hopes, because this time around all three routes have clear strengths and weaknesses - and if you’re ready to fully embrace one specific interpretation of Claude’s route, it easily becomes the best-written of the bunch. However, I’ll certainly say that Azure Gleam is MY favorite route of the bunch, simply because I like Dimitri and the Blue Lions so much. It might not be the showstopper that Azure Moon was, but Three Hopes' Blue Lions campaign still does right by its wonderful cast and delivers a solid, satisfying story.

 

[Christi Junior]

When it comes to Claude’s route, Golden Wildfire, let me just start off by saying that I have some real mixed feelings about this one. The first half, and even much of the second half is EXCELLENT: Claude as a character is just so much better handled in this campaign than in all of Three Houses - not only do we this time actually see for ourselves many examples of his much-hyped schemes and cleverness, and get to see him enact sweeping reforms of the Leicester Alliance (which becomes the Leicester Federation over the course of the war), but he also suffers setbacks, personal tragedies, gets chewed out by his friends, and suffers from self-doubt and worry. You know, the kind of conflict and character development-inducing events that Dimitri went through in Azure Moon!

As a character, I appreciate him way more here than in Three Houses, where he just coasted on being funny, chill and charismatic.

Note that I’m praising Three Hopes Claude as a *character*, not as a person, and not just as any kind of character either, but specifically as a villain protagonist. Because if Golden Wildfire was written to be a Villain route, it was a seriously brilliant piece of pop culture writing, but if you were actually supposed to be *rooting* for Claude in the second half, something is seriously wrong with the writers.

Because Claude in part 2 is basically villainous Three Houses Edelgard, only more dishonest and with a worse vision for Fodlan. The dishonesty especially gets to me: Claude claims that he just wants to end the war as quickly as possible....by siding with the aggressors who started the war in the first place. And when said aggressors later in the campaign are about to suffer a crippling loss that could potentially end the war, Claude of course swoops in to save them and thereby prolong the war. He obviously has no interest in ending the war, unless it ends on his exact terms, and what he REALLY cares about is destroying the Central Church and murdering Rhea.

Even worse, Claude declares war on the Kingdom of Faerghus...for the crime of protecting the Church from the Empire's war of aggression, something they were honor-bond to do, and something even Claude admits was necessary in order to avoid a civil war. Like most left-liberals, Claude is extremely intolerant and authoritarian: he couldn't just be content with having the Leicester Federation break with the Central Church and have his own pozzed policies be blessed by a cucked Eastern Church, he has to wage a war of annihilation against Rhea, her church and anybody protecting them, to impose his values on the people of Fodlan by force.

I mean, Claude's open borders and multiculturalist vision for Fodland was always terrible, and much worse than Edelgard's ideal of meritocracy, but the one thing Claude in Three Houses always had over Edelgard was the fact that he wasn't willing to plunge Fodlan into war for the sake of his ideology. But that actually makes Three Hopes Claude much more believable to me, because liberal Globalists are ALWAYS willing to sacrifice countless innocent lives to make their retarded dreams a reality. If anything, it's the relative tolerance and pragmatism of Three Houses Claude that doesn't pass the smell test.

Oh, and Claude's also a snake when it comes to his new allies - just ask Randolph!

And I haven't even gotten into the Secret Almyran angle: Claude has the nerve to claim that he wasn't deceiving anyone by hiding his Almyran background, but realistically, is there ANY chance that he would be able to become leader of the Leicester Alliance if his very real Dual Loyalties had been common knowledge? If there is even a possibility that his Almyran background would have been politically inconvenient for him, him hiding that information is of course deception, and not deception for some higher purpose, but for his own selfish benefit.

And really, it's just so fucked up how this Secret Almyran outright BRAGS about how he wants to destroy all of Fodlan's traditions. Even from a pure-blooded son of Fodlan such words would be disturbing, arguably contemptible, but coming from someone born in a historical Enemy of Fodlan? Bruh...

Claude is literally "Secret Muslim Obama, the character".

So yeah, Three Hopes Claude is a genuinely great characters, but only under a specific set of circumstances – he only truly "works" if you take a very cynical view of him. Hell, in the final battle of his route he says that Fodlan is crying out for change. No Claude, not Fodlan, YOU are the one who desperately wants Fodlan to change! Or at least, change in the particular way you advocate.

In the end, Claude serves as a cautionary tale about the perils of race mixing - because of his mixed-race background, Claude is a self-described Outsider, who doesn't belong or feel at home anywhere. Rather than blame his coalburner mom, Claude instead decides that Traditions and Nations are the problem, leading to him wanting to tear down borders and create a world where EVERYONE is welcome....which effectively means a world without any sort of meaningful countries or communities. Insiders far outnumber Outsiders, but Claude never ever stops to ask how the Outsider-hostile system he hates so much actually works for the Insiders, the people who *do* have a place where they belong, a shared history and shared values thanks to the "intolerance" that hurts mystery meats like him. Nope, the system doesn't work for him specifically, so it all has to be destroyed. In stark contrast to Dimitri, Claude is relentless in his quest to tear down all Chesterton Fences that stand in his way, with catastrophic consequences for Fodlan.

Now, is there ANY chance that Three Hopes Claude was INTENTIONALLY written to be a Villain Protagonist with good publicity? My initial take was No, that such a view is just wishful thinking, reflecting a belief system that the Three Hopes writers surely do not share. However, this JewTube comment right here makes a strong case for the game actually being quite clear-eyed about Claude’s flaws – and furthermore, the more I’ve played the game, the more indicators there are that we’re not meant to uncritically buy what Claude is selling. And surprisingly, it’s Edelgard’s route that ends up delivering the most devastating indictment of Claude both as a leader and as a person.

 

[Christi Junior]

But before getting to that, I’d first like to bring attention to an observation of mine: while this is probably unintentional, the 3 routes in Three Hopes taken together actually end up being a great illustration of how Religion and Shared Values make nations strong and resilient. See, while Three Houses would let you recruit pretty much any character you wanted except for the House Lords and their retainers, the campaigns in Three Hopes only let you recruit a select few characters from the opposing factions, and only characters who have story justifications for jumping ship.

What's notable is the fact that almost none of the Blue Lions characters are ever willing to betray their country, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, which stands out as being the most religious and conservative country in Fodlan, and one with a strong culture of Chivalry. Across the two non-Blue Lions routes, only Ashe and Mercedes will ever be willing to change side, and only due to compelling family reasons - Ashe's adoptive father literally wages war against the Central Church that Faerghus supports, because said church killed his son (and Ashe's adoptive brother), while Mercedes's long-lost brother fights on the side of the Adrestian Empire. And these characters still feel HORRIBLE about betraying their homeland, especially Ashe.

Meanwhile you have the Leicester Alliance, the least religious, most diverse and "individualist" country in Fodlan. Their future leader is Claude, a mixed-race open borders spiteful mutant. And wouldn't you know it, while you play as the Empire waging war on Leicester, no less than *5* major Leicester characters will be willing to turn on their own country, over the course of just 2 major battles. Definitely reminds me of that "Nobody is willing to actually die for buttsex in Botswana" alt right saying. Needless to say, plenty of major Faerghus characters *will* prove willing to give their life for their country.

Recruitments definitely make way more sense in Three Hopes, and also makes the journey of the characters who *do* jump ship a lot more compelling. Best of all, it debunks a number of bullshit fan theories, like how Sylvain, Ingrid and Felix would all supposedly TOTALLY support Edelgard because they don't like the Crest system, while Felix is also openly hostile to the Chivalry culture. Yeah, no, absolute bullshit - they're all loyal to Dimitri, which anyone with a decent understanding of these characters knew all along, but now we actually have proof.

On the other hand, Ashe going where Lonato goes makes all the sense in the world, if anything he was *more* conflicted than I expected him to be. I know his dream of becoming a knight was important to him, but he IDOLOZES Lonato, and owes the man his life in multiple ways. During wiser times, even Union supporters could sympathize with Robert E. Lee and understand his reasons for turning his back on the US army he had long and faithfully served, and Ashe's "betrayal" is far more forgivable still. I also don't really fault Mercedes for choosing family over country.

Oh, and here’s ANOTHER Blue Lions W for you - before Three Houses came out, the House with the Waifu Lord, Edelgard's Black Eagles, was easily the one getting the most hype. Fast forward a few years to the announcement of the Three Hopes spinoff, when people have had plenty of time to become familiar with all 3 Houses, and would you look at that, now it's the Blue Lions that is EASILY the most popular faction.

Blue Lions Bros, we won!

 

[Christi Junior]

I had been in a real Three Houses mood lately, so after finishing the Edelgard route of Three Houses again, I went ahead and played through her route in Three Hopes as well, since it just so happened to be the one Three Hopes route I hadn't finished yet (I'd only done the prologue and the first two real chapters).

You could definitely argue that Edelgard more than Dimitri or even Claude truly NEEDED another campaign, given how Crimson Flower was such a half-assed, low-budget bonus route (still fun mind you, but definitely the weakest in the game). That said, while Scarlet Blaze (her Three Hopes campaign) is much lengthier and more fleshed out, it's also yet another mixed bag, more in terms of story than anything else.

To make Edelgard more sympathetic, Three Hopes has her break with the Mole People already in the prologue, which really doesn't make sense - if they were THAT well entrenched within the Empire, how come they get so easily purged? And if Edelgard could still fight and win her war without them, why make use of the bastards to begin with, given what they had done to her? There's no good explanation for why Three Hopes Edelgard acts so differently from her Three Houses counterpart - Monica being rescued shouldn't be *that* big of a deal, and Shez's mysterious powers should if anything make him look like a double agent for the Slitherers. In the end, Those Who Slither In The Dark being so easily dealt with just serves to make Hubert and Three Houses Edelgard look really bad, since them allying themselves with such a nasty faction to achieve their goals no longer looks like a necessary evil, just lazy and stupid.

That said, I really DO like how in Three Hopes, Edelgard and Hubert frame their war not as a secular crusade for Freedom and Equality, but as a Religious War, due to the Empire reviving the Southern Church as an imperial puppet and counterweight to Rhea's Central Church. Given the medieval setting, invoking religion and the Goddess to justify a war just feels way more appropriate, even if Edelgard isn't the first warmongering Emperor in Fire Emblem history to kick off an anti-religious crusade. I always thought Edelgard's story would be way more interesting if she just believed in a different version of the Goddess than the Church of Seiros, if she was a true believer who genuinely thought that Rhea had distorted and betrayed the teachings of the Goddess. Claude could then have been the token Fedora, while Dimitri was the Normalfag Seiros Respecter. Both Edelgard and Claude being Fedoras was always weird. At least in Three Hopes Edelgard pretends to still believe in the church, and just opposes Rhea's branch, so this version of Edelgard is definitely an improvement.

Scarlet Blaze has a lot more exclusive characters than Golden Wildfire did, but not as many as Azure Gleam. Its one brand new character is Monica, who while very cute (hence the picture) actually turned out to be a pretty lousy addition. For starters, Team Edelgard did NOT need another magic user, even without Monica it would already be the most mage-heavy faction in the game. But the much bigger problem is that Monica actually proves to be a TERRIBLE character - an Edelgard simp so extreme and unhinged that even Hubert seems taken aback by her Edelgard bootlicking fetish. In fact, Monica comes across as a parody of Hubert, she's everything people unfairly accuse Hubert of being, and more. And just like in Three Houses, what Edelgard’s campaign desperately needed was more people in her own faction willing to criticize her and call her out for the suffering that her actions cause, NOT more true believers. I have no idea why Monica was written this way, maybe because she's doomed to die in Three Houses, so the writers didn't want to make her too likable, and thus retroactively make Three Houses a lot more depressing? Well, mission fucking accomplished, I don't feel the least bit bad about Monica's fate in Three Houses now!

Something that is however really neat about Scarlet Blaze is that it ends up with a bunch of other Three Houses supporting characters that until this point seemed doomed to die in EVERY timeline actually surviving - Lonato, Gwendal, Randolph, Ladislava, they can ALL survive in on this specific route, and as someone who had played every single other route prior to Scarlet Blaze, I actually found that super refreshing! Not so refreshing is how many story beats Scarlet Blaze shares with Claude's route, since here too Claude ends up making common cause with Edelgard. That said, it's not like we have another Church Route on our hands here, as Scarlet Blaze still boasts plenty of wholly unique missions and storylines of its own.

There is also something really cool about the Black Eagles FINALLY getting some good cutscenes devoted to them, involving characters other than Edelgard. Ferdinand, Hubert, hell even Shamir get some really nice cutscene depictions here. Most notably, while Crimson Flower didn't ever get its own version of the TRUE Battle of the Eagle and Lion (and Deer), this time the big, defining free-for-all battle of Three Hopes is a Scarlet Blaze Exclusive (and yes, it can be a true free for all, since Claude is such a backstabbing bastard):

The route does get quite the weird ending, with Rhea and Thales seemingly killing each other, but only in a "Nobody Could have Survived That/Never Found The Body" kind of way, which by the laws of fiction would mean both of Edelgard's mortal enemies are actually still alive by the time the credits roll. Not a very definitive or satisfying ending. However, there is an alternate ending that is actually WAY more interesting...

 

[Christi Junior]

In Scarlet Blaze only, you failing to make nice with Byleth actually has a major impact on the whole war, not just Shez and Arval’s story - because somehow, a vengeful Byleth will successfully persuade Claude to betray Edelgard and wage war on the Empire! This means that the route will end with the Empire fighting both the Kingdom AND the Alliance, rather than fighting together with the Alliance against the Kingdom.

And boy, does this particular portion of Scarlet Blaze give Claude EXACTLY what he deserves:

- It first exposes him as an unprincipled backstabber, as he goes from fighting the Empire, to allying with them, to betraying them. And I thought Acheron was supposed to be the weathervane.

- Claude's claim to being a Master Tactician is firmly debunked, when the Almyran subversive has the brilliant idea to fight the Empire, AND the Kingdom, AND the Knights of Seiros, all at the same time. By the way, isn't his Alliance supposed to be the WEAKEST of Fodlan's 3 major powers? Honestly, I'd call this character derailment, if not for the fact that it's just so funny to imagine Claude buying into his own hype and dooming himself because of it.

- Once Claude openly betrays the Empire, he actually ends up being outsmarted by Hubert at every turn, since Edelgard's Edgelord never really trusted Claude, and had plenty of contingency plans ready for if/when Claude would show his true colors. Every single scheme hatched by Claude is quickly and completely neutralized by Hubert, and MAN, is it satisfying to see someone who used to be a borderline Gary Stu finally get put in his place.

- Claude is shown to be a nasty, low-quality person when confronted by his old classmates after the betrayal. Note how he gratuitously insults Ignatz, how he couldn't care less about his betrayal potentially harming Raphael's sister, and how his main problem with killing Marianne is Margrave Edmund getting cross with him.

Note that Dimitri and Edelgard show more decency and respect towards former friends who betray them than Claude shows the people that HE betrayed.

- And finally, after fully Exposing Claude as both an overrated strategist AND a faithless friend, you actually get to KILL HIM!!

And by the next Chapter, Claude is almost completely forgotten and unmourned.

Keep in mind, this is the *only* instance of one of the Lords dying in Three Hopes, ever. I'm still skeptical of the theory that Claude was INTENTIONALLY written as the Villain Protagonist of his own route, but after seeing how he’s portrayed in Scarlet Blaze, and being reminded of Three Hopes' generally positive depictions of Rhea, it suddenly does look a whole lot more likely,

At any rate, I'm grateful to Three Hopes for changing the public perception of Claude from Haha funny upside-down meme man who kills the CEO of Racism to back-stabbing war criminal and hypocrite, one who many FE fans now consider worse than Edelgard:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/357187-fire-emblem-warriors-three-hopes/80126492

At least you can make the case that Edelgard's reforms would improve Fodlan overall, we know damn well Fodlan won't be better off under Claude, and that's not even his priority. The only question is if you primarily view him as a subversive Globalist, or as a Secret Almyran out to open Fodlan up to an Almyran takeover.

Either way, this particular segment of Scarlet Blaze might well be the highlight of the route for me – as well as the greatest example of your actions meaningfully altering the story, besides the obvious Shez/Arval stuff.

 

[Christi Junior]

As for this game’s Based Morality, I’m inclined to say that this is another -2/+1, because Three Hopes feels very faithful to Three Houses for better and worse, and very much shares that game’s sensibilities and worldview. There are however a couple of differences that should be noted.

When it comes to gender ideology, I’d say Three Hopes is slightly worse overall. Not only is the obnoxious use of genderblob singular they language already made worse by both Shez AND Byleth being Avatar characters who can be of either sex depending on your choice (I usually went with Female, for obvious reasons), but the Goddamn trannylators also insisted on making Shez’s companion Arval a they/them. Now, Arval might indeed look *somewhat* androgynous, but he ultimately always seemed like a young boy/man to me, and indeed, towards the end of his storyline it’s confirmed without a doubt that he is indeed male. So naturally, later references to Arval will continue to use the now-debunked singular they pronouns. Trannylators are such fucking retarded, malicious hacks…

Three Hopes also features a pretty unwelcome retcon, which suggests that Shamir the sexy mercenary is a lesbian, or at the very least had a lesbian relationship in the past. Shamir is a quality Waifu, so that was certainly not something anybody sane wanted to hear. There’s also the case of the minor character Count Rowe being implied to be gay for Yuri (heh), but Rowe is not a remotely admirable or sympathetic man, so him being a homosexual is A-OK with me.

The game also lacks paired endings, so some of the faggotry from Three Houses is as a result not present here, but on the other hand the game also loses out on a number of very nice and wholesome straight relationships.

I've noticed that I never really addressed issues relating to Race in my Three Houses writeup, and that’s probably because, allowing for the inevitable anti-racist slant, both Three Houses and Three Hopes are not really objectionable at all in terms of how they handle it. The games only have a few dark-skinned playable characters, and none of them feel like cases of Forced Diversity at all, they feel like natural, warranted inclusions: Dedue is an excellent character and a much needed Duscur rep, Cyril isn’t really that bad once you get over his Rhea simping and is the only *openly* Almyran playable character, and Hapi is a delicious Choco girl who’s a great addition to 3H’s Waifu lineup. Also, Cyril was as previously mentioned cut from Three Hopes’ character roster, so “Representation” doesn’t really seem to have been a priority for this game.

The way 3H games depict racism is also about as tolerable as any fundamentally anti-racist story could be expected to handle these things: it’s rarely ever the main focus, not even when dealing with the Tragedy of Duscur, and the (White) kingdom of Faerghus laying waste to the (Black) country of Duscur. While Faerghus IS depicted as being in the wrong for what was done to Duscur, the racial angle is actually stubbornly ignored, and when Dimitri tries to make things right he doesn’t push identity politics garbage like White Guilt or Reparations, he instead works to rebuild trust and eventually establishes mutually beneficial relations with Duscur, with Duscur soldiers even ending up aiding Faerghus against Edelgard.

Racism is depicted as a mistake, not as an Unforgivable Sin; the cheerfully racist Hilda is still written to be likable, and Ingrid’s hatred for the people of Duscur (they’re literally listed as one of Ingrid's Dislikes on her character page) clearly comes from a place of deep hurt. The “redemption arc” of these characters also isn’t nearly as heavy-handed as one might have feared.

Hell, Three Hopes even makes it clear that while the people of Duscur weren’t the main culprits behind the murder of Dimitri’s father and his knights that ended up being remembered as the Tragedy of Duscur, there WERE Duscur individuals who were complicit in the atrocity. So basically, while Faerghus’s response was still excessive and unjust, it wasn't purely an expression of irrational bigotry, especially since most people are completely unaware of Those Who Slither In The Dark.

And of course, as I’ve alluded to at multiple points earlier in this writeup, Three Hopes is certainly what you could call “Accidentally Based”, given its depiction of Claude and a few other issues. As I also mentioned in my Xenoblade 3 writeup, I tend to only give games very limited credit for something like this (again, people have tried to meme fucking Helldivers 2, a Soyny game whose devs are openly Woke, into being Based), but I will say that if it’s ever confirmed that Three Hopes Claude really WAS written to be a villain protagonist, the game’s +1 score will instantly be upgraded to +2, maybe even a +3, given just how spicy the implications are.

Ultimately, Three Hopes as a game ended up being so much more than I expected it to be, and really solidified my love for the world of Three Houses, and especially its characters. It’s always delightful when a game ends up being such a positive surprise, and while Xenoblade 3 was my obvious 2022 GOTY, Three Hopes is nonetheless up there with Kirby and the Forgotten Land as one of the major Nintendo Switch highlights of 2022.

 

[Gridlock]

So basically Helldivers 2 is just another Baldur's Gate 3.
And that alternate ending route does sound amazing.

 

[PhantomXero1x]

Eh its just another milked out game just to keep the fe series up and going despite nintendos strange instance that its underated and not really that popular. Honestly its mid thats what it is. :/

 

[Christi Junior]

So basically Helldivers 2 is just another Baldur's Gate 3.

The Baldur's Gay 3 copes still amaze me: "If I like the game, then it's Based" has the same energy as the "if it makes my dick hard, then it's not gay" logic that Futafags and Femboyfags employ.