Fire Emblem: Three Houses Review (Switch)

Fire Emblem: Three Houses puts you in the shoes of a new professor at a monastery turned training academy for the three rival nations that have divided the continent of Fodlan into three kingdoms. Although at the beginning of the game they're at peace, a conflict engulfs the entire landmass after just a few months.

Ruled by the Church of Seiros, the Garreg Mach Monastery is a neutral territory where officers of the three houses – the Adrestian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance are training in the art of war.

You play as Byleth, a young mercenary who will act as a teacher to one of the three houses of the Officers Academy. Choosing which house to rule will determine narrative until the end of that game, as each house has a different path and events unfold differently.

Without spoiling the story, I'd like to point out that the Golden Deer path is the most lore-heavy, while the Blue Lions path will reveal the least from the backstory. The best way to experience Fire Emblem: Three Houses is to play with each house, but I realize that few have time to invest 300 hours in a single game, so choose whichever house you feel like it represents your playstyle.

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Three Houses introduces a handful of new gameplay mechanics such as the combination between the combat and social phases. During the social phase, you'll train your students, learn about their personal lives and cultivate their strengths and take advantage of their weaknesses, if they don't belong to your house.

Each house is represented by eight students, but throughout the game, players can recruit students from the opposite houses if they meet their requirements related to weapons and stat levels. Some students can't be recruited no matter what, while others are easier to recruit by repeatedly gifting them various objects that you find throughout the monastery premises.

The catch is that you're never shown the exact requirements to recruit a character, just the stats that you need to boost. Apart from socializing with the students and other school teachers, Byleth can fish, garden, and train various skills.

Every month you're entrusted with a main mission that you must complete in the last Sunday of the month. The combat phase usually happens at the end of the week and sometimes involves secondary quests offered by students from your house or just training missions that will award you and your students experience, money and rare items.

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If you've played other Fire Emblem game, you'll feel right at home in Three Houses. Turn-based battles are the bread and butter of the game, but unlike previous installments in the series, characters can use any weapon they want. However, you'll discover that some are better at using ranged weapons, while others prefer magic or melee combat. As your students become more proficient with certain skills, they can take so-called Certification Exams and switch to a different class that gives them buffs and makes them more powerful.

Battalions are making a comeback, as each character can have one attached to them, which usually are meant to weaken enemies or boost allies. I found battalions quite powerful in the second part of the game and a worthy investment, so don't be afraid to use them when shit hits the fan.

The alternation between school and combat phases is exactly what a game of such magnitude needs. The social aspect may sound boring at first glance, but I couldn't get enough of it. Luckily, since there as so many different activities that you can tackle during the school phase, this has become the juicier part of the game.

That's not so say that combat has been overlooked, on the contrary. Battles have been greatly polished and now offer great flexibility for newcomers to the franchise or turn-based strategy genre. There is so much variation when it comes to specializations that each battle can be approached differently depending on the roster you bring. A mix of flying units, archers and cavalry are great for battles where you need to be very mobile, while a mix of heavy armor units and mages is excellent for defending certain positions.

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The visual and audio presentation is impeccable, although I really need to complain about the textures which are bad even for a Nintendo Switch game. The character models, on the other hand, are top-notch, and the same goes for the soundtrack, which is short and quite memorable.

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