QS stands for “Quickshot”, a series of short form review/preview/opinion articles.
I’m a big fan of Warriors-style games (or known as Musou in Japan). These games have basically craved out their own genre by this point, inspiring hundreds of sequels and spin-offs. There’s two different Warriors games based off of The Legend of Zelda, four games based off of the pirate anime One Piece, nine mainline entries, over six side series entries, four collaboration titles (not counting expanded re-releases), an all-stars celebration crossover, and so much more. It’s genuinely a huge part of the gaming landscape, though the style of gameplay is not for everyone.
The basic gist of a Warriors game is as follows: Controlling a single all-powerful warrior, you charge across a sprawling battlefield destroying thousands of hapless mooks in your path. Mashing through devastating combos and special attacks, you clear an entire enemy army by yourself, seizing the opponent’s bases and taking control of the battlefield piece by piece. It’s got spectacle and style in spades, deep combat systems, rocking guitar-led soundtracks, and…admittedly, not much else of substance. What you see is what you get, for the most part.
Not every single Warriors game is super shallow, though, and the most recent exception to that rule is Fire Emblem Three Hopes. The game is a pseudo-sequel/what-if scenario set in the world of 2019’s Fire Emblem Three Houses, and starring the same set of characters (plus a few bonus surprises). It’s clearly Warriors inspired, but it also leans heavily on gameplay mechanics and precedents set by its precursor. The end result, then, is a very good Fire Emblem game…but a starkly lackluster Warriors game, which severely hurts the overall fun-factor.
All of the positives from Three Houses carry over into Three Hopes, and the game is clearly a labor of love. Almost all of the characters are just as engaging, well-developed, and extraordinarily well-acted as they’ve always been. The game has a charming and unique art style, and the soundtrack is still as great as before. The strategy-focused gameplay has been honed and refined, and it’s very welcome to see the return of the weapon triangle. Also, just like Three Houses, there’s a boatload of stuff to do in between battles, like bonding with teammates and chatting up the members of your army.
Of course, all of Three Houses‘s negatives carry over into Three Hopes as well. The intricate and gargantuan amount of worldbuilding far outstrips the writer’s capability to weave a compelling story that puts it all to good use. Many characters (while excellent in side content and support conversations) feel like little more than walking clichés and catchphrases than real human beings, and they have laughably minimal impact on anything in the main story. The class variety leaves much to be desired (alongside the frustrating male/female class divide), one-on-one party chats are as obtuse and frustrating as always, and the sparse presentation of the main story still makes it difficult to get invested.
Above all, though, the game simply fails to truly live up to the promise of a Warriors game. Instead of thousands of enemies on screen, you’ll be lucky to find one hundred at any given time. Instead of blitzing across the battlefield, the game is markedly slower-paced, and many enemies are either tanky and/or frequently activate super armor to render themselves immune to your attacks, and they do this seemingly at random. The game also only runs at 30 FPS (at max), which is rough for an action game. There’s a lackluster new game plus mode as well, that discourages replayability (a sin for a Warriors game).
And this isn’t the Nintendo Switch’s fault either for being a weaker gaming system. Several years ago we received Fire Emblem Warriors, the first game to marry these two franchises together. It has extremely fast-paced and twitch-reflex gameplay. It runs at a mostly consistent 60 FPS. It can handle a thousand goons on screen at once for full bombastic spectacle. It has hundreds of hours of replayable missions and battles which unlock after the campaign, and give you rewards hand-over-fist.
So, is Fire Emblem Three Hopes a good game? Yeah, it is, definitely. It’s quite a bit of fun, and there’s a lot to love if you’re a Fire Emblem fan. Is it amazing? No. Is it worth recommending if you’re a fan of Warriors games exclusively? Honestly, I don’t think it is. The disparity is just too much, I think. It’s significantly more of a Fire Emblem game than a Warriors game, and I think that’s to the game’s overall detriment and fun value. Especially since it’s so closely related to Three Houses, out of all Fire Emblem games.
Now, Fire Emblem Warriors, on the other hand………………(to be continued next week)
The Contrarian Corner 