Fire Emblem: Three Houses is set to be released on the Nintendo Switch in less than two weeks (July 26th). If you’re like me and got excited about this game after watching the original trailer over a year ago, then kind of forgot about it until now, this overview is for you. This is going to be the first real Fire Emblem game released in over 4 years (Warriors doesn’t count). Because of this, we had been left with a ridiculous number of questions for quite a while. Over the past few weeks though, we received an overload of information on the game, and I am going to attempt to unpack everything you need to know before playing Three Houses.
Three Houses has a pre-established main character for us to play as (Although you can choose whether to be male or female) named Byleth, a mercenary with amnesia. While this is nothing short of a cliche for the series, that seems to be one of the few uncreative aspects of the game. After several unknown events, Byleth is recruited as an instructor at a prestigious military academy. At this military academy, there are three separate houses represented, The Black Eagles, The Blue Lions, and The Golden Deer.
Each group represents a different kingdom, who have sent their knights to be trained at this mutual institution. After briefly getting to know each group, you will choose a house to back up, and become their professor. This leads us to one of the main game mechanics, school life. Many YouTubers who have reviewed early copies of the game have compared it to the Persona series. Once you pick a house to instruct, you will then be in charge of maintaining, training, and caring for the students of said house. This will aid relationship status, support conversations, and battle effectiveness.
Being a Fire Emblem instructor/teacher is an original idea for the series, and I am personally stoked about it. There is no doubt that this game has the potential to produce more personal support conversations than its predecessors. The school aspect of this game is supposed to be just as, if not more important, than the battle portion. For me, this is a huge plus, and I cannot wait to dive into the story. However, for those of you who never watch support conversations and only play Fire Emblem games for the tactical battle, you can set the school sections to auto and only play through the game’s battles.
Another new feature to the game that strays from the original Fire Emblem formula; is that classes are not set in stone for characters. As their professor, you will be able to train characters to be whatever type of warrior you wish for them to become. You can even train them to wield two types of weaponry. While there is no customization to Byleth, it seems that the rest of this game has a plethora of ways which we can make it our own.
That’s about all we know concerning the gameplay, without getting into story spoilers (Which I have been avoiding like the plague). Fire Emblem: Three Houses is set to release on July 26th, 2019 with a standard edition, and a Seasons of Warfare edition. The Season’s of Warfare edition will run for $100, coming with a sound selection CD, calendar, and artbook. You can preorder both versions of the game here, and get a slightly more in-depth look at the newest installment to the Fire Emblem series.
