#also can we take a moment to appreciate that no-one called dimitri crazy or insane or evil for hallucinations or psychosis

[creativesplat]

Have a Dimitri because juggling hyper fixations is almost all I do now.

[natsspammityspamspamham]

I HAVE FINISHED ALL THE ROUTES OF FE THREE HOUSES (for now) - SPOILERS

There’s DLC saying there will be new content and new characters and all of that starting April 30th 2020. I just thought that “new content”?! DID YOU MEAN NEW ROUTE?! I’m sorry for being dumb.

However, THIS LINK indicates that there will be a “Completely” new story.

This new update (the free one) will offer LUNATIC MODE for all ya crazy people.

https://fireemblem.nintendo.com/three-houses/downloadable-content/

 Each takes about 20-25 hours depending on the time you want to spend grinding and/or exploring. If you read through every line and wait for the voice actors to finish every line, maybe it’ll take you 70 or something.

The storyline of this game was such a step up from Fates partially because the Fates storyline was shit, we all knew it, and I still enjoyed it despite having a seemingly bland cast and a terrible story. On the other hand, your weapons don’t run out of ammo. This game was vastly different with no weapon triangle, pair-ups, and all that other stuff from Awakening and Fates. Keep in mind, I’m a filthy casual that’s only played Shadow Dragon, Awakening, and Fates.

This game was so much fun. If you want to enjoy it for yourself, don’t read on because there are plenty of spoilers for the whole family!

This is the game in a nutshell: Which of you likeable people shall I kill? Yes, I find Edelgard likeable. 

Church of Seiros (Normal/Casual - Black Eagles then decide not to side with Edelgard)

This route was my first. I made a mistake of not recruiting anyone else. It was a little sad without an overpowered house leader (I’m looking at you, Claude). I didn’t like Rhea. I accidentally chose this route. I wouldn’t mind doing it again, but again, I don’t like Rhea.

I played it on casual to get used to the mechanics. That and I’m a filthy casual.

I feel like this is probably my least favourite route because of the absence of a house leader and because I was so ignorant as to not recruit anyone from the other houses. I played as a male character. I chose Petra at the end. She’s so sweet and nice. She is everything that I stand for.

I would give it a solid 7/10.

Black Eagles (Normal/Classic - Choose to go against the church)

Ah, revolution. Go against the church, side with the people who murdered your father, but then realize it’s too late to go back and that Rhea. Weirdly, it made sense to me at the time considering how I felt a strong sense of betrayal towards Rhea anyway. I recruited everyone I wanted (Ingrid, Felix, Sylvain) except for Annette and Lysithea I think? I’m pretty sure I also got Marianne. I didn’t manage to get Ashe, but after a playthrough of Blue Lions, I now realize I missed out on nothing. I couldn’t use the guy. I just got Bernadetta, and despite being under levelled, she fulfilled his role and better.

Edelgard is the second strongest out of the house leaders I think. This route was fun because it was the one full of revolution. It was what would be considered as “turning evil for the sake of good”. I just remember really enjoying the gameplay and defeating Dimitri. I, however, didn’t appreciate Edelgard just stealing the last moment and killing Dimitri. You have a choice to kill Claude. In the end, Claude can live on pretty much all routes.

Again, I really enjoyed this route. I would definitely play and again, and I will.  Married Edelgard with a female avatar.

Golden Deer (Normal/Classic - Fear the Deer - This is about as neutral as you can get for now)

This is arguably as neutral as you can get... for now. Claude is a great unit, a great guy, and Joe is so devoted to this role. I played in both Japanese and English (switched whenever I turned on the system). I did kind of prefer Toshi’s interpretation at times, but Joe had a ton of good moments where I preferred his voice as well. For one, I feel like Toshi has far more experience with confession scenes, so when I chose Claude in the end, Toshi delivered better there, but the localization did wonders for Joe as well. The script changes made sure that Claude became the character that everyone knows and loves.

Gameplay-wise, at this point, I just recruited all my guys and gals from the other houses and ignored A TON of the Golden Deer, and I feel no remorse. They’re alive and kicking... just not on the field. I got a ton of my Black Eagles (Dorothea, Caspar, Linhardt, Petra) and a ton of my Blue Lions (Felix, Ingrid, Sylvain, and probably a few others I’m not remembering).

Overall, I think this was my favourite route because Claude was awesome, so overpowered with his relic, and he’s just an awesome guy that should’ve been bi but the confession end card was drawn with only the female avatar which makes Edelgard the only confirmed bi out of the three.

Blue Lions (Normal/Classic - STRONG OOF)

After being scolded on Tumblr for not understanding Dimitri, I went and did the Blue Lions route!

I called this guy insane and got backlash. Let me put it this way, the Black Eagles route cuts him out to be a real big villain. He’s so fixated on revenge that he’s blinded. He causes the deaths of a lot of his former classmates with little to no remorse.

But on this route? Ah, well, he’s still like that for the first half post-time skip. 

This route is rich in backstory. It paints Edelgard is such a bad light which I enjoy so much. Do I like her? Yes. But do I think this is necessary? Absolutely. That last scene was “poetic cinema”. The way the dagger worked and all those broken dreams. All the NPC deaths and things like that. Nice.

I’m still not a huge fan of Dimitri. Gameplay-wise, he was the worst and hardest to use out of the three. I’m also saying that because that person almost ruined this whole route for me.

_____________________

A quick ramble about voice actors for this game:

YOU WOULDN’T BELIEVE HOW HAPPY I WAS TO FIND OUT WE GOT TO HEAR THE JAPANESE VOICES!

As a seiyuu fan, I was ecstatic. However, I did kind of miss that Hosoya didn’t appear in this one. He was Morgan in Awakening and Shigure in Fates. I listened to both casts, and besides a few voices (Japanese Bernadetta killed my ears), I loved both sides no matter how different they were. While some delivery was a little weak (nothing major), I found that it was generally very well-done.

Both Ai Kakuma and Tara Platt stood out to me as Edelgard. For one, Tara Platt is immensely talented. I didn’t hear Ai Kakuma around as much (I only heard her make an appearance in Kimetsu no Yaiba).

Both Kaito Ishikawa and Chris Hackney were great as Dimitri, but I think Chris gave him a bit more of a “snobbish king” kind of feel which was probably better for my perception of his character.

Joe Zieja was iconic as Claude but so was Toshiyuki Toyonaga. Toshi was far suaver and flirtatious and pulling off more of that “otome game” kind of vibe while Joe has contributed so much to the fandom outside of the actual game. It’s much harder to choose between the two for this one.

Both sides really bring it their all, and while I do have my preferences, I would be fine either way.

Of course, these lines weren’t really translated perfectly in the dub. From what I hear, there are a ton of nuances and the way that they spoke that didn’t go both ways. In the end, the gist was the same.

I might ramble further in a separate post because I wanna.