Now that the game just got a demo, are you gonna try it? If you have, what did you think of it? Share your thoughts!
Fire Emblem Three Hopes: Demo Impressions
- Thread starter Azure Sage
- Start date
Threads relating to the Fire Emblem series.
Alrighty, played the demo for a while now, and I'm very pleasantly surprised to say that I have no complaints so far.
The game looks and runs nice (for a Switch game, of course), first and foremost. Coming from how frustratingly bad Age of Calamity's performance was, I'm glad to see things smoothed out as best as they can be smoothed out given the hardware. Load times are noticeably short. Compare the load times to Three Houses and ohoho, it's really nice.
The gameplay feels much more faithful to classic musou in map design and other mechanics, which is very nice to see. I like how thoroughly elements from Fire Emblem have been mixed with the customization options for each characters. Feels a lot more well-thought-out than the first FEW game. Musou gameplay is almost always good, so there's not much else to say there, though adding combat arts how they did is a cool touch.
As far as new additions go, I especially like the new base camp hubs. If you're gonna have a hub, best to keep it streamlined so the player's time isn't wasted doing literally nothing. Three Houses had this problem big time with the monastery. As far as I can tell it's absent in Three Hopes, and I hope it stays that way. Half the play time shouldn't be mindless fluff, whether it's mainline FE or a spinoff. That's not the main attraction here, lol.
The story has been interesting so far. I'm still very early on (doing Blue Lions for a first run) but the vibes I'm getting are that it's gonna be something nobody was really expecting. In a good way. Age of Calamity's plot was unexpected and tripped over itself because of that. Hopefully (heh), this one doesn't make the same mistakes.
Music is great. The theme that plays for bosses in particular is fantastic. I'm glad they didn't hold back and actually threw some heavy instrumentation in there. It's not pure metal by any means, but it's a nice mix of the original tracks and a heavier vibe.
So that's it for now. I've only played about a couple hours so far. Looking forward to more. Seems like quite the meaty demo.
The game looks and runs nice (for a Switch game, of course), first and foremost. Coming from how frustratingly bad Age of Calamity's performance was, I'm glad to see things smoothed out as best as they can be smoothed out given the hardware. Load times are noticeably short. Compare the load times to Three Houses and ohoho, it's really nice.
The gameplay feels much more faithful to classic musou in map design and other mechanics, which is very nice to see. I like how thoroughly elements from Fire Emblem have been mixed with the customization options for each characters. Feels a lot more well-thought-out than the first FEW game. Musou gameplay is almost always good, so there's not much else to say there, though adding combat arts how they did is a cool touch.
As far as new additions go, I especially like the new base camp hubs. If you're gonna have a hub, best to keep it streamlined so the player's time isn't wasted doing literally nothing. Three Houses had this problem big time with the monastery. As far as I can tell it's absent in Three Hopes, and I hope it stays that way. Half the play time shouldn't be mindless fluff, whether it's mainline FE or a spinoff. That's not the main attraction here, lol.
The story has been interesting so far. I'm still very early on (doing Blue Lions for a first run) but the vibes I'm getting are that it's gonna be something nobody was really expecting. In a good way. Age of Calamity's plot was unexpected and tripped over itself because of that. Hopefully (heh), this one doesn't make the same mistakes.
Music is great. The theme that plays for bosses in particular is fantastic. I'm glad they didn't hold back and actually threw some heavy instrumentation in there. It's not pure metal by any means, but it's a nice mix of the original tracks and a heavier vibe.
So that's it for now. I've only played about a couple hours so far. Looking forward to more. Seems like quite the meaty demo.
I haven't quite reached the end of the demo yet, but I feel ready to share my thoughts.
This game isn't as immediately satisfying as AoC was. In fact, it's much closer to HW than AoC, which is a bit disappointing. I felt that AoC was such a massive improvement on the Warriors formula as a whole, so this feels like backpedaling. A lot of the good QoL is gone, but some still remains such as automatic material pick-ups. One of the biggest losses I've been feeling is the removal of the backflip and the way you strafe around targeted enemies. Now, backrolling turns you away from the enemy, and that distinction is a big deal in a fast-paced action game. Also, there is no longer an option to turn off the way the camera tracks back behind you when moving after letting go of the stick. That always bugs me a lot. When I move the camera, I want it to stay where I faced it until I move it again. This just makes me leave my thumb on the stick longer and it takes some of my focus away. I don't want the camera to follow behind me. Not being able to turn that off has been very aggravating.
The pacing here is also kind of unsatisfactory. It's taken the game roughly 5 hours and four whole story stages to finally hand over the reigns and let me customize my units and do what I want. Until now I've been just swept along by whatever's been happening and I haven't been able to make my own pace at all. I wanted to be able to do this stuff a lot sooner. It felt like the entire prologue was just one long tutorial. Also, I'm unhappy about battle ranks returning, though that was something we already knew about. The time requirement for S rank is always my worst enemy. It's hard to enjoy the battle with a deadline looming over you for the best loot. It always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
All that said, I'm still having some fun. The gameplay still slaps, as Warriors games tend to. It's kind of hard to hit weak point gauges when most of your strong attacks knock enemies back out of your range, but it's still been fun. I like that combat arts and spells are like customizable runes and rods from AoC, so even though movesets are determined by class, there's still some variety that's in your control. Also, the class system and stuff all following exp and upgrade paths is neat, and it's a good substitute for the old badge system. It's also worth noting that ordering your allies to attack enemies and take keeps is ridiculously effective, and leaving tasks up to your allies' AI is actually viable now. They even collect drops for you. However, sometimes I've noticed that ordering your allies to stand and wait in specific spots... doesn't work. They tend to just leave and go after the most exciting thing happening on the map at the moment after they reach their destination, so like, there's not much point in trying to preemptively place them in strategic spots. That's a shame and a really weird oversight for a strategic series like FE.
The music is incredibly good thus far, as expected. The story seems like it's taking some weird turns, almost like they're trying too hard to make it different from Three Houses, but I appreciate the effort and I am intrigued by the new stuff. I started with Golden Wildfire. Also I really love the dialogue, it's very entertaining, and the voice cast is doing a stellar job with it.
However. And this is a Big However. The story paths are not playable simultaneously. It's looking like they're locked to separate files. And there also doesn't seem to be any cross-house recruitment. And from what I can tell there isn't an overarching free play mode where you can just bring everything you earned in each route all together. This is a massive blow to my excitement for the game and the exact opposite of what I wanted to see. In fact, this is Exactly what I Didn't want to see. I am extremely upset about this, and if it turns out you have to restart a route once you reach the end of it just like in Three Houses, that will be the final nail in the coffin for me and I will drop the game after finishing the stories. I'll just return to AoC for my Warriors fix (which still feels like a better play at this point anyway). I really cannot deal with this nonsense again, especially in a Warriors setting. If you still get a postgame in each route and you can keep playing with what you have, even if it's all exclusive to whatever file and route you're playing, I can probably manage to stomach that. But if they ditch postgame for forced new game plus again, that'll be the end of it for me.
So in conclusion, I am cautious and on edge for the mechanics of the full game. It's not giving me a reason to be optimistic yet, but I really wanna give it a chanceand i preordered it already anyway and I want to like it since I liked the cast of 3H so much. It's already below AoC, but still already far above the og FEW. I really do think these spin-offs are better when they expand on one game instead of trying to make it about the whole series.
This game isn't as immediately satisfying as AoC was. In fact, it's much closer to HW than AoC, which is a bit disappointing. I felt that AoC was such a massive improvement on the Warriors formula as a whole, so this feels like backpedaling. A lot of the good QoL is gone, but some still remains such as automatic material pick-ups. One of the biggest losses I've been feeling is the removal of the backflip and the way you strafe around targeted enemies. Now, backrolling turns you away from the enemy, and that distinction is a big deal in a fast-paced action game. Also, there is no longer an option to turn off the way the camera tracks back behind you when moving after letting go of the stick. That always bugs me a lot. When I move the camera, I want it to stay where I faced it until I move it again. This just makes me leave my thumb on the stick longer and it takes some of my focus away. I don't want the camera to follow behind me. Not being able to turn that off has been very aggravating.
The pacing here is also kind of unsatisfactory. It's taken the game roughly 5 hours and four whole story stages to finally hand over the reigns and let me customize my units and do what I want. Until now I've been just swept along by whatever's been happening and I haven't been able to make my own pace at all. I wanted to be able to do this stuff a lot sooner. It felt like the entire prologue was just one long tutorial. Also, I'm unhappy about battle ranks returning, though that was something we already knew about. The time requirement for S rank is always my worst enemy. It's hard to enjoy the battle with a deadline looming over you for the best loot. It always leaves a bad taste in my mouth.
All that said, I'm still having some fun. The gameplay still slaps, as Warriors games tend to. It's kind of hard to hit weak point gauges when most of your strong attacks knock enemies back out of your range, but it's still been fun. I like that combat arts and spells are like customizable runes and rods from AoC, so even though movesets are determined by class, there's still some variety that's in your control. Also, the class system and stuff all following exp and upgrade paths is neat, and it's a good substitute for the old badge system. It's also worth noting that ordering your allies to attack enemies and take keeps is ridiculously effective, and leaving tasks up to your allies' AI is actually viable now. They even collect drops for you. However, sometimes I've noticed that ordering your allies to stand and wait in specific spots... doesn't work. They tend to just leave and go after the most exciting thing happening on the map at the moment after they reach their destination, so like, there's not much point in trying to preemptively place them in strategic spots. That's a shame and a really weird oversight for a strategic series like FE.
The music is incredibly good thus far, as expected. The story seems like it's taking some weird turns, almost like they're trying too hard to make it different from Three Houses, but I appreciate the effort and I am intrigued by the new stuff. I started with Golden Wildfire. Also I really love the dialogue, it's very entertaining, and the voice cast is doing a stellar job with it.
However. And this is a Big However. The story paths are not playable simultaneously. It's looking like they're locked to separate files. And there also doesn't seem to be any cross-house recruitment. And from what I can tell there isn't an overarching free play mode where you can just bring everything you earned in each route all together. This is a massive blow to my excitement for the game and the exact opposite of what I wanted to see. In fact, this is Exactly what I Didn't want to see. I am extremely upset about this, and if it turns out you have to restart a route once you reach the end of it just like in Three Houses, that will be the final nail in the coffin for me and I will drop the game after finishing the stories. I'll just return to AoC for my Warriors fix (which still feels like a better play at this point anyway). I really cannot deal with this nonsense again, especially in a Warriors setting. If you still get a postgame in each route and you can keep playing with what you have, even if it's all exclusive to whatever file and route you're playing, I can probably manage to stomach that. But if they ditch postgame for forced new game plus again, that'll be the end of it for me.
So in conclusion, I am cautious and on edge for the mechanics of the full game. It's not giving me a reason to be optimistic yet, but I really wanna give it a chance