It has become a habit for Omega Force: adapting beloved fan universes with musô sauce. Berserk, One Piece, Attack on Titan, Persona and even Zelda, many are the licenses to have passed under the Japanese developer’s fold. And since the formula only works with franchises with universes and characters appreciated by their community, it is not surprising that a certain Fire Emblem Three Houses has the right to its Dynasty Warriors-like.
After a rather satisfying Fire Emblem Warriors in 2017, it’s Three Houses’ turn to mix the musô formula with the famous tactical RPG. On paper marriage seems against nature (han) as they are opposed. However, like Hyrule Warriors, Omega Force has been able to extract everything that makes the salt of the basic game to adapt it to its homemade recipe. And Fire Emblem Three Hopes is well worth a few stars.
All day long on a Shez long
We will immediately sweep away one of the most legitimate questions: do you need to have played Three Houses to play Fire Emblem: Three Hopes? The answer might be ambiguous but no, the latest Nintendo Switch exclusive can be enjoyed without knowing the source material. The adaptation plunges us into an alternate history that brings together all the factions and characters from the base game. And that makes it a beautiful world. Those who have spent long hours defending their home in the tactical RPG will have an emotional advantage over this insane cast, but we can just as well get attached to it by trying the adventure blind.
To stand out, Three Hopes allows you to embody Shez, a new protagonist belonging to a group of mercenaries who takes a nice beating against the Ashen Demon, Byleth. Rescued thanks to a mysterious power granted by the arrogant Arval, our heroine (in our case) is offered a place within one of the three houses of the continent of Fodlan: the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, the Empire of Adrestia or the Leicester Alliance. As in the main game, it’s up to us to choose which faction to join and we wanted to follow the charismatic Claude and his little troop. For his part Byleth, the main character of the original game, becomes a kind of nemesis with whom we will cross swords regularly. For the rest, we will not risk revealing more, but inevitably the three forces will go to war shortly after the events of the prologue.
Unlike some studio productions where the original storylines are often laughable (hello One Piece Pirate Warriors), Fire Emblem Three Hopes alternate history revels without a hitch. Omega Force even has the luxury of going a little deeper into certain characters and the relationships between them with a few twists that should take aficionados of the original by surprise. The title is ultra faithful to the source material and fans will enjoy finding their favorite comrades from a new angle. It will nevertheless be necessary to accept to read tons of dialogues, to develop friendships with each ally and to do all the walks possible in the hope of finishing up in date with his future waifu or to have a new BFF. The investment required goes further, because all the micro-management of its predecessor has been transposed. You will have to make sure to complete all the side missions to obtain powerful equipment and materials, to develop buildings to unlock combat classes, new features and new objects. Not to mention that it is imperative to optimize your characters by leveling them up, optimizing their abilities and their attributes, while taking the time to forge stronger relationships with them and to cook them.
And if it can be almost exhausting in the long run, this management aspect makes you want to play again and again to properly develop your army. Without this dimension, we would face yet another Dynasty Warriors-like without any flavor. Especially since one of the strengths of the game is that it really feels like playing a Fire Emblem with musô sauce and not a simple clone of Dynasty Warriors. Three Hopes is extremely effective, but the addictiveness of the proposal will clearly depend on the investment of each player. Clearly not everyone will like it.
Just like at home, a faithful and effective adaptation
Those looking for frenetic battles will not be left out. Muso obliges, it is a question of beaming thousands of inert soldiers for hours with a few more robust fighters who will give a hard time from time to time. These generals, commanders and other creatures have a guard to break before hoping to swoop down with powerful blows. What make them artificially a little more resistant than the rest. With a large roster and the ability to fully customize each fighter (attacks, techniques, passives etc.) and radically change their class, Fire Emblem Three Hopes ensures that there is something for everyone with more mechanics. deeper than usual. As a result, everyone can find their style of play and fight very enjoyable battles. Between combos, auras, special attacks and assistants, the title offers a whole bunch of mechanics that allow you to take part in nervous and satisfying fights. Yes, it’s the expected big stress relief that allows you to put your brain in off mode until the next objective appears on the screen.
Adaptation of a tactical-RPG requires, there is indeed a small point of strategy in addition. Character placement can be crucial in the most demanding battles, choosing the right allies and giving them orders to scatter them all over the map will also be necessary to gain the advantage, seize enemy fortresses and take care of a particular enemy. Especially since it is always possible to change on the fly between four fighters, which allows you to teleport to another point and change your combat style in the middle of a mission. During the battles of the main missions, the troops will be able to choose different strategies before the start of hostilities. It is possible to allocate as many as possible according to the points available, for example to allow an opposing commander to join your ranks at the end of the fight, to reduce the power of the opposing strongholds, to leave with various advantages, etc. If the difficulty is never really there as long as you touch all the objectives, the game has the merit of making things worse with the Classic mode of Fire Emblem where a death on the battlefield is final . Inevitably, it makes the decisive confrontations a little more stressful.
However, the big novelty is out of combat. Quite time-consuming and not particularly exciting, it takes the form of a game map where you have to conquer a final territory, materialized by a piece of a chessboard. And then there are all these small areas on the way that it is possible to capture to take part in shorter and less difficult side battles with some nice bonuses. Some time-limited objectives will also present themselves to players who have gathered the necessary characters, while others are locked behind objectives, such as completing all side missions or obtaining an S rank in this chapter. If it is possible to replay each confrontation later, these kinds of side quests will disappear once the chapter has passed. Suffice to say that for those who like to do everything, like your waitress, there are long hours, sometimes not very exciting. This is obviously not mandatory, but even without it, Fire Emblem Three Hopes does not escape the “repetitive play” pellet.
A defect inherent in the genre to all the other musos signed Omega Force. We won’t escape the messy fights with windows popping up everywhere and sometimes cutting us off from the action, a camera that tends to get carried away too much and get stuck at times, the perfectible lock system, the bland and empty environments built around corridors, and a legibility of the action that is not always obvious, especially in nomadic mode. However, we can only salute the work of the teams who are clearly beginning to master the Switch. The title remains pleasant to take in hand regardless of the mode chosen. Despite blatant nomadic aliasing and some violent framerate drops, Three Hopes should satisfy the most demanding from a technical and visual point of view even when the game pukes enemies in packs of a hundred. The software fishes more by its lack of diversity of missions and gameplay which will quickly be felt during the 40 hours minimum to overcome a campaign. We’ll let you imagine what it’s like with a New Game+ part… We console ourselves with the well-felt remixes of Three Houses which give us an epic soundtrack just the way we like them. Those out of combat will however have the annoying tendency to hit the system, like the missions seen and reviewed.
