Fire Emblem: Three Houses, or: 3 Fires, 3 Emblems, 3 Houses

Put your Let's Plays in here.
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The glory of powerful meteors. Meanwhile, Gwendal continuing to be a lesson as to why no one should do Great Knight ever.

Oh so that's where the Sword of Moralta was. Thanks Rodrigue.
Rea wrote:I had hoped that Rodrigue would give us the boost we need to play things smart and take back Fhirdiad. Instead, he's pulling us right into Dimitri's suicidal assault on Enbarr...
thE mASter wOUld nOT aPPRove!

Seriously, speaking as someone who appreciates all non-SS routes (even if I appreciate some routes more than others), even if one were to entertain blatant whataboutism as deserving a response (people are really trying to defend this by going WHAT ABOUT SS/VW? Really?) on Silver Snow Seteth doesn't have you move into Imperial territory proper until after the off-screen bloodbath at Gronder and the one offensive action taken before that (securing the Great Bridge of Myrddin) makes complete strategic sense, meanwhile on Verdant Wind Claude has the benefit of not only the Alliance being a still-functioning state but also having a not-insignificant portion of the Almyran army at his disposal thanks to literally being the future king. Heck, even compared to Sacred Stones plot, Ephraim isn't a suicidal individual and he's shown as being able to Rambo his way out of tough spots even before spearheading an invasion into Grado, whereas we've already seen Dimitri go 0/2 for survival at Gronder because he's straight up looking for a place to die.

Defending Dimitri as a person despite the actions he takes while at his lowest point is reasonable, even important, I think. But doing so in good faith demands you draw a line and acknowledge context, and right now the context is rather than having people unafraid to pull him back from the brink of the abyss our most principled person in this regard is Felix, and it should be clear by now that he couldn't talk down anyone if he tried because he's thrown everything into his heedless pursuit of strength, and I think on some level he knows that if he tried it would result in at least one of the two dying. Annette and Ashe are even more afraid, Mercedes has no attachment to Faerghus as a political entity, Sylvain is Sylvain, and as for everyone else... well, Gilbert says it himself at the end of the map, doesn't he?

Marching in to Imperial territory at this point in Azure Moon is called out as death march precisely because Dimitri intents it to be and no one is willing to talk him down from it, and I think anyone ignoring that context in an attempt to defend AM probably isn't defending AM in good faith.

(I apologize for passive-aggressively sniping at people in the SA thread but seeing someone try to defend what's happening here is really frustrating.)

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Imagine act-on-spawn reinforcements dropping at your deployment spot before you've had time to actually clear their threat range. I think the only thing more dickish would be making Gronder 2 an actual fog map.
Rea wrote:Dedue did get auto-leveled, but sadly I picked the entirely wrong class for him to be auto-leveled in. He's got less Str than Bernadetta, and only "okay" Def.
Would Warrior have even helped enough, though? I mean we saw those Dedue levelups, those were not great Dedue levelups as far as long term viability is concerned.

RIP Ferdie, I don't play super optimally so I end up not fighting a lot of students, but he was the one I felt the worst about.

Funny thing about excuses, they never hold up forever.

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Update 109.


Trying to get as much of Azure Moon done as I can before NEO TWEWY is released on the 27th and I am inevitably consumed by it. With any luck, we may even finish the route before NEO TWEWY comes out.

Chef Deddles. I see I haven't been using Flayn enough.

What the fuck, Claude, indeed. I played Azure Moon before Verdant Wind and was just kind of floored by that the first time, but after part 1 Verdant Wind I just accepted that Claude really was just enough a dick for that if left to his own worst tendencies.

And so, all the excuses begin to fall apart.

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Update 110.


Got a long one for you all today. Tonight? It's 2:30 AM, I dunno what I should use here.

Also, it's my birthday.

Happy birthday.

Azure Moon really is kind of a goddamned mess when people mention it, huh? Turns out trying to balance a story about trauma, loss, and moving on and commentary about the nature of conservatism and reaction is kind of really hard and why the route keeps undermining its messages and this won't be the last time, either. And of course some of it isn't even that, there's really just no reason for Fodlan to be so lily white other than dumb game devs being dumb game devs, but at the end of the day even if you changed that Dedue would still be too much hung up on dehumanizing himself on the basis of his own ethnicity despite the protests of everyone who genuinely cares about him, Rodrigue would still be a shitty enabler who in the end only managed to snap Dimitri out of his funk by saying the right thing completely by accident, and Byleth would still be a silent protagonist who exists for the player to project their feelings onto. And none of that is really condusive to the writing not ritualistically shooting itself in the foot, and "but when has Fire Emblem ever not shot itself in the foot on writing" is a poor excuse.

On better notes, Dedue's monestary dialogue kind of neatly highlights why Dimitri broke down the way that he did but that kind of ties into a later support so that's all I'll say about it for now.

Ah, yes, Mortal Savant. While I do think there's a use case for it, it probably isn't Byleth since they don't learn Hexblade/Soulblade and their magic list is pretty whatever. That said it's still not Fortress Knight/Great Knight/Holy Knight so how bad could it be?

Percent based activation skills in FE, honestly kind of a blight in hindsight, and I am pretty glad 3H got rid of most of them.

Fucking Agarthans, the absolute worst.

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Update 111.


I got distracted for a solid three hours after this update was finished, because I fell down the rabbit hole of checking obscure parts of this game's script.

Alois dad jokes continue to be extremely bad and amazing, as it should be.
Rea wrote:I don't think the game ever explicitly mentions what the specific deal with Dimitri's stepmother is? I could just have a hole in my memory, but the true extent of her involvement with the Tragedy of Duscur is never stated—and no, I don't trust Cornelia's word on this. She may not even really be Dimitri's stepmother—it's not at all out of the question that she could've been an Agarthan, though there's no real evidence in the game's text to confirm or deny that.
Unless something in the DLC says something about it (I wouldn't know), this is correct, there's no conclusive evidence on Azure Moon one way or the other, plus Edelgard never mentions her mother at all and I wouldn't read anything into that other than it being a coping mechanism.

The sheer lack of curiosity exhibited about the Agarthans doing Agarthan things on Azure Moon is really frustrating, especially considering that Rhea indirectly acknowledges their continued existance during White Clouds and Seteth really by all rights should be aware of it too, and really begs the question of just how badly did Rhea fuck things up even past being ultimately responsible for establishing Fodlan's social structure.

e: A bit late for this since since I didn't remember it when Gronder 2 happened, but one thing that struck me as odd on my second Azure Moon playthrough where I deliberately avoided engaging with Claude's forces as opposed to just deliberately barreling down the center of the map was that he did the same circle around and flank thing, and since that was on Hard it's not just Maddening pulling a dick move on you, so uh that would neatly explain what was bothering me about Claude's actions there on my first Azure Moon playthrough if that really is what his AI is supposed to do.

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This is an advance warning that updates may slow down for a while. I may have, ah... Let's say the wait for NEO TWEWY got to me.



In other news, I think I know what game I want to LP after 3H.

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Update 112.


Hello, I'm back! NEO TWEWY ate up more of my time than I thought it would, especially after it got leaked early, and it didn't help that things were super busy at work last month.

We honestly don't have much game left! Between AM and CF, we've only got 10 story battles left, three paralogues (Edelgard's, Hubert's, and a different version of Anna's), one update (maybe two) for going through CF Part 1 with extreme speed, and admittedly quite a few supports. I hope you all enjoy the final stretch of this project that's taken...jesus christ, just a few weeks shy of two years at time of writing.

Rea wrote:Holy shit, Gilbert promised to return to his family.
Wow, there really is such a thing as miracles, at least as far as Fodlan is concerned.

Honestly considering how much strength and speed enemy War Masters have on Maddening they don't need much extra to be scary to anything they can hit.

RIP Hanneman, you were weird and stodgy and honestly a bit off-putting early but you meant well, see you in a better timeline.

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Claude handing over handing over Failnaught as part of making his exit is... interesting, as is the request for Dimitri to not be too hard on him next time they see each other.

Lord Arundel and Thales being one and the same has some pretty terrifying implications past what's actually been shown, considering his position as regent and the Agarthans overall MO of pulling find/replaces on people.

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Not really sure how I feel about the whole Dimitri/Hapi support chain, on the one hand, I guess it's nice to have some answers, on the other hand the answers are pretty much just "the Agarthans are garbage loser fascists who kick puppies in the name of their garbage loser ideology" and in the end it's not really anything but confirming what could've been figured out by now. Like, it's probably safe to assume by this point that war between Adrestia and Faerghus was as much their goal as one side trying to bring down the Church of Seiros somehow and Edelgard happened to be in the position to be the perfect catspaw, too bad for them she wanted them dead as much as everyone else did.

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Update 115.


We're only one update away from finishing Azure Moon! Exciting, huh?

So cycles of revenge aren't the only kind of cycle that's a bitch, cycles of abuse are as well, and for a scene that's supposedly meant to cast Dimitri in a positive light and Edelgard in a negative one I find it fails rather badly at that since Dimitri's whole argument is based on some seriously flawed assumptions and rather than ask the questions that need to be asked chooses to retreat into his own incurious worldview and make accusations when those assumptions end up getting challenged. Looking at it from Edelgard's perspective, she's seen one of the supposed "strong" reduced to a figurehead thanks to a conspiracy led by his own ministers and another one assassinated, all because the lesser nobility chose to use violence as a first resort in response to the possibility that they might not get their way forever. Power, especially in a feudal society, is fickle and ephemeral (which Dimitri should have damn well figured out by now), and frankly these incidents (along with Claude's uncle getting killed in a scheme that may or may not have been orchestrated by Lorenz's dad) strike me more as features rather than bugs. And it's not like the feudal nobility have been decent rulers by any stretch of the imagination from what we've been told of their antics or that the Church of Seiros has ever actually cared enough to do anything so long as they don't rebel against Rhea.

And what are the common folk going to do, anyways? Fodlan doesn't seem like it'd have much of a middle class that isn't too dependent on the nobility (or too busy trying to buy/marry their way into it) and expecting the peasantry to rise up when they have their hands full with -not dying- is a big ask, never mind that almost no one in an actual position of power would actually accept any form of protest from them. Revolutions are hard, and while it's fair to be sensitive to the possibility of the powerful coopting the need for change for the sake of their own selfish desires that doesn't change the fact people's lives are being run and ruined by a selfish, abusive noble class who owe their positions to church-sanctioned eugenics fascination and that is not in the least bit sustainable and Rhea never intended for it to be. This could probably all have been avoided if she weren't too obsessed with Sothis being the sole source of legitimate rule over Fodlan and trying to unring a fucking bell because of it to be bothered to govern properly, but she didn't so everyone has to suffer because she did a shitty job and gave a blank check to a bunch of warlords playing at being landlords so they could do whatever the hell they wanted to predictable results.

And while it should be obvious that, without intervention, Edelgard is going to fail miserably at freeing Fodlan from the cycle of abuse it's trapped in and that nothing, but nothing, excuses the fatalistic Machiavellian mindset (that says among other things that if she is to lose then her defeat must be total) she's trapped herself in or what's about to happen next, Dimitri's own rhetoric at the failed peace summit comes across utterly tone deaf to the point of being worthless except as catnip for the sort of people who use some performative double standard of morality to launder some truly garbage politics and, in my opinion at least, seriously undermines Azure Moon's credibility as a moral outcome because the man is genuinely clueless as to how to end it. And as long as the cycle of abuse persists there's always going to be, at best, another Edelgard, and at worst you get trash like Miklan or Pallardo.

And while I like Enbarr as a map, if you don't like it, well, thanks Warp.

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...Ah, hell, why not.

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Update 116.


I can't hold onto a completed update for very long, turns out.

Thanks coding.

Also neither I or my friend who plays 3H more extensively than I have ever saw an enemy use Silence either, it's really weird. Also tbh if Hegemon Edelgard was statted up like Nemesis on top of the doubleacting I'd probably cry bloody murder or something. As if there needed to be more incentive to make Dimitri an evade tank though, goddamn.
Rea wrote:I guess Bernie really wanted to take us home.
We stan a legend.

My understanding is that Yuri, like Jeralt, would have to have been the recipient of a Nabatean blood transfusion, yeah. It's not like the game gives any other explanation for unusually long lifespans that I'm aware of.

Anyways, at the end of the day the crests are still a symbol of abuse and serve no purpose (at least so far as humanity is concerned) but to be used to trample others underfoot, and while I'm sure some people would love to claim that Edelgard threw the dagger at Dimitri out of spite, it would likely (in my opinion, at least) require an assessment of Edelgard's character that's largely out of line with the behavior she exhibits on other routes. She went into this knowing full well what she was doing and what failure was going to cost her, and becoming, even for that stretch of time, a symbol of everything she hated in a last ditch effort to avoid failure is probably not something, win or lose, she could've continued living with.

Unfortunately for Dimitri, the Edelgard he thought he knew died in the dungeons of Enbarr, and you can't save someone who is already dead.

Oh well, at least I'll have considerably less words and bad feelings for Crimson Flower.

Thanks for making all of this! I appreciate the LP, and I'm glad you're doing it. My thoughts are maybe a bit scattered, so I hope that's alright.

Even if it's low-Def mages, knowing that you had to swap abilities to avoid someone getting one-shot from the other side of the map by Hegemon Edelgard is pretty scary (as are surprise act-on-spawn-turn Meteor and Bolting mages). Her focusing one of her attacks on Dimitri on lower difficulties is a real relief. And I think she might have something in her AI about mostly avoiding attacking Byleth too? It sort of fits her, as much as that part of her character seems a bit out of place on AM or VW. I also like how little places in this game have neat thematic touches, like Hegemon Edelgard's Wilted Flower attack in second phase fitting with her general theming.

It did seem odd to me that Dimitri never really said anything about the use of Demonic Beasts in the rest of Part 2 before when he's talking about Edelgard's transformation now. Like, of all of the beast transformations we see in this game, this is easily the most ethically sound, since she's only doing it to herself.
It's also striking that a couple of maps ago we had Agarthans mocking us and telling Dimitri that he and Edelgard should go and kill each other, and here we are doing that very thing.

Also, I have to wonder at Ashe's line about this being for Lonato and Christophe. For them, you're... fighting on the same side as Catherine to rescue Rhea? I'm sure Lonato would be just thrilled.

Ultimately, it also seems something of a loose end that Dimitri shows here that he knows there's something weird going on with the mages, and he even saw Thales in Part 1, and never really follows up on any of that. Sure, Thales is probably dead, but how would he know that?

Poor alone Lysithea and Bernadetta, though. They deserve to have nice things.

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Update 117.


Don't get too excited, this is mostly fast forwarding through a bunch of level ups and battles, as I do stream-of-consciousness rambling. There's a few supports in here, though!

Rea wrote:I will do everything I can to make Bernadetta my strongest unit.
Heck yeah.

The weird out-of-context lines are a nice break from the usual humorless expression of rage that tends to follow bad levelups in the FE LPs I've seen, at least, but yeah hard to keep things fresh.
Rea wrote:Do I...want to know what Edelgard meant by "pure" offspring?
I could've done without knowing that part myself.

Yuri being stronger than Edelgard isn't something you see every day, but hey.

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It's been 2 days and Rea hasn't posted it here yet, so for anyone reading this LP here, I'll do it.
Rea's had a burn-out after 6 years of data-heavy LP's, and put all LP's on an indefinite hiatus.
She doesn't know if she'll ever come back to finishing them, either.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.

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BolticThunder wrote:
Wed Aug 25, 2021 6:00 pm
It's been 2 days and Rea hasn't posted it here yet, so for anyone reading this LP here, I'll do it.
Rea's had a burn-out after 6 years of data-heavy LP's, and put all LP's on an indefinite hiatus.
She doesn't know if she'll ever come back to finishing them, either.
Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
Right, sorry for not posting it here.

I've decided to go ahead with doing LPs I actually liked—namely the Etrian Odyssey LPs—but I'm super burned out on LPs of other games, after the 3H LP on SA was used as nothing but an excuse for more of the same shitty discourse that's been stuck to this game for two years and never goes anywhere. It really, honestly, just crushed me to put in so much work into this thing and then have it be used as a reason to aggro post at each other.

Sorry for everyone here, but I just...can't go back to finishing this now. Maybe not ever.

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Yeah, I've seen it all. So much shit about nothing, in the end. It's too bad this will never finish, I really enjoyed this LP. Heck, because of it, I picked the game up myself a while ago. If you do plan on continuing with LP'ing, I would love to see the Etrian Odyssey games finished one day. I love the way you write the characters. Please don't be discouraged doing what you like because of what some shitheads say. You've got a fan in me.

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It's a shame because I was looking forward to the final route just to see what the hell the discourse was all about. Guess I'll have to play it myself even though I'm terrible at tactical RPGs.

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Ibblebibble wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 3:25 am
It's a shame because I was looking forward to the final route just to see what the hell the discourse was all about. Guess I'll have to play it myself even though I'm terrible at tactical RPGs.
Yeah, I'm really sorry for dropping this before what I consider the far and away most interesting route, but...I just wasn't gonna be able to deal with having my effort met with people just getting super angry at each other over opinions on a piece of fiction. Friends of mine told me they were really concerned with how I'd seemed like I was getting depressed about how people responded to each update, and I can't deny that as the LP went on, each update felt more and more like a job.

Doesn't help that it feels like any time I actually got to what I thought was an interesting gameplay segment, people either just didn't care, or their responses were solely "hey why didn't you <do this strat>".

Oh well. I plan to have my next LP, of Etrian Odyssey IV, up on November 14th—which will be the sixth anniversary of when I started doing LPs! I started all this mess on November 14th, 2015, with Etrian Odyssey 2 Untold.

Mrf. Sorry to hear about all of that and for whatever part my posting might have played in that (and for what it's worth I did care when you got to the interesting gameplay segments, but I wasn't exactly sure what to say that wouldn't come across as weird backseating, especially since 3H is as open as it is.) Sucks it had to end like this, but better to let it die than have whatever the heck was going on over there continue.

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RandomKesaranPasaran wrote:
Fri Sep 03, 2021 9:48 pm
Mrf. Sorry to hear about all of that and for whatever part my posting might have played in that (and for what it's worth I did care when you got to the interesting gameplay segments, but I wasn't exactly sure what to say that wouldn't come across as weird backseating, especially since 3H is as open as it is.) Sucks it had to end like this, but better to let it die than have whatever the heck was going on over there continue.
No no, your posting was fine. It's the people on SA that were the problem. There's...I dunno, there was this undercurrent of judginess with the posts there. Maybe I'm reading too much into things, though.

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Glad to see thar you didn't lose interest in doing LP's. Also, finally someone doing a Etrian Odyssey IV LP. I've been waiting for someone to do that one. Does this mean Untold and Nexus will continue one day?

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BolticThunder wrote:
Sat Sep 04, 2021 5:37 pm
Glad to see thar you didn't lose interest in doing LP's. Also, finally someone doing a Etrian Odyssey IV LP. I've been waiting for someone to do that one. Does this mean Untold and Nexus will continue one day?
Untold is one of those things where I left it so close to the end that it's hard to finish the last step. One of these days, I will, though.

Nexus will be restarted after EO4, yes, though with a few character substitutions due to people leaving my friend circle.

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