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

Put your Let's Plays in here.
Even putting past the part where Claude/Marianne B was one of those supports that was intended to be viewed before her paralogue so it kind of looks awkward now, it's low-key one of my least favorite supports in the whole game. Claude, my dude, you just apologized for being insensitive, don't just up and go and call her concerns nonsense while describing them in a mocking tone of voice, you don't get a pass for being technically correct about Marianne not being cursed considering the way society frames Crests makes it hard to describe what she feels as anything other than a curse.

Oh and hello there Nardel.

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The weird amount of "impossible to see" conversations in the game makes me wonder if situations like these (where certain students would have to be recruited back to your side due to the war affecting their homes directly) was going to be the norm for routes. IIRC, there is a NPC Paladin who shows up in place of Lorenz on this map and he has (what I assume) to be replacement dialogue for the lack of Lorenz. So I wonder if cutting these conversations was such a last minute change that there was no time to remove it from the game, so they just quickly patched it up and hoped no dataminer would uncover it.

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Update 75.


Less than four hours later, and I've already got another update. This one's another Binding Coil update, so it's a shitload of supports. I'd hoped to include Claude's paralogue initially, but that would've just made the update way too dense.

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Update 76.


Can you tell that I haven't felt like doing much else today?

Huh, Lorenz/Manuela is actually pretty okay, never got that support chain before.

Also dang that's a terrifying Constance.

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I like this shot in particular 'cause it looks like Adan is charging into battle with his sword in his teeth. But, like, from the wrong part of the hllt.

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Gronder is a heck of a ride, I agree. RIP Bernie and Mercie though.

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The xenophobia that the Church of Seiros exhibits is odd in that of all the Church's problems, there's not much in what we see of the Church's teachings or structure as Claude notes, just that killing is considered acceptable in the name of the goddess. I don't think there's any specific event behind it since I think even Rhea realizes you can't simply keep an entire continent trapped in a bottle, just a case of shared bunker mentality combined with the endless quest for moral justification of the status quo warping something into an outlet for people's worst impulses.

Unrelatedly, yikes 25 base strength on Claude at that level, 40% base strength growth claims yet another victim.

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RandomKesaranPasaran wrote:
Mon Jan 04, 2021 2:32 am
The xenophobia that the Church of Seiros exhibits is odd in that of all the Church's problems, there's not much in what we see of the Church's teachings or structure as Claude notes, just that killing is considered acceptable in the name of the goddess. I don't think there's any specific event behind it since I think even Rhea realizes you can't simply keep an entire continent trapped in a bottle, just a case of shared bunker mentality combined with the endless quest for moral justification of the status quo warping something into an outlet for people's worst impulses.

Unrelatedly, yikes 25 base strength on Claude at that level, 40% base strength growth claims yet another victim.
It's even worse, because he spent the Intermediate tier in Brigand, so he had a boosted growth for 10 or 11 levels!

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AradoBalanga wrote:
Fri Jan 01, 2021 8:37 pm
The weird amount of "impossible to see" conversations in the game makes me wonder if situations like these (where certain students would have to be recruited back to your side due to the war affecting their homes directly) was going to be the norm for routes. IIRC, there is a NPC Paladin who shows up in place of Lorenz on this map and he has (what I assume) to be replacement dialogue for the lack of Lorenz. So I wonder if cutting these conversations was such a last minute change that there was no time to remove it from the game, so they just quickly patched it up and hoped no dataminer would uncover it.
I know there's something similar for Blue Lions where NPCs can be replaced by Felix and Annette on a Blue Lion exclusive map. Maybe the developers planned a route split for all routes at some point. Probably for the best that they didn't, since the plot is already stretched thin between four routes, Golden Deer and Silver Snow sharing all but three maps being the most obvious example.

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Update 80.


And thus, we drop the curtain on Verdant Wind. Things are about to get real interesting from here on out.

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So, interesting thing about the random assassin who dies to show off the cursed swamp gimmick. If you select him during setup, you can see that his movement is "--", instantly giving away that he's a cutscene death. But yeah, this map is a brutal slug fest from minute one. While some of the resurrected Elites are pushovers, others are downright nasty and demand you go out of your way to deal with them, like Lamine. There is nothing more satisfying than giving a unit with high Res or Avoid the Chalice of Beginnings, parking them in Lamine's range, and watching Lamine get dumpstered from 10+ spaces away. I do love Claude's big friendship speech (which was in one of the big trailers, no less) is not a cliche " explain the power of friendship to the final boss", but is instead a big damn distraction to make Nemesis forget about Claude's arrow shot.

As for Claude/Flayn...yeah, I have no idea how they pulled that off. Seteth is overbearing to an impossible degree, and Flayn is extremely bad at keeping secrets. Shenanigans almost certainly were involved there, and it is a shame we never get to see those.

Suddenly, a zombie apocalypse! Because the evil sorcerer guy can never be the final boss in a Fire Emblem game. I guess it makes more sense than whatever the fuck was going on with Silver Snow's finale (which I never played myself), but not a whole lot more so it just seems to be symbolism for the sake of symbolism and that huge swamp annoys the crap out of me so I ended up liking it the least of the three which is kind of a shame since I'd probably like it a lot otherwise. At least the ending cutscene is pretty cool since it basically captures Claude's positive development as a result of picking his route.

Also surprise(?), you were really helping the future king of Almyra this whole time, funny how that works out. Honestly I think the circumstances of the game's second half make Claude look cleaner than he actually is, since Edelgard is too reliant on her Agarthan "allies" to keep them fully in check and Dimitri is being... well, we'll see what his deal actually is soon enough, but anyways it ends up distracting from the darker aspects of his own personality, and unlike Edelgard and Dimitri, figuring out Claude requires paying careful attention to not only what he says but how he says it because there's very little that rules out the possibility of him forcing the issue if he ever felt so provoked, and in a bloodier fashion than Edelgard's own revolution at that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it'd be boring if he were squeaky clean and I don't really have an interest in the tribalistic waving of private parts over who is more right/has the more toxic personality/whatever, but I do think there's a tendency to whitewash him a bit and I can't help but think it's mainly because the perfect opportunity for him just sort of fell into his lap.

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RandomKesaranPasaran wrote:
Mon Jan 04, 2021 10:15 pm
Suddenly, a zombie apocalypse! Because the evil sorcerer guy can never be the final boss in a Fire Emblem game. I guess it makes more sense than whatever the fuck was going on with Silver Snow's finale (which I never played myself), but not a whole lot more so it just seems to be symbolism for the sake of symbolism and that huge swamp annoys the crap out of me so I ended up liking it the least of the three which is kind of a shame since I'd probably like it a lot otherwise. At least the ending cutscene is pretty cool since it basically captures Claude's positive development as a result of picking his route.

Also surprise(?), you were really helping the future king of Almyra this whole time, funny how that works out. Honestly I think the circumstances of the game's second half make Claude look cleaner than he actually is, since Edelgard is too reliant on her Agarthan "allies" to keep them fully in check and Dimitri is being... well, we'll see what his deal actually is soon enough, but anyways it ends up distracting from the darker aspects of his own personality, and unlike Edelgard and Dimitri, figuring out Claude requires paying careful attention to not only what he says but how he says it because there's very little that rules out the possibility of him forcing the issue if he ever felt so provoked, and in a bloodier fashion than Edelgard's own revolution at that. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think it'd be boring if he were squeaky clean and I don't really have an interest in the tribalistic waving of private parts over who is more right/has the more toxic personality/whatever, but I do think there's a tendency to whitewash him a bit and I can't help but think it's mainly because the perfect opportunity for him just sort of fell into his lap.
Definitely agree on the circumstances of VW's plot making Claude looking cleaner than he actually is, although part of that is also just his natural charm. Kind of amazing how the charisma of a fictional character can blind people to the fact that, at the end of the day, Claude mobilizes popular forces in pursuit of goals that are informed by his own personal trauma, just like a certain other major actor in the story who very incurious people repeatedly call a fascist. I don't think that or invalidates what he fights for (borders are inhuman), but yeah, there's a large segment of 3H's fanbase that kinda tends to skip over the fact that Claude consciously chooses to protract the violence of Edelgard's war against the Church of Seiros by fighting back.

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I don't understand narratively why Nemesis only wakes up on VW and not SS but I much prefer that finale.

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Dedue gaining speed is a goddamn miracle in of itself, so that's a good level for him, especially on Maddening.

Having done CF Maddening off of a clean file, I have to admit that I kind of want to vomit a little every time I see Chapter 1 now. Suffice to say the whole charge directly in and provoke everyone at once is a terrible idea when you can't really bait for crap and everyone having a non-zero crit rate is totally great if you enjoy being a paranoid wreck about the RNG.

It does get better eventually, but the first three chapters in particular are just not fun at all.

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Ingrid please do not be mean to Dedue.

Oddly enough I never bothered with cooking. Granted I can also count a number of times when say an extra point of speed or strength would've mattered so this probably shouldn't be taken as anything.

When I went into Ch2 on my clean CF Maddening run I forgot you could just manually unequip weapons to keep people from getting doubled by things that aren't thieves, which, considering you don't have Dedue and his ridiculous 12-or-more while waiting defense is probably a bad thing to forget even considering it invites non-zero crit rates. Not that this helps poor Linhardt anyways. That map did give me a newfound appreciation for Ferdinand's personal ability early on though.

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I love Dedue and find it quite upsetting how he has shackled himself to Dmitri. Actually all three seconds-in-command are pretty rad, I wish you could have a team with Hilda, Dedue and Hubert all at the same time. They could compare notes in their supports.

I'd say something about Felix being mean to Dedue but by this point the universe expects no better of him. Still, it's like Fearghus nobility is some kind of toxic hellscape that ruins all it touches or something.
Rea wrote:Reminder that allied (green) units are buffed up on Maddening to compensate for the big increases to enemy strength. They can hold their own against enemy units, thankfully.
Until one of them gets doublecritted out of existence because they still don't have prowess skills set at any rate mutter mutter stupid 3H green units mutter trying to cost me 0.6 Frozen Lance damage on Hubert mutter mutter. Granted this is a thing on lower difficulties anyways but I'm still gonna complain about it.

My guess is that the AI on Maddening either just loves using combat arts because more numbers better or prioritizing hit rate causes it to be worse at probability than an actual person because Foudroyant Strike on an enemy on open terrain doesn't really make a ton of sense.

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I'm guessing that Lonato being "Hard mode version with only a few extra trinkets" is to make up for everyone else on the map being a massive pain in the ass, and because he sits on a heal tile (thus giving him auto-healing and avoid/protection boosts). It's basically a balancing choice (for as much as Maddening can get) that seems weird at first until you step back and look at the bigger picture.

Granted, the real dick move of the map is that Catherine appears to be even more of a kill stealer than on lower difficulties, when you really want all that EXP to keep your team up to speed with Maddening's extreme difficulty curve.

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Update 84.


Sorry for the delay! Work's been busier than expected, and between my other commitments, I haven't had much time to work on this. Hopefully I should have more time for this now.

I am hype for strong Bernie. Less hype for mage Adan but I respect the attempt, having tried it before.

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You know you've got a map on lockdown when you start spending attacks on gaining class/skill points instead of doing damage. Nice to see that Maddening gets a little more reasonable after the initial hurdles.

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DKII wrote:
Fri Mar 26, 2021 3:26 am
You know you've got a map on lockdown when you start spending attacks on gaining class/skill points instead of doing damage. Nice to see that Maddening gets a little more reasonable after the initial hurdles.
It eases up...until the Battle of Garreg Mach, at which point the difficulty spikes back up a bit, and then Reunion at Dawn, when it spikes back up a shitload. From there on out, it's more inconsistent and highly dependent on route—Silver Snow and Crimson Flower have an easier time of things due to not having to do To War at Gronder, although CF also has its own unique challenges on Maddening.

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Dimitri your vision problems are showing (also the reasoning kind of falls apart if you look at it funny even without the benefit of added knowledge from other routes anyways. Never mind the implications of "have you considered that eugenics are actually cool and good" are rather offensive.)

Conand Tower is one of those maps that's made worse by 3H's move balancing decisions but realistically speaking it'd still be obnoxiously slow (at least to my liking anyways) even if everyone had 5-6 move instead of 4. Doesn't really help that Gilbert is somehow even more useless here on Maddening. Miklan did end up making me appreciate Vengeance when I did CF Maddening though, so there's that I guess.

Poor Dedue, those levels really not boding well for his prospects.

I think I like Bernadetta's reaction to Leonie taking her shirt off; it seems cute and at a level appropriate to the tone the scene's going for (unlike some of her other supports' reactions, including Bernadetta/Raphael C as you noted last time). In general, I tend to like Bernadetta's supports where she's talking to other girls better; she seems more comfortable, and I can't blame her.

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Ah yes, War for the Weak, a map pretty much dedicated to proving the theory that green units exist solely to the detriment of the player and the map they chose for it doesn't help either. Think I missed the boss's dialogue with Dimitri before though, interesting word choice there.

Also regarding FE1 references Hauteclere didn't even exist in the original FE1 so there's that.

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Swole Mercie? Very strange but I guess I'm also here for RNG weirdness too.

Also to be honest while I am also here for Lysithea Dunks On The Death Knight: The Complete Series I go back and forth on whether or not it's more humiliating than Bernie dunking on him and not gonna lie I'm kind of sad that we're probably not gonna see that.

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The Forgotten is... a map on Maddening, to be sure. There isn't much more to it but what more there is doesn't leave much room for things to go wrong.

The next one, if it is what I think it is, on the other hand...

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