The response to 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes has been mixed. There was a collective intake of excited breath when the Direct opened with Three Houses iconography, only for a deflated sigh to ring out when 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fire Emblem Warriors appeared on the screen. That means the game will not be a true sequel, but instead a musou spin-off. Then again, that's what Persona 5 Strikers is, and it managed to supersede the storytelling of the base game, as well as managing to⛎ provide just as much closure as a traditional sequel could have hoped for.
Of course, Strikers is something of an exception to the rule. Musou games ask you to worry about slashing down hordes of enemies in front of you rather than thinking too hard about the narrative. Even the original Fire Emblem Warriors follows this pattern. But hopefully Three Hopes can learn from Strikers and can carry the fantastic narratives of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Three Houses into the musou world.
The signs so far are encouraging. We're shown passages where you play Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude, suggesting you will either hop between houses and advance the story of each until they land on a collision course, or you select one house and play their story, just as in the base game. The first approach gives you more control over the narrative you want to explore in a more active, fluid sense, while the latter essentially lets you enjoy three playthroughs Rashomon-style. We see Dimitri clash with Edelgard at one point, but since you can play as both, it's unclear what that means for the wider story.
Then there's Byleth. In the base game, you play as Byleth and choose your house early on, but can mix the house up by recruiting, then after a time skip, can either remain with your chosen house come what may, or if you chose Black Eagles, can turn your back on it in and side with Garreg Mach instead. This offers greater stakes - you will often find yourself coming up against, and eventually killing, your former allies.
It appears, based on the character designs we see in the trailer, that Warriors is set in between the timeskip that takes place in Three Houses. That means it's before Edelgard breaks away from the school completely, but after she has set her mind on doing it. Will we see a similar skirmish between the three houses here, albeit one less fatal than the final hours of Three Houses? Will Byleth once again choose a house, or post-Garreg Mach is she free to wander between all three? ‘If it’s set in the time skip, why is Byleth there?’ is a question I couldn’t offer the slightest answer to right now.
Then there's the wider cast. Though the main story is propelled by the leaders of the titular Three Houses, what makes FE3H so great is the depth the other students bring to proceedings. Black Eagles remain my favourite house even though my canon playthrough is to turn my back on Edelgard. I love the Black Eagles for Petra, Dorothea, Caspar, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:of course, Bernie. These seem to be missing from the trailer. Hubert, of course, is by Lady Edelgard's side, but the rest of the colourful cast are conspicuous by their absence.
That could just mean we don't play as them, but it's worrying to think they may be absent entirely. If it's set between the time skip, they'll be off on their own adventures, defying or working with their own families, marrying each other, and generally not getting caught up in high school drama - although in fairness most high school drama doesn't involve the fate of a nation. In Persona 5 Strikers, we get to play as all of the Phantom Thieves, but the real genius of the game is how tightly knit it keeps everyone. Futaba, for example, is a non-playable character there to provide support and to be protected while hacking, but is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:one of the game's brightest stars. Even if I don't get to slay onrushing troops as Bernie, I still want her to be there because Three Houses is a poorer story without her in it.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses has a fantastic story, and Three Hopes happening in the middle feels like a risk. The stakes are reduced and we know where all the pieces wind up. Of course, a true sequel would mean canonising a route and having certain popular characters unable to take part due to their deaths, depending on what route was chosen. It can't round off the story as well as Strikers did for Persona 5, but if it can add the same level of depth, then it's exactly what Three Houses needs.
