jelloapocalypse / 5 Hours of Dumb Things in "Fire Emblem: Three Houses"

I love Edelgard she's SO bad at everything

JelloApocalypse

2025-11-27 06:21:21 +0000 UTC

This post is almost a year old but the Hades review made me want to relisten, and I realised something. The bandits you fight in the first map were hired by the Flame Emperor to kill Dimitri and Claude… but if Byleth wasn’t spontaneously at the village they ran to, those bandits would have just killed Edelgard too. No wonder she has to team up with the snakes, she would literally scheme herself to death otherwise

CrescentSoul

2025-10-31 09:00:21 +0000 UTC

Coming back to relisten to this because someone in my book club said 'returning to the world of three houses is the right move', and I need to be warmed by the comforting glow of your hatred for this dog shit game

SinfulSloth

2025-09-15 08:25:47 +0000 UTC

I gotta say, I’m really excited to see how Fortune’s Weave fucks up Three Houses lore even more than it already is

BigMoffers

2025-09-12 17:33:07 +0000 UTC

I’m gonna steal the ideas from Dmitri’s route and other elements of the game and use them in my own TTRPG games to make them actually good

ASquared

2025-07-03 14:36:02 +0000 UTC

After hearing (most) of this review and the entire Octopath Review, here’s what I think: Jello would despise the story of Triangle Strategy because in hindsight, yeah it really doesn’t make a lot of sense and is really stupid. But I think he’d enjoy the gameplay because I can count the number of reused maps on one hand, many of which have unique gimmicks, and it’s a hard game with interesting strategic elements and the combat doesn’t waste a lot of your time. But yeah the story sucks bad.

ASquared

2025-07-01 21:08:07 +0000 UTC

The whole Rhea bit makes me think that a really stupid TTRPG arc idea woudl be going to this like Duchy or Territory where everyone is secretly a spy for a different kingdom, including the leader and intentionally parodying stupid stories where the most illogical person is a spy for some reason (Star Wars =_=)

ASquared

2025-07-01 20:53:12 +0000 UTC

Wait a sec… immortal being feeding her followers her power in order to make them immortal and the evil faction and also a cult? This isn’t Fire Emblem: Three Houses or Trails of Cold Steel- This is Lancer: In Golden Flame: Act One!

ASquared

2025-07-01 15:51:54 +0000 UTC

Quick correction at 4:15:40, Edelgard doesn’t show up alone at the meeting, she was accompanied by Hubert. You probably forgot because he doesn’t say a single word there.

BigMoffers

2025-06-03 00:17:52 +0000 UTC

By the way, the servant boy who nearly died by Bernadetta’s hand is a bisexual pretty boy character voiced by Alejandro Saab! He’s also the best house leader in the game from a character writing perspective! But his house of misfits consists of: - him - a ruthlessly blunt girl who summons monsters when she sighs - Raphael if he were also Makalov, and - anime’s worst interpretation of a character with bipolar disorder

ver.

2025-04-24 22:07:13 +0000 UTC

Every time you gave an example of a cutscene I went "I don't always agree with Jello, it can't be THAT bad" and then I went and watched the cutscene and they were all that bad.

Inky

2025-04-23 04:08:13 +0000 UTC

If Rhea was played straight as a horrid cult leader villian weirdo I think she would be one of my favourite villians in the serise.

Probably An Owl

2025-04-08 20:35:45 +0000 UTC

You mentioned how no one in the game is "pro-Crest." I think that was a deliberate choice and there is an interesting idea behind it that never really made it into the game. (It does kinda make it into Three Hopes, the Warriors spin off. But failing to flesh out your game's themes in your game's spin off is a whole other set of problems). Most characters in the game recognize that the Crest-Nobility system is wrong and want to see it change. The question is how far are they willing to go to change it. Dimitri and the Kingdom want slow, gradual change; Claude wants radical sweeping reforms; and Edelgard is willing to start a violent revolution. If you think of the Crest system as a parallel to a lot of real world issues, the question of whether violence can be justified as a means to end an unjust system is a very interesting and difficult question. It can be easy to condemn violence and claim that people need to advocate for change while "playing by the rules", but it can be nigh impossible to change an unjust system when the "rules" are written by the very people who are in charge of the unjust system. Basically, if the Crest system = racism, then it would be easy to pick a side in the pro-racism vs. anti-racism conflict. Instead, everyone is anti-racism, and the issue is whether violence is justified in ending racism. That becomes even more complicated when there are people who claim to be anti-racism, yet actively benefit from a long history of systemic racism. Similarly, people in the game may claim to be anti-Crest, but they have or even continue to benefit from the Crest-system. Obviously, I don't blame you for not making that connection, because the game itself doesn't really make that connection. Like a lot of other things in Three Houses, it is an interesting idea, but the player has to come up with 99% of what makes it interesting. I do blame you for claiming that Lorenz is the best of the Golden Deer. Lorenz is an entitled piece of shit and I will die on this hill.

Evadson

2025-04-03 05:22:35 +0000 UTC

Man, I cackled like a gremlin reading those character notes.

Another Warren

2025-03-20 19:30:05 +0000 UTC

I feel somewhat validated to hear you mention that the game reminds you a lot of Cold Steel 2, because the literal first thing that came to mind when the trailers for this game dropped was "...wait...is this Cold Steel?", and the game itself only made that more apparent as it went on.

Sothe 0

2025-03-20 18:43:24 +0000 UTC

He had to drift all the way up to the surface like a fucked up lazy river

Noah Finch

2025-03-10 19:42:09 +0000 UTC

This inspired me to return to my project of redesigning Three Houses, which I had forgotten about, but has been very fun, especially since i can basically make anything I want because there's no world building. It's probably similar in format to your winds of change, but I haven't looked into that yet because i don't want to accidentally steal any ideas.

Noah Finch

2025-03-09 03:10:45 +0000 UTC

Its really really really fucking validating to hear you liked crimson flower the most. I played 3H once at launch, and I played Edelgard's route cause I thought she was cute, I liked Dorothea, I wanted to be a contrarian to all of the Dmitri and Claude simping, and I ALWAYS want to play the villain in any game that allows me to do so, both because villains always get the best toys, and because I want to see what the game says about my choices. And as the plot went on I was like "Edelgard is kinda stupid, but shes the only one pushing for active change against a demonstrably evil church (at least based on this one playthrough) so I feel pretty comfortably that this is the best route." And then when I told some friends of mine I liked her best from my one playthough, they were like "what shes a genocidal psychopath" (they morally refused to play Crimson) and I'm like "but the church is evil and no one likes the crest system" I was gonna start a blue lions run after that but quit less than half way cause I just didnt give a shit, cause no fire emblem has held my attention since Awakening (it sounds like I need to try Echoes again based on what youre saying, but I didnt like it when i started it last)

Daniel

2025-02-09 22:11:00 +0000 UTC

I really like Three Houses and I've played 600+ hours of it, and I was really worried when I heard that both Yam and you didn't like Three Houses. Turns out I agree with a huge chunk of your criticisms, I probably liked Three Houses because it was my first Fire Emblem game and it got me through a good chunk of the pandemic. Here are my thoughts (spoilers for Three Hopes the Warriors game, but I’m guessing you won’t play that): I can’t find the timestamp for when you mentioned combat arts, but yeah, it took my second or third run to realize that you could change combat arts, so you’re not alone. 1:49:35 I like to think Rhea didn’t tell Seteth about the Mom Revival Project not because she doesn’t trust him, but because Seteth’s well-adjusted and he’d say “Stop these unethical experiments, Rhea, Sothis is gone and you need to accept that“ but she doesn’t want to hear it, lol. 2:11:00 You actually get to recruit the real Monica in Three Hopes, but sadly, Real Monica is just a hardcore Edelgard simp, i.e., “what if the Black Eagles had Catherine, but she was a mage and a bad unit?” The wilder thing about rescuing Real Monica is that it exposes the Snakes in CHAPTER 2 OF THE GAME. It then makes Edelgard’s alliance with the snakes make a little more sense because she has to accelerate her war plans before the Knights of Seiros figure things out (although based on your point about their feigned incompetence, maybe they wouldn’t have figured anything out at all, but Edelgard wouldn’t have known that), and she doesn’t have enough time to gather enough military power on her own. 2:22:00 You nailed why I like the Golden Deer the most even though some of them are individually poorly written - they actually feel like a group of friends who’re friends because they met at the Academy. 4:34:10 They actually fix that in Three Hopes - in the Black Eagles route (and in the Golden Deer route!), Claude forms an official alliance with Edelgard pretty early on in the timeskip. Then people started complaining about Three Hopes Claude being “evil” for siding with Edelgard (despite it NARRATIVELY MAKING SENSE). This is why we can’t have nice things :-) 4:47:20 Good thing Holst is Big Buff 🅱️ink Brother in Three Hopes, voiced by none other than ProZD! 4:53:00 I’m pretty sure someone’s mentioned it at this point, but no, they INTENTIONALLY TIME LEONIE’S B SUPPORT to be RIGHT after Jeralt’s death. ABSURD 4:54:00 That’s because the servant boy who was nearly killed by Bernadetta’s dad is one of the DLC characters, again for no explicable reason :-)

ver.

2025-02-04 17:03:00 +0000 UTC

Now here’s the big question, how much would the game improve if Ashard and Teronio were in it?

Beckett’s Bricks and Broadway

2025-02-03 00:04:38 +0000 UTC

Any reason Kermit the Frog is your “bad writer” voice?

GreenThreads

2025-01-31 12:47:24 +0000 UTC

Honestly Jeritza is one of my favorite characters in the game once you get to know him. He only likes three things 1. Cats 2. Ice cream 3. And Killing people And he is annoyed at anyone who doesn’t allow him to do those things in peace

BigMoffers

2025-01-19 18:29:45 +0000 UTC

Unfortunately I did doublecheck this and she: A) Was the leader of the Church of Seiros, which was the only religion at the time as far as the history of the setting is presented B) Was functionally a co-founder of The Empire, which was the only country at the time as far as the history of the country is presented C) Went on crusades to get the Ten Elites captures and integrated their family lines into her empire while killing the Elites themselves Idk Rhea, I think you were pretty much in charge of everything and should've just killed all their descendants!!!

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-17 07:31:59 +0000 UTC

So I did the church route on accident cause as sus as the church is they weren't burning villages and I'm also stupid so I didn't realize ladelguard was the crimson emperor I couldn't force myself to get to part 2 in any other routes cause the characters are boring so I didn't know everyone stayed at the church till this rant

Alex Skelton

2025-01-16 03:57:33 +0000 UTC

You actually can't recruit Hilda on Crimson Flower, because that's the only route where you can kill Claude.

Robin Brooks

2025-01-15 16:19:47 +0000 UTC

1:35:00 in regards to the whole “why would she make the guys who slaughtered her people into the ruling nobility” — I don’t think she had absolute power over the continent and what its people do. I think the Elites already ascended to positions of power independently of Rhea’s actions, and the most she was capable of was to rewrite history so the crest-bearers of the future would see the Elites as owing a debt of gratitude to Seiros and the church. That way, she can have social and political control over the human nobility and dissuade them from taking arms against her. As for why she wouldn’t just Kill Every Last One Of Them, there’s gotta be an upper limit to how many humans in places of power you murder before the other humans mark you for monstrosity instead of sainthood.

Audriana Lucchesi

2025-01-14 23:18:44 +0000 UTC

i did a challenge run where i beat all of edelgard's units without ever engaging with a dimitri unit just to prove him stupid. it was not worth it

PurpleIsDebeste

2025-01-12 19:48:42 +0000 UTC

Even though this was your longest rant yet, it still felt like you were holding back to save time. Next time, hit us with that eight hour supercut!

Sam Asher

2025-01-12 03:38:27 +0000 UTC

Oh!! 1000%!!!

Jack Patterson

2025-01-11 23:26:24 +0000 UTC

Boy you sure don't even get unique dialogue for 90% of Student Interactions

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-11 18:41:03 +0000 UTC

3:20:24 Did anyone else spend more time avoiding other Dimitri's students in Gronder Field in case you could recruit them after?

Grandma Eater

2025-01-11 14:52:44 +0000 UTC

It's more of an inside joke with me and my friends than anything. For some reason, at least from what we saw when we played it, Dimitri's battle quotes against other units are just way meaner to female units? So mixed with him just kind of deciding that Edelgard is evil for next to no reason it just kinda became an ongoing thing that we'd pick up on, since we all hated Dimitri.

Azelhia

2025-01-11 08:44:59 +0000 UTC

Wait what, when does Dimitri hate women? I don't remember that part of the game. The only one he hates is Edelgard and it's not because she's a woman, it's the whole misunderstanding she was involved with the tragedy of Duscur. Does he have some sexist scenes in a Support I missed?

Bunni89

2025-01-11 01:40:25 +0000 UTC

Three Houses is like "we tried to make a good game and failed". Engage is like "we didn't even try, and it somehow worked anyway". It's weirdly fun for how shlocky it is!

Bunni89

2025-01-11 01:35:15 +0000 UTC

We who waddles in the dark

Dompap

2025-01-10 22:56:03 +0000 UTC

Ah yes, the music theme of the snakes is the geese from aristocats, perfect

Dompap

2025-01-10 22:36:53 +0000 UTC

When you said "guess the reason for the time skip" my joke answer was "you take a very long nap" Why tf was i right?

Low Charisma (LC)

2025-01-10 09:40:59 +0000 UTC

I feel like I should clarify - my point isn't "ugh Edelgard is so much better then Dimitri", this is Three Houses there isn't a single character in this game I think is done well. I just think Dimitri's character is dogshit for the story-line they're trying to tell with him. Not just from a moral standpoint, I just genuinely think his implementation is awful, and prefer something complicated but bad rather then boring and bad. With Edelgard I can have like, thoughts! And opinions! on how the route could be fixed. With Dimitri I'm just bored the entire time and only want the route removed, which is a way worse crime.

Azelhia

2025-01-10 06:02:51 +0000 UTC

Okay, there’s been a lot of talk about Engage and its quality, and I wanted to add my thoughts to the discussion. So after listening to this review, I can safely say that Engage is NOT worse than 3H (Low bar to be sure) and I would recommend it to people, with some caveats. Firstly, the story is AWFUL! There’s nothing offensive about it, but it’s a straightforward story that doesn’t hold up when you think about it for too long. The worst part is that the main characters never kill or capture any of the four main bad-guy bosses after beating them; which doesn’t make sense when you are fighting a war. The game also can’t decide whether the main bad guy is an undead demon they could summon or just a lost guy from another dimension, and for someone from another world, Lord Sombrom is completely 1-dimensional. Also, everything with Veyle is stupid and weird. Completely cuttable character. However, I LOVE the gameplay loop! The combat is the most streamlined it’s ever been in the series. It’s so easy to place your units because little markers appear when you step into an enemy’s range, so you can’t be surprised by hidden pegasus knights killing you, and if they do, the turn wheel can save your ass if you mess up (like I did a butch my first playthrough). The team building is also excellently done. I get that the rings are fanservice-y, but I love how you use them. You essentially get to mega-evolve your units for 3 turns, which gives them some powerful skills, an extra weapon, and some other stuff. You can also work to put ring abilities on to units that aren’t wearing the rings, so if you play your cards right, you can make a character with the powers of two rings at once. I put Speedtaker on the Pegasus Knight Chloe, which gives her a speed stat increase every time she kills something, and then gave her Erikas ring which gives her a ‘sol’ like ability, so she could sprint behind enemy lines and kill everyone while growing stronger. It was busted. So, I like Engage as long as you understand that the main attraction is not the story. I would recommend it, and it’s definitely not worse than 3H. (It’s also pretty short; I beat my first run in a little over 30 hours.)

Jack Patterson

2025-01-10 03:17:23 +0000 UTC

I never finished 3 Houses because I played for a couple of hours and got bored out of my mind. So, learning the full plot and most of the mechanics was entirely new to me. I lost track of how many times I audibly gasped, paused the review, and ran to tell my partner because I was flabbergasted at how dumb so many aspects of the game are. What is this plot? What are these development choices? 😂 I'm so entertained

HeyyyScout

2025-01-09 22:16:20 +0000 UTC

Had more fun imagening the golden deer kids going to MC Donalds than playing part 2 of that rout

Andreas Jemtegår

2025-01-09 19:21:06 +0000 UTC

So. In engage the plot of the game is that there are these rings called emblems, they are the spirits of the lords from the other games summons from their worlds. This is common knowledge to like everyone in the main cast including the protagonist, who brings this up multiple times. Near the end of the game you have a truce with two of the bad guys, the one who’s not that bad actually it’ll be sad when you kill him and evil pheonica and they explain the evil dragons plot. That plot is to drain this massive body of water because, you guessed it, 1000 years ago he was stopped from doing his thing, but there’s something down there that’ll let him invade the other worlds. The protagonist says verbatim, “there are other worlds?!” And I out loud screamed “YEA THATS WHERE THE EMBLEMS CAME FROM YOU FREAK!” And I sold the game out of anger. You would hate it lmao

Psycho

2025-01-09 19:12:02 +0000 UTC

When I say "Dimitri is the best lord" I mean he's the best executed because I think he's the closest one to successfully pulling off the idea they had for him. It seems like you're moralizing a bit here and assuming I'm saying Dimitri is the best person, which is not what I'm doing. Dimitri's storyline is a pretty basic one about the cycle of vengeance being bad and causing tunnel vision. It's not especially interesting, but they do actually do all of it onscreen and some of the stuff surrounding Dimitri, especially where Felix is concerned, is pretty interesting. I like the idea of the Kingdom not really having a central figure to rally around other than Dimitri, so his retainers have to work with him being NUTS because he's their only option. That's an interesting obstacle. The game keeps telling you that Claude a tricksy schemer who uses outside-the-box-thinking to achieve his goals of international unification. But he doesn't do any of that. His literal only "Scheme" is the Fortress invasion, which both the SS and AZ routes also come up with, and it doesn't even really work. They don't give him any extra story elements about working with Almyra or any other non-Fodlan factions (they could've done something with Brigid, Dagda, or even Duscur, but they don't). He's just a bad character who's decisions make very little sense and then the game has the gall to lie to you and say "HE'S SO SMART". In Edelgard's route, you kill him because he very stupidly decides not to team up with the Empire despite their goals being functionally identical and you successfully marching all the way to the Alliance capital. Once he's dead Hubert and Edelgard are like "Wow. He knew us killing him would be the best thing. What a crazy scheme. He wanted to die, probably. Claude is so smart." It's ridiculous. I like Edelgard more than Claude, but she also makes almost exclusively bad decisions that the game refuses to justify. The trick with Edelgard is that she is the main antagonist in Part 1. Every single map that happens other than Sylvain's brother is directly her fault. - She's the one who hires the bandits that attack herself, Dimitri, and Claude in the opening chapter. This is never explained, by the way. - She abandons said bandits and leaves them to die in the Red Canyon. It's weird she doesn't actually just kill them. She just says "YOU HAVE TO DIE NOW" and warps away. It's so bizarre. - She sets Lord Lonato on his death march mission so she can: - Invade the tomb to get the Sword of the Creator. Which her forces fail to get. - She orders the Death Knight to kidnap Flayn for her blood, which nobody ever even uses for anything - She works with the Snakes and helps them poison a whole village with CRAZY JUICE so the citizens all kill each other. She later says she "regrets this" and "didn't know they were doing it", but The Death Knight is fielded on this mission on her command so I have no choice but to think this is a lie. The Snakes never even do this again, so the experiment didn't lead to anything. It was just them killing people because "funny", and Edelgard's like "Well, you have to break a few million eggs if you're really bad at making an omelette I guess." - She helps plant Monica into the monastery, which causes a bunch of students to turn into demonic beasts and die. The game glosses over this, but it happens! It's insane nobody talks about this, but Edelgard's actions result in the deaths of like 20 kids at Garreg Mach. - This also ends up killing Jeralt which she never apologizes for lmao - She tries and fails to take the crest stones and in doing so orders her forces explicitly to kill all of her fellow students, even on the CF route Everything Edelgard does as The Flame Emperor is just stupidly villainous for the sake of giving the player a villain. You can't throw away those actions just because Edelgard's end goal of "destroy the church" is good. She still did those things. They were still stupid. I think that could've worked and been really interesting if when you joined her in CF she actually explained why she did what she did. Edelgard's story could be one about needing to work with unfortunate allies for the sake of the greater good. A few hundred deaths to topple the church would be worth it. But that isn't really what she does. Edelgard does not need to work with the Snakes. She never even explains how the Snakes help her. Nothing she does in Part 1 leads to anything or avails her any advantages against the church. Every action she takes is an objective mistake and she's a bad person and a foolish leader for doing them. So. Why does she work with the Snakes? Are they providing her more manpower? I suppose, but she doesn't need it. She takes over the Empire in one day without any help from the Snakes because of plans she and Hubert made, and she faces no opposition. Didn't need the snakes for that. They make a point to show how overwhelming the Imperial army is in terms of numbers on all four routes. AM/CF/SS all do the volcano route because the Church needs reinforcements since Edelgard's army is enormous. So she didn't need more guys. She had plenty of guys! They even mention how she planted tons of Imperial agents among the merchants and townspeople at Garreg Mach, which is how they raised an army there so quickly. Do the Snakes provide her a technological edge? They do have missiles and lasers and robots. No. We never see any of Edelgard's forces use any of their fucked up weapons, except the Death Knight, who doesn't seem to follow her orders anyways. So that's not it. Are the Snakes used to sneak into the monastery in a way that Edelgard couldn't have done herself? Again, not really! It seems to me that Solon as the Librarian or Jeritza as the Death Knight probably could've assassinated Rhea or even Byleth whenever. But they just... don't. By the time Edelgard reveals she is the Flame Emperor in the tomb and the player has to decide whether to side with her or not, she has accomplished nothing. She hasn't killed Rhea. She hasn't gotten any new information from the church. She hasn't taken any relics. She doesn't even take any crest stones, because the player gets them all back. She just... decides "okay it's time to attack Garreg Mach." Then she does, and she takes it. She could have done that at literally any point after becoming Emperor. Absolutely none of her weird setup at Garreg Mach was required. She could have used her time at the school to get close to Rhea or Seteth to assassinate them, but she doesn't do that or use the snakes to do that. Instead they kill Jeralt, a man who has nothing to do with anything and wasn't even invovled with the church for the past 20 years.. In fact Edelgard's actions are the ones that bring him back into the fold, so that's basically her strengthening the Knights of Seiros. Oops! Killing Jeralt does nothing except make an enemy of Byleth, and Byleth being their ally is literally the thing that would've swung the war in their favor. Edelgard SHOULD have spent her time at Garreg Mach strengthening her bonds with her fellow house leaders and trying to convert them to her side. If she could have convinced Dimitri, Claude, or even just a bulk of the fellow students that the Church was bad and needed to be destroyed, that would've been a huge swing for her side in the longrun. This graduating class is like a third of the world's next generation of nobility. They could've been Edelgard's allies. But she doesn't do that either! I mention this in the review. Everyone hates Edelgard. Nobody likes her in their supports. All the students are on good terms with Dimitri and Claude aside from some one-off beefs like Felix and Lorenz, but even within the Black Eagles the only people who like Edelgard are Hubert and maybe Dorothea, and Dorothea is nice to everybody. Once Edelgard realized Byleth could wield the sword of the creator, she could've focused on recruiting him. But she doesn't do that! Even on CF she doesn't do that! She just negs him about mourning his father (WHO SHE GOT KILLED!!!). When the Flame Emperor asks Byleth to join her, even if the player says "yes" then the Flame Emperor just goes "No, I know you don't mean it :(" and she gives up. Speaking from a charismatic and diplomatic point of view, Edelgard is just bad at absolutely everything required of an Emperor. She has no allies except the Snakes, a rogue faction who hate her so much that they NUKE A FORTRESS CITY THAT EDELGARD CAPTURED INSTEAD OF THEIR ENEMY just to make her feel bad. Everything Edelgard accomplishes is actually Hubert's accomplishment. She does nothing. She is written to be a villain who is bad at her job so it makes sense when she loses the war. All that said, I still think she's better than Claude. Claude is a character who's concept never even shows up onscreen. He doesn't even do any schemes. Edelgard at least has the decency to be the villain in Act I and do villainous things, even if they didn't bother writing any reasons for her to do those things. So she accomplished like 40% of being what they wanted her to be.

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-09 18:52:03 +0000 UTC

I think Rhea knew some spooky shit about her weird homunculus magic, and probably was right about the Throne bringing Sothis back. But obvs you’d fused with her the mission prior so now you are Sothis, it’s more of a tragedy? I guess. It’s still stupid.

Valiant12

2025-01-09 18:30:15 +0000 UTC

I hated Engage’s mechanics and found it stressful as hell because I wanted to raise all my rings up but in combat the only way to raise rings is by ALSO raising exp (*I think there’s an exception but it’s not relevant here) and all my units that have rings are like level 30 by the fifth map and are super op. And I don’t want to raise my units levels anymore because the game is too easy already, but I DO want to raise my rings to have more cool abilities and stuff (and hopefully get them permanently on my units before the mid game twist where… something happens? Idk it was a long time ago). And the way you unlock the cool class promotions is also by raising rings to unlock weapons. So that’s an annoying catch 22, but also if I am raising my units to way too high a level then I need to do the 3 boring bonus maps that shouldn’t be in the game and take too long. So between every story map are 3 bonus maps that feel bad and make every map too easy and if I ever don’t do them I’m being inoptimal and that feels bad. It’s just the worst gameplay loop I’ve experienced in my life and I hate it, and I was fine with 3H’s stupid awful class unlocking. Plus not having weapon durability makes the combat feel more brain off cus there’s no reason not to pick what deals the most damage. I do really like the fights though, the engages are crazy powerful and very fun to use, especially Macaiah Louis and Sigurd Chloé. Anyway luckily my Switch fell off a cliff into a river and I won’t be able to play the game until 5 years from now when it mysteriously comes back with mint green controllers, so I’ve been spared from the awful experience

PurpleIsDebeste

2025-01-09 16:33:37 +0000 UTC

I appreciate your habit of, "This is stupid... Wait. Let me Do Homework About It to make sure IT'S stupid, and I'M not being stupid."

Eremiss

2025-01-09 15:21:04 +0000 UTC

I had a lot of fun throwing Erika’s ring on Ivy and running into enemy lines, healing herself to full every counter attack

Jack Patterson

2025-01-09 14:47:23 +0000 UTC

I completely agree. I think the amount of times we let the four hounds leave after a battle made me want to scream. The whole time I was like, “just kill them and take their rings!” But at least in comparison to 3H the gameplay is really well done and the game gives you a lot to play with.

Jack Patterson

2025-01-09 14:43:02 +0000 UTC

Izuka slides in, “TRY PRICKING HIS FINGER ON A SPINNING WHEEL!”

Jack Patterson

2025-01-09 14:39:30 +0000 UTC

“Off-screenica, no relation to Phoenica” lol

Jack Patterson

2025-01-09 14:38:31 +0000 UTC

Okay so I vehemently disagree on Dimitri being the best lord, that's so obviously Edelgard. Dimitri likes murder, hating women and enforcing the policies of the obviously evil monarchy and church through violence, that's his entire personality. I would argue that he's actually the worst, because as stupid as Claude is he's at least got a somewhat noble end goal with the dissolution of the state and the stupid church stuff is mostly Byleth's fault in that route. Dimitri acts almost exactly as stupid and has what I would consider the "bad ending" as his outright goal, the status quo preserved through violence because he misses his mommy (Rhea coded tbh). The schizophrenia stuff could be a cool story but, like you said, you basically made it up. Dimitri would be a fantastic villain in an Edelgard game, is what I'm saying. Edelgard, even though the game refuses to show it because they needed to stuff 3 extra routes into what should've obviously just been an Edelgard game, at least has a full plan, executes it (because Byleth carries a lot of the weight), and ends with the eugenics-based colonialist theocracy defeated and the evil snake people she used to get to that point under siege, which is more then can be said for every other route where the church not only sticks around, but you start to run it. If any of the lords should be fully fleshed out, it is so obviously her. I fully think her "humans should be governed by humans" shit is just because they needed to give people literally any reason to go to Silver Snow so they just made her say something dumb despite her knowing and in some side conversations actively stating that she's opposing the church for, y'know. The sane reasons. Like - you said they probably should've cut a route, I disagree. They should've cut all the routes besides Crimson Flower and maybe Silver Snow, and have the crux of the decision be whether you will side with the objectively correct Edelgard or be a little wimpy baby who thinks fighting The Worlds Most Evil People with violence is bad and join the church, where the game can treat you like the idiot you are for doing so.

Azelhia

2025-01-09 14:09:54 +0000 UTC

Yeah, that's just the whole game isn't it? A bunch of really good ideas that it completely fails to properly convey

Khris

2025-01-09 13:43:09 +0000 UTC

My timeskip guess is that Bylet was put into a coma sleeping beauty style.

Stars In A Jam Jar

2025-01-09 11:19:32 +0000 UTC

NOTHING??

Dompap

2025-01-09 09:38:13 +0000 UTC

I don't recommend playing the Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes game, but Claude is a little better. Spoilers Claude: "Hey Edelgard can we have a ceasefire? I want to kill Rhea" and then he does.

FW Pitto

2025-01-09 09:15:27 +0000 UTC

Yeah I know lol. Well I know now, I certainly didn't back then 😂

Bunni89

2025-01-09 08:02:31 +0000 UTC

Vermilion is red actually lmao

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-09 07:48:50 +0000 UTC

It's actually NOT a coincidence that Leonie's B support "Your dad lived me more than you" bullshit dropped right after he died. It ALWAYS does that. It's literally programmed to not unlock until then. I have no clue why any sane person would decide to make it that way.

Bunni89

2025-01-09 07:44:25 +0000 UTC

I will say the story of engage is significantly worse, you might get ironic enjoyment out of it though. But gameplay wise it's actually pretty good. Interesting maps and objectives, decent balance and the engage gimmick allows for some fun builds.

Bryan Davie

2025-01-09 06:57:30 +0000 UTC

Oh the reason Duscur isn't on the map is cos the territory was taken over by Dimitri's country after they were genocided. We don't get told where it used to be before that. It definitely used to be a separate country but now it isn't. Also "they only gave one character melanin and it's Dedue" TECHNICALLY isn't accurate. You can meet some others who escaped the genocide on his paralogue. It did feel super cringe though that their 3D models have a changed skin tone, but the talk portraits are still generic white. It's very bare minimum though, just "no, do not rebel against your oppressors with violence, it makes you Just As Bad" cliche. But if you beat that paralogue Dedue gets saved from death, so I always endure it.

Bunni89

2025-01-09 06:44:34 +0000 UTC

Lorenz ABSOLUTELY should have been Claude's Dedue!!! That's such a great idea! They have such good chemistry with him starting off obsessively following Claude out of distrust, but getting genuinely sweet bonding moments if you max their supports. I keep constantly forgetting Hilda is the Dedue of that route cos she has no actual reason for it. And she's just recruitable on every route anyway.

Bunni89

2025-01-09 06:05:48 +0000 UTC

Genuinely didn't know Verdant Wind didn't mean yellow wind. Wtf! I keep assuming V words are yellow lol, I also thought that with vermillion city in Pokémon.

Bunni89

2025-01-09 06:00:19 +0000 UTC

Good review, had a fun time listening to this! Music in this game slaps, and I broke the game on my Maddening run by just training everyone up as a soldier so they would learn Reposition, which is the best movement skill because it moves two spaces and can be used both offensively and defensively, and if used correctly you can just avoid getting attacked most of the time. I do seriously think they should have condensed this game into at MOST two routes, just the blue route and red route, because they clearly stretched themselves way too thinly on this and the whole thing suffered for it. I will point out that Bernadetta's backstory is brought up again with one of the dlc characters (who turns out to be the commoner from her backstroy) but the support conversation just tries to walk back her dad being the abusive monster he is so its a miss. Having said that I will always have a soft spot for this game because i met one of my closest friends through streaming this game! I did get her to sit down through the Tellius games and witness their glory don't you worry I will spread the good word of Ike until the day I die lmao

T1ggles

2025-01-09 00:19:22 +0000 UTC

I just love your big reviews like this, especially when it’s on medium I’ve spent hours enjoying. The way you do it is entertaining and funny. It also helps me to not make everything I like/love a sacred cow. I enjoy OP, Persona (3-5), and the last two FE entries. But I won’t deny squirting Gatorade out my nose when you brought up evil jimmy neutron.

Masofuts

2025-01-08 23:30:08 +0000 UTC

¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I personally feel like Engages story is just a lot of fanservice. But there’s a lot of heart and melodrama. It’s like a pancake. But the cake to syrup ratio is 20/80%. The characters are simple but charming. Zelkov has probably the best support ever. Cause funny. Yunaka I love 100% Alear/Double D. Is just a ball of nice and does kung fu.

Masofuts

2025-01-08 23:27:34 +0000 UTC

Agreed! Engages story is AWFUL, in so many ways, but at least it’s rly fun to play

Jack Patterson

2025-01-08 23:03:19 +0000 UTC

Thank you so much for making Pope ‘Oedipal Complex’ Rhea and Emperor ‘Failgirl (derogatory)’ Eldelgard sound like actually fun characters. I’d love playing a game w characterizations like these in them! Also I am very much on board for your schizophrenia idea. It would def require care and attention you mentioned, but I would love for auditory and visual hallucinations to be treated as just part of who someone is and not as markers of corruption or evil. I’ve had a weird relationship w 3H for a while, I played up until the timeskip as Golden Deer but I couldn’t get past more than one map post-reunion - everything felt really, really dull, so I sold my copy. In the time since I saw so many people, friends and otherwise, love the game to bits so I figured, huh this is a me problem, I’m not well read enough or skilled enough to appreciate the game, that’s a bummer. All this to say I’m very glad to listen to this review and get some validation for the dissonance I felt throughout my aborted playthrough. my main takeaway from this review is that Soren Path of Radiance could dismantle this entire continent hungover blindfolded and with his hands tied behind his back.

Sivvak

2025-01-08 23:01:54 +0000 UTC

Ha ok nevermind then lmao, idk if your serious but if you are, thats very sad :>

Cap H Cat

2025-01-08 21:57:12 +0000 UTC

I honestly don't know what the rustling sounds are in the middle of this because I didn't have any food or water, I think I just started futzing with an empty bottle or something. The rest is just thanks to my WET MOUTH

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-08 21:17:49 +0000 UTC

Yeah but when you find her he DOES just trust her entirely. And we never do anything about his initial suspicions. Your idea is a good way to explain it but I really don't think the game portrayed that motive very well.

Bunni89

2025-01-08 17:57:48 +0000 UTC

This was fantastic. Engage is better because engage is just fun. Seriously well done on the 5 hour video.

Masofuts

2025-01-08 17:55:54 +0000 UTC

she's grown a lot as a person thankfully since then, cuz this was back when the game had come out, but yeah very glad we stopped dating lmao

Kelzo

2025-01-08 17:30:17 +0000 UTC

WHAT

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-08 17:29:43 +0000 UTC

New day, don't tell me the timeskip is so people can date the adult teacher? Because that didnt stop awakening

Dompap

2025-01-08 17:28:52 +0000 UTC

I don't think liking this game is odd taste! There's a ton of people who like it. This was my big fandom obsession for like two years after it came out. A lot of people love the characters, including me! And there's something so tantalizing about an ambitious unfinished story that draws people in. That's why I found Engage so unappealing, it has no story ambitions at all and ends as more bland Anime sludge to sell figurines and make people play the gotcha game. You couldn't get a five hour Jello review out of Engage! But 3h just has so much juicy material to sink your teeth into.

Emma Breslauer

2025-01-08 17:28:40 +0000 UTC

It sounds like you dodged a bullet tbh

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-08 17:28:35 +0000 UTC

I LOVED this audio review, the editing was amazing, it was structured super well, and i kept cracking up at the jokes you made throughout. The other day during a stream, you asked for suggestions for things you could do on the patreon and on donation streams, and I'll be honest, I would love a podcast of you and your friends thats just this. Just expanding the book clubs and audio reviews to these larger multi-hour presentations with the audio edits and just hearing you all shoot the shit about media you all have engaged with recently, cause these big reviews always are the highlight of my month when they release!

Call me Caesar

2025-01-08 17:11:58 +0000 UTC

My guess is a dragon put everyone in your party to sleep for 5 years

I have nothing BUT contempt for this court

2025-01-08 16:06:14 +0000 UTC

my time skip guess is that byleth falls into a hole and whoever your class was finds him in that hole years later and he's just okay because the goddess is helping him or whatever. EDIT i meant to include this originally but all i know about this game came from my ex who got so obsessed with playing it that she didn't talk to me for like 3 weeks and i said "you either choose me or 3 houses" and she said "3 houses, you've just been bothering me the past few weeks anyways and preventing me from playing" so there's that. at least my reason for playing it isn't purely emotional anymore, cuz this shit sounds terrible lmao. her favorite characters were ingrid and the purple hair girl and everything i know comes from their support convos.

Kelzo

2025-01-08 15:49:52 +0000 UTC

Every audio cut in of “EATING” or “Yumi, your mom collapsed!” got me so good

Michael Dunne

2025-01-08 15:41:57 +0000 UTC

That idea of exploring Dimitri as someone who has Schizophrenia is so fucking good, is there any media that pulls of that concept well?

Dephony O

2025-01-08 14:44:48 +0000 UTC

I feel like Three Houses is the first draft of a really good game. Objectively, yeah it's kinda dogshit, but I do really enjoy it still

Khris

2025-01-08 14:03:19 +0000 UTC

Idk, I feel like Claude's motivation does make some sense. It's less "suddenly I like Rhea and trust her and want to save her" and more "let's find Rhea because she's like the only person who can actually explain what's going on"

Khris

2025-01-08 14:00:34 +0000 UTC

That took me a second, damnit, why didnt i think of that...

Cap H Cat

2025-01-08 13:42:52 +0000 UTC

To be fair it's cos it was an idiom we don't have in our language. Can't remember exactly but something like "earth wind rain flowers" or whatever. The different weathers of each season. But if they thought we wouldn't get it, why not just change it to "Fire Emblem Four Seasons" 😅

Bunni89

2025-01-08 13:34:10 +0000 UTC

Pretty sure they like implied it or tried to :/

Cap H Cat

2025-01-08 13:30:19 +0000 UTC

I'm rolling bc this is peak Jello. "I simultaneously care so much about how good this could've been that I'm gonna research the shit out of it AND I'm so removed from it emotionally I'm going to audibly eat my whole ass lunch in the review and not say anything about it." 10/10 no notes this is worth every penny

Mackenzie Oliver

2025-01-08 13:30:10 +0000 UTC

No, you can date basically everyone by the end, both students and teachers. It's just a game where the romance stuff only happens in the ending.

Bunni89

2025-01-08 13:26:52 +0000 UTC

For me berni was bad and the big yellow idiot in the golden deers was my op guy, but thats just cus from the start i played my run wierd

Cap H Cat

2025-01-08 13:15:55 +0000 UTC

I figured that out in like, the first chapter, not because the game told me anything but, because I had the masterswords man with the soldier lady and like, a teir 1 archer and the archer was always more usefull, also the dancer class that was the main reason that shit was useless.

Cap H Cat

2025-01-08 13:11:30 +0000 UTC

Yup, thats how i feel, but i think in my case its probably just odd taste...

Cap H Cat

2025-01-08 13:04:13 +0000 UTC

Maybe this spoilers idk but Odlly enough your wrong most of the caracters are either of age or you can't date them, and when you timeskip that doesn't change, far as i can tell, but i only got to like the 3rd major chapter

Cap H Cat

2025-01-08 12:59:15 +0000 UTC

There's an extremely simple reason for why Claude wouldn't want to join Edelgard. Claude's main goal is for everyone to be friends with Almyra and Edelgard doesn't want to do that. No clue why they didn't just write that

Khris

2025-01-08 12:35:53 +0000 UTC

Paused the review to make my guess as Jello requested: The stupidest possible reason they could have for what I assume is a five year timeskip is not because, say, your students graduate school. No, this is Japan - the timeskip is to age up your students so they can be in dating range. It's the stupidest, worst reason for a timeskip I can imagine. (Like, in-universe. We fast forward through the growth years in order for them to be able to see who dates who with all these freshly eligible partners. That, or there's a volcano, apparently. Either works.)

Finn Underwood

2025-01-08 11:40:11 +0000 UTC

So in Classic, if you somehow manage to lose a unit during white clouds, they don’t die. They still hang around in the monastery and are still part of your class, but they won’t attend class or do anymore than small talk with Byleth because idk he stinks? Then in the epilogue it’s revealed that Lord Offscreenicus got them 😭

Laughable01

2025-01-08 08:46:30 +0000 UTC

Love that “there are 4 seasons” had to be localised out

PurpleIsDebeste

2025-01-08 08:26:20 +0000 UTC

I only know that cus Dorothea starts with sword proficiency so both runs I made her a mortal savant and both times she was kind of bad cus it’s not a very good class. Whoops! At least levin swords are good

PurpleIsDebeste

2025-01-08 08:23:10 +0000 UTC

I tried Engage against my better judgment recently, and would not recommend it, exactly- but it'd probably piss you off less than Three Houses. Unlike 3H, it has no pretensions to taking itself seriously. It's the most nothing, saturday-morning-cartoon fairytale plot I've ever seen in a Fire Emblem, with zero attempt to worldbuild or have themes. It's all awful, but in a funny way where you can just laugh at it the whole time instead of being frustrated by missed potential. You're not missing anything by skipping out on it, but it's not offensive- it sets expectations so low that it's hard to be disappointed by it. None of the characters in Engage are good or have any reason to exist. It's just one big march across the world fighting zombies in pursuit of an Evil Dragon Man, where you accumulate random over-the-top anime babies who are on your side because you're the Good Guy. Mechanically it's actually shockingly fun. It's designed around these equippable fanservice cameo rings that give any unit you want busted abilities like "warp staff yourself and attack at the same time", "get a ton of extra movement and canto", or "do Reyson's 4-way galdr". Stick Physic on your thief! Break the action economy with multiple dancers! You can do some truly nutty stuff, and the map design is often pretty challenging and necessitates that you do do some nutty stuff to survive. Like, if you just want to play a Fire Emblem and have a good time with the mechanics, it's maybe the most fun I've had with the series. (Except there is a Garreg Mach. The stupid 3D hub area full of pointless errands is back and more pointless than ever- but luckily this time the chores aren't integral to the development of your units and you can just rush the story missions with less interruption. Plus, the game doesn't necessitate that you replay the game four times to get the whole story. Way way way less of a timesink.)

Benedict Ide

2025-01-08 08:17:18 +0000 UTC

big day for people who love listening to someone complain for hours on end (me)

Flak0ps

2025-01-08 07:11:35 +0000 UTC

Oh man- I'm listening to the Verdant Wind recap now, and this is bonkers. I gave up on the game halfway into Claude's route because I was sick of the filler missions and the Garreg Mach shit after playing Blue Lions and Black Eagles, and I'd just never learned, like... the plot of the game? Like, all that stuff about the bone weapons and Nemesis and crests- all that backstory stuff doesn't come up in those routes. I assume that's why people were saying "oh yeah those are the Plot routes"- because for all the not-explaining-anything they do, they at least... mention the existence of the plot, at all. BL and CF are just the story of Edelgard and Dmitri being mad at each other and doing a war about it from two different angles- this is literally the first I'm hearing of the Seteth and Flayn stuff explicitly. (I'd assumed they were secret dragons, because they're real evasive about their past and associated with Rhea and this is a Fire Emblem game, but they don't spell it out at all.) Hearing about the ballistic missiles thing in VW is crazy, because like- in CF, there's that bit towards the end where it's like "oh yeah, by the way, the snakes bombed a city with mystery death rays from the sky or something" and it's completely swept under the rug. With context, that's clearly supposed to have been the missiles that were such a big deal over in the other route. I was so ready to like, learn about what the Slithery Boys' superweapon thing was, or what their agenda was, and fight them at some point- and got absolutely gobsmacked by the end narration just going "and then Edelgard also dealt with those guys, offscreen at some point, don't even worry about it" and that being the end of the route. They don't even tell you it's missiles!!!

Benedict Ide

2025-01-08 06:37:38 +0000 UTC

One of the things I like to think about when judging a game is whether its failings are due to incompetence or budget/time restrictions. With Radiant Dawn, the average quality of the game is high enough that its problems often just feel like the devs weren't given enough time, it's a great game but if the devs were given more time and money I think the game would be near perfect. Fate's and 3H's both obviously have a bunch of budget and time restrictions, but I don't think they'd be that much better. With Fate's the writing is so bad that I think you'd need to hire entirely different people to help fix it, while FE 3H would probably be ok. More maps, better graphics, clean up the UI, actually usefull tutorials, etc would definitely help the game a lot, but it wouldn't help the story in any way aside from some minor touch ups like more cutscenes.

Your Moist Toast

2025-01-08 06:21:35 +0000 UTC

God, Claude's route is so bizarre. His entire motivation just reverses! I picked his route first cos I thought it'd be about confronting Rhea for her shady actions. That's all he ever talks about pre-timeskip! And then just suddenly we trust her unquestionably. Drops that shit faster than a nuclear potato! Then uhh.. found Nemesis in a box? He's the boss now. Somehow all of this solved racism. It's absolutely my theory that a different route was planned for Claude post timeskip, they just failed to finish it and slapped on a copy of the church route as filler.

Bunni89

2025-01-08 06:10:55 +0000 UTC

love the return of "becomes evil"

pictrable

2025-01-08 05:29:20 +0000 UTC

"You're a cup that holds god" is fuckin raw and I wish that was actually in the game

Bunni89

2025-01-08 05:20:09 +0000 UTC

I sure didn't know that in four whole playthroughs lol. They definitely don't communicate it well, omg I wasted my time for nothing...

Bunni89

2025-01-08 04:56:46 +0000 UTC

obligatory “Sothis is basically” comment

George Blanchard

2025-01-08 04:43:47 +0000 UTC

we love a 5 hour STIB

Snack_Daddy

2025-01-08 04:40:16 +0000 UTC

My guess was that they took a holiday break

Crimson Claw

2025-01-08 03:51:25 +0000 UTC

As someone who has not played a single fire emblem game other than sacred stones as a kid the sentence "There are now ballistic missiles in this medieval fantasy game" is the funniest sentence I've heard as an outsider to this franchise

Luveygold

2025-01-08 03:43:55 +0000 UTC

Only about 15 minutes in so far, but mannn... as someone who started off this series by playing Awakening, I loved that game, then moved on and played the Tellius games, LOVED those. I then played Fates when it came out, GAVE UP about half maybe three-quarters of the way through Birthright because it was BORING AS SHIT. And then played Three Houses maybe a couple months after Byleth was announced for Smash, played one route and just... couldn't go through any more of it... Man... I hate this series LMAO. Can't wait to see your thoughts on Engage though because that game seems like utter dogshit. I'm curious if it even has any redeeming qualities at all.

Calcyon

2025-01-08 03:10:29 +0000 UTC

One of the core problems with Three Houses' world building is that the important shit had to have happened a long enough time ago for everyone to forget that giant shapeshifting dragons are a thing, but also not long enough for anyone to have figured out how any of the supernatural elements in their world work. It's like if Attack on Titan didn't have the plot device of the founding titan brainwashing everyone to forget about the rest of the world

Khris

2025-01-08 02:50:52 +0000 UTC

it was a really tall cliff dude.

pictrable

2025-01-08 02:43:56 +0000 UTC

Not sure if you read up on the DLC but good news, it makes the lore and setting an even more confusing nonsense mess. It also somehow manages to make Rhea EVEN WORSE. The new mechanical stuff from them is fun though and the new maps are challanging and interesting.

Bryan Davie

2025-01-08 02:16:43 +0000 UTC

If I understand correctly for a lot of "class trees" (like swordsman or male mage) the correct thing to do is to just stay in the tier 3 class the whole time, tier 4s are mostly just for extra utility that you often don't really need. But the actual game completely fails to communicate that

Khris

2025-01-08 01:26:47 +0000 UTC

Time skip guess: They ran away but got lost in the woods and it took a while to come back

Arjun MK

2025-01-08 01:24:09 +0000 UTC

And the genderlocked classes just make this worse, like, a lot of Three Houses does work for me, I do quite like the game in general, but the genderlocking is just fucking indefensible

Khris

2025-01-08 01:23:02 +0000 UTC

The weird thing is that for a lot of class trees a tier four class isn't really a strict upgrade, it's more like a weird side thing you can do if you want to branch out. But the game doesn't present it that way, it makes it seem like this is something you need to keep up with the end game. So what happens is you end up sitting there like eight chapters from the end of the game pumping up everyone's riding and lance skills because all these motherfuckers suddenly want to be on a horse

Khris

2025-01-08 01:20:59 +0000 UTC

THE FRIENDSHIP IS WITCHCRAFT MUSIC LMFAOO

pictrable

2025-01-08 01:12:40 +0000 UTC

What's funny is that I really love this game while also agreeing with pretty much all of your criticisms. I love it in a very "I could fix him" kind of way, where I can see this amazing final product in the middle of this unfinished pile of ideas. It's always wacky how I can be like "edelguard and claude's motivations make no sense and they really should have just teamed up to take out Rhea" while also really loving all them. Great review!

Emma Breslauer

2025-01-08 01:05:45 +0000 UTC

Since I began with Fates which basically removed gender locked classes (for the most part) it makes every game that has them, ESPECIALLY when they came after, feel almost unplayable. It is INSANE that they brought this back.

Crimson Claw

2025-01-08 00:55:52 +0000 UTC

SERIOUSLY! On my first run I had to pivot almost my entire team to different training at the last minute. I don't see how anyone going in blind was meant to expect this

Bunni89

2025-01-08 00:41:19 +0000 UTC

It drives me absolutely nuts that 80% of the master classes require Ride or Flying despite almost none of the preceding classes training those abilities :/

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-08 00:36:39 +0000 UTC

Omg you escaped Golden Deer right before the stupidest plot twist. Amazing luck!

Bunni89

2025-01-08 00:31:00 +0000 UTC

Ohhh the gender locks are SO dumb! It's bizarre that every other level of dark magic is male only, but the final one Gremory is female. So EVERYONE with that class proficiency loses out. You've either gotta spend the whole game in something else just waiting to get it in endgame. Or you spend the whole game enjoying the class and get slapped at the final minute. Better go get sword or mount profiency cos there's NO pure mage option left!

Bunni89

2025-01-08 00:29:27 +0000 UTC

That thief map is such a difficulty spike on every difficulty. It's usually the only map in the game I have to try on because your units go from slaughtering everyone to finally being in danger for the first time.

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-08 00:26:40 +0000 UTC

HELL YES

S

2025-01-08 00:21:53 +0000 UTC

This was my first Fire Emblem game, so going from this to PoR and RD was such a difference in quality. One of the changes I hate in more modern FE's is the difference between the hardest and second hardest difficulty. In POR and RD the difference between normal and hard mode is a reasonable change in difficulty, meanwhile the difference between hard and maddening in 3H's is absolute bullshit. The most infamous example of this is the first map after the time skip, where it's a total joke on hard mode but impossible on maddening. On my first maddening run it was literally impossible to beat, so I had to restart the entire run.

Your Moist Toast

2025-01-08 00:00:26 +0000 UTC

I think it'd be funny if every language did a different number, just to confuse people

Bunni89

2025-01-08 00:00:06 +0000 UTC

There being four routes even though it's called Three Houses is actually a localization issue! The Japanese name was instead an idiom for four seasons, which is why all the route names have a vaguely seasonal word. Apparantly this is because the concept of school houses isn't especially popular in Japan, VS harry potter making it "more marketable" here as the name of the game.

Bunni89

2025-01-07 23:59:32 +0000 UTC

The usage of maps in 3H is so bad that it’s kind of hilarious. Because the maps are all GIGANTIC, so in the infinite grind battles, that all have like 7 enemies, you use maybe 10% of the map if I’m being generous. So one would think, maybe, that you would have each usage of the map use a different part of it, get a lot of variety out of your limited map pool. But uh. Nope. Each story map uses The Whole Map (which are often too big) and every infinite grind battle takes place in the same ONE CORNER of this map, which is probably in the empire capital or something, which makes no sense. And like, that’s funny. But also. I did those maps as much as I could, cus I recruited everyone (except Caspar, which is why I hate him, and found murdering Only Him very funny) so I wanted all my garbage units to be good and get high level classes. And doing those same maps with the same unit placement over and over drove me INsane, it’s so boring and mind numbing. But hey, in my first run that I deleted, Bernie was op cus she could crit everything with deadeye and kill them from across the map. And in this run she crit maybe 40% the time and was weak. So it was allll worth it.

PurpleIsDebeste

2025-01-07 23:47:14 +0000 UTC

Man if you love story focused Fire Emblem then you must LOVE Fates 😂 Being honest though I find Fates to be my favorite through sheer game mechanics alone. It was my first game in the series and it spoiled me with weapons that don't break and REALLY tactical gameplay. I tried Awakening right after and almost broke my 3ds because I kept dying from randomly getting too many crits in a row (on the enemy, thus letting more and more enemies initiate attacks) because the pair up system is NOT balanced. I muscled my way through Genealogy because everyone said it was good and the story was good, but man did a lot of the mechanics drive me nuts. I then played (and enjoyed) Shadows of Valencia but when 3 Houses was announced it really looked like a return of all the features from previous games I didn't like, so I skipped it. Which is why I'm pleasantly interested in listening to this loooong review.

Crimson Claw

2025-01-07 23:45:14 +0000 UTC

"Yumi, your game is trash" (This is such a fun listen! Congrats with the progress on Winds of Change!)

Truly azul

2025-01-07 23:21:20 +0000 UTC

explodes like an SNES boss

JelloApocalypse

2025-01-07 23:09:40 +0000 UTC

Hell yes!! I both love this game and am constantly baffled by it's story inconsistancies, so this is gonna be a great listen!

Bunni89

2025-01-07 22:27:47 +0000 UTC

When playing Three Houses I started on Golden Deer, and did a run where I recruited all the kids. I played until reaching the start of the final chapter; then I stopped playing thinking I'd finish it and start another route later. I ended up never touching the game again; evidently that seems to have been for the best!

Abby_Gale

2025-01-07 22:26:56 +0000 UTC

5 hour of Fire Emblem talk!? Hell yeah my evening is set!

LilJevans

2025-01-07 22:24:58 +0000 UTC

I'm gonna guess they need to finish school first

Dompap

2025-01-07 22:20:50 +0000 UTC

5 hours and art… our people will eat like kings all winter…

PurpleIsDebeste

2025-01-07 22:20:14 +0000 UTC

1:23:00, yea, I've heard of Sothis, Sothis Isbasically

Drednot

2025-01-07 22:17:25 +0000 UTC

5 hours! this is perfect for being slowed into my house!

Drednot

2025-01-07 22:12:53 +0000 UTC

Congrats on finishing winds of change! (Very excited for this next 5 hours of my life)

Kitsunaura

2025-01-07 21:37:55 +0000 UTC

Can’t wait to listen to this when I get home..

Hunter_Oki

2025-01-07 21:31:54 +0000 UTC

Can't wait to listen through

Arjun MK

2025-01-07 21:04:40 +0000 UTC

WOOHOO

pictrable

2025-01-07 20:49:07 +0000 UTC

5 Hours of Dumb Things in "Fire Emblem: Three Houses"

Comments

I love Edelgard she's SO bad at everything

Coming back to relisten to this because someone in my book club said 'returning to the world of three houses is the right move', and I need to be warmed by the comforting glow of your hatred for this dog shit game

I gotta say, I’m really excited to see how Fortune’s Weave fucks up Three Houses lore even more than it already is

I’m gonna steal the ideas from Dmitri’s route and other elements of the game and use them in my own TTRPG games to make them actually good

Wait a sec… immortal being feeding her followers her power in order to make them immortal and the evil faction and also a cult? This isn’t Fire Emblem: Three Houses or Trails of Cold Steel- This is Lancer: In Golden Flame: Act One!

Quick correction at 4:15:40, Edelgard doesn’t show up alone at the meeting, she was accompanied by Hubert. You probably forgot because he doesn’t say a single word there.

Every time you gave an example of a cutscene I went "I don't always agree with Jello, it can't be THAT bad" and then I went and watched the cutscene and they were all that bad.

If Rhea was played straight as a horrid cult leader villian weirdo I think she would be one of my favourite villians in the serise.

Man, I cackled like a gremlin reading those character notes.

I feel somewhat validated to hear you mention that the game reminds you a lot of Cold Steel 2, because the literal first thing that came to mind when the trailers for this game dropped was "...wait...is this Cold Steel?", and the game itself only made that more apparent as it went on.

He had to drift all the way up to the surface like a fucked up lazy river

Now here’s the big question, how much would the game improve if Ashard and Teronio were in it?

Any reason Kermit the Frog is your “bad writer” voice?

Honestly Jeritza is one of my favorite characters in the game once you get to know him. He only likes three things 1. Cats 2. Ice cream 3. And Killing people And he is annoyed at anyone who doesn’t allow him to do those things in peace

You actually can't recruit Hilda on Crimson Flower, because that's the only route where you can kill Claude.

i did a challenge run where i beat all of edelgard's units without ever engaging with a dimitri unit just to prove him stupid. it was not worth it

Even though this was your longest rant yet, it still felt like you were holding back to save time. Next time, hit us with that eight hour supercut!

Oh!! 1000%!!!

Boy you sure don't even get unique dialogue for 90% of Student Interactions

3:20:24 Did anyone else spend more time avoiding other Dimitri's students in Gronder Field in case you could recruit them after?

Wait what, when does Dimitri hate women? I don't remember that part of the game. The only one he hates is Edelgard and it's not because she's a woman, it's the whole misunderstanding she was involved with the tragedy of Duscur. Does he have some sexist scenes in a Support I missed?

Three Houses is like "we tried to make a good game and failed". Engage is like "we didn't even try, and it somehow worked anyway". It's weirdly fun for how shlocky it is!

We who waddles in the dark

Ah yes, the music theme of the snakes is the geese from aristocats, perfect

When you said "guess the reason for the time skip" my joke answer was "you take a very long nap" Why tf was i right?

Had more fun imagening the golden deer kids going to MC Donalds than playing part 2 of that rout

I think Rhea knew some spooky shit about her weird homunculus magic, and probably was right about the Throne bringing Sothis back. But obvs you’d fused with her the mission prior so now you *are* Sothis, it’s more of a tragedy? I guess. It’s still stupid.

I appreciate your habit of, "This is stupid... Wait. Let me Do Homework About It to make sure IT'S stupid, and I'M not being stupid."

I had a lot of fun throwing Erika’s ring on Ivy and running into enemy lines, healing herself to full every counter attack

I completely agree. I think the amount of times we let the four hounds leave after a battle made me want to scream. The whole time I was like, “just kill them and take their rings!” But at least in comparison to 3H the gameplay is really well done and the game gives you a lot to play with.

Izuka slides in, “TRY PRICKING HIS FINGER ON A SPINNING WHEEL!”

“Off-screenica, no relation to Phoenica” lol

Yeah, that's just the whole game isn't it? A bunch of really good ideas that it completely fails to properly convey

My timeskip guess is that Bylet was put into a coma sleeping beauty style.

NOTHING??

I don't recommend playing the Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes game, but Claude is a little better. Spoilers Claude: "Hey Edelgard can we have a ceasefire? I want to kill Rhea" and then he does.

Yeah I know lol. Well I know now, I certainly didn't back then 😂

Vermilion is red actually lmao

It's actually NOT a coincidence that Leonie's B support "Your dad lived me more than you" bullshit dropped right after he died. It ALWAYS does that. It's literally programmed to not unlock until then. I have no clue why any sane person would decide to make it that way.

I will say the story of engage is significantly worse, you might get ironic enjoyment out of it though. But gameplay wise it's actually pretty good. Interesting maps and objectives, decent balance and the engage gimmick allows for some fun builds.

Genuinely didn't know Verdant Wind didn't mean yellow wind. Wtf! I keep assuming V words are yellow lol, I also thought that with vermillion city in Pokémon.

Agreed! Engages story is AWFUL, in so many ways, but at least it’s rly fun to play

Ha ok nevermind then lmao, idk if your serious but if you are, thats very sad :>

I honestly don't know what the rustling sounds are in the middle of this because I didn't have any food or water, I think I just started futzing with an empty bottle or something. The rest is just thanks to my WET MOUTH

Yeah but when you find her he DOES just trust her entirely. And we never do anything about his initial suspicions. Your idea is a good way to explain it but I really don't think the game portrayed that motive very well.

This was fantastic. Engage is better because engage is just fun. Seriously well done on the 5 hour video.

she's grown a lot as a person thankfully since then, cuz this was back when the game had come out, but yeah very glad we stopped dating lmao

WHAT

New day, don't tell me the timeskip is so people can date the adult teacher? Because that didnt stop awakening

It sounds like you dodged a bullet tbh

My guess is a dragon put everyone in your party to sleep for 5 years

Every audio cut in of “EATING” or “Yumi, your mom collapsed!” got me so good

That idea of exploring Dimitri as someone who has Schizophrenia is so fucking good, is there any media that pulls of that concept well?

I feel like Three Houses is the first draft of a really good game. Objectively, yeah it's kinda dogshit, but I do really enjoy it still

Idk, I feel like Claude's motivation does make some sense. It's less "suddenly I like Rhea and trust her and want to save her" and more "let's find Rhea because she's like the only person who can actually explain what's going on"

That took me a second, damnit, why didnt i think of that...

To be fair it's cos it was an idiom we don't have in our language. Can't remember exactly but something like "earth wind rain flowers" or whatever. The different weathers of each season. But if they thought we wouldn't get it, why not just change it to "Fire Emblem Four Seasons" 😅

Pretty sure they like implied it or tried to :/

No, you can date basically everyone by the end, both students and teachers. It's just a game where the romance stuff only happens in the ending.

For me berni was bad and the big yellow idiot in the golden deers was my op guy, but thats just cus from the start i played my run wierd

I figured that out in like, the first chapter, not because the game told me anything but, because I had the masterswords man with the soldier lady and like, a teir 1 archer and the archer was always more usefull, also the dancer class that was the main reason that shit was useless.

Yup, thats how i feel, but i think in my case its probably just odd taste...

Maybe this spoilers idk but Odlly enough your wrong most of the caracters are either of age or you can't date them, and when you timeskip that doesn't change, far as i can tell, but i only got to like the 3rd major chapter

There's an extremely simple reason for why Claude wouldn't want to join Edelgard. Claude's main goal is for everyone to be friends with Almyra and Edelgard doesn't want to do that. No clue why they didn't just write that

Love that “there are 4 seasons” had to be localised out

I only know that cus Dorothea starts with sword proficiency so both runs I made her a mortal savant and both times she was kind of bad cus it’s not a very good class. Whoops! At least levin swords are good

big day for people who love listening to someone complain for hours on end (me)

love the return of "becomes evil"

"You're a cup that holds god" is fuckin raw and I wish that was actually in the game

I sure didn't know that in four whole playthroughs lol. They definitely don't communicate it well, omg I wasted my time for nothing...

obligatory “Sothis is basically” comment

we love a 5 hour STIB

My guess was that they took a holiday break

As someone who has not played a single fire emblem game other than sacred stones as a kid the sentence "There are now ballistic missiles in this medieval fantasy game" is the funniest sentence I've heard as an outsider to this franchise

it was a really tall cliff dude.

Not sure if you read up on the DLC but good news, it makes the lore and setting an even more confusing nonsense mess. It also somehow manages to make Rhea EVEN WORSE. The new mechanical stuff from them is fun though and the new maps are challanging and interesting.

If I understand correctly for a lot of "class trees" (like swordsman or male mage) the correct thing to do is to just stay in the tier 3 class the whole time, tier 4s are mostly just for extra utility that you often don't really need. But the actual game completely fails to communicate that

Time skip guess: They ran away but got lost in the woods and it took a while to come back

I think Rhea knew some spooky shit about her weird homunculus magic, and probably was right about the Throne bringing Sothis back. But obvs you’d fused with her the mission prior so now you are Sothis, it’s more of a tragedy? I guess. It’s still stupid.

explodes like an SNES boss