History Awesome / FireEmblemThreeHouses

** The fight between Nemesis and Seiros. Not just for how cool it is in general, but how Seirios ends it: when Nemesis hooks the Sword of the Creator around her blade, she takes advantage of it and deliberately throws both weapons behind her, dashing toward him immediately afterward and delivering some GoodOldFisticuffs. Then she hits the bandit king with an ArmorPiercingQuestion (revealing herself a survivor of the Zanado massacre) and shanks him to death with a bootknife.
* Beating the [[TheDreaded Death Knight]] at any point before you're supposed to. The Death Knight is ''ridiculously'' powerful, and even if you attack him outside of his range, he can still counterattack you and possibly kill you if you're unprepared. [[LordBritishPostulate As a reward for kicking his ass]], you get the rare Dark Seal, which is necessary to get the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes.

* The moment that finally locks you into the Black Eagles storyline: after defeating Edelgard and Hubert when they turn on you in Holy Tomb, Rhea orders you to execute her for everything she's done. But if you went with Edelgard to Enbarr to witness her coronation as Emperor, you are instead provided with the option of flipping the script on Rhea and siding with Edelgard instead, an act which not even ''Edelgard'' was expecting, and bringing all the Black Eagles with you. After escaping a furious Rhea, and regrouping at an Adrestian military outpost, Edelgard gives an awesome DareToBeBadass speech, then dubs you all the Black Eagle Strike Force, an elite military unit within the Adrestian military. Your first task? Drive Rhea and the Knights of Seiros out of Garreg Mach to claim it as your new base of operations in the war against the Church and the retaking of Fódlan for Adrestia. ''And you succeed'', opening the war in a suitably epic fashion.

** Props to Claude, he still shows his chops as the master tactician, he basically set up a win-win scenario - if he repels Edelgard, then the Alliance is protected; if he can't repel Edelgard, he set it up so he can surrender the Alliance to her without any infighting, giving her a reason to spare him, and banking on Byleth to be a good influence on her. Secondly, by surrendering and hinting he has a certain amount of influence in Almyra to Edelgard, he's able to plant the seeds of a future alliance between Fódlan and Almyra, since Edelgard has expressed a lack of racism in regards to other nations, and desires to open up Fódlan (which would be public knowledge as she printed manifestos in this route) allowing him to achieve his dream of opening up his mother's homeland to the outside world. So even if he loses the war, Claude wins the peace, master tactician indeed.
* Just the fact in this route, YOU are fighting for the Empire fully for the first time in this series history, and unlike the other routes where you generally start as the underdog, the Adrestian Empire is relatively in a strong position after 5 years. For fans who have been clamoring for a more morally ambiguous route, this route WILL have you play as the AntiHero or AntiVillain for the first time in ''Fire Emblem''. And the writing does not disappoint either, bringing down Seiros, abolishing the crest system, corrupt nobility, and giving the people of Fódlan a true chance to rise on their own merits, will make you feel like a badass.
** The game doesn't pansy around with how much of a strategic walkover it is, either. It's a central point of the other routes that the Empire has a huge material advantage and could barely be kept at a stalemate until Byleth returned to help tip the scales against them. When they do so in the Empire's favour, their strategy plays out almost exactly as they intend, and their enemies can only muster a single do-or-die counterattack that does some nasty damage but it ultimately repelled without conceding anything. The route is four whole chapters shorter than any other, because the war ends in literally half the time. This is even more impressive when you consider that literally all factions in Fódlan are gunning for the Empire, the fact that only the Church that unlike other routes fully focused on the war with the backing of Seiros a tactical genius with centuries of experience, managed an offensive that failed, Those Who Slither In The Dark launched a missile that destroyed a vital fort and killed several Imperial lives which barely slowed the Empire down, the rest of the nations were forced on the defensive and basically it's the Empire vs the rest of Fódlan, and they WIN.

** And on the subject of Bernadetta, a rather roundabout one comes around if she marries Ferdinand: their A Support reveals that Ferdinand's parents were planning to have the two of them enter an ArrangedMarriage, much to the delight of Bernadetta's father. In their paired ending, Bernadetta renounces her claim to House Varley, meaning that her father gets the marriage he'd wanted in the past...only now, he gains nothing from it. It's a delightfully ironic punishment, considering how badly he treated Bernadetta in the past.
** Bernadetta is a walking moment of awesome for anyone who struggles with anxiety and shyness. Sure, her anxiety is PlayedForLaughs a lot of the time (her persecution complex is something ''you weaponize'' to make Bernadetta stronger in a fight, which crosses into BlackComedy ) but over the course of Crimson Flower, you slowly see Bernadetta acclimate to her situation as an army officer, reaching a tipping point pre-time skip where, without any prompting, she bravely walks outside in broad daylight to lay flowers on Jeralt's grave. Once you get into Crimson Flower proper, she starts showing up outside more, gets better at holding back her knee-jerk reactions to run and scream when surprised, and eventually starts spending her supports either helping people or getting into conversations with them without overreacting. This all culminates in nearly all her endings; she will almost always become a competent, if quirky, Countess, usually being the one ''in charge'' in most paired endings with a fellow noble (only Ferdinand takes control of managing the house within Crimson Flower, with Bernadetta and Hubert acting as equals), and will be said to have had a happy, fulfilling relationship with anyone she falls in love with.

* The Black Eagles Strike Force blindsiding Cornelia with a surprise assault and dealing a severe blow to those Who Slither in the Dark in the process. While the damage they incurred in retaliation for that assault was significant, there's something deeply cathartic about Edelgard's forces killing Cornelia, a horribly corrupt individual, despite technically being on the same side as her.

* Along with a dose of TearJerker and NightmareFuel, it is quite remarkable how this route has the biggest body count of the four routes by a mile. If you actively avoid recruiting and stick with the default Black Eagles students, after the time skip, you will be able to kill the entire Blue Lions´ roster and all the Golden Deer students sans three (and only because they don´t appear after the time skip), as well as most of the Seiros Church faction, including all the knights and Rhea herself. So, at the end, you can make Edelgard succeed in her ambitions by killing everyone in her way. Tragic? Yes. But it does show how powerful Byleth and the Black Eagles are in this route with literally all the other factions gunning for them.

* Chapter 18 has to be one of the most epic final fights in ''Fire Emblem'' history. Seiros, knowing Fhirdiad would fall to something as simple as a siege (it's the capital of a kingdom in the snowy north, meaning the BESF can easily starve the people inside with their now limitless resources), finally slips past the point of no return as she [[ItsAllAboutMe refuses to flee, putting her obsession over everyone, even those loyal to her]] and orders Catherine to ''set fire to the city'' just to kill Byleth. And Edelgard, showing moral superiority, has ''none of it;'' she is well past such dirty, terrible tactics in this route (thanks to Byleth helping her with her trust issues). She and the rest of the Black Eagles force charge into the burning city despite the tactical disadvantage to ensure that Rhea will be stopped from doing even more damage to the rest of Fódlan. This all leads up to an awesome BattleAmongstTheFlames where you slog through the burning city, destroying massive golems, potentially killing the greatest swordsman in Fódlan (Catherine can give ''the Death Knight'' a run for his money), and one of the most faithful knights of Faerghus, and finish by killing a giant dragon.

* The final battle has Byleth fight a berserk Immaculate One (which is even stronger than in the Edelgard route) and an entire army of monsters to protect the Monastery; especially notable since unlike all other routes, you are defeating an entire horde of ''dragons'' without the support of any of the other nations. And if you achieve an S-Rank pairing with Rhea, [[Heartwarming/FireEmblemThreeHouses she survives with her sanity intact, resolving to become a better leader]], peacefully ending the ForeverWar plaguing Fódlan for good.

* After defeating, Edelgard, Claude and Byleth head to the chamber where Rhea is held, and after a brief reunion, Claude asks Rhea for information about " Those Who Slither In The Dark ". Initially Rhea remains silent, hesitating to answer, but then Claude in one of the few times he gets angry, actually yells at her and demands an explanation. For fans who have waited this long to get an explanation on the real backstory of the game, and those who are tired of Rhea constantly hiding the truth, or telling half-truths, this moment is very cathartic.

* When Aefric appears to be held hostage by Metodey, everyone comes up with a plan to stop them and keep the chalice: Hapi using her sighing to attract monsters and scare away some of the Brigands. It's something Metodey didn't expect at all, and to see his smug smile wiped off at that moment is awesome in of itself.
* Yuri appears to have been a traitor alongside Aelfric, but the entire time, he set up everything to ensure the latter's downfall. Freeing his friends and convincing Byleth beforehand to come to the Holy Mausoleum, he and the others manage to stop Aelfric's ritual together.

** Bernadetta is a walking moment of awesome for anyone who struggles with anxiety and shyness. Sure, her anxiety is PlayedForLaughs a lot of the time (her persecution complex is something ''you weaponize'' to make stronger in a fight, which crosses into BlackComedy ) but over the course of Crimson Flower, you slowly see Bernadetta acclimate to her situation as an army officer, reaching a tipping point pre-time skip where, without any prompting, she bravely walks outside in broad daylight to lay flowers on Jeralt's grave. Once you get into Crimson Flower proper, she starts showing up outside more, gets better at holding back her knee-jerk reactions to run and scream when surprised, and eventually starts spending her supports either helping people or getting into conversations with them without overreacting. This all culminates in nearly all her endings; she will almost always become a competent, if quirky, Countess, usually being the one ''in charge'' in most paired endings with a fellow noble (only Ferdinand takes control of managing the house within Crimson Flower, with Bernadetta and Hubert acting as equals), and will be said to have had a happy, fulfilling relationship with anyone she falls in love with.

* When Aefric appears to be held hostage by Metodey, everyone comes up with a plan to stop them and keep the chalice: Hapi using her sighing to attract Demonic Beasts and scare away some of the Brigands. It's something Metodey didn't expect at all, and to see his smug smile wiped off at that moment is awesome in of itself.

---> '''Byleth''': "Let this be a lesson!"

** In said battle, should Byleth bring the finishing blow to Aelfric and pull off a critical, they give one ''hell'' of a PreMortemOneLiner:

* Yuri appears to have been a traitor alongside Aelfric, but the entire time, he set up everything to ensure his downfall. Freeing his friends and convincing Byleth beforehand to come to the Holy Mausoleum, he and the others manage to stop Aelfric's ritual together.

[[folder: Cindered Shadows]]

** Speaking of polls, this years Choose your legends had all 4 winners being from Three Houses, with Lysithea, Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude taking the victory. Special mention goes to Edelgard, who took first place for females and has the most votes out of all the winners at 74,617.

** Speaking of polls, this years Choose your legends had all 4 winners being from Three Houses, with Lysithea, Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude taking the victory. Special mention goes to Edelgard, who took first place for females and has the most votes out of all the winners at 74,617.

* This is also the route where you can recruit almost ''everyone'', with only Claude, Edelgard, and Hubert as exceptions. [[note]]Of those three, Claude simply dissolves the Alliance and surrenders its territory to Dimitri after you rescue him, then [[ButNowIMustGo shoves off to Almyra]]. Edelgard and Hubert are the BigBad and TheDragon of this route, respectively, so they are simply impossible to save.[[/note]] Uniting nearly the entire school under your banner can feel amazing, and ensures that [[EveryoneLives all of them have a chance to see the end of the war]], rather than get cut down by your forces. It's a lot of slides to go through during the ending, [[EarnYourHappyEnding but it's worth it]].
* As [[NightmareFuel terrifying as it is]], Dimitri easily overpowering and killing armed soldiers with his bare hands is still amazing.

** Thanks to DLC, he's now playable under his true identity as Jeritza, and he still has his unique class. Oh, and he also gets Counterattack as his mastery skill. Feel free to control the bonus boss and rain terror on the enemies of the Empire.

** The fight between Nemesis and Seiros. Not just for how cool it is in general, but how Seirios ends it: when Nemesis hooks the Sword of the Creator around her blade, she takes advantage of it and deliberately throws both weapons behind her, dashing toward him immediately afterward and delivering some GoodOldFisticuffs.

* And speaking of Smash, on January 19th 2020, Byleth was announced as the fifth DLC fighter for ''Ultimate'', wielding the Sword of the Creator and the Relic Weapons of the three house lords.

* An October Nintendo Dream poll had Dimitri ranked 8th out of the top 10 among readers' favourite Nintendo characters. Bear in mind, this poll featured gaming icons like ''Mario'', ''Link'', ''Pikachu'' and ''Kirby''. All of whom have entire franchises under their belts. Dimitri managed to place alongside them based on his appearance in '''one game'''. If that's not a testament to this game's writing, nothing is.

* Claude's dodge animation when he's on foot and using a bow is to do a flip, and while upside down in midair fire his bow at his attacker. He continues it when riding a wyvern, the dragon flying upside down as Claude shoots an arrow at the enemy, showing that there's a good reason he's upside down on the cover art.

* In addition to winning Strategy Game of the year at the 2019 Game Awards ([[AwardSnub The only award the voting jury nominated it for]]), the Players Voice award[[note]] The only award determined 100% by fan votes. [[/note]] ended up going to Fire Emblem due to a mass rallying of the fanbase that allowed it to win by a landslide 44%.

* The opening scenes of the game look ''breathtaking''. It opens up to a battle taking place, with Nemesis dropping in dramatically after having thrown the Sword of the Creator to the ground like a missile and killing any poor sod close to it, giving you a look of just how powerful a Heroes Relic can be. The fight between Nemesis and Seiros also deserves some mentions because, rather than take down Nemesis with her sword, Seiros opts for GoodOldFisticuffs instead.

** A gameplay moment during the battle itself: defeating Hubert and the Death Knight reclaims the map's two strongholds and summons reinforcements immediately. On Hubert's side, the reinforcements are two very strong Snipers (one of them being Shamir if she wasn't recruited), who will likely proceed to ''demolish'' the Winged Demonic Beast in that area. On Nightmare difficulty especially, seeing [=NPCs=] (normally known for ArtificialStupidity) successfully pull a BigDamnHeroes is incredibly satisfying.

** Props to Claude, he still shows his chops as the master tactician, he basically set up a win-win scenario - if he repels Edelgard, then the Alliance is protected; if he can't repel Edelgard, he set it up so he can surrender the Alliance to her without any infighting, giving her a reason to spare him, and banking on Byleth to be a good influence on her. Secondly, by surrendering and hinting he has a certain amount of influence in Almyra to Edelgard, he's able to plant the seeds of a future alliance between Fodlan and Almyra, since Edelgard has expressed a lack of racism in regards to other nations, and desires to open up Fodlan (which would be public knowledge as she printed manifestos in this route) allowing him to achieve his dream of opening up his mother's homeland to the outside world. So even if he loses the war, Claude wins the peace, master tactician indeed.
* Just the fact in this route, YOU are fighting for the Empire fully for the first time in this series history, and unlike the other routes where you generally start as the underdog, the Adrestian Empire is relatively in a strong position after 5 years. For fans who have been clamoring for a more morally ambiguous route, this route WILL have you play as the AntiHero or AntiVillain for the first time in ''Fire Emblem''. And the writing does not disappoint either, bringing down Seiros, abolishing the crest system, corrupt nobility, and giving the people of Fodlan a true chance to rise on their own merits, will make you feel like a badass.
** The game doesn't pansy around with how much of a strategic walkover it is, either. It's a central point of the other routes that the Empire has a huge material advantage and could barely be kept at a stalemate until Byleth returned to help tip the scales against them. When they do so in the Empire's favour, their strategy plays out almost exactly as they intend, and their enemies can only muster a single do-or-die counterattack that does some nasty damage but it ultimately repelled without conceding anything. The route is four whole chapters shorter than any other, because the war ends in literally half the time. This is even more impressive when you consider that literally all factions in Fodlan are gunning for the Empire, the fact that only the Church that unlike other routes fully focused on the war with the backing of Seiros a tactical genius with centuries of experience, managed an offensive that failed, Those Who Slither In The Dark launched a missile that destroyed a vital fort and killed several Imperial lives which barely slowed the Empire down, the rest of the nations were forced on the defensive and basically it's the Empire vs the rest of Fodlan, and they WIN.

* Chapter 18 has to be one of the most epic final fights in ''Fire Emblem'' history. Seiros, knowing Fhirdiad would fall to something as simple as a siege (it's the capital of a kingdom in the snowy north, meaning the BESF can easily starve the people inside with their now limitless resources), finally slips past the point of no return as she [[ItsAllAboutMe refuses to flee, putting her obsession over everyone, even those loyal to her]] and orders Catherine to ''set fire to the city'' just to kill Byleth. And Edelgard, showing moral superiority, has ''none of it;'' she is well past such dirty, terrible tactics in this route (thanks to Byleth helping her with her trust issues). She and the rest of the Black Eagles force charge into the burning city despite the tactical disadvantage to ensure that Rhea will be stopped from doing even more damage to the rest of Fodlan. This all leads up to an awesome BattleAmongstTheFlames where you slog through the burning city, destroying massive golems, potentially killing the greatest swordsman in Fodlan (Catherine can give ''the Death Knight'' a run for his money), and one of the most faithful knights of Faerghus, and finish by killing a giant dragon.

*** And he's also a BiTheWay option for Byleth, so fans of both sexuality can romance him, no village girl here. His S-support even manages to be this, as they are in a back to back badass position against the ''Agarthans'' in their base. BattleCouple indeed, as Jeritza declares his feelings towards them, while describing the Agarthans as flies. Their paired ending, cements both as TheDreaded as both the sword and scythe of the Adrestian Empire.