Gameplay And Story Segregation / Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Gameplay and Story Segregation in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Story

• In the tutorial, Edelgard clearly has an axe and no dagger in her inventory (although daggers do not exist as an equippable weapon type in this game). Once the boss is defeated, she's suddenly armed with only a small dagger. Though the player can make this work if they gave her axe to one of the other characters.
• Support conversations take place in the academy, even if you are currently at the temporary encampment before the end of Part I on the Crimson Flower route. A few of these support events first become available at this time.
• It's clear that many of the C- and B-rank supports were written with the idea that the player would see them before the 5-year timeskip. For example, Dimitri's supports: After the timeskip, he talks in a much deeper and darker tone of voice that matches his new grizzled look, but if you do one of his C- or B-ranked supports after the timeskip, he will suddenly return to talking with his lighter and softer voice that he has pre-timeskip. A special mention goes to the Ignatz/Ingrid supports, where the poor guy will find himself enthusiastically sketching a pile of rubble as if it was a statue of Seiros.
• The cutscene for Miklan's transformation shows the rest of his gang fleeing in terror from his monstrous new form. Despite this, undefeated enemies will still be there and attack your units in the second part of his level. This also happens even if you've defeated every other enemy on the map, including reinforcements, and forced Miklan's personal battalion to flee.
• Unlike in Awakening and Fates, class changes don't affect non-CGI cutscenes. All characters have a default model in their school uniforms — on occasion, this makes sense, as it's their outfits off of the battlefield, but many times it appears that they approach battle in their uniforms, switch into their combat gear for the battle itself, then switch back to their uniforms for the wrap-up.
• Hubert's canonical classes are Dark Mage and Dark Bishop. The only way to get these is to beat the Death Knight for them to drop the Dark Seal, which is needed to access the Dark Mage and Dark Bishop classes. However, the Death Knight works for Hubert and Edelgard. Logically, they should have access to these via other means.
• In gameplay, Divine Pulse has multiple charges and you can use it as many times in a row as that number of charges, trying different things each time (albeit RNG elements like level-up gains and critical hits will remain set) and can rewind all the way to the start of a given battle if you wish. In the actual story, Divine Pulse is only ever used to rewind time a few seconds (Sothis warns that it is not an infinite power), and if using it fails to change an outcome once, then said outcome is stated by Sothis to be impossible to change.
• If you choose to have a character specialize in a weapon other than their canon weapon, they'll still use said weapon in cutscenes — Byleth, for instance, will always be depicted wielding the Sword of the Creator, even if they haven't raised their Sword skill at all.
  • In relation, there are hints that certain characters specialize in swords, whether it be via the character having one at their hip on their character model, them being stated to practice with or have knowledge in their use, or outright challenging other characters to sword fights. Not only do you have the option to not train these characters in swords in the interest of pursuing another classline, but many of these characters will lack a strength in swords to begin with, giving you all the less reason to do so.
• The Crest Stones that can be given to units in New Game+ give no negative effects to those carrying them, despite the drawbacks of non-Crest-bearers attempting such a thing having pretty severe ramifications story-wise. A lesser case of this also applies to Relics — while they do inflict damage on Crest-less wielders, much like the Lance of Ruin does to Miklan during the first phase of his boss fight, any more extreme consequences of using them without a Crest are reserved for enemy units.
• In Felix and Dimitri’s B-support, Felix refuses to let Dimitri handle the Sword of Zoltan, a sword crafted by the finest blacksmith in all of Fódlan that Felix has purchased from a merchant, due to the prince’s history of snapping swords in half with his immense strength. After the scene, it goes to Byleth’s inventory by default, can be given to Dimitri, and Dimitri can use it in-game combat if he’s got at least an A-rank in swords, as can anyone else who meets the same requirement.
• At the start of the game, Byleth is already a well-known figure in mercenary circles, feared and respected as "the Ashen Demon." However, in gameplay, they start as a level 1 Commoner. Similarly, Jeralt is infamously known as "the Blade Breaker," and considered one of the strongest knights in the Knights of Seiros (an elite fighting force) yet in his guest appearance in the very first battle, he's a level 3 Paladin (which, admittedly, is an advanced class that units cannot access until reaching Level 20 and high ranks in Lance and Riding).
• While the game goes out of its way to give the models of Duscur and Almyran-affiliated units darker skin, their portraits do not reflect this, which makes scenes such as the aftermath of the "War for the Weak" Paralogue (Dedue's Paralogue, which is explicitly set in what was the Duscur region) or the animated cutscene of Claude and Nader testing one another in a show of solidarity in the Verdant Wind route feel disjointed. The most noticeable case of this is the Almyran merchant that comes to Garreg Mach during the War Phase — his skin is tanned, but his hair and facial model are identical to one of the generic male Fódlan NPCs, and his portrait has pale skin. All of this also applies to "those who slither in the dark," who have eerily white skin. Only Agarthans of importance (Thales, Solon, and Kronya) have portraits and models that match.
• Tied to the Verdant Wind route cutscene above, when Nader enters Fort Merceus, he uses a bow and is riding on a horse. In gameplay, not only is he a Wyvern Lord for all of his gameplay appearances (whether as an ally in the Verdant Wind route or as an enemy on the Crimson Flower route), his weapons of choice are axes and he has an E-Rank in bows.
• Edelgard's death cutscene from the Alliance and Silver Snow paths shows Edelgard barely standing up by holding the Sword of Seiros's grip (which is stuck on the ground) as the Aymr lays near her feet, while in-gameplay, she previously had only the Aymr in her inventory. This is particularly baffling on the Verdant Wind route, as Edelgard does carry both her relic axe and the Seiros sword during the second battle at Gronder Field.
• Take Your Time is in effect — everything happens within the last week of the month. It's often justified by being a scheduled event or a mission that takes weeks of preparation to mobilize for, but even when your characters are about to do something like march upon the Imperial Capital or take the Alliance's strongholds, or your job is to try and find where Flayn is, you'll still spend at least three weeks training in the monastery (although you can skip this for the latter if you choose to enter Jeritza's quarters, despite the warning that it'll skip to the end of the month). There are two notable exceptions: on Crimson Flower, defeating the Kingdom army at the Tailtean Plains will move immediately onto the final battle in Fhirdiad, while on all the other routes, taking over Enbarr will immediately move onto the Imperial Palace without returning to Garreg Mach.
• It's quite doable to prevent the Flame Emperor's forces from escaping with any Crest Stones when they raid the Holy Tomb. Indeed, the game rewards you for it. However, regardless of how you perform in the battle, Edelgard will still escape with enough Crest Stones to bolster her forces.
• The second Battle of Gronder Field post-timeskip is always treated as a bloodbath in-story, even though the map's objective is to defeat all enemy commanders, meaning it's entirely possible to clear the map by only defeating Edelgard and Dimitri/Claude. Especially on the Azure Moon route, where the Alliance's military strength is described as "crippled" afterwards, even if you minimized casualties on their side.
  • In-Universe, the Empire and Kingdom forces engaged in open conflict while the Alliance forces acted as a third party that is more aligned with the latter. Game-wise, the Alliance forces are unbiased towards either side which means that they can attack you without even going after an open Edelgard or even a single Empire unit, making their pre-battle quotes (which is clearly meant for you attacking them instead of Edelgard) rather nonsensical.
• This can actually be invoked by the player themselves — despite the characters clearly having biases towards certain classes that the story suggests, there is nothing stopping them (apart from common sense) from pursuing the exact opposite. For example, the supports will still say Mercedes is an absolute klutz with a sword, even if she has an S-rank in swords.
• While the Death Knight refuses the nameless wizard's orders to attack the enemy, and expresses his lack of interest in fighting "weaklings," he will pursue and attack the player's units on Maddening.
• In the Crimson Flower route, the unfinished portrait Edelgard draws of Byleth will always resemble their male counterpart more, even when playing as a female◊.
• The Crests and Relics themselves can be quite different between gameplay and story. In gameplay, characters with Crests can attack with more power and critical shots at times, but they can still fall behind normal units if the latter have the right training and equipment. Even when players combine a Crest-bearing unit with a Relic, it still doesn’t reach a point where you can one-shot two enemies at the same time on the map (unless you use your battalion at the right moment). Meanwhile, in lore and story progression, many characters will point out how Crests can single-handedly turn the tide of a battle and make their bearers superhuman; thus, they are necessary for many noble houses to wield their relics and protect their lands from invaders. This point is emphasized even further in the opening cutscene of the War of Heroes, where you can see the Relics (the 10 shining red dots on the battlefield) systematically destroying battalions left and right. The Sword of the Creator itself is mentioned to be able to cut a mountain in half and does eliminate a big group of soldiers by burning them to a crisp in the same cutscene mentioned previously.
• In Silver Snow's version of Chapter 13, if the player has lost any of the remaining Black Eagle students during combat beforehand (which is only possible while playing in Classic Mode), during Byleth's meeting with Edelgard, the latter will mention how some of her former classmates have taken her side, suggesting they will be fought later during the route. In spite of this, none of them ever reappear in any subsequent chapter, and their ending cards will even contradict this information.^note Recent datamining heavily suggests the characters were indeed meant to defect if they had fallen during Part I in Silver Snow early in development, meaning the example in question is likely an unintentional leftover of this.
• In the closing cutscene of Azure Moon Chapter 19, Edelgard responds to the loss in Derdriu by ordering her troops to fall back to Arianrhod in the west. This occurs even if you completed Dimitri's paralogue(which becomes available at the start of the chapter) and retook control of Arianrhod; for bonus points, Hubert is the boss of said paralogue and is present for said conversation, yet this is overlooked.
• During months where specific units (or even all of the knights at once in Chapter 10) are away from Garreg Mach, they cannot be found while exploring to converse or do faculty training. However, they are still available for supports, auxiliary and prologue missions, the sauna, and meals in the dining hall.
• Besides the named students characters, each House is shown to have several other students; they are shown in crowd scenes, in some battles you have to protect them, and they also appear in Garreg Mach as anonymous NPCs who comment the events the story and who sometimes give you side quests. However, you can't control or recruit these "extra" students, and there's no explanation why some students are important enough to have become playable characters while others aren't.
• No matter what route you pick, an animated cutscene of Byleth being pulled to the dance floor with Claude at the Garreg Mach Establishment Day ball will play. However, if you're on the Golden Deer route and choose to see him at the Goddess Tower, neither he nor the game, bizarrely, will acknowledge this. This sticks out badly because, on the Blue Lions route, the game accommodates an extra cutscene where you speak with Dimitri by having him mention going to the Goddess Tower and transitioning from there if you chose to go with him.

Characters

Non-Student Characters

• Byleth:
  • Byleth’s supports with other characters, such as Hannamen, Seteth and Felix, imply that they are a seasoned warrior and Master Swordsman, hinting that they started mercenary work at ten at the very least and that they possessed renown matching their father's, with them being known and feared as "The Ashen Demon" for their skill and emotionless visage in battle. Of course, being one of the first playable characters, Byleth starts with low stats compared to similarly renowned warriors such as Catherine, while most of their skills are at E, with their highest ones being swords at D+, brawling at E+, and Authority at D respectively.
• Manuela:
  • Despite being a physician and being familiar with the differences between healing magic and medical science, she has weak proficiency in Reason.
  • Her inability to learn the long-range healing spell Physic means that she's generally a poor choice for a primary healer, with each house's designated white mage (Mercedes, Marianne, and Linhardt) all being better healers than the school nurse. Her Faith spell list is more support-oriented, with the incredibly useful Warp for positioning and Silence for neutralizing opposing mages.
• Cyril:
  • A minor one that can be avoided regarding his self-hidden illiteracy: Outside of his Supports with Lysithea, the only proof Byleth (and the audience) gets of his illiteracy are his Part I confessional notes, as they're noted to be crude illustrations instead of written out. However, in Part II, his notes are now written (albeit simply), meaning that Cyril was able to pick up some reading and writing skills during the five-year time gap. The segregation comes with his Lysithea Supports, as the main story involving it is specifically her teaching him how to read and write. If the player did not recruit Lysithea, or if the player obtained their first set of Supports during Part I, this is not an issue. However, if the player picked the Golden Deer/recruited Lysithea on another route, entered a scenario where they obtained one of Cyril's Part II confessional notes and then initiated his and Lysithea's first set of Supports, then the segregation happens.

Black Eagles

• Linhardt:
  • If the player attempts to recruit him, and they have met the requirements, his quote mentions "My professor is so strict. So is the house leader." He still says this in chapter 12, when said house leader is no longer at the academy, and should probably be raising greater concerns than being too strict on her classmates.
  • Despite his disdain towards "the awful bore of ordinary weapons", Linhardt only has a neutral growth in three out of the five physical weapon types, having only a weakness in axes and brawling. In fact, Bernadetta, Lysithea^note Though she can have only two banes in physical weapons after realizing her Budding Talent in swords, and Mercedes actually have more skill banes in physical weapons than Linhardt, a total of three, compared to Linhardt's skill bane of only two physical weapons. It's zigzagged in that Linhardt can never gain a strength in any of the physical weapon types whereas the aforementioned Bernadetta, Lysithea, and Mercedes can get at least one.
• Dorothea:
  • Despite her classmates telling her she is a terrible cook, you don't get stat penalties if you choose to cook with her at the monastery like you do with Flayn or Raphael. Although it is possible that thanks to Byleth's help she's able to make decent food.
• Caspar:
  • Despite wearing heavier armor after the timeskip, he leans towards the Warrior class, which is known to hit hard at the expense of defense.
  • Despite his physical training, his base speed of 6 and dexterity of 5 are rather low when deciding to teach his class.
• Ferdinand:
  • Despite "heights" being listed in his likes, Ferdinand is neutral in flying instead of proficient.
  • He'll bring up horses even if the player never levels his Riding skill.
  • For all that the game makes him insist that he's inferior to Edelgard; on routes where she's not the protagonist he can easily beat her in every possible chapter; and his balanced defensive growths actually make him among the best options for surviving hits from her.
• Bernadetta:
  • You can grind her to the extent that she's still acting like a Fragile Flower / Shrinking Violet / Nervous Wreck on the battlefield even while kicking ass and taking names.

Blue Lions

• Dimitri:
  • While he admits to being rather clumsy and struggles with dexterous tasks, Dimitri has a relatively high Dexterity cap (69), growth (50%), and base (7), all of which are higher than Felix's.
  • Even though Dimitri's mental state has gone off the deep end upon finding out who the Flame Emperor really is at the end of Chapter 11, you can still invite him over for monastery activities such as dining and choir practice in Chapter 12, with his personality remaining the same calm and kind prince he was before said chapter. If you are teaching the Blue Lions, he doesn't act any different when inviting him over for tea or giving him lecture instructions. And when fighting in the battle to defend Garreg Mach, his voice lines in battle remain the same prior to the Wham Episode.
  • He acts incredulous at the possibility of winning the White Heron Cup and claims to be a terrible dancer. Despite this, he has one of the best Charm growths in the game, with Charm being the deciding factor in the competition.
  • After the Time Skip, Dimitri, who has been waging a one-man war on the Empire for years, comes with a battalion of elite soldiers.
• Felix:
  • While Lysithea manages to "cure" his dislike of sweets in their supports, he still dislikes the sweet dishes in the dining hall after the event is viewed, although Lysithea does state she bakes Felix cakes herself that have much less sugar in them than is usual, so it might be Felix just grows to like Lysithea's cakes.
  • While he's been focusing on swords since he was a child, and has a talent for the skill, Felix starts with just a D in the skill, only one rank higher than the clearly civilian Ignatz, and one below Petra.
  • If he's set to use his timeskip portrait outfit but doesn't have any swords in his inventory, he'll still carry sheathed swords.
  • Despite not having issues with delicate work nor constantly breaking things by accident, Felix has a lower Dexterity stat than Dimitri, in terms of base, growth, and cap.
  • The game will act like his sword skill is trained even if the player never levels it.
• Annette:
  • While she's said to be clumsy, Dexterity ties with Magic for her highest stat. ^note Only Bernadetta, Claude, Lysithea, Leonie, and Shamir exceed her.
  • She is noted to be very clumsy while cooking, to the point where Dimitri states she caused an explosion in the kitchen when introducing her. Despite this, she is not among the characters who gives a penalty when chosen for cooking. It's possible that the reason why it goes better for her there is because Byleth is helping her with it.
• Ashe:
  • While he's good at haggling, Ashe's Charm stat is one of the lowest in the game, tying for the second-lowest growth (25%) and having the lowest cap in the game (36).
  • Despite being confident in his own speed and claiming nobody can outrun him, Ashe's Speed base (9), growth (50%), and cap (71) are simply above-average, and his movement rate is determined by his class(as well as whether he has movement boosting skills equipped or has used a movement-boosting item).
  • While he was a thief, Ashe is neutral with swords and has no previous skill with them.

Golden Deer

• Marianne:
  • In her supports with Raphael in Three Houses and Shez in Three Hopes, she is shown to be a vegetarian. However, she has no qualms about eating meat dishes should the player decide to share a meal with her.

Ashen Wolves

• Constance:
  • While her personal ability in both Three Houses and Three Hopes is a reflection of her changing demeanor when in sunlight, it does not account for the possibility of a map having both indoors and outdoors sections, or having the weather changed midway through the level. This can result in the odd sight of seeing Constance in her cheerful self while out in the sun or being gloomy when not exposed to sunlight.

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