Fire Emblem Three Houses (Spoiler Thread)

Especially Cyril, since unlike the students he doesn't advance through class tiers automatically and so starts out as a Commoner.

Like you said, SS as a route is overshadowed by the other routes gameplay wise.

Would you rather have crappy Catherine and Cyril or OP Edelgard and Hubert?

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jul 2nd 2020 at 4:29:08 AM

Neither, OP Dimitri's way too fun.

Leaving Dimitri solo in the middle of the maps is so much fun. It's seeing Hyrule Warriors Ganondorf killing all who stand in his way but on auto mode.

I mean, Dimitri is canonically capable of slaughtering hundreds of imperial soldiers on his own. It was rather surprising to see that this does translate into gameplay. (Also, he still manages to remain OP despite being locked out of Byleth's lessons for several months.)

Give him the Death Knight's scythe and that skill that lets you attack first on the enemy's turn when the batallion is low and you basically have the actual Death Knight on your side.

And use the Retribution gambit on him so he also gets Counterattack like the Death Knight. Anything that dares to try to attack him is instantly dead.

I have given Dimitri a similar set to the Death Knight.

I love it.

The Scythe looks really fitting for Dimitri.

Edited by RedHunter543 on Jul 2nd 2020 at 4:58:26 AM

Would that be the best way to go about it though? The devs reportedly said they banked a ton in making the Black Eagles story unpredicable compared to the others, and saying Silver Snow is the default story branch with no fanfare technically gives away the big twist by itself (AKA Edelgard being The Heavy and not staying with you for Part 2 like Dimitri & Claude do), both in its premise (Byleth vs Edelgard) and in its title (doesn't follow the color of your faction unlike Blue Lions & Golden Deer).

A ton of stuff, if not most of the spoilers involving Part 1, would need to go unspoilered to make it work. Alternatively, both SS and CF could be spoilered equally, but that would raise suspicions as well...

Edited by Blackress on Jul 2nd 2020 at 8:38:40 AM

The problem is, there's no way around the fact that SS is the default story branch, since even in the final game it's entirely possible to get locked out of CF before you even get to the split point. And talking about CF plot at all inevitably outs it as the game's Anti-Villain route, because Edelgard being the Flame Emperor is a twist you encounter regardless of which house you're leading.

Plus, the whole "siding with the Emperor" deal is arguably much more of a surprise than the "betrayal" itself.

And the "unpredictable" quality is subjective anyway, because the game kind of... doesn't do a very good job hiding said twist in the first place.

That's true. If anything, most of the BE route heavily bombards you with cues that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor and is involved in very shady stuff when BL and GD go on to explore their own separate mysteries which may or may not be related to the Flame Emperor's goal.

This is where it gets kind of tricky though, because the game's advertising went the opposite way with it. For starters, the E3 trailer showing the 2nd Gronder battle gave off the impression Byleth would stick with their chosen lord for part2. Also, to quote the game's entry in Never Trust a Trailer:

Honestly, if we wanna sort out the whole SS/CF secret route best, the most ideal choice would be getting rid of spoilers to begin with and add a warning early on.

Edited by Blackress on Jul 2nd 2020 at 10:37:12 AM

If Edelgard going to war against the Church was supposed to be a surprise, then they botched it. The first line we got from Edelgard was her saying that everything wrong with Fodlan was due to Crests and her character bio says she hates the Church.

I've also seen many people online liking Edelgard a ton at the start and end up utterly heartbroken when the plot reveals how far she's willing to go, so it would be unfair to say the plot failed at what it attempted to accomplish.

Edited by Blackress on Jul 2nd 2020 at 9:43:05 AM

The Gronder II cutscene is also misleading in other ways, TBH. Namely, besides the fact that you never get to be on El's side during said battle, it makes it seem like all three house leaders are now against each other. While the chapter in question tries to present things that way, the setup only lasts for that one chapter, and fails in different ways on both routes that contain said chapter (namely, VW has Dimitri immediately die offscreen once the battle ends, and AM... well, you know). In reality, all non-CF routes are just your faction vs. El. They kind of hid the twist by outright lying about the plot.

That would work if they intended to present the Church as the villains, though...

Edited by YnK on Jul 2nd 2020 at 9:49:04 AM

And the game also tries to play out with that by proxy of having Rhea be herself before the twist at the midgame shows up and goes like "yeah the church isn't the bad guy of this story, as flawed they might look like".

Edited by Blackress on Jul 2nd 2020 at 9:52:08 AM

They're not? CF bashes you over the head with how afwul the Church is, how the only sympathetic religious people jare the ones actively fighting to destroy, how following religion is itself a symbol of weakness (except if you're one of The Good Ones™ who kisses Edelgard's ass like there's no tomorrow), and the game only portrays Rhea sympathetically when she's talking about what a horrible, awful person she's been. Plus every branch Church is either 100% pure evil(Southern, Western) or stupid, pathetic, and contemptible (Eastern). And Claude, the most consistently moral and upright character, hates the Church.

And of course, the Church is objectively, provably just a bunch of lies and bullshit for the sake of controlling people and the "good" members Seteth and Flayn are fully aware of that and thus don't actually believe in it...

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Jul 2nd 2020 at 9:55:57 AM

...Calm down, please. You get to lead the freaking Church on two routes.

Technically three, since Rhea leaves Byleth in charge while she's gone and in-universe the church allies themselves with the Kingdom/Alliance to take down the Empire in AM/VW respectively.

Edited by Blackress on Jul 2nd 2020 at 10:01:53 AM

I used to feel somewhat positive about the Co S. Now I just see it as another cliche Evil JRPG Church with a few half-hearted attempts to make it not completely unsympathetic.

Edited by MisterTambourineMan on Jul 2nd 2020 at 10:03:54 AM

I think the Church is a very morally grey institution and therefore a much more interesting church than the vast majority of religions in JRPGs.

I'd like to see it that way, but it feels like there's too little example of them actually doing anything good.

They do a lot of good according to support conversations, but we mostly just see the bad because conflict's gotta conflict, I suppose.

Rhea's the main factor for the Church seeming super sketch. As soon as Byleth takes control, they're very much undisputed good guys (despite Seteth's complacency in Rhea's shenanigans—though she also didn't keep him informed on a lot of stuff that comes back to bite everyone else's asses later). Also, Alois is very much the picture of heroic Church knightly goodness.

Flayn and Seteth are also one of the most heroic characters in the game and they don’t side with you in CF.

Quite the opposite.

Yeah, I'm being too down today. I think I'm letting some personal stuff get to me more than I realized.