What is Fire Emblem: Three Houses and Why Should You Buy it?

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is Nintendo’s tactical role-playing game developed for the Nintendo Switch. Although it was released some time ago, the game has continued to grow in popularity.

Because of this, I thought it was about time we looked into the game a little more. Is it really worth buying Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and if so, why?

Three Houses Gameplay

Like other Fire Emblem games, Three Houses uses a turn-based battle system. If you like how the old Final Fantasy games played, I have a feeling you may enjoy this.

When you start the game, your character’s gender and name are chosen. You’ll control a player character who gets invited to teach at the Garreg Mach Monastery. Think of this place as your main hub or ‘base’ location.

Players will choose a specific schoolhouse to teach. The narrative following this choice is set depending on which house you choose. You’ll spend your time between the main story and interactions with students and other staff.

Although the first part of the game does focus a lot on the school, without spoiling too much, time does advance a fair bit later down the line.

Turn-based Battle System

During a battle, players will control a number of units. Each unit has an assigned character class and natural starting abilities. However, units can be taught skills that, in turn, change their class. This is dependent on a student’s graduation during the school section of the game.

As you can see from the image above, units move across a grid. The top-down perspective changes to a third-person view during the triggering of a battle.

Three Houses introduces a new feature that allows you to hire Battalions. These have passive abilities that can grant buffs to the lead unit as well as special moves known as Gambits.

Other Fire Emblem games have seen multiple game modes consisting of Classic and Casual. Three Houses is no different, where Classic mode offers permanent death to those fallen in battle. Casual mode is a little more forgiving, allowing characters to be resurrected following each battle.

Story

Whilst I’m not going to go into too much detail about the story (as I’ll let you discover that for yourself), I do want to mention the way in which Fire Emblem: Three Houses tells its story.

The way the game’s story has been written is simply genius. In fact, this is one of the strongest and most positive points I’ve heard about it. It is both weird and wonderful, and at times funny, too.

If you’re into games that present hours of dialogue and character development based on this, I’m sure you’re going to love Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Each student in the school presents their own character, and you can use this to your advantage. The game kind of makes you get to know each character in order for you to advance in battles and be even stronger. You can talk to people, have dinner with them, and interact in multiple ways.

Should You Buy Fire Emblem: Three Houses?

The simple answer here is yes. You need to give this game a try! Fire Emblem on the Switch is something completely unique. Although I’m an avid RPG fan, Three Houses is a game like no other.

If you’re ready to give Fire Emblem: Three Houses a go on the Nintendo Switch, let us know what you think! I’m really keen to hear other players’ thoughts on this game, as well as the best interactions you’ve encountered so far.