For a long, long time, the Warriors, or Musou games have ridiculed the world over for being a series of mindless button mashers. Endlessly popular in Japan, the series was considered a cult success at best in the west. That’s not to say the series was bad – on the contrary, the concept of slaying thousands of enemies as one of a huge roster of Japanese legends sounds fantastic, but unfortunately many of the early games were prone to a sense of repetitiveness and awkward controls. Something changed in 2014, however, with the release of Hyrule Warriors. Combining the fluid hack-and-slash strategy of the series with Nintendo’s biggest franchise, The Legend of Zelda, led to redemption of the series and instant success worldwide. Since then, we’ve seen several other high-profile spin-offs, each proving better and more popular than the last. Today we’ll be taking a look at the latest – Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes – which combines the characters and themes of the most recent Fire Emblem TRPG with the classic Musou formula.
Three Hopes is linked to Three Houses – the most recent mainline Fire Emblem is a pretty curious way. Both games are set in Fódlan – a continent divided into three. To the north lies the devout Holy Kingdom of Fearghus, to the east the democratic Leicester Alliance, and to the southwest the militaristic Adrestian Empire. Neither a sequel nor a prequel, it presents an alternate-timeline version of the Three Houses story thanks to the addition of some new characters – presumably ones who died in the Three Houses world. Instead of playing as mercenary-turned-teacher Byleth, you take the role of Shez – a warrior whose mercenary company is decimated on a job involving Byleth’s group and discovers their own divine blessing, in the form of the mysterious Arval. They then meet up with the main cast of Three Houses, joining the faction-neutral Officers’ Academy as a student and choosing a house to become part of. Lacking Byleth’s presence, events within the academy unfold surprisingly differently and drastically speed up compared to the story you thought you knew, leading to the original game’s second act occurring much more swiftly and forcing events down a much different path. I’m trying to avoid spoilers as best I can for both this and Three Houses, but suffice to say you could argue that Three Hopes expands on the potential endings of Three Houses and offers some neat alternative timelines.
I for one appreciated this increased pace and how Omega-Force created a feasible scenario where more large-scale battles could take place without disregarding the established story. Additionally, whilst the four paths in the original (Empire, Kingdom, Alliance and Church) all felt pretty similar in terms of narrative focus, here they’ve been able to expand on the actions of each faction and make them truly unique. Playing the Leicester Alliance story emphasises events in that province and grants their various struggles deserved weight this time around rather than allowing them to feel like a side-faction simply chipping in against the others. What results is a new, interesting story which is easy for those new to Fódlan to understand, but also rewards players of Three Houses for their prior knowledge.
Like in its predecessor, your time in Three Hopes will be split between two distinct types of gameplay – Camp and Combat.
Between battles you can run around your faction camp talking to allies, accessing and upgrading various facilities and preparing for battle. In these segments, you have a stock of training and activity points, with training points used for levelling up classes and activity points used for everything else. It’s here that the light life-sim elements typical of Fire Emblem are found, with conversations had, expeditions taken and meals shared all contributing to your relationships with your allies. Whilst the relationship building is pretty optional, partaking rewards you with story-enhancing lore, improved combat effectiveness and character-related additional battles. I enjoyed these diversions between the meatier combat sections and found that they gave me the chance to learn more about my beloved band of misfits. Interestingly, I found there was a minimal repetition of Three Houses’ conversational revelations and character development, meaning that despite the fact I’d done this before with the same characters I still learnt more about them and was able to see them in a new light.
There are also some basic management elements within these sections. Collecting supplies and upgrading facilities both give you an edge on the battlefield, and I enjoyed being able to choose how I wanted my army to develop throughout the campaign. As a little hint, I’d recommend prioritising upgrading the Tactics Academy whenever possible, as the tangible upgrades, it gives characters truly matter long-term.
Overall, these sections are very similar to those seen in Three Houses, so if you hated those you might not be a fan of these either. I would however suggest giving them a chance though, as many of the more tedious elements have gone and have been replaced with simple, straightforward quality of life upgrades. For example, running around to do what you needed to was often tedious in Three Houses. Here, they’ve added a quick-travel menu easily accessed from your R bumper, allowing you to jump across the map to whoever or wherever you want instantly.
It’s also within the camp that you can level up and customise your characters. Characters have independent levels for the purpose of improving stats, but alongside this is a flexible class system which modifies how each unit plays. You can increase your mastery in a given class through training and battle, and doing so rewards the unit with permanent skill and ability unlocks which can be transferred to other classes, therefore allowing for a huge amount of customisation. Add to this the random additional effects found on dropped weapons and the ability to upgrade them at the blacksmith and you have an incredibly flexible and rewarding system.
My personal favourite build so far has been building Lysithea, the typical mage character, into a sword-wielding assassin. What she naturally lacks in strength she makes up for in magic, so by equipping a weapon which scales her damage with magic instead, a slottable ability which adds dark damage to her class abilities and her unique dark-afflicted magnetising ability I’ve been able to turn her into a quick, lethal character with a surprising amount of crowd-control. Equally, you could simply spec her into a warlock – but where’s the fun in that?
Being a Warriors game, it’s unsurprising that the combat involves carving a path through thousands of enemies on the way to your overall objective. Three Hopes has elevated that loop in several interesting ways which improve the tried and tested formula.
Fighting consists of chaining together light (Y) and strong (X) attacks in combos, with the addition of a strong attack after a certain number of light ones releasing a specific move. You could simply mash Y and pray and probably still do well, but by choosing when to end the combo carefully you can up your chances. As an example, the mage classes seem to release attacks of different elements depending on the length of your combo, which subsequentially changes the element of subsequent attacks. Each class has a special ability and some units even have their own unique active ability. You can also slot up to two skills gained from mastering classes, usable in exchange for weapon durability points. Once charged, you can even release incredibly powerful special attacks using the A button. Finally, characters can eventually enter an awakened, “powered-up” state for a short time, with some having unique twists on this. As you can see, you have a lot of options other than simply mashing Y, and learning how to use these effectively becomes more and more satisfying as you progress. You can even assign characters as adjutants on the fly and gain bonuses that way, or switch between up to four playable characters mid-fight.
Class and character choices also have a big impact on the battle. The game revolves around sets of Pokémon-like weapon triangles, with swords/lances/axes and bows/tomes/gauntlets being effective against one another to varying degrees. Before a battle, you are usually shown the types of enemies you are likely to encounter – meaning you can choose and equip your characters strategically to counter the enemies in the level. I found this type of system to be incredibly meaningful, having previously struggled to get to grips with the strategic elements of previous Warriors titles. Here, weaknesses are clear and you’re able to make informed choices before and during encounters, which is something I wholeheartedly appreciated.
Alongside slicing through fools left and right you also need to achieve various main and side goals in these fights. The objectives usually boil down to either killing a certain enemy, capturing a certain stronghold or protecting an allied unit and whilst I would have ideally liked to have seen more variety I can’t say I even got bored of them. I think the flow of missions just feels so good that it doesn’t matter if you’re doing the same things over and over – it’s still compelling time after time. There’s a big strategic element here too, as your allied characters can be ordered to complete a variety of tasks in your absence. Previously, I found NPC allies to be ineffective at best, and a liability at worst, but in Three Hopes you can usually rely on them to do what you ask pretty well. Granted, you may need to assist at some point or switch to them for optimal efficiency, but for the most part, they could be left to get on with it. Omega Force has been working for years to turn Warriors into a bit of a hack-and-slash/RTS hybrid, and here they’ve been able to do so in a way which stands far above the other Warriors titles. It also helps that most battles are sub-twenty minutes and that the ranking system has been massively simplified. On the whole, I’ve found the battles to be endlessly enjoyable, endlessly replayable power fantasies elevated by clever strategic elements.
The only place where I can say Three Hopes falls short is in the graphical department. Obviously, having 1 vs 1000 battles is going to require some graphical compromises, but unfortunately, Three Hopes does suffer from plenty of jaggy edges and some low-res textures. The beautifully realised anime aesthetic does help to carry it, but it can look rough at times – especially on a big screen. Luckily performance is pretty stable, with very few moments of slowdown noticed during my playtime despite the huge battles. I suppose it’s a forgivable compromise considering the Switch’s hardware, but I can’t help but wonder what it could have looked like on a more powerful machine.
The sound design however is an entirely different story, with a beautifully realised orchestral score underpinning everything. Somehow they’ve managed to combine the beautiful motifs of Three Houses with driving rock guitar, but still retain the fantastical, medieval vibe. I don’t know how they’ve done it, but it’s damn good. I’ve even been listening to it outside of the game, it’s that good. Voice acting is also generally great despite what you would usually expect from a Dynasty Warriors spinoff, and I don’t have any complaints about the other in-game sounds. It’s just all been done incredibly well!
So, overall, what do I think of Three Hopes? It’s a great game, and possibly the best Musou title I’ve played. Not only does it improve upon the Warriors formula by adding enhanced strategic elements and a huge amount of character flexibility, but it also continues the story of Fódlan in an intriguing and exciting way without forcing any of Three Houses’ endings to be canon. By combining the best of both worlds, Omega Force has created something truly special here that simultaneously stands beside Three Houses as a partner piece whilst also holding up on its own merit. I can highly recommend it, both to fans of either series and newbies alike.
Grab your copy here https://www.nintendo.co.uk/Games/Nintendo-Switch-games/Fire-Emblem-Warriors-Three-Hopes-2169456.html
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