The Nintendo Direct of February 13, 2019 has shed light on many games coming out for Nintendo Switch, but above all it has finally removed the veil from above Fire Emblem: Three Houses. First of all, the postponed release date to July 26, when it was originally scheduled for this spring, disappointed us but at the same time gives us hope of a product worked to perfection and finished to the smallest detail. Certainly pleased the existence of a Limited Edition in which we will find the steelbook, the artbook, pins, a USB key with the soundtrack inside and, of course, the Fire Emblem: Three cartridge itself. Houses (which in the Direct was incorrectly translated as "card game").
Fire Emblem: Three Houses is developed simultaneously by Intelligent Systems and Koei Tecmo, and the latter Software House is the one that developed Fire Emblem Warriors, the Musou spin-off of the series, which could raise some interesting questions about the presence of all the multitudes of units visible on the screen during the battles seen in the trailer.
Welcome to Hogwarts
After watching the video of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, we challenge you to deny having thought the same thing. The three academic houses of the Garreg Mach monastery show a clear Potterian reference (or a certain Dueling Academy), but let's go in order.
The protagonist of the game, who as usual recently is our avatar chosen between male or female, is the son of Captain Jeralt of the continent Fòdlan. As often happens in stories that speak of war, this continent is divided into various factions, or rather three different regions ruled by three different houses. In neutral territory there is the monastery of Garreg Mach in which the academy of officers who will recruit our hero is located when the latter discovers that he possesses a mysterious power and that he is the only one who can see a strange girl called Sothis. Inside the academy there are three houses of students in strong rivalry, inextricably linked to the three regions. Prince Dimitri of the Faerghus Kingdom leads the house of the gods Blue lions, Prince Edelgard of the Adrestian Empire commands the Black Eagles, and finally Claude, heir of Leicester, is the superior of the Golden Deer.
We will be able to decide for ourselves which of these houses to join, and apparently our character will become a master whose job it will be to train the members of his house to become unblemished heroes. Each of our pupils can be separately trained in the way we prefer, so as to fully customize our army. We can teach one of our students to ride, one to use magic, another to tank becoming an armored unit. In practice, we will be able to choose the classes of our army as we prefer, even going so far as to distribute the scores in the statistics for perfect control.
In the interludes between the various missions we can therefore offer them studies and exams, and at the same time follow their social s that will generate more or less close affinities and which will result in powerful combo attacks between the units. Beyond that, the characters that populate the academy seem to have all been curated with great attention, and we can't wait to witness the classic unlockable scenes that will show us more about them and their backgrounds.
New style, old system?
Regardless of the new Slice of Life aspect that will come from school life, the gameplay of Fire Emblem: Three Houses it appears to be very similar to what we already know. From the Direct video we could see the new graphics, very attractive and interesting, combined with the classic gameplay of the saga. However, as we have already mentioned at the beginning of the preview, it is possible to notice several "simple" army units to surround each battle, and in one scene we even see one of the protagonists giving orders to these knights to attack.
Unfortunately we are unable to determine exactly what this means: it could be a simple visual effect of the attack of some “leader” units, or it could be a special ability or a new mechanic yet to be discovered.
Despite the video shown in Nintendo Direct, Fire Emblem: Three Houses is still heavily a mystery. The little that has been revealed promises really well, and it is clear how the developers are trying to introduce something new within an already classic and well-tested gameplay, strong in the power of Nintendo Switch compared to that available on 3DS. We look forward to new exciting news with you!
