Welcome to our review of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, the newest entry in the Fire Emblem franchise and it is another musou!
Join Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters in epic, real-time battles across Fódlan Step into the shoes of Shez as they join Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, and other Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters and fight for the future of Fódlan. Align with a leader to build and command an army in strategic 1-vs.-1,000-style battles. The house you choose will bring you through one of three compelling stories, each with a different outcome. Issue commands to your army during the chaos of battle to achieve missions and objectives. Swap between characters on the fly to maximize your battle strategies.
Plan ahead to create favorable combat. Carefully examine the map, consider your objectives, choose your allies, and equip them with the right weapons. Some will have advantages against specific foes, so deploy wisely. Classes can help inform your battle strategies. Leverage special attacks based on a character’s class to tip the balance in your favor. Hire battalions that fight alongside your characters to fortify their capabilities, or even shore up a tactical weakness.
Most of you are familiar with my personal preference to play a good musou from now and then. It is easily one of my most loved genres. I have watched them evolve over the years and Koei Tecmo are true masters in this genre. It should be said that they really publish some of the best musou games out there and I am always very curious when they cross over the genre into different game series.
Obviously this is not their first endeavour into a Fire Emblem game, but that does not raise the bar any higher. Fire Emblem are classics in the RPG genre and should really never be forgotten when speaking about any top 5 of the genre. They are top of the genre games and should be treated as such. Developers Omega Force and Intelligent Systems deserve true credits for their work on this title.
Now as the bar is incredibly high, how does it really deliver?
Well, somewhere in between great and very good. There is the usual camera issue that you can get out of focus very easily. This will be made very clear when you start dishing out those incredibly impressive combos and ending up with your back to the enemy is never an exception. Luckily the action is so smooth and reliable, it will more become a “feature” and not a big. (pun intended)
Another thing, but this is purely personal, I love to play musou games mostly for the action and not so much the story. So this is where the blend between both genres become a thin line where I often did find the story evolving to be too elaborate. As a RPG lover however, I just loved how deep they went. I know it sounds really stupid, but it is just a weird sensation that you keep wanting to play more and beat more and more enemies, but on the other hand, you just want to absorb everything this game throws at you.
Now for my score, I need to truly explain how I came to this number, as it seemingly does not match with my previous descriptions. I do feel this is a must play for fans of both genres. The smooth fighting or button mashing from the musou side to the extensive character development, forming bonds, … There is so much to do.
Would I change something to the game? Aside from maybe a few tweaks here and there, mostly making it more challenging because I do feel it is a relatively easy game. I played the demo on easy just to breeze through it and I just felt like it could be more challenging. I ended up not letting my progress take over and I did start from scratch in the hardest mode. Yeah, I am one of those. I do purposely hold breaks to let my fingers rest. I did that in the first game, did that in the many One Piece games, Hyrule Warriors and so on. This is a game where despite its RPG aspects, you can not go full throttle or you end up with a hand that hurts like crazy.
In conclusion, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is a fun game that could be near perfect after a few tweaks. I really feel it might be on the easier side and despite the advantages of letting new players enjoy it more, a hardcore lover such as myself might not be the target audience for this one.