Fire Emblem has had a long and hard journey since its release back in 1990. The series has had many ups and downs and was on the brink of extinction before Fire Emblem Awakening released back in 2012. Since then, Fire Emblem has been on a steady increase in terms of popularity, sales, and recognition. This has been ever so apparent with the success of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, the newest installment of the franchise on the Nintendo Switch. If you haven’t experienced this wonderful series, right now is the perfect time to do so for many reasons.
The Fire Emblem Community
Of course, when Three Houses released back in July of 2019, it would have been a great time to get into the series since the title was so hyped up and a lot of other people were also getting into the series for the first time. But Three Houses, and the Fire Emblem community as a whole has been going very strong since release.
The continued support of the game through free updates and DLC have kept the game relevant months after release, giving players dozens of extra hours to sink their teeth into and most of these updates are free, so that’s just icing on the cake.
There were few complaints about this post-release content because Three Houses felt like a very full game to begin with, with hundreds of hours of playtime. This support and positive atmosphere around the community is perhaps one of the biggest reasons to start playing Fire Emblem right now.
There are plenty of guides to help people out, plenty of YouTube tutorials to watch, and a lot of people and fans in the community to talk to about pretty much any aspect of the game (especially if you like shipping characters).
So Many Options
One of the best parts about Fire Emblem as a whole is just the randomness of the game thanks to stat growths (where every time you level up, each one of your stats has a percentage chance to go up), but Three Houses mixes that with tons of classes and skills to master and combine. Thanks to the new Cindered Shadows DLC, there are four new classes to choose from which all come with their own mastery skill. There are endless ways to customize your team and plan out your route, especially since there are so many routes to choose from.
With the newly added DLC, there are now five different routes to choose from. Cindered Shadows will not be a full-fledged route like the other four, but it’s still going to provide hours of content.
You can literally pour hundreds of hours into Three Houses and still not see everything and it just got even longer. But if you’re also just looking to do one playthrough and be done with it, that’s okay too. The beauty of Three Houses is that you really get to choose how you want to play.
A Challenge
When I first played through Hard Mode on my first run of Three Houses, I actually didn’t think it was very challenging. However, a harder difficulty was later added to the gave via a free update, and after playing it, it made me appreciate the game a lot more.
You see, Three Houses has brought a lot of accessibility to the franchise while still catering to fans who want a challenge.
Casual Mode has been brought back once again, which lessens the stakes and difficulty of the game, which is really great for new players who aren’t used to the punishing style of gameplay that Fire Emblem can sometimes have. It may undercut certain mechanics of the game, but if it brings in new fans while also providing content for more hardcore ones, then it’s all aces.
If you’re looking for a real challenge that isn’t something like Dark Souls, Fire Emblem, and especially Three Houses on Switch, might just be the perfect game.
There are plenty of reasons to go out and play all the Fire Emblem games that you can (if you can find them), but Three Houses is just such a high for the franchise as a whole, and it’s been so beautiful to see the community rally around it and have it be supported from the developers, months after release.
There has been so much added content to this wonderful game, with now endless customization and replayability, that it really does hit a much wider demographic than ever. And that is why right now is the perfect time for you, to get into Fire Emblem.
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