Fully Explorable Hub
For the first time in Fire Emblem history, Three Houses will have a fully fleshed out hub area that you’ll be able to explore.
Fire Emblem Fates started this idea with the “My Castle” feature, but now we have the massive Garreg Mach Monastery to run around and explore.
Three Houses casts you as a young warrior named Byleth, who’s been chosen as an instructor at the monastery.
A big part of the gameplay loop in the title revolves around training up your students by hosting seminars, inviting them to tea parties, dining together, and much more.
To do all this, you’ll get to run around the monastery and explore to your heart’s content. On top of all the social features and talking to students, there are plenty of shops to visit and even a few minigames of sorts, like fishing or gardening.
Fire Emblem never really needed explorable locations before now, but Garreg Mach goes a long way toward making the experience even more immersive.
Tons of New Social and Support Features
By far the biggest expansion in Fire Emblem Three Houses comes with the social and support features, which definitely takes a bit of a cue from the Persona series.
Basically, each chapter is broken up into a calendar of events, with a big story mission culminating at the end of the month.
Sundays are your free days, where you’ll be able to run around the monastery and choose how you’re going to spend your time. You’ll need to choose which student you’re going to tutor and what events you’ll want to see that day.
Each Sunday you’ll need to make sure you make your choices wisely, as you have a set number of activities you can engage in.
The way the system has expanded feels reminiscent of Persona, like we said, as you’ll be choosing which characters you want to spend time with, whether that’s to train up and boost their skills or learn more about them as a person.
The support system has been an essential part of Fire Emblem for years, but it’s the main thing that Intelligent System chose to double down on in Three Houses, and the game is all the better for it.
Updated Graphics and UI
Obviously, Three Houses sports a huge graphical update over the last few Fire Emblem games, which were on the Nintendo 3DS. The game has a hugely stylized aesthetic that almost resembles an anime.
Highlighting important beats in the game are gorgeous CG scenes that really drive home the epic feel of everything.
Interestingly, however, the graphical updates do more than just make Three Houses a shiny new game to look at.
Battlefields look less grid-like now, and more like actual environments. A huge new UI change are red aggro lines that come off of enemies, showing you the next target enemies will move toward.
This can hugely impact the strategies you play with, as you’ll get a basic understanding of what enemies’ next move might be.
Expanded Class and Weapon System
Three Houses completely revamps the weapon and class system the series has used for so many years. The traditional weapon triangle doesn’t exactly return, but the same basic rules apply to a degree.
The biggest change is that every character can now turn into any class in the game, and they aren’t locked to one set of classes, although certain classes in the game are gender restricted.
In order to turn into a given class, characters will have to pass the certification exam, which is dependent on how well they meet the prerequisites.
This also means that theoretically any character can wield any weapon, and with that weapon durability returns once again, making you manage the number of uses each weapon has.
Weapon experience is another thing that returns, letting characters become more experienced, and useful, with specific weapons types as they use them.
The Battalions Feature
You’ve probably noticed in footage for the game that battles don’t just have singular characters anymore, there are now groups of soldiers that accompany them.
This feature is called Battalions, lettings you assign unique groups of soldiers to your characters in battle.
In addition to simply changing the combat animation, Battalions can be called upon to perform Gambits, special attacks that have the Battalion attack independently of the character.
It is possible to lose Battalions, however, as they’ll take damage alongside their character, and if their endurance reaches 0 they’re gone.
Battalions can also earn experience, leveling up independently of your characters and their weapons. The whole system adds an extra wrinkle of strategy onto the game.
Combat Arts and Adjutants
Combat arts, like in Fire Emblem Echoes, return once again in Three Houses, although they work a bit differently. These powerful arts can potentially change the flow of battle and get you out of a tight spot.
They’re more economical to use in Three Houses as arts deduct your weapon durability instead of HP, like in Echoes. On top of this, the unit pairing system has been changed around a bit, no longer letting you pair up two units at any time.
Instead, the system uses “Adjutants” to bring unused characters into battle. Once Byleth has reached Professor Level C you can start bringing unused characters into battle as Adjutants equipped on your active characters.
Adjutants will support the unit they’re on by occasionally attacking with them or healing them, and they earn XP alongside your active character. However, the number of Adjutants you can deploy is dictated by your Professor Level.
These small improvements and changes add even more wrinkles onto the strategy of Fire Emblem Three Houses.
Three Paths to Choose
Fire Emblem Three Houses features a branching storyline based on your choices, much like Fire Emblem Fates did before it.
The big difference here, of course, is that the three major branches in Three Houses are contained in one game, versus the multiple games that Fates had.
At the start of Three Houses, you’ll be forced to choose between the three different houses that attend Garreg Mach Monastery.
Each of these houses have their own set of students, hailing from a different kingdom. You have Edelgard and the Black Eagles, Dimitri and the Blue Lions, and Claude and the Golden Deer.
While the differences may not be obvious at first, each house does have its own storyline, encouraging multiple playthroughs of Three Houses. Luckily, the game does offer a New Game + feature to help with all that.
For even more on Fire Emblem Three Houses, make sure to check out our glowing review of the game, or why it’s the perfect title for newcomers.
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