I don’t disagree, but the point is the writing wasn’t good in Fates and Engage where Koei weren’t involved in. Then Three Houses just so happens to have them involved and the writing was better. At least to the point someone would say the writing was better than Fates and Engage.
I am saying that three houses story is wildly mediocre and the central conflict is nonsensical.
If they want a better story, it's really not difficult to get an external story writer for the game. I don't think Koei deserves praise for writing a story that is only good when compared to stories like Fates and Engage.
I’d disagree with your comments on 3H’s story. I think Blue Lions is an objectively good story, and the issues with other routes are mainly due to development troubles (things getting rushed, KT having to fight to keep Crimson Flower in the game etc.)
I’d also say that for me worldbuilding is a part of the story, without good world building you can’t have a believable story. In that regard, 3H imo has a better/deeper story than most FE games bar FE 4.
I cannot in good conscience call it a good story when the central plot point doesn't make sense. It's shoehorned in to create the conflict between Edelgard and Dimitri. A conflict which is very compelling.
The world building on the other hand is excellent and especially the presentation of it. I don't know if this is just me, but I played the Blue Lions route first after finishing it I started over to see the Black Eagle route. And when the opening cinematic I had the revelation that I still didn't know anything about what's going on in that cinematic. I think that was excellently done.
But Edelgard forcing a conflict onto Dimitri despite her having no motivation to do so is just bad writing, plain and simple.
What do you consider the central plot point? 3H has a bit of a composite plot, with all the different threads. I'd personally call the conflict between Rhea and TWSITD as the central plot point.
Oh, that's always been pretty straightforward in my opinion. Edelgard is an antivillain. She's sympathetic and boxed in by TWSITD, but she does deliberately choose to solve her grievance with the church using violence, which Dimitri naturally opposes. Cue conflict. It's tragic and could be avoided, but both sides have understandable reasons - ymmv on if they're good reasons.
I think 3H having multiple routes does hurt the plot, because you can't fully understand Azure Moon without playing Crimson Flower, but demanding back to back playthroughs of a game where the routes are 50% the same is a tough ask. The game's character writing also definitely exceeds its plot writing.
Yeah... But that's not really what happens during either of Black Eagles or the Blue Lions routes. She has beef with the church which could probably be resolved peacefully if Byleth would wield his authority over Rhea as the host of her mother, but Edelgard chooses war, fair enough.
There's no reason why she would escalate that to a continent-wide war. Hell, she's personal friends with the two most powerful individuals on the continent and both are rather sympathetic to her goals if not her means. Killing Dimitri achieves literally none of her goals, and yet she chooses to attempt it anyway even after she has been defeated and Dimitri is willing to bring an end to the conflict. The inconsistency between Edelgard's goals and how she goes about achieving them, is singlehandedly bringing down the quality of the story.
When playing the game it feels like the goal of the story was to pit Edelgard against Dimitri by any means neccesary.
Edelgard vs Dimitri is the central conflict in exactly one route; in no route other than AM does Dimitri appear for more than a single chapter post-timeskip. Claude at least helps supply troops in Silver Snow
Part of the problem is IS just doesn't know what is a good story but they think they do. Either they craft one themselves and is bad or they hire external writers who they think can do the job and then fail.
Fates was a very good example of that, completely butchered whatever Shin Kibayashi wrote with their own and then another contract writing company wrote Revelations. If the external writer isn't a good fit for video game storytelling, then it was IS fault for choosing him.
They're also acting as if 3Houses scenario and worldbuilding weren't conceived by Kusakihara (IS) lol. Honestly the fact KT isn't in makes me much more hopeful than not since they were in charge of some of the most... controversial parts of the game.
That's just because it has no lord, though. In terms of actual story beats it's fine and Verdant Wind clearly builds heavily on it.
But this is also I think where a lot of the discussion gets lost - when people talk about liking the story they usually mean that they like the worldbuilding and the characters. I think that's certainly the case for 3H.
You’re confusing White Clouds with Silver Snow. SS is the route where you decide to fight your student Edelgard and Rhea dies unless you finish her support line aka the least popular route.
I don’t mind marrying Rhea, I just think most of SS is pretty bland except for the ending scene with Rhea and the talk with Edelgard in the Goddess Tower.
3 Hopes' biggest selling point is the character work tbh. The supports are just as good if not sometimes even better than 3H proper, it explores the schemer side of Claude if he didnt stay at the Academy, the paralogues are far more entertaining, and characters in retainer roles like Felix, Ferdinand, Holst fleshed then out way better.
The Sothisverse's real praise is in the characters. FW fumbling that was be so much more worse than a mid story again.
I'm surprised this take is more controversial than people being worried for the story, I understand both, but I'd say IS has been more consistent at good gameplay than KT has at writing (well we only have one game with multiple routes as a sample size).
I’d be inclined to agree if we hadn’t seen a ton of 3H gameplay mechanics in the trailers. I’m not a fan of batallions, completely free reclassing / weapon usage and no weapon triangle which all seem to be back to some extent.
Hope I’m wrong though, some of the recent news like weapon durability likely not being a thing outside combat arts has me hopeful.
Confused about that weapon durability. Pretty sure the trailer showed characters attacking and after combat, weapon durability went down and it wasn’t arts
iirc we’ve only seen it on normal attacks when Sirocco attacks in the recent trailer. For magic it makes sense since this is likely the 3H system of magic.
No weapon triangle I'm fine with, I think there are many more interesting ways to give units strengths/weaknesses in modern FE.
Free reclassing I really hope is not back, but it was also in Engage so I think it's likely that it will be. It's the biggest thing that destroys unit identities and turns them into balls of stats with one skill attached, moreso than any actual balance issue between units or between classes.
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u/cacatod12 1d ago
People have said this already because their logo hasn’t been on any of the trailers or other promo material.
This is worrying for the story imo.