Three Houses - A teacher's pet

In spite of the advertising claims from developers, Three Houses doesn't really resemble Genealogy of the Holy War. The drama between the protagonists in Three Houses, Edelgard, Dimitri and Claude, is different than Sigurd's, Quan's and Eldigan's in Genealogy. In Three Houses, the student representatives are barely friends. They're rather rivals, while in Genealogy, the trio is perceived from the moment they're introduced that they're very close friends. It isn't about moral or political dilemmas or perceiving different perspectives either. The game becomes actually worse being interpreted this way, since one isn't conscious of the implications of each faction when you're choosing a team, and it avoids having a political position to suggest opposite options as equally positive to the social conditions of its world, which is a coward measure to dress a story with vagueness to fake depth while avoiding alienating the audience. A purely commercial resource, in the worst case a toxic one, and the division that it provokes within Fire Emblem enthusiasts is proof of it.

In truth, Three Houses owes its development to two franchises: Langrisser, because of its medieval fantasy in strategy role-playing game format where narrative branches itself according to the player's decisions, and they face characters that would be your allies under other circumstances to accentuate the drama; and Persona due to the social simulation, school setting and the calendar with activities. By putting the player on the shoes of a teacher, Three Houses uses this structure to involve them with the students emotionally. One is responsible of their education, their motivations and the game allows to transfer them to your class if they belong to another one. When the player gets to the second half, the time that has been spent with them hurts when seeing young promises facing each other in the name of a political cause, and feeling remorse not just at them falling by your hands, but also at not having saved them in spite of having had the possibility, since the game deprives the player from this possibility by the second half. Three Houses's biggest accomplishment is thus exploring loss in the genre beyond permanent death or defeat, which potentially expands the magnitude of the conflict for the player more strongly than previous entries. However, the poor development of two main aspects undermines its communicative power: The characterization and the combat mechanics.

Left: Langrisser 2, for the Sega Mega Drive
Right: Persona 3, for the PlayStation 2
Both franchises are the main influences in Three Houses

The issue with the characters is that they're generally preset archetypes from japanese animation. The flirtatious girl, the womanizer, the lazy guy, the timid girl that hides in her room, the religious chaste, the nerd, the dumb big guy with a good heart, the fangirl, the damaged boy that needs comfort, the antisocial guy with hidden depths, the exchange student that doesn't understand some concepts, etc. The game tries to justify these archetypes with backgrounds to try to give them depth, but the dialogues, the voices, the gestures and everything else accomodates to the archetype. What a person suggests from themselves through the subtlety of a gesture, the game leaves it explicitly and without interpretation, to the immediate understanding of the player, and thus they're not believable people, regardless of whether they're nice or not. That's an issue with a lot of fiction, but this game requires that you believe that there are people there, and if they're not convincing, the impact is destroyed.

The matter with the characters isn's just limited to our perception of the conflict, but also the perception of the bonds due to how servile is the presentation of the characters. The implausibility that was mentioned above contributes to this, but it's the mere fact that other characters can join you in spite of the political alignment, since they show diametrically opposite convictions in different narrative branches, and this turns their motivations into dubious and without any other explanation than they join you because they like you, you give them gifts that they like, or tell them what they want to hear. The clearest example is in Edelgard's path. You have the option of betraying her, and almost every student will follow your decision and comment a different political position according to your decision. This self-centered logic applies to different aspects of the game. Because it's you is that one of the factions wins or is the good side. Because it's you is that they join and admire you. You're the chosen one by Sothis, you have the Divine Pulse to undo actions and your impact is always positive. This issue has existed since the introduction of a self-insert avatar as an unit in battle since New Mystery of the Emblem, but it's a bigger issue here due to the goal of the game being the the player's involvement  with the students on an emotional level. It doesn't allow for a genuine connection because the game portrays your bonds as a teacher like a vending machine for favors, when in truth it's more laborious to win over the trust of a student.

It's curious, too, that the game's servitude is reflected in the combat mechanics, since the monastery, which serves as refuge to prepare for battle, gives the player tools that are much more potent than the opponent's and they give room to unbeatable combinations, such as skills that make an unit attack first and perform critical hits from any distance continuously.  The most notorious advantage is the extension of movement. Since the players can change their class freely, they can become flying units, undoubtedly the best class in the game, to ignore terrain and avoid obstacles that grounded units wouldn't be able to. Besides, the player has easy access to the Stride command, which increases the movement of many units in five spaces, and the game allows access to the Warp spell, which transports an adjacent unit to another point of the map. The game doesn't seem to be thought up with these three mechanics, since the player has an easy time inferring how to get to the boss in one turn on most maps, and because the main objective in them is to kill the boss, that turn is the only one even in the highest difficulty. That maps lack valuable incentives to prefer other approach doesn't help.

The final map of the Azure Moon route completed in one turn

By itself, the presence of this dominant strategy is the sign of a negligent design due to how little the map composition, classes and abilities that aren't the most powerful ones end up mattering, but the anticlimax that's caused by finishing maps in one turn decreases the graveness of the conflict that Three Houses pretends to suggest. Japanese simulation role-playing games utilize the grid system as an abstraction of a battlefield since 1982 with The Dragon and Princess, and Fire Emblem contextualizes this in a medieval fantasy with the field being the place of a warfare conflict where anyone can die, and loss rears its head. Since it's the way to perceive the war directly, danger and map length are important to involve the player mentally by placing them amidst the conflict, and this is recognized by the series's creator by stating that what's important about difficulty is how it makes us feel by the end. With this in mind, when the player completes maps in one turn intuitively, the melodrama that surrounds this game isn't more than just lip service that doesn't correlate to our direct perception of the battle. The scope of the conflict becomes minuscule, and the map's presence doesn't evoke any sentiment. It's disappointing that it happens due to Intelligent Systems looking to resemble other Japanese role-playing games to catch their audience and make the player feel better about themselves.

Pictured from left-right, top-bottom:
1) Dismounted units in Mystery of the Emblem
2) Long traversable distances in Genealogy ot the Holy War
3) Previous rivals joining in Langrisser 4
4) Units demanding payment to participate in Berwick Saga

The most pitiful thing is that these aspects pale in comparison to efforts from simulation role-playing games that preceded Three Houses many years ago. Mystery of the Emblem deprives mounted units in indoor maps, forcing the player to forego the movement advantage. Genealogy of the Holy War doesn't allow any step through the terrain to become imperceptible due to the mechanics that extend movement benefiting grounded units, which gives a strong impression of the scope of the conflict in spite of clearing maps in few turns. Langrisser 4 doesn't fall into having dubious motivations because the political convictions of its characters have to align to yours to be able to become a part of your team, which happens after many battles, and belonging to an alignment involves coherent actions with the world beyond picking from a menu. Berwick Saga also has an explorable base where resources are accumulated and the player can prepare for the next mission, yet it doesn't need to lose time with superfluous activities; and the characters that you recruit demand a monetary payment during each mission until the bond with your cause becomes strong through the player's action, creating thus a more intimate connection and giving more uniqueness to the characters due to the variety of requirements.

Three Houses is unfortunately more of a concept than execution because its promising premise is dampened by its characterization and counterproductive mechanics that are there as complacency. It feels like it doesn't matter to concentrate on the point of the game, but rather to accomodate to commercial standards, without any consideration for consistency or focus. It's a tendency that I observe in high-budget Japanese games of the last few years, even those that I like the most, and I consider it worrisome for the future of the series since it sets yet another precedent in having acceptance by compromising the communicative impact, and depriving the game from its potential.

*SPOILERS*

Potential that appears unexpectedly on an element to which we can relate: The cruel repercussion of the passing of time in our friendships. In one of the scenes, it is explained that Dimitri and Edelgard used to be very intimate friends many years ago, and even the first romantic feelings are insinuated, yet they were separated by political circumstances. In their last day together, Dimitri gifts Edelgard a dagger, which will serve her to open her path to her dreams. Years later, each one went through their lives, with very tragic events in them that shaped them, and later they become representatives of different political ideologies. Because of this they are barely friends when they see each other again, and they have changed a lot, to a point where they lead their nations in war against each other. Even if Edelgard preserved the dagger for years as a proof of her appreciation towards him, both of them accept in front of the other shortly before the final confrontation that they aren't the children that used to be friends anymore, and their differences are irreconcilable. It's the most moving part of the game because growing up and realizing that you have become distant from somebody hurts, even when you wish another opportunity. However, that the emphasis on the emotional side of the conflict between each other only exists in one of the narrative branches is a testament to the little importance that Intelligent Systems gives to these feelings by dilluting them among so much content and indulgence. It's a pity that it's a testament to them having changed, too.