FE3H is colour-coded for my convenience!

[spindizzy]

I've started playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses! I know pretty much nothing about it except that there's a time skip and canon romancable queer characters, but I'm here for that! Fair warning: every time I've tried to play turn-based strategy RPGs in the past, they have EATEN MY LIFE, so this is either going to be the only thing I talk about until Christmas and then I'll have to quit it cold turkey, or I'm going to manage to play it in small enough chunks that I can remember to do things like "work" and "sleep."

I'm still in the prologue, but initial impressions!

• I respect one (1) murder-priestess who stops an entire battlefield by stabbing a man in the throat twelve times. Okay, no, that's a lie, I respect every murder-priestess but THIS ONE IN PARTICULAR is cool.


• I don't know what it's like in the original Japanese, but at character gen in the English version, it doesn't ask you to choose your gender! It asks you to choose your form! And as far as I can tell, you're referred to with they/them pronouns a fair bit? I could be wrong, but if I'm not then that's AMAZING. (I am going to be using she/they pretty interchangably for my Byleth, fair warning.)


• That said, I don't understand why AFAB Byleth is wearing hotpants and fishnets when AMAB Byleth isn't. Like, my objection isn't even the hotpants, because I really like her outfit? (Real talk if there was less skin on show I would wear that outfit IRL.) I just think that if you're going for Impractical But Fanservicey, you should be equal opportunity about it and give the opportunity for AMAB Byleth to wear hot pants and AFAB Byleth to wear murder robes.


• Why DO I have a cranky goddess living who can stop time living in my head? Like, she doesn't seem happy to be there, because she is trying to nap, but sure. I assume this is like Amnesia, and she's there to give snarky commentary that the protagonist can't without breaking their function as a voiceless personality-free doll for the player to project on?


• Oh yeah, I love that the lesson Byleth learns from the time stop is that the people she want to protect can help with that if she lets them.


• Ah, the house leaders are colour-coded for my convenience. EXCELLENT.


• I've been texting my friend Chris as I've been playing it, because he's the one who's emotionally invested in people playing Fire Emblem? (His four fandoms that I know about are Fire Emblem, Star Wars, Skies of Arcadia, and cricket.) But he's played the whole thing, so I keep coming back to him with questions!
  
  • I texted him in a panic when Claude started popping up love hearts while standing next to me, because NO! NOT YOU! I AM ROMANCING THE BISEXUAL AXE PRINCESS THIS TIME ROUND! But it turns out that it's not like whatever FE I've played and I'm allowed to interact with everyone. THAT IS FINE.
  
  
  • Alois came on-screen and I IMMEDIATELY texted Chris that Alois is evil and I could just TELL. Chris says he's not, but he DID press-gang Jeralt back into service and get Byleth a job so they can serve as a hostage. I'M JUST SAYING.
  
  
  • (He says that Alois is actually a romance option and now I'm conflicted because everything about his intro screamed "Had a crush on Jeralt back in't day" and maybe I should not encourage that.)
  
  
  • He asked for my first impressions and they were "Edelgard is amazing, I want to push Claude into a puddle, and Dimitri's hair is Bad." So that's where I'm at in terms of nuanced political decisions.


• I was a bit confused that you were going to be a teacher with the option of romancing your students, but I'm slightly less weirded out by it now I know that you're actually the same age as your students, just more well-versed in the art of murder.


• Also, DO THESE PEOPLE NOT HAVE ANY PRE-SCREENING? BECAUSE LITERALLY THEY'RE GIVING BYLETH A JOB BASED SOLELY ON EXISTING NEAR JERALT AND ALOIS REPORTING THAT YOU'RE NOT BAD AT MURDER. THIS IS NOT DISPROVING MY HOSTAGE THEORY.


• APPARENTLY JERALT IS ACTUALLY BYLETH'S DAD?! WTF, I was expecting that to be a joke! But no, apparently Byleth is his spawn? ... And of course their mother is dead. OF COURSE. Why would there ever be a living mother in a video game family.


• Hubert seems... Happy? Which I wasn't expecting from fandom osmosis.


• I'm going to get SO LOST while running around this campus, augh.


• I kinda respect the game for going "Eh, the NPCs who only say one line of dialogue will have that one line up over their heads at all time."


• ... I think I like Manuela's design? It's fanservice-y, but in a way that feels like it's actually trying to do character work instead of just titilation.


• So yes, I've not actually managed to get to the plot yet, but I'm running around trying to find everyone that I need to talk to. I don't know anyone's naaaaaaames and I'm concerned about how all of the houses seem to be separated out by homeland because that is a diplomatic incident waiting to happen, but sure game! I'll roll with it! And maybe it'll turn out that all of the factions actually intermingle during classes and stuff.


• ... I really hope that the game gives me a bit more information about all of the factions before I commit to them, because so far I'm pretty much going off the assurance that Edelgard is a bisexual axe princess and she might be in one of the pairings that is "Ignoct but make it Fire Emblem"? And then Claude, with Dimitri coming in third, if I can be bothered to play it that many times.


• So my prediction so far, based on the prologue: Jeralt is definitely going to die and it's definitely going to be the priestess' fault in SOME WAY, but it's probably going to involve saving Byleth. The house system is going to end in tears and bloodshed. Byleth and Manuela are going to blow some students' minds just by existing and being multiclassed murder-machines. I'm going to have to pick out a faction PURELY by colour. I am going to TRY to be friends with everyone and it's going to fail terribly.


• ... But soon, SOON, I will have context for ALL of the fanart, yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay!