u/Possible-Pack9699

4 years after I said I would beat all 3 routes of Three Hopes; I finally did it. In preparation for Fortune's Weave next month, I decided to finish what I started and actually fully complete the game and acquire all the achievements. After beating Azure Gleam a few weeks back, I set my sights on Golden Wildfire. All I knew before diving in myself was that it was rather controversial with its portrayal of Claude and that his actions made no sense. Now that I have experienced it myself, what were my thoughts?

Positives first, the supports were really charming seeing all the Golden Deer interact with one another. While the story progression follows the structure of Scarlet Blaze, in which you don't temporarily part ways with units like Azure Gleam, it did make for a tighter knit group. I also played through the route on Maddening Mode since there's an achievement for clearing 50 missions. If I thought the jump from Normal to Hard was jarring, then Hard to Maddening was like getting smacked in the face with how hard these enemies hit for. Thankfully, this route had a saving grace that made me able to persevere until the end: Holst Sigiswald Goneril. Holst might just be my favorite unit to play as thanks to his personal skill and with how many enemies he can attack at once. I also want to mention Claude and his Barbarossa class where you shoot fireballs to break the stun gauge; it's so satisfying to pull off. I'd say my favorite paralogues were Hilda, Holst, and Balthus, Hilda and Marianne, and Claude.

Going more into the story, Part 1 is all about fighting off the Empire before they conquer the capitol and attempting to invade their land before having to stop Shahid. This did feel a bit similar to Azure Gleam, of course, but then Part 2 turns it on its head. Now, we're with the Empire fighting the Kingdom and Church to take out Rhea. This honestly is just preferences, but I appreciated having to fight different factions in Golden Wildfire rather than it being the Empire 90% of the time in Azure Gleam. I just think it allows for more visual and enemy variety to keep the repetitive gameplay more interesting. Which, yeah, by the end of this playthrough, I was already feeling drained. These games are fun, yes, but they should not be played for hours and hours at a time.

If I had any negatives to say, I guess Claude can be a bit bone-headed with his schemes, like sacrificing Randolph so that the Federation could take out Catherine, leading to his 12-year-old sister to buy a bunch of soldiers and mercenaries with the sole purpose of killing him. There's also the whole crux of Part 2 being Claude wanting to kill Rhea to end the war; that's something a lot of people didn't like since it felt so out of character for Claude. Personally, I didn't mind it too much, though it does seem like a huge leap in logic to make and essentially forces Dimitri into a no-win scenario. Aside from that, I would say I had a better time with this route compared to Azure Gleam, but Scarlet Blaze still wins out in overall consistency.

So, with all the routes done, that means I've accomplished my goal, right? Right? Except no, not even close. As I made it further into this game; I realized just how naive I was four years ago thinking I could get all 450 achievements. If you want to fully 100% this game, then you're playing through each route not once, but TWICE! As of writing this, I have 409 achievements. 3 of them are tied to getting the last Hero's Relic on Azure Gleam's 'Into the Chasm' chapter where you recruit Byleth; I did not do that on my playthrough. Also, while not tied to achievements, there's the alternate version of Scarlet Blaze Chapter 14 where you go against Claude. The main obstacle, however, is the War Map section where you need to visit Anna and complete extra quests that randomly pop up, and you need 100 of the latter while I currently have only 59! Am I still going to do all of these, maybe. Will it destroy my sanity, probably. At least I'll have the Vanguard Whistle to blitz through to the main chapter missions and clear the route much faster.

A couple of weeks ago, I made a post about revisiting Three Hopes in preparation for Fortune's Weave next month and wanted to beat all three routes and get every achievement. I started off by replaying Scarlet Blaze on a fresh save file to get reacquainted before hopping into a new route: Azure Gleam. Up until this point, I had only heard about the things this route provides and a whole lot of not very positive opinions on Part 2's story. Now that I've played the whole route to the very end, what are my overall thoughts?

Positives out first, I liked seeing all of the supports between the Blue Lions and Church units that I never saw before; really helps sell the connections they all have with one another both in and out of house. I also appreciated how it was willing to change things up from Scarlet Blaze by temporarily removing units from you like with Chapter 7; where you have to rescue Dimitri, Dedue, and Rodrigue. The paralogues exclusive to Azure Gleam were also fun to tackle and delve more into each of the characters, such as Yuri, Ashe, and Catherine's paralogue, Dimitri, Sylvain, and Rodrigue's paralouge to get the Lance of Ruin, and Mercedes, Annette, and Constance's paralogue. Something else I found intriguing was the conflict of Shez trying to understand where their powers came from and why. Since there's no Hubert to spell out the answer for you, it adds a lot more mystery especially when Myson approaches you and calls you Epimenides. I also think it's strengthened by doing the 'Kill Byleth' option where you get the paralogue of Epimenides and it slowly becomes clear who Shez and Arval truly are. I'd say that everything up until the end of Part 1 had me invested overall, and then Part 2 happened.

Before that, though, I'd like to air out a few minor things I picked up on that don't ruin the experience, it mostly just comes down to preference. I like the Blue Lion house, but they are my third favorite behind the Black Eagles and Golden Deer. Replaying Scarlet Blaze really made me love the interactions and banter all of them have with one another. It adds some levity and humor before we go slaughtering thousands of soldiers. With the Blue Lions, most of the conversations are on Dimitri, which is fair since it's the same with Edelgard in her route, but I feel like the others don't get to speak up as much. It doesn't help that for certain cutscenes some of the lions just aren't present or get to speak up much. Another small thing is the map reusage, which is basically commonplace for Three Houses and Warriors games. Something that I noted was how Scarlet Blaze from Chapter 2-15 reuses 3 maps (Fortress for 2 and 11, Enbarr Palace for 3 and 9, and Garreg Mach for 4 and 15) These, however, feel a bit justified given how much of a gap there is between them. Azure Gleam, on the other hand, reuses 5 maps (Fhirdiad Castle for 3 and 7, Fortress for 2 and 10, Town for 8 and 11, Forest for 5 and 12, and Aillel for 4 and 13) That's 4 reused maps in a row! But those are just nitpicking, let's get onto my actual problems with the route.

#1: Part 2

#2: What I said in #1

Let's rip the band-aid off folks, Part 2 is just awful. I think the biggest problem Part 2 has is that not only does the story take a nosedive in quality, but also in pure existence. All that happens from Chapters 10-12 is just, fight the Imperial soldiers and conquer territories. There's no reason that we're doing this aside from 'the Empire is evil and must be stopped. Oh, but don't actually kill off any important characters that were previously working with Edelgard like Hanneman, Manuela, and Monica. Sure, they never appear past Chapter 11, but don't worry because all of the other imperial characters don't matter in the slightest.' What I liked about Scarlet Blaze was how it wasn't afraid to make you off characters and make you feel bad about it. (Ingrid in 8, Rodrigue in 10, Gustave in 11, Sylvain in 14, and Catherine and Cyril in 15) Azure Gleam, on the other hand, is appalled at the idea of killing beloved characters. (Unless it occurs offscreen COUGH! COUGH!) Leopold and Wardemar are fighting for a dying empire because why not, Hubert and Ferdinand are killed off screen because screw them, and the Agarthans are complete idiots that have no idea how to run a nation despite pulling the strings behind some of the biggest tragedies in the continent's history in the past decade. And don't even get me started on the mind control Edelgard is subjected to. It's uncomfortable, it's disturbing, it's a cheap way to make the bad guys have no morality so you no longer feel bad about killing them by the thousands.

Despite all of that, I did have some fun with Azure Gleam. The good parts it has are really good, but it's weighed down heavily by the bads. If diehard Blue Lions fans agree this route isn't good and sympathize with Edelgard, then you know something is wrong. But hey, that's 2 out of 3 routes completed and 100 more achievements left to acquire. Golden Wildfire, here I come!

Almost 4 years ago, I finished my first playthrough of Scarlet Blaze back in 2022. Back then, my Three Houses knowledge was a lot smaller than it is now. Since then, I have gone through Crimson Flower, Verdant Wind, Azure Moon, and Cindered Shadows and now have a greater understanding of the world and its characters. I intended to play through Azure Gleam and Golden Wildfire soon after beating Scarlet Blaze, but the game fell to the side as newer games came out that I was interested in and sunk time into them. There was still that feeling I had of actually going back and getting all 450 achievements to get the Chalice of Beginnings, and now that I'm more knowledgeable and with Fortune's Weave a few months away, I decided to bite the bullet and jump back into this game.

Since it had been 4 years since I last played, I decided to start a fresh save file and replay Scarlet Blaze to get myself accustomed to the game and story. My first playthrough was on Normal, but for this run I picked Hard. Almost immediately I could tell a difference as the enemies do a lot more damage to you with their charge attacks and you need to consider how you tackle enemies and break their barriers. Aside from that, there wasn't much that was different in this playthrough, aside from having more knowledge about how to spend my time and resources.

My next playthrough will be Azure Gleam, which is the route I will kill >!Byleth!<, since I already recruited them in Scarlet Blaze. Then Golden Wildfire will be one where I recruit >!Byleth!<to round things out. I also know Scarlet Blaze has an alternate Chapter 14 depending on the choice you made in Chapter 10 and I'm not sure if that's needed for all achievements. If it is, I can easily blast through it thanks to how stacked I'll be after two NG+ playthroughs. That's honestly the best part about these routes in that NG+ will help speeds things up and ensure I don't spend another 75+ hours on each route. Tomorrow, I head into uncharted route territory with the Blue Lions, and as an Edelgard and Black Eagles fan, Goddess, give me strength to see it to the end.

I got into the series two years after it released, so I wasn’t there speculating on trailers and making theories on the game. From the videos I’ve seen online about Three Houses, it clearly had a huge following and community of fans. So, with Fortunes Weave a few months away, I want to know what it was like for this community before the game came out. What were the discussions, theories, code names for characters shown but didn’t have names yet, etc.

Not specifically the actual characters they voiced in Three Houses, but perhaps new/side characters in addition to new VAs. It seems like Cassandra Lee Morris is back as Sothis, but who else from the VA cast would you like to hear from again? I think Allegra Clark, Chris Hackney, Joe Zieja, Robbie Daymond, Cherami Leigh, Erica Mendez, Abby Trott, Xanthe Huynh, Mark Whitten, Alejandro Saab, and Patrick Seitz would be cool to see come back in Fortune's Weave. At the very least, I hope Dietrich is being voiced by Patrick, sense he is very close in relation to Jeritza.

With a June Direct showing up in a week or so, Fire Emblem Fortune's Weave is guaranteed to be there and get a release date. What are some aspects you are hoping to see in terms of combat, story, world building, and other smaller things? Here are a few of my predictions and guesses for the game:

1. Anna

Probably the easiest thing to guess since she's basically the series mascot at this point. One thing I am curious about is with this game taking heavy inspiration from Fodlan, could this game's Anna give some insight on the Crest of Ernest? If this game is a prequel to Three Houses, and with Ernest's crest being 'lost to history', I think this would be a nice thing to elaborate on. Let's also hope Anna is actually decent in this game.

2. Cai (Main Character or 1 of 4?)

The first trailer highlighted four central characters to the narrative of the game: Cai, Theodora, Dietrich, and Leda. Each of them has different motivations for joining the games and having their wish granted; the question is how will the game handle it? We've only seen Cai be controllable outside of combat yet is nowhere to be seen in the other characters combat maps. Best guess I can make is that Cai will be the 'main lord' of the game while at the start giving you the chance to test out Theodora, Dietrich, Leda, and all of their team members. Then, the player will be given a choice as to who they wish to add to their own team to compete in the games. I've heard Radiant Dawn does something where you would play as Ike and his mercenaries and then switch over to Michiah and her team for certain chapters, but that was with two separate teams. Having to deal with managing four separate teams at a time seems a bit too much work so I do think it'll be limited to one route where you can recruit party members as Cai from the other teams.

3. Sothis and Divine Pulse

Having Sothis show up at the end of the first trailer solidified this game's ties to the Three Houses series along with the inclusion of crests and other such things. Who could Sothis be talking to, why is she now a full-fledged adult, and what will her purpose in the story/gameplay be? Sothis acted as the little voice in Byleth's head telling him what's going on and using Divine Pulse to get out of precarious situations. Obviously, this game will have a Rewind feature that's been seen since Shadows of Valentia, but how will it be given to the player? I guess it could be as simple as Sothis sees these four scrappy characters entering the games and decides to have some fun by giving them magic time powers, but I can't see that happening. Unless Sothis has direct contact with someone that wishes to use her powers to rewind time, it doesn't make sense for anyone to have that kind of power.

Looking back at the trailer, if Cai is the 'main lord', there's a scene where he's being held by guards in what looks like he's about to be executed; perhaps this is where Sothis comes into play by saving his life. Sothis' line about how, 'The years were long, weren't they. Have you forgotten me so soon?' could also be directed at Cai during that moment before death similar to what Byleth experienced at the start of Three Houses when they shielded Edelgard. Maybe Sothis saved Cai's life when he was born and allowed him to live. Now, would it seem strange for Sothis to be hanging out inside the head of someone who doesn't even bear the Crest of Flames? Yes, but this is still speculation on my end.

There are other things I'm curious about, like who's the main antagonist, are the games a big scam to make people kill each other for sport, do TWSITD have any underground connections in the tournament? I guess we'll see soon, hopefully. I've been playing Path of Radiance through NSO to hold me over, but I really want to play this game so badly.