Fire Emblem series

[Zeke Von Genbu]

Is the series pre Awakening really as hard as everyone says it is? I just finished playing the original NES Shadow Dragon and aside from some bullshit RNG screw overs it really wasn’t that challenging. You can literally beat some chapters by simply warping Marth to the main boss, killing it, then seizing the castle. Same thing with the final boss where you can warp Marth to the throne to smack Medeus a few times on the head with the Falchion. The DS remake isn’t that difficult either, especially since the reclassing system is stupidly broken. I also played FE4 and it was a joke, especially in the second generation if you pair up the right first generation characters to make super broken children. And like FE1 the Book of Naga is pretty much a “press A to win” button for the final boss.

The only game that I hear is genuinely difficult is Thracia. I finished 1, 11, and 4 and started 7 so my experience pre Awakening is limited.

Spoiler: Long post about various pre Awakening games.

I know almost nothing about 1, but I have heard that FE1 Marth specifically is insanely broken, his FE3/11/12 versions aren't nearly as broken for whatever reason. Warp cheese is in a lot of games and FE1 is one of them, 3 houses also has warp cheese just on a different level due to how warp works in 3H.

FE6 can be considered hard on the hardest mode because your hit rates are trash for most characters and FE6 Marcus can fall off fairly fast and enemies on thrones are bullshit. If you don't know to abuse Rutger (the one time a sword master is a literal god in fire emblem), or just fail to recruit him in general somehow, it can be a mess because some bosses you just can't hit properly and can get crit in the face randomly, Roy is also shit and needs to seize the maps so that can be a hassle. Once you get the other prepremotes FE6 gets more managable, also FE6 has ambush spawns which means you can get catch you off guard. FE6 does have one of the easiest final bosses in the series who will literally kill themselves when they attack Roy with the Binding Blade.

Awakening is considered easy because pair up is a disgustingly broken mechanic that cheeses everything and Robin snowballs super fast "Chrobin" pair up can dumpster the whole game super fast and easy, usually around chapter 3 or 4 Robin has snowballed enough to start wrecking everything. Pair up in general is just a silly and broken mechanic because it is rescue only with no downsides, only upsides that increase bulk and offense, dual strike/guard can be very effective, and Galeforce exists which also cheeses stuff. Awakening has a lot of silly nonsense.

Hard mode Radiant Dawn/FE10 can also be rough at the start, your starting units are pretty garbage and the constantly switching perspective can catch you off guard. It also removes the weapon triangle in hard mode which janks up the balance a lot in the early game, so your sword boy tanks axes with his face. The difficulty is all over the place because mid game with Ike's gang is super easy compared to the first few chapters due to the unit quality difference being the size of the sun. Micaiah also is one of the most frail units I've ever seen, she gets one shot so easily, imagine Lysithea only she is a lord and has worse offense with no ability to extend the range of her spells that is Micaiah.

FE7 is a very easy game except for a couple of chapters, enemies are super weak even on Hector Hard Mode so you won't find a very tough game there. FE8 is even easier because Seth breaks the game by existing. FE9 is easy unless you play the japanese version and play their hardest difficulty, but that mode can be painful to actually do, so your enjoyment may vary. FE12 I hear has a very nasty endgame and is a rare exception where growths > bases is valued. I don't know much of anything about FE4 or 5 except that they have some very weird mechanics and obnoxiously huge maps, especially with FE4.

In short I don't think Fire Emblem is a super hard series and they all can be cheesed if you know what to do, Awakening is just way more obvious to cheese and personally I feel it is one of the easiest games that I've played simply due to how broken pair up is and a few other things like Nosferatu and Galeforce. So I would say a lot of games are harder then Awakening, except on Lunatic+ which is a train wreck of a mode, but if I'd consider the series as a whole very difficult is a different topic.

I will say maddening 3 houses is super jank and Miklain's stupid tower took me a long while to beat, the monster fight was easy getting to it was an absolute nightmare. Freaking pass ambush spawns is terrible combo.

 

[NerdShamer]

Is the series pre Awakening really as hard as everyone says it is? I just finished playing the original NES Shadow Dragon and aside from some bullshit RNG screw overs it really wasn’t that challenging. You can literally beat some chapters by simply warping Marth to the main boss, killing it, then seizing the castle. Same thing with the final boss where you can warp Marth to the throne to smack Medeus a few times on the head with the Falchion. The DS remake isn’t that difficult either, especially since the reclassing system is stupidly broken. I also played FE4 and it was a joke, especially in the second generation if you pair up the right first generation characters to make super broken children. And like FE1 the Book of Naga is pretty much a “press A to win” button for the final boss.

The only game that I hear is genuinely difficult is Thracia. I finished 1, 11, and 4 and started 7 so my experience pre Awakening is limited.

Path of Radiance looks easy...But I heard that the Black Knight duel can fuck you over if he's lucky.

The map design in Shadows of Valentia is repetitive at certain points and can be cheesed by a Baron, the Dread Fighter reclass loop, Warp/Rescue raping, and a decent mage with 2 healers.

Fates is a mixed bag, but Poison Strike and anything similar to it kind of ruins the difficulty. Plus, shit like Armored Blow trivializes the shuriken spam.

Awakening was kind of easy, tbh. I blame Nosferatu, Ignis, and Chrom's Aether skill.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

Path of Radiance looks easy...But I heard that the Black Knight duel can fuck you over if he's lucky.

The map design in Shadows of Valentia is repetitive at certain points and can be cheesed by a Baron, the Dread Fighter reclass loop, Warp/Rescue raping, and a decent mage with 2 healers.

Fates is a mixed bag, but Poison Strike and anything similar to it kind of ruins the difficulty. Plus, shit like Armored Blow trivializes the shuriken spam.

Awakening was kind of easy, tbh. I blame Nosferatu, Ignis, and Chrom's Aether skill.

Path of Radiance is pretty easy, you can dodge out of the Black Knight duel with no real consequence the story just changes a little and you get a slightly different unit that mostly performs the same, regardless of what happens the tangible reward for winning isn't useful. It is mostly a pride and story thing to have Ike beat the Black Knight. To actually win Ike mostly just wants to land Aether and if you get some Aether procs and Ike is 20/20 you usually win unless Ike's growths got screwed, you can use Nihil to avoid the Black Knight getting his proc off and killing Ike.

Fates Conquest can be a massive cluster fuck because of debuffs like hexing rod carriers can just mess you up, such as the 3rd last chapter with Iago and ninjas with lunge pulling you into death traps where armored blow doesn't work and you just get poison striked to death. The Kitsune chapter in Conquest is also a train wreck if you don't know the cheese strategy. Birthrout is a joke because Ryoma is broken and can fight the entire map by himself if he procs astra enough times and has a good pair up. I never found poison strike useful, you can usually 2 shot most enemies with the good units with good pair ups like Camilla, Corrin, and Xander with Arthur, Charlotte, or Keaton as their pair up partner.

Sol was more busted then Aether for me in Awakening, Aether's proc rate sucks but Sol proced all the time for me and Sol gives you so much hp in Awakening which is why it was nerfed in Fates.

 

[X-Shaped Weeaboo]

The only game that I hear is genuinely difficult is Thracia. I finished 1, 11, and 4 and started 7 so my experience pre Awakening is limited.

Fire Emblem is actually an extremely easy series if you look past the Perma-Death and RNG factors that turn a lot of people off from trying the games. People look to Awakening and say it's an outlier for easiness, but having played nearly every game in the franchise myself I can safely say that the only one that gave me even the slightest bit of actual trouble was FE6: Binding Blade and that was less because the game was difficult and more because 90% of the units you get in that game are straight trash units.

The AI in these games will always be predictable and have nowhere near the amount of options for attacking and defending as you do: So long as you don't overextend your units will never truly be in danger outside of random crits or bad accuracy draws. Fates is the closest to having enemy units have some amount of versatility to their game play but all of it falls apart the second you figure out how to counter debuffs and abuse skills and passives. I liken the series to Pokemon in that regard; It has teeth occasionally to less experienced players but once you've bopped to this song and dance enough times there's very little that can actually surprise you.

 

[NerdShamer]

Path of Radiance is pretty easy, you can dodge out of the Black Knight duel with no real consequence the story just changes a little and you get a slightly different unit that mostly performs the same, regardless of what happens the tangible reward for winning isn't useful. It is mostly a pride and story thing to have Ike beat the Black Knight. To actually win Ike mostly just wants to land Aether and if you get some Aether procs and Ike is 20/20 you usually win unless Ike's growths got screwed, you can use Nihil to avoid the Black Knight getting his proc off and killing Ike.

Fates Conquest can be a massive cluster fuck because of debuffs like hexing rod carriers can just mess you up, such as the 3rd last chapter with Iago and ninjas with lunge pulling you into death traps where armored blow doesn't work and you just get poison striked to death. The Kitsune chapter in Conquest is also a train wreck if you don't know the cheese strategy. Birthrout is a joke because Ryoma is broken and can fight the entire map by himself if he procs astra enough times and has a good pair up. I never found poison strike useful, you can usually 2 shot most enemies with the good units with good pair ups like Camilla, Corrin, and Xander with Arthur, Charlotte, or Keaton as their pair up partner.

Sol was more busted then Aether for me in Awakening, Aether's proc rate sucks but Sol proced all the time for me and Sol gives you so much hp in Awakening which is why it was nerfed in Fates.

So, what about the children's maps in Fates?

While I haven't done them all, yet; I've noticed most of them are kind of easy if you're using more fliers than usual on Birthright and Freeze or Entrap in Conquest.

Fire Emblem is actually an extremely easy series if you look past the Perma-Death and RNG factors that turn a lot of people off from trying the games. People look to Awakening and say it's an outlier for easiness, but having played nearly every game in the franchise myself I can safely say that the only one that gave me even the slightest bit of actual trouble was FE6: Binding Blade and that was less because the game was difficult and more because 90% of the units you get in that game are straight trash units.

The AI in these games will always be predictable and have nowhere near the amount of options for attacking and defending as you do: So long as you don't overextend your units will never truly be in danger outside of random crits or bad accuracy draws. Fates is the closest to having enemy units have some amount of versatility to their game play but all of it falls apart the second you figure out how to counter debuffs and abuse skills and passives. I liken the series to Pokemon in that regard; It has teeth occasionally to less experienced players but once you've bopped to this song and dance enough times there's very little that can actually surprise you.

The smartest thing that I've seen the AI done in FE was watching an half-dead bandit in SoV retreating to eat from a crate of oranges. But this is also the game that seldom provides enemy healers. Other than that, it's usually just waiting out the ones set to suicide you and mopping up the stragglers; although, at least Fates had me checking enemy weapons on account of the effects some of them have.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

So, what about the children's maps in Fates?

While I haven't done them all, yet; I've noticed most of them are kind of easy if you're using more fliers than usual on Birthright and Freeze or Entrap in Conquest.

Been a long while since I did children maps so off the top of my head.

Doing Percy's map for most the gold is kind of annoying if you do it extremely early which is the best time to do it because Percy is a free Wyvern with generally good stats especially if you go with the early game duo of Effie and Arthur for the early game. Conquest has a lot of slow units that almost never double for reasonable damage, like Silas or Beruka, or units that do almost no damage and double all the time like Selena and Niles so properly handling all the enemies can be rough and getting a royal into a dragon vein can be sort of annoying because they can crowd the dragon vein.

Dwyer's is super easy, you unlock the gate next to your spawn and can just kill the boss which ends the map before the enemy does anything.

Nina's map I did one time and I thought I couldn't kill Nina so I likely made it harder on myself, I found it annoying trying to play faster then Nina, but that is my own fault for not trying to kill her to remove that issue.

Ophelia's map is easy and is more valuable reward wise then Odin as a unit, rip Odin Dark.

Forrest's map I remember being obnoxious though I don't quite remember why I just remember doing it very late into the game, the berserker that comes to kill Forrest was giving me problems and the unit quality was somewhat high for my units.

I played Birthright one time and never did it again so I forgot that route beyond Ryoma breaking it with his lobster powers.

 

[Sable]

The only things I remember about Fates is making Arthur some sort of Crit abomination with a Brave Axe and pairing Camilla with Keaton to give Velour a bunch of those % damage after combat things.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

Reached the lance monster and I just felt completely outleveled. Like, I obviously managed to reach it and get it down to its last life, but I just felt completely outmatched throughout. Only my warriors can really survive more than 3 hits and I got shields on everyone. Random filler enemies can basically one-turn my mages if they strike twice, whereas the opposite isn't true, despite them being lv 12 and above said enemies.

I spent like 25 mins reaching the monster itself which is draining and made me realize how much of a time sink each battle is, and why it feels as if I make no progress despite spending ages playing it. I'm not completely discouraged but already feels like I went wrong somewhere.

 

[Sable]

Reached the lance monster and I just felt completely outleveled. Like, I obviously managed to reach it and get it down to its last life, but I just felt completely outmatched throughout. Only my warriors can really survive more than 3 hits and I got shields on everyone. Random filler enemies can basically one-turn my mages if they strike twice, whereas the opposite isn't true, despite them being lv 12 and above said enemies.

I spent like 25 mins reaching the monster itself which is draining and made me realize how much of a time sink each battle is, and why it feels as if I make no progress despite spending ages playing it. I'm not completely discouraged but already feels like I went wrong somewhere.

Alrighty then, my advice firstly is to make sure you've got gambits on everyone. Not only do they boost stats, but even the most basic ones target two squares. This is generally the key to defeating monsters, when squares are broken it a) means the defence for that square is much lower b) stuns the monster so it can't counterattack that turn unless you also deplete one of its HP bars.

When it comes to shields, bear in mind that whilst they're going to increase your defence, it also means that your speed is going to be lowered with heavier weapons- especially on said squishy mages, as their strength is lower. This in turn puts you at a greater risk of being doubled. Additionally, spells like weapons have different weights, so when attacking enemies you can cycle through and see which ones still allow you not to be attacked twice.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

Reached the lance monster and I just felt completely outleveled. Like, I obviously managed to reach it and get it down to its last life, but I just felt completely outmatched throughout. Only my warriors can really survive more than 3 hits and I got shields on everyone. Random filler enemies can basically one-turn my mages if they strike twice, whereas the opposite isn't true, despite them being lv 12 and above said enemies.

I spent like 25 mins reaching the monster itself which is draining and made me realize how much of a time sink each battle is, and why it feels as if I make no progress despite spending ages playing it. I'm not completely discouraged but already feels like I went wrong somewhere.

This chapter is the first notable difficulty spike for 1st timers because of the new mechanics that are very new to FE, big monsters like this never existed prior to 3H and a few people got caught off guard especially if they're new to FE in general. The chapter itself is kind of a drag, but if you have mounts it becomes much faster as killing Sylvain's brother is fairly easy if you just dogpile him with bows. Once you've fought more monsters, this fight is a breeze tbh, even on maddening the monster fight was far far easier then getting to it. So if you feel like you've done stuff wrong, you probably did, but so did most people.

Also shield equipment isn't always good, they lower your attack speed because they have weight which lowers your offense. You need to evaluate if the shield doesn't hinder your offense because doubling is the best offense and avoiding doubles is typically the best defense. Shields can hinder both of these things. Typically I think shields suck, except for Felix's Aegis shield which gives a nice amount of stats and a useful proc skill to save him some damage.

The key thing with monsters is that breaking all barriers isn't always necessary and gambits break one barrier immediately on the initial tile they target. So those gambit that hit in a small line? The initial tile you targeted breaks a barrier and cracks whatever other ones you hit. Once a barrier is open you do full damage, if you dogpile damage into that one spot you can easily kill monsters in 1 to 2 turns with good positioning and a lot of ranged fire.

I could go on, but monsters get easier to understand as you fight them. So my short tip is gambits break barriers easy, then you can just pile on damage in the open barrier tile which helps a lot. Do the Sothis paralogue that should be coming up soon-ish, it throws a bunch of monsters at you and you'll get a lot of time to properly figure out how they work and how to fight them or you'll die trying. Best of luck.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

I didn't even know the 2x2 squares mattered besides its size. It literally said so nowhere of those 5 info boxes that appeared, and that's kind of my issue. First I wanted to help out the NPC dude, but realized he'd just spend all the time by the start area as units appear. I killed the first ones, moved half a circle up, then he ran back for the next ones. It's pretty hefty to spend 25 minutes in a lost fight just to experience it, to then retry it and possibly just learn something new to deal with a third time. I got 4 of my dudes to the next specialization in that fight just to revert it all back. It feels good to win those fights, but still. Intensely time draining game.

I've found little in-game text on shield so just figured it was smart to put on characters. That said, they still die in 2-3 hits so might as well quit using them, but I did notice that a lot of characters suddenly got swung at twice from low level enemies.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

I didn't even know the 2x2 squares mattered besides its size. It literally said so nowhere of those 5 info boxes that appeared, and that's kind of my issue. First I wanted to help out the NPC dude, but realized he'd just spend all the time by the start area as units appear. I killed the first ones, moved half a circle up, then he ran back for the next ones. It's pretty hefty to spend 25 minutes in a lost fight just to experience it, to then retry it and possibly just learn something new to deal with a third time. I got 4 of my dudes to the next specialization in that fight just to revert it all back. It feels good to win those fights, but still. Intensely time draining game.

I've found little in-game text on shield so just figured it was smart to put on characters. That said, they still die in 2-3 hits so might as well quit using them, but I did notice that a lot of characters suddenly got swung at twice from low level enemies.

Welcome to Fire Emblem, I've spent nearly an hour on a chapter then get 3% crit in the face and have to reset in games without divine pulse. Dying in 2-3 hits isn't that unusual to be honest at this stage depending on which units we're talking about. Battalions give a good chunk of your defensive stats and you get shitty ones early game, as I'm being reminded of in my NG maddening run. The devs thinks shields are useful, but that is rarely the case the unit is so slow that they'll just always be doubled anyway like Raphael if you want him to tank physical attacks. You get better secondary equipment like rings as the game progresses, shields are just the first type of equipment you see. Saving Gilbert is pointless, the man has a suicide mission and is arguably a liability because he can just force the entire tower to run down towards you all at once.

The tutorial is kind of eh, but it is a lot to explain and they're trying not to just give you two to three paragraphs of text to read in a game with a lot of talking. These systems make more sense in practice anyway. It does explain how barriers work though I know that much, which is the main mechanic that throws people off from what I've seen.

 

[⋖ cørdion ⋗]

Well, got down to breaking my Sword of Creator hitting random squares on the boss, so could've probably taken the last 20% if I knew about it. Yea, I played it poorly for my first run obviously, so I'll likely complete it the second time, but it's still pretty bonkers to go down the list of moves on divine pulse and it takes a full minute to scroll. Honestly my main issue was how he ran down and one-shot one of my guys northwest, then I beat him and it teleported me into the center where he still had 2 archers. I would've wasted 2 turns killing them which I figured was too much so just panic rushed the monster. Not really sure how to avoid that happening again, as I'd have to pull him around while killing his henchmen or just save nukes for when he teleports me in.

My most common issue with these kind of games with a story mission that is suddenly very hard, is that it's almost always one of two cases: Story missions are harder; good, or sometimes they're up and down, and once you get past a certain early point it's a piss take. My only real memory of such a game in recent time is Pokemon Sun, in which the rival is actually tough as shit regardless of starter. Then 1/3 through, he becomes a joke and doesn't even have 6 pokemon. I guess it's mean to make you farm optionals to beat the main story, but that's kind of a weird approach when you got limited time like in Fire Emblem. That also kind of invites a min-max approach.

 

[NerdShamer]

It gets worse with the giants, some of them are immune to magic until you break their barriers. Most change their ability depending on how much health they've lost. And the Commander/General & Counterattack skills reeks of bullshit...But that's FE for you.

 

[HeyYou]

It wouldn't be Fire Emblem if it wasn't completely unfair and unbalanced.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

Well, got down to breaking my Sword of Creator hitting random squares on the boss, so could've probably taken the last 20% if I knew about it. Yea, I played it poorly for my first run obviously, so I'll likely complete it the second time, but it's still pretty bonkers to go down the list of moves on divine pulse and it takes a full minute to scroll. Honestly my main issue was how he ran down and one-shot one of my guys northwest, then I beat him and it teleported me into the center where he still had 2 archers. I would've wasted 2 turns killing them which I figured was too much so just panic rushed the monster. Not really sure how to avoid that happening again, as I'd have to pull him around while killing his henchmen or just save nukes for when he teleports me in.

My most common issue with these kind of games with a story mission that is suddenly very hard, is that it's almost always one of two cases: Story missions are harder; good, or sometimes they're up and down, and once you get past a certain early point it's a piss take. My only real memory of such a game in recent time is Pokemon Sun, in which the rival is actually tough as shit regardless of starter. Then 1/3 through, he becomes a joke and doesn't even have 6 pokemon. I guess it's mean to make you farm optionals to beat the main story, but that's kind of a weird approach when you got limited time like in Fire Emblem. That also kind of invites a min-max approach.

I had that "archers were remaining when the fight transitioned" issue once or twice, I've done this chapter 4 times 3 times on hard mode and once on maddening mode all on classic mode, but usually I play so aggressively that everything is dead and what isn't dead I'll kill on the turn Miklain dies. Having canto mounts and a lot of ranged options like bows and curved shot (which hits at 3 range which is outside of most attack ranges) helps a lot with fighting monsters because you can hit a tile, canto away, hit with someone else at melee, then easy hp bar down. Enemy archers are easy to beat down because they can't counter at melee range because the devs never bothered to give any of the generic archers close counter. Movement is the best stat in Fire Emblem once you can double, while you don't need to have a bunch of mounted units to win as I've seen gauntlet only meme runs, having some really helps because canto is so flexible and having more movement always gives you more options.

If this is giving you trouble, and you don't learn how to handle monsters better, I can pretty much 100% say you'll have a harder time unless your units start scaling super well or you grind with auxiliary battles and the paralogues are even harder (Marianne's is bullshit going in blind). I feel the second half of the game is notably harder then the first half, but I've played Fire Emblem for a decade so I'm used to a lot of this stuff. I also never grinded using auxiliary battles, because to me having a set number of chapters + unlockable side chapters like in FE7 is how Fire Emblem is best balanced, grinding typically cheeses the game imo. I did the last chapter being 5+ levels under all the enemies with all, but two units who were the same level as everyone else, you'll probably be fine without grinding if you don't want to grind.

Chapter 5 is ultimately a monster tutorial chapter, and you'll get better as you keep playing, I had no idea how monsters fully worked until half way through my second playthrough, so struggling and playing badly is normal because they're fairly different from other encounters. Side note: If you break all monster barriers you'll likely get materials to repair the sword of the creator and other relic weapons like it, but without notable spoilers the sword will get auto repaired twice throughout the game so don't feel you need to repair it right now.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Finished all my playthroughs of Three Houses earlier this week. My last one was Crimson Flower.

Spoiler

18 FUCKING CHAPTERS? WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF BULLSHIT WAS THAT?

If Verdant Wind didn't exist, Crimson Flower would be the worst route in the game for that reason alone. I like the story, granted, but it felt so needlessly quick, as if that route in particular was specifically rushed out to make sure the game launches on July 26th. And it's a shame, because I love the Black Eagle characters.

What really, REALLY gets me is how empty CF is.

Look at this bullshit.

Look at THIS bullshit.

Two big, pivotal moments in the story, both of which got cutscenes in the other routes, pushed aside, told as off-screen events.

Remember how much TWSITD were hyped up by the likes of Hubert and Edelgard? How they talk about how Arundel is evil and we must stop him and his group of miscreants, how they're the ones we have to deal with once Rhea is gone?

What happens when Rhea's gone?

Roll credits. Mention the battle against TWSITD in the character endings. End the game 5 fucking chapters earlier than the other routes for no fucking reason.

If Crimson Flower was my first playthrough, my first impression of Three Houses would have been MUCH less favorable.

Crimson Flower is Intelligent Systems acting like Game Freak. Never act like Game Freak.

And just like that, I'm done with 3H until more DLC comes out. woohoo

 

[Buttigieg2020]

Finished all my playthroughs of Three Houses earlier this week. My last one was Crimson Flower.

Spoiler

18 FUCKING CHAPTERS? WHAT THE FUCK KIND OF BULLSHIT WAS THAT?

If Verdant Wind didn't exist, Crimson Flower would be the worst route in the game for that reason alone. I like the story, granted, but it felt so needlessly quick, as if that route in particular was specifically rushed out to make sure the game launches on July 26th. And it's a shame, because I love the Black Eagle characters.

What really, REALLY gets me is how empty CF is.

Look at this bullshit.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=MTsFEOcEu1E:3663
Look at THIS bullshit.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3liNHv-U3fI:3613
Two big, pivotal moments in the story, both of which got cutscenes in the other routes, pushed aside, told as off-screen events.

Remember how much TWSITD were hyped up by the likes of Hubert and Edelgard? How they talk about how Arundel is evil and we must stop him and his group of miscreants, how they're the ones we have to deal with once Rhea is gone?

What happens when Rhea's gone?

Roll credits. Mention the battle against TWSITD in the character endings. End the game 5 fucking chapters earlier than the other routes for no fucking reason.

View attachment 950236

If Crimson Flower was my first playthrough, my first impression of Three Houses would have been MUCH less favorable.

Crimson Flower is Intelligent Systems acting like Game Freak. Never act like Game Freak.

And just like that, I'm done with 3H until more DLC comes out. woohoo

Given the DLC is adding more stuff for Jeritza to actually complete his story arc, I’m willing to bet they added that route during one of the game’s delays.
You liked the church route more than verdant wind? Most people I’ve seen said the opposite.

 

[The Iconoclast]

Given the DLC is adding more stuff for Jeritza to actually complete his story arc, I’m willing to bet they added that route during one of the game’s delays.
You liked the church route more than verdant wind? Most people I’ve seen said the opposite.

Honestly yeah. What gets me is the fact that a lot of things are straight-up recycled from the church route and Judith was completely useless despite everyone acting like she was a crucial part of the army.
It had a good outcome, and the final cutscene was really good, but I still liked the church more. I might have more of a soft spot for the church route because it was my first one.

 

[Zeke Von Genbu]

Honestly yeah. What gets me is the fact that a lot of things are straight-up recycled from the church route and Judith was completely useless despite everyone acting like she was a crucial part of the army.
It had a good outcome, and the final cutscene was really good, but I still liked the church more. I might have more of a soft spot for the church route because it was my first one.

I'm the exact opposite, church route bored me to tears but I played GD first. I do think the Edelgard scene is better with church, but the rest is better with Claude. Seteth is such a waste, and I like Seteth in his supports. Judith is useless though I agree, even the times she is an NPC on the map she doesn't look that strong. Honestly 3H's constant copy pasted maps and story for 3/4 routes is kind of irritating that I honestly think the church route isn't even worth playing unless you're a completionist, just get spoiled on the few lore differences and save yourself a playthrough.