Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes | Review
Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes is the latest exponent of this new direction undertaken by Omega Force; the fourth title created in close collaboration with Nintendo and the second dedicated to the famous Fire Emblem saga. As for the previous Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, Three Hopes also repudiates the sequential number in the title, clearly showing the intentions of the developers to perpetrate the direction taken with the previous Musou dedicated to Link and companions, creating titles that connect more to the main chapters of the reference series, rather than to the previous iteration of the series.
Three Houses… Three Hopes
Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, probably due to the reactions of fans to the huge twists proposed by the previous Hyrule Warriors: The era of calamity, immediately stands as a reinterpretation of the events narrated by Three Houses. Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes tells the story of Shez, a mercenary who escaped death and seeks revenge. In him lives Arval, a mysterious entity capable of communicating with the protagonist telepathically and instilling him with superhuman strength.
In his wanderings in search of the people who have annihilated his group of mercenaries, Shez will cross his path with the three leaders of the three houses of Three Houses and, after helping them to escape an attack by a group of bandits, will join them by coming into contact with all those characters we have come to love in Three Houses.
| } Once he becomes familiar with the trio of co-stars, Shez will be asked to choose which of the three houses he wants to join. This choice will influence, as in the original, on the narration of the first game chapters, as well as inevitably changing the cast of characters with which the protagonist will interact in the first half of his adventure.
More than this not We would like to anticipate you, so as not to spoil the surprise of the discovery, because although Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes immediately poses itself as a reinterpretation of Three Houses, not only the level of writing has nothing to envy to the previous Hyrule Warriors: L 'era of calamity, but, above all, it manages to be coherent, full of twists and turns and able to offer a much more substantial plot than a simple "reinterpretation in salsa action".
Fire Emblem Warriors?
Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, in an even more accentuated way than in previous Omega Force productions, remains consistent with the canons of the reference series, offering a whole series of collateral activities, completely optional entities, in the moments of pause between one battle and another. At this juncture, where we will be able to move our protagonist within areas populated by a considerable number of characters, we could get lost in conversations of all kinds, outline our character traits through a multiple-response system and allow ourselves short moments of leisure in company. Shez's reputation system turns out to be similar to what we saw in Three Houses, even if the realization by Omega Force is, clearly, more rustic and in line with the dynamic experience offered by the title, but in principle Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes fully succeeds in restoring the same atmosphere of a main chapter of the series.Bye Bye Musou
It is important to clarify immediately that Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes is not a Musou… he is “also” a Musou. The new direction taken by Omega Force with these licensed productions, in fact, has allowed the developers to take paths different from the canons that they themselves have defined, allowing them to experiment with different genres to maintain a sort of coherence with the original works. In the case of Fire Emblem Three Houses, in fact, in addition to the typical skeleton of the genre, we find a plethora of elements that wink at action RPGs, strategic titles and, of course, the Fire Emblem saga.Non get us wrong, in Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes you will spend most of your time in the role of "the one who has no rivals" (literary translation of the term Musou), mowing down hundreds of enemies with the push of a button while running at breakneck speed in more or less large areas in an attempt to complete the numerous objectives that, sometimes with tedious frequency, will appear on the screen.
Where the main objectives do not differ much from the genre they belong to, engaging the player in the defense of the forts, in the killing of captains, in the defense of generals and so on, the staging proposed by Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes proves to be much more inclined to the stylistic features of the Nintendo series than to the tradition of Omega Force. First of all you can, from the initial stages of the adventure, opt to divide your party into groups of two characters, being able to quickly take control of your favorite team at any moment of the battle.
This mechanic proves to be very important from master as it allows you to mix different classes, fighting styles, skills and spells to make your team more efficient when confronted with enemies with different weaknesses. Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, in fact, incorporates the typical relationships of advantage and disadvantage already known to fans of the series, here proposed in a lighter and easier to assimilate variant.
Always to stay connected to the main series, Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes allows the player to give orders to his comrades in arms, deciding at any time the actions that the other warriors will have to perform independently. Whether it is garrisoning an area, carrying out an offensive action, rushing to the aid of an ally or regrouping in a certain area to launch a group attack, this implementation offers an intriguing strategic component well implemented in the dynamics, now known, of the Musou of Omega Force.
Coming to the various characters that make up the full-bodied roster of Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, we could change their class, experimenting in a multitude of subclasses and skills of different types, all characterized in sensible way. In addition, each of the fighters in the game will have a unique move tied to its class, which will prove indispensable in the most complex battles.
As regards the combat system of Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, also in this case we find a mixture with the universe of the RPGs. Each of the fighters will have the typical Musou moveset at their disposal: light attack, heavy, dodge and run. A very basic range of moves, albeit more than effective to wipe out hundreds of soldiers every minute, to which are added the magical abilities linked to a cooldown and the wear and tear of the weapons that our heroes will use during the battles.
All features that will prove useful in battle, especially against the midboss and the most aggressive enemies, who will base their defense not only on the ratios of advantage and disadvantage, but also on the collapse indicator. In fact, hitting the toughest enemies in the right way will weaken their defenses until they collapse for a few seconds, allowing our fighters to inflict a large amount of damage on them.
As if not were that enough, all the characters on the roster have an awakening indicator, which allows the various fighters, once filled, to become temporarily invincible, as well as being able to collapse the most difficult enemies with a single shot. To all these mechanics is also added an experience system based on the ratings that will be given to our fighters at the end of the battle, allowing them to become more performing and unlock new skills.
It goes without saying that the amount of elements to micromanage before launching onto the battlefield becomes considerable. Too much if you decide to relate all these aspects to the level of difficulty proposed by Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, which, only on occasional occasions, really requires the player to consider these elements, showing the side of its very nature as a disengaged action game .
Be traditional
Whether you love Musou or are more attached to the dynamics of the Fire Emblem series, Omega Force has thought of you. At the start of a game of Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes, in fact, you can decide whether to live the whole experience by depriving yourself of permadeath (i.e. the impossibility of reviving dead comrades in battle) and social moments between one mission and another. (in which to get lost in long chats with the various characters and in all those collateral activities aimed at improving social relations with your battle mates), thus being able to enjoy the title, as if it were a more traditional Musou.Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes on Nintendo Switch
We regret having to find that the biggest defects of Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes all reside in its technical sector. Although the developers have opted for an overall "lightening" of the details of the backdrops and effects, by virtue of obtaining more stable performances compared to the previous Hyrule Warriors: The era of calamity, the frame rate still struggles to remain anchored to the 30 FPS. With the Nintendo Switch connected to an external monitor, frame drops are frequent, although never such as to make the title unplayable, while using the console on the move the situation undoubtedly improves, also thanks to a fixed image resolution at 780p, offering an overall more enjoyable experience.Net of a technical sector that is starting to reveal the hardware limits of the Nintendo flagship, Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes offers an excellent artistic sector, even better than that proposed in the previous ones Musou from Omega Force. The attention to detail is, once again, obsessive, as is the attention in the localization phase in preserving the puns, the differences in accents and the linguistic skills of each of the characters we will meet during the adventure.
The audio sector is also of the highest order, and is made up of a set of songs that alternate rearrangements of famous themes from Three Houses with unpublished compositions. Finally, Fire Emblem Warriors Three Hopes is voiced in English and Japanese, while all the texts on the screen have been localized in Italian.
