Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes bets on Shez – REVIEW

After a Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity very fun, but which did not shine by its technique, the studio Omega Force released a few days ago a new licensed musō nintendo on Switch. A second Fire Emblem Warriorswhich drops the side “best of” to focus only on the episode Three Houses, the one that reconciled all fans of the franchise. A new game that tries to marry the action somewhat nags of the musō, the strategy specific to a Fire Emblem classic and the social overlay that had made the hallmark of Three Houses. Are you ready, once again, to fight to save the soldiers you have become attached to?

The kitchen of the musketeers

This new gameOmega Force is my third musō of the year, but it may be your first, so let’s start with a little reminder: invented by the studio with Dynasty Warriors 2 in 2000, this subgenre of hack and slash makes you embody a brave hero who will cut enemy soldiers by the shovel in the now famous battles at “one against a thousand“. If we often accuse the Warriors to stagnate and be repetitive, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes tries to renew the genre a little by taking inspiration in particular from the spin-off Empires (the last representative of which, Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires, was released on our console this year) but also, of course, Three Houses. This is also one of the main qualities of this game which is experienced as a generous mouthful of fan service which will not leave amateurs hungry. We always find there this desire to perfectly characterize each character, even if it means sometimes forcing the line, so as to attach to each one, and these advanced social interactions, at the personas – even if, be careful, no romance possible this time.

Skip aspect roleplay of the title, it’s to lose the substance of it: you will really have to invest yourself in each character, read the dialogues well, think about giving them small gifts, cooking them or going wandering with your new BFF in the forest to get to know him better. In short, take care of your units in a personal, but also professional way, by managing for each one the training, the best class and the equipment (which can happily be automatically optimized at the touch of a button). Balancing the levels of each will also prove to be important because the clashes always take place according to the principle of rock-paper-scissors dear to the license (each class having an advantage against some but a weakness against others), and you will never know in advance which unit you will need in the next battle. The gameplay changing somewhat between each class, switching from one character to another also allows you to never get bogged down in too much repetitiveness during combat.

bastions and strongholds

All this social aspect of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes passes through the camp, the real hub of the game which replaces the monastery of Garreg Mach. A little smaller, offering fast travel for all points of interest, it is, despite the amount of things to do there, relatively respectful of the player’s time. And so much the better, because in addition to making it live, you will also have to make it prosper, thanks to the various materials found during the main or side missions: with your buildings, it is your skill in the kitchen, the power of your weapons or even the capacities of your soldiers which will be improved. This last point is particularly important, because adding a special ability bar or the possibility of using more potions (a la Dark Souls) will prove to be essential to succeed in the missions, to reach the coveted S rank and, above all, to avoid losing a character that we like. Because yes, the permadeath is back – certainly optional. We activate it, a bit out of habit, to persuade ourselves to play properly, but in reality this option is becoming more and more anachronistic, since the vast majority of players will simply restart the mission in the event of a character’s death. .

The missions, by the way, let’s talk about them: once on the battlefield, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes turns into a much more conventional musō, with a playground with multiple branches, with heroes to slay, strongholds and bases to conquer. Each of your characters is equipped with two special moves, which consume the durability gauge of your weapon, an awakening mode which multiplies your strength, as well as a special attack to be activated by filling your “warrior gauge“. The enemies, meanwhile, have a guard to break: once this is done, you can send a devastating attack that will take out all the surrounding enemies in its path. It should be noted, however, that characters controlled by the AI ​​will not use their abilities automatically, which will force you to play the little general to finish the missions as quickly as possible. It’s up to you to distribute your units on the field according to their strengths and weaknesses and switch between them – smoothly – in order to eliminate enemies quickly or get them out of a bad patch. This adds a not unpleasant little RTS side and will force you to apprehend the battle as a whole at the risk of seeing your partners collapsing like flies.

A slightly wobbly Shez

The choice of these missions is made through a map that will change at the beginning of each chapter: it will indicate the position of the camp, the main objective, as well as a whole bunch of small secondary objectives in the form of so many small territories to conquer. Follow the ascension of your favorite house (I personally stuck with my top pick in Three Houses and went on the Black Eagles) in this alternative story, which puts you in the shoes of a new protagonist, Shezthere where Byleth is the villain, is pleasant to follow, the happiness of completing each of the cards in the game can give way to a certain annoyance if, like me, you are a bit of a completionist. Even if we avoid the overloaded card syndrome withHyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, each chapter is quite long if we aim for 100%, between secondary missions, annexes and hidden. We can only advise you to space out your gaming sessions so as not to become weary, although the fun and light side of the musō always wins out in the end. A little too long for its good, each of the three routes in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes will take you between 30 and 45 hours to complete.

Fortunately, these dozens of hours of games are punctuated by an excellent soundtrack that cheerfully remixes the greatest pieces of Three Houses and inspires us with this epic spirit that is well suited to the major issues facing us. At this point, lovers of the second Hyrule Warriorsof which the frame rate was as flawed as its artistic proposal was magnificent, surely wonder about the technical aspect of the game. So I have good news for you: with less dapper graphics and in the absence of anti-aliasing (which is not bad to see), the title of Omega Force is rarely faulted and almost never falls below 30 fps, all while displaying an image at near maximum resolution. But while the title could have run at a steady 30 fps, Omega Force made the curious choice not to to cap the frame rate : this gives us a title that often varies between 30 and 50 fps, which could be a problem for people sensitive to the judging. Of course, this will allow the game to run at 60 fps if on occasion a Switch more powerful was coming, but giving players the option to choose would have been nicer. However, this is not enough to spoil our pleasure in this adventure that we can recommend to all fans of Three Housesbut also good musō.