I hope that's enough hope.
In this one, the main character is Shez, a new character that was killed by Byleth before the original Three Houses, but in this timeline he survives thanks to a mysterious power up. This time around Shez is not a mute hero, thank god, and he is the one who gets to join one of the three houses. Shez is kinda dull to be honest, and he, or she, can't romance any of the characters. The new storyline was a bit lame to be honest, and the fact that it's an 'alternate timeline' makes it all the lamer. I also felt that seeing Byleth become a total nobody, I mean, he is the famed 'Ashen Demon' and he is feared by everyone, but... he barely gets to interact with the characters that could grow so fond of him in the original game.
While having everyone from Three Houses return is pretty neat, I miss having characters from all around the Fire Emblem universe, plus, since it's an alternate continuity... it's not as if anything that happens in this game really matters in the overall world of Three Houses, now does it? Might as well just pay tribute to the entire series, right? I also felt that having each character having a single promotion, which would change their outfit, was a bit cooler. This game tries to mimic elements from Three Houses, so now you get a shared pool of classes, and true, each character gets their own unique outfit, but they share class-based outfits.
The game lasts about 25 hours... and that's just a single playthrough. As it tries to borrow as many elements from Three Houses as possible it also has three routes depending on which house you pick at the start, so you actually get three different storylines to follow. And this is its own can of worms, at least in my opinion, making it kind of a hassle to play. Instead of having a simple mission select screen or map, as any other decent Musou game, you get a linear plot and set of missions. You can recruit characters from other houses in certain missions... but if you start a new game plus, you can only use the characters that you recruit on THIS new playthrough. To be fair, after chapter 2 you get a facility that lets you replay missions, and you can actually use any character that had joined you in previous playthroughs, to play these missions, but once again, it's an unnecessary hassle. This also means that starting a new playthrough is a pain in the butt, you get the replay mission facility about an hour into it, and you have to replay the boring and slow paced introductory chapters and tutorial all over again. Yes, the game forces you through the tutorials AGAIN, even though it's a new game plus.
You only get to play two missions before the timeskip, which is kind of rushed, but hey, everyone gets new timeskip designs. Of course, the new designs are hit or miss, and pretty much all of them are based on their original costumes. I appreciate having new designs, but having the old ones as optional costumes would've been perfect.
At first the game felt very overwhelming, new mechanics kept being introduced pretty regularly, and each tutorial was at least 3 pages long. And then you find out about all the different character classes, and just how would you know which classes are better? But before long you'll get the gist of it and feel comfortable playing it. Even when it comes to classes, the game highlights which classes fit each character the best. But yeah, it feels too complicated at first, but it really isn't.
So far, I haven't had many good things to say about the game, but that's about to change! The gameplay is really good. Not only are there a lot of classes, but you are encouraged to try them all because besides the unique passive abilities each class gets, your character also learns skills that they can equip regardless of which class they are using! This allows for an interesting degree of customization on everyone. Each class also has Special Attacks that you can then equip with other classes, although some require an specific weapon type. Characters can equip up to two of these abilities, and they consume weapon durability. Not to worry, weapons don't break, and you can fix durability during battles by finding purple crystals.
Just as in the original Fire Emblem Warriors, this one tries to give the Musou formula an strategic edge, so you can actually bring up to four characters to each battle, and swap between them at any moment. You are also supposed to regularly pause the game to assign orders to everyone. It sounds annoying, but it's not.
Stages and Missions are just large enough to be enjoyable, but brief enough as to feel appropriate on a handheld console. There's only so many missions types besides capturing strongholds or defeating specific enemies, but as with the best Musou games, the action is fast, loose and flashy. If anything, I'd complain that the first Class Tiers are a bit dull since they don't have many combo finishers, so if you like to mash buttons... sometimes mashing X will produce nothing and just stop your combo. It's not until the very last Class Tier that classes get full movesets.
It's not the best Musou Koei has ever made, but at least it's not the worst. Thankfully the gameplay is solid, unlike their previous effort, Touken Ranbu Warriors. That said, I'm getting tired of these wet-blanket 'alternate continuity' plots, either move the plot forward, device a plot that is actually part of the license's world, or go back to just grabbing characters from multiple worlds, pertaining to the license, and writing an excuse plot, because both Age of Calamity and Three Hopes have an excuse plot that limits the characters they can borrow, and that sucks.
7.5
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