Fire Emblem Catch All

1. I explore the monastery at least once a month, possibly twice. Usually there is at least one side quest battle to do which takes up a week, but the couple of times I did a Seminar it kind of felt like wasted time. At least on a first playthrough, the extra professor exp from doing more gardening/eating (gardening plants also gets you gifts) is useful and I wish I had done a little more to try and get to C+ before the 8th month.

2. So far I am going with max the class then promote, not sure if that's actually the best course of action, but it feels like the old "level to 20 then promote" we used to do.

3. I have been trying to do a mix of my house and other house characters so that I can level up supports and steal my competitors students.

4. I could not find a way other than the roster they show you at the beginning of the game. Wasn't aware I should have used the Switch's screenshot function to take a picture of all of those cards (at least the notes page).

Recruited another team member last night in Ch 7. Only had C support, so maybe I hit the right combo of stats. It was Annette, who wants Mag/Faith. And I'm pretty sure my Byleth is a D or so in Faith. So I'm thinking the support had to have helped.

Also I got Ingrid to B support since I want a Pegasus. But a week passed and she didn't join yet. Based on what I read that should have worked but I don't know.

Oh also paralogue battles finally appeared. So trying to spend 2 free days doing battle this month.

Wishing I'd brought the Switch to work for lunch gaming again.

Also I got Ingrid to B support since I want a Pegasus. But a week passed and she didn't join yet. Based on what I read that should have worked but I don't know.

What I was reading was that after you reach B support there's an RNG chance they'll ask to join you, calculated once per week or something. Apparently it's along the lines of a 25% chance, so you can either save scum it or just wait a few weeks and it should eventually happen.

Amazon delivered this to me yesterday, so I am now approximately 20 minutes in to my first ever Fire Emblem game. I've skimmed a few pages of this thread and have been looking at some tips articles and such. For now, I just have one silly question: so does everyone just keep the name Byleth, even though the game prompts you to consider writing in a different name? It asks, so I was tempted to just put in my name, but I've seen everyone refer to the protagonist of the game as Byleth, and I had flashbacks to being a kid and being confused why everyone talked about the hero of the Zelda games as Link when my hero was always James. Do the characters never use your character's name in voice acted dialog, or does it give you different dialog if you change the default name? I stuck with Byleth because of my perception that that's what everyone did, but I already regret it! It's a weird name with a yucky mouthfeel.

I changed it to Blind

I changed mine to Tangle

Mine is Stele. Just use Byleth for discussion.

Some games the protagonist isn't named so abbreviations like MC (main character) are used. I've done that in a couple comments here out of habit.

zeroKFE wrote:
Also I got Ingrid to B support since I want a Pegasus. But a week passed and she didn't join yet. Based on what I read that should have worked but I don't know.

What I was reading was that after you reach B support there's an RNG chance they'll ask to join you, calculated once per week or something. Apparently it's along the lines of a 25% chance, so you can either save scum it or just wait a few weeks and it should eventually happen.

Ah yeah I think that's the % I saw too. But annoying to redo all the manual instruction for the week. Guess I'll give it some more time. Think I still have a few months.

mrlogical wrote:

I stuck with Byleth because of my perception that that's what everyone did, but I already regret it! It's a weird name with a yucky mouthfeel.

The th at the end of names is kind of their thing.

Marth, Byleth, Seteth.

As you could probably guess, they did not prerecord a bunch of names to swap in if you change Byleth's name. All the dialogue just refers to them as "professor" so there won't be weird cases where they call you by a different name. I usually leave the name alone for at least my first playthrough, especially when you can't change anything about the character.

The character has a defined look and place in the world, and they even have small voice clips for when they level, which irritates me to no end that they have no other spoken dialogue. You went through the trouble of hiring a voice actor for the character, use them. Personally I absolutely hate the silent protagonist. A couple games pull it off by only having the character spoken to, but as soon as other people react as if you spoke to them, it falls apart for me. I wish it would just go away forever.

And there was all that press about the male actor being replaced. But so far I've heard maybe 1 sentence out of Byleth.

Oh good. You all inspired me to start a new game and name my character as I wanted. Farewell, Byleth! I will never forget our 27 minutes together.

I don't hate that the player character doesn't have any voice acting, but I wish the scenes didn't play out as if the player were speaking. I'm fine with the CRPG style of picking a line of dialog from a list and the other characters respond immediately as if you had just said those things; having to watch a 1.5 second animation of NotByleth gesturing vaguely with his hand after you select dialog to suggest he is conveying "Yes, I am from the Kingdom of Blank" is silly and makes me impatient.

I kept it as Byleth, though I keep reading it as Blyleth. For some reason it just seems to need an extra L. I've read worse names in fantasy novels and heard worse in D&D campaigns, so meh.

I think what's weird is that this character seems "defined" in much the same manner that, say, Lee is in Telltale's Walking Dead. They have a personality as portrayed in the game -- primarily stoic -- but you're more modifying certain specific statements or the tone of them. Yet everything about the character is treated as if they're a far more blank slate than they are.

It's a bit weird but eh, could be par for the course for Japanese player expectations.

Speaking of Byleth's background and blank slate-yness, when given dialog choices about this, is this a situation where my answers are defining the character's backstory, or where his backstory is set and I'm instead deciding only whether to tell the truth?

One of the very early choices I've had to make is when asked about my relationship to Jeralt. Asked whether I'm his son, I could agree with that, say I'm a bandit, or say I don't know Jeralt. I agreed that I was his son, and there have been a couple of references to me being his son immediately following that choice. But...am I supposed to think I'm his son now? Would things have gone differently if I'd chosen a different dialog choice?

I'm not seeking spoilers about where the story goes--I can imagine this being an ongoing question--I'm just not sure what I am supposed to think in the moment when the game is asking a question of my character that I don't know the answer to.

Yeah it's odd. They ask questions about your character but you don't know the answers. All very confusing. And other characters who know Jeralt will challenge certain things.

Hopefully some of this is explained. I'm just rolling with it and building my team for now

Stele wrote:

Yeah it's odd. They ask questions about your character but you don't know the answers. All very confusing. And other characters who know Jeralt will challenge certain things.

Hopefully some of this is explained. I'm just rolling with it and building my team for now

I got to one of those questions today. So weird. A couple of comments on details I really appreciate in this game.

1 - While I love the old school GBA-style art and miss it in this game, I really like the way battles feel. You can rotate the camera all the way to the top and play it from a top-down perspective if you want.

2 - I also appreciate that they use the old GBA-style art as the icons for the classes. That's a nice way to incorporate the sprite art.

I think it tests what personality you're going for. I read "I'm a bandit" or whatnot as not wanting to be defined by familial relation and "Who is Jeralt?" as "I'm a jokester that's messing with you".

Some of the early responses to Sothis can raise or lower her support as well

I’ve just started playing this and was recently playing DQ11 and I’m pretty sure I’m over silent protagonists. Especially in dialogue heavy games. It’s terrible. Especially since Byleth will talk in battle.

I’m only at chapter 6, but Lorenz is terrible

After burning through 27 hours of FE:TH in a week and a half time, I might be ready to switch things up a bit. Resume some Judgment or recording Darksiders tonight, but in order to keep the joy of this game going I think I need to swap out to something else for a day or two.

I'm still enjoying the game, but it's far more formulaic in its outline than I'm used to these days. I'm on... month 9 now, so decently far in (don't know if the chapter numbers coincide with month numbers? I think I misread the calendar at the start), but so much of the time is spent on instruction and wandering the monastery figuring out what lost item belongs to who(m?). It doesn't help that this is the first Fire Emblem I've played where Normal is too easy. The Battle of Eagle and Lion was the first time I felt any kind of risk or threat due to the power of the other students, but I still had no reason to rewind time.

The sheer number of paralogues available also means I actually feel more limited in my weekly options. While having recruited more faculty and students (just got Manuela and Dorothea, the latter of whom surprised me) means I can spread out the experience a bit better, I'm still quite over-leveled. Yet somehow, despite my characters having high ranks in skills and being strong, I have far fewer cavalry than the AI seemed to have in the aforementioned battle.

Then again, I used a LOT of Beginner Crests, and am now working on shifting those that master those classes to Intermediate. It seems the game itself skips a lot of characters right into Intermediate.

Regardless, still having a blast, just need to cleanse the taste buds a bit before resuming forth.

DSGamer wrote:

I’m only at chapter 6, but Lorenz is terrible

Yeah, I said it before, but I feel like Blue Lions has some of the better male characters based on interactions so far. At the same time, I'm wondering if that's only because your interactions with other characters are far more limited when you're not running that House. Linhardt, for example, seems obsessed with nothing but sleeping, so it was a shock to discover a Lost Item tied to faith belonged to him. None of my interactions with him up to this point suggested such a personality.

We'll see how I feel about the other houses on later playthroughs.

DSGamer wrote:

I’m only at chapter 6, but Lorenz is terrible

I've contemplated sending him to an untimely demise, but I'm wondering if he has a redemption arc, so I'm waiting.

Where can I see motivation levels in the UI? Haven't managed to find them outside of class instruction, by which time it's too late to be boosting the levels via gifts.

Whenever you can open the main menu by pressing X, select "goals" and you'll see them.

I'm starting to pay more attention to motivations myself, after once running out of motivated students before I ran out of time for instruction. And (uh oh) I wrote down a list of what advanced classes I want to train everyone for and what skills they need, because I've been going in circles and I know they won't reach those A-rank skills that way.

Agathos wrote:

Whenever you can open the main menu by pressing X, select "goals" and you'll see them.

I'm starting to pay more attention to motivations myself, after once running out of motivated students before I ran out of time for instruction. And (uh oh) I wrote down a list of what advanced classes I want to train everyone for and what skills they need, because I've been going in circles and I know they won't reach those A-rank skills that way.

Yep! A day of rest may end up paying off more than exploring a second day. I suspect no, however. You can just go spam gifts to get everyone motivated.

The gift spam is indeed powerful. Especially since I never skip a chance to garden.

"You! You're not paying attention in class! Take all these flowers! Study hard or I will give you more flowers!"

Agathos wrote:

And (uh oh) I wrote down a list of what advanced classes I want to train everyone for and what skills they need, because I've been going in circles and I know they won't reach those A-rank skills that way.

We have Yammer at work, with a gaming group. A bunch of us posted our current rosters, with intermediate, advanced, and some master class plans. Just putting it down and looking at all of them gave me some perspective.

And I got a couple characters to 20 already but they aren't high enough in stats to promote. I should have been more focused.

My HONEST thoughts about Fire Emblem Three Houses.

Think my team is up to 16 now. Both Hanneman and Manuela offered to join during explore. Ingrid, who I had at support B for 3 weeks finally joined during the calendar weekly advance. And then Ignatz also agreed to a recruit check. Had him at support C, so maybe my stats were just finally high enough. Think I might use him for a thief so I can move Byleth to something else.

Next battle is going to have tough deployment choices.