beginning to burn scarlet
Jun. 18th, 2022 08:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mikogalateaAfter clocking up nearly 18 hours of playtime (yes, really, and this is all just one route to boot) I've finally done everything I wanted to do in the Three Hopes demo! With that, here's some assorted thoughts I have about it.
I'm playing the Scarlet Blaze route, Normal/Classic, with female!Shez and male!Byleth.
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I don't have much experience with Warriors games -- just the early part of Age of Calamity, unless you really want to count a brief go at the original Samurai Warriors on the PS2 long ago where I played for about five minutes and had no idea what the hell was going on -- but I've been doing okay in this game so far and I find it easier to deal with than AoC. Still need to get more familiar with some of the mechanics, but I've at least got ordering units down fairly well!
Shez makes a good foil to Byleth so far. While I personally still prefer Byleth (which I'm sure is an unpopular opinion) this game has given me further appreciation for them, and it's certainly not a knock against Shez; they grew on me pretty quickly, and I find them quite endearing. That female design sure doesn't hurt, either.
Arval makes a good and entertaining foil to Sothis, too, especially in their dynamics with their respective main characters. It's already been spelled out in the demo portion that Arval was originally an Agarthan, or at least has some connection to them; I wouldn't be surprised if they were to the Agarthans what Sothis was to the Nabateans.
Speaking of Agarthans, holy fuck was it satisfying to see Edelgard strike back against Those Who Slither, and so early on at that. It makes for an incredibly fast-paced first few chapters, but it's exciting nonetheless and it's great to see a new story with these characters that doesn't waste too much time retreading familiar ground.Almost feels like a response to complaints about the academy phase in Houses taking up so much time!
And of course, another big early difference in this new chain of events is that the real Monica gets to live! She's a great disaster lesbian. ^^; I have to wonder, though: why was she kidnapped and slated for death in the first place? Was it just to make Edelgard suffer more than she already had by getting rid of her friend, or did they also want to use her for experiments? (Otherwise, why keep her imprisoned for any length of time? Why not kill her immediately?) She does have an unusual Crest, after all, especially given that it's the Crest of a saint who hated humans. In any case, as Edelgard says in-game, it's a miracle she even got this window of opportunity to save her.
On the subject of Crests, I notice that they seem to have gotten way less emphasis in the story so far, after they were such a key thing in Houses. Is that largely because Shez doesn't have a Crest and so the subject isn't quite so relevant to them, or is it more another example of Hopes not dwelling too much on things the player should already know from the base game?
Honestly, I think that point needs some emphasis: Hopes expects the player to be thoroughly familar with Houses's story. Personally, I don't mind at all and I'm loving all the delicious new lore that Hopes is providing, but I wouldn't exactly recommend this game to anyone who hasn't already played Houses...
The abovementioned delicious new lore comes with new support conversations for everyone! They may be more limited than in Houses from the looks of things, but they're mostly of very high quality so far, and I love that every pair of characters gets completely new things to do and talk about together compared to what Houses already covered! There's a reason why I spent so much playtime grinding to get all the C-ranks with conversations! (Also getting S-ranks on the available maps, but I kinda did that in the process of grinding for supports.)
I think all of Edelgard's support convos that are currently available rank among my faves so far. She and Shez have an interesting one discussing the pros and cons of her war, her Jeritza support was surprisingly cute (I like that Jeritza has a lot more screentime in this game in general, and since his update in Houses originally hit when I was on CF's last map, this is my first time seeing any supports with him) and her Ferdinand one was really sad.
Other highlights include but are not limited to Shez having totally different dynamics with the other characters compared to Byleth, Linhardt and Bernadetta having a fun support and a neat moment in the main script that's made me consider the ship after I'd been neutral on it before, Ferdie and Linny's only support being quite nice, Monica being a Dorothea fangirl on top of being obviously in love with Edelgard, Jeritza and Manuela having a wildly different dynamic in a timeline where he never stabbed her, and Petra making it clear that she hates Caspar's father. (Speaking of whom, it's really neat that we now get to see him and so many other characters we'd only heard of before.)
Most of Shez's C-ranks feel more like budding friendships than potential romances, but I still tentatively ship them with Caspar and Petra. That said, I don't know yet if there'll be romance elements and/or paired endings in this game, so I'll see how things pan out with both that and their later supports.
On more random notes, Shez's reactions to Alois's bad jokes were pretty funny, and Edelgard not knowing what a high five is was really cute.
I won't be playing the demo portions of Azure Gleam or Golden Wildfire, both because I've already sunk so much time into SB and because I'm pretty sure NG+ will be a thing. From what I've seen from peeking around the fringes of fandom, AG has been pretty well-received (as has SB) and GW... has been less so, but I'll cross those bridges when I get there.
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All in all, I've enjoyed this demo a ton and I'm glad there's less than a week to go until the full game drops!
I'm playing the Scarlet Blaze route, Normal/Classic, with female!Shez and male!Byleth.
-
I don't have much experience with Warriors games -- just the early part of Age of Calamity, unless you really want to count a brief go at the original Samurai Warriors on the PS2 long ago where I played for about five minutes and had no idea what the hell was going on -- but I've been doing okay in this game so far and I find it easier to deal with than AoC. Still need to get more familiar with some of the mechanics, but I've at least got ordering units down fairly well!
Shez makes a good foil to Byleth so far. While I personally still prefer Byleth (which I'm sure is an unpopular opinion) this game has given me further appreciation for them, and it's certainly not a knock against Shez; they grew on me pretty quickly, and I find them quite endearing. That female design sure doesn't hurt, either.
Arval makes a good and entertaining foil to Sothis, too, especially in their dynamics with their respective main characters. It's already been spelled out in the demo portion that Arval was originally an Agarthan, or at least has some connection to them; I wouldn't be surprised if they were to the Agarthans what Sothis was to the Nabateans.
Speaking of Agarthans, holy fuck was it satisfying to see Edelgard strike back against Those Who Slither, and so early on at that. It makes for an incredibly fast-paced first few chapters, but it's exciting nonetheless and it's great to see a new story with these characters that doesn't waste too much time retreading familiar ground.
And of course, another big early difference in this new chain of events is that the real Monica gets to live! She's a great disaster lesbian. ^^; I have to wonder, though: why was she kidnapped and slated for death in the first place? Was it just to make Edelgard suffer more than she already had by getting rid of her friend, or did they also want to use her for experiments? (Otherwise, why keep her imprisoned for any length of time? Why not kill her immediately?) She does have an unusual Crest, after all, especially given that it's the Crest of a saint who hated humans. In any case, as Edelgard says in-game, it's a miracle she even got this window of opportunity to save her.
On the subject of Crests, I notice that they seem to have gotten way less emphasis in the story so far, after they were such a key thing in Houses. Is that largely because Shez doesn't have a Crest and so the subject isn't quite so relevant to them, or is it more another example of Hopes not dwelling too much on things the player should already know from the base game?
Honestly, I think that point needs some emphasis: Hopes expects the player to be thoroughly familar with Houses's story. Personally, I don't mind at all and I'm loving all the delicious new lore that Hopes is providing, but I wouldn't exactly recommend this game to anyone who hasn't already played Houses...
The abovementioned delicious new lore comes with new support conversations for everyone! They may be more limited than in Houses from the looks of things, but they're mostly of very high quality so far, and I love that every pair of characters gets completely new things to do and talk about together compared to what Houses already covered! There's a reason why I spent so much playtime grinding to get all the C-ranks with conversations! (Also getting S-ranks on the available maps, but I kinda did that in the process of grinding for supports.)
I think all of Edelgard's support convos that are currently available rank among my faves so far. She and Shez have an interesting one discussing the pros and cons of her war, her Jeritza support was surprisingly cute (I like that Jeritza has a lot more screentime in this game in general, and since his update in Houses originally hit when I was on CF's last map, this is my first time seeing any supports with him) and her Ferdinand one was really sad.
Other highlights include but are not limited to Shez having totally different dynamics with the other characters compared to Byleth, Linhardt and Bernadetta having a fun support and a neat moment in the main script that's made me consider the ship after I'd been neutral on it before, Ferdie and Linny's only support being quite nice, Monica being a Dorothea fangirl on top of being obviously in love with Edelgard, Jeritza and Manuela having a wildly different dynamic in a timeline where he never stabbed her, and Petra making it clear that she hates Caspar's father. (Speaking of whom, it's really neat that we now get to see him and so many other characters we'd only heard of before.)
Most of Shez's C-ranks feel more like budding friendships than potential romances, but I still tentatively ship them with Caspar and Petra. That said, I don't know yet if there'll be romance elements and/or paired endings in this game, so I'll see how things pan out with both that and their later supports.
On more random notes, Shez's reactions to Alois's bad jokes were pretty funny, and Edelgard not knowing what a high five is was really cute.
I won't be playing the demo portions of Azure Gleam or Golden Wildfire, both because I've already sunk so much time into SB and because I'm pretty sure NG+ will be a thing. From what I've seen from peeking around the fringes of fandom, AG has been pretty well-received (as has SB) and GW... has been less so, but I'll cross those bridges when I get there.
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All in all, I've enjoyed this demo a ton and I'm glad there's less than a week to go until the full game drops!
no subject
Date: 2022-06-18 10:37 pm (UTC)I think it was both. Rare Crest + connection to Edelgard = Thales being all over that.
I adore Monica, though, I already ship her with Edelgard so hard. And Manuela/Jeritza was...quite the interesting support. I may ship that, too.
(And yes, Petra's dark side from her A support with Caspar is becoming clearer now that her father's killer is nearby. I wonder how that'll shake out.)
I saw the Ferdie/Edie support on Youtube and it made me sad for them both. :( (Even sadder given Ferdie's VA died recently. I bet we see a dedication to him in the credits.)
Azure Gleam's tone is actually quite different from Azure Moon's, and you get to play as Rodrigue. Who is a lifesaver of a unit.
Golden Wildfire is cool, but yeah, it's...kind of a touchy subject among fans. All I'll say is I forgot what it was like for Claude to be vulnerable to arrows. And Ingrid. I got them to S+ in flying in Three Houses so I've been spoiled by being able to send them out and not have to worry about bows.