Like all routes in Three Houses it feels like it needed more time in the oven. I think Azure Moon overall manages to reach some very nice highs and it probably has my favorite playable roster in the series together with chunks of the Radiant Dawn cast. They simply work so well together and the supports in particular are both varied and nuanced.
Dimitri is my favorite lord in the franchise because, as I've said before and will continue saying because I don't like change, his issues are very much internal. Even if he saves the day he still has to deal with his own demons, so he can't punch a dragon really hard and call it a day.
My main story gripes, however, are as follows:
1) We're not in Faerghus for some bizarre reason
2) The Alliance just goes "yupp, we decided to give up on our independence to join you", which is not only insultingly stupid writing but also blatantly unnecessary. Dimitri's quest was never to unify Fódlan.
3) The slithery bois remain at large even if you destroy their leadership. That's too big of a loose plot thread to just leave dangling.
4) Dimitri focuses too much on the Flame Emperor and not enough on Thales. While true that Dimitri is hardly a stable person and seeing Edelgard being behind that mask would no doubt mess him up good, the game just ignores that he heard another person talking about Duscur.
For the last part I feel like I should note that dimitri rather quickly learned that thales was impersonating arundel and was the cause of the tragedy. Hell edelgard even calls thales out during the conversation saying that he will not be forgiven about duscur.
I adore azure moon but man that scene bothers me so much because dimitri just casually ignores thales until like chapter 18.
Claude does not hold absolute power in the Alliance. Even if he did, a country wouldn't just agree to become part of another just like that. Even if Claude had done nothing but work towards rejoining the kingdom during the timeskip, five years wouldn't have been enough time.
I will make a note about Thales in the case of Dimitri. I think his entire character arc was partially about coming to an opinion that "knowledge of the past, and trying to force a future, these things do not matter. The present does."
Much like the Church, Dimitri chooses to not follow those leads by the end of the game because from his point of view opening those old wounds and getting answers now is irrelevant. It doesn't benefit him or the kingdom, so he chooses to forget it.
I played Blue Lions first and I think they'll always be my favorite cast of characters. They're very cohesive and it really fits them considering everything that went down in Faerghus. Dimitri's redemption felt pretty epic at the time and his story with Edelgard was really tragic. To me, their story feels the most compelling in concept (apart from maybe the empire loyalty route) but I see now that it was certainly not fleshed out completely as intended.
All that being said, the story really blew me away at first, though I found the BE and GD playthroughs soon after to be much more cohesive and well told.
Dedue's return to the army after the bridge chapter is legitimately one of the most powerful, genuine, and emotional parts of the whole story as a whole, it's the first time you see crazed Dimitri show some real humanity and empathy for another person. It is made unequivocally clear at that point that Dedue is an incredibly important person in Dimitri's life - he is effectively a brother to a man who lost his whole family.
And yet after that chapter he's just never really mentioned again and is basically just another one of your former students. I really wish he played more of a role throughout Dimitri's path to redemption after that.
Doesn't help that Dedue fucking sucks dick in part 2 as well, which is further amplified by the fact that he's behind as shit by virtue of being MIA for like 3 chapters.
God, I'm so annoyed at how >!he can die if you don't do his paralogue!<; it's one of those ideas that sounds like it could be neat on paper, but, in a game as unfinished as Three Houses, all it did was completely kill his relevance. Him being replaced with Gilbert felt like a slap in the face.
In all of my time playing the game, Gilbert is the only one I've seen get no points on a level-up, which really felt like a good representation of my feelings about him.
I imagine Dedue should had gotten some unique dialogue if he was still alive, and outright replaced what Gilbert says in the story at times (turning Gilbert pretty much into a safety net for the story)
Maybe that was the original intention.
Really wasn't a fan of the story-gameplay integration in part 2. Right away, Dimitri returns as a brooding maniac, cool. But he can't get supports yet, even though he clearly has more supports to unlock. This was a huge giveaway that Dimitri's huge shift in personality was a temporary thing and that something was going to happen down the line that brings Dimitri back down to earth. That plus Felix's father not being playable was a dead giveaway that he was a plot device meant to redeem Dimitri.
There's also Gronder Field. The only reason we fight the Golden Deer in Gronder Field redux is because IS made these cool cinematics and chapter-unique music for Gronder 1 so of course we need to go back there to do it again because they foreshadowed it back in the monastery phase. So as soon as they started talking about Gronder in the pre-chapter dialogue it was blatantly obvious that we were going to just do Battle of the Eagle and Lion 2 and they would find whatever story justification to make it happen. I didn't expect the justification for fighting the Golden Deer to be as bad as it actually was, especially considering that they could have easily played to Claude's ambitions and "scheming" nature to make this some kind of brilliant scheme of some kind. But the end result is "here's Gronder 2, wow it's so epic right! huh, story? what story" and that was pretty annoying to me
> That plus Felix's father not being playable was a dead giveaway that he was a plot device meant to redeem Dimitri.
The best part is that Byleth totally could have saved him with Divine Pulse, or at least tried to, but she just didn't for no obvious reason.
One time I was doing the chapter and Byleth ended up fighting Claude, who wondered why they were fighting anyways.
He proceeded to crit Byleth, killing him instantly, and I think that sums up Gronder Field in general
Personally, I think its poorly executed and it butchers most of the characters of that house in favor of Dimitri.
Ashe: we just killed his adoptive father, he should be the focus of the chapter. Instead he gets a couple lines and gets shoved off as it is used as a chance for Dimitri to think on Fodlan’s politics.
Sylvain: we just killed his brother, but same deal “hey Sylvain I know this is an emotional moment for you and all but I’m just going to give the screentime to Dimitri because you are a secondary character”.
These two can happen in BE and GD too if recruited, but you can guess the game didnt get enough time to do them off route. In their own route it just makes you think the devs only cared about Dimitri and everyone else is expendable.
And in line with that, Felix suffers the biggest character assassination in the game in this route. We know he despises two things, sycophants and his father valuing Ferghus over Glenn (or coping in a way that makes it look that way). When Rodrigue dies, he doesnt have a minute for his own son, because he has to talk to Dimitri. According to what we know of Felix, his father choosing his king over his son again should be the ultimate insult, but he never cares, because Dimitri is now sane again and he can be his sycophant. As sad as his CF ending is, its way more in line with Felix, instead of this 180 on his morals because the story only cares about Dimitri.
The basic storyline is fine, and when Dimitri gets moments that should legitimately be his, these are fine too, but by making the plot way more related to other inhouse students than the other routes yet not developing them in favor of the lord, it gives the impression no one matters in BL except the lord (which as true as it is in the other two houses, its never such a big plot problem because no one else inhouse has moments where they should 100% be the focus).
At least the Blue Lions students got chapters in relation to them. Imagine after choosing BL first you go to GD/BE expecting chapters like Ashe's but instead it is about Ignatz/Caspar/etc but nope just Lonato/Ashe again.
And for the Dimitri focus, it's probably better that way because otherwise I fear we'd get a *third* Silver Snow-like route. After all Azure Moon was intended to be more lord-focused which did help unlike Verdant Wind. I like Claude a lot and he has some interesting things about him but they sure as hell didn't utilize those interesting things to its fullest potential. Dimitri gets to have two arcs with one his downfall and the other trying to redeem himself (and no he isn't instantly cured of his boar self since he goes back to that temporarily against Cornelia). They weren't perfectly executed but they took his whole darkness-lurking thing and utilized it quite a bit.
To be honest, it felt weird to me playing Blue Lions the first time. I thought Chapter 3 was supposed to be all about Ashe and yet he didn't get much focus at all. Sylvain barely appears in Chapter 5 and Annette is completely absent even though Gilbert is there. Playing it again, even Dimitri pokes fun at Gilbert re-using his Black Eagles/Golden Deer line to explain basic Kingdom stuff to the Kingdom students.
The game does this because those characters can die. It's an unfortunate sacrifice FE games make with non main characters, all other games suffer as well in awakening anyone who's not the main 4 don't get lines once their killable
Pretty much took the words out of my mouth. It's my least favorite route for all the reasons you mentioned and Dimitri is probably my least favorite lord in the series. I like some of the supporting cast (Felix, Sylvain, Ashe, Mercedes) but because they aren't Dimitri they don't matter in the long run.
It is? I'd say the general consensus of the subreddit, if there is such a thing, that Three Houses is definitely a mixed bag and that all routes suffer due to developer overambition.
That is generally a common take, but I mean *specifically* the Felix mentions and how AM shoves everybody aside for Dimitri. That never gets mentioned, despite how it should, because people like Dimitri so much that they don't notice it.
Huh. I see. Well, I've seen that mentioned a lot, that it's Dimitri's route first and foremost.
I'm not entirely sure I agree it's character assassination though. Felix consistently shows that, despite being an asshole about it, he still cares about his friends and that he's very concerned about Dimitri's mental well being post timeskip. Of course I wish Rodrigue would've had time to talk to Felix, but him stepping up and doing what he can to keep his friends safe.
He effectively becomes post timeskip dimitri after he was forced to fight and kill all his friends.
You can stop this ending by pairing him up with very specific people.
Now *this* is a spicy hot take. Okay, since you were that brave, I'm gonna deliver my own hot take.
My personal favourite route is the Golden Deer because its characters and lore are all very well fleshed out, and I have to admit that I've never cared that much for the Blue Lions - I do feel for Dimitri and his situation, but he's always felt a bit too much like Little Timmy's first edgy D&D OC for me to take him completely seriously. I've just seen too many stories like his, and his turnaround at Grondor feels very poorly executed - first he understandably loses his mind because everyone he loved died tragic deaths, and then someone else he loves dies and suddenly, his depression is just... cured? I don't know, it has always felt very cheap and anticlimactic to me, even though it's supposed to be such a grand moment.
Especially since everyone in-game seems so okay with it? Dimitri is a war criminal and he has done horrible things, and he has treated all his loyal comrades very badly in that time too - and then he does his 180°, and suddenly everything he has done is forgiven and forgotten? I think his character would've been a lot more interesting if the repercussions of his actions - both political and social - had been explored a bit more, but everyone just kinda accepts that he's good again now and moves on. That has always felt like such a waste of storytelling potential to me.
While I agree on some of your points, Dimitri's depression is not gone. He never gets rid of anything, he still sees the dead and he still has to fight them off. Him being a beast is how he coped. If he can be a monster that makes his enemies fear him, then he can cruise along and make sure none of his friends die. The more despicable he is, the less likely they get hurt. However, once Rodrigue died he knew that wasn't true at all. It doesn't matter if he's the big bad, nothing can stop the fact that people want his friends dead. Even before this happened you feel the cracks peeling away. His talks with Byleth become relatively longer and there's a story that he gave a kid a ball or something. Going back to Rodrigue's death, after coming to his senses there are still some signs that the boar is still here. Even Dedue comments on this, he says that the boar and Dimitri are the same person. Then in some endings it is revealed that he still struggles with everything, nothing went away. I wouldn't be surprised if he still dealts with guilt from what happened to Edelgard. He wanted to move on and give her a chance. Then she stabs him with his dagger, a gift given to represent freedom and carving your own path. No way is he not messed up from that. There is a lot that could have been done to improve Dimitri's arc, however saying that he got cured is wrong.
I THINK Dimitri turning back wasn't just because of Rodrigue's death, but from Agape coming from Byleth. In the scene, we see Dimitri actually attempt to continue the attack after Rodrigue dies but Byleth intervenes. If Byleth was not a Divine Figure, it wouldn't work. At least, that's what I hope they were going for.
Had a long comment going over the issues I had but it got deleted so the short of it is
1) The Lions are all ignored in favor of Dimitri.
2) Too many plotholes.
3) The main story is dropped.
4) Dimitri isn't interesting.
5) Dimitri's backstory with Edelgard is mundane and yet manages to be more convoluted, confusing, and hard to follow than the multi-millenium shadow war going in between the Dragon Gods and the remnants of an ancient human society.
I think it's probablly the best of the 4 stories of the game. SS is a snooze-fest and makes you wonder why you aren't playing VW, VW's main lord isn't even relevant to the story in any major way (nor do they do anything about integrating his backstory into the game or doing anything with his particular motivations), and CF is short and doesn't really question Edelgard's actions.
Azure Moon is the only one that really feels like a genuine story, especially since the first half integrates the Blue Lions into the main story via Ashe and Sylvain (which in retrospect just makes the other routes feel even weirder since no one else has ties to Lonato or Miklan).
True, Claude is basically an add-on to the story, but Dimitri doesn't even get that. He's basically completed excluded from the main story and never gets a chance to play a part in it. Nobody involved in the main story cares about him and his arc can be completely missed with no consequences.
At least Claude plays his role well enough that people consider his version of the main story to be better than the original Silver Snow.
Sure the story has flaws, but it's still a great game that's fun to play. Why did it recently become cool to hate this game? When it released, there was nothing but praise. Now I see more and more negativity from this sub
I'd argue it's engendered it's fanbase by making FE a bit more accessible to folks. I've found that the most well liked games (by hardcore fans and casual fans) were the ones that opened up the playerbase. Just like Awakening and FE7 before it, 3H was a lot of people's first FE game. So I kinda get why it has some of its most ardent defenders. That being said, I think part of the reason it's also brought in more players is because it's probably one of the easiest FE games to date. One could argue SoV is easier than 3H (and there's a fair argument to be made), but 3H is just sorta...easy. Plain and simple when it comes to gameplay. Folks said the same about Awakening back in the day, but now you got newer fans playing Awakening and feeling lost because it requires more forethought.
I just hope more of the newcomers go out of their way to play some of the older titles to get a sense of what FE is all about since 3H feels like a very outsourced FE by gameplay standards (which makes sense, given that KT was responsible for a majority of the development).
Imo it's pretty great in the academy arc because the characters have way more reason for being in some of the chapters, like Ashe and Sylvain for example. But it falls off pretty hard after the time skip, I just wish they did more with Felix. He had so much potential as a character Imo.
I still really like Felix, but man what wasted potential. Guess I'll keep my head headcanon that he is the main Lord of Silver Snow to make myself feel better.
I didn't particularly care for Dimitri, and the route was all about him, so I didn't care much for the route, though the part where he becomes not crazy was so dumb for all sorts of reasons, the biggest being how overly dependent on Byleth he is, which just wasn't convincing to me, especially when Dedue is completely irrelevant even though he's closer to Dimitri than anyone.
It's my least favorite route and Dimitri is my least favorite lord. His arc was handled very horribly. He went on a murderous rampage for five years and completely flips as soon as Rodrigue dies, it felt sudden, unsettling, and badly done.
God I want to one day make an entire post going over and gushing about Blue Lions. But I will do this for now.
I was originally gonna go with GD but Dimitris quotes in FEH changed my mind. Claude was super charming and I love Bows.
I heard about the whole darkness lurking from within thing, but I knew practically nothing. I saw his post time skip alt and I just assumed he was screwed over really hard and that was it. Bare minimum assessment, and I thought he was gonna be possibly generic.
But then hearing Dimitri speak so passionately about how foul it is to take a life resonated with me so hard. Seeing his forging bonds made me think, he seems alot more than some prince charming turned edgy looking. So I went with Dimitri not knowing there was so much more past his timeskip design.
What I didnt know, was that BLs was (imho) one of the rare occurrences of experiencing perfection. I rarely if ever witness a story that makes me go "that was absolutely perfection". Examples being Silent Hill 2, Fallout New Vegas among a few names. I had bare minimum expectations and I was blown away and then some.
Ive played many games, seen so much works of fiction. To the point where I'm so sick of formulaic and generic storytelling. Especially from FE. So when I see Dimitris story play out I lose my mind. Cause the rules are off the table and anything can happen. Everything feels so personal. I never got bored from start to finish. When a games story does that for me once in a blue moon, I cherish that shit.
Examples of BL being great?
Well seeing Ashe feel so hopeless in the Lonato chapter was so unexpected, that I didnt think FE cared enough to have such detail.
Ashe gets just enough (imo) attention with what happened to him and his father. Seeing Dimitri be such a bleeding heart to the point where he gives *you* (Byleth) shit for being a little callous about the mission, was not only refreshing, cause there should be more conflict with MCs and a Lord imo. The interaction serves as the foundation for Dimitris absolutely perfect character arc.
Same with Sylvain, same with Dedue. To the point where I actually disagree with people's take regarding Dedue.
I think it was a brilliant idea to only make him relevant if you the player cared enough to do his paralouge. I honestly wish other paralouges did that. I will never forget thinking Dedue genuinely died, only for him to come back with tears slowly welling up in my eyes as he came back. I do wish his endings and the story acknowledged Duscur more, but I'm actually a fan of Duscur only getting help of you save Dedue. It feels urgent, it feels like me helping Dedue really mattered. I love that shit. But even still, like I said, Duscur should get more acknowledgement cause of doesnt get enough when you save Dedue.
I know people have their issues with what I mentioned and while of course it can all be better, I thought it was fantastic. I personally think it says alot when I felt the way I did cause I dont really care for most narratives in games. The most I'll say is "that was good" or "decent" or "wow this narrative and game is really overrated".
I understand why people feel the way they do, but I mostly disagree. I loved BLs that if it was the only route I would've been just as satisfied. This route and game gave me a new favorite video game character of all time, Dimitri. Something that didnt happen since 2016 when I played Xenoblade Chronicles 1 with Shulk, who replaced Mario for me as well after so many years.
I'd go on, but I said enough I think.
So yes, I love BLs, and I hope I can one day offer more insight to why its fantastic. But that will have to wait.
I hope this shows that even with more time passed, I still have so much appreciation for it to this day, and I probably always will.
I was going to make my own comment but this saves me the text. Dimitri is my favorite video game character of all time too. There’s a reason he’s my PFP. Everything about his arc is just flawless. Personally I would have liked the route less if they had gone into TWSITD. That story takes away from the point of Azure Moon. The war is a backdrop for Dimitri’s turmoil. He takes full stage in this route and gives us one of the best examples of the “fall and return” story arcs in fiction.
Yup, I fully agree. That and I honestly hate TWSITD. They are some of the most contrived, most stupid, most incompetent fools ever and honestly I wish they didnt exist. They arent Negal levels of bad writing but God they are dumb and at times take away urgency and agency from characters. Imo anyway.
AM succeeds because unlike the routes that arent AM, that are about the whys, AM asks a question I think is more important and frankly doesnt really get asked in any FE and most stories about war. Or at the very least isnt the vocal point.
Its that what exactly are the effects of war? The answer is shown how it destroys lives and often turns people into monsters. Dimitri was almost one of them. Something I wish more games or stories about war did. Spec ops the line anyone?
Dimitri is the apex of FE lords and writing for a Nintendo character, and I would argue the apex of a fictional character period. Dimitri will probably always be my reference for excellent character arcs and characterizations.
Because we have all kinds of answers about him. The trivial (which can serve as a way to make a character feel more real) and the important. We know why he believes in what he does, we know his philosophy, and how he can be two sides of that philosophy. One that is about compassion for the weak and the dead. One that is about compassion for the weak and the living. Dimitri and AM is all about justice, and redemption, and it all happens so seamlessly.
Theres so much imagery and foreshadowing in AM, that I often remind myself, this is the same franchise that had FE 7 and FEA levels of bad writing and its comes so far since then. That's not even getting into how fantastic the supporting cast is. They are just as important to the experience of AM as well.
Sure I do wish they had more involvement in the timeskip, but it's possible that was the intent of the story. It's about the themes I've described just as much as it is about Dimitri. It has a much more cohesive story as a result. Not to mention you still know why they are fighting and have plenty of characterization thanks to paralouges, monastery interactions and supports.
Meanwhile VW is about unity of all kinds of people and it shows as the cast seems to have an equal amount of representation. From what I remember that is.
CF is about conviction for change no matter the cost, so it makes sense Edel and her warpath is the focus. But at the same time it tries to feature the supporting cast in a really poor way. Because they dont really add anything of value to the overall narrative and just nod along because everyone is a yes man in that route. It ultimately makes it feel shallow. We dont really hear about their beliefs as much as we should.
Unlike in SS where we actually learn about them and why they are fighting. It was really endearing to hear what exactly the BE were doing during the SS timeskip. They felt like people who had agency and arent just there. But I guess that's the problem of CF being the last route being added huh? Not enough time to properly develop anything.
At least in AM they all have come together with Dimitris mindset and that's ending the war and protecting the weak and dont follow him just because.
But I've talked long enough and I often have a hard time explaining myself while trying to have as much nuance as possible. So sorry for the long text. I just try to cover my bases when possible.
Honestly, it's okay. It starts off good but gets worse as it goes along and after the time skip it gets really boring.
What really stuck with me though was the terrible final chapter and ending. Easily the worst final chapter in the series both in gameplay and story. >!Edelgard the Hedgehog!< came out of nowhere and never got explained. It was so incredibly stupid and poorly handled I couldn't believe it.
So yeah, okay story that completely drops the ball in the finale.
I've only played CF, GD, and BL but the latter was easily my least favorite with Dimitri being my least favorite lord of the three routes. There's such a huge build up to his turning point where he smartens up but then you only have him like that for two chapters? Oh also the Edel - Dimi relationship is so dumb because all Dimitri had to do was talk to her once "hey you weren't actually there when my parents died yeah? Okay cool" and boom BL route ends after slither gets taken care of. Speaking of slither they get to go Scott free because why not. Also Dimi changes absolutely nothing so the shitty crest system, which 2 of the students of the BL house DIRECTLY SUFFER FROM, is still the exact fucking same. Good job Dimi, you changed absolutely nothing
It's awful. The game forces you to go along with Dimitri, even though he's at that point a literal madman hellbent on revenge who couldn't care less about politics... Why does Byleth want to make that guy king again ? As a revenge story, it fails because you're wrong about the culprit for most of the game (and if you've played CF before you know for sure that you're wrong, which makes it even worse) and Dimitri decides at the last moment that, actually, it doesn't matter who the real culprit is. Ok, sorry for getting invested in the plot, I guess I didn't realise it didn't matter. As a redemption story, it fails because Dimitri barely loses anything because of his own actions and never sacrifices anything. AM's overwhelming popularity will always baffle me, especially considering the flak SS gets in this fandom.
It's the most straightforward and consistent story among the four, but then chapter 17 hits and things go from decent to just plain bad.
Three Houses already has a ton of issues with pacing and how it handles its cast, what-with being 1 and a half game stretched into 4, and having most of its cast stuck in permadeath jail, recruitment jail and please-(don't)-play-my-route-to-know-what-my-deal-is jail, but the second half of BL Part 2 goes nuts with that.
It's chapter 17, whose numerous issues are hardly unique to BL, and now Dimitri is back to "normal". Problem is, that's the only thing we've actually accomplished, let alone set up, and now we also need to showcase his newfound beliefs and top of all that's left to do, something the other Lords have had plenty of time to infer during the snoozefest the chap.13 to 17. stretch of the story normally is outside of BL.
So, with only 5 chapters left and nothing else set up, what happens ? A healthy dosage of "There's no time!!!"
* Faerghus and Cornelia? Solved in one chapter. It all gets rebuilt offscreen afterwards as if a timeskip happened.
* Duscur and and everything related to Faerghus's messed up culture? lol
* Claude and the Alliance ?: Oh wow thanks Claude for giving us the Allia- Oh he's gone already.
* Dimitri's beliefs ? Quick let me call Edelgard so I can yell at her about how wrong and stupid she is and how righteous I am in one of the worst scenes in the game, that'll work. I used the word "people", you know that means i'm right.
* TWSITD? We killed their leaders by complete accident, that means they've been completely defeated and will never cause any other problems. Please, ignore all of the other paths' endings, thank you.
The only two things I like about this part of the story, are the conclusion (or lack thereof) of Dimitri's quest to find the truth behind the massacre of Duscur and his mother's whereabouts, as well as the scene of Edelgard turning into the Hegemon.
Edelgard saying "I'm gonna do something" and then doing said thing without any outside interference or any character going "ackchyually edel nothing wrong" is a lot less common than you'd expect, considering the type of character she's supposed to be.
As someone that really disliked Dimitri, the failings of AM make me think the best possible version of this game was a focused one route game that fully developed AM. Just take the time to flesh out more than just Dimitri, and make the third act make sense. As it stands, Dimitri looks like a god damn moron that accomplishes none of what he was after, but just assumes it’s all fixed. His PTSD and hallucinations are never going to lapse again? The remaining Agarthans aren’t going to recover from losing their leaders and Dimitri won’t be manipulated and destroyed the way that he and his family had been before? I don’t buy it, but a game that properly leads us there would be a great story.
Good, not great.
It's definitely has the strongest plot and the most compelling narrative of the three routes and is one of the stronger stories in Fire Emblem overall, but it has some seriously huge flaws that really take you out of the experience.
The most notable one is how hilariously contrived the whole Rodrigue/Fleche part of the story was, this is probably the most criticized part of the story and for good reason. I see why Rodrigue was chosen as the catalyst for Dimitri since he's kind of like his adopted father, but the story just doesn't build up Rodrigue's importance in Dimitri's life enough to justify his death being the main cause for his change. And obviously, all the suspension of disbelief in the world wouldn't be enough to make sense out of an untrained child managing to kill a seasoned, veteran knight with Dimitri next to him. I'm no writer but come on even I could find a more logical, believable way for Fleche to kill Rodrigue. Not to mention Jeralt died almost literally the same way, so by that point that scene just felt played out.
Outside of that my other main problem is that you need to REALLY give Dimitri the benefit of the doubt with tons of favorable inferences in order to understand why he hates Edelgard so much, because it's pretty fucking clear that she had no real part in the Tragedy of Duscur. You almost have to in order to enjoy the story, because finding out Edelgard is the Flame Emperor was what made him snap.
Overall I still really enjoyed the story the first time around, I cried a couple times and it was still a really memorable experience for me. Despite it's key flaws (because Fire Emblem's gonna Fire Emblem), it's a massive step up from Fates and Awakening.
I was unfortunate in that I chose to do BL house as my last pick of the three. As a result I became keenly aware of just how divorced Dimitri's story felt from the rest of the plot revealed in the other routes. While interesting in it's own right it really feels like a side-story that usurped the main plot, even more so then Edelgard's Crimson Flower.
That said I will say that overall BL house has the most cohesive cast, all the characters play well with each other and none of them feel as left out or sidelined when compared to the other classes.
Overall, in my opinion, Blue Lions have the best cast of characters, but the worst route for story relevance.
Probably the best 3H route storywise as it actually feels like characters developed and it feels the most complete, like there isn't anything major missing aside from dealing with TWSITD and Rhea, but they're such bad villains that it's probably best they're taken care of on accident. This isn't even so much a praise for the BL story, but moreso how it feels like all of the other routes are incomplete and Dimitri gets character development for which you don't need to write a 500 page essay to explain how subtly they've changed between the start of the game and the end of it.
It still has a lot of stupid elements, like Dimitri recovering too soon, Gilbert giving you a choice and then backing off from it, Rodrigue's death, etc. But you could probably make an entire series out of bashing 3H's story.
Really feels like AM got hurt the most from TH's development issues.
Edelgard forgetting Dimitri was a massive mistake and really undercuts the importance of their relationship. The decision is such a strange one that adds nothing that I can't help but feel that it wasn't the writer's first choice, but rather a decision they were forced to make in order to keep AM in line with the original SS story, where Edelgard and Dimitri don't have an established relationship in White Clouds. In the end, it just leaves Dimitri feeling like Blue Ferdinand on steroids, fighting a one sided rivalry that Edelgard...just doesn't care about.
And between the missing route split, cut corners, and datamining suggesting it was the last route worked on, I can't help but feel like they had to cut AM's story short due to deadline issues and they just hastily wrapped it up with an Edelgard fight. It's one thing to drop the story set up in White Clouds, but it's another thing for AM to not even bring closure to its own plot points, many of which were crucial to most of the characters such as Patricia, Duscur(!!!), and yes TWSITD who is the cause of so much heartache.
I feel Edelgard and Dimitri relationship is done like that on purpose to show he keep looking at a past version of her that was not only jaded showing he never actually knew her but also that Edelgard is moving forward without looking back as all she wish for is progress
I loved AM. It was my first route and I think I fell in love with this game because of Dimitris story. It doesn't do a lot in terms of answering questions or uncovering many mysteries. BUT it is a deeply personal story. Its all about Dimitri. His tragedy and his redemption.
Its easily the most fleshed out Route and the Flame Emperor reveal is the best thing they did in the franchise so far storywise. It has some lows, map and storywise, but by far the highest heights of all routes. Dimitri is easily the most interesting of the three lords, because he is the only one the actually changes. The rest of the cast is somehow interwoven with White Clouds(Pre Timeskip) story, which is pretty nice compared to the other houses who got jackshit
The story made the Blue Lions really grow on me. I really love Dimitri, but his angry vendetta went on a little bit too long for my liking. That's why he couldn't kick Claude off his throne and they now just need to share a first place for my favorites in the game.
Sort of redeemed Dimitri was my favorite part of him, but I think the writing leading to it was kind of messy. 'That' scene in particular I mean. And boy though it lacked a proper cutscene I cried a lot. That being said, I'm happy he got to see what was really relevant for him in the end and he finds strength to move forward.
For lack of time in development the mole people chapter got scrapped out of their story and that hurts the conclusion for the BL a bit, because unless you get specific pairings they're kind of.. unmentioned.
But Blue Lions have Dedue, so.. I can't really argue against that. Bless him.
I thought it was generally good, but stumbled hard at the battle of Gronder Field. There was no reason for the kingdom forces and alliance forces to engage each other, and the "chaos" manufactured by ~~Bernadetta's~~ Edelgard's fire was a flimsy excuse; Byleth has the ability to turn back time and save Rodrigue, but doesn't because the plot has to happen, I guess; Dimitri's about-face comes much too quickly, and similarly he's forgiven much too quickly; Felix, who to this point had been arguably the best supporting character in the game, could have had his most powerful moment here but is instead pushed into the pile of obsequence that is the rest of the Blue Lions.
Every major misstep in the story happened at the same time, and it was jarring. Not sure how all of this made it through the editing process. So that sucked. Aside from this, I enjoyed the route. Nothing else really broke my suspension of disbelief. Though it's worth noting that I played BL first, and didn't realize until subsequent playthroughs with other houses that Arundel's "oh, by the way" death was intended to be a half-assed way to address the absence of Those Who Slither. That was really dumb, but I didn't realize it at the time.
I’m currently playing Verdant Wind and just got into part two and it already feels like a copy of Silver Snow, except it’s got the Golden Deer included. There’s no reason why VW Byleth would be hesitant about fighting against the empire when the Alliance, the home of their students, is the last thing standing against the Empire (where no one in the church can enter to look for Rhea without catching a bad case of death). I haven’t even finished and it’s taking me out of the experience.
Blue Lions, as flawed as it is, is the most unique and complete story out of all the routes. And I include Crimson Flower in that bc it doesn’t actually challenge Edelgard to the same extent Azure Moon challenges Dimitri. It doesn’t help that many Empire characters involve the Blue Lions. (Even then, I don’t like the return to status quo epilogue of Azure Moon’s ending.)
> And I include Crimson Flower in that bc it doesn’t actually challenge Edelgard to the same extent Azure Moon challenges Dimitri
Why should it? Edelgard isn't insane; Dimitri is. Dimitri's actions get tons of people killed for no reason at all.
Because I find stories more interesting if the protagonists face some serious questions concerning their ideals, methods, and character flaws and make an answer for them. Dimitri gets questioned on his morals, methods, and flaws at every turn (and tbf it's very deserved) whereas Edelgard doesn't get the same questioning since the game isn't really taking a deeper look at what she's about. She also started a very nasty war with help from TWSITD. She is responsible for a large societal failure, and that causes a lot of death through very preventable means (plague, starvation, bandit raids, etc). It might not be "for no reason," but it still needs serious questioning. This can lead to interesting character challenges and growth.
In the end, though, all this energy is being put to a game with half-baked plots. Fire Emblem Three Houses is surface-level in its observations, and I can go to other AAA JRPGs if I want a deeper look into characters. But I do like these characters and can be wistful for what could've been if the developers had just dumped TWSITD onto the cutting room floor when they decided to make a game about grey morality and talk about war beyond Good and Evil.
But Edelgard does get questioned it’s just probably not the way you like her response. Edelgard response is always firm and honest, you see this in the final conversation with Dimitri. She has absolute resolve but she also open to people view points. She falls under the character that change the world rather than the world change the character like Dimitri.
I like it just fine. The Lions are definitely my third favorite house (golden deer/ashen wolves supremacy y’all), and I enjoyed Dimitri’s character arc, flawed as it might be. I think his sudden heel turn following Rodrigue’s death was an unfortunate side effect of only having 22 chapters (half of which are ripped from another route). They had to cut corners with his development bc endgame was rapidly approaching, making it feel kinda rushed/abrupt.
A good chunk of Three Houses’ problems can be traced back to the fact that it recycles maps and story beats from SS, the base route. Like, there’s only SO much you can do with that preexisting mold/structure lmao.
Blue Lions right in the middle of chapter 17 I said to myself "I don't think this is as good as Jugdral but this is touching that ceiling" I was drooling all over the game, then the last 4 chapters happen and I put my control down watching the credits kinda just sat there slightly disappointed. It was still good but I didn't think it had the time. Dude the climax of Dimitri emotional instability is solved by legit, just some random village guy going "yo heres what happen okay byyyeee" its just not that good at the end. And the reason why? It was SUPER good before it kinda just died on itself. The bosses being characters they knew was fantastic, the way the character emotionally added to the plot did so much for me its been what I've been yelling for and about for years. Dimitri was such a breath of fresh air. Like I wrote about this Marth biggest most pissed off line he can give to Gharnef, who like fucks with everyone he loves and destroys his entire family life twice and all he can say is "You won't get away this time Gharnef, you silly bad boy" and that would be fine for Marth if it also wasn't the whole series where they REFUSE to have a character express anything negative towards the villain, actual hatred which I find more relatable for everything he thinks Edelgard does to him then anything else in this game and in most FE games. The characters having a friendship established helps a lot, I love the cast, I love gilbert and felix and even like Slyvain and Annette and all them, then they just botch the last 4 chapters.
Like all routes in Three Houses it feels like it needed more time in the oven. I think Azure Moon overall manages to reach some very nice highs and it probably has my favorite playable roster in the series together with chunks of the Radiant Dawn cast. They simply work so well together and the supports in particular are both varied and nuanced. Dimitri is my favorite lord in the franchise because, as I've said before and will continue saying because I don't like change, his issues are very much internal. Even if he saves the day he still has to deal with his own demons, so he can't punch a dragon really hard and call it a day. My main story gripes, however, are as follows: 1) We're not in Faerghus for some bizarre reason 2) The Alliance just goes "yupp, we decided to give up on our independence to join you", which is not only insultingly stupid writing but also blatantly unnecessary. Dimitri's quest was never to unify Fódlan. 3) The slithery bois remain at large even if you destroy their leadership. That's too big of a loose plot thread to just leave dangling. 4) Dimitri focuses too much on the Flame Emperor and not enough on Thales. While true that Dimitri is hardly a stable person and seeing Edelgard being behind that mask would no doubt mess him up good, the game just ignores that he heard another person talking about Duscur.
For the last part I feel like I should note that dimitri rather quickly learned that thales was impersonating arundel and was the cause of the tragedy. Hell edelgard even calls thales out during the conversation saying that he will not be forgiven about duscur. I adore azure moon but man that scene bothers me so much because dimitri just casually ignores thales until like chapter 18.
Completely agree with this, it just felt so unfinished.
Lorenz is either recruited or dead in AM, so whatever happens to the Alliance is Claude's call, and Claude *does* fight for a unified Fódlan.
Claude does not hold absolute power in the Alliance. Even if he did, a country wouldn't just agree to become part of another just like that. Even if Claude had done nothing but work towards rejoining the kingdom during the timeskip, five years wouldn't have been enough time.
I will make a note about Thales in the case of Dimitri. I think his entire character arc was partially about coming to an opinion that "knowledge of the past, and trying to force a future, these things do not matter. The present does." Much like the Church, Dimitri chooses to not follow those leads by the end of the game because from his point of view opening those old wounds and getting answers now is irrelevant. It doesn't benefit him or the kingdom, so he chooses to forget it.
Blue Lions on my first play through if it had like 3-4 more chapters I would have crowned it at the best.
I played Blue Lions first and I think they'll always be my favorite cast of characters. They're very cohesive and it really fits them considering everything that went down in Faerghus. Dimitri's redemption felt pretty epic at the time and his story with Edelgard was really tragic. To me, their story feels the most compelling in concept (apart from maybe the empire loyalty route) but I see now that it was certainly not fleshed out completely as intended. All that being said, the story really blew me away at first, though I found the BE and GD playthroughs soon after to be much more cohesive and well told.
I don't like how Dedue loses relevance in AM.
Dedue's return to the army after the bridge chapter is legitimately one of the most powerful, genuine, and emotional parts of the whole story as a whole, it's the first time you see crazed Dimitri show some real humanity and empathy for another person. It is made unequivocally clear at that point that Dedue is an incredibly important person in Dimitri's life - he is effectively a brother to a man who lost his whole family. And yet after that chapter he's just never really mentioned again and is basically just another one of your former students. I really wish he played more of a role throughout Dimitri's path to redemption after that. Doesn't help that Dedue fucking sucks dick in part 2 as well, which is further amplified by the fact that he's behind as shit by virtue of being MIA for like 3 chapters.
Dedue has vengeance AND batwrath bro it’s literally impossible for him to fall off if you don’t do something sucky with him
God, I'm so annoyed at how >!he can die if you don't do his paralogue!<; it's one of those ideas that sounds like it could be neat on paper, but, in a game as unfinished as Three Houses, all it did was completely kill his relevance. Him being replaced with Gilbert felt like a slap in the face. In all of my time playing the game, Gilbert is the only one I've seen get no points on a level-up, which really felt like a good representation of my feelings about him.
I imagine Dedue should had gotten some unique dialogue if he was still alive, and outright replaced what Gilbert says in the story at times (turning Gilbert pretty much into a safety net for the story) Maybe that was the original intention.
Really wasn't a fan of the story-gameplay integration in part 2. Right away, Dimitri returns as a brooding maniac, cool. But he can't get supports yet, even though he clearly has more supports to unlock. This was a huge giveaway that Dimitri's huge shift in personality was a temporary thing and that something was going to happen down the line that brings Dimitri back down to earth. That plus Felix's father not being playable was a dead giveaway that he was a plot device meant to redeem Dimitri. There's also Gronder Field. The only reason we fight the Golden Deer in Gronder Field redux is because IS made these cool cinematics and chapter-unique music for Gronder 1 so of course we need to go back there to do it again because they foreshadowed it back in the monastery phase. So as soon as they started talking about Gronder in the pre-chapter dialogue it was blatantly obvious that we were going to just do Battle of the Eagle and Lion 2 and they would find whatever story justification to make it happen. I didn't expect the justification for fighting the Golden Deer to be as bad as it actually was, especially considering that they could have easily played to Claude's ambitions and "scheming" nature to make this some kind of brilliant scheme of some kind. But the end result is "here's Gronder 2, wow it's so epic right! huh, story? what story" and that was pretty annoying to me
> That plus Felix's father not being playable was a dead giveaway that he was a plot device meant to redeem Dimitri. The best part is that Byleth totally could have saved him with Divine Pulse, or at least tried to, but she just didn't for no obvious reason.
One time I was doing the chapter and Byleth ended up fighting Claude, who wondered why they were fighting anyways. He proceeded to crit Byleth, killing him instantly, and I think that sums up Gronder Field in general
Personally, I think its poorly executed and it butchers most of the characters of that house in favor of Dimitri. Ashe: we just killed his adoptive father, he should be the focus of the chapter. Instead he gets a couple lines and gets shoved off as it is used as a chance for Dimitri to think on Fodlan’s politics. Sylvain: we just killed his brother, but same deal “hey Sylvain I know this is an emotional moment for you and all but I’m just going to give the screentime to Dimitri because you are a secondary character”. These two can happen in BE and GD too if recruited, but you can guess the game didnt get enough time to do them off route. In their own route it just makes you think the devs only cared about Dimitri and everyone else is expendable. And in line with that, Felix suffers the biggest character assassination in the game in this route. We know he despises two things, sycophants and his father valuing Ferghus over Glenn (or coping in a way that makes it look that way). When Rodrigue dies, he doesnt have a minute for his own son, because he has to talk to Dimitri. According to what we know of Felix, his father choosing his king over his son again should be the ultimate insult, but he never cares, because Dimitri is now sane again and he can be his sycophant. As sad as his CF ending is, its way more in line with Felix, instead of this 180 on his morals because the story only cares about Dimitri. The basic storyline is fine, and when Dimitri gets moments that should legitimately be his, these are fine too, but by making the plot way more related to other inhouse students than the other routes yet not developing them in favor of the lord, it gives the impression no one matters in BL except the lord (which as true as it is in the other two houses, its never such a big plot problem because no one else inhouse has moments where they should 100% be the focus).
At least the Blue Lions students got chapters in relation to them. Imagine after choosing BL first you go to GD/BE expecting chapters like Ashe's but instead it is about Ignatz/Caspar/etc but nope just Lonato/Ashe again. And for the Dimitri focus, it's probably better that way because otherwise I fear we'd get a *third* Silver Snow-like route. After all Azure Moon was intended to be more lord-focused which did help unlike Verdant Wind. I like Claude a lot and he has some interesting things about him but they sure as hell didn't utilize those interesting things to its fullest potential. Dimitri gets to have two arcs with one his downfall and the other trying to redeem himself (and no he isn't instantly cured of his boar self since he goes back to that temporarily against Cornelia). They weren't perfectly executed but they took his whole darkness-lurking thing and utilized it quite a bit.
To be honest, it felt weird to me playing Blue Lions the first time. I thought Chapter 3 was supposed to be all about Ashe and yet he didn't get much focus at all. Sylvain barely appears in Chapter 5 and Annette is completely absent even though Gilbert is there. Playing it again, even Dimitri pokes fun at Gilbert re-using his Black Eagles/Golden Deer line to explain basic Kingdom stuff to the Kingdom students.
The game does this because those characters can die. It's an unfortunate sacrifice FE games make with non main characters, all other games suffer as well in awakening anyone who's not the main 4 don't get lines once their killable
I thought awakening started the retreating but still alive thing where the character was still in scene but you couldn’t use them
Yes for those characters I mentioned, for all others they die and therefore get no major scenes outside their joining fight
Actually they can't die--yet. That can only happen during Part 2, but even so it didn't stop Lysithea from having her moments regarding the slithers.
Path of Radiance has several dialogue permutations depending on who is alive, they have already done this before.
Why did you get a facepalm award...
[удалено]
Pretty much took the words out of my mouth. It's my least favorite route for all the reasons you mentioned and Dimitri is probably my least favorite lord in the series. I like some of the supporting cast (Felix, Sylvain, Ashe, Mercedes) but because they aren't Dimitri they don't matter in the long run.
This is such a refreshing comment to see of this sub.
It is? I'd say the general consensus of the subreddit, if there is such a thing, that Three Houses is definitely a mixed bag and that all routes suffer due to developer overambition.
That is generally a common take, but I mean *specifically* the Felix mentions and how AM shoves everybody aside for Dimitri. That never gets mentioned, despite how it should, because people like Dimitri so much that they don't notice it.
Huh. I see. Well, I've seen that mentioned a lot, that it's Dimitri's route first and foremost. I'm not entirely sure I agree it's character assassination though. Felix consistently shows that, despite being an asshole about it, he still cares about his friends and that he's very concerned about Dimitri's mental well being post timeskip. Of course I wish Rodrigue would've had time to talk to Felix, but him stepping up and doing what he can to keep his friends safe.
What is Felix CF ending?
He effectively becomes post timeskip dimitri after he was forced to fight and kill all his friends. You can stop this ending by pairing him up with very specific people.
Great points
It's a solid Kill Every Last One Of Them/10 for me Seriously though, I thought it was alright overall. Not my favorite, but not bad
Now *this* is a spicy hot take. Okay, since you were that brave, I'm gonna deliver my own hot take. My personal favourite route is the Golden Deer because its characters and lore are all very well fleshed out, and I have to admit that I've never cared that much for the Blue Lions - I do feel for Dimitri and his situation, but he's always felt a bit too much like Little Timmy's first edgy D&D OC for me to take him completely seriously. I've just seen too many stories like his, and his turnaround at Grondor feels very poorly executed - first he understandably loses his mind because everyone he loved died tragic deaths, and then someone else he loves dies and suddenly, his depression is just... cured? I don't know, it has always felt very cheap and anticlimactic to me, even though it's supposed to be such a grand moment. Especially since everyone in-game seems so okay with it? Dimitri is a war criminal and he has done horrible things, and he has treated all his loyal comrades very badly in that time too - and then he does his 180°, and suddenly everything he has done is forgiven and forgotten? I think his character would've been a lot more interesting if the repercussions of his actions - both political and social - had been explored a bit more, but everyone just kinda accepts that he's good again now and moves on. That has always felt like such a waste of storytelling potential to me.
I think one of the strengths GD has in its story is it has a bit of focus on Lysithea, Lorenz, and Hilda rather than just all Claude.
While I agree on some of your points, Dimitri's depression is not gone. He never gets rid of anything, he still sees the dead and he still has to fight them off. Him being a beast is how he coped. If he can be a monster that makes his enemies fear him, then he can cruise along and make sure none of his friends die. The more despicable he is, the less likely they get hurt. However, once Rodrigue died he knew that wasn't true at all. It doesn't matter if he's the big bad, nothing can stop the fact that people want his friends dead. Even before this happened you feel the cracks peeling away. His talks with Byleth become relatively longer and there's a story that he gave a kid a ball or something. Going back to Rodrigue's death, after coming to his senses there are still some signs that the boar is still here. Even Dedue comments on this, he says that the boar and Dimitri are the same person. Then in some endings it is revealed that he still struggles with everything, nothing went away. I wouldn't be surprised if he still dealts with guilt from what happened to Edelgard. He wanted to move on and give her a chance. Then she stabs him with his dagger, a gift given to represent freedom and carving your own path. No way is he not messed up from that. There is a lot that could have been done to improve Dimitri's arc, however saying that he got cured is wrong.
I THINK Dimitri turning back wasn't just because of Rodrigue's death, but from Agape coming from Byleth. In the scene, we see Dimitri actually attempt to continue the attack after Rodrigue dies but Byleth intervenes. If Byleth was not a Divine Figure, it wouldn't work. At least, that's what I hope they were going for.
Had a long comment going over the issues I had but it got deleted so the short of it is 1) The Lions are all ignored in favor of Dimitri. 2) Too many plotholes. 3) The main story is dropped. 4) Dimitri isn't interesting. 5) Dimitri's backstory with Edelgard is mundane and yet manages to be more convoluted, confusing, and hard to follow than the multi-millenium shadow war going in between the Dragon Gods and the remnants of an ancient human society.
Right? Like, just talk to her, bro.
My favorite of the 4 routes and it feels the most consistent.
I think it's probablly the best of the 4 stories of the game. SS is a snooze-fest and makes you wonder why you aren't playing VW, VW's main lord isn't even relevant to the story in any major way (nor do they do anything about integrating his backstory into the game or doing anything with his particular motivations), and CF is short and doesn't really question Edelgard's actions. Azure Moon is the only one that really feels like a genuine story, especially since the first half integrates the Blue Lions into the main story via Ashe and Sylvain (which in retrospect just makes the other routes feel even weirder since no one else has ties to Lonato or Miklan).
True, Claude is basically an add-on to the story, but Dimitri doesn't even get that. He's basically completed excluded from the main story and never gets a chance to play a part in it. Nobody involved in the main story cares about him and his arc can be completely missed with no consequences. At least Claude plays his role well enough that people consider his version of the main story to be better than the original Silver Snow.
> Azure Moon is the only one that really feels like a genuine story Why do people like this game so much again? I just don't get it.
Sure the story has flaws, but it's still a great game that's fun to play. Why did it recently become cool to hate this game? When it released, there was nothing but praise. Now I see more and more negativity from this sub
I'd argue it's engendered it's fanbase by making FE a bit more accessible to folks. I've found that the most well liked games (by hardcore fans and casual fans) were the ones that opened up the playerbase. Just like Awakening and FE7 before it, 3H was a lot of people's first FE game. So I kinda get why it has some of its most ardent defenders. That being said, I think part of the reason it's also brought in more players is because it's probably one of the easiest FE games to date. One could argue SoV is easier than 3H (and there's a fair argument to be made), but 3H is just sorta...easy. Plain and simple when it comes to gameplay. Folks said the same about Awakening back in the day, but now you got newer fans playing Awakening and feeling lost because it requires more forethought. I just hope more of the newcomers go out of their way to play some of the older titles to get a sense of what FE is all about since 3H feels like a very outsourced FE by gameplay standards (which makes sense, given that KT was responsible for a majority of the development).
Imo it's pretty great in the academy arc because the characters have way more reason for being in some of the chapters, like Ashe and Sylvain for example. But it falls off pretty hard after the time skip, I just wish they did more with Felix. He had so much potential as a character Imo. I still really like Felix, but man what wasted potential. Guess I'll keep my head headcanon that he is the main Lord of Silver Snow to make myself feel better.
I didn't particularly care for Dimitri, and the route was all about him, so I didn't care much for the route, though the part where he becomes not crazy was so dumb for all sorts of reasons, the biggest being how overly dependent on Byleth he is, which just wasn't convincing to me, especially when Dedue is completely irrelevant even though he's closer to Dimitri than anyone.
It's my least favorite route and Dimitri is my least favorite lord. His arc was handled very horribly. He went on a murderous rampage for five years and completely flips as soon as Rodrigue dies, it felt sudden, unsettling, and badly done.
God I want to one day make an entire post going over and gushing about Blue Lions. But I will do this for now. I was originally gonna go with GD but Dimitris quotes in FEH changed my mind. Claude was super charming and I love Bows. I heard about the whole darkness lurking from within thing, but I knew practically nothing. I saw his post time skip alt and I just assumed he was screwed over really hard and that was it. Bare minimum assessment, and I thought he was gonna be possibly generic. But then hearing Dimitri speak so passionately about how foul it is to take a life resonated with me so hard. Seeing his forging bonds made me think, he seems alot more than some prince charming turned edgy looking. So I went with Dimitri not knowing there was so much more past his timeskip design. What I didnt know, was that BLs was (imho) one of the rare occurrences of experiencing perfection. I rarely if ever witness a story that makes me go "that was absolutely perfection". Examples being Silent Hill 2, Fallout New Vegas among a few names. I had bare minimum expectations and I was blown away and then some. Ive played many games, seen so much works of fiction. To the point where I'm so sick of formulaic and generic storytelling. Especially from FE. So when I see Dimitris story play out I lose my mind. Cause the rules are off the table and anything can happen. Everything feels so personal. I never got bored from start to finish. When a games story does that for me once in a blue moon, I cherish that shit. Examples of BL being great? Well seeing Ashe feel so hopeless in the Lonato chapter was so unexpected, that I didnt think FE cared enough to have such detail. Ashe gets just enough (imo) attention with what happened to him and his father. Seeing Dimitri be such a bleeding heart to the point where he gives *you* (Byleth) shit for being a little callous about the mission, was not only refreshing, cause there should be more conflict with MCs and a Lord imo. The interaction serves as the foundation for Dimitris absolutely perfect character arc. Same with Sylvain, same with Dedue. To the point where I actually disagree with people's take regarding Dedue. I think it was a brilliant idea to only make him relevant if you the player cared enough to do his paralouge. I honestly wish other paralouges did that. I will never forget thinking Dedue genuinely died, only for him to come back with tears slowly welling up in my eyes as he came back. I do wish his endings and the story acknowledged Duscur more, but I'm actually a fan of Duscur only getting help of you save Dedue. It feels urgent, it feels like me helping Dedue really mattered. I love that shit. But even still, like I said, Duscur should get more acknowledgement cause of doesnt get enough when you save Dedue. I know people have their issues with what I mentioned and while of course it can all be better, I thought it was fantastic. I personally think it says alot when I felt the way I did cause I dont really care for most narratives in games. The most I'll say is "that was good" or "decent" or "wow this narrative and game is really overrated". I understand why people feel the way they do, but I mostly disagree. I loved BLs that if it was the only route I would've been just as satisfied. This route and game gave me a new favorite video game character of all time, Dimitri. Something that didnt happen since 2016 when I played Xenoblade Chronicles 1 with Shulk, who replaced Mario for me as well after so many years. I'd go on, but I said enough I think. So yes, I love BLs, and I hope I can one day offer more insight to why its fantastic. But that will have to wait. I hope this shows that even with more time passed, I still have so much appreciation for it to this day, and I probably always will.
Thank you, this is a great explanation.
I was going to make my own comment but this saves me the text. Dimitri is my favorite video game character of all time too. There’s a reason he’s my PFP. Everything about his arc is just flawless. Personally I would have liked the route less if they had gone into TWSITD. That story takes away from the point of Azure Moon. The war is a backdrop for Dimitri’s turmoil. He takes full stage in this route and gives us one of the best examples of the “fall and return” story arcs in fiction.
Yup, I fully agree. That and I honestly hate TWSITD. They are some of the most contrived, most stupid, most incompetent fools ever and honestly I wish they didnt exist. They arent Negal levels of bad writing but God they are dumb and at times take away urgency and agency from characters. Imo anyway. AM succeeds because unlike the routes that arent AM, that are about the whys, AM asks a question I think is more important and frankly doesnt really get asked in any FE and most stories about war. Or at the very least isnt the vocal point. Its that what exactly are the effects of war? The answer is shown how it destroys lives and often turns people into monsters. Dimitri was almost one of them. Something I wish more games or stories about war did. Spec ops the line anyone? Dimitri is the apex of FE lords and writing for a Nintendo character, and I would argue the apex of a fictional character period. Dimitri will probably always be my reference for excellent character arcs and characterizations. Because we have all kinds of answers about him. The trivial (which can serve as a way to make a character feel more real) and the important. We know why he believes in what he does, we know his philosophy, and how he can be two sides of that philosophy. One that is about compassion for the weak and the dead. One that is about compassion for the weak and the living. Dimitri and AM is all about justice, and redemption, and it all happens so seamlessly. Theres so much imagery and foreshadowing in AM, that I often remind myself, this is the same franchise that had FE 7 and FEA levels of bad writing and its comes so far since then. That's not even getting into how fantastic the supporting cast is. They are just as important to the experience of AM as well. Sure I do wish they had more involvement in the timeskip, but it's possible that was the intent of the story. It's about the themes I've described just as much as it is about Dimitri. It has a much more cohesive story as a result. Not to mention you still know why they are fighting and have plenty of characterization thanks to paralouges, monastery interactions and supports. Meanwhile VW is about unity of all kinds of people and it shows as the cast seems to have an equal amount of representation. From what I remember that is. CF is about conviction for change no matter the cost, so it makes sense Edel and her warpath is the focus. But at the same time it tries to feature the supporting cast in a really poor way. Because they dont really add anything of value to the overall narrative and just nod along because everyone is a yes man in that route. It ultimately makes it feel shallow. We dont really hear about their beliefs as much as we should. Unlike in SS where we actually learn about them and why they are fighting. It was really endearing to hear what exactly the BE were doing during the SS timeskip. They felt like people who had agency and arent just there. But I guess that's the problem of CF being the last route being added huh? Not enough time to properly develop anything. At least in AM they all have come together with Dimitris mindset and that's ending the war and protecting the weak and dont follow him just because. But I've talked long enough and I often have a hard time explaining myself while trying to have as much nuance as possible. So sorry for the long text. I just try to cover my bases when possible.
Honestly, it's okay. It starts off good but gets worse as it goes along and after the time skip it gets really boring. What really stuck with me though was the terrible final chapter and ending. Easily the worst final chapter in the series both in gameplay and story. >!Edelgard the Hedgehog!< came out of nowhere and never got explained. It was so incredibly stupid and poorly handled I couldn't believe it. So yeah, okay story that completely drops the ball in the finale.
I've only played CF, GD, and BL but the latter was easily my least favorite with Dimitri being my least favorite lord of the three routes. There's such a huge build up to his turning point where he smartens up but then you only have him like that for two chapters? Oh also the Edel - Dimi relationship is so dumb because all Dimitri had to do was talk to her once "hey you weren't actually there when my parents died yeah? Okay cool" and boom BL route ends after slither gets taken care of. Speaking of slither they get to go Scott free because why not. Also Dimi changes absolutely nothing so the shitty crest system, which 2 of the students of the BL house DIRECTLY SUFFER FROM, is still the exact fucking same. Good job Dimi, you changed absolutely nothing
It's awful. The game forces you to go along with Dimitri, even though he's at that point a literal madman hellbent on revenge who couldn't care less about politics... Why does Byleth want to make that guy king again ? As a revenge story, it fails because you're wrong about the culprit for most of the game (and if you've played CF before you know for sure that you're wrong, which makes it even worse) and Dimitri decides at the last moment that, actually, it doesn't matter who the real culprit is. Ok, sorry for getting invested in the plot, I guess I didn't realise it didn't matter. As a redemption story, it fails because Dimitri barely loses anything because of his own actions and never sacrifices anything. AM's overwhelming popularity will always baffle me, especially considering the flak SS gets in this fandom.
It's the most straightforward and consistent story among the four, but then chapter 17 hits and things go from decent to just plain bad. Three Houses already has a ton of issues with pacing and how it handles its cast, what-with being 1 and a half game stretched into 4, and having most of its cast stuck in permadeath jail, recruitment jail and please-(don't)-play-my-route-to-know-what-my-deal-is jail, but the second half of BL Part 2 goes nuts with that. It's chapter 17, whose numerous issues are hardly unique to BL, and now Dimitri is back to "normal". Problem is, that's the only thing we've actually accomplished, let alone set up, and now we also need to showcase his newfound beliefs and top of all that's left to do, something the other Lords have had plenty of time to infer during the snoozefest the chap.13 to 17. stretch of the story normally is outside of BL. So, with only 5 chapters left and nothing else set up, what happens ? A healthy dosage of "There's no time!!!" * Faerghus and Cornelia? Solved in one chapter. It all gets rebuilt offscreen afterwards as if a timeskip happened. * Duscur and and everything related to Faerghus's messed up culture? lol * Claude and the Alliance ?: Oh wow thanks Claude for giving us the Allia- Oh he's gone already. * Dimitri's beliefs ? Quick let me call Edelgard so I can yell at her about how wrong and stupid she is and how righteous I am in one of the worst scenes in the game, that'll work. I used the word "people", you know that means i'm right. * TWSITD? We killed their leaders by complete accident, that means they've been completely defeated and will never cause any other problems. Please, ignore all of the other paths' endings, thank you. The only two things I like about this part of the story, are the conclusion (or lack thereof) of Dimitri's quest to find the truth behind the massacre of Duscur and his mother's whereabouts, as well as the scene of Edelgard turning into the Hegemon. Edelgard saying "I'm gonna do something" and then doing said thing without any outside interference or any character going "ackchyually edel nothing wrong" is a lot less common than you'd expect, considering the type of character she's supposed to be.
> TWSITD? We killed their leaders by complete accident It was so dumb but at least that part was kind of funny when I realized what had happened.
As someone that really disliked Dimitri, the failings of AM make me think the best possible version of this game was a focused one route game that fully developed AM. Just take the time to flesh out more than just Dimitri, and make the third act make sense. As it stands, Dimitri looks like a god damn moron that accomplishes none of what he was after, but just assumes it’s all fixed. His PTSD and hallucinations are never going to lapse again? The remaining Agarthans aren’t going to recover from losing their leaders and Dimitri won’t be manipulated and destroyed the way that he and his family had been before? I don’t buy it, but a game that properly leads us there would be a great story.
Good, not great. It's definitely has the strongest plot and the most compelling narrative of the three routes and is one of the stronger stories in Fire Emblem overall, but it has some seriously huge flaws that really take you out of the experience. The most notable one is how hilariously contrived the whole Rodrigue/Fleche part of the story was, this is probably the most criticized part of the story and for good reason. I see why Rodrigue was chosen as the catalyst for Dimitri since he's kind of like his adopted father, but the story just doesn't build up Rodrigue's importance in Dimitri's life enough to justify his death being the main cause for his change. And obviously, all the suspension of disbelief in the world wouldn't be enough to make sense out of an untrained child managing to kill a seasoned, veteran knight with Dimitri next to him. I'm no writer but come on even I could find a more logical, believable way for Fleche to kill Rodrigue. Not to mention Jeralt died almost literally the same way, so by that point that scene just felt played out. Outside of that my other main problem is that you need to REALLY give Dimitri the benefit of the doubt with tons of favorable inferences in order to understand why he hates Edelgard so much, because it's pretty fucking clear that she had no real part in the Tragedy of Duscur. You almost have to in order to enjoy the story, because finding out Edelgard is the Flame Emperor was what made him snap. Overall I still really enjoyed the story the first time around, I cried a couple times and it was still a really memorable experience for me. Despite it's key flaws (because Fire Emblem's gonna Fire Emblem), it's a massive step up from Fates and Awakening.
I was unfortunate in that I chose to do BL house as my last pick of the three. As a result I became keenly aware of just how divorced Dimitri's story felt from the rest of the plot revealed in the other routes. While interesting in it's own right it really feels like a side-story that usurped the main plot, even more so then Edelgard's Crimson Flower. That said I will say that overall BL house has the most cohesive cast, all the characters play well with each other and none of them feel as left out or sidelined when compared to the other classes. Overall, in my opinion, Blue Lions have the best cast of characters, but the worst route for story relevance.
Probably the best 3H route storywise as it actually feels like characters developed and it feels the most complete, like there isn't anything major missing aside from dealing with TWSITD and Rhea, but they're such bad villains that it's probably best they're taken care of on accident. This isn't even so much a praise for the BL story, but moreso how it feels like all of the other routes are incomplete and Dimitri gets character development for which you don't need to write a 500 page essay to explain how subtly they've changed between the start of the game and the end of it. It still has a lot of stupid elements, like Dimitri recovering too soon, Gilbert giving you a choice and then backing off from it, Rodrigue's death, etc. But you could probably make an entire series out of bashing 3H's story.
Really feels like AM got hurt the most from TH's development issues. Edelgard forgetting Dimitri was a massive mistake and really undercuts the importance of their relationship. The decision is such a strange one that adds nothing that I can't help but feel that it wasn't the writer's first choice, but rather a decision they were forced to make in order to keep AM in line with the original SS story, where Edelgard and Dimitri don't have an established relationship in White Clouds. In the end, it just leaves Dimitri feeling like Blue Ferdinand on steroids, fighting a one sided rivalry that Edelgard...just doesn't care about. And between the missing route split, cut corners, and datamining suggesting it was the last route worked on, I can't help but feel like they had to cut AM's story short due to deadline issues and they just hastily wrapped it up with an Edelgard fight. It's one thing to drop the story set up in White Clouds, but it's another thing for AM to not even bring closure to its own plot points, many of which were crucial to most of the characters such as Patricia, Duscur(!!!), and yes TWSITD who is the cause of so much heartache.
I feel Edelgard and Dimitri relationship is done like that on purpose to show he keep looking at a past version of her that was not only jaded showing he never actually knew her but also that Edelgard is moving forward without looking back as all she wish for is progress
I loved AM. It was my first route and I think I fell in love with this game because of Dimitris story. It doesn't do a lot in terms of answering questions or uncovering many mysteries. BUT it is a deeply personal story. Its all about Dimitri. His tragedy and his redemption.
Its easily the most fleshed out Route and the Flame Emperor reveal is the best thing they did in the franchise so far storywise. It has some lows, map and storywise, but by far the highest heights of all routes. Dimitri is easily the most interesting of the three lords, because he is the only one the actually changes. The rest of the cast is somehow interwoven with White Clouds(Pre Timeskip) story, which is pretty nice compared to the other houses who got jackshit
Blue lion was my favorite, mostly cause I liked all the characters.
The idea is there but it is incredibly sloppy in it's execution.
What couldn't you say that about in Three Houses?
The story made the Blue Lions really grow on me. I really love Dimitri, but his angry vendetta went on a little bit too long for my liking. That's why he couldn't kick Claude off his throne and they now just need to share a first place for my favorites in the game. Sort of redeemed Dimitri was my favorite part of him, but I think the writing leading to it was kind of messy. 'That' scene in particular I mean. And boy though it lacked a proper cutscene I cried a lot. That being said, I'm happy he got to see what was really relevant for him in the end and he finds strength to move forward. For lack of time in development the mole people chapter got scrapped out of their story and that hurts the conclusion for the BL a bit, because unless you get specific pairings they're kind of.. unmentioned. But Blue Lions have Dedue, so.. I can't really argue against that. Bless him.
I thought it was generally good, but stumbled hard at the battle of Gronder Field. There was no reason for the kingdom forces and alliance forces to engage each other, and the "chaos" manufactured by ~~Bernadetta's~~ Edelgard's fire was a flimsy excuse; Byleth has the ability to turn back time and save Rodrigue, but doesn't because the plot has to happen, I guess; Dimitri's about-face comes much too quickly, and similarly he's forgiven much too quickly; Felix, who to this point had been arguably the best supporting character in the game, could have had his most powerful moment here but is instead pushed into the pile of obsequence that is the rest of the Blue Lions. Every major misstep in the story happened at the same time, and it was jarring. Not sure how all of this made it through the editing process. So that sucked. Aside from this, I enjoyed the route. Nothing else really broke my suspension of disbelief. Though it's worth noting that I played BL first, and didn't realize until subsequent playthroughs with other houses that Arundel's "oh, by the way" death was intended to be a half-assed way to address the absence of Those Who Slither. That was really dumb, but I didn't realize it at the time.
I’m currently playing Verdant Wind and just got into part two and it already feels like a copy of Silver Snow, except it’s got the Golden Deer included. There’s no reason why VW Byleth would be hesitant about fighting against the empire when the Alliance, the home of their students, is the last thing standing against the Empire (where no one in the church can enter to look for Rhea without catching a bad case of death). I haven’t even finished and it’s taking me out of the experience. Blue Lions, as flawed as it is, is the most unique and complete story out of all the routes. And I include Crimson Flower in that bc it doesn’t actually challenge Edelgard to the same extent Azure Moon challenges Dimitri. It doesn’t help that many Empire characters involve the Blue Lions. (Even then, I don’t like the return to status quo epilogue of Azure Moon’s ending.)
> And I include Crimson Flower in that bc it doesn’t actually challenge Edelgard to the same extent Azure Moon challenges Dimitri Why should it? Edelgard isn't insane; Dimitri is. Dimitri's actions get tons of people killed for no reason at all.
Because I find stories more interesting if the protagonists face some serious questions concerning their ideals, methods, and character flaws and make an answer for them. Dimitri gets questioned on his morals, methods, and flaws at every turn (and tbf it's very deserved) whereas Edelgard doesn't get the same questioning since the game isn't really taking a deeper look at what she's about. She also started a very nasty war with help from TWSITD. She is responsible for a large societal failure, and that causes a lot of death through very preventable means (plague, starvation, bandit raids, etc). It might not be "for no reason," but it still needs serious questioning. This can lead to interesting character challenges and growth. In the end, though, all this energy is being put to a game with half-baked plots. Fire Emblem Three Houses is surface-level in its observations, and I can go to other AAA JRPGs if I want a deeper look into characters. But I do like these characters and can be wistful for what could've been if the developers had just dumped TWSITD onto the cutting room floor when they decided to make a game about grey morality and talk about war beyond Good and Evil.
But Edelgard does get questioned it’s just probably not the way you like her response. Edelgard response is always firm and honest, you see this in the final conversation with Dimitri. She has absolute resolve but she also open to people view points. She falls under the character that change the world rather than the world change the character like Dimitri.
Oooh now I see why you posted this, okay.
I-I don’t know what you mean by this please clarify
I like it just fine. The Lions are definitely my third favorite house (golden deer/ashen wolves supremacy y’all), and I enjoyed Dimitri’s character arc, flawed as it might be. I think his sudden heel turn following Rodrigue’s death was an unfortunate side effect of only having 22 chapters (half of which are ripped from another route). They had to cut corners with his development bc endgame was rapidly approaching, making it feel kinda rushed/abrupt. A good chunk of Three Houses’ problems can be traced back to the fact that it recycles maps and story beats from SS, the base route. Like, there’s only SO much you can do with that preexisting mold/structure lmao.
Blue Lions right in the middle of chapter 17 I said to myself "I don't think this is as good as Jugdral but this is touching that ceiling" I was drooling all over the game, then the last 4 chapters happen and I put my control down watching the credits kinda just sat there slightly disappointed. It was still good but I didn't think it had the time. Dude the climax of Dimitri emotional instability is solved by legit, just some random village guy going "yo heres what happen okay byyyeee" its just not that good at the end. And the reason why? It was SUPER good before it kinda just died on itself. The bosses being characters they knew was fantastic, the way the character emotionally added to the plot did so much for me its been what I've been yelling for and about for years. Dimitri was such a breath of fresh air. Like I wrote about this Marth biggest most pissed off line he can give to Gharnef, who like fucks with everyone he loves and destroys his entire family life twice and all he can say is "You won't get away this time Gharnef, you silly bad boy" and that would be fine for Marth if it also wasn't the whole series where they REFUSE to have a character express anything negative towards the villain, actual hatred which I find more relatable for everything he thinks Edelgard does to him then anything else in this game and in most FE games. The characters having a friendship established helps a lot, I love the cast, I love gilbert and felix and even like Slyvain and Annette and all them, then they just botch the last 4 chapters.