Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Preview - Musou-so

thegamer.com:

Musou games get a bit of a bad rap. They’re often viewed as lesser spin-offs - lacking in every department. Less brains, less complexity, less depth, less meaning, less fun. After playing through the first four chapters of Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, it’s difficult to say where it stands. While it adds texture to the Three Houses experience, and the characters are as interesting and well written as ever, it doesn’t feel as polished as Persona 5 Strikers. Worse still, it doesn’t feel as necessary.

Setting Three Hopes in between the timeskip of Three Houses always felt like an odd choice. We know where all this is heading, so it makes all story beats either predictable or pointless, and likely both. However, the majority of Fire Emblem games typically have a slow burn story, and having only played through the opening for the preview, I’m going to mostly set aside my thoughts on the narrative and focus instead on other areas where the game shines.

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The campaign begins with your player character (not Byleth, but a similar sword wielder with two gendered forms and a custom name option) and their troupe of bandits, who quickly end up meeting Dimitri, Claude, and Edelgard. In this opening mission, you switch between the three leaders and your own character at will, and even though I was expecting to play Golden Deer this time, the musou mechanics just don’t work with Claude’s archery, so I’m back with the Black Eagles yet again.

After this mission, you can speak to every single character at an outpost - except Bernie, who is still in her room, which I found to be a nice touch - and make up your mind as to which house you join. It’s slightly disappointing