Chapter 3 of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is called Mutiny in the Mist, and it’s the first chapter that I haven’t liked, skewing uncomfortably toward the stupid, poorly balanced gimmicks in Fire Emblem Fates rather than prioritizing strategy. Not only are fog maps inherently annoying (even in the GBA games), but the game also lies to you about what the win condition is, putting your units in potential jeopardy once the map unexpectedly continues with new enemies. This isn’t as bad as in some of the previous games, admittedly, but I’m hoping that it’s not a sign of things to come.
[Click here to start from the beginning]
Another chapter, another thinly veiled attempt to pimp out Nintendo’s online service by preying on FOMO. “If you just buy into this completely unnecessary subscription service, you’ll be able to see what choices other people are making! And earn additional items! And we’ll give you free backrubs once a week!” No, Nintendo. Just stop. This is some Fire Emblem Heroes-style predatory monetization, and it reflects poorly on you.
Chapter 3’s mission is to ride along as the Knights of Seiros quell an uprising against the church. Naturally, we’ll get dragged into it because the core gameplay demands conflict. Interestingly, Rhea is beginning to show her true zealot colors, and we find out that the church is more than comfortable with using violence in situations like this, believing themselves the mouthpiece of the goddess. It’s getting a little crusade-y in here.
A new character named Catherine (pictured in the header image) is introduced as the most talented Knight of Seiros, and we’ll be following her lead during chapter 3’s mission. According to some characters you can speak to while wandering around, no one knows her back story.
Finishing up chapter 3’s sidequests takes quite some time, but that’s because of some new mechanics. First up, there’s an “advice box” where characters ask questions and Byleth can increase his standing with them by responding in a way that they appreciate. Your answers are timed (which makes no sense; you don’t even know who the character asking is until you’ve responded, so it’s not like they’re waiting around nearby), but the timer appears pretty generous. It’ll be interesting to see if it reduces as the game progresses. Then there’s faculty training, which allows Byleth to get huge boosts to certain skills. If character recruitment mandates him improving certain stats rather than factoring in other characters’ proficiencies, this will likely become hugely important. Lastly, there are gifts and lost items—Garreg Mach has glowing blue points that appear in each chapter, and interacting with them can earn Byleth extra professor experience or items, but some items are gifts that can be given to units for a support level increase (and this functions like in Dragon Age: Origin, where appropriate gifts increase your standing more than ill-fitting ones do), and others are lost items that can only be given to specific characters. These glowing blue points are going to make my OCD go crazy. In happier news, a new area in the monastery was unlocked that allows battalions to be recruited and replenished for far less money than expected.
Teaching is proving monotonous enough that I’m going to start leaving sessions in longer videos instead of giving each its own separate video, but this time around was kind of interesting because some support conversations ensued. I’m not sure if Byleth’s supports can only happen while teaching or if Fire Emblem: Three Houses realized that I totally forgot about checking supports. As with Seteth’s sister Flayn in chapter 1, I found myself accidentally hitting on someone; Byleth encountered Dorothea hanging around yet another different guy, clearly playing the field, and Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ dialogue options didn’t really provide an avenue to express anything other than disappointment. I had hoped to make the point that she can define herself in my class rather than needing anyone else, which would make sense given how capable she’s starting to become after leveling up a bit, but this was interpreted as Byleth wanting to spend the rest of his life with her. Yikes. Not remotely what I meant.
I actually lost someone during this Battle in the Mountains auxiliary map on my first attempt (the video of which I deleted). As a result, I ended up resetting the game and trying again after some rest, realizing that I was too sleep-deprived to strategize. Part of the problem revolved around the awkward starting locations, though, as the danger zone shifted the second I moved one of my units, allowing a level 7 enemy to run up to a level 1 unit I had brought along just in case and kill them in a single attack. Also, Bernadetta learned Heal magic in the first teaching session, and I realized that she couldn’t actually use it because of her current class. It was ugly, though making all of those mistakes cleared up some things.
Battle in the Mountains has two starting locations, each with 5 tiles where you can place characters, but it’s a mistake to separate them; the rightmost group has a terrain advantage that you can exploit if you have at least three speedy or tanky characters. There are three enemies who begin in the forest terrain, so beating them and then moving up forces melee enemies to attack you with a hit and defense disadvantage while protecting your ranged characters. Petra, Byleth, and Edelgard hang out in the topmost forest spaces while blocking enemy access to Dorothea and Bernadetta, who gain some extra experience by pelting enemies with ranged attacks. The only complication is a couple of ranged magic and bow users who require moving Petra, Byleth, and Edelgard out of the forest tiles, but these enemies come in small waves and are easily handled.
When I went back and checked my videos from the last chapter, I realized that Crests can be checked in the character information screen exactly the same as all other stats. I had simply scrolled past it too fast to notice. Byleth’s Crest is a mystery, however, so it doesn’t tell you what its function is. Based on seeing it in action during Battle in the Mountains, it appears to be a slightly less powerful incarnation of Aether, a longtime Fire Emblem skill that increases damage while replenishing health. That was main character Ike’s skill in previous console entries Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, so it being attached to Byleth makes a certain amount of sense. Aether typically hits twice, but only if the first hit doesn’t finish off the opponent, so it’ll be interesting to see if Byleth’s Crest allows him to strike twice. If not, the reduced amount of healing (one-fourth of your inflicted damage, whereas previous games healed half) and lack of multiple hits will make it the weakest Aether ever.
I know I said that I wouldn’t be cutting teaching sessions out individually, but I was still pretty sleep-deprived while uploading. Let’s just say that the above video is present to showcase Dorothea learning Heal, which fits into my vision of her as the party’s offensive and defensive magic-user.
For the first time, Fire Emblem: Three Houses takes off the training wheels and allows you to select any of Garreg Mach’s activities. Since I’m still trying to figure out how everything works, I opted to explore for a second time, only to discover that no new sidequests are available. These only appear once a month, and there were no new shining blue points to interact with. On the bright side, I realized that gardening doesn’t require activity points, nor does fishing. I was convinced that they did for some reason. I also explored the dining hall a little more and found out that you can cook with a character to strengthen your bond with them in addition to providing your entire army with passive bonuses in combat for the month. That’s a feature from Fire Emblem Fates, but I think it could work really well here given how much more pre-fight planning you do.
I also class-changed Byleth into a Myrmidon and had Bernadetta pass the exam to unlock the Monk class (despite the fact that I won’t be using her as one). Becoming certified in multiple classes appears to unlock stat bonuses, so certification exams are worth the effort if you can afford the necessary seals even if you’re not planning on using the extra classes. The whole thing is pretty fluid and weird in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, but suffice it to say that my main units—Byleth, Edelgard, Petra, Bernadetta, and Dorothea—all change into a new class by the end of chapter 3.
The screenshot above is from the video below, and I have a good reason for including it ahead of time: this map is garbage. The goal is to defeat the enemy commander who’s somewhere in the fog, but doing so results in the fog lifting and the fight continuing with new enemies. Catherine (who was apparently known as “Thunderstrike Cassandra” in the past, and who our opponent has a vendetta against after she turned his son over to the church for execution) is also comically overpowered, wiping out tons of enemies before my units can get there. In Radiant Dawn, AI kills provided you with bonus experience that could be used at the end to maximize everyone’s stats. Here, such kills appear to be totally wasted.
I decided to go through my unseen support conversations before the fight, and doing so was a mistake because fights are long enough without 17 minutes of conversations preceding them. I think it might be best to watch support conversations after exploring. Anyway, an NPC in Garreg Mach mentioned that the area we’re headed sometimes gets foggy, so I bought an extra torch item immediately, recognizing the direction this map was heading. The torches honestly don’t help much until 32:43, where Byleth uses one and a ton of nearby enemies are suddenly visible, but that was important information to have at that moment. Especially since beating the commander boss results in a cutscene, after which the fog lifts and the real boss shows up. Catherine does steal a ton of kills, but she decides to leave the boss of the map alone despite their personal history and dialogue. Much appreciated, game. The second half of the map is pretty much just mopping up enemies and slowly chipping away at the boss.
Oh, and before the fight, we learn that Catherine’s weapon is called Thunderbrand, and is one of 10 divine weapons given out by the goddess and passed down over generations. This is very reminiscent of Fire Emblem 4‘s Holy Weapons of Jugdral, which is a nice touch.
Now that we’ve killed an old man with a legitimate grievance against the church of religious zealots we now work for, the only thing left is to rummage through his stuff. On his body is a note detailing an assassination plot against archbishop Rhea on a holy day known as the Goddess’ Rite of Rebirth. Seteth tasks Byleth and his class with providing protection for the fantasy pope. Honestly, I don’t want to; Edelgard mentions her ideals being important enough that she’d raise arms against the goddess herself, and Fire Emblem games have a history of less-than-fantastic goddesses who have to be reminded of humanities’ worth through extreme feats of violence. I can’t help but wonder if we’re on the wrong side.
[Click here to go to Fire Emblem: Three Houses #2]
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