The Flame in the Darkness is the name of chapter 8 of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and while a lot of positive things manage to happen on the character recruitment front, this is another chapter where the mission objective changes halfway through the map and totally undermines the strategy. Whoever thought up changing goals in a strategy game/series based around making long-term plans should be excommunicated from the industry, mauled by a lion, and then fired into a black hole so that no measurable trace of their existence remains. I hate this/them so much.

[Click here to start from the beginning]

It’s been a little under a month since I played through chapter 7, but in my defense, there’s 6 hours of video (which equates to 33 gigabytes to upload) in this single post and it’s difficult to find hour-long amounts of time that aren’t better spent focusing on games I’ve received review keys for. Since the last post, Fire Emblem: Three Houses has received an update that includes a harder difficulty setting, but you have to restart to access that. Even if I could change mid-game, though, modern Fire Emblem games don’t have a great track record as far as crafting harder difficulty settings are concerned. A lot of the time, you need advance knowledge of what’s coming to avoid getting murdered by something gimmicky.

The people of Remire Village are suffering from restless movements, fits of violence, and other ailments right up to going comatose. Manuela suspects dark magic and Shamir suggests speaking with the knights who scouted the area to learn more. Afterward, Byleth gets dizzy and collapses, with Sothis also feeling the effects and describing it as something familiar to her. Edelgard asks him later if he thinks all of the weirdness that’s been happening around Garreg Mach is connected, and responding that you do results in a negative gain to their support.

Apart from some filler “choose battle on your day off and fight with us” and “find something and/or give something else to someone” sidequests, there’s a trading sidequest that eventually gives you an item that both Catherine and Shamir want. I gave it to Shamir since Catherine and Byleth already have a support and the goal is to build up enough camaraderie to recruit everyone, but that may have been a mistake; Shamir was recruitable immediately afterward, and I don’t need another bow-centric character as much as I need a tanky melee unit like Catherine. I’m not entirely certain if this trading sequence is what led to Shamir being recruitable, though—Manuela and Hanneman also joined up (so Byleth can now teach other teachers as though they were students, which is kind of funny). Other than that, I bombarded Annette with gifts and tea. Once she’s recruited, I’ll have to try and recruit Gilbert, that knight instructor guy from chapter 5 who’s probably-but-almost-definitely her secret father.

I have access to three paralogues in this chapter (one of which appears to be directly related to recruiting Manuela and Hanneman), so I’m going to have to select “battle” on two of my days off to avoid the risk of falling behind. This paralogue doesn’t expire until 1/25, but it’s best to play it safe with the rate at which they’re appearing. Interestingly, every other paralogue thus far has an expiration date of 2/22, which suggests that the cutoff point for character recruitment may be further off than I thought. If that’s the case, then we’re doing better in terms of character recruitment than I thought, with only a small number of less interesting characters, unrecruitable characters, and teachers remaining.

Tales of the Red Canyon is a Sothis paralogue that begins with her obsessing over Zanado, the Red Canyon, which she vaguely remembers for reasons that elude her. Long story short, Byleth revisits Zanado alone before being attacked by a bunch of large monsters (the ones with multiple health bars), but Edelgard and the other students show up to help out, having followed him. A couple thing become painfully obvious in this paralogue: first, that nothing significant is ever likely to be resolved in a paralogue. Sothis and Byleth learn nothing, but the player receives an increase to their Divine Pulse maximum. I don’t remember what the Divine Pulse is or how to activate it, to be perfectly honest, but I vaguely remember believing that it’s a rewind feature like Mila’s Turnwheel in Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia. I should probably check the glossary and figure that out at some point. Anyway, the second thing that’s becoming obvious is that support battalions are useless in Fire Emblem: Three Houses. Doing a decent amount of damage that can also incapacitate a monster and negate a counterattack is significantly better than a slight heal or movement boost, and doubly so when characters and items are already capable of conferring those effects more reliably. It’s far more useful for every character to have an attack battalion equipped in case a ton of giant monsters show up. They’re wildly more versatile and useful.

Sword and Shield of Seiros is a paralogue centering on Shamir and Alois, both of whom are playable for this map. Of course, we can give Shamir any items and weapons we want since she’s been recruited, whereas Alois is a guest character whose inventory we can’t mess with. The goal is to defeat the enemy commander while keeping enemies out of town. If enemies are in the town for 5 turns total (the count is cumulative rather than resetting once you defeat every enemy who’s entered town), you “fail your mission.” It’s hard to tell if that means the map is a failure or if you just earn less at the end, though, especially since keeping enemies out isn’t listed in the failure condition. This map is pretty simple in theory, with your units being broken up into two teams who guard the right and bottom entrances to the town, but I make an effort to milk the frequent enemy reinforcements for experience. That makes things more complicated; many of the reinforcements are Wyvern Riders who hit hard and can bypass your defenses to fly into town, so my hardest-hitters at the bottom of the map (Edelgard and Petra, primarily) aren’t able to advance since they keep having to run back and defeat a Wyvern Rider. That forces my weaker characters to rely on Byleth and Alois tanking hits while they attack from range, which gets a bit dicey. And then to top it all off, the map boss runs away like a pansy when you get close. Talk about annoying.

Knowing what I know now, I should have sent Bernadetta, Shamir, and Dorothea down to the bottom-right part of the town where the Wyvern Riders frequently enter so that I could use their ability to attack from 3 or more spaces (either using bow skills or Thoron long-range magic) to take them out before they enter. That’d free up Edelgard and Petra to attack from the bottom while Byleth and Alois advance, with both receiving healing attention from Flayn. Not only would that speed up the map considerably, but it’d also give Alois more opportunities to fight next to Byleth, increasing their support and possibly aiding in his recruitment. Regardless, beating the map earns us a Seraph Robe and Large Bullion.

That last paralogue may have been a slog, but I invited Annette to help out during this month’s missions, and her time with the party during that slog built up her support to the point where she decides to join. That took considerably less time than I expected it to. Naturally, she’s a mage and that means that she’s squishy and can’t be sent out into a crowd, but I’ve noticed that she has a pretty good critical hit rate. She’s still unlikely to see much use now that I have Manuela and Hanneman (both primarily magic-users), but more options are always a good thing.

Now that a character has hit level 20, Advanced classes have become available. Unfortunately, the best chance for success is 60-70%, and since I only have a single Advanced Seal that was given to me for free when Advanced classes were unlocked, I’m not comfortable gambling on them quite yet. Edelgard has mastered her current class, though, so I instead change her into the Intermediate Armored Knight class.

Okay, full disclosure time: I lost a character on my first attempt of this map and ended up resetting (since I still haven’t figured out that Divine Pulse business). In my defense, though, it was Ferdinand, he was hit by an enemy battalion that had a ~30% chance to hit, and I had the flu when I was recording this map. The second time is the charm, luckily, and I do pretty well considering how out of it I still am. The Oil and Water paralogue centers around Manuela and Hanneman, as the latter tells the former—who’s still sore from being stabbed by the Death Knight in every sense of the word—that there are unconfirmed reports about the Death’s Knight’s location. Manuela runs off to get her revenge, which means that she starts this map off alone and surrounded. The goal is to defeat the map boss, but focusing on reinforcing Manuela first is advisable.

Enemies will rush her once you reach a certain trigger, and while most of them aren’t too threatening, there are a couple of Pegasus Knights who can hit harder than you’d expect, have a speed advantage that allows them to double attack many units, and Manuela can’t even damage them with her Nosferatu spell to restore her HP. There are two paths for your other units from the starting point, with one leading up and the other leading right, and the units going up have a fairly straight shot to the boss. That means that it’s a job for Petra and Edelgard. Byleth, Shamir, and Flayn take right rightmost path, with Flayn’s purpose being to use her Rescue spell to warp Manuela to the group once they’re close enough. You can’t bring many units along for this map, so making use of the evasion and defense bonuses forest tiles provide is crucial. The only thing I miss out on is a Rapier a fleeing thief is carrying (Rapiers are strong against both cavalry and armored units and were main character Eirika’s weapon of choice in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones). I’m not sure how you’re supposed to reach him without knowing in advance that he’s going to run.

Ferdinand dying on me to such a minor enemy was the last straw, so he’s losing his place to Ingrid despite her stats being worse. Those Pegasus Knights from earlier were scary, and I’d like her to become similarly scary over time. This next map is a bit of a trial run with her to determine how useful she can be. Before the battle, though, I tried to set an adjutant for her and no one could be used. That’s super weird. I don’t remember any class limitations or anything like that, but her authority stat isn’t high enough to equip battalions and it might have something to do with that.

Byleth’s professor level currently allows for two battles per day off, and since there were three available paralogues, that leaves one extra battle. I’m attempting to avoid grinding on things that aren’t story or sidequest-related, so I settle on finishing up a battle sidequest that I’ve had lying around. Its recommended level is lower than the others I’ve played through this chapter, making it ideal for safely giving Ingrid a chance to shine. There are no surprises or anything—the group moves forward as a block, protecting the weaker members and allowing them to finish off enemies where possible, and then it’s over in a flash. Ingrid ends up being the map MVP, cementing her place on my roster, and Flayn is also impressive.

As I mentioned at the beginning, chapter 8’s main mission changes its goal halfway in. This is the original goal that asks you to rout the enemy, and since your opponents are relatively weak and you’re aiming to save as many NPC villagers from them as possible, you’re bound to split up your army. Then Fire Emblem: Three Houses changes the goal to “defeat the boss” and spawns in the Death Knight to support said boss. Here’s a fun side note that makes this map even more irritating: you lose if Jeralt dies, but he’s an NPC unit that charges toward the enemy. I missed out on the opportunity to open up a chest because I had to use Ingrid to finish off the boss before Jeralt killed him (or vice versa). This is an escort mission every bit as annoying as those in Goldeneye, plain and simple, with Jeralt playing the role of the survival-challenged Natalya Simonova.

Edelgard and the Armored Knight class don’t mix well. It doesn’t increase her defenses enough to make up for the speed tradeoff. As a result, I decided to sell off some Bullion from earlier and buy some Advanced Seals to gamble on class changes with. Edelgard successfully became a Warrior (basically a Brigand +1) and Petra successfully became a Swordmaster. I almost made Byleth a Swordmaster, but I’d rather turn him into a Hero, which requires some axe experience. That doesn’t mean actually using axes, though, because sucking up to other teachers will probably require studying skills under them, and I could conceivably learn axe stuff that way. I don’t remember who teaches axes. Hopefully Gilbert. While selling off Bullion, I noticed the Experience Gem in my inventory that I had picked up from an enemy during the Oil and Water paralogue. This is an equippable side item like shields/rings and increases experience gain, so I put it on Ingrid to help her catch up with everyone level-wise.

The Remire Calamity begins with a bunch of villagers in Remire going crazy and killing each other. There are hostile units that attack friendly NPCs, but you don’t save villagers by reaching them or talking to them like in earlier games. Instead, you have to kill off their attackers. Despite my desire to save everyone, an enemy archer decides to get in on the villager-killing action when the goal changes halfway in, and the environment has enough unexpectedly difficult-to-traverse areas to undermine your attempts to reach them in time. You can probably save everyone with advance knowledge of what to expect, but this is my first attempt, and since I’m also babysitting Jeralt as he rushes toward the boss (Garreg Mach teacher Tomas, who it turns out is actually a dark mage named Solon who wants Flayn’s blood for some unclear purpose and engineered what’s happening to Remire as an experiment), everyone is too spread out to reach all of the villagers in time. Saving half of them still earns us a Large Bullion and Advanced Seal, fortunately. That’s not the only good news, either—Petra is looking like she’ll be an amazing Swordmaster.

Jeralt mentions something about Byleth being happier since obtaining his teacher job, only to mention something about how they left the monastery, suggesting that they left together despite Byleth ostensibly being born afterward. All of the confusion about Byleth’s birth (which might have something to do with Flayn’s similarly unclear age and the fact that tons of characters vaguely recognize other characters and can’t place it, or maybe that’s just bad writing) appears to be coming to an end, as Jeralt tells Byleth to come to his office sometime to be told something. I’m betting that he’ll be dead before he has the opportunity, but who knows? Maybe Byleth’s back story will be filled out first.

After the battle, the Flame Emperor shows up and admits to being allied with Solon, but claims that he didn’t know about the attack on Remire and would have stopped him otherwise. He then asks Byleth to join him, and while it looks like an important choice, most of the choices thus far have been entirely cosmetic. Still, I erred on the side of caution and refused. Interestingly, Edelgard is missing when he shows up, and she’s also not present when he was first introduced. It’s almost like Fire Emblem: Three Houses is suggesting that they’re the same person. I’m willing to give the writing enough credit to believe that this is a red herring, though it wouldn’t be surprising if it turns out that she knows who he (possibly she?) is. Especially since Hubert runs up and acts like Edelgard is missing, which conveniently gives the Flame Emperor a chance to warp away.

Between Tomas and Jeritza, Garreg Mach’s hiring practices are coming under scrutiny. Both came recommended from different families in different kingdoms, though, which either suggests a wide-ranging conspiracy that transcends traditional politics or a bunch of parallel conspiracies. Either way, Rhea uses the occasion to speak the rarely-uttered name of the religion’s goddess: Sothis. Having Byleth point out that he’s never heard that name before reduce his support with Rhea feels inherently unfair because it’s a factual observation, but that’s a minor note compared to the fact that I totally called it back in chapter 2. Sothis is just as confused as Byleth about what this means, and it’s hard to blame them. This definitely raises some questions. For example, if we’ve managed to eat a goddess unknowingly, does that not make us mega-god?

[Click here to go to Fire Emblem: Three Houses #7]

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