It’s been over a month since the last update, but that may actually be for the best; there are two different choices in chapter 11 of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, and both purport to have huge implications for the rest of the story. Having checked out the beginning of the next chapter after finishing this one, I can confidently state that this is accurate. Some of the things that end up being lost as a result of those choices are pretty depressing. Fortunately, Fire Emblem: Three Houses has been patched at some point in the past month, and this patch quintuples the number of available save slots. This should make it easier to keep a backup and try out a different story path once this let’s play is completed.

[Click here to start from the beginning]

Apparently “Crimson Flower” is a route, and they all have different names. That’s as far as I was willing to research—I want my choices to be actual choices rather than attempts to get the best outcome. The latest update also allows you to change your in-battle outfit to your generic school uniform. You know, for players who find variety scary. Lastly and most importantly, the number of save slots available to you has gone from 5 to 25, so it should be possible to keep a backup at different branching points. Having choices lobbed in my direction and trying to keep backups while limited to only 5 save slots would have driven my OCD mad, so becoming preoccupied for a month ended up being a really lucky break.

Chapter 11 begins with Seteth grilling Rhea. Apparently, he read through Jeralt’s diary and recognizes that she did something to Byleth as a child, which he doesn’t appear to approve of. Then Byleth shows up and it’s explained that this month’s mission is to venture into a hidden area called the Holy Tomb that the monastery was built around. This is where the goddess is said to sleep, and it’s also where Saint Seiros received some kind of revelation reminding her to use her power for good. Very few people know about this tomb, so we’re knee-deep into destiny territory now.

I had to restart the game the first time I started doing sidequest stuff because I accidentally talked to Edelgard and was given one of those “your decision will change the game significantly” choices. If you haven’t spent your professor points and done everything else you plan on doing, your only choices are to decline her invitation to join her in the empire (for what turns out to be her coronation) or immediately head off and leave everything behind for a week. I don’t like that at all; would it really be so hard to add a “give me five minutes to wrap some stuff up first” option?

Edelgard is a revolutionary, and there are so many schemes afoot that I ultimately decided to go with her (after restarting and wrapping up everything else first). When the world gets all topsy-turvy, sometimes the best option is to curb-stomp the establishment’s face.

There’s a magical tournament this month, so I entered Flayn into it and watched as she blew through every opponent without taking a single point of damage. Her resistance stat is insane. She could solo an entire map of magic-users already, and she’s only becoming increasingly powerful.

Apparently, some of Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ support relationships are on a timer. Failing to meet a support threshold with Rhea has evidently locked me out of deepening that bond. This is the kind of mechanic that would have been nice to know about ahead of time.

Byleth’s second free day has typically been when I send everyone off to complete paralogues and side missions, and while I consider a seminar instead because of how little remains undone, there’s one pesky mission remaining. There’s also a rare monster sighting, allowing me to avoid wasting one of my two combat encounter points. Or whatever they’re called. These encounters are mostly useful for remembering which characters are good at what, and I also have Raphael as a guest combatant this month to try and recruit him before it’s too late.

Sadly, the Raphael thing goes nowhere. I spend Byleth’s third free day running around buttering people up, but despite several characters expressing an interest in joining my class, only Ignatz—a character so irrelevant I’ve never once brought him up—joined the class. I don’t understand recruitment in Fire Emblem: Three Houses; Alois joined up on Byleth’s first free day (professors appear to be recruited in a different way than everyone else, but good luck figuring out how that all works under the hood without a guide), and I’ve made no effort to recruit Ignatz. Meanwhile, I’ve built up my support with Raphael to a B-level and probably made it halfway to an A-support, but he never joins up. The whole thing makes me long for the days when recruiting someone in Fire Emblem was as simple as sending someone to speak to an enemy combatant.

The first thing I wrote about the Flame Emperor is that he reminds me of Edelgard. Honestly, I thought that it was so obvious that they were the same person that it seemed like a trick, but I evidently gave Fire Emblem: Three Houses too much credit on that front. Edelgard is the Flame Emperor, which connects her to several of the villains we’ve faced thus far. After Rhea has Byleth sit on a throne (which she knows he recognizes, implying that she’s responsible for Sothis being crammed inside of him) and nothing happens, Edelgard shows up with soldiers and demands that they confiscate the Crest Stones and bones inside of the tomb. Everyone’s shocked and saddened, and Rhea flies off into her religious zealot rage.

This map isn’t hard so much as it’s annoying. Enemies keep stealing Crest Stones—which are pretty much all over the place—and this works like thieves have throughout Fire Emblem‘s history. You can regain anything a thief steals by defeating them, but you have to catch them before they retreat, and that typically means moving into danger and putting someone at risk. In the end, I only lost one Crest Stone, which made it all the more insulting when the end screen told me I protected “at least half” of them. Anyway, Edelgard is the enemy commander for this map, and she’s incredibly powerful. Her hit rate and speed have never been great, though, and when Byleth goes to fight her, she has a 24% chance of landing a single blow that wouldn’t even get close to finishing him off. He lands two critical hits in a row using the Wo Dao sword and that ends the fight.

With Edelgard defeated, Rhea insists that Byleth executes her. I don’t imagine that doing so would pan out (she’d probably just warp away with Hubert), and I’m not a fan of the religious zealotry, so I decide to side with Edelgard instead. Rhea doesn’t take it well. In fact, she calls him “just another failure,” implying that Byleth is one of several test subjects or something. Then she turns into a giant dragon monster thing called the “Immaculate One” and Edelgard explains that there’s a group of monsters who have controlled the continent of Fodlan in secret, with Rhea being their leader. Realizing that fighting her now would probably be a bad idea, everyone warps away to safety and the chapter ends.

I checked the beginning of the next chapter, and one of the consequences of siding with Edelgard is that Flayn leaves the party. A cursory search indicates that she’ll never join the party again and might even be fought as an enemy down the line, which is sad. She was rapidly becoming one of my favorite units. I need physical units more than magical ones, though, and other units are more than capable of picking up the slack.

[Click here to go to Fire Emblem: Three Houses #10]

Fire Emblem: Three Houses Let’s Play – Chapter 11: Throne of Knowledge first appeared on Killa Penguin