Now that some elements have finally changed, I think that I’ve finally figured out Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ chapter screen. The first bit is your route (in my case, the “Crimson Flower” route that you get when siding when Edelgard against the church), with the early “White Clouds” designator being content that’s shared between routes before you’ve fully committed to one. The second line is the month. That’s great for people wanting to dig deep into the lore and remember what the narration said about what normal people do that month, but not exactly useful to us since we’re a very abnormal group. Finally, there’s the chapter name, which in this case is Beyond Escape. I both love and hate this chapter.
From the looks of things, Byleth has been lying in a ditch for five years after getting hit with the Immaculate One’s mouth beam of comical avoidability. Sothis wakes him up despite claiming earlier that they’d never be able to speak after fusing together into one being, which is weird on a bunch of different levels. I even went back and checked. Her exact words: “I will no longer have the chance to speak with you. I shall miss it.” Did she un-fuse with Byleth? The only responses to her are to mention being sleepy or question who’s speaking, and my confusion over Sothis’ sudden ability to communicate as a separate being caused me to go with the latter and offend her. This had better be explained later on.
After waking up, he returns to Garreg Mach—now occupied by the empire—and reunites with Edelgard and the others. The past five years have apparently seen the emergence of a prodigy hairstylist, as all of the “student” characters are sporting new hairstyles and fashions. Edelgard explains that the church has taken up residence in Faerghus under now-King Dimitri’s protection while Claude has played his country’s factions against one another to create a deadlock that gives his nation the appearance of uninvolved neutrality. Without Byleth, the war has stalled, and it’s no wonder; the volume in Petra and Dorothea’s hair alone basically turns them into living flags, ruling out sneak attacks and other such strategies entirely. Now that everyone has reunited, though, it’s time to roll through Claude’s territory and then strike at Dimitri afterward.
Honestly, it seemed a little too easy that Jeritza was the Death Knight, but he joins up (as Jeritza, though he retains the Death Knight’s holy weapon) and that turns out to be the case. I’m still very curious about what the deal is with him. When you talk to him while wandering around, he expresses happiness that Byleth is alive, as that gives him the opportunity to murder him. And what was the deal between him and Mercedes? Now that both of them are part of the group, I’m expecting answers about all of that weirdness. There are still too many unanswered questions.
Everyone’s weapons have been restored during the past five years, which would have been nice to know during the last chapter when I was trying not to wear out each character’s best weapons. Also, all of those “it’ll take some time to deepen this bond” supports are now available, so there’s a sudden torrent of information. And since most of these support conversations are A-rank supports with Byleth that have to segue naturally into a romantic S-rank, all of them engage in some pretty heavy fence-sitting, struggling to convey romantic chemistry without making it seem like you’d be breaking hearts by not pursuing them. That’s one thing that’s been lost by Fire Emblem‘s emphasis on player-choosable relationships; A-ranks used to be non-romantic except for rare canonical pairings (like Micaiah and Sothe), allowing for different types of bonds between characters. Now everyone has to get starry-eyed by the end regardless of what led up to that point. It tends to cheapen the relationships somewhat.
Counterpoint: Leonie is adorable. I wasn’t sure who I was going to S-rank after that whole Goddess Tower thing with Petra weirded me out earlier, but Leonie hanging around Jeralt instead of being a normal student adds just enough distance to avoid uncomfortable student-teacher dynamics.
Among the things learned from A-rank support conversations: the same mages who experimented on Edelgard did so on Lysithea, giving her two crests in the process at the cost of a shortened lifespan. That’s why she’s so insistent on pushing herself and talking like she’s going to die soon. Byleth convinces her that they’ll find a way to reverse the process and save her, but I’m dreading the possibility that this only happens with an S-rank support. I’ll be incredibly irritated if that ends up being the case because as far as I understand it, Byleth’s penis isn’t magical and shouldn’t be treated as such. Bernadetta has also learned to go outside and become more confident in herself over the past five years, Marianne apparently used to pray for death and no longer does so (side note: Jesus Christ), and both Ingrid and Mercedes are struggling to balance others’ expectations that they’ll get married with what they actually want to do. Oh, and Randolph somehow survived that last battle and has a sister.
Before the battle, Hubert takes Byleth aside and mentions that Edelgard’s uncle, Lord Arundel, is supporting their cause (for now), but was responsible for Solon and Kronya. As a refresher, Solon trapped Byleth in a dark dimension that forced him to fuse with Sothis to escape, and Kronya murdered Jeralt. We’ll likely get to kill Arundel at some point, but we have to play nice for now to retain access to his army forces.
Chapter 13’s map is an example of everything that I love about Fire Emblem: Three Houses and everything that I utterly despise. The goal is to defeat the enemy leader, and some pre-fight dialogue suggests that reinforcements will show after a number of turns, incentivizing you to defeat enemies quickly. I looked it up and that’s apparently the case on the normal difficulty, while reinforcements show up on the hard difficulty (which is what I’m on) as soon as you engage with the enemies around the boss. That means that rushing is a terrible idea since it causes powerful reinforcements to show up near a smaller group of characters. This map is a masterclass in level design, though; the tininess of the area means that while you may find yourself in a bad situation, you’ll then have the option to defeat the map boss and end things before that becomes a problem. Defeating her early means missing out on experience, but I picked up some battle sidequests that should make up the difference.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses (and other games in the series, honestly) could use a “reinforcements will appear here” indicator. You have to split up into two groups, so I put my squishy mages in the top group away from trouble, only to discover that a bunch of tanky reinforcements appear in that same area. Obviously, I wouldn’t have put them there if I had known that. The game deserves credit for making it possible to get through this without losing anyone on your first try, but it’s still annoying to have your strategy undermined by things you can’t possibly anticipate.
With this latest victory, our group has taken its first steps toward breaking Claude. I never warmed up to him or Dimitri. Hopefully, their goody-goodiness compels them to personally lead their forces into battle so that I can lovingly place an ax in each of their faces. The church may be our primary target, but they’re complicit in Rhea’s giant monster religion now and leaving us little choice but to smash all of their stuff.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses Let’s Play – Chapter 13: Beyond Escape first appeared on Killa Penguin
