Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Review – An Exciting Musou That Retains The Flame

Every gamer has probably played a Warriors/Musou game in their life, but over the past few years, the developer Omega Force has tweaked its formula to fit the gameplay hooks of the fan-favorite series to great success. Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes continues the streak.

Fitting in with past entries

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes does a magnificent job of transferring the strategy RPG into a hack-and-slash action game. The premise of leveling up your characters, gaining new weapons, and strengthening your relationships is all there.

It’s what you’d expect from a Fire Emblem game and managing your faction’s characters is an entertaining task as you tell them to work together on chores and perform their training to improve their class. Talking about classes, there are dozens available in the game as you upgrade your squad’s prowess. There’s a lot of variety.

An intriguing storyline

You’re a new recruit turned commander named Shez after defending the leaders of the three houses: Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude. The fascinating part about this game is that it takes place within an alternate timeline, so you’ll be able to see how a few other scenarios play out in the storyline. The main protagonist of Three Houses, Byleth, is also depicted as an antagonist, which is quite the engaging twist.

There’s also the mystery of Shez’s aetherial partner Arval, who saves you from death earlier on in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes. The voice actor behind this being Melissa Hutchison performed excellently as you have no idea what their true goal is. They sound adorable and sinister at the same time.

As you talk to your teammates in your selected faction, you’ll get to know more back stories about your favorite characters. If you’re a fan of the cast of Three Houses, you’ll enjoy getting to know them even further. Unfortunately, there is no element of romance in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes, but there are secret scenarios that occur at the end of the game from those you connect with the most.

Omega Force lives up to its history

The Japanese developer Omega Force is once again a harbinger of action and downright chaos. You’ll be facing off against hundreds and hundreds of soldiers, and as you hit them, you’ll see them flying into the air in stacks. It’s absolutely satisfying to pull off an incredible 2000-or-so combo with special attacks and combos. Each special move makes the character look badass with anime AF abilities.

The controls in Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes feel so great as you use a mixture of light and heavy attacks to perform different special abilities at the end of the combo. I felt I was in control of the chaos, which is something that can’t be said for other Warriors games like the last Hyrule Warriors game. The frame rate is also an improvement on Switch as it runs like butter from my experience, even in handheld mode.

However, like many other Warriors games, it does get repetitive. With three different storylines to play through with each house and the additional missions you can take on, there’s a lot of slicing and dicing through enemy forces. Perhaps, there may be too much of that. The managerie of classes on offer does help the tedium, but the overall gameplay cycle is the same with almost every quest.

You’ll be defending key characters, attacking certain bosses outlined in the game, and that’s pretty much it. If Omega Force can initiate more gameplay tasks, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes would feel less like a chore at points in the game..

It’s a good thing that the combat is so fluid and satisfying that it almost makes up for the repetitive formula. Yet, some may be looking for a gameplay style like this where you don’t have to think about a lot and just keep slashing enemies.

Something else that Omega Force has taken from the original Fire Emblem series are the classes’ weaknesses and strengths. For example, Wyvern Riders are weak to archers as the arrows hit their flying mount. It’s not explained that well within the game’s tutorials, but those who know the class differences can strategically place their units on the battlefield to take advantage of this system.

There’s even an element of strategy in how you place your units as you move them around the battlefield. You can tell them to go after a side quest while you focus on the main piece to the mission. If you manage to finish side quests, you’ll get extra experience and loot, which we recommend doing.

It looks and sounds like a Fire Emblem game

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes succeeds at incorporated the graphics, sounds, and music of the original Three Houses. Each character looks detailed and true to themselves, and you can alter how they look on the battlefield or in the camp. Most of the battle areas look like they’re from a medieval setting, which is perfect for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes and the special abilities look spectacular.

Every voice actor from the original game has returned with fully voiced dialogue during conversations with Shez and cutscenes. It’s quite staggering how many lines they’ve packed into this Musou title.

The music has been elevated to a rocky theme (alongside some mild dubstep) with epic re-orchestrations of “Fódlan Winds,” “Tearing Through Heaven,” and “Chasing Daybreak,” among other fan-favorite tracks. Each song truly fits the Warriors feel and gets you pumped for the battle ahead of you.

Final Conclusions for Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes

Overall, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is a stellar effort from Omega Force. It doesn’t break any boundaries with the Musou formula, but some key gameplay elements from the Fire Emblem series do bear their mark in the game and the action is as intense as ever.

It’s just a shame at how repetitive Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes can be, especially when you consider its long playthrough time. Play this game in small bursts over the next year, and you’ll have a ton of fun with this Nintendo Switch game, however.

---

Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Review provided by Nintendo Link
Developer: Omega Force
Release Date: June 24, 2022
Price: $59.99, £49.99, €59,99
Game Size: 13.4 GB