Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes Reviews
I'll likely be playing Three Hopes for a long time to come - I've already begun my Black Eagles New Game+ run - and when I previously said this isn't just Dynasty Warriors with a Fire Emblem skin, I meant it. Three Hopes is genuinely impressive. It walks a fine line between freshness for existing fans and approachability for new players, and personally it's had me invested from the start. I'd love to see where Nintendo's musou spinoff concept goes next.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes has a lot going on both in combat and camp, and the result is a game that sometimes feels overstuffed but never fails to satisfy.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes rides a great hybrid battle system while barely slowing down for its beloved characters
Three Hopes runs a few chapters too long, and some late-game twists don’t carry the impact they should as a result, but my 36 hours were a great time. Three Hopes successfully and expertly integrates everything great about Three Houses into its musou format, both in narrative and in gameplay; it’s been one of my favorite Switch experiences in recent memory as a result. If you like Three Houses, you should play Three Hopes, and I’d recommend it to you even if you aren’t familiar with the musou genre. And if you haven’t played Three Houses, there’s a good chance that’ll be your next game after rolling credits on this one.
Three Hopes features the often repetitive combat style developer Omega Force is renowned for, but enough dedicated Fire Emblem mechanics exist to make it feel like something more than a simple spin-off.
However, I cannot help but think back to that giddy anticipation as I drove home with my copy of Dynasty Warriors 3 back in 2001. Asking myself if Three Hopes inspires the same feelings in me, I’d have to say no. It truly is fine, and all the proper elements are in place, but in many ways it’s also very expected and not particularly innovative. It makes me wonder, not for the first time, how much longer “it’s fine” will be enough in the world of Musou titles.
The original Fire Emblem Warriors was a fun, but flawed experience.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is a frenetic musou game with all the mechanics that make the core series enjoyable. It has something for newbies and veterans alike.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is a thoroughly entertaining mash-up of Musou mayhem, strategy and relationship-building aspects that should more than satisfy fans of both the franchises involved here. It improves upon its 2017 predecessor in several ways, most notably in providing a far more engaging story featuring a narrative that's ripe for several replays. With impressively solid performance on Switch and an action-packed campaign that'll see you blasting your way through tens of thousands of foes for a good 30 hours in a single playthrough, this is right up there with the very best Omega Force has served up thus far.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes takes the game you loved, spins a new yarn, and throws hack and slash combat in for good measure to create a fun, accessible experience that's incredible value for money.
A hallmark of excellence. There may be flaws, but they are negligible and won't cause massive damage.
For what the game is — a sequel to “Three Houses” with real-time Musou combat — it delivers what it promised. There’s a mystery to “Three Hopes” that can only be unraveled with dozens of hours of combat and cutscenes, and the game assumes substantial preexisting knowledge of “Three Houses.” Fans will enjoy reuniting with their favorite characters, but the derivative plot and built-in grind make it a tougher sell to anyone else.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is a musou proudly holding on to the canonical series, which fails, however, to shine due to a backward technical compartment.
Review in Italian | Read full review
If you like strategy and, in general, everything that the Fire Emblem saga is known for, with Three Hopes you will enjoy it. The action maintains the usual "machacabotonismo" of the musou (for better and for worse), but it is a much bigger and deeper game than it seems at first glance.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Fire Emblem should be the perfect partner for Dynasty Warriors style action, but this incompetently made crossover squanders its potential on trite fan service and hollow gameplay.
As long as you're OK with the usual Musou repetition, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is a worthy follow-up to Three Houses.
Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes is another enjoyable slice of Musou action, even if it does little to advance either franchise. Fans of Fire Emblem will adore chatting to the huge cast of returning characters as much as going into battle with them.
I really feel like anyone who has been through Three Houses would be doing themselves a disservice to skip Three Hopes. The story diverges enough to make each house a new adventure all its own and each of the paths has a vastly different array of battles to fight. Additionally, aspects of strategy, classes, skills, and camaraderie between characters have also made their way over and are implemented well here. I wish characters fought a bit more uniquely and that the game performed a bit better in docked mode, but outside of these complaints, Three Hopes feels like another solid example of what Omega Force can do when Nintendo entrusts its IP to the Musou dev.
While the original Fire Emblem Warriors offered a decent Musou game in the shell of a Fire Emblem game, Fire Emblem Warriors: Three Hopes provides the full Fire Emblem experience by offering a deep story and social system on top of slightly reworked Musou mechanics that are grounded in the rules of Fire Emblem's turn based combat.