This week’s issue of Famitsu has brought with it details on Fire Emblem: Three Houses characters and systems. The article reveals new details about the characters, as well as new information on how the Nintendo Switch strategy game plays.
While the original article is in Japanese, Twitter user BlackKite has translated parts of it. According to the source story, Fire Emblem: Three Houses introduces a new player avatar. As with previous titles, players can chose to have them be either male or female. Interestingly enough, it seems they have a different default name based on their gender. Male avatars are named Byleth (ベレト) by default, while female ones are seemingly called Bylese (ベレス). Of course, players can choose their own name if they so desire.
The player character is a mercenary whose skills get them recruited to be an academy teacher. Joining them are Geralt (no, not that one), Sothis, Edelgarde, Dimitri, and Claude.
Geralt is a legendary knight, the strongest in the land, who accompanies the player. Mysterious girl Sothis apparently saves the protagonist at one point, also no one else can see her. Edelgard represents the first of the three houses the Adrestian Empire as its crown princess. Dimitri from the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus hides a darkness within him underneath his eloquence and good manners. Finally, Golden Deer’s Claude provides sharp insight despite looking like he doesn’t think too deeply about things.
In terms of gameplay, players can now rewind time during battle. Players could do something similar in Fire Emblem Echoes, where they had a limited amount of rewinds in battle. Sothis is apparently the source of this power in this game.
Terrain will also affect players’s characters. Aside from affecting movement, they can also restore a character’s hit points, or warp them to another spot, among other things.
Meanwhile, characters can change freely classes as long as they take a Certification Exam. Previous games limited characters to a set number of classes.
Characters’ chances of passing the exams depends on the rating of their skill ranks. These skill ranks are Sword, Spear, Axe, Bow, Black & dark magic, Faith (white magic), Flying (flier classes), Heavy Armor (armored classes), and Horseriding (Cavalry classes). Once a character has been certified for a class, they can freely swap between them without losing their progression.
Characters in the game start with the Commoner or Noble class. These have no magic nor any special abilities. When they hit level 5, they can progress to the Myrmidon (Sword), Soldier (Spear), Warrior (Axe & Bow), and Monk (Magic).
Fire Emblem: Three Houses launches on Nintendo Switch on July 26, 2019.
