Fire Emblem: Three Houses Made It Hurt To Leave The Classroom

As we’ve covered quite a bit this week, there are plenty of reasons why video games love going back to school: it’s a natural setting for tutorialization, it gives a daily structure that fits nicely with social sims and stat-driven games, it’s a place that invokes longing for a “simpler” time, etc. And perhaps one of the biggest reasons is that it gestures at a relatively common experience; while the specifics are very different, most have attended school in some form or another.

However, despite the ubiquity of the classroom in RPGs, visual novels, and more, there’s one game in particular that used this backdrop in a way I haven’t been able to forget: the 2019 tactics RPG Fire Emblem: Three Houses. While it begins on a familiar note, using its school to set up RPG progression systems as you deliberate on the best way to use your limited time, its back-half wields our attachment to Garreg Mach Monastery and its students to inflict maximum distress, exploiting our school-based nostalgia as it sets the world on fire.

For those who didn’t play Three Houses or have forgotten its details in the years since its release, it’s set in Fódlan, a continent divided between three rival nations: the Adestrian Empire, the Holy Kingdom of Faerghus, and the Leicester Alliance. These powers have maintained good relations for some time, as symbolized by how their nobles send their children to learn together at Garreg Mach Monastery, a military academy situated in neutral territory.

At this school, students fall into one of three houses based on the nation they’re from—the Empire has the Black Eagles, the Kingdom has the Blue Lions, and the Alliance has the Golden Deer—but even with these divides, they mingle, take classes together, and form inter-house relationships. You play as Byleth, a young mercenary of common birth who ends up working for the school as a teacher (even though they’re barely older than your pupils). Near the beginning of the game, you pick which of the three houses you want to preside over, taking up an eight-student class who also act as your playable units during battles.

From here, the gameplay becomes a spreadsheet lover’s dream as you get to micromanage these students’ studies. It is very similar to other games with social simulation elements like Persona, or much older titles like Tokimeki Memorial, letting you maximize each day so you can best nudge your pupils in the direction of their talents and interests: train them to become cavalry, wyvern riders, heavy armored knights, mages, and more.

However, while it’s quite mechanically satisfying to plan a curriculum that ensures your disciples pass their exams, the main reason why these fast times at Garreg Mach are so memorable comes down to the students themselves. Even as someone predisposed to dislike these silver-spooned aristocrats, it didn’t take long into my teaching duties to start feeling for these messy teens, who are almost all under the thumb of overbearing, often downright horrible parents.

Much like other games in the Fire Emblem series, Three Houses uses a relationship system where characters unlock new conversations as they become closer. However, what sets this entry apart is how compelling these chats tend to be, endearing us to most of these students and their struggles. As a member of the Black Eagles, I learned about Bernadetta’s social anxiety, Dorothea’s difficult upbringing, and Edelgard’s well-deserved rationale for hating the nobility and the Church of Seiros. The dialogue shifts between silly slice-of-life moments and weighty material as it wrings nuance from most of the cast, delving into their wants and motivations in a way that ensures you won’t be looking at them as pawns you’re moving around the battlefield.

Part of what makes these conversations resonate is that, despite being set in a feudal society with magic and dragons, these chats tap into a particular type of contemporary college experience as your students get much-needed space from their parents to choose who they want to be. Here, they’re exposed to people from other backgrounds, coming face-to-face with different ways of thinking as they forge friendships across national lines. And like college kids escaping their backwards-thinking towns, some of them, like Dorothea or Edelgard, may even enter queer relationships (although it would be nice if there were more MLM pairings).

These students’ ability to choose their own path is perhaps best embodied by how they can jump from one house to another (assuming the player puts in the work to recruit them), demonstrating their resolve in breaking with their family for the sake of their beliefs. In this way, Three Houses taps into what it’s like to leave the myopic little bubble you grew up in; while the value of college in the United States has admittedly become a bit “overrated” due to crippling college debt and a hobbled job market, the experience of stepping into a wider world and meeting new people is still a very valuable one.