Well, Fire Emblem: Three Houses has sucked up another sixty hours of my life. I’m not even trying to spend so much time on it; it’s one of those games that takes much longer than you’d think. Every chapter in the game consists of not only the main battle but also three or four lectures and three or four free days during which you might do even more battles or spend two hours in the monastery trying to get your friendship levels up with Ferdinand because you really need to recruit him before the time skip.

Anyway, this time around I went with the Blue Lions, hoping that the story would pan out a little more satisfyingly from the perspective of his highness Dimitri. If you’ll recall, I was left a little underwhelmed by the conclusion of the Golden Deer path, so did this alternative route fill in what Claude’s class left to be desired?

I am actually surprised and pleased to say, yes…however, it comes with its own share of shortcomings that I feel might hinder the experience of a casual player.

Spoiler alert for the Blue Lions route! I’m gonna be talking about pretty much everything from here on out, so be forewarned.

The story in the Blue Lions route is much more engaging and unpredictable, and this is largely thanks to its leading man Dimitri. As much as I absolutely loved Claude as a character, his arc was fairly static, focusing on his agnosticism and search for answers within the church that never really comes to fruition. It was his personality and charm, not his story, that endeared him to me. Dimitri, on the other hand, is a tragic and relatable figure whose tale has way more twists and turns. The once and future king has his whole life stripped away from him during the five-year time skip and goes on exile, living a life of violence and isolation that serves as stark contrast to his time at the monastery, when he was surrounded by friends and people who believed in him. When you see Dimitri again for the first time in five years, it’s devastating to see what that time has done to him. He’s even got an eyepatch, which means he’s a bad guy now!

But no, Dimitri isn’t really a bad guy; though he is a total jerk for a significant period of time. His dehumanization stems from the pivotal moment in the game when Edelgard is revealed to be the Flame Emperor and plans to overthrow the church. Now, this was surprising even in the Golden Deer route—I wasn’t exactly expecting for one of the three main units to turn out to be evil. That would be like if Mudkip joined Team Aqua halfway through Pokémon Sapphire. However, the reveal resonates more in this story path because of the special connection that Edelgard and Dimitri had; as childhood friends turned stepsiblings turned classmates, it’s hard to watch that feeling of betrayal on Dimitri’s face as he realizes that this girl—his most long-standing friend and his only living relative by blood or otherwise—is not who he thought she was.

Oh yeah, Dimitri’s entire family was slaughtered in a terrible massacre four years prior to the events of the game. I probably should’ve mentioned that earlier, but yeah. Right from the start you have to feel for the guy, even when he gets a little bloodthirsty later on in his story.

Speaking of Edelgard, her role as the villain is much more well-realized here than in the Golden Deer route. In Golden Deer she takes the back seat to Nemesis and his magic gang of evil guys who want to destroy everything in a very generically villainous manner. There’s not much to say about them because they’re clearly meant to be obviously, unambiguously evil. Edelgard, on the other hand, is a playable unit. A friend. There’s even an option to side with her if you choose the Black Eagles route! While playing through Golden Deer, I kept wanting her to have more screen time so that she could explain herself and perhaps shed a little more light on her motivations, but sadly, I didn’t get very much of that. For that reason I was very happy to see her much more often in Blue Lions, as she gets entire cutscenes that were not present in the other path of the game. Her relationship with Dimitri is developed, the two attempt to settle things peacefully, but ultimately you have to do the dirty deed of ending her empirical reign the hard way.

Also, for some reason she transforms into this beyond fucking terrifying demon form right before the final battle. I don’t know why she does this here but not in Golden Deer, but as if Fire Emblem: Three Houses hadn’t taken up enough of my waking hours, now it’s going to be taking up my sleeping hours in the form of constant nightmares. If I ever wake up one night to see this thing standing at the end of my bed, I’m selling my copy of the game and revising my review to give the game a SKIP.

Anyway, horrifying abominations aside, if you’ll recall earlier I mentioned that something about the story this time around worries me. This is related to the group of card-carrying villains I mentioned earlier, led by Nemesis and also including Tolon and Kronya. They’re demonic humanoids responsible for the death of Jeralt and involved with the church’s past, and in Golden Deer they’re rightly the main villains, but in Blue Lions, they just…disappear. After playing such a large role in the first half of the story, they’re completely evicted from all time-skip shenanigans so that Edelgard can take the lead as the main antagonist. While I enjoy her more as the main villain, I can’t say that it’s good storytelling to completely excise an entire group of baddies without explanation and without bringing their arc to a satisfying conclusion. Luckily I had already played Golden Deer, but I can imagine someone playing Blue Lions as their first route and wondering why these shadowy gross guys haven’t shown up again since the professor’s hair turned green. It’s a loose end that’s frayed rather than tied up.

Now, the obvious rebuttal would be that a player should play all three classes to get the full scope of the story. While that’s obviously the best-case scenario, this game is long, and it’s perfectly reasonable for the average Joe to only have time for one story path before shelving the game indefinitely. Of course there’s nothing wrong with opening up the plot to new avenues by including alternate paths and perspectives. However, each one of those paths should still provide a solid, self-contained story in its own right, not introduce tons of characters and storylines before deciding to only follow through on half of them in the end. There’s also the complete absence of Lady Rhea in the second half of the game, which made sense logistically but inevitably cut the tail off Cyril’s arc. Ultimately I’m just glad that I have absolutely no life so that I didn’t have to worry about these problems.

I actually enjoyed the characters in the Blue Lions class more than I thought I would. Whereas the Golden Deer were a ragtag team of misfits, these guys play out more like an AP class full of overachievers. My favorite was Sylvain, the self-loathing lecher who justifies his duplicitous behavior towards women by returning the accusation—these girls only want him for his valuable Crest, he claims. As you unlock more support conversations between Sylvain and other characters, he begins to open up more, culminating in the absolute cutest, most comforting ending I’ve ever seen for a character in this game. I don’t know how many different possible endings Sylvain can have, but as far as I’m concerned, this is the only canon one.

Generally, however, I liked most of the characters in this class. Ingrid is the down-to-earth childhood buddy of Sylvain who keeps him in check as she studies to be a knight. Dedue is Dimitri’s stalwart companion who owes the prince his life, or so he believes. Annette is a studious girl who loves to sing and has a strained relationship with her father Gilbert, a stoic former kingdom knight who is an exclusive unit to this route. Felix is Shadow the Hedgehog. The only character whom I really didn’t like was Mercedes, mainly because of her poor vocal direction and lack of personality, though even she has an interesting paralogue very late into the game involving her relationship with the Death Knight.

One theme I noticed is an emphasis on family: many students in the Blue Lions class have relatives who are also relevant characters in the story. Annette of course has Gilbert, who joins the gang permanently right after the time skip. Ingrid’s late fiancé Glenn was also the brother of Felix, whose father Rodrigue joins the fray near the end of the game. The Death Knight is Mercedes’s brother. We meet Sylvain’s disgraced brother Miklan, who resents his younger sibling for bearing a Crest. Ashe’s adoptive father Lonato is an early stage boss, following his convictions against the church to their most tragic conclusion, and of course Dimitri’s own stepsister is the main villain of the game. In writing this I’ve also just now realized that almost all of these beloved relatives die, so maybe it’s best not to take your family bonding to the battlefield.

Playing through the game a second time gave me the chance to go a little crazy with my class. Annette wants to be a mage? Nah, I’m gonna make her a cavalry class. Felix wants to master the art of swordsmanship? Here’s an axe and a wyvern. Dimitri is a blood-soaked killing machine who can turn you inside out with a lance? He was my best healer! I also took the opportunity to recruit more characters into my class, something I never did once in my first playthrough—the standout player here was Hanneman, the magic-using Crest scholar whom I taught to brawl and wield an axe like a true intellectual. Cyril was an absolute powerhouse who was practically invincible. I also generously took in Dorothea, Caspar, Ferdinand, and Petra, saving them from certain death in the second half. What’s interesting about Caspar is that he played a big role in the paralogue with Mercedes and the Death Knight—so was that entire side story exclusive to players who just happened to have both Mercedes and Caspar in the party despite those two starting out in separate classes? That’s some impressive attention to detail that wouldn’t surprise me for this game, and it makes me wonder what other cross-class paralogues have yet to be discovered. On a sadder note, I absolutely hated killing my former babies in Golden Deer—that was the worst part of the game for me, and next time I’m probably just going to recruit absolutely everyone I can so that no poor souls have to be senselessly slaughtered on Gronder Field.

I’ve rambled on enough about the Blue Lions route, so I think I’ll end things here. Blue Lions is a much more compelling story than Golden Deer, if also less complete. I would have liked some sort of conclusion to the Nemesis storyline this time around, but I really enjoyed the greater focus on Edelgard and her ambitions. Dimitri is a tortured character who really doesn’t get a break, and as a result you might feel way more sympathetic towards him than you would for the smooth-talking schemer Claude, charismatic as he may be. All I know for sure now is that it will be a long time before I start on yet another playthrough, because I think I’ve had enough Fire Emblem for a good few years. Those of you just now starting on your sixth enrollment at Garreg Mach Monastery, you have my deepest respect and incredulity.