The demo for this is out now, so let's talk about it.
I hadn't really thought about Three Houses much since it came out nearly three years ago--I certainly did not return to it after the ludicrously long single playthrough concluded. Having so closed the book on my investment in it, and in light of the rocky track record of licensed Musou projects in general, I thought I'd let Three Hopes pass me by without much notice. Playing the game for its opening hours, however, upends that presumed nonchalance, because every comparative track you can muster up, the game is able to meet and overcome. As a system-exclusive example of its wider subgenre, it performs technically better than any of its peers--notably compared to the latest predecessor in Age of Calamity, which ran roughshod against the Switch's capabilities and looked it. As an adaptation of a unrelated license and genre to a proven formula, it accedes better to the conventions inherent in its new guise and thoughtfully recontextualizes familiar tenets in ways that feel organic and like they belong. As a Three Houses spinoff, the feel of the presentation, writing and game structure feel authentic in ways that avoid the insubstantiality associated with such projects and cast it as a genuine followup, what-if narrative premise or not--it manages to feel novel too within that framework thanks to things like a vocal protagonist whose spoken participation reframes their scenes from monologue to conversation. The assumption that the RPG mechanics of the source material may be reduced in a more action-based context don't actually reflect the treatment, as the game preserves nearly every number-crunchy and social-sim feature from before and adds a host of new complications on top for an absolute deluge of play systems to internalize.
No dilution of the precedent has occurred despite the total shift in genre, which is impressive all on its own--it feels more like a genuine evolution instead of a diversion. I thought I wouldn't play this game, and now it's proven itself to the extent that I absolutely will, so that can be the endorsement here, I think.
I hadn't really thought about Three Houses much since it came out nearly three years ago--I certainly did not return to it after the ludicrously long single playthrough concluded. Having so closed the book on my investment in it, and in light of the rocky track record of licensed Musou projects in general, I thought I'd let Three Hopes pass me by without much notice. Playing the game for its opening hours, however, upends that presumed nonchalance, because every comparative track you can muster up, the game is able to meet and overcome. As a system-exclusive example of its wider subgenre, it performs technically better than any of its peers--notably compared to the latest predecessor in Age of Calamity, which ran roughshod against the Switch's capabilities and looked it. As an adaptation of a unrelated license and genre to a proven formula, it accedes better to the conventions inherent in its new guise and thoughtfully recontextualizes familiar tenets in ways that feel organic and like they belong. As a Three Houses spinoff, the feel of the presentation, writing and game structure feel authentic in ways that avoid the insubstantiality associated with such projects and cast it as a genuine followup, what-if narrative premise or not--it manages to feel novel too within that framework thanks to things like a vocal protagonist whose spoken participation reframes their scenes from monologue to conversation. The assumption that the RPG mechanics of the source material may be reduced in a more action-based context don't actually reflect the treatment, as the game preserves nearly every number-crunchy and social-sim feature from before and adds a host of new complications on top for an absolute deluge of play systems to internalize.
No dilution of the precedent has occurred despite the total shift in genre, which is impressive all on its own--it feels more like a genuine evolution instead of a diversion. I thought I wouldn't play this game, and now it's proven itself to the extent that I absolutely will, so that can be the endorsement here, I think.