Fire Emblem: Three Houses - Battle System Guide

Battle System Guide

Fire Emblem: Three Houses‘ Battle System is all about accomplishing victory conditions required by chapter missions, paralogues, auxiliary battles, and quest battles. In battles, Byleth needs to command his/her students as different units to engage the opposing units and monster enemies. Each unit can lead a battalion and their survival rests in the hands of the player.

Based on the pre-release battle gameplays, the Battle System is divided into two parts.

• Battle Preparation
• Battle Phase

Battle Preparation

The player is given an opportunity to check important elements and options before engaging in battle.

Here is a summary of the options:

• Units – Select which units will join Byleth in battle. There are some battles require a limited number of units. Unused units can be assigned as an accompanying battalion character to an active unit.
• Inventory – Display unit options in terms of items, character abilities, combat arts, battalions, and reclass. Reclass involves changing the current class of the unit and consumes his/her current turn in the battle.
• Map – Check the battlefield in terms of unit placement, enemy units, terrain, and observable treasure chests.
• Save – Save prior the start of a battle.
• System – Select and adjust game options based on the player’s preference. This includes changing the battle theme or connecting to the internet so that Lost Spirits can be discovered on certain tiles.
• Marketplace – Anna, a recurring character from all Fire Emblem series gives to access the Garreg Mach Monastery’s actual marketplace. She gives you options to buy or sell weapons, armors, and consumable items. Also, she can allow you to change the battalions used by the player and repair broken weapons.
• Quit – Quit the battle.

Conditions

By checking the Conditions option, the player can see the battle’s objectives.

Victory and Defeat Conditions differ in each mission, paralogue, or auxiliary battle. Most victory conditions revolve around defeating all opposing units, but there are some that require eliminating enemy commanders or characters such as the bandit leader, Kostas.

When it comes to defeat conditions, the game requires that certain characters, mostly Byleth, Edelgard, Dimitri, Claude, and the Officers Academy faculty members survive. However, there are also battles that require all of your units, including your students, survive the battle.

Map

Viewing the map gives the player the chance to explore and examine the battlefield.

Exploration involves roaming the battlefield with the player’s yellow cursor. This helps the players actually view the terrain and identify its effects. For example, finding a Forest terrain on your battlefield will give an Avoidance and Defense boost to units on it. Moreover, the player can locate treasure chests as well as Lost Spirits if connected online.

Lost Spirits are tiles highlighted with a luminescent purple color. This indicates that another player’s unit has fallen on this specific tile. When the player’s unit reaches and sands on this tile, he/she can obtain weapons that be used or passed on to another unit.

Another way of looking through the map is by examining the actual layout of the battlefield. This helps in checking the placements of all units on the battlefield, including enemies. It gives the player a way to identify the type of classes the enemy is using.

Here is a breakdown of colored tiles on the map:

• Red Tile – Reachable by Enemy Units. Also called the Danger Area.
• Blue Tile – Reachable by the Player’s Units.
• Transparent Tiles – Unexplored tiles by the Player’s Units
• Transparent Tiles with white borders – Unreachable tiles.
• Blue Tile with Class Symbol – Player’s Units.
• Red Tile with Class Symbol – Enemy Units.
• Yellow Tiles with Class Symbol – Third-Party Units such as Demonic Beasts.
• Green Tiles with Class Symbol – Allied Units.
• Orange Tiles – Treasure Chests.
• Light Blue Tiles – Water Terrain which is navigable only by fliers
• Deep Blue Tiles – To Be Determined

Battle Phase

Once the player is finished checking the pre-battle elements and options, he/she can now proceed to the Battle Phase.

The battle phase consist of multiple turns. At the start of every turn, the player will be able to view his/her current turn number and currently survived units. In addition, he/she can check these additional player turn options:

• Units – Check the information of the player’s units, including their health, weapons, and etc.
• Retreat – Withdraw from current battle.
• Conditions – Check the victory and defeat conditions of the battle.
• Auto-Battle – Let the game execute the battle on the player’s behalf.
• Options – View and adjust the game’s “Main Volume”, “SFX Volume”, “System Volume”, “Voice Volume”, “Subtitles”, “Rumble”, “Auxiliary and Quest Battle Music Selection”, “Battle Music”, “Auto-Advance”, and “Online Availability”
• End – Proceed to the actual the player’s battle phase.

After choosing End, the player can now move to the actual battle phase.

Types of Battle Phases

Each turn consists of multiple phases depending on the number of factions present in the battle. Like in most Fire Emblem games, the battle phase starts with the player first.

During the player phase, the player can now command his/her units to move and attack opposing units. At the start of the game, the player can control a minimum number of nine units which includes Byleth and his/her chosen student house. Although, there could more controllable units joining the player’s side depending on how the far the player has progressed in the game’s story. This includes Byleth’s co-faculty members such as Seteth, Manuela, Alois, Catherine, Flayn, Shamir.

In cases of extra characters, some of Byleth’s students will be relegated as a support character to the lead character of that unit. Battle experience will be still be earned by the support character regardless. We will check during the release of the game if the lead character’s weapon, combat arts, and gambit are the only ones that can be used by the player during the battle.

To be continued. Stay tuned more information!

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