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The story
On 5ch’s hardware/industry board (geha), discussion heated up over reactions to the new simulation RPG *Fire Emblem: Banshi Senkou*. Posts centered on reports of 140-hour playthroughs and comparisons of its route structure with the previous title, *Three Houses*, with some praising the reduced overlap between route branches while others pointed out flaws noted by some reviews, including issues around save data. Comments were split — one post claiming “the consensus is settling into ‘bad game’ territory” drew pushback with “no, the reviews are turning around” — showing the player base hasn’t reached a consensus. Citing past remarks from Masahiro Sakurai, the thread also debated whether sheer playtime length should even be used as a measure of quality.
What people said
The DLC's probably going to cover stories the main game never got into, so I'm way too hyped for what's still coming.
In that same amount of time you could clear Wolverine twelve times over — so Wolverine wins.
Each route turns into a completely different story all the way to the ending, and it packs in so much worldbuilding — as a piece of writing, Three Houses was just on another level.
The story's different for each route to begin with, so it doesn't bother me at all.
Three Houses was rough because the first half was the same across routes.
Banshi Senkou has the same second half, but you can skip the war arc.
Yeah, Three Houses drags because the first half is almost identical.
I got sick of it by the third character.
And the characters don't even carry over between routes.
It's so true that Three Houses gets tedious because the first half repeats.
I wanted to skip that part entirely and just start from part 2.
Like Nine can handle both heavy armor and healing — there's real freedom in how you build your team.
Never actually recruited Nine.
Daitou's so easygoing about likes and dislikes that he's just too easy to get.
Give it up yourself, the reviews are turning around.
Even the reviewers raving about it are pointing out flaws — that's just a fact.
Save data issues being the biggest one.
If you want the facts, just go play it and check for yourself.
Doesn't exactly scream good word of mouth.
On the Nintendo eShop it's been losing to Derby Stallion 2 the whole time, too.
The difference in reputation is showing.
But as a character-driven game, Three Houses still wins out.
Three Houses is also really popular with female fans for that character-focused side.
Banshi Senkou crushed it in the popularity poll, though.
With Banshi Senkou, it does make me want to play it.
Sakurai's the type who watches movies at double speed while doing his daily workout routine, though.
He probably never found RPGs fun to begin with.
Well, he's the type who multitasks on an exercise bike like some hyper, can't-sit-still kid (lit. "dopamine kid").
His number of games played versus his actual playtime is wildly out of balance — that was a whole topic of discussion on its own.
If you actually want to rush through it, you can.
I'm running on no sleep because of it.
Also can't focus at work anymore.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
Three Houses is known for branching into multiple routes, but its longstanding weak point has been that the first half is nearly identical across routes, making it feel padded. Many commenters feel Banshi Senkou improves on this, and also praised how the approach to the shared second-half maps itself changes depending on how units are trained. That said, opinions tend to be divided right after launch, and the thread saw “bad game” takes and “the reviews are turning around” takes repeatedly trade places. Some reviewers have also flagged complaints around save data, so it’s worth noting that playtime length alone doesn’t measure satisfaction. Likewise, eShop ranking comparisons are easily swayed by launch timing and buzz, so it would be premature to judge a game’s merits from short-term rankings alone. Some posts note that Banshi Senkou came out ahead in a popularity poll, suggesting that early post-launch swings in opinion don’t necessarily match up with long-term reputation.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Hardware/Industry [geha]) thread “‘Fire Emblem: Banshi Senkou’ seems to be a god-tier game.”
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