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Final Thoughts - Three Hopes Golden Wildfire

If you haven’t already read my review of Scarlet Blaze, I would recommend it, because in this review I will be making references to it, as well as building off of what I said previously. As I experience the game, my understanding of the entire story unfolds, and to fully separate the routes as I understand them would not be fair, in my opinion.

Plus, it keeps me from repeating myself.

To be frank, there was a lot I did not cover or only glossed over in my Scarlet Blaze review. Part of that was because I was so overwhelmed with information, and I lost steam by the end of the review to the point I just wanted to get it over with.

I’m not entirely proud with how I ended my last review as a result, because of just how much I didn’t discuss, and how much I skipped. But I think those points can be brought up here as needed, to fully cover my bases as I move forward.

As before, I won’t be speaking too much about Houses in general unless I think it’s worth being brought up. I want to make this review to more about how Hopes stacks up on it’s own. However, I will admit that this is harder to do with this route than Scarlet Blaze.

Also. I am splitting this into 2 parts, since it has gotten so big that tumblr has started to delete my work and I lost some of my writing in the process. When part 2 is done, I will publish it then.

So after another 40+ hours or so, I have finally completed Golden Wildfire.

Golden Wildfire has been compared to Three Houses’ Crimson Flower route pretty early on in the Hopes discourse, and after playing the route for myself, I find myself agreeing with these claims, although there are some differences.

This is the route that really makes Byleth’s absence from the story really seem like it hurts the most. Not necessarily in the quality of the writing, but rather in how it affects the main lord and the path he chose to go down. Now, I haven’t played Azure Gleam yet, but between Scarlet Blaze and Golden Wildfire, it is no contest.

Scarlet Blaze shows a rather confident Edelgard who finds a lot of success without Byleth as a teacher, especially if you manage to recruit Byleth to your side. The route seemingly has a shorter war, the Slithers and the Church have been ultimately removed, and the Alliance and the Empire end on amicable terms and start marching on the Kingdom to take care of it once and for all. By all accounts, Byleth not being a part of her life really doesn’t affect her much at all. So long as she has a strong ally on her side with the power of a protagonist, she will come out on top. The only thing you can say that maybe she isn’t as well off is how many fires she had to put out during her route, but if she had only a six month war to two year war or so versus a 5 year war, I would say that still puts her Hopes version ahead of her Houses one. Especially since she takes care of the Slithers in Hopes, while in Houses she still has to go into a secret war with them in the epilogues.

This is not the case in Golden Wildfire, where we get a Claude who went from a curious young lad who always thought before he acted, and investigated wherever his curiosity took him, to a young man who’s ambition is his defining feature, who is shortsighted and uninterested in seeking the truth, and who dresses up his lack of intelligence with pretty words to hide the ridiculous mental gymnastics he goes through.

This is particularly a shame, because Golden Wildfire actually has a really strong start. The first four chapters set up Claude with a lot to do that he didn’t have in Houses. Claude suffered in Houses from having a copy-pasted route, which was a duplicate of Silver Snow instead of something unique to him. So we didn’t really get to explore a unique story with him spear-heading the plot, since we are trapped in the same story with different lead characters.

Here, however, the route starts with Claude having an Almyran conflict that is uniquely his, as well as issues with his control over the Alliance Roundtable (as he is a newcomer that came out of nowhere), and finally the war with the Empire knocking at his doorstep. This is exciting for Claude. Edelgard’s route, while better than Crimson Flower, still ultimately feels like an extension of her Houses’ route. Rhea is still the final boss. The Slithers are still part of her story. Dimitri is still in her way. Etc. It’s a better story to be sure, but still overall a very familiar one.

So it was nice to see Claude’s route starting off strong, giving him something new that the other lords can’t possibly have due to not being part Almyran, as well as providing a new frontier to a story set in Foldan previously unexplored.

Like SB, Golden Wildfire’s first four chapters are at a neck-breaking speed. Again, this is not an issue if you’ve played Houses. The first few chapters are identical, and really only change when you get to chapter 3 and start to slow down a bit. Instead of raiding Enbarr, Claude is fighting back his older brother Shahid and his invading Almyran force.

The chapter itself is a little baffling, considering that Shahid does not recognize Claude as his younger brother, but overall it sets up for an exciting story. A brilliant young tactician who has to balance the two sides of his lives, as well as potentially two war fronts! Where could this story go from here?

There is a real sense of urgency from the early chapters of the war, as Claude scrambles to corral stubborn lords, build up his army and secure his defenses to Edelgard’s conquest. And we are presented with a Claude who suffers from a lot of doubt, which is surprising but refreshing. The early part of the route takes the time to show Claude struggling with doing right by the Roundtable and by the Alliance, constantly wondering what he SHOULD be doing. In a way, he feels trapped, because he has obligations to his people and yet, still wants to honor the history of the Alliance. We see this doubt expressed in multiple early supports, such as with Shez and Hilda and Lorenz. We see this doubt in the main story. Again, a nice change of pace from SB, since Edelgard rarely expresses doubt or concerns, and is confident in her decisions and her chosen path.

There is some real intelligence behind the writing here, noting that the newer commanders of the Alliance are younger and inexperienced, while there are older nobles with more experience, yet perhaps also more stubborn to newer ways that could be beneficial to the nation. It’s not perfect - there is an early implication that the younger blood is the ideal and the older blood is to be cast out, but characters should always be set up to learn and grow as people and so it didn’t bother me at first.

We also get the sense that the Alliance is quite weak despite its wealth, adding to that urgency in the early chapters that is quite enjoyable. It also builds upon the need for schemes - the Alliance cannot meet the Empire with overwhelming force, so they need to go through crazy battle plans that come down to “and it just might work!”. This makes the battles honestly a lot more exciting, because unlike SB, where it’s just you and an overwhelming force pushing everyone over, it’s you with a weaker, messier force trying to outsmart the bigger opponent. In fact, I would say the early battles are more intense and chaotic than the SB battles ever were.

I would even put forward that the first half of the route keeps true to the promise of Claude fighting two fronts - one with the Empire, and one with Almyra, and that the route itself is far more interesting than Edelgard’s. While Edelgard’s promised a conqueror route but spent more chapters fixing issues within the Empire rather than conquering, Claude actually gets to defend his territory. First, we defend the Great Bridge of Myrddin from Empire forces. Then, we route the Imperial army from marching into Derdriu, the Alliance’s capital. With the invaders isolated, we finally clear them out of Alliance lands, bringing us into chapter 7 that was a rather fun and exciting ride.

Not only that, but GW is a bit more creative with its chapter maps overall. SB had the players drive through territories in a nearly straight line, giving the impression that you are forcing your way through enemy territory. But there is little variation from this pattern.

Meanwhile, GW has more variety in the way its side maps are laid out. Sometimes surrounding the main map, or putting it super close to camp, etc.

It really seemed like Golden Wildfire was on a golden path to victory, gearing to become an exciting adventure with a wacky crew and a pretty endearing young leader with a charming smile.

Then the rest of the route happened.

Well, sort of. The switch isn’t suddenly flipped until after the time skip. No, it just starts to.... dip around this point.

Chapter 7 is when Claude does something a little strange. He announces that Alliance troops are going to march upon Empire lands and take the Bergliez territory, which is known as the breadbasket of the Empire due to the rich fields ideal for growing crops. Claude’s plan is to not only return the favor of the Empire attacking them, but also to gain agricultural lands for the future of the Alliance.

Why is this strange? Well, it’s... Claude.

Claude up to this point in the story had always expressed that he wanted to do what was best for the future of the Alliance. So the idea of taking fertile lands by this characterization alone is not entirely bizarre.

However, Claude had also up to this point continued to express concern about his “choice” to enter this war. I say choice because Claude feels he chose to be part of the war, rather than the fact Empire troops were literally knocking at the door of their capital. Which is... I mean, it’s either get conquered or fight back. And Claude does express that he doesn’t want the Alliance absorbed into the Empire.

But Claude spends some time in the main story, as well as several supports, worrying about what he should do. He feels so unsure of himself, so lost and stressed by the choices he has been making up to this point. He wants to honor the Alliance’s past and do right for his people.

There are even points where it’s noted that commoners are blaming Claude for what has happened to their fields and livelihoods, considering that the war has consumed their fields and ruined their crops. And this isn’t even mentioning how often Claude wonders why enemy soldiers continue to insist on fighting when they about to lose, worrying about the deaths that will come with it.

So when you take all these aspects the story has been focusing on to this point into account, then it makes Claude’s decision to suddenly declare invading the Empire for land on the stranger side. If he cares so much about the lives of his soldiers and of the enemy soldiers, and he stresses about being in the war in the first place, why make that push for enemy land and prolong the fighting? It’s not like Claude is even trying to end the war, he just wants to take the opportunity to take the land in general.

You could argue that it’s because the Alliance lost farming land to begin with, as noted before, but that point is relegated to a support, not the main story, so it’s easily missable and is not even considered a point as to why Claude invades. He invades purely for “the future of the Alliance”.

That said, it’s not so bad that I cannot believe it. It’s just a little confusing with how Claude has been presented here so far in this route. The battle itself is fun and I didn’t mind playing it. Byleth and Caspar’s father are the biggest enemies here, where we must defeat both. But as soon as we defeat Caspar’s father, we suddenly find ourselves... in a retreat.

I take some issue with the retreat. For one, Holst and Caspar’s father are literally at each other’s throats. I mean literally, their blades are against each other’s necks. But at the call of the retreat, they both stop and... let the other go.

The battle is over, because now Almyra is attacking and they need to get back as fast as they can to prevent the largest Almyran invading force in over a century from getting past Foldan’s Locket.

It feels a little silly, considering that these two men would just stop killing each other because one side decided to retreat. The reason why we are even allowed to retreat after attempting to take land isn’t so bad at least - we are allowed to escape because pursuing us would mean the chances of razing the Empire’s source of grains to the ground, and that is not a risk the Count can take.

But the fact we are suddenly retreating anyways is a bit of a mood whiplash. We had the Empire on its knees, but now we must flee to stop another invading force that is quite literally knocking at our door.

We then reach the route’s last chapter before the time skip, where Shahid attempts his last invasion. This is also where it really starts to sink in that Claude keeps a lot of his plans and ideas close to his chest.

There had been nods to this part of Claude prior to this chapter, but it’s really noticeable here. When Shahid attacks, it becomes known during and after the battle that Claude had actually reached out to Nader two years ago, after Shahid’s first attempt, in order to get ahead of Shahid’s next attempt should it come again in the future.

Not only did the characters not know of this save for Holst, who also met with Nader, but there were no hints that this happened to the player either. It’s done completely under our noses, and this is not the first time Claude had done this.

Claude had done several schemes prior to this chapter where the player and the characters are not privy to his thoughts or actions. Claude had a plan with Lorenz’s father about betraying the Empire to trap them, by making it seem like the Count had joined the enemy side.

There are a few other miscellaneous “schemes” Claude cooks up in battle to get the upper edge too, like attacking one side to give the credit to Holst to drag out enemy commanders who would itch to take on the big man himself.

But for all these schemes, there had been hints that there was something going on that we as a player don’t fully know about. Claude apologizing to Lorenz in advanced. Claude actually explaining his plan to one person, only for another person to catch up to the plan a bit later. And so on.

However, the plan with Nader is the first time where there was literally no hints to this at all until the start of the chapter, and this plan had been in the works for nearly 2 years. It really starts to make you wonder what else Claude has going on in his brain that we don’t know about yet.

The battle ends with Nader turning on Shahid as per the plan, and Claude killing his brother by hitting him with an arrow off a cliff. He had wanted his brother to surrender, but was ultimately not given much choice if he wanted to stop the invasions for good.

And just like Shahid falls off a cliff to his death, so too does the plot suddenly take a nosedive into a deep abyss of absolute chaos.

Even with the last two chapters’ minor issues, like Claude’s weird choice to invade the Empire and the whiplash to go stop Almyra, I found Golden Wildfire to be a better route than SB up to this point. It was more interesting, had less tonal issues, and the map designs were better. The goals and actions of the characters were a bit more understandable and easier to root for. The characters were more likable and less bloodthirsty.

I was really enjoying it.

And yet, this is where the time skip occurs. And it felt like I got thrown into a different route entirely.

Part 2 of Golden Wildfire opens up with Claude announcing that the Alliance has been dissolved, and that now he is king of the newly dubbed Federation instead. While the Five Great Lords still technically have a voice, with Claude as king he is able to finally make decisions quickly without needing to consult the roundtable at all.

This is a little shocking, although not entirely overboard. There had been hints leading up to this possibility throughout part 1 and in the supports. The route keeps reminding the player that the Alliance gets things done slowly due to needing to convene with the Alliance lords, and that it sucks because not every lord is on the same page. Claude’s C support with Shez in particular is about this, and it is Shez who actually suggests to Claude that he just take power so that decisions could be made.

Therefore, Claude proposes to the Five Great Lords that he become king and that they make the Federation out of the Alliance. The Five Lords did agree to it, at least. While it is a power grab, Claude did at least allow the lords put their vote into the proposal. And I understand where Claude is coming from, since the route did a decent job setting up this situation. However, I could not help but feel that it felt like this:

But Golden Wildfire completely loses me literally in the next scene, where Claude and Edelgard finally meet up.

I will say that at least GW leads to their eventual meeting better than in SB. In SB, it just jumps to them agreeing to ally with each other, giving no support in the writing that this would happen; not a peep from Claude and nothing from Edelgard at all. While in GW, we get a scene where Edelgard concludes that trying to conquer the Alliance through military means is probably going to lead to nowhere, and instead wishes to try something else.

It made this transition not completely out of left field. Even the start of the conversation was ok. Claude is rightfully angry that Edelgard invaded at all, while Edelgard insists that it was not an unprovoked attack since she was invited in by a traitorous Alliance lord (and Claude points out that this isn’t really an apology, but is willing to allow the Empire to make amends for their actions).

But eventually, Claude agrees to... ally with Edelgard because he read her letter and agreed with her that the Central Church was a threat to Foldan’s future that needed to go. And since Edelgard promised to provide stability to their shared borders, Claude agrees.

And then it gets worse.

Because while I can understand why Claude would ally with Edelgard for the sole reason to reach some stability to the warfront, I cannot follow his logic as he announces this new plan of action to the rest of the crew.

This scene is jammed pack full of nonsense that I would like to take the time to parse through it carefully. Let’s just start at the top:

In a 180 degree twist, we are suddenly against the Central Church and the Kingdom in one fell swoop.

Declaring war on the church, in my opinion, is no different than declaring war on the teachings. Which I will get back to in a moment:

What is particularly baffling about these lines is that in SB, where the Central Church has been an antagonistic force since chapter 4, Edelgard makes many proclamations about not killing Rhea, but merely capturing her.

Edelgard wants the Central Church gone, but she also doesn’t see any reason to kill Rhea provided she just steps down from power. She tells Claude as much in their talk in the Side Chapters near the end of the SB route, and declares it even while in battle. Although Edelgard also says that she will make the monastery Rhea and Thales’ tombs, she still ultimately puts forth she would rather capture Rhea alive.

And even in those chapters, Claude seems surprised that Edelgard did not wish to kill Rhea, and basically says that keeping her alive simply isn’t enough.

His surprise, coupled with Ignatz’s statement that they must kill Rhea (and there was no one who refuted him in return), tells me that Claude and Edelgard did not actually discuss at length what the terms of the Central Church’s disappearance would mean.

It is odd to me that this route jumps to murder, when the route that actually HAS the Church as a main antagonist for the entire thing merely wants to capture her.

Not only that, but Shez says that Rhea and Seteth are not all that they appear to be, or so the Empire says.

Judith says it best here. Shez, along with Claude, have basically bought entirely into the Empire’s words.

Shez does express some confusion prior to this talk about suddenly having the Kingdom and the Church as enemies at least. It seems forgotten here, but Shez does need to get everyone on Claude’s side on these new plans.

This comes from almost nowhere. Claude has discussed before that he wanted to do right by the Alliance’s history and wanted to improve the Alliance in any way he could. But this goes beyond just improving the new Federation.

As I stated before, Claude's primary character trait in GW is ambition. We got a glimpse of it when he invaded the Empire for new territory when the opportunity presented itself, but this is a much larger scale. He’s now using Edelgard and her army as a means to not only stay independent, but to also expand his nation’s influence more than ever before, which was NOT something that was very much alluded to at all.

The boy at the start of the route, riddled with worry about joining the war and doing right by his people, is gone, and suddenly seems more interested in power. Even if he had been selected into the position of king, he still ultimately suggested that he consolidate power and dissolve the roundtable first. It’s dressed up as something for the good of the Federation, but again I feel like I go back to:

I have seen arguments online about how this is the real Claude, that people who played Three Houses did not pay attention. That he always wanted power, that he always wanted to be supreme ruler. But this isn’t really true. Claude in Houses was defined by his obsessive need to seek the truth, to get to the bottom of things. It was to the point where he would read other people’s journals, or pry into people’s private affairs even if they didn’t want him to. He hungered for knowledge, he hungered for truth.

Yes, Claude had ambitions in Houses. He wanted to break down the borders of the lands. He wouldn’t have minded if Rhea died. He didn’t really like the Central Church in general. This is true.

But it was more than that. Claude always seemed to consider his options carefully. That he didn’t just buy into the words of others, and that he needed to get to the bottom of things.

But here, he’s more ambition and power hungry than his Houses counterpart. Claude had always worried about war because of how it affected the common folk. Even IN Hopes, he expresses concern for the enemy soldiers when they don’t surrender. He doesn’t want war or bloodshed. He made no allusions to wanting to expand his nation’s influences.

It is like I am meeting a different person.

Is this the Claude the developers wanted to make in Houses? Probably. In one of their interviews, they admitted that Claude was supposed to be a “bad guy you couldn’t help but love”. However, they “ended up making him a lot nicer” than he was originally conceived to be.

In Houses, Claude was a man who mixed non-lethal poisons (alluding he would use them on his foes). He seemed like the guy that wouldn’t mind play mind games with others to get the upper edge. But he had never used allies to further his causes like he is using Edelgard here. He never declared war on a side that had done nothing to him. He didn’t seem like the type of man that made such rash decisions like that.

Making a “bad guy you just can’t help but love” is not impossible. But it doesn’t work if you trade sensibility for unfounded ruthless conquest, and instead make the “bad guy” seem ridiculous and almost moronic. Especially at what follows here:

This was all said by the man who, prior to this, didn’t want there to be bloodshed from his enemies since they should just give up in the face of defeat.

This was said by a man who, just a few chapters ago, attempted to take land from the Empire since the opportunity presented itself.

He claims that the Kingdom was at fault first.... because they conquered the Alliance before it was the Alliance over 300 years ago. Something that he also just tried to do himself.

He has no personal qualms with them, but since the Kingdom had once did some crappy things to them literally centuries ago, that it was ok to throw them back to the wolves.

Does that not sound insane? To blame a nation of people for the actions of their ancestors, to know that you will be killing them and your justification is “once upon a time, their great-great-great-great grandfathers made us angry?”

Not to mention that the situation with House Daphnel was an internal issue of the House, and the only thing the Kingdom did was welcome them with open arms when they decided to defect.

(He also forgets to mention that the Kingdom and Empire and Alliance once banded together to stop Almyran forces a century ago, and helped them build Foldan’s Locket!)

I cannot stress enough how much this comes out of left field for this route.

In Houses, Claude does say he doesn’t really like or trust the Central Church. If you had played Houses, you would know this, and this speech isn’t too terribly surprising.

But in HOPES, Claude has made absolutely no statements at ALL about the Central Church or that he doesn’t like them. There are TWO scenes were he has something to say about the Central Church and the Kingdom up to this point.

That’s it, that’s all he really had to say about them up. Making his claims about how the Kingdom fucked them over 300 years ago and his dislike for the Central Church even more baffling.

There had been no discussion about how the Central Church gave Crests legitimacy. Not even Edelgard’s route really went into that- it focused more on bloodlines in general rather than Crests.

No talk about how they force their beliefs onto others, and that there is no room for others of different backgrounds or faiths. And remember how Holst said they weren’t after the teaching of Seiros, yet here is Claude condemning them for their teachings?

Plus, for those who have played Houses, you would know that the holy book of the Church says to NOT abuse Crests, that those who abused their Crests and the power they brought made the goddess so sad that she left the world!

Not to mention that there are quite a few nobles with no Crests in the Alliance, nor is there very much talk about nobles striving for Crests in their family. Hell, Claude has HOLST in his army, who was made head of his house despite his younger sister having a Crest!

And while I can somewhat forgive this route for thinking that the Church didn’t allow for different backgrounds or faiths due to lacking people from outside Foldan beside Claude himself in the base roster, I do want to note that people like Petra are recruitable to SB who IS from outside Foldan and OPENLY practices a different faith.

Oh wait, I forgot about Shamir, who is given to you in GW as a base member of your party, who is from OUTSIDE Foldan, worked FOR the Church, and was never forced to practice the belief at any given point!

This is the first time we get to actually hear what Claude’s goals are, since he had basically played coy this entire time.

I find there are two... well, three major issues with this moment.

Firstly, it does not match up with his previous actions at all nor his previously established motivations. Claude early on is more concerned with the future of the Alliance, while trying to honor what the Alliance stood for in the past.

The second, it took this long before we got any clue as to what he REALLY wanted more than anything.

And the third is that it is hypocritical, but just as Edelgard is played straight despite her hypocrisies, so it is here as well.

As I have said before, after Part 2 it is like playing an entirely different route. The first part was about Claude and the struggle of keeping true to the Alliance while also trying to do what’s best for them without getting conquered by two other nations. The second part has become a declaration of expanding influence and tearing down the old ways in all of Foldan.

When I started this review, I had commented that this route was a lot like Crimson Flower 2.0, and this is where it starts. Because Claude’s ambitions are nearly identical to Edelgard’s, with the desire to change the entire continent by tearing down the Central Church no matter what or who is in the way. And while the finer details might be different, as Claude doesn’t want to unite Foldan under one banner for instance, it’s too similar to not feel like Claude is just a male Edelgard in this instance.

Claude had just declared that the Central Church was forcing its own ideals on all of Foldan, and that it was his intentions to blow the door open and change that through force. Is he not, then, forcing his own ideals on all of Foldan?

At least with Edelgard’s route, I was more convinced why she wanted to take out the Central Church. Although not much time was devoted to them as antagonists and did very little to try to convince me that they are actually as corrupted as they say, SB did at least have them send assassins and have Rhea say some mean things.

SB also devotes time early in the route to both Dimitri and Rhea, although not much, as enemies to fight. Both of them are fought before the time skip. While GW only sees both of them in one cutscene and then doesn’t deal with them until Claude declares them as enemies along with his alliance with Edelgard.

What does make this route a bit more palpable than Crimson Flower, and maybe even SB, is that Claude’s allies are willing to call out Claude’s actions, and even the narrator himself mentions that Claude’s actions are about to have some consequences. I will circle back to this in a moment.

Funnily enough, this chapter starts out with a few Federation nobles along the Kingdom border start considering defecting to the Kingdom since they are unhappy with the changes in their homeland. Unfortunately, why this might be the case is relegated to mostly camp dialogue, but essentially the old system allowed even minor nobles to have some say to a degree. Now, in the new system, even their voices are basically not worth listening to. Feeling betrayed and angry, these nobles have started looking towards the Kingdom.

Since the shift from “the Empire is our enemies” to “now the Kingdom and Church are our enemies” is in this chapter, this also changes the focus off these nobles. They are relegated to the side maps instead, where they are defeated unceremoniously for trying to defect. It’s all kinda hush-hush and swept under the rug a bit.

For what time the route DID give to this issue, it tried to paint it as if the Church was Seiros was preying on these Nobles instead, and that these particular nobles are not the “good ones”. But this is so underdeveloped and more time is spent on the fact that Thunder Catherine is nearby that you would be forgiven for forgetting this little side plot entirely. There were actually some serious consequences to declaring the Alliance a Federation and taking away the republic is once was, and it was just... a little side feature. How terribly disappointing. For a nation’s who’s history is in being a republic with no king, the Alliance was shockingly willingly to jump that ship and be perfectly happy with Claude as king with little issue. It reminds me of SB, where most of the nobles are ok with Edelgard flipping their lives and way of life upside down with little discourse or anger, where our lords have free reign to be tyrannical without the hinderance of examination.

This chapter’s main battle instead is with the Knights of Seiros, who have been battling Imperial Soldiers and winning. Randolph is here as well, and the mission is to rescue him and his fellow soldiers, and route the Knights.

Except it’s not, because Claude’s scheme this time is to allow Randolph and his troops to die as bait so that the Federation could encircle Catherine and the Knights. This battle ends with Catherine dying, Randolph dying, and all Imperial and Church soldiers dying. Very few casualties happened to the Federation as a result.

So to be clear, Claude, who called out Edelgard for using her citizens as meat shields in VW and in Hopes had hoped enemy troops would surrender as to not cause bloodshed (even tried to parlay with Ferdinand), used his newfound allies as bait almost immediately, and did not even allow the Central Church’s forces a chance to surrender or survive the battle at all.

Claude does make it clear here (to himself) that the Imperial troops aren’t truly allies, since he’s using Edelgard’s army as a means to an end, and he still considers the Imperial troops enemies at the end of the day. However, even his own actions kinda put a bad taste in his mouth - yet, he will continue to move forward.

I think what makes this so frustrating is that Claude DOES realize his actions are slimy. He even, to a degree, doesn’t like them.

Edelgard may have been frustrating for never realizing that her actions may be wrong, but that shielded her from Claude’s problem. Claude realizes what he is doing is pretty awful. However, he STILL goes forward with it anyways! He KNOWS better and yet, does not stop!

Circling back to his allies calling him out, we see a bit of that here. During the battle, Lorenz seems disgusted with the idea of what they had done. Shez and Judith address Claude directly, telling him that he is not instilling loyalty among his allies if they cannot trust him to have their backs.

This somehow leads to “you need to trust us more” as the primary concern instead of the sacrifices of lives Claude had just done, but it was at least something. It was a bit refreshing to see considering how everyone basically worships Edelgard’s actions nearly all the time in SB.

Even the narrator says that Claude’s actions will have upcoming consequences, again something Edelgard almost never sees in her own routes, where she is able to sidestep most serious consequences to nearly everything she does and is constantly rewarded instead.

All that said though... the lesson this chapter wanted to impart was not that “using your ally as bait is probably not a great thing”, but rather that Claude did not tell anyone his plan, nor did he open up to anyone about his plan and so did not take any new ideas in.

This is at least consistent with what was set up throughout the route - Claude constantly keeping his schemes to his chest and surprising his allies (in a negative way) over and over again. But the lesson learned could not have come at a worst time. Claude should have instead lost allies due to his schemes and their lack of distrust to bring about a lesson of trust and openness. It should not have come from the sacrifice of an ally, and then the sacrifice not be a vital part of a different lesson learned.

It is absolutely bizarre.

And then the route immediately forgets about it as no one else talks at length about Claude’s actions. Instead, it goes into how no one in the Federation even cares about the war on the Central Church. And I mean literally no one.

And somehow, this does not signal to anyone that the Church is probably not the power Edelgard or Claude thinks it is.

Let’s pause for a moment to talk about the powers of the different Churches, or at least the Central Church versus the Eastern Church.

It is made quite clear in Hopes that the Eastern Church is a more passive force. They have no standing army - they are quite literally not allowed to have one by the lord whose territory their base lives on. We meet quite a few NPC priests at the camp from the Eastern Church who have offered their prayers and supports, and convey some tidbits of information.

You learn that 1) the Eastern Church as little power. And 2) that Claude did not require a blessing from the Church in order to become King, yet the priest insisted just because some people in general may have wanted to see it.

That’s it.

If Claude didn’t really need a blessing from the Church, not even the central one, and the Central Church has meddled very little with the Alliance just in general, where is this idea that the Central Church has this iron grip on Foldan even coming from? If anything, the Alliance has neutered any form of the Church in their region to the point that no one even cares about the Central Church at all.

The characters claim that it was the hard work of the Eastern Church that has allowed the people to not riot over the idea of the Central Church to be dissolved, but is that really what it is? I remain unconvinced.

Also, Claude has this to say, just after he made a point to kill every soldier in the last battle:

Remember this line.

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We have now reached the chapter of this route, chapter 10, where we recruit Byleth or kill Jeralt. Just as in my SB review, Path A will be recruiting Byleth, and Path B will be killing Jeralt moving forward.

Now one thing I did not touch on in my SB review very much was Byleth or Sothis. I wanted to take the opportunity in this review to rectify that mistake.

In Hopes, Byleth is a speaking character and not the silent self insert this time, which give Byleth some room to actually express himself without being trapped as being the protagonist.

I cannot say that it makes Byleth a particularly more interesting character overall, considering his quiet nature and lack of screen time keeps us from really getting a solid sense of who he is as a person. However, we do get to know a few things.

One is that Byleth is very serious. He clearly lacks social skills, likely due to Jeralt’s upbringing, and so misses sarcasm and jokes, and has a hard time expressing what he really means in a given situation. He gets called a cold person by Leonie for only focusing on the details of a job, rather than making an alternative decision to save the lives of others.

While he might be hyper-focused on getting whatever job has been given to him to an extreme degree, he is not an unfeeling person as we see when he thinks about the loss of his father and revenge. Byleth expresses that he doesn’t really necessarily seek revenge for Jeralt (if Jeralt dies), although can eventually be convinced by Sothis to follow through with a revenge plot... somewhat. Byleth does care about people, people like his father, and it’s necessarily out to kill for the sake of killing. Even after agreeing with Sothis to get revenge, it is implied throughout the final battle with him that he is fighting Sothis’ control instead of trying to outright destroy Shez, implying that he didn’t really want to follow through with killing him. This is what leads to Shez getting the final blow on Byleth, since Byleth and Sothis were internally fighting for control over the body rather than focusing on the fight.

Speaking of Sothis, meanwhile, I skipped over this part purposely in my SB review, saving it for this one. Because Sothis is almost a seemingly different character here, while also being a complete wasted opportunity.

Sothis in Houses is characterized of being a rather harsh, but kind, goddess living inside of Byleth’s head. Since she lacks her memories, she cannot give Byleth a lot of information, and as a result has little to say on the realities of the past or the world at large. She is mean but funny, sharp-tongued but motherly. She handed over her power willingly when the time came, and considered Byleth a separate person from other than herself.

This Sothis, however, seems to have a bit longer to cook in the oven before she woke up, and thus woke up with either most or all of her memories. And she is ruthless.

She threatens to take over Byleth’s body, calls Byleth a vessel and a glove to be worn. She scorns him, gaslights him into seeking revenge even when Byleth didn’t necessarily want it himself. She knows more than she lets on, but never actually explains anything to Byleth or the player. She even says she is not there to answer questions.

I know the developers in their interview said they wanted to explore a side of Sothis we didn’t get to see in Houses, but only makes Sothis seem like an uncaring and cruel deity, rather than the snappy mother-figure we had gotten to know and love. Sothis acts in a manner no one would have ever guessed from her portrayal in Houses.

And it’s even more frustrating is that the devs and the story refuses to engage with her character in any meaningful way, because the devs do not want the players to know about the past, and instead side-step that issue by making Sothis aggressively silent about anything important.

They even portray Sothis as a bad mother just in general. While in Houses she had the excuse of basically having no memories, here Sothis seemingly has all her memories. She even knows the epithets of the Nabateans in the game (such as the Nabateans who are now Felix’s Shield and Dimitri’s Lance). And yet, she allows Byleth to slay Rhea without so much as a word spoken to them from our perspective. Maybe she did express doubts but... we don’t hear about it. Byleth can just be part of the group that takes Rhea down in both SB and GW, and it seems as if Sothis has condoned these actions on the virtue of being there and saying nothing.

Sothis is fundamentally wasted potential. The story is so focused on the war at hand that it would rather not engage with revealing more about the Nabateans and their past. I suspect because it would invalidate a lot about what we know about the war, and would therefore give no reason to doubt which side is the “bad side”.

The Nabateans are basically background characters in both SB and GW, and for a game that is about expanding lore, this is insanely frustrating.

In fact, there is ultimately a lack of meaningful lore in general. I’ll circle back to this point a bit later.

I will say, at least, that Sothis is given somewhat of a redeeming moment... if you have recruited Byleth and watch his supports with Shez. In the A support, Byleth will comment that “maybe it was the goddess who said that it was Arval who tried to protect Shez out of love” after the events of the Side Chapters. Of course, the language plays coy, but the line suggests that Sothis was really the one who suggested that Arval had loved Shez (although we do not get to see her say it) and relayed the knowledge to Byleth as an act of kindness.

It’s not much, but it’s something.

---

With Byleth and Sothis more or less out of the way, what happens in this route when you decide to recruit Byleth, or to not recruit him?

Well, like SB, this is meant to be a moment that is harrow for the lords and their companions, as it was their actions that led up to this moment. In SB, it’s Edelgard struggling to keep her vassals in check that led to the death of Randolph. But in GW, it led to the death of Judith.

While I have harped thoroughly on GW so far, I do have to give some praise to chapter to better a better version of “losing someone” in Path B than SB tried to do. Randolph in SB remains an unexplored and underutilized character who’s most interesting feature is dying in AM as part of Dimitri’s recovery arc. SB did not give him the chance to breath in the narrative, so by the time his death scene rolled around, you find that you really don’t care all that much. It’s sad because the other characters are sad, but as for the player, you never got a chance to get attached.

GW, however, has given Judith time and space to be part of the cast, even if she isn’t playable (which was a missed opportunity to be sure). She’s right there with everyone else, voicing her concerns, laughing, scolding. Everyone loves her, and for good reason - she is charismatic and sort of Claude’s supportive adult-figure. You really do get the feeling that she is a beloved member of the crew, well respected and intelligent, and you yourself get the time to get more attached to her than anything Randolph had to offer.

Furthermore, the lesson taken from her death in Path B is far more important and meshes better narratively with GW than anything SB tried to drive home. I don’t think there really was a lesson in SB that came with Randolph’s death. It was just one of the many things that happens along the way while trying to put out fires.

But here, Judith’s death is a direct result of Claude’s foolish and brash actions where he allowed his newfound ally Randolph die in battle just so he could get the upper edge.

Fleche learns of her brother’s death, and is manipulated by a Slither in disguise (I believe it’s meant to be Myson) into wanting to seek revenge on Claude in return. So she raises a small army of her own and launches an attack on Claude in hopes to assassinate him. She brings along with her Jeralt’s mercenaries, which is how you end up facing Byleth one last time.

She ends up dying in this battle no matter what your choice ends up being, but if you take Path B, Jeralt also goes down in this battle too, along with Judith. This battle is literally due to Claude’s callous decision to sacrifice Randolph’s life, and this is when a lesson he should have learned back in chapter 9 seems to really pay off. Since Claude should have learned that sacrificing lives as he did was brash, here it comes back full circle and really gives him the chance to realize how badly he fucked up. That he cannot just do such schemes without paying some deep price for it. Frankly, it’s almost accidentally good here.

But what about Path A?

Path A unfortunately loses this lesson entirely. In SB, where there wasn’t a lesson to really be had, this difference isn’t as big. But here in GW, it’s a much bigger difference. Since Claude didn’t have to face losing out on the death of someone close to him, the consequences of his actions are significantly neutered.

In fact, there is almost no reflecting at all, instead the characters are more concerned with Byleth and with Claude not-so-subtly saying how great and wonderful Byleth is and so on and so forth.

Even SB still took some time to reflect on the deaths they at lost regardless.

Regardless of your choice, Judith becomes a non-entity after this in the story anyways. Her only purpose after this moment is to allow for access to Claude’s paralogue. So instead of writing scenes where she continues to exist organically in the story if she lives, she becomes a camp character no different than Randolph.

And I have to dock points off even more for GW not giving Byleth and Jeralt the time they needed in the route.

When chapter 10 rolls around, Byleth has appeared as an enemy uniquely to GW exactly 2 times. Just two. And in neither case were they has harrowing and terrifying as SB had given him the space to be.

In SB, Byleth and Jeralt bounce between the Alliance and the Kingdom looking for work until you finally face them in chapter 10. But in GW, they only ever work for the Empire. It does make sense, since the Kingdom had no reason to fight against the Federation (at least until now), so the Empire hiring them was really the only logical conclusion for this route.

However, GW actually gets to the skip skip earlier than SB by a chapter, giving Byleth less time in the early part of the war to have a presence at all. So by the time recruiting them came around, you don’t really feel like a proper antagonistic relationship between Shez and Byleth had been set up.

Frankly, the entire relationship between Byleth and Shez is generally poorly done.

I remember when I was first playing SB, I wondered what jobs Byleth and Shez had that had them cross paths in the first place. What destiny led them to them crossing blades? What big job was so important that led to their strained relationsh-

Oh, it was nothing, just a random job from some minor lords in a squabble, that’s it.

If you were like me, and had watched the trailers and viewed the box art, you probably came away with the conclusion that the rivalry between Shez and Byleth is meant to take center stage. Byleth and Shez face off in the art. They are the biggest characters on the box. They had a whole trailer dedicated to their big fight.

But it’s ultimately almost entirely meaningless. The big focus is the war- Shez and his beef with Byleth is a side feature that is basically over the moment you recruit him, or comes around for one more big battle with no resolution to who Shez is. The same is true for Sothis and Arval - they actually do not know each other personally, Arval is not a god, and Sothis just thinks Shez is a descendant of the Slithers.

Oh, and speaking of Shez, do you want to know more about his past and where he might have come from? Did you want to know about his connection with the Slithers more?

I’m afraid you are out of luck here yet again. SB skirted telling the players anything about Shez, teasing it constantly but never revealing anything. It is the same here but even worse - not only do they discuss Shez’s past even less than SB, they even practically throw out the Slithers from the plot except for one chapter.

Having the Slithers removed from the plot isn’t itself a problem - AM from Houses is a stronger story as a result of the Slithers being side-lined for a more character-driven story. But here, they still devote enough time to Slithers that it feels empty with them nearly gone.

Again, I must circle back to the Crimson Flower comparison. CF suffered because the Slithers were a decent threat but were relegated to “well, we will deal with them after the war is over” and as such, are only mentioned in the epilogues as being defeated in a shadow war.

It is the same here, were characters like Lysithea talk about the Slithers as a threat that must be dealt with, but unlike SB where Thales appears on the last map to die, the Slithers appear in a single map identical to their SB version, where they are just killing civilians.

For... some reason. Yet again.

In fact, the GW version is much sillier than the SB version, because in this route the opera company comes to help in the fight. This is just a contrived way to give the players a chance to recruit the allied Dorothea, but right before the battle everyone is slobbering over the idea of meeting the famous singers. At least SB was more serious in what the Slithers were doing from start to finish.

This is likely to set up the Side Chapters, where Shez faces the Slithers and Arval one last time (and ultimately leads to nowhere), but it feels completely out of place. It’s a single chapter devoted to the Slithers where you learn nothing about them at all, and it was forced upon you in a hasty retreat.

Yes, you read that right. A retreat. Again. Because you see, Claude and co decide to use Almyran ships to invade the Kingdom by sea.

----

The next two chapters follow Claude and his companions over the sea to invade the Kingdom and force Dimitri to give up the church, as Claude believes this is the course of action that will lead to the end of the war the quickest.

This, of course, catches Dimitri off guard because the Federation lacked the naval capability to launch such an assault, his lack of Claude’s Almyran back pockets notwithstanding.

Chapter 11 has us attacking a fortress in Felix’s territory, where Felix and Rodrigue escape thanks to the sacrifice of Sylvain’s father who came to their rescue, and chapter 12 has us attacking the Kingdom capital directly after that.

I must say that I found these two chapters particularly frustrating for a number of reasons.

Firstly, we learn that part of Claude’s plan to invade the Kingdom is to get the Kingdom’s long-time border-sharing, aggressive and antagonistic neighbors, Sreng, to attack in order to tie up many of the Kingdom’s troops. This, in turn, would make their smaller attack force have an easier time to force open the doors to Dimitri.

Claude spends quite a bit of time discussing how the Central Church, and by extension Foldan, does not allow for any relations with foreign nations. He complains about this, that the people of Foldan are xenophobic as a result of the Church preventing communication through doctrine. He wishes for nothing more than to force the borders open, to have the people of many lands learn from each other and converse freely.

Except his usage of the Sreng (whom he also manipulated into attacking) runs antithesis to these ideals. You cannot claim that people hate each other based on nationality alone and that people need to get along, only to turn around and cause a literal race war so that your own army gains favor in the battlefield. You cannot say those bolster your ideals, or be confused as to why people on the borders don’t like each other. How can a country get over their ancient feuds if you only flame the fires for your own ambitions?

It is no wonder the Kingdom doesn’t like the Sreng, when the Sreng can so easily be tricked into attack when they think they have the chance!

Not to mention that the side maps consists of mostly routing bandits, who see a chance to cause havoc due to your invasions.

And to top it all off, you kill Sylvain’s father, who died for his friends’ safety.

And what did Claude have to say about this great sacrifice?

This is followed by Claude criticizing the Kingdom’s code of chivalry, that it was chivalry that led to the Margrave’s death since he refused to give up or run away, and that he intended to create a world where such sacrifices would not be necessary.

In other words, this man invaded a foreign land, killed one of their leaders, and blamed their culture for it. Then topped it off with a call to change their culture.

Is that not horrific to think about? Not to mention that it ignores the reality that the Margrave died to protect his friends, not for some code of honor. He did it because he loved them and wanted them safe. But this does not occur to Claude.

(In fact, the Kingdom’s code of chivalry gets racked across the coals in both SB and GW as something disgusting).

And then, in chapter 12, Claude forces his way into Fhirdiad to “talk to Dimitri” to get the message into his “thick skull”. Claude had not bothered to send a message to Dimitri prior to this. He simply woke up and chose violence first.

What is also unsettlingly is the entire cast is on board with this plan. Like in SB, the playable cast sees no issue with invading the lands of those who did nothing to them, killing people along the way.

At least Dimitri evacuated the city prior to Claude’s invasion. But the lives of those soldiers who defended till the last will be on Claude’s hands, and the hands of his friends who were so excited about what they were doing that they would cheer.

The frustration goes further than that. I have picked out a few lines that I want to briefly go over.

In other words, Claude’s plan is to force Dimitri to give up the Church to remove the Empire’s moral crutch for the war. He believes that if the Church is gone, then the Empire will be unable to continue on because their reason for fighting in the first place will be eliminated.

Ignoring that House’s blatantly disproves this logic, Hopes allows Shez to mention that this plan might not work.

In camp dialogue.

Shez can rightfully point out that the Empire has intended to unite Foldan as well as remove the Church. After all, Edelgard still plans (by her own admission) to conquer the Federation, just no longer through military means! Not only does Claude openly agree with you, he still goes after the Church and will still continue to insist that the war will be over if the Church goes down!

And it’s not just him, the other characters firmly believe that the Church, and not the Empire, are at fault.

(Lorenz here is talking about the Margrave and how he died after they invaded).

And after all this, after you force Dimitri into submission and have the entirety of the Kingdom’s capital... you are ordered into a hasty retreat due to that single Slither event I mentioned before.

That’s right. You retreat out of nowhere not once, but twice in this route.

Not only does it feel artificial, that you would just leave after literally having the Kingdom on their knees like that, but it also feels callous. Remember that line from before, where Claude claims to do this war so that the fewest lives will be lost. Well, how can you claim that if you are so easily able to just run away before securing your victory for good?! All those lives, lost for no reason, since now Claude will have to march on the Kingdom once again in order to get the Church to be driven out.

It’s absolutely appalling that this route praises these actions as heroic and clever, rather than insane and cruel.

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The remainder of the review will be continued in a reblog in the near future, please look forward to it.