The first Fire Emblem Warriors felt more like a warriors game with a Fire Emblem skin. You could command your allies around the map, but that was about the extent of the strategy. Three Hopes, meanwhile, feels much more like a Fire Emblem game with musou style combat. There's a much bigger focus on strategy and what occurs outside of combat compared to FE:W. Whether this is a good or bad thing probably depends on you, but I've been enjoying it.

Now, I'm going to rank the characters from each house. Some characters can join on multiple routes, and the Ashen Wolves I believe can join everybody. I will rank the characters according to the house they "belong" to and will add them as I play through the different routes, so check back later for more updates.

Golden Deer

Claude: Mr. Strategy, the man with the plan. Bows are just ok in this game, but Joe Zieja gives a great performance as Claude, as he did in Three Houses. Also, he's got serious pipes and for that, Claude gets a 9.9/10.Here's the man himself telling you why you should buy this game.

Holst: Absolute legend. Badass booming voice, amazing spiky pink hair, huge muscles. And that imposing figure! Holst is a perfect 10/10. Sorry Claude, there's a new favorite in town. (I didn't even know Holst was voiced by Sungwon Cho, who runs one of my favorite Youtube channels until after I wrote this lol)

Hilda: The axe moveset feels a bit sluggish, but she puts out big damage. And she's related to best boy Holst, so that's a solid 8.3/10.

Ignatz: He's a benchwarmer, 5/10

Raphael: Cares for his family, I could feasibly see him saying "I fight for my friends", real good at punching, solid 7.2/10

Lysithea: She's as much a beast as she was in Three Houses, 8.5/10

Marianne: Kinda boring as a character but she freezes nearby enemies at 300+ hit count which is effective. 8/10

Lorenz: Noble asshole, but he's still better than Leonie if you need a spear user. I usually have him as one of the nonplayable units on the map. 6.2/10

Leonie: Even in a game where Jeralt is your enemy, he's still the entire facet of Leonie's personality. 2/10, get a real personality!

Blue Lions

Black Eagles

Bernadetta: Weaponized social anxiety, I like that you still have to talk to her behind a door in Three Hopes. 6/10

Petra: I want to like Petra because she was a monster in my 3 Houses game, but she has a weak unique ability (dodge focused), cool outfit though. 6.5/10 for now, might change when I actually do black eagle route.

Ashen Wolves

Balthus: S tier for farming, his unique ability gives gold whenever you send enemies flying at 300+ hit count. He's a lovable scamp with a gambling addiction, 8.8/10

Constance: Good unique support ability as a mage adjutant. I don't have strong feelings on Constance in either direction, 6/10

Hapi: Classic dark mage, good adjutant if fighting monsters, 6/10 for now

Yuri: Weak unique ability, but he looks fly as hell. Best new outfit of the whole game. 9.5/10 on appearances alone

Church/Other

Shez: New main character, I'm a fan. As is the case in most Fire Emblem games, the main character is OP as hell, so 9.8/10

Shamir: The strong, silent type. Bit of an edgelord but dependable in a fight. 7.7/10

Byleth: Been there done that, 7.9/10 too much Sothis

Jeralt: Immediately fawned over by Leonie, 5/10 by association only because he has good skills.

Honestly, pretty good! This is a spin-off title so I won't compare it to the mainline Warriors games, but it's very good. Fire Emblem Warriors and Hyrule Warriors (the first one) are probably my other favorite spin-off titles. I really wanted to like Persona 5 Strikers since I love Persona 5, but I struggled to stay engaged with it for some reason. I might try to go back to it at some point.

The performance is decent. It's an unlocked frame rate but it's pretty close to 30 fps most of the time. It's certainly better in the performance department than Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity. That game literally hurts my eyes. It would have been my other favorite spin-off if not for the performance. Perhaps if a "Switch Pro" ever comes out, it'll be good.

As I mentioned at the start of this article, Three Hopes does a really good job of feeling like a true successor to Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It helps that Koei did a lot of work on Three Houses so they were able to re-use a lot of the assets. In my opinion, this is the closest a spin-off musou game has gotten to nailing the feeling of the source material.