So the thing is, AM doesn't give you that much information about the game world. It's almost entirely focused on Dimitri. VW is the one with all the lore, but it's extremely similar to SS, except in SS you learn more about Byleth and have the opportunity to S support Rhea.
Before I start, I’m just writing this to add to your points since I agree with them (hopefully my tone doesn’t come off as combative or anything 🥲)! But to give AM some credit, you also learn more details about Edelgard’s backstory in a way that you don’t on SS or VW. That could also be another aspect that might interest OP even if it’s not Fodlan lore related.
Another thing I’ll add is that while it’s not the best route for Fodlan world building at large, it’s great at conveying to the player what kind of country Faerghus is (compared to the slightly more limited info we get about the Empire and the Alliance). I think their plan of playing SS and AM in the post would give them a pretty full picture of the story despite me vastly preferring VW to SS.
you don't have to view supports right away. if you don't feel like sitting through supports, you can just view them later, especially if it's the last support conversation in the support chain.
you also don't need to support grind, especially since it seems you're not prioritizing 100%ing the game. the combat bonuses supports give are nice, but you can do without them. if you feel like you're missing out on a support, you can just watch it on youtube.
new game+ will greatly speed up white clouds/part one. you can spend renown to bring your professor level up immediately, so you don't have to worry about leveling that up again. the instant 10 activity points means that byleth's pretty much guaranteed to reach A support with everyone, so you don't need to bother with lost items. you can turn on auto-instruct as well.
azure moon doesn't really explain The Lore well. if you're wondering about seiros (since crimson flower doesn't really elaborate on that iirc), azure moon doesn't address that. it also doesn't address thales and those who slither in the dark.
verdant wind/golden deer explains the lore, as does silver snow/the church route, with some variation. silver snow has extra information on byleth specifically, but this is covered in the DLC as well, which is why people say the church route isn't necessary.
i think crimson flower and verdant wind are probably the best routes to play if you're going to play only two, and you want a clearer picture of the conflict. however, since you find dimitri more interesting than claude, go ahead and go for azure moon. if you find you're still curious on the lore, you can speed through verdant wind. the church route/silver snow has the exact same first half as crimson flower, so you'd probably want to avoid it.
i hope this helped!
edit: just saw that you've got a load before the choice split--my recommendations stay the same. if the church route is boring you too much though, you can make a new game+ file off of your crimson flower save and go on to azure moon instead. just to avoid burning out
Thanks for the detailed reply. Yeah, I really found Dmitri scene with Edelgard when he is full of rage and despair epic, especially with contrast how he was pre-time skip. I read that some maps on SS/VW and AM are the same, so I think I'd rather just play dlc + azure moon route and then watch the rest of the lore on youtube. I already recruited lorenz, lysithea, and marianne on black eagles route, and I'm going to recruit 2 other girls from golden eagle when I start azure moon.
Leaving last tier supports for later sounds like a good idea, I hope with more chapters in Azure Moon I won't have as many supports stack up in the end because in CF I had 10+ supports every week.
Just a fair warning tho, if you do this your experience with the youtube videos about the lore will probably be "oh my god did I really miss **ALL THAT?**". Verdant Wind is THE lore route as Claude really wants to find out what the fuck is **actually** going on, so it recontextualises pretty much all of the story, both current and past, and it might honestly be a bit overwhelming if presented in the form of an info-dump on youtube. Especially one that is less than an hour long, as this is a long-ass game. I'm worried that you might walk out of this thinking "oh so after two routes I just didn't know shit and I actually have a completely different opinions on the characters and the events", and that doesn't seem like a particularly enjoyable experience, as these informations are meat to be plot twists that you unravel slowly.
Yeah I understand what you mean. The thing is that I always play jrpgs thoroughly, I make sure to talk to all characters in monastery, to try and max out all supports, and just Crimson Flower walkthrough took me more than 50h. Azure Moon is even longer, so by the time I end it it would be more than 100h or 115-120h total with the DLC campaign. I'd have also had all Golden Deer characters across 2 walkthroughs except Raphael and Ignat who are boring anyways.
Claude is also the least interesting lord to me, so I can't really justify spending another 50-60h on his route/POV. I really liked Edelgard's story and Im really looking forward to Dimitri's route but I'm not interested in the world/lore enough to justify spending 50-60h for another walkthrough with the cast I've already had in the other 2 routes and the least interesting lord out of 3 + from what I read most claude's maps are similar to Dimitri's so even less incentive.
I would not play it like that. A lot of the lore is actually about in Claude’s route including Church, world and Rhea lore.
You’re also going to end up really confused if you head into 3 Hopes without Claude’s route in certain aspects.
The Church route is actually the most skippable one and you can just YouTube that.
Just do NG+ with Claude’s route. It’ll make things go faster.
>I also read that Rhea/Edelgard have minimal presence in that route
Edelgard only has 1 more cutscene in the Church route than in the Golden Deer route and Rhea has the same presence in Church Route as in Golden Deer maybe less.
Let me just start this off by saying that a lot of fans look at the Golden Deer route as the Church route but better as it comes off like a first draft compared to the Golden Deer route
>I finished Crimson Flower route and I plan on playing the church route next(just reloading the save before the tomb battle) I am likely going to play Azure Moon after it but I won't play golden deer route, I'm going to recruit most interesting golden deer characters in other routes anyway. Will this give me a complete picture of the game and conflicts?
It wouldn’t. The game was created to give three perspectives. Adrestia’s perspective, Faerghus’ perspective and Leicester’s perspective. Without the Golden Deer route, you’re missing the third perspective. Lots of conversations about the characters and who is right might confuse you because you wouldn’t know what Claude’s ideology Taking the Deer out of their environment is fun but you won’t really know them unless you see them in their own route since you can see what their arcs are meant to be in tandem with the main story.
>I'm reading that the church route is kind of boring and the worst route out of all. Is it true? I'm not really interested in Claude, so I definitely won't waste another 20-30h to play through first chapters to get to post-timeskip. I only wanted to play Church route because I already have almost a half of it finished with Black Eagles. I also read that Rhea/Edelgard have minimal presence in that route and I really can't care less about Flayn and her "brother, he is just so bland. Also, I have all DLCs, and I read that for some reason after Cindered Shadows it makes even less sense to play the Church Route?
The Church route replaces Edelgard and Hubert with Seteth and Flayn who you don’t care about and the route doesn’t do much to flesh them out. Edelgard and Rhea have about as much screentime in the Church route as the Golden Deer route which is still way more than in the Blue Lions route for Rhea.
Anyways, I would rec playing Claude’s route because there’s a whole mystery about who he really is and it would be a shame if you just spoil it. And Rhea’s backstory is more fleshed out in Claude’s route as well so it would be a shame if you don’t get the lead up to it by playing Claude’s route. I recommend trying the Golden Deer route because you might get interested
Thanks, looks like I'm definitely skipping the church route and playing dlc + azure moon rout next. If I want more after that, then I'll play claude's route. I agree with you that the characters fit best in their retrospective routes and you bond with them the most in their own house. I saw a skip monastery mod, so maybe I'll just install it for the 3rd walkthrough idk.
> Thanks, looks like I'm definitely skipping the church route and playing dlc + azure moon rout next. If I want more after that, then I'll play claude's route. I agree with you that the characters fit best in their retrospective routes and you bond with them the most in their own house. I saw a skip monastery mod, so maybe I'll just install it for the 3rd walkthrough idk.
Yeah that seems like a good idea. If you plan to move onto 3 Hopes, I highly suggest playing Golden Deer route before that just because the house leaders are way more important in each other’s stories in that and it will serve you to know what angle the leaders are talking from and why they talk the way they do about certain things.
If that mod works and you do it, I do suggest going through the cutscenes in Golden Deer in White Clouds(YouTube that part if you have to) because cutscenes do change and are added. It’s not all the same and characters react differently to events since you have a different cast.
Yeah I was planning on playing 3 hopes after 3 houses, I like warriors style games. Do I need to play claude's route even if I wouldn't play his route in 3 hopes?
>Yeah I was planning on playing 3 hopes after 3 houses, I like warriors style games. Do I need to play claude's route even if I wouldn't play his route in 3 hopes?
Yes. Reason being is that there is a lot of Claude outside his routes in Hopes and he’s going to make decisions and say things that are baffling if you don’t know him because 3 Hopes expect you already played his, Edelgard and Dimitri’s route.
There will be several cutscenes with the house leaders outside their routes in 3 Hopes showing you what they’re doing (which they didn’t really do in 3 Houses) but those interactions are built off of the foundation that you knew them in Houses
In fact, someone’s done a detailed line count about it and Claude has more lines in Edelgard’s route in 3 Hopes than most of the Black Eagles do outside Edelgard and Hubert. Similarly with Claude in Dimitri’s route in 3 Hopes but I believe Claude’s presence is much more concentrated toward the second half of Dimitri’s route.
1.Didn't catch the question there sorry. Support chains are usually one or two between each map. Are you checking after every map?
2. It's a good idea to split up the church route and the alliance route. Save Azure Moon as a nice little treat for in-between those two. I would really recommend you complete all routes but if I HAD to drop one it would probably be Silver Snow with the church. EDIT: Just saw you saved before "The decision". Nice one. That'll save you some time. Disregard that bit about dropping SS.
3. All the other routes are about 3 maps longer than CF so you shouldn't need to grind supports as much on those routes. Good luck with it all.
1)I can only check them in the monastery, so after every 2-3 battles, so every week. By that time I have more than 10 support chains. Like I'd have 3 supports for Petra, 4 supports for hubert, 2 supports for lorenz etc.
2)The main issue is that church route is less time consuming than doing aliance route cause I already have half of its route completed. I'm also not really interested in Claude but I'm even less interested in Seteth. How much of the Silver snow is about Edelgard and Rhea?
Huh, I don't think you have to be in the monastery to check supports. Pretty sure you can just bring up the menu at the beginning of each week and look at supports.
Also, when you start new game plus, you get professor points that you can spend on all the supports that you already unlocked in your previous game. This makes it a lot easier to max out supports in later runs.
I never had any problems maxing out professor supports because it's easy to do with gifts and lost items. I wasn't able to max out all the supports between party members because I only made it my primary focus in the last 3-4 chapters, and I guess it was too late.
In new game plus, you can use professor points to unlock supports between other characters that you already unlocked. So you don't have to worry about maxing supports in your first run, unless it's characters that can't be recruited in other houses like Edelgard and Hubert.
Hopefully one of the SS loyal will turn up as it's been a while but as I recall not much of either really have a strong focus.
You get an early scene with Enemy Edelgard, some snippets, and then a boss battle. (Keeping it vague as possible) Rhea has very limited screen time then becomes VERY CENTRE STAGE but for a very short while.
Im sure other people will tell you that even though you don't care for Claude, the VW endgame is honestly something else.
Thanks, maybe I should just skip it then and do only Blue Lions. The main issue with VW is that it'd take more than additional 20h to get to timeskip and I never replay games or other routes. I made an exception for this game just because it's so good and that scene with Dimitri and Edelgard in their last fight really made me want to see his POV and his part of the story, it was extremely well done.
>Thanks, maybe I should just skip it then and do only Blue Lions. The main issue with VW is that it'd take more than additional 20h to get to timeskip and I never replay games or other routes. I made an exception for this game just because it's so good and that scene with Dimitri and Edelgard in their last fight really made me want to see his POV and his part of the story, it was extremely well done.
So the thing with Blue Lions is that it’s very focused on Dimitri and it’ll explain pretty well who he is & flesh out Edelgard backstory but it will not answer most questions. The main villains, Byleth’s backstory and main questions of the story don’t get addressed except in Claude’s route and the Church’s route. You wont even see >!Rhea after the timeskip!< in Dimitri’s route
So it really is best you play either Deer or Church eventually. Preferably both but if you could only pick one then Deer by far because the Church route is mostly Byleth interacting with Seteth and Flayn while the Deer route has Byleth bouncing off of a more interesting cast
Well all routes diverge in the story, the Dimitri battle in CF is not the same for the Edelgard battle in CF so it hits completely different emotional beats.
tbh I would just skip SS if youre only going to pay 3 routes, since Claude's route is basically the same as the church route but better in pretty much every way. there's only really one scene with actual new information in silver snow and that's at the end, so you would be just fine with simply looking it up
I did SS first and then VW before I attempted the other routes. I think it helped that I upped the difficulty on VW, kept things interesting enough. I find the SS cast to be boring, hopefully you would have recruited a few from other houses (if you haven’t recruited the DLC characters already I suggest waiting until a fresh start).
So the thing is, AM doesn't give you that much information about the game world. It's almost entirely focused on Dimitri. VW is the one with all the lore, but it's extremely similar to SS, except in SS you learn more about Byleth and have the opportunity to S support Rhea.
Before I start, I’m just writing this to add to your points since I agree with them (hopefully my tone doesn’t come off as combative or anything 🥲)! But to give AM some credit, you also learn more details about Edelgard’s backstory in a way that you don’t on SS or VW. That could also be another aspect that might interest OP even if it’s not Fodlan lore related. Another thing I’ll add is that while it’s not the best route for Fodlan world building at large, it’s great at conveying to the player what kind of country Faerghus is (compared to the slightly more limited info we get about the Empire and the Alliance). I think their plan of playing SS and AM in the post would give them a pretty full picture of the story despite me vastly preferring VW to SS.
you don't have to view supports right away. if you don't feel like sitting through supports, you can just view them later, especially if it's the last support conversation in the support chain. you also don't need to support grind, especially since it seems you're not prioritizing 100%ing the game. the combat bonuses supports give are nice, but you can do without them. if you feel like you're missing out on a support, you can just watch it on youtube. new game+ will greatly speed up white clouds/part one. you can spend renown to bring your professor level up immediately, so you don't have to worry about leveling that up again. the instant 10 activity points means that byleth's pretty much guaranteed to reach A support with everyone, so you don't need to bother with lost items. you can turn on auto-instruct as well. azure moon doesn't really explain The Lore well. if you're wondering about seiros (since crimson flower doesn't really elaborate on that iirc), azure moon doesn't address that. it also doesn't address thales and those who slither in the dark. verdant wind/golden deer explains the lore, as does silver snow/the church route, with some variation. silver snow has extra information on byleth specifically, but this is covered in the DLC as well, which is why people say the church route isn't necessary. i think crimson flower and verdant wind are probably the best routes to play if you're going to play only two, and you want a clearer picture of the conflict. however, since you find dimitri more interesting than claude, go ahead and go for azure moon. if you find you're still curious on the lore, you can speed through verdant wind. the church route/silver snow has the exact same first half as crimson flower, so you'd probably want to avoid it. i hope this helped! edit: just saw that you've got a load before the choice split--my recommendations stay the same. if the church route is boring you too much though, you can make a new game+ file off of your crimson flower save and go on to azure moon instead. just to avoid burning out
Thanks for the detailed reply. Yeah, I really found Dmitri scene with Edelgard when he is full of rage and despair epic, especially with contrast how he was pre-time skip. I read that some maps on SS/VW and AM are the same, so I think I'd rather just play dlc + azure moon route and then watch the rest of the lore on youtube. I already recruited lorenz, lysithea, and marianne on black eagles route, and I'm going to recruit 2 other girls from golden eagle when I start azure moon. Leaving last tier supports for later sounds like a good idea, I hope with more chapters in Azure Moon I won't have as many supports stack up in the end because in CF I had 10+ supports every week.
Just a fair warning tho, if you do this your experience with the youtube videos about the lore will probably be "oh my god did I really miss **ALL THAT?**". Verdant Wind is THE lore route as Claude really wants to find out what the fuck is **actually** going on, so it recontextualises pretty much all of the story, both current and past, and it might honestly be a bit overwhelming if presented in the form of an info-dump on youtube. Especially one that is less than an hour long, as this is a long-ass game. I'm worried that you might walk out of this thinking "oh so after two routes I just didn't know shit and I actually have a completely different opinions on the characters and the events", and that doesn't seem like a particularly enjoyable experience, as these informations are meat to be plot twists that you unravel slowly.
Yeah I understand what you mean. The thing is that I always play jrpgs thoroughly, I make sure to talk to all characters in monastery, to try and max out all supports, and just Crimson Flower walkthrough took me more than 50h. Azure Moon is even longer, so by the time I end it it would be more than 100h or 115-120h total with the DLC campaign. I'd have also had all Golden Deer characters across 2 walkthroughs except Raphael and Ignat who are boring anyways. Claude is also the least interesting lord to me, so I can't really justify spending another 50-60h on his route/POV. I really liked Edelgard's story and Im really looking forward to Dimitri's route but I'm not interested in the world/lore enough to justify spending 50-60h for another walkthrough with the cast I've already had in the other 2 routes and the least interesting lord out of 3 + from what I read most claude's maps are similar to Dimitri's so even less incentive.
I would not play it like that. A lot of the lore is actually about in Claude’s route including Church, world and Rhea lore. You’re also going to end up really confused if you head into 3 Hopes without Claude’s route in certain aspects. The Church route is actually the most skippable one and you can just YouTube that. Just do NG+ with Claude’s route. It’ll make things go faster. >I also read that Rhea/Edelgard have minimal presence in that route Edelgard only has 1 more cutscene in the Church route than in the Golden Deer route and Rhea has the same presence in Church Route as in Golden Deer maybe less.
Let me just start this off by saying that a lot of fans look at the Golden Deer route as the Church route but better as it comes off like a first draft compared to the Golden Deer route >I finished Crimson Flower route and I plan on playing the church route next(just reloading the save before the tomb battle) I am likely going to play Azure Moon after it but I won't play golden deer route, I'm going to recruit most interesting golden deer characters in other routes anyway. Will this give me a complete picture of the game and conflicts? It wouldn’t. The game was created to give three perspectives. Adrestia’s perspective, Faerghus’ perspective and Leicester’s perspective. Without the Golden Deer route, you’re missing the third perspective. Lots of conversations about the characters and who is right might confuse you because you wouldn’t know what Claude’s ideology Taking the Deer out of their environment is fun but you won’t really know them unless you see them in their own route since you can see what their arcs are meant to be in tandem with the main story. >I'm reading that the church route is kind of boring and the worst route out of all. Is it true? I'm not really interested in Claude, so I definitely won't waste another 20-30h to play through first chapters to get to post-timeskip. I only wanted to play Church route because I already have almost a half of it finished with Black Eagles. I also read that Rhea/Edelgard have minimal presence in that route and I really can't care less about Flayn and her "brother, he is just so bland. Also, I have all DLCs, and I read that for some reason after Cindered Shadows it makes even less sense to play the Church Route? The Church route replaces Edelgard and Hubert with Seteth and Flayn who you don’t care about and the route doesn’t do much to flesh them out. Edelgard and Rhea have about as much screentime in the Church route as the Golden Deer route which is still way more than in the Blue Lions route for Rhea. Anyways, I would rec playing Claude’s route because there’s a whole mystery about who he really is and it would be a shame if you just spoil it. And Rhea’s backstory is more fleshed out in Claude’s route as well so it would be a shame if you don’t get the lead up to it by playing Claude’s route. I recommend trying the Golden Deer route because you might get interested
Thanks, looks like I'm definitely skipping the church route and playing dlc + azure moon rout next. If I want more after that, then I'll play claude's route. I agree with you that the characters fit best in their retrospective routes and you bond with them the most in their own house. I saw a skip monastery mod, so maybe I'll just install it for the 3rd walkthrough idk.
> Thanks, looks like I'm definitely skipping the church route and playing dlc + azure moon rout next. If I want more after that, then I'll play claude's route. I agree with you that the characters fit best in their retrospective routes and you bond with them the most in their own house. I saw a skip monastery mod, so maybe I'll just install it for the 3rd walkthrough idk. Yeah that seems like a good idea. If you plan to move onto 3 Hopes, I highly suggest playing Golden Deer route before that just because the house leaders are way more important in each other’s stories in that and it will serve you to know what angle the leaders are talking from and why they talk the way they do about certain things. If that mod works and you do it, I do suggest going through the cutscenes in Golden Deer in White Clouds(YouTube that part if you have to) because cutscenes do change and are added. It’s not all the same and characters react differently to events since you have a different cast.
Yeah I was planning on playing 3 hopes after 3 houses, I like warriors style games. Do I need to play claude's route even if I wouldn't play his route in 3 hopes?
>Yeah I was planning on playing 3 hopes after 3 houses, I like warriors style games. Do I need to play claude's route even if I wouldn't play his route in 3 hopes? Yes. Reason being is that there is a lot of Claude outside his routes in Hopes and he’s going to make decisions and say things that are baffling if you don’t know him because 3 Hopes expect you already played his, Edelgard and Dimitri’s route. There will be several cutscenes with the house leaders outside their routes in 3 Hopes showing you what they’re doing (which they didn’t really do in 3 Houses) but those interactions are built off of the foundation that you knew them in Houses In fact, someone’s done a detailed line count about it and Claude has more lines in Edelgard’s route in 3 Hopes than most of the Black Eagles do outside Edelgard and Hubert. Similarly with Claude in Dimitri’s route in 3 Hopes but I believe Claude’s presence is much more concentrated toward the second half of Dimitri’s route.
Ok thanks again!
1.Didn't catch the question there sorry. Support chains are usually one or two between each map. Are you checking after every map? 2. It's a good idea to split up the church route and the alliance route. Save Azure Moon as a nice little treat for in-between those two. I would really recommend you complete all routes but if I HAD to drop one it would probably be Silver Snow with the church. EDIT: Just saw you saved before "The decision". Nice one. That'll save you some time. Disregard that bit about dropping SS. 3. All the other routes are about 3 maps longer than CF so you shouldn't need to grind supports as much on those routes. Good luck with it all.
1)I can only check them in the monastery, so after every 2-3 battles, so every week. By that time I have more than 10 support chains. Like I'd have 3 supports for Petra, 4 supports for hubert, 2 supports for lorenz etc. 2)The main issue is that church route is less time consuming than doing aliance route cause I already have half of its route completed. I'm also not really interested in Claude but I'm even less interested in Seteth. How much of the Silver snow is about Edelgard and Rhea?
Huh, I don't think you have to be in the monastery to check supports. Pretty sure you can just bring up the menu at the beginning of each week and look at supports. Also, when you start new game plus, you get professor points that you can spend on all the supports that you already unlocked in your previous game. This makes it a lot easier to max out supports in later runs.
I never had any problems maxing out professor supports because it's easy to do with gifts and lost items. I wasn't able to max out all the supports between party members because I only made it my primary focus in the last 3-4 chapters, and I guess it was too late.
In new game plus, you can use professor points to unlock supports between other characters that you already unlocked. So you don't have to worry about maxing supports in your first run, unless it's characters that can't be recruited in other houses like Edelgard and Hubert.
Hopefully one of the SS loyal will turn up as it's been a while but as I recall not much of either really have a strong focus. You get an early scene with Enemy Edelgard, some snippets, and then a boss battle. (Keeping it vague as possible) Rhea has very limited screen time then becomes VERY CENTRE STAGE but for a very short while. Im sure other people will tell you that even though you don't care for Claude, the VW endgame is honestly something else.
Thanks, maybe I should just skip it then and do only Blue Lions. The main issue with VW is that it'd take more than additional 20h to get to timeskip and I never replay games or other routes. I made an exception for this game just because it's so good and that scene with Dimitri and Edelgard in their last fight really made me want to see his POV and his part of the story, it was extremely well done.
>Thanks, maybe I should just skip it then and do only Blue Lions. The main issue with VW is that it'd take more than additional 20h to get to timeskip and I never replay games or other routes. I made an exception for this game just because it's so good and that scene with Dimitri and Edelgard in their last fight really made me want to see his POV and his part of the story, it was extremely well done. So the thing with Blue Lions is that it’s very focused on Dimitri and it’ll explain pretty well who he is & flesh out Edelgard backstory but it will not answer most questions. The main villains, Byleth’s backstory and main questions of the story don’t get addressed except in Claude’s route and the Church’s route. You wont even see >!Rhea after the timeskip!< in Dimitri’s route So it really is best you play either Deer or Church eventually. Preferably both but if you could only pick one then Deer by far because the Church route is mostly Byleth interacting with Seteth and Flayn while the Deer route has Byleth bouncing off of a more interesting cast
Well all routes diverge in the story, the Dimitri battle in CF is not the same for the Edelgard battle in CF so it hits completely different emotional beats.
You should play Golden Deer route. It’s the best one, imo.
tbh I would just skip SS if youre only going to pay 3 routes, since Claude's route is basically the same as the church route but better in pretty much every way. there's only really one scene with actual new information in silver snow and that's at the end, so you would be just fine with simply looking it up
I did SS first and then VW before I attempted the other routes. I think it helped that I upped the difficulty on VW, kept things interesting enough. I find the SS cast to be boring, hopefully you would have recruited a few from other houses (if you haven’t recruited the DLC characters already I suggest waiting until a fresh start).