It could certainly be argued that Fire Emblem: Three Houses is the most complex release yet in the long-running strategy series, which is no mean feat considering the intimidating barrier to entry many previous games have had. It’s extremely rewarding, of course, but juggling time in the Monastery, building relationships with the various students and staff, and making the hard decisions over how you want to shape the growth of each unit in your squad can appear to be overwhelming to many newcomers.

Bearing this in mind, we’ve put together a guide with some pointers and suggestions that should help to ensure your first dozen hours or so are best spent.

Make the Most of Your Monastery Visits

One of the biggest new features in Three Houses is the free-roaming locale of Garreg Mach Monastery, which lets you pick up various sidequests and activities to bolster your character and team. You only get four visits max before the next big battle in any given month, so making your trips here count will be hugely important. Starting out, you’ll only have a couple of Professor Points to work with, but if you use your time here wisely, that cap can be raised reasonably quickly.

The first thing we’d suggest is that you always pay a visit to the Greenhouse (found on the south end of the map). You’ll naturally find yourself with a mountain of seeds between enemy drops, shop availability, and just finding them around the monastery, and using those seeds as much as possible will make your life a lot easier. The greenhouse can net you food for cooking, flowers for gifting, and stat-boosting items, along with granting you a nice bonus to your professor level after every harvest. Considering that this activity costs you no professor points and next to no money, there’s really no good reason not to visit each time you come to the monastery, and the rewards only increase further as you raise your professor level and unlock access to better yields.

After this, we’d suggest you invest your professor points into social activities that can raise the most possible stats at once. For example, if you choose to eat a meal with students, try to eat with students who both need the motivation bump and stand to gain a boost in their support levels with each other. Or, if you’re going to do an activity like singing with the choir, try to ask students who will benefit from the extra ‘Faith’ stat points and area compatible with each other in support conversations. It may not seem like much at first, but as the months roll by and you fall into a routine with these activities, the little extra bumps in stats will add up to some pretty substantial differences than if you just blew all your points on your favorite character whether they need the attention or not.

Also, remember to hand out gifts whenever possible. Not only does this raise your support level with the student, but it’ll also bump up their motivation for your next class. Even if it’s not something they’re overly fond of, you’ll still at least get a fixed uptick in motivation and support each time and, considering that there’s no limit on gift-giving, this is a reliable way to max out motivation. If you’ve been keeping up on your gardening, for example, you can have a stockpile of flowers to hand out to everyone and top off their motivation.

Don’t Forget to Update Character Arts and Abilities

Three Houses features a wonderfully flexible class system that allows any character to be any class (with a few exceptions) and master any weapon, but the real strength of this feature comes in how you’re able to carry over the benefits from your mastery regardless of how you might change the course of that character’s growth later on.

The caveat to this, however, is that you can only have three Combat Arts and five Abilities equipped at any given point. The game never explains this to you, but any new Arts or Abilities will simply go into storage if the character that learned them is already full, so make a habit of checking up on those via the inventory screen when they come in. Later Weapon Arts are often better than the ones learned earlier, and some Abilities (such as the ‘Faith’ skill) are literally useless to some classes. You can always re-equip anything you take off of a character, too, so don’t be afraid to experiment with new builds and see what works best for how you’re using that character.

The Basics of Monster Takedown

Relatively early in the story, you’ll be faced with a new ‘Monster’ enemy type that takes up four grid spaces at a time and has multiple health bars. These enemies are among some of the toughest foes you’ll do battle with and they require some slightly different tactics to take down. First, bear in mind that each monster has a ‘shield’ which needs to be broken before you can do full damage to it. The gold colour of each tile the monster is standing on will denote the shield status for that tile; if it’s streaked with white, that means the shield on that tile is almost broken, and if it’s gone, that means the monster takes full damage on that tile.

The monster will be stunned once the shield is broken, which will keep it from counterattacking against the next unit to fight it. In addition to this, bear in mind that Gambit attacks will not only target multiple tiles, but will also stun the monster so you can get in a free hit. Also, if you can manage to shatter every shield tile in one phase, the monster will be stunned for a full phase and you’ll be given a rare material for forging weapons with.

Keep Your Rusted Weapons

If you have the online features turned on, you’ll no doubt find yourself soon amassing a huge amount of seemingly useless rusted weapons out on the battlefield. While it’s easy to see these as little more than money fodder, make sure you check the descriptions for weapons before throwing them away. Though many of the weapons actually are garbage, some of them can be repaired into substantially powerful or rare equipment that you otherwise wouldn’t have had access to or would’ve had to pay mountains of cash for.

Be Decisive in Establishing Each Character’s Role

Three Houses features the most flexible class system in the series yet, but it’s still one that requires some time and investment to get the most out of. While we won’t say that you have to use each character as they’re clearly intended to be used from the start, we would advise that you have an endgame for each of them in mind, as later classes often have two or three minimum requirements for passing the certification exam.

For example, if you’re training up a female character in their sword skill, make sure you train up their flying skill along the way so you can eventually have them be a Falcon Knight or Wyvern Lord. You can, of course, change directions with a character at any time, but it’ll require some substantial extra investment to get their ‘E’ skills up to snuff, and you don’t want to have a character eligible for a Mastery class upgrade only to realize you hadn’t trained up one of the weapon skills necessary for a promotion.

Don’t Forget the Motion Controls

You may have already found this one, but it certainly bears mentioning. On the loading screens, a sprite of your character runs back and forth seemingly at random, but this is actually a little mini-game that the developers included to pass the time while the game loads. You can make the sprite run left and right depending on how far you tilt the controller to that side and if you tap ‘B’, the character will jump.

The Unity game engine just got another stable version release, Unity 2019.2.   As always it is available for download right now using the Unity Hub.  Unity 2019.2 contains over 170 new features and enhancements including updates to the ProBuilder and PolyShape plugins, a new 2D lightweight renderer supporting dynamic 2D lights, ShaderGraph updates and much more.

In this release we got much more comprehensive release notes, split across several files.

Or you can watch the video below to learn more about this release.  If you want to experiment with the new lightweight 2D renderer and lighting options you can start by cloning this project that was used in the video.

GameDev News Unity

Everyone is understandably eager for more Halo: Reach flighting. And understandably getting frustrated and impatient. We are eager and frustrated, too. We all want to get this into players’ hands as soon as possible. When it’s ready, it’s ready. Thanks for your support ?

— Brian Jarrard (@ske7ch) August 1, 2019

Here we are at the end of yet another week. The last few days brought us the inclusion of Dragon Quest’s Hero in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, the final major update for Splatoon 2, and a gas canister that has its very own profile on Wii Fit (just another ordinary week, then).

Now, though, it’s time to relax and chat about our weekend gaming plans. As is tradition, the Nintendo Life team has done just that below and we’d love for you to get involved via our poll and comment sections below. Enjoy!

Ollie Reynolds, reviewer

With the UK weather being so unpredictable at the moment, I won’t be taking any chances this weekend. I’ll be staying indoors and killing time with the delightful Forager, a game that has stolen my heart and simply won’t give it back!

I also recently purchased the original DOOM trilogy on Switch, so I’ll likely spend some time in the latter hours of the day blasting demons away in anticipation for DOOM Eternal later this year.

Liam Doolan, news reporter

After struggling to track down a physical copy of Fire Emblem: Three Houses last weekend, this weekend my plan is to finally spend some quality time getting to know my new friends in the Blue Lions house. I’ll also be taking some time to familiarise myself with the Hero’s moveset in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate while I wait for Dragon Quest XI S: Echoes of an Elusive Age – Definitive Edition to arrive on the Switch.

When I’m not playing either of these games, I expect to be returning to Hell in DOOM II and racing about in Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled. That’s it for me!

Gonçalo Lopes, contributing writer

Another weekend blissfully spent in the Summer of Switch. No massive new games out this week but when you have such a deluxe backlog, this is hardly a problem. I will have my doses of Fire Emblem: Three Houses, The Messenger, Blazing Chrome, Fantasy Strike, Vasara Collection and an incredible gem by the name of Zombie Driver: Immortal Edition.

My game of the week goes to the unexpected release of Saboteur II: Avenging Angel. Many years before I even knew what a Metroid was, this superior ZX Spectrum sequel introduced me to the ‘Metroidvania’ genre and I have been a fan ever since. It is fondly familiar to find this game again, 34 years later on the ultimate games console. Wonder if I still know the building layout from memory…

Austin Voigt, contributing writer

This weekend, I think I’ll finally be picking up Fire Emblem: Three Houses. It’s a bit of a game drought for me right now, so it seems to be a good time to get into something new. I’ll also be plugging away at Dragon Quest Builders 2, of course – and I’ve been back on a GameCube kick as well, so I’m sure a few of those throwback titles will be making their way into my plans this weekend.

Gavin Lane, staff writer

This weekend I shall be continuing to explore the charms of Omega Labyrinth Life. The list of exclamation points on the ‘Manual’ menu has grown very long and I’m still getting tool tips popping up with new information after several hours with the game. First impressions? It’s certainly colourful and these girls sure have some unorthodox ways of tending a garden. I’ve got a multitude of bugs to shoo, seeds to sow and dungeons to crawl ahead of me, so look out for the review next week.

Ryan Craddock, staff writer

It might sound weird to some, but I actually wanted Super Mario Maker 2 for the story more than for the whole playing levels made by strangers and making them myself. I managed to 100% build the castle a couple of weeks back, but I never got around to completing all of Toad’s jobs.

So, this weekend I’ll use any free time doing just that – I don’t think there are too many left to do now, but it’s actually left me wanting more Nintendo-designed levels rather than custom ones. Perhaps I should pick up a copy of New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe at some point?

Zion Grassl, video producer

Well, this weekend is a tough one for me as I’ve got quite a bit of free time (for once) but I also have too many games on my docket. I’m still powering my way slowly through Fire Emblem: Three Houses with my team of Golden Deer! Although, I’ve been slacking on my playthrough of Earthbound too. So hopefully, I’ll be able to give Ness and his pals some attention too!

I also just picked up the physical bundle for Starlink on Switch, as the deal was too good to pass up. So maybe I’ll take a break from strategizing my units to play with some toys!

As always, thanks for reading! Make sure to leave a vote in the poll above and a comment below with your gaming choices over the next few days…

Last year, Nintendo said Labo was a title and platform that would be supported and sold for a prolonged period of time. Staying true to its word, earlier this week the company released a special VR update for Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. This follows on from Labo VR updates for multiple other first-party Switch titles.

Now, to help spread the word about this magnificent cardboard tech, Nintendo has uploaded the second segment of its special video series with Labo director, Tsubasa Sakaguchi. In this brief three-minute video, you’ll hear Sakaguchi speak about how the concept for Labo came about and how VR was incorporated. Interestingly, basic VR research at Nintendo was already underway prior to Labo’s creation. Last, of all, you can find out what inspired the different gameplay concepts within the VR Kit.

And if you missed it, here’s part one:

View the full video above and tell us in the comments if you still enjoy playing Nintendo Labo and using the VR headset on a regular basis.

When fans of the blue blur got their first glimpse of the Sonic the Hedgehog movie, there was mass outrage online about the design of the character. Following the backlash, director Jeff Fowler made the decision to delay the film and vowed to change the controversial design. The film is now due out on Valentine’s Day 2020.

Although this decision has been praised online, it doesn’t necessarily reflect everyone. Jim Carrey, who plays Dr. Robotnik in the upcoming film, was recently asked about how he felt about the delay of the movie and Sonic redesign during the Television Critics Association presentation for his new Showtime series, Kidding.

He’s not quite sure about the audience being involved in the creative process, but does think it could be a case of people jumping on the bandwagon and not really caring about it:

I don’t know quite how I feel about the audience being in on the creation of it. We’ll see what that entails because sometimes you find that the collective consciousness decides it wants something and then when it gets it, ‘I just wanted it, I didn’t care about it. I just jumped on the bandwagon,’

He added:

Ownership of anything is going out the window for all of us.

What do you think about Carrey’s comments? Tell us below.

– The optional unit query panel has been removed. We started fixing a couple bugs with it and felt that the feature needed large design changes to be usable by a bigger portion of players, as less than 1% of players have used it after we added the option for it.

“Now we can just focus on making the game without worrying about keeping the lights on.”

– The Glumberland team shares one of the reasons they signed on with Epic’s store.

Ooblets is the latest game to sign on as an Epic Games Store exclusive on PC, and it’s a decision the development team candidly explained in a blog post on the game’s official site.

Epic Games Store exclusives, though often only exclusive to the storefront for a limited time, tend to draw a lot of ire online from people feverently against games signing deals with Epic for one reason or another.

But, while more and more games have signed on with the fledgling platform this year, not many have sat down to explain how and why the development team opted to go exclusive like Ooblets dev Glumberland has.

“So we had a big decision to make, and we didn’t take it lightly. Because Epic doesn’t yet have the same market share as their competitors, they offered us a minimum guarantee on sales that would match what we’d be wanting to earn if we were just selling Ooblets across all the stores,” explains the team.

“That takes a huge burden of uncertainty off of us because now we know that no matter what, the game won’t fail and we won’t be forced to move back in with our parents (but we do love and appreciate you, parents!).”

The rest of the blog post specifically addresses the two common complaints devs see after opting for an Epic Games Store deal, like the fledgling platform’s lack of features compared to Steam and the idea that exclusives are inherently anti-consumer.

On that second topic, Glumberland points out that the access to the Epic Games Store or other PC-based game platforms isn’t locked behind a subscription like exclusives on Netflix or Hulu, “it’s more like just having to press a button on your remote to change between free TV channels.”

“It’s also really disappointing to see folks threatening to pirate a game just because they can’t get it on the game launcher they’re used to,” continues the post. “Feeling like you’re owed the product of other people’s work on your terms or else you’ll steal it is the epitome of that word ‘entitlement’ that people use to discuss immature, toxic gamers.”

Starting today as a free content update, experienced Black Desert adventures can awaken the Ninja class in the newest update that lets you to play with new skills and abilities to deliver devastating damage, in addition to new world bosses that offer mighty weapon drops and a powerful piece of equipment to aid in your adventure.

To awaken the Ninja, you must first reach level 56 by completing quests and defeating enemies within the world of Black Desert. Then you’ll be given a quest that presents you with several challenges to overcome through heated battles. Once completed, the Ninja will gain the ability to equip the Sura, a powerful katana which slices through even the mightiest of foes with ease.

Three colossal world bosses have been introduced as well, providing a challenge for any Ninjas interested in testing their newfound skills. To help prepare you to take on each fierce titan, see the tips below:

• Karanda
  Leader of a fearsome group of harpies in Karanda Ridge. Karanda will stop at nothing to protect the nest and will fight players to the bitter end. Defeating this formidable boss will unlock the Dandelion weapon box, which contains an Awakening Weapon.
• Quint
  A massive troll that turns to stone (protection from attacks). Invulnerable while standing, adventurers must attack its legs to bring him to the floor. Once it’s brought down, player attacks can inflict incredible damage.
• Muraka
  Residing in the depths of the Mansha forest, it has disrupted the once peaceful region and left destruction in its wake. While slow moving, watch out for its powerful attacks, which can take down even the most skilled players.

Adventurers that have hit level 61 and 62 can now receive Black Desert’s newest equipment items: the Capotia accessories. Available as rings or earrings, these items offer increased attack damage.

With Black Desert available with Xbox Game Pass, now’s the perfect time for veteran players to experience today’s new content.

Black Desert is available now for Xbox One on the Microsoft Store and with Xbox Game Pass. Click here for additional information and purchase details.