We really got something special for Valentine’s day in the form of what might be the final DLC for Fire Emblem: Three Houses.  The DLC involves a new basement area of Garreg Mach Monastery called the Abyss which houses four students we’ve never seen before.  The students make up a new house called the Ashen Wolves who are experiencing some trouble with outsiders trying to make their way into their domain.  This side story takes place separate from all of the other Fire Emblem paths, but the question is how great is the content?

The side story adds an interesting bit of lore to the already well-developed world of Fire Emblem: Three Houses.  It features an item that supposedly has the power to restore someone back to life but was never used successfully.   As we navigate through the Abyss we soon find out that the outsiders forcing their way into the Abyss are trying to get this item.  The story itself is rather to the point and predictable in comparison to the other paths because it’s condensed to seven total chapters so instead of focusing on a complex story the DLC focuses on world-building and character development.

We find out quite a bit about the Ashen Wolves throughout the story and what motivated/forced each member to live in the Abyss of the Monastery.  We also get so much interaction with each member that we gain incredible insight into the characteristics of each new character.  I found it easy to like every member of the Ashen Wolves and they were very different from the characters we’ve already seen.

The maps are considerably more difficult than in the main game.  Your enemies immediately start off with strong weapons and the second map has about three waves of reinforcements. You also don’t get the opportunities to level grind like you do in the main game so you really have to consider which characters are being left behind in the level growth.  It really felt like playing an older version of Fire Emblem and it gave me a bit of a nostalgic feeling.  The final boss was fairly tricky too with moves that I’ve never seen before in the franchise.  I never used so many healing items in one map but it was worth it to see the end of this content.

Overall I really enjoyed the side story.  It’s not a lot of story content so it doesn’t take much time to beat, but every moment was really entertaining and all the characters were amazing. I feel this combined with the other DLC makes it worth the $25 price tag for fans of the series.  Especially since upon beating the DLC you can unlock the characters in each of the other paths of the game and unlock their support conversations to get to know these characters even further.