How to get the most out of your free days in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

Fire Emblem: Three Houses gives its main character, Byleth, occasional "free days" to choose their activities at Garreg Mach Monastery. When this happens, you're given four options: Explore, Seminar, Battle, and Rest. But some of those options are more efficient than others.

When you reach your free days in Fire Emblem: Three Houses, here's a guide to how best to spend them:

• Guide the next generation of leaders: Fire Emblem: Three Houses ($60 at Amazon)

How to get the most out of your free days in Fire Emblem: Three Houses

1. Never pick Rest
2. Only pick Seminar if you need multiple students to get an extra boost in a specific Skill -- it's not a very efficient way to spend time
3. Pick Battle if you have already chosen Explore that month already, and need to level up or do battle-only quests
4. Otherwise, Explore is usually the best option
5. When exploring, always Garden, Fish, and talk to everyone
6. Do all **Quests* that are available to you
7. Always Cook to give your armies a stat boost and Share a meal to raise motivation and affection
8. Raise student motivation by Finding lost items and Giving gifts
9. Explore every room in the monastery to find items
10. Respond to all advice requests in the church
11. Spend renown to restore saint statues and get stat boosts
12. If you have energy left, use that to Attend choir practice and raise your Faith stat, Participate in tournaments to win items and gold, or **Train with instructors* to raise Byleth's skills

Why not Rest?

Resting raises student motivation and also restores the durability of the Sword of the Creator. However, you can do the latter at the Blacksmith (for a cost), and the former doesn't raise student motivation as effectively as you can by buying gifts for students and targeting the ones you want to have high motivation.

When are Seminars a good choice?

Seminars aren't as effective at strengthening your units as Explore and Battle are, but they do have their place. If you've already explored for the month and are out of battles to do (and feel you're at a high enough level), you can choose Seminars to raise a pre-determined set of characters in two stats. In the second half of the game, a lot more seminar options will be open to you, making them a better choice then than they are in the first half.

Battles

If you're feeling under-leveled, this is a great option to catch-up. Aside from story battles, there's at least one battle option always available that doesn't cost any of Byleth's energy for the day, meaning you can grind it repeatedly until your units are all caught up. Always try to finish all the story battles available to you, then if you like, use the extra battles to raise your units for the next story skirmish.

Explore

You should always Explore at least once a month to make sure you get all the game's story and raise your units' stats and motivation accordingly. If you've already explored once in a month, there's not usually a good reason to do it again until the following month unless you missed a quest or want to raise a specific unit's motivation again.

Use the guide above to determine what activities you should do while exploring. Essentially, you should always garden, fish, respond to requests for advice, restore statues if you have renown to do it, do quests, turn in lost items, give gifts, and talk to everyone you see. None of those activities cost energy. You can spend the energy you do have through other activities, and it's recommended you eat at least one meal with students and also cook at least one meal per month. The other activities can be selected freely based on what you feel your class needs to work on.

Accessories for hours of Fire Emblem

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a long game! To make sure you're playing both comfortably and efficiently, here are some suggestions for accessories that are great not just for Fire Emblem, but for other Switch games, too.

Nintendo Switch Pro Controller ($62 at Amazon)

Not just for 'pros'

The Nintendo Switch Pro controller is a must-have for anyone who feels even a touch uncomfortable with the Joy-Cons for long gaming sessions. It's the shape of a standard controller and has the same layout and features as two Joy-Cons paired together.

Official Switch Deluxe Travel Case ($20 at Amazon)

Keep it safe

Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a great game for long trips, but you need to keep your Switch protected and your tiny Switch cartridges from getting lost. The official travel case has space to store the Switch itself, multiple physical games, and a pouch for accessories like extra Joy-Cons or a stylus.

amFilm Tempered Glass Screen Protector ($8 at Amazon)

Playing in handheld mode? Keep the screen on the Nintendo Switch from getting scratched or smudged with screen protectors. This set includes two for a reasonably low cost.