Dark magic is the most interesting weapon type in vanilla GBA Fire Emblem from a design perspective. On the whole, Dark magic is anything but standard. Flux and Fenrir (the latter of which sucks on behalf of being a vanilla A rank tome) are the only basic effectless weapons in their entire field. Instead, the remainder of the type is populated by oddballs like Luna, Nosferatu, and Eclipse. A number of hacks do not care for these options, particularly Luna and Eclipse, due to their reputation of being “cheesy”, “bullshit”, or just plain bad.
An in some contexts, sure, I get it. But I’m here to defend these two temperamental tomes.
At least I was, but Luna is enough for one thread. I’ll cover Eclipse another time.
Let’s Talk Luna
Luna is one of the most iconic GBA weapons in my eyes, which is impressive considering that its noteworthy appearances in vanilla are… well, singular. It has one noteworthy appearance. But that just so happens to be FE7, in which it’s notorious for two things. For one, it has an incredible showing in the final chapter, where Athos uses its high accuracy, crit, and piercing damage to great effect against the high Res superbosses, including the final boss. In this role, Luna is extremely exciting.
The other thing Luna is known for is
Many players and hackers alike have a few choice words regarding this design choice. Most of them are expletives. Druids in FE7 can easily reach Mag stats of 20 or higher in multiple maps, and thanks to Luna’s 20 Crit, this means that OKROing one of these Druids “requires” risking taking 60+ damage, enough to outright OHKO even player units with capped HP. Combine this with FE7’s reputation as a somewhat easy game, and you get a near endless number of anecdotes that end with this crit animation.
Luna’s bosskilling prowess as a player tool combined with this reputation as a bullshit enemy weapon leads to it getting nerfed, removed, or entirely retooled in a large number of hacks, many of which often slot in more basic replacements. There are enough hack equivalents to the elusive “steel dark tome” to fill an entire library. Wither, Nocturne, Nightfall, I could do this all day. FE8, the world’s first FE7 romhack, nerfed Luna into the goddamn abyss, and then localization shot it a few more times for good measure. FE8U Luna is so bad that Four Kings includes it unchanged as a joke weapon. But I think it’s worth asking if Luna deserves this reputation in the first place.
The Part Where I Defend FE7 Luna
Luna appears primarily in four maps. Pirate Ship (where it’s on the boss, Zoldam), Genesis, Cog of Destiny, and Sands of Time, and I am going to come out and admit that Zoldam is actually just bullshit. He doesn’t have no counterplay, per se, but every strategy that fully avoids chance of death is pretty memeworthy.
“All you need is a trained Eliwood with all of the Goddess Icons and his C supports with Hector and Marcus!” - words no one has earnestly said
But this isn’t because Luna is fundamentally flawed. Really, the player just lacks the proper counterplay at this point in the game. Later instances of Luna Druids show up after the player is given:
- 2 or more Brave weapons (and units who can use them)
- Ninian and Filla’s Might
- Several Longbows
Each of these bullet points can be used independently to handle this enemy type. Brave weapons are obvious. If you need to hit the Druid twice to kill them, then why not attack twice before the enemy gets to counter in the first place. You’re given both the Brave Bow and Brave Axe before your first non-Zoldam Luna encounter. Rath has base access to the Bow, while Marcus and Hawkeye can use the Axe. Rath misses the 2HKO at 9/1, but this isn’t an issue if you give him the next tool, Filla’s Might.
Filla’s is a constantly overlooked buff spell that Ninian can use in lieu of refreshing someone, and its effect is absolutely powerful enough to compete with Dance on occasion. Filla’s gives a flat +10 Atk to its target until next player phase, which enables a strong enough unit/weapon combination to outright one-shot the physically frail Luna enemies. Silver Axe Hawkeye OHKOs every possible Luna Druid roll in Genesis at base with Filla’s.
Longbows should be fairly obvious. If you can’t allow Luna Druids to get off a counterattack without risking death, then just don’t get countered.
Outside of Pirate Ship, Luna isn’t just fair, it’s outright compelling. It encourages smart teambuilding. You only get one of each Brave in FE7, so you want to incorporate all four of them into your main team comp. This gives Sword and Bow units a greater niche within the game, especially the bow ones, as they get the first brave weapon. Luna also encourages getting creative. Longbow and Filla’s Might are two heavily underutilized options in this game, and both of them are very good at answering this extremely lethal enemy type. Longbow utility again carves out a greater niche for archers, while Filla’s is a buff to units who prioritize Strength over Speed, despite the latter stat having a slightly better reputation.
Luna as a Player Tool (It’s Cool Here Too)
It’s worth noting that Luna is not as good as its endgame impression. Most enemies don’t have a ton of Res, and unpromoted physical enemies just don’t really reach the 7 Res required for Luna to outdamage Flux. Promoted ones aren’t much better. Battle Before Dawn’s level 6 Heroes have like, 8 Res. Of course, Luna is far more than just its effect.
Luna has three really good upsides:
- Luna is extremely accurate, boasting 15 more hit than Flux.
- Luna is good into enemy mages, with their high Res.
- Luna has 20 crit, making it a decent enough RNG out to a bad spot.
It’s also got two important downsides:
- It’s weak.
- It’s heavy.
This type of weapon just doesn’t exist normally. You can think of it as a critfishy slim Dark tome with an effect that lets it shine against other mages. It’s a pretty solid “sure, fuck it” button, thanks to its reliability and potential volatility. It’s also a great answer to dodgy enemies, such as Valkyries. Valks in FE7 mostly confine themselves to Cog of Destiny, but they’re so dangerous that their singular map already establishes them as a major lategame threat. Fast, dodgy, mounted, magical, all wrapped up in one package. Luna pierces their huge Res and leverages WTA to nail them at high accuracy. Luna is not useless, but not dominant. It’s unique, interesting, and applicable for those willing to find its use cases.
Luna in Your Hack (Is it Epic?)
There’s a lot to learn from Luna. Luna Druids are essentially the idea of an enemy that forces you to avoid a counter at all costs, distilled into its most basic and understandable form. This is great for a number of reasons. Luna enemies are pretty much always the most dangerous enemy on the screen, giving you an immediate idea of what enemies you should target first. Luna also rewards smart play without just killing players for messing up. The punishment for screwing up against a Luna enemy isn’t an instant death, it’s just having to face some lethal amount of crit. It’s somewhat forgiving in that regard. As a player tool, Luna’s cool for its accurate piercing damage. You can generally assume it’ll hit, and its damage is the same against everything. Now, to show an example of a weapon inspired by FE7 Luna that I’ve added to my recent hack, Faces of a Stranger, let’s turn to the Beast Killer.
This is one of my favorite additions to Faces, and the Luna inspiration should be fairly self-evident. It’s a weak but accurate piercing 1-2 range weapon with a significant amount of crit. In the first act of the game, you don’t fight many of them. The counterplay, however, is very similar to that of Luna’s, just redefined to fit an earlygame setting. For one, you get a Longbow in Chapter 7, and an Iron Rune in Chapter 9. To offset the Iron Rune’s generally uninteresting shutdown of crit weapons, it sells for a solid chunk of gold, tempting the player to pawn it off and play around the crit enemies manually. It’s also generally better to face dangerous enemies like this proactively as opposed to reactively (especially if they have 1-2 range to easily avoid counters), further mitigating the want for something like an Iron Rune.
But neither the Longbow nor the Iron Rune are the most prevalent counterplay to this weapon. Beast Killer Medics are dangerous, but they’re very frail. So frail, in fact, that the lack of Filla’s Might is irrelevant, and players can outright OHKO these wimpy healers through the use of strong units or weapons.
(This first Beast Killer Medic is also stationary. I didn’t want less experienced players to feel overwhelmed by this enemy, so they can simply walk around him. Later Beast Killer enemies will not necessarily present this option, leading to the use of the above countermeasures.)
Luna’s a Pretty Cool Weapon After All, Actually
I think the title of this part kinda speaks for itself, honestly. I don’t think every hack needs or wants FE7 Luna directly imported or anything, but I think a weapon like Luna is both an interesting piece of design and a fantastic thing to draw inspiration from. More than anything, I hope this post can turn people away from the idea that some combinations of effects or weapons “don’t have counterplay,” especially in a vacuum. Can crit on Luna be implemented in a way that is in fact unfair? Yes, see Zoldam. Does that make it inherently bad? I think this post should make my stance on that matter fairly obvious.
A TL;DR of Luna and incorporating things like it into your design:
- Make sure enemies like this have multiple forms of counterplay. You want the player to feel smart for outplaying the weapon.
- Introduce a weapon like this in a safe environment. The most obvious approach is to put it on an optional, stationary enemy. FE7 tries this with Zoldam, but it falls flat because the only safe counterplay is to wait out the defend timer. Battle Before Dawn, funnily enough, does this better. There’s a stationary Druid with Luna in the lower left with a stealable Earth Seal, but you don’t ever need to mess with that enemy outside of wanting the Earth Seal. Obviously, this is a bit too late to tutorialize Luna, but it’s the thought that counts!
- Be careful putting this type of weapon on basic mobile enemies. Not that this can’t or won’t work, but do be cautious of what you’re pitting the player against.
- Conveyance is key. FE7 puts all of its Luna tomes on Shamans and Druids (mostly Druids), which helps Luna feel more digestible. Likewise, I only give Beast Killers to Medics, depsite having multiple knife classes.
