Was gonna say, I think making the removal of battle animations mandatory to even use the utility at all would be… undesirable, but maybe put an option in to disable them for a specific hack if the hack creator deems it necessary? That way people who want to add new classes at the cost of battle animations before the FE1 battle animation format is figured out have the option of doing so, but hacks that don’t change the class roster can keep battle animations if desired.
While I at least feel there’s something more going on if I was taken off guard at all since I was expecting reinforcements, I don’t doubt that I could have misunderstood when the music actually changed.
In terms of suggestions, there’s a lot I don’t mind with FE1. Though something I thought would be nice to have would be a way to view terrain stats outside of battle. Like, maybe a small window on the map menu (where End Turn is) showing the avoid and possible defense… How feasible do you think that is? Doesn’t need to show the sprites or anything since there might not be graphics memory for it.
FE1 UPDATE!
I’ve been a’working. Most of it has been ASM code stuff that’s hard to show off, or minor tweaks to the editor.
Battle Forecast at last!
It’s officially the end of an era…
…you can actually see your stats in battle… 
And it seems to be stable this time!
There IS still one line left in the box. The code makes it blank for now. If you’ve got a good idea as to what could go there, let me know.
I do worry adding stuff there could make it harder to read…
Battle Text Improvements
I added text compression to messages in battle. This should allow you more space for death quotes. There’s not much to show for this. Just a new dictionary file for your Basilisk projects, which is automatically populated by the new button.
While I was at it, I also made “(S)” a control code that adds an “s” if the number of hits is plural.
Passive Item Effects / Light Orb Buff
Part of my goal in reworking items is to make it so item-specific effects are NOT tied to item ID. This way you can “reslot” items, and even stack certain effects!
I just added the ability to check inventory in battle for items and subsequently check for effect flags. For example, I’ve added an improvement to our friend, the Light Orb.
The Light Orb in base game, isn’t a very exciting item. Consequently, there’s very little reason to throw it into the item pool in a brand new hack.
To fix this, the Light Orb now halves Defense and Resistance, based around its function in Monshou of allowing you to penetrate the barrier of the Dark Orb.
Here’s Kain attacking the thief again, but with the Light Orb in his inventory.
The thief’s DEF is 1 instead of the usual 2.
Not super exciting yet, but this code is going to be re-used for other effects like an Iote’s Shield.
All new/reworked items will be available in the released editor from the start.
And lastly for now, something I discovered today as I began to rewrite the attack damage formula.
FE1's Damage Cap Oddity
In vanilla FE1, damage inflicted in battle is capped for all weapons at 40. You can never deal more than 40 damage critless…
…except the Falchion. For whatever reason, the code checks if you are weilding SPECIFICALLY the Falchion, and skips the damage cap. I guess Kaga thought it needed to be even more busted for some reason.
This oddity will be removed. The damage cap will be raised to 127, or 255, for all weapons, whichever highest value the game will support.
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Did you hear that?
It’s time for a FE1 Update!
See Battle Stats Before Attacking
To fix a common complaint about FE1, I’ve finally implemented “Press Select to View Battle Stats”.
Press A on a unit, then Select to view the battle forecast.
Please note! This menu only shows you the unit’s side of a battle forecast. These values will differ from the display in-battle as battle has an opponent. Crit, hit, avoid, and such take into account the enemy’s stats in battle.
Reslottable Items Progress
I believe I’ve migrated all of the item tables over to an expanded bank now. Well, at least all the ones that should move. Some will stay in the fixed bank since there’s random checks all over the place, like Durability and item names.
The item_data files are going to need a major overhaul. I’ll probably make them giant lists of bytes instead of the human format, given just how many properties they have now.
You won’t have to worry about the text file version though, since Fire Emblem Maker will have an editor for items built in.
UI Art Tweaks
I’ve been playing around with the UI graphics, trying to make them better.
Some of the icons I drew five years ago have been cleaned up. There’s also a few new ones.
I’d like the Miracle Rapier, Gradius, and Parthia to have unique icons as well… it’s just tough to draw something that looks good in only 8x8 pixels with white, gray, and green.
I made some tweaks to the font, mostly to fix spacing with the icons, but also to make the font “better”. I’m… not sure if I like the changes to lowercase letters and might revert them.
NEW / OLD
The original bigger letters fit the capital letters I’m still using from the Japanese version. The new lowercase makes it look more like a real font, but I dunno. I could even be convinced to use an entirely different font like the one in Illusion or something else.
New Item - Fire Emblem
It’s always been bizarre to me that the legendary artifact Fire Emblem serves as a lockpick (at least, before it becomes the Shield of Seals). Why does the holy treasure of Akaneia let you pillage and plunder?
To resolve this, the unused “Fire Emblem” item has been reimplemented, and now has the added effect of halving damage from Mamkute enemies. The Falchion will also lose its ability to completely nullify attacks that aren’t Mamkutes or archers.
It gets the effect from just being in the inventory. This DOES mean you can give it to someone else… which although Kaga might disapprove with lorewise, it adds strategy to the game.
I have something very big planned to use these changes. If it doesn’t pan out, I’ll at least rebalance the base game to accommodate them.
New Item - Iote's Shield
The Iote’s Shield is now part of the game, replacing item 0x50.
Having it in your inventory nullifies enemy weapon effectiveness bonuses, like it does in future games. In-game display name may change as “Iote’s Shield” is a long item name that needs accomodation.
Other Notes
The Devil weapons suck. The plan was to replace at least one of them with the “Earth Sword” from Geneaology by adding the Resire effect instead. However, implementing it is going to be trickier than I thought. if I don’t get around to finding a solution before I release, the “Devil” effect might just go away entirely.
Giving healers EXP from healing is also much trickier than I imagined. I might still try, but modding healers to be able to use light magic will more than likely be a better source of EXP for them.
We will see.
The pull to go work on an actual game of my own instead is getting very strong. Nevertheless, I’ve invested so much into FE1 over these 6 years that I need to at least get a release for all my changes and tools.
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Another FE1 Update!
Finally tackling one of the biggest challenges yet: Battle Animations
The original game identified weapons based on their weapon ID value. Thus, items 01-0B are sword, 0C-10 are lances, and so on. Even after fixing the rest of the game to use types instead of IDs, the giant convoluted system of battle animations is built around this. This has been a huge problem for classes like Thieves, who will crash when given any item that isn’t a valid sword, even Thunder Sword!
According to the research I’ve done over the past two days, the game checks class ID, then the equipped weapon to set the following values:
$03c5: Animation Pattern (how the class moves and changes frames)
$0398: Initial Frame (used for the first frame of animation, changes based on weapon type equipped, male/female, 00 for everything else.
$0C38: Special Effects (used for spell animations, only works with some Animation Patterns)
$0484: Graphics Page (which page for sprite graphics, always fixed for each class in vanilla)
I’ve found all the code and checks that set these values. If I can rewrite the system that does this, we’ll have everything we need for custom battle animations and all crashes fixed. The only trouble now is inventing a system that can decide which animation to use without losing my mind.
My Current Animation Plan
I’ve written down the values for basically every animation in a big file, which looks like this:
Big List of Animations
Pattern, Inital, Page, EFX
00 03 02 00 Social Sword
17 00 02 02 Social Thunder
01 07 02 00 Social Lance
20 0d 02 00 Social Javelin
02 00 02 00 Armor Sword
17 00 02 02 Armor Thunder
20 16 02 00 Armor Javelin
04 00 03 00 Pegasus Sword
17 00 03 02 Pegasus Thunder
05 08 03 00 Pegasus Lance
20 10 03 00 Pegasus Javelin
06 00 04 00 Paladin Sword
17 00 04 02 Paladin Thunder
07 0B 04 00 Paladin Lance
20 14 04 00 Paladin Javelin
08 00 05 00 DragonK Sword
17 00 05 02 DragonK Thunder
09 0C 05 00 DragonK Lance
20 13 05 00 DragonK Javelin
0A 00 01 00 Mercenary Sword
17 0F 01 02 Mercenary Thunder
*0B 08 01 00 Spear Mercenary!
0C 00 06 00 Fighter Axe
1D 06 06 00 Fighter Hand Axe
0C 00 06 00 Pirate Axe
1D 06 06 00 Pirate Hand Axe
18 00 01 00 Thief Sword
15 00 01 00 Hero Sword
*1A 03 01 00 Hero “Shadow Clone” Attack
19 00 09 00 Archer Bow
1A 03 09 00 Archer Crossbow
2c 07 09 00 Archer Silver Bow
19 00 09 03 Archer Parthia
19 00 09 00 Hunter Bow
1A 03 09 00 Hunter Crossbow
2c 07 09 00 Hunter Silver Bow
19 00 09 03 Hunter Parthia
22 00 0C 00 Ballista Rain
23 03 0C 11 Ballista Stone
24 06 0C 12 Ballista Firegun
24 07 0C 13 Ballista Thunder
25 09 0C 14 Ballista Elephant
19 00 12 00 Horseman Bow
1A 03 12 00 Horseman Crossbow
2C 07 12 00 Horseman Silver
19 00 12 03 Horseman Parthia
1B 00 0A 00 Sniper Bow
1C 04 0A 00 Sniper Crossbow
1C 04 0A 00 Sniper Silver Bow
1B 00 0A 04 Sniper Parthia
2F 00 06 00 Commando
21 00 0B 06 Mage Fire
21 00 0B 07 Mage Thunder
21 00 0B 08 Mage Blizza
21 00 0B 09 Mage Elfire
21 00 0B 0A Mage Volganon
21 00 0B 0B Mage Tron
21 00 0B 0C Mage Worm
21 00 0B 0D Mage Aura
21 00 0B 0E Mage Excalibur
21 00 0B 0F Mage Maph
21 00 0B 10 Mage Starlight
(xx 03 xx xx for Linda)
1F 02 08 05 Cleric (Staves)
1F 02 08 1e Cleric Warp
1F 02 08 20 Cleric Hammerne
1F 02 08 1F Cleric MShield
1F 02 08 21 Cleric Ohm
(xx 00 xx xx) for Female
2D 00 06 06 Bishop Fire
2D 03 06 07 Bishop Thunder
2D 00 06 08 Bishop Blizza
2D 00 06 09 Mage Elfire
2D 00 06 0A Mage Volganon
2D 00 06 0B Mage Tron
2D 00 06 0C Mage Worm
2D 00 06 0D Mage Aura
2D 00 06 0E Mage Excalibur
2D 00 06 0F Mage Maph
2D 00 06 10 Mage Starlight
1E 00 06 05 Mage (Staves)
1E 02 06 1e Cleric Warp
1E 02 06 20 Cleric Hammerne
1E 02 06 1F Cleric MShield
1E 02 06 21 Cleric Ohm
0E 00 08 00 Lord Sword
11 22 08 00 Lord Rapier
16 00 08 01 Lord Thunder
10 00 08 22 Lord Falchion
0D 00 07 00 General
I’m storing the Graphics Page value as unique to each animation so that it can be used for custom animations and new classes. You can make new animations by cloning an existing graphics page and animation.
Each of the above animation sequences will be separated into three tables, size 0x7f, to effectively store 127 possible animations. The “Special Effects” value will reference the character’s weapon value rather than the animation itself since, you know, a Fire Tome should always display fire.
Each item will hold an “animation type” value, like Sword, Lance, Javelin, Thunder Sword, Magic, etc.
Every animation type will have a table with slots for every class, likely just the first 0x16 classes as the Mamkutes are special. The tables will store the Animation Index to use from all animations in the game.
Weapon ID → Animation Type → Animation
is the pattern here.
I’ll probably need another table to handle the unique values for female mages and clerics.
Of course, I still have to try and code all this. It might not work. If somebody else has a better idea I’m all for it. Maybe GBA Fire Emblem does something that would work better.
With all that out of the way, here’s another thing I forgot to mention last time.
Fixed 'Marich Excalibur chants!' grammer weirdness
The Character → Tome → Verb message when using magic was hard-coded that way in the original game because Japanese, and I just wasn’t equipped to figure it out when I initially translated the game in 2021.
Years later, I’ve finally gotten around to looking at the code and fixing the problem.
The game now uses correct grammer for casting spells.
While I was figuring out battle animations, I found a few other oddities from the original game:
Mercenaries could wield spears???
I’ve known for a long time that if you give a Mercenary any weapon that isn’t a sword, they’ll show up holding a spear in battle and proceed to attack with a very glitchy animation.
What I did NOT know until recently was that there are what appear to be more animation frames for “spear mercenaries”. By forcing them to use different Animation Patterns, I was able to see some of these frames in action. This pattern below was one that showed all the unused frames and looks closest to what the intended animation might look like.
My guess is that the devs were working on some sort of animation where Mercenaries could wield lances, but scrapped it at some point.
Here’s a few of the frames that seem intentional:
You can see this in action with the following cheats:
Elice as a Mage???
Normally the Mage battle animation code checks the unit ID to see if it’s Linda, then uses the female mage animation instead.
However, the same code also checks for ELICE’S ID value to use female animations. This is really weird, because Mage Elice is never a thing. Maybe it was at some point…?
Similar code exists for Clerics but checks for Lena, Maria, and Elice like it should. Bishops don’t use any unique sprites at all!
So why Mage Elice…?
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