[CONTENT WARNING] [FE8] Black Dragon Arc 1: The Wolf and the Swan, Ver 1.0 (In progress)

Projects Concepts
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First thing to remember from dealing with criticism is never to take things personally.
Even bad criticism has a focus on certain things in your project, although the delivery isn’t really that smooth. And that means there’s something to be fixed.

But then, yeah, although we can say we can put disclaimer about dark themes and stuff, child rape is a big no. Rape itself is a crime, then child rape is way even worse. I know medieval era can be rough like you said, but then you’re showing this project to public. You need to know the demographics around here are assumed for everyone from any ages.

From what I see in various playthroughs from most people, the story and gameplay leave something to be desired. The details are pretty much the same as how Star-Lord and Rivian explained in the posts above.

  • Too many profanity (even some modern profanity are included where it shouldn’t exist in medieval era)
  • Too many references of rape and sexual assault,
  • Too many readings in one scene,
  • Too many talk convos in one chapter.
    The latter makes the gameplay even more stretched, which hurts the gameplay time even more.

Like you said here,

this hack can be improved a lot from public release, even though it’s still in its early stages. That’s why you need feedback, right? But like I said before, don’t take things personally. Take yourself away from the Internet a little bit, calm yourself.

I won’t lock this thread for now, but I’ll keep a careful watch on this.
Also keep in mind free speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences, better remember that.

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It’s not an excuse I agree, that’s why I suggested a very in your face mature content warning. And I agree people should be allowed to criticise it, but being reactive and calling it “cancerous writing” because child rape is child rape while being ignorant of its context in the story is not criticism.

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Mature content warning doesn’t mean you can put obscene contents in it.

If you compare this to FE4, it is way tamer compared to this hack. Even though FE4 has dark themes ranging from mass murder, child sacrifices, and even incest, they didn’t even blatantly show it towards the player, or at least didn’t put gory or yucky things in it.

Child rape is child rape. There is nothing more to add here. There is something else you can apply on the story, rather than putting this outrageous scene in front of the players.
The context itself has already muddied with the obscene content. We can’t give clear and constructive criticism if this specific content hasn’t been addressed.

Personally, hell yeah write what you want. If it’s a hobby then it doesn’t matter if no one reads it. You’re writing for personal satisfaction. However, if you’re writing professionally and you’re gonna publish it, then you need to be aware of how readers want to read. Just be receptive to how your audience reacts if you do intend to seek an audience. So, the mention of free speech here is completely irrelevant.

Read this part here.

If someone wants to address regarding what I said here, you can personally DM me since this is @Bahamut’s hack thread, and I don’t want to clutter this thread with more nonsense. Thanks.

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You mean the context of “shock value”?

There are plenty of ways to portray “dark storylines” that aren’t so hamfisted. You cited FE4’s treatment of child sacrifice, which was primarily deployed as a background plot point that gave the Loptyr Sect a very menacing presence. That’s an example of “dark storylines” done in a way that enriches the plot and the environment, rather than distracts from it by aiming for pure “shock value” to make a random bandit guy seem like a horrible human being. There are plenty of ways to portray the character in that manner without making light of incredibly traumatic experiences (something that some of our members here on FEU may have lived through and survived). Also, the argument that “nothing short of child rape will shock people who’ve played FE4” is very weak. It’s not just about pulling out the “1-10 scale of edgy plot points” and picking the next highest thing on the scale.

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I’ve put a content warning on the thread. I’ll discuss with the staff about whether we want to take stronger action.

I don’t have a whole lot to add beyond what Levin has already said, but I will point out that the presence of objectionable themes is not the problematic thing, but rather the execution thereof. As much as I think that OP’s original response was overreacting (to put it lightly), I do also think that we could stand to be a little nicer with our critique here. “This is cancerous” is not actionable feedback.

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Hey, I just wanted to check in with you that everything is alright. Nobody is telling you to never romhack again or that they hate you. I do sympathize, though. There has been a lot of conflict in this thread, as well as bandwagoning and some overly harsh words. People saw the so-called “worst” part of the hack and reacted strongly to it. But you know what the good news is? You know the overt refences that you need to make subtler or rework now, and you got a couple of amazing, long feedback posts. That is fantastic for stepping forward with your best foot as you revise material to make it a bit more suitable to a general audience. I think it takes a more skilled writer, honestly, to deliver mature subject manner in ways that go over naive reader’s heads. There’s a great path forward for you to take. :smile: :+1:

It may very well be that you’ll need to make a new thread for your revised version and it may also be a good idea to talk to the moderators of this site to ensure you’re conforming to expectations. But quite honestly, disregarding inappropriate content, I think it’s amazing that you’ve put so much work into a lengthy hack. It would be a real shame to stubbornly throw all of that progress away. Best of luck with your endeavours!

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love how bold you are in some of the dialogue. some of the maps visually could use some beautifying and some of the text boxes need some fixing like so.
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but other than that, keep up the good work.

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I’m not really attacking or something, but FE hacks are usually my go to whenever I’m disturbed of such things. Now I’m a little scared.

Also, if you’ll look into words further, I don’t think “mature” is the right word nor I’m implementing something that is hostile towards the creativity of the writer (considering my only friend is the same, though I remind him if I think he’s going too far on brutalizing his story)

I sincerely hope this doesn’t offend anyone, I’m just trying to share my thoughts. So yeah, continue on expressing things but please consider the audience. (after all, there still minors in here like me :slight_smile: )

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Frankly? It’s D a r k. The reference to child rape, wife getting slaughtered, main character is whoring in one section and there’s a racial slur in the introductory to chapter 2.

That said, you do have a warning label- that compares it to Berserk, that’s all you really need in that regard.

I liked the story so far. That’s what it is after all, a story, a very compelling story that brings folks in for a helluva ride. I just wanted to touch on the early stuff since folks flared up, and while I Of Course don’t condone any of the actions in any real setting, as a fellow writer I understand the amount of effort you went to to give you work the right amount of attention.

The story, the way it’s heading so far, looks like the same “breaking bad” sort of shtick. Can’t say I’m not a fan of a protag whose almost as bad as the villains. I dig it, you should keep at it.

The Actual Critique I have;

During Prologue;
Once every unit had been defeated, the game glitched for a second, resetting Gray to the position I’d had 'em on their Last turn. Moreover it moved the Ranger over a space to stand directly in front of the village- not unit movement but glitched out to stand in the tile.

During Chapter 1’s intro:

  • The unit’s on the Right side had chat bubbles that extended Almost off the screen, making some of the reading difficult. Shrinking the bubble a bit would help significantly in the reading.
  • Once everyone had finished their lines, a small square bubble appeared in the right hand corner. It ran through dialogue between the Princess and the Ranger for their initial meeting. The text overlapped intermittently and half glitched the game out. Ontop of this- once that had completed an image of the princess’s avatar appeared, fretting for her comrades she claimed were missing even though they were still beside her for the purposes of the story.

Chapter 2:

  • Once the intro completed, and the map was brought up, the game glitched again. The bottom half froze into a sort of purple censor, after a reset I could manage to get directly up to that point before the game directly froze with an empty unitless map and no ability to perform any action in the game itself. I tried in game copying the data and restarting the chapter to the same end, I’ll give another quick run to see if I can get to-through chapter 2 without hindrance if this is an anomaly of some sort.

Aside from that- I haven’t seen any problem. Story is story, and if folks don’t wanna read it or play it that’s on them. Might wanna bring out an in game disclaimer too to replace some of the cut scene stuff the original game had. Just a suggestion there.

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Brb making guide on how to write villain without including child rape

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Maybe I can provide some feedback because my hack also deals with mature themes. Arch already talked about how FE4 does it well, so hopefully my personal experience as a hacker as well can be helpful. I’m gonna soapbox for a bit.

Edgy for this post is defined as “tries to be mature” and that can take form in profane language or, well to be completely honest, incredibly fucked shit like stuff that can happen to children.

First of all, its straight up a nooby hacker mistake to frontload a bunch of themes and “cool moments in your head” at the beginning of a project, because most either want to show off and leave a lasting first impression, or have somehting cool and think they need to show it off as soon as possible, or they want to showcase it but are too green to do it gracefully yet. Bloodlines suffered hard from this in its first first first ever patch. its themes of racism and, well, fate i guess, were pretty heavy handed. And its more serious themes, like suicide, even in its most recent public patch (which hasn’t been updated in 6 years) could’ve been handled better, even it came from a personal place, and has since been improved.

So, just by judging on the screen shots and general sentiments from the community, your more mature themes should certainly be dialed back extremely hard.

The desire to be like Berserk or the Witcher is understandable. I haven’t read either, but I imagine the authors are incredibly professional, and don’t constantly frontload and beat their players over the head with whatever mature themes it has.

Now, one might ask “but Berserk is SUPER dark and upfront with their themes, its gory too so what”.
Well, here’s the next problem… and its not your fault, its like, the problem with Fire Emblem and profanity in general. Profanity looks really silly when its coming out of colorful sprites from a 2003 kids game

media like Berserk and Witcher have the aesthetics and style to match the language and themes it shoots for. Berserk has literal god-tier visuals in the manga and whatever nasty bullshit is going on or is being said, its packaged and presented in a kick-ass way.
What do Fire Emblem ROM hacks have? splices? text bubbles? 15 colors plus a transparent BG? Its just not the same, and its really jarring when that language is used while trying to take itself seriously. Seeing the F word, let alone the more X rated writing in this hack, will 9/10 come off as bizarre, out-of-place and at worst, completely unnecessary and tasteless. And add to that you seem to not be letting up with this language throughout the entire 5-or-so chapters, its easy to understand why players would find it very uncool.

This applies to most fan work. And its something even I only visit in my own project midway through, after careful re-writes, over the course of years. Dealing with mature themes gracefully in a ROMhack for a video game no less takes time and experience as a writer and project hacker person.

And to go back to Jugdral/ actual FEs, there are so many more ways to subtly or tastefully bring up your themes of brigandry or kidnapping or whatever. Is there really a thematic difference between a bandit gang kidnapping children from their homes VS, what seems to be, the same bandit openly assaulting a kid in front of their parents? I can tell you right now, they’re both fucked, but one gets the point across without exposing the playerbase to really, really sensitive and triggering (in its actual definition) scenarios. Sacred Stones is really, really dark, but it doesn’t bonk your head over its themes of corruption and greed.

idk

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me: i guess i’ll hop on feu for the first time in a while and see what’s going on
feu: have this new thread right here with a whole ass debate about child rape in a hack!
me:
M-o-v-e out

(ok enough beating the dead horse, i wish you the best of luck in rectifying this bahamut and i hope your hack becomes a better project because of it <3)

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I miss when being FE edgy just meant being cool like Kelik.

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ghebfe?

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Just Gheb in general really.

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enough
@Bahamut when you have a public response/update let me or any of the mods know and we’ll unlock it back

the constant back and forth isn’t going anywhere

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By OP’s request, I am tentatively re-opening this thread.

Keep it civil, guys.

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this looks interesting, where is the download link?