Romhacks. A medium for Fire Emblem fans to tell their own stories. Sometimes good, sometimes not so much. But there’s a lot of ideas, a lot of romhacks, and a lot of characters.
Antagonists. A staple of Fire Emblem games is the plentiful amount of antagonists. Some of them relevant for extended periods of time, others only appearing in one chapter so the chapter can have a boss to fight. Some are evil beasts who we love to see fall, others are sympathetic and we hate having to fight them.
A while ago, ReturnOfTheBlackKnight made a poll where he tried to measure favourite antagonists from the mainline Fire Emblem games. So, with this in mind, I thought up a question and I’m curious to see the results. Respond in the replies: Who are your favourite antagonists, major or minor, from the many romhacks this community has created?
Mortimer. He has his fair share of flaws but he’s still my favourite nonetheless.
Others are Galagar and Siegfried from Last Promise. Layton from Codes of Black Knight. Kal from Sun God’s Wrath. Haros and the three legendary heroes from Myth of Blight.
My favorite antagonist in a Fire Emblem ROM hack? It’s hard to say, honestly. There are so many great villains in great hacks out there. But out of all of them, if I have to pick a favorite, I suppose I’ll say…
Forben from Embers Entwined first appears in the game’s prologue, and is even then a fun character - a cackling maniac of a monster-summoning dark mage, who’s not quite as competent as he thinks he is. As the plot goes on, he manages to piss off just about every faction, die and un-die at least once, and even spend a stint in the player’s army. Forben goes through a long string of trials and tribulations over the course of Embers Entwined, and is a gleeful, fun-to-watch backstabbing bastard all the while.
Maybe I’m a bit biased, since due to EE’s nature as a telephone project, I ended up writing a lot of Forben’s story myself at both the beginning and end of his arc. But one of Embers Entwined’s best features is how over-the-top its story is; the characters concoct insane schemes, grand betrayals, legendary duels, and massive speeches on the morality of their actions. And this surprisingly deep dark-magic user is the very epitome of that glorious, glorious lunacy.
Also, I made his portrait, as you can see in the screenshot above. And it looks pretty darn cool.
Hands down has to be Pyron from Sun God’s Wrath. I love the fact that in almost every cutscene, or whenever he appears, Raydrik’s theme just plays in the background and at the time I had no idea what the theme was called, but I loved it!
This intense theme to accompany the biggest threat at that point in the game was really doing it for me. I would actively stay on a scene longer just so I could listen to it more.
Pyron himself is so…,simple. He doesn’t have a ulterior motive like most of the villains have, he has a clear end goal that the player is told from the start, and he isn’t that antagonistic despite being the main opposition you focus on for the meat of the game.
Of course Pyron does evil stuff, but he has understandable reasons, even if those reasons are unethical. I mean, the same could be said for Rody being a straightforward villain, but Rody kills whatever he doesn’t like, unlike Pyron who hopes for the best of humanity, by killing them .
He design is just so COOL, well to me that is. I’m a huge sucker for big, strong dudes in cool armor and Pyron fits that build. He doesn’t even have a helmet on, but that doesn’t matter since his head is already cool to look at!
Overall, I really like Pyron . This is probably getting to long.
.
. This is probably getting to long.