2024/3/24 Big update which adds an easier difficulty: view my most recent reply for more info.
I’ve always found it disappointing that FE5 doesn’t present much challenge after a first playthrough other than self-imposed challenges, so I made this hack which aims to make the game more difficult and less trivialized by warp skipping.
(I plan to update this at some point, and there absolutely could be issues with the game currently, so please let me know if you have any technical issues or criticisms.)
General changes
- Enemies will have increased base stats and greatly increased growth rates.
- Enemies will often have stronger weapons.
- Enemy spawns may be different in some maps (i.e. promoted instead of non-promoted enemies).
- Generic enemies and bosses will have skills much more often than in the vanilla game, though there are not many skills added prior to Chapter 13
- Some maps have been changed in some ways to make them more difficult or to account for the other changes in the gameplay (this is mostly in removing ballista in some maps and replacing them with standard enemies)
- All scroll growth rates are now 0 for all stats (they still give crit immunity). However, player units have increased base stats and growth rates to compensate. (All player unit base stats and growths list in the document below).
- The amount of warp staves is reduced to about 5 throughout the whole game, and warp only has 2 uses in Hard and 1 in Naddening
- Most maps will have a turn limit, either a hard turn limit caused by an immediate game over screen once you reach a certain turn, or by other means forcing you to finish the map more quickly. The turn limit for each is listed in the hack document provided below.
- S Drinks are no longer buyable (but they can still be attained in all the other ways they already were able to be in vanilla).
I realize that some of these changes may be controversial, but I think they’re important to facilitate strategies that engage with the challenges the game presents to you rather than simply circumventing them entirely, like what S Drinks and warp allow you to do for much of the vanilla game.
The hack also includes many other changes in order to make the fit better with the general changes, though you could say some of these are just things I considered cool:
Class changes
Classes:
- Warrior now has “Accost” as a class skill.
- Warrior can now move on cliffs, peaks, and rivers with a movement cost of 5.
- Armored units can now move on mountains with a movement cost of 6.
- Female Hero now has “Sol” as a class skill, and now gains D axes on promotion instead of E.
- Male Hero now gains C swords on promo instead of E.
- General has increased weapon ranks.
- Mage Knights (both Male and Female) now have +1 move indoors (now 6 instead of 5 in vanilla).
- Male Sniper now gains 1 move on promotion (8 instead of 7 in vanilla, and this includes enemies).
- Female Sniper now has “Adept” and “Luna” as class skills.
- Female Wyvern Knight now has “Miracle” and “Nihil” as class skills, and has reduced dismount penalties (and so does FWyvernRider).
- Prince (Leif’s promotion) now gains an additional +1 to Strength, Speed, Magic, Skill, and Defense on promotion, gains A swords, and +1 move (now base 7 instead of 6).
- Sorcerer now gains +50 dark wexp on promotion.
- Male and Female Thief will be boosted to 10 con after promotion (however, Perne, Lara, and Lifis all have 0% con growths in this hack).
- High Priest and Priestess now attain C rank Fire on promotion, along with C rank Light.
- Some classes have their promotion gains changed, notable examples include FMageKnight, Sage, Sorcerer, but I can’t remember all of them right now lol
Item Changes
- The Thunder Sword now gives +10 skill instead of +5
- Magic swords are now much more common.
- Increased hit and lower weight on most lances.
- The Brave lance is now a B rank lance instead of a Finn Prf.
- Killer Lance is now C rank.
- Added Shadow Spear, which provides nihil, is effective against armored units, and provides a +5 defense buff.
- Vouge weight increased by 1, hit reduced by 10, durability reduced to 40. Now usable by Osian, Halvan, Macha, Ralph, and Galzus.
- Made good axes such as Silver Axe and Killer Axe far more common among enemies.
- Made Bow hit significantly higher all around, and some bows have reduced weight.
- Killer Bow is now C rank.
- Added the “Quicksilver” which is a 25 might, 110 hit, A rank bow which also provides +10 speed.
- Rare tomes in vanilla, such as thoron, wind, elfire, tornado, are now much more common.
- Dire Thunder weight reduced to 8, and is now an A rank thunder tome instead of an Olwen Prf.
- Thoron weight reduced to 7 from 9, hit increased to 75 from 70, and crit reduced to 10 from 20.
- Tornado now has 10 might, 105 hit, is B rank wind, and provides a +5 speed bonus
- Bolganone (A rank fire) and Aura (A rank light, provides nihil and charm) are now usable.
- Added “Nightmare” (B rank) which is a low damage, low accuracy dark tome which sleeps on hit.
- Added dark Nosferatu (A rank), light nosferatu has been renamed “Resire” and has vanilla stats.
- Jormungand now has 14 might, 75 hit, 9 weight, and also provides a +5 defense buff.
- Wind changed to 95 hit, 4 might, 0 weight
- Grafcalibur is now a C rank wind tome
- Elfire is now 85 hit, 13 might
Many other changes that are covered in full in the document on this page
Unit Changes
- Miranda and Misha now have the “Nihil” skill.
- Selphina now has the “Vantage” skill instead of “Accost.”
- Sara no longer has the “Wrath” Skill.
New supports:
- Macha ← Brighton,10
- Halvan ← Leif,10
- Mareeta ← Leif,10
- Mareeta ← Saias,10
- Schroff ← Amalda,10
- Amalda ← Schroff,10
- Alba ← Kane,10
- Kane ← Alba,10
- Shannam ← Homer,10
- Homer ← Shannam,20
- Miranda ← Conomor,10
- Karin ← Misha,10
- (The already existing Misha ← Karin support has been boosted to being a 20 support)
Patch file download:
Sheet with all changes:
Thanks to everyone in the fe5 hacking community who helped me with all of my annoying questions regarding hacking, especially Miacis and Zane Avernathy. Also, thank you all the people in fe5 hacking hel who provided feedback on some of my ideas. I had no experience in hacking prior to making this.
