FE6: Project Ember (v1.85 as of 8/16/2021) - "ν Dorothy" Edition

Greetings and salutations, FEU! My name is Brunhilda, and I am a fledgling romhacker who has come to show a project I have worked on with some assistance from the community in the past two years.

This passion project is none other than Project Ember, a gameplay/graphics overhaul of FE6 that aims to give the player a brand new and (hopefully!) fun experience. Dozens of changes have been made, too many for me to list off every single one here. But to list a few:

  • Tweaked playable units
  • Altered chapter events
  • New classes
  • Modified weapon stats
  • An upgraded weapon triangle (15 Avo/2 Dmg)
  • Roy promoting like a normal unit (requires a Knight’s Crest)
  • Several new playable characters such as Lowen from Fire Emblem 7 and Princess Guinivere herself!

Click here to view our Pharaean friend

  • A difficulty beyond Hard Mode known as Maniac Mode
  • Several new supports

And much, much more. As this is my first project, there have been some bumps in the road. Fire Emblem 6 is an unwieldy game to hack, and as a result there are some bugs that have been found in the hack already that, as of posting, have no fix. Thankfully they’re nothing gamebreaking, but a nuisance is still a nuisance.

Included below is a link to a dropbox containing the patch (apply it to a Japanese FE6 rom), a document that I heavily suggest you read, and two folders containing the assets I used for map palettes and all the portraits I (and Ltranc) have worked on.

Please keep in mind that this hack is mainly designed around selecting Hard or Maniac Mode from the start. Normal mode is not tested and is not an accurate depiction of how certain units and the overall experience functions.

Download the patch here!

And lastly, please do not see this as a replacement for FE6. This is solely meant to be a labor of love and a new way to experience the game many people in this fandom love so much. With all that said, I hope my hack meets or surpasses whatever expectations you may have.

I hope to hear from you all soon :slight_smile:

Join The Discord!

Patch Notes for 1.85:

  • Gave Cecilia +1 base magic, +2 base skill.

  • Gave Sue +3 base HP, +2 base luck.

  • Increased staff WEXP from 1 to 2 per use, while also cutting back on certain staff units’ base ranks to account for the change.

  • Applied thin font to some of the ingame text.

  • Tina’s staff is renamed to Tiena’s Rod, and is now a D-rank Physic that heals 5 extra HP (and has 5 more uses) compared to the base Physic staff.

  • Brave and Silver Weapons have had their required weapon ranks swapped.

  • Updated the animations on both Light and Heavy cavaliers to follow that of SalvCav 2.0.

  • Roy’s Lord and Knight Lord animations have been altered extensively. Credit goes to our hard-working developer CedAodh for his fantastic efforts to keep the project going even when most of us were on leave.

  • Added in the rework for Leo_Link’s Warrior animation, as well as Rasdel’s class card and map sprites. Credit goes to Spud and Nuramon as well.

  • Added the Arcanist (Male Shaman) animation by Devisian_Nights.

  • Added Jeorge Reds’ Yetizerker.

  • Added L95’s Mage Dragon animation for Icestone manaketes.

  • Added L95 and Dominus_Vobiscum’s FE4-style Male Thunder Mage idle map sprite.

  • Added the female Seraph Knight map sprites by CamusZekeSirius.

  • Added Flasuban’s new Pegasus Knight revision, both for animations and map sprites.

  • Edited the map palettes for Chapters 3, 6, 7, and 16.

  • A cutscene featuring Douglas and Roartz has been added at the end of Chapter 7, as well as another cutscene for Yoder at the end of Chapter 20.

  • Edited the promotion bonuses of the female Swordmaster class.

  • Many enemy balance changes have been made in order to increase the difficulty, from adding some more on certain maps to extensively modifying the stats certain classes.

  • Modified the class cards for the cavaliers, male sage, and male sniper.

  • Other Miscellaneous balance changes

  • Menu commands have been changed so that certain actions follow a specific set of color coding. The system is as follows:
    Green is assigned to commands that upon use, you go back to the first menu with the command no longer there (Supply/Merch, Take, and Give). Blue is interactions between units where after performing the command, your turn is over and you don't go back to the command menu (Talk, Support, Rescue, Drop). Finally yellow is just interactions with any terrain the unit is on/next to, with the exception of ballistae (Seize, Armory, Vendor, Secret, Arena, Unlock, Unlock, Visit). Everything not listed is white.

  • Another new addition is that of a new generic axe called the swordslayer. The stats are as follows:
    15 Uses, 12 Mt, 80 Hit, 13 Wt, Reaver that is effective against sword infantry.

  • Finally, we have the new Dorothy remaster by Blueeyedman, created to address some of the mixed reactions. While I understand that portrait had its fans, I understand and acknowledge the liberties taken with it were not befitting of the character it belonged to. To amend this, here is one that I hope will be able to better capture the spirit of the character people have come to know. Alongside her is the revamped Fir portrait, also by Blueeyedman. This is probably my favorite version of the portrait to date and I think it suits her well.
    DorothyFir_by_Blueeyedman

Well now, that’s quite the changelog, isn’t it? While I have been preoccupied with college, that doesn’t mean the team hasn’t been chipping away at a new update! I’m really glad to be back in the groove again, and I hoped that enough tinkering has been done under the hood for you all to consider your next (or first if you’re new here!) playthrough of this hack a refreshing one. That being said, I’m not quite sure when the next update will be out! Could be months, possibly even a year before I find more things to work on and optimize with the hack. All that said, have a wonderful day, happy playing, and take care.

Please note that all these notes apply only to the base patches, 0% growths, and Fixed Growths patches as of the time that this update has initially released. This message will be deleted once all other patches have been updated.

Project_Ember_Maniac_Mode_v1.6_1587617687860 Project Ember - 1.85-2
Fire_Emblem_Project_Ember_1587646438811 Project Ember - 1.85-4
Project Ember Manaic Mode-154 Project Ember Manaic Mode-69
Project Ember Manaic Mode-75 Project Ember - 1.85-0 Project Ember Manaic Mode-57 Fire_Emblem_and_the_Blazing_Sword_of_Sparkling_Embers-31
Project_Ember_Maniac_Mode_v1.4_1583550805882 Fire_Emblem_Project_Ember_1587646920280
Project Ember - 1.85-3 Project Ember Manaic Mode-176 Project Ember Manaic Mode-174 Project Ember Manaic Mode-52

91 Likes

smh, no screenshots
Joking aside, from what I’ve seen so far this is a pretty neat and beautiful job you’ve done here, especially considering it’s FE6. Keep up the good work.

2 Likes

Just read through the readme. Make sure you credit Redbean for the Fir animation. I just scripted it. Redbean did the heavy lifting. :slight_smile:

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Thank you for the kind words! I’ve also added some screenshots showcasing some of the new-ish stuff.

3 Likes

good stuff, definitely gonna get to trying it soon.

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With what hackingtools was this patch made? I know FEBuilder is a bit buggy with FE6(at least with the english version), but I remember there being a patch that unlocks Hardmode from the start, effectively rendering the savegame-method obsolete :thinking:

Hit with only one RN
00000e6a:00 00 00 00
00000e70:08 1C
00000e7c: 08 1C
Mobile path does not use RN
00000e10:00 00 00
Minimum hit rate 30%
000249F2:1E
000249F6:1E

Japanese hackers have also made dangerous ranges
%E5%B0%81%E5%8D%B0%E3%81%AE%E5%89%A3%5BFE6R%5D_1572025016408

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I just found it myself in the patches list, don’t know how I missed that. The patch has been updated accordingly :slight_smile:

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This looks amazing, and this is coming from someone who’s not super crazy about FE6

This is really impressive work inside the FE6 game engine, which is so buggy. Visually the game looks great, its amazing how small graphical improvements to things like the menu windows really liven up the game and make it more fun to play. All the mugs look great so far, and the maps are nice to look at.

My only critique is that the game feels pretty easy on hard mode. This might just be me though, as I am used to the somewhat insane difficulty that is the vanilla FE6 hard mode. For example, I nearly cleared chapter 4 before Rutger showed up, I was moving so quickly I genuinely forgot about his appearance on turn 6. I’m only on chapter 5 so I can’t speak to the rest of the game, perhaps the difficulty will ramp up.

Overall, great work, the graphical updates alone are enough to warrant a full playthrough.

Look very interesting! Definitely gonna try it out.
A bit sad that the skill system isn’t here since it’s only in fe8, but can’t wait to play this

There is an issue with boss luck, as having it be “–” instead of 0 results in it going to 30 after attacking the boss

Ah, seems I may have made a couple of miscalculations with boss luck. I’ll get to fixing it by the end of the night.

2 Likes

There we are, boss base luck has been adjusted to actually be zero this time. Seems I forgot to save that change the first time around.

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I’ve gotta agree, this hack has been feeling pretty easy, but the presence of archers is way more threatening thanks to they extended range, so that’s something. I’m hoping that the difficulty manages to ramp up in the latter end of the game, but it’s still pretty fun and the animations/shading looks good. Though Marcus’s pallet is exceedingly bright, especially considering how all other characters have had their brightness toned down, so his armor sticks out like a sore thumb.
Also, I don’t believe the readme mentioned anything about Roy’s promotion, so is that still at chapter 20/21 (I don’t remember) or has it been changed to chapter17/17x like most people reccomend.

The earlygame isn’t too difficult up until around Chapter 7/8-ish where things would (ideally) pick up.

Roy’s promotion is not in either of those chapters actually! He promotes via a knight’s crest. Since I am aware of the rarity of Knight’s Crests in the original, you are able to now get three before 8x. The first is stealable from the boss of Chapter 7, and the other 2 just come in Chapter 8 (one in a chest and the other in Barth’s inventory).

As for Marcus’ colors, well…all the portraits/palettes are inspired by the game’s official artwork, and because of that Marcus himself was difficult to pin down because of the way his OA looks. I am willing to make adjustments if need be however.

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Well, I guess I’ll see just how hard it gets, and considering7 and 8 were, imo, some of the hardest chapters on hm, it makes sense that things would pick up there, so I’m looking forward to it. Also on the note of Roy’s promotion, I’m personally averse to lords getting regular promotions cause it makes it feel less special, but I like dramatic things, and it’s really not a big deal. It should also be an even better way of fixing up his late promotion problem, so I’m down.

I honestly wish it was just possible to give certain units level30 as special classcap. Until he gets the Binding Blade, roy is basicly a FE11 Marth and considering he had the cap at level30 I think… Oh well, I guess knightscrest really is the more available fix for the problem of him sitting at level20 for too long.

Ngl, despite what I said earlier about difficulty, I think chapter 5 is really giving me a run for my money now, since the bottom half is based around you using the choke point, but enemies hit harder now, and nomads are bigger threats, so the best way to deal with that part is to snipe off enemies with Wolt and pincer attack the opponent using whoever took the northern half.

1 Like

hyped