[FE7] Fire Emblem '03 (An Alternate Vanilla)

Projects Concepts
,
1

FIRE EMBLEM '03 (AN ALTERNATE VANILLA)

Hello, and welcome! This is a small project I have been working on for a little while.

This project is a modification of Fire Emblem: the Blazing Blade, with the intent of providing an alternative to the “vanilla” experience of the game.

So, what is different? Well, so far, several changes have been made to weapons, characters, enemies and so on. There are also a few fixes for localization errors and typos. I have also restored some unused content of the game. Below you will find a set of screenshots and a detailed list of changes. You will also find a list of changes that I would like to make in the future.

I hope you consider trying my patch!

SCREENSHOTS

chapter 7x
crazed beast
erik
nino
whereabouts
victory or death

LIST OF CHANGES, FIXES, AND RESTORED UNUSED CONTENT

Miscellaneous Changes

  • Some cutscene dialogue has been slightly altered.
  • Non-recruitable green units are now slightly stronger overall.
  • Some aesthetic changes to map palettes / tile layouts have been made.
  • The Silver card can no longer be sold.
  • The “no damage” sound effect from FE6 has been implemented.
  • Units can now have multiple S-Ranks.
    • Thanks to the FEBuilderGBA patch by Contro and Tequila.
  • Stat boosters are now available in the “Sands of Time” secret shop.
  • Vaida now has a different starting inventory in “Cog of Destiny”.
    • Specifically, a Runesword, Spear and Vulnerary.

Character / Class Changes (Initial Release)

  • If Lyn Mode is skipped, all characters that were introduced in Lyn Mode (excluding Rath and Wallace) will have levels no lower than 5 (Dorcas, Erk, Florina, Lyn, Sain, Kent, Wil, Serra, Lucius, Matthew, and Nils / Ninian). This was changed in BETA 1.03.
  • Vaida now has her own battle music when fought.
  • Nils’s level requirement for accessing Chapter 19x pt. 2 has been reduced to 5.
    • Thanks to Satel’s FEBuilderGBA patch.
  • Several characters now have increased base stats:
    • Renault
    • Nino
    • Farina
    • Zephiel
  • Isadora now has 9 CON.
  • Dorcas now has an Energy ring when he joins in Hector Mode, for consistency.
  • Female Druid animations from FE6 have been ported into the game.
  • Assassins can now steal.

Weapon Changes (Initial Release)

  • Weapon stats (Hit / Might / Weight) have been reverted to their FE6 counterparts. Click here for more information. Weapon information is listed in the “Inventory” section. This was changed in version BETA 1.02. See the change-log for details.
    • This includes Forblaze, Aureola, Armads, and Durandal.
    • Bolting and Purge remain the same.
    • FE7-exclusive weapons have been modified to fit in with these new stats.
  • Luce, Excalibur (now Gigexcalibur), and Gespenst have been modified.
    • Luce (16 Might / 75 Hit / 7 Weight / 15 Crit)
    • Gigexcalibur (18 Might / 95 Hit / 9 Weight / 10 Crit)
    • Gespenst (23 Might / 70 Hit / 15 Weight)
  • Several other weapons have been modified:
    • Sol Katti (10 Weight)
    • Heavy spear (now Pierce lance) (9 Might / 65 Hit / 13 Weight / 5 Crit)
    • Short spear (9 Might / 65 Hit / 8 Weight / 10 Crit.)
    • Luna (50 Hit / 9 Weight / 10 Crit).
    • Eclipse (60 Hit)
    • Fenrir (15 Might / 75 Hit / 13 Weight / 10 Crit)
    • Excalibur (now Gigexcalibur) is now effective against fliers.

Difficulty Changes (Initial Release) | Sources: Fire Emblem Wiki

  • The terrain bonuses for gates and thrones have been modified:
    • Gates (3 DEF 20 AVOID)
    • Thrones (3 DEF 30 AVOID)
  • Generic enemies are now slightly stronger.
  • Generic enemies and green units (excluding Morphs) now have natural Luck growths by autolevel.
  • Kishuna is now slightly slower.
  • Lloyd / Linus now has a Runesword in “Cog of Destiny”.
  • Enemies now have hard mode bonuses in Lyn Hard Mode and Eliwood Hard Mode.
  • Jerme, in his final appearance, now has his original stats.
  • Kaim, Maxime, Pascal, and Denning now have their original stats.

Quality of Life Changes (Initial Release)

  • The HPbars and warnings (Author / Source: Circles, Transport FE7U: Tequila) patch has been implemented.
  • The DancerRingRefresh patch, by sme, has been implemented. This patch makes it so that dancer rings last multiple turns and refresh units.

Fixes (Initial Release) | Sources: Serene’s Forest, The Cutting Room Floor | Sources may contain spoilers!

  • Several localization errors have been fixed.
  • A cutscene oversight where Nergal had the incorrect map sprite has been fixed.
  • The Emblem bow is now effective against fliers.
  • A few typos have been fixed.
  • Overflowing text for Dragon Axe, Wind Sword, etc. have been fixed.
  • Rienfleche’s Help description has been fixed.
  • Rath’s CON inconsistency in “Kinship’s Bond” has been fixed.
  • The Dancer rings now more detailed Help descriptions.
  • A thief escape point that was placed incorrectly in “The Berserker” has been fixed.
  • A typo involving the “Imprisoner of Magic” chapter title has been fixed.
  • A script oversight in the world map intro for “Imprisoner of Magic” has been fixed.
  • The ranking data for Hector Mode has been fixed, thanks to stan’s patch.
  • A developer oversight in “Pale Flower of Darkness” (Jerme) in which a myrmidon had a Horseslayer has been fixed.

Unused Content (Initial Release) | Sources: 1, 2, 3 | Sources may contain spoilers!

  • Erik’s intended battle palette has been restored.
  • Nergal’s intended battle palette has been restored.
  • The intended Hector Hard Mode enemy layout for “Crazed Beast” has been restored.
  • An unused CG, likely created for “The Value of Life”, has been restored.
  • Unused map objects in “Victory or Death” have been restored. The unused bridges have been replaced with snags.
FUTURE CHANGES
  • Port animations for, and add female generic enemies?
  • Rewrite some of the dialogue / scripts?
  • Make Vaida’s “Uber spear” obtainable without glitches.
  • Restore (some) boss stats to their JP counterparts.
  • Restore unused Ninian animation (spoilers).
  • Find somewhere for Emblem weapons to be obtained.
  • Re-balance all Hard Modes.
  • Give enemies more varied weapons, and reduce the amount of instances in which enemies have weapons that severely weigh them down.
  • Update font-type to match Sacred Stones.
  • Improve shops and armories.
  • Find out how to restore Ballista animations.
  • Have Guy and Heath start out at higher levels / with improved stats.
    • This definitely needs to be tested first.
  • Implement battle animations from the public repository.
  • Give Lyn an alternate promotion?
  • Any suggestions?
NOTES, FEEDBACK, AND ROM INFO

Notes

  • There may be some undocumented changes. Please notify me if that is the case. I do believe these lists account for all of the changes, though.
  • Please note that difficulty and character changes have been made with Hector Normal Mode in mind.
  • I have yet to test the Eliwood Modes.

Testing / Feedback / Troubleshooting

If you would like to, please take notes as you play. I would like to know any grievances you have or any errors / glitches you may encounter. It would be really helpful to have a cohesive list of things I can change to make this a great vanilla experience.

ROM Hash Information | You can test your ROM online using md5file.com

  • File: Fire Emblem (U) [!].gba
  • CRC-32: 2a524221
  • MD4: 61745caa821f87245780fd4f0ba2c95e
  • MD5: f1a1b9742fcd467a531dd4314c4e7d19
  • SHA-1: c735fdbb9e8abe19e0c6a44708df19acc962e204
CHANGELOG (LATEST CHANGES)

BETA 1 (MAY 21)

  • Initial release

BETA 1.01 (MAY 23 Hotfix)

  • Renault’s stats have been modified.
  • A bugged breakable wall in “Dragon’s Gate” has been fixed.
  • Ereshkigal now has a description.

BETA 1.02 (May 24)

  • Two characters’ base stats have been slightly increased:
    • Dart
    • Fiora
  • A developer oversight in which Canas’s level was not counted for the Pale Flower of Darkness map branch has been fixed.
    • How this was fixed: I changed the byte at address 0xCB8992 from 12 (Renault’s Unit ID) to 16 (Canas’s Unit ID).
  • Weapon accuracy has been reworked. Swords and Anima still mostly use FE6 stats, but now there is a smaller and more uniform difference in accuracy for the other weapons in each triangle. Forblaze, Aureola, Armads, Durandal, and all Bows still retain their FE6 stats.
    • Example: Iron sword (85 Hit), Iron lance (80 Hit), Iron axe (75 Hit)
    • Tome example: Fire (95 Hit), Lightning (90 Hit), Flux (85 Hit)
  • Several weapons have been modified:
    • Wolf Beil (10 Might / 85 Hit / 10 Weight)
    • Gigexcalibur (18 Might / 80 Hit / 9 Weight / 10 Crit)
    • Fenrir (15 Might / 70 Hit / 13 Weight / 10 Crit)
    • Pierce lance (9 Might / 80 Hit / 13 Weight)
  • The Wind sword and Dragon axe have been added to several secret shops. Specifically, a secret shop in Dragon’s Gate, and the ones in both versions of Four-Fanged Offense.

BETA 1.03 (June 15)

  • Several characters’ base stats have been modified, again:
    • Lyn
    • Florina
    • Sain
    • Kent
    • Wil
    • Serra
    • Erk
    • Matthew
    • Lucius
    • Dorcas
    • Bartre
    • Fiora
    • Dart
    • Farina
    • Nino
    • Renault
  • More typos and errors in the script have been fixed.
  • Descriptions have been added for weapons that give two Weapon EXP, rather than the usual one Weapon EXP:
    • Blades
    • Steel lance
    • Steel axe
    • Shortbow
    • Elfire
    • Shine
  • Nosferatu now gives two Weapon EXP instead of one.
  • Shine, Divine, and Nosferatu tomes are now available in more shops, specifically mid to late-game.
  • Female Druids now have critical attack sound effects. This was an oversight on my part.
  • Female Hero, Shaman, and Myrmidon animations have been ported and added to several maps.
    • Female Archers and Snipers have also been added.
  • In “Whereabouts Unknown”, Lucius now receives a Shine tome. Also, the Caelin soldiers now receive lighter weapons.
  • Enemies now have more varied weapons in the later chapters.
  • All effective weapons now do 3X damage.
  • The Emblem items have been modified and are now named after the tactician (they still need to be added somewhere):
    • [Tactician]'s sword (9 Might /85 Hit / 15 Crit. / 3 Weapon EXP)
    • [Tactician]'s lance (10 Might / 15 Crit. / 3 Weapon EXP)
    • [Tactician]'s axe (11 Might / 15 Crit. / 3 Weapon EXP)
    • [Tactician]'s bow (9 Might / 15 Crit. / 3 Weapon EXP)
  • The default text speed has been set to Fast.
    • FeBuilderGBA patch by Vesly.
  • The default Support Viewer text speed has been set to Fast.
    • FeBuilderGBA patch by SageMatthis/EgalLau37.
  • The title screen has been slightly updated.
  • Dart can now promote with a Hero Crest.
  • Nosferatu now costs 2400G.
  • It is now possible to receive an Emblem weapon in “Unfulfilled Heart”, although this still needs testing. Try the houses.
  • Damian, a boss in “The Port of Badon”, now has slightly higher speed.
  • Vulneraries now heal 15 HP.
  • The minimum amount of experience points gained from staves is now 20 EXP.
  • The minimum amount of experience points gained from dancing, stealing, etc. is now 20 EXP.
  • Aircalibur has been ported to the game. It can be obtained in several mid to late-game shops.
  • More promoted enemies have been added to later chapters. Some are exclusive to Eliwood or Hector Mode.
  • Lyn Hard Mode has had its difficulty tweaked, and some battle events have been fixed to compensate for changes.
  • Sands of Time now has stronger green units.

BETA 1.04 (June 24)

  • Several bosses and enemies have been slightly tweaked.
  • The map layout of “Dragon’s Gate” has been modified.
    • The treasure on the far-right of the map is now enclosed in a room with two locked doors. Legault and the thief reinforcements have had their inventories modified to compensate.
    • The map has been expanded by a couple of tiles eastward.
  • Small changes to the map layout for “Pirate Ship” have been made.
  • A rudimentary Ephidel boss has been implemented in “Dragon’s Gate”. I would not consider this final, as he still needs a mini-mug, for example.
  • Zoldam is now a Druid and, upon defeat, drops his item.
  • Leila’s cutscene on “The Dread Isle” has been slightly modified.
  • The script has been modified, and typos have been fixed. Most of these changes are in Lyn Mode.
  • Promoted enemies now start showing up sooner.
    • This mostly applies to the normal modes, to avoid difficulty spikes.
    • They may also have items that can be stolen.
  • Dart’s level is now counted for the “Pale Flower of Darkness” map branch.
  • A bug in which an enemy cavalier had the incorrect class ID in “Crazed Beast” has been fixed.
  • Several characters’ base stats have been slightly increased.
    • Florina
    • Fiora
    • Farina
    • Isadora

BETA 1.05 (July 7)

  • More typos have been fixed.
  • Item names have been updated, with some changed to reflect their Japanese names.
  • Several item descriptions have been rewritten.
  • Menu options are now color-coded, inspired by Project Ember:
    • Supply/Merch, Take, and Give are GREEN.
    • Talk, Support, Rescue, and Drop are BLUE.
    • Seize, Armory, Vendor, Secret, Arena, Unlock, Unlock, and Visit are YELLOW.
    • Everything else is WHITE.
  • Thieves now gain 3 Strength points, 2 Skill points, 2 Speed points, 3 Defense points, and 2 Resistance upon promotion. Also, the Assassin class now has a base sword rank of 71 (C).
  • Some weapon prices have been modified:
    • Divine now costs 1500G.
    • Nosferatu now costs 1800G.
    • The Dragon axe now costs 3000G.
    • The Wind sword now costs 2400G.
  • The map layout for “Pale Flower of Darkness” (Kenneth) has been slightly modified.
  • Map and Battle animations from the public repository are now being added.
    • Brave Eliwood by Redbean
    • FE15-style Soldier by Nuramon, based on Jeorge Red’s still
    • Soldier Shield Lance by Rexacuse, Peerless, Alusq
    • Shield General (+Cape) by TheBlindArcher, DerTheVaporeon, Nuramon
    • Marshall by Nuramon
    • Knight by Team SALVAGED
  • Knights can now use axes, and Generals can now use swords.
  • A new locked door has been added to “Sands of Time”.
  • Several breakable walls and snags had their “health” modified.
  • A couple of changes to “Battle before Dawn” have been made:
    • Zephiel’s stats have been drastically modified.
    • Zephiel will now maintain his position when he is healing.
    • In addition to his Silver sword, Zephiel now has a Lancereaver, which is effective against Swordreavers.
    • Jaffar now has a Lancereaver in addition to his Killing edge.
  • Several #ESSENTIALFIXES patches from FEBuilderGBA have been implemented (Credits: 7743, Hextator, Stan) :
    • 01command_hack
    • 48command_hack
    • Anti-Huffman
    • Use HandAxs motion as generic motion for throwing axes
    • Fimbulvetr Glitch Fix
    • Fix CAM1/CAMERA2 going out of bounds
    • AI: Prevent Healer Mistarget
  • The MapAddInRange Efficiency Fix patch by 7743 has been implemented. This speeds up the function used to draw ranges, such as attack range.
  • The FillAIDangerMap Efficiency Fix patch by 7743 has been implemented. This improves AI decision speed by 50%, also reducing potential lag.
  • The Fire Dragon has had its defenses increased, to compensate for the weapon effectiveness changes.
  • Gigexcalibur is no longer effective against fliers. I realized it was too OP.
  • A few characters have had their base stats somewhat modified or increased:
    • Lyn
    • Hector
    • Eliwood
    • Matthew
  • Enemy battle palettes have been slightly modified; most notably female shamans and druids.

BETA 1.05-1 (July 7)

  • All game modes are now available from the start, thanks to the FEBuilder patch by Doesnt.

BETA 1.06 (July 21)

  • New battle animations, map animations, and class cards from the public repository have been added:
    • General Shield (U) Cape Lance {Topazlight,SamirPlayz}
    • Knight (M) SALVAGED Lance {SALVAGED}
    • Cavalier (M) Lance by Team SALVAGED
    • Cavalier (M) Generic by Team SALVAGED
    • Paladin (M) by Team SALVAGED
    • Archer (F) Improved {Der} (Map)
    • Archer (M) Improved v2 {Der, topazlight} (Map)
    • Archer (M) Der’s Improved Repal
    • Archer (F) Der’s Rebecca
    • Archer (F) Repal by Der
    • Sniper (M) Quiver by Nuramon
    • Sniper (F) Quiver by Nuramon
    • Sniper (F) Rebecca by Greentea
    • Yetizerker (Red version) by BwdYeti, Red, and shadowofchaos
    • Sage (F) Nino by Greentea
  • Units can now gain supports from three squares away.
  • Berserkers and Swordmasters now have 30% bonus crit.
  • “The Path to Greatness” is now used for BGM of the final map.
  • Bosses (except those with droppable items / weapons OR siege tomes) have been tweaked to use all available weapons for their classes.
  • Chapter 7x in Lyn Mode has been redesigned.

BETA 1.07 (August 3)

  • Several weapons have been modified, once again:
    • Armorslayer (75 Hit)
    • Longsword (75 Hit)
    • Horseslayer (70 Hit)
    • Halberd (65 Hit)
    • Hammer (65 Hit)
    • Killer Bow (75 Hit)
    • Fire (85 Hit)
    • Lightning (80 Hit)
    • Flux (75 Hit)
    • Purge (60 Hit)
  • Generals now start with a D-rank in swords.
  • Sages and Druids now start with a D-rank in staves.
  • Enemy layouts / equipment have been slightly changed in some maps, and some weaker enemies have higher levels.
  • Support growth values have been increased for all characters, and initial support values have been increased for some characters.
    • The minimum per-turn growth value for all supports is now five.
    • For characters who join very late, such as Karla and Renault, the minimum value is now nine. This may need to be increased further?
    • Canon supports, such as Bartre and Karla, have a minimum growth value of 10. This may need to be increased further?
  • Several quality-of-life patches have been installed:
    • Map Danger Zone by circleseverywhere
    • FE7-Battle Stats with Anims Off by Tequila
    • Updated L Button Cycling by AuraWolf
    • Display Growths by Tequila
    • Null Move Display by 7743
      • For non-moving enemies, such as bosses, this patch prevents their full movement ranges from being displayed.
  • For Eliwood Hard and Hector Hard modes, enemy level bonuses now increment by one every few chapters, similar to FE6. It starts from 1 and reaches a maximum of 14 levels by the end-game.
  • A door has been added to “A Glimpse in Time”, in order to allow another turn to get to the treasure before the thief.
  • Soldiers now have higher base stats.
  • Kishuna’s stats have been lowered, once again.
    • In “Imprisoner of Magic”, if the player fails to kill him in time, he now leaves the map on Player Phase, rather than Enemy Phase. This prevents the enemies surrounding him from attacking before the player can prepare.
    • Kishuna now leaves the map three turns later in the normal and hard modes.
      • Turn 18 on Normal, Turn 15 on Hard
  • Some reinforcements arrive sooner in “Dragon’s Gate”. This involves reinforcements that are rarely seen because they arrive after 20 turns.
  • The map layout of “New Resolve” has been redesigned, correcting what I believe is a small inconsistency with “The Port of Badon”.
    • I believe the west side of the map in “New Resolve” is the same area on the east side of “The Port of Badon”.
    • There is now a secret shop in this chapter.
    • Both shops have been retained, as well as the western armory.
  • A new animation and a class card from the repository have been added:
    • Paladin (F) by Team SALVAGED
    • Monk (M) by Blademaster and Itranc

BETA 1.08 (August 27)

  • Several characters’ base stats have been modified:
    • Eliwood (Speed)
    • Lyn (HP, Speed, Luck)
    • Bartre (Strength, Speed)
    • Dorcas (HP, Strength)
    • Wil (HP, Strength, Speed)
    • Rebecca (HP, Strength, Speed)
    • Lucius (HP, Luck)
    • Serra (HP, Magic)
    • Erk (HP)
    • Kent (HP, Strength, Speed)
    • Sain (HP, Strength, Speed)
    • Lowen (Strength, Speed)
    • Priscilla (HP)
    • Florina (Speed, +1 CON)
    • Fiora (+2 CON)
    • Farina (+1 CON)
    • Wallace (Strength, Speed, Resistance)
  • Fighters now get +3 Speed upon promotion.
  • Several maps have been slightly altered in Lyn Mode.
  • Reinforcements in “Victory or Death” have been slightly changed.
  • The poison weapons have new stats:
    • Poison Sword (5 Mt., 70 Hit, 10 Wt.)
    • Poison Lance (7 Mt., 65 Hit, 10 Wt.)
    • Poison Axe (8 Mt., 60 Hit, 12 Wt.)
    • Poison Bow (6 Mt., 65 Hit, 9 Wt.)
  • Afa’s Drops now give a 15% boost to a unit’s growths.
  • Some enemy equipment has been slightly changed for a few of the later chapters.
  • Some enemies have slightly higher levels in the late-game (normal mode) chapters.
  • Some enemies drop Restore staves before chapters that feature status staves.

BUGS

  • As of BETA 1.04, there are no known bugs.

CHARACTER BASE STATS

PATCH LINK

OLD VERSIONS

Older versions can be found in this public folder:

Fire Emblem '03 (Previous Versions) - Google Drive

13 Likes
2

so weapons, especially axes, are just bad again?

2 Likes
3

Based on my test runs, and considering the overall lower enemy stats in this game compared to FE6, I would say that it isn’t too bad. There surely won’t be as many 100% hit rates, however.

1 Like
4

Reverting the legendary weapons to their FE6 weight ALONE makes this worth playing.

1 Like
5

All of this sound amazing! One tiny suggestion i have is that there is a fightable Ephidel which after you beat him retreats like the classic “I can’t fall here i have to retreat.”. I just find it a shame that he was not a fightable boss in the base game and i can see him be on the Dragons Gate as a secondary boss. But other than that i am happy with the changes i read so far!

1 Like
6

Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade Alternative, I’m really stoked! Will it have the 3x multiplayer effective damage instead of 2x? Just curious.

1 Like
7

That is a good idea, although I’m not sure how I would implement it. What do you think? Would the fight be before the big cutscene with the gate, or maybe some other place? I wouldn’t mind some ideas.

8

Now that you mention it, that is something I wanted to implement into the game, although I am not exactly sure how to modify the effectiveness coefficient for the non-legendary weapons.

1 Like
9

By Renault joins with higher stats, do you mean a higher magic stat?

10

Thanks for asking. Renault has higher stats overall. It may… need some tweaking, but he is pretty powerful now.

11

I would have said before in the chapter where you fight Darim. As like that he after he gets defeated leaves Darim on his own. Or do you have a better idea? Implementing would not be such a problem. All you need to use a Sage unit which you change to him.

1 Like
12

Oh, now I see what what you mean. I definitely like the idea of an Ephidel fight in Darin’s chapter. I would have to figure out where to put him, though. Maybe I could make some slight redesigns to the map? Other than that, I would have to implement some dialogue and a death quote for him, as well as creating some boss data for him, since he uses very low, generic civilian stats in the cutscenes. Also, I would have to make an event in which he teleports away, after some dialogue. Thanks for your input, by the way.

2 Likes
13

You are welcome and i would be very happy to see the result!

2 Likes
14

This hack seems interesting. I will possibly play it in the near future. Good luck on the development side of things.

1 Like
15

The added breakable wall in Dragon’s Gate doesn’t break properly, notice how it has 0 HP but is still there
wall

1 Like
16

Thank you for notifying me. Beta 1.1 will have this fixed. Stay tuned.

17

BETA 1.03 has now been released. Several changes have been made; please read the change-log for details.

18

Bug to report. In Crazed Beast some of the cavs turn into assassins when in battle. They don’t crash the game tho.

1 Like
19

Thank you for notifying me. I am going to look into this as soon as possible.

1 Like
20

Hello players! BETA 1.04 has been released. This is not a huge update, but I think the new (WIP) Ephidel boss in the Dragon’s Gate chapter might be of interest to some. You can read the change-log for information on the other changes. Hopefully, this release will not introduce any more glitches.

Also, I am considering making some changes to the battle animations. Specifically, I would be interested in adding in new battle and map animations, sourced from the public repository.

2 Likes