FE8: Christmas Edition
Not ready for the holidays to be over quite yet? Enjoy a classic Fire Emblem with a festive twist! This fresh new take on FE8 has plenty of enhancements to keep the festive cheer going for anyone who plays it, including:
- What’s everyone’s favourite instrument in GBA FE music? That’s right, jingle bells. That’s why everyone puts them in their songs instead of kick drums, right? You’ll be bobbing your head to these festive new takes on The Sacred Stones’s soundtrack!
- It now snows on all maps. Eirika’s been dreaming of a white Christmas! To help you deal with this, base movement is now 6 for all unmounted units and 8 for all mounted ones. Also there are roads— but keep in mind they’re spotty, to simulate the experience of driving through a town that completely shuts down for any hint of snow and ice because no one knows how to drive in it.
- Javelins are cool, so i made all lances 1-2 range so it’s like you’re always using a javelin! I figured this would make lances a little overpowered, so i made most of them heavier and made the lancereaver stronger. Life is one big snowball fight, and a spear is nothing if not a long snowball.
- The fate of Ross is now entirely up to the bandit attacking him since Vanessa can no longer reach him in time. Sometimes you have to take a moment to remember all those less fortunate left out in the cold this Christmas. But who knows? A Christmas miracle might save him!
- HP is a historically undervalued stat. As such, most units have low HP growths but stat-boosting items also give HP to compensate somewhat. This is also realistic because for the past month or so my workplace has been a hotbed of sickness for its employees. But don’t let that stop you from enjoying your food! You’ve got to eat to keep your HP up in real life.
- Various other changes i made with zero forethought, to emulate the experience of scrambling to buy people Christmas presents at the very last chance.
- I didn’t alter the story of the game at all, but i did indirectly address a crucial hole in FE8’s plot. In the ending of chapter 6, Seth refers to Novala by name even tho the latter skipped formalities and never bothered to introduce himself in the chapter intro scene. Novala’s portrait now includes a handy name tag so the story of FE8 finally makes sense. At last, the kids can get to sleep so Santa Claus can deliver the presents rather than lie awake at night wondering how Seth knew the name of a minor boss character.
- Cute rounded HP bars, 'cause i felt like making 'em
All jokes aside, FEBuilder has been a joy to use (i’m usually a buildfile user) to make a silly thing like this to unwind during the evenings after work during the holidays. Game was tested on hard mode through chapter 8.