My wife informed me that the name for thief “Buldak” means “spicy chicken” in Korean. 10/10 best hak ever.
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it’s not bad for instant noodle!
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I had actually played this hack to completion when it first released, but the game was pretty different compared to how it is now. Sooo I decided to replay Having a friend on the dev team definitely did not influence my decision whatsoever
Endgame Team
Cleo:
Flying staffer with capped con. She actually became kind of insane after she promoted.
Loewe:
Flying Oswin lord was really interesting; his viability definitely fell off after around chapter 11, but after promotion he took off again.
Lyre:
Just your average prepromote Wyernlord. Her skill was kind of cool, but I rarely found myself utilizing it.(Least insane Devvy skill)
Valse:
Valse is kind of insane? He ORKOS at base, and his access to lances is really good. I never actually used his skill lol.
Buldak:
Prooobably the best thief in the hack. His high Bld meant that he could just casually disarm enemies. I found myself using him as a crutch quite often.
Fangai:
Fangai was my first promotion. He was absolutely insane earlygame, and fell off slowly as my magic units started gaining more magic.
Takai:
Takai was absolutely insane for me, magic warrior was not something I was expecting to be good, but his Fire Drive actually lasted me the entire game lol.
Matthias:
I picked this man just so I could have a devotee that doesn’t just get fatigued after one map. He did not disappoint, and became my lategame delete button.
Tao:
This is probably the only time I’ve used an Est in a hackrom. Taodao helped carry him until promotion, after which he became my primary bow user.
Varga:
Whilst this screenshot doesn’t look nearly as impressive with the Bld stat since he’s promoted; Varga had actually capped Bld as an Armor Knight. It was really funny to see the Bld number ding up.
Volran:
Opportunist is really great. Also him having a massive support range due to his base level meteor is really funny. Was probably the biggest deadweight on my team, but still contributed.
Milo:
ITS MILO FUCKING MONDAY. EVERY DAY IS MILO MONDAY. RUN FROM HIM WHILE YOU STILL CAN.
Asha:
Instapromo Asha is really great. She can steal Trained weapons, allowing her to disarm many mid to lategame enemies. Not to mention her combat was great. She killed a LOT with magic swords.
Boro:
I deployed him for Endgame-2, and his master lance combat was really helpful.
Uh, I guess that’s it, most feedback I’d give is already being addressed by “Project Bell”
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Figured I would mention that I made a quick hotfix to the current patch that fixes the behavior of a certain lategame Prf and also removes an issue that made WTD disappear from the game with that fix (which I missed while testing). Also, a lot of other miscellaneous issues, like event battles with implausible display numbers, have been fixed.
One bigger thing, that isn’t bug-related, is a general overhaul of a number of tracks in the game to make them sound better (thanks to Leche for this). Also, Cromar now has a different class when fog rolls in… (credit to ArcherBias for making the sprites):
On the topic of “Project Bell,” a few of its gameplay tweaks have already been implemented on my end. So far, units through Interlude 1 have been looked at, with some given moderate buffs in stats or WEXP (main beneficiaries are likely Varga, Delilah, Zwieback, Awa, and Tobie). Those changes won’t be shipped until I’ve had a chance to play through the game overall and put all the new modifications in a larger patch.
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It’s really not often that a hack captivates me enough to keep my attention all the way through, so considering this one did, I thought this was worth the unit showcase/giving my thoughts. Now I am a big Thracia fan, so I’m sure the Thracia mechanics definitely helped warm me up to this hack. I’m generally a fan of fatigue, and PCC and movement stars are super cool mechanics, so it was really refreshing to have them in a GBA hack. The whole concept of some but not all characters having personal skills but minimal class skills also felt very Jugdral which I was a fan of. I thought the gameplay generally flowed really well and the story I thought turned out really well considering how this hack was created. Overall, I’m super impressed and I hope to see more hacks with Thracia mechanics and this level of solid gameplay in the future. For context, I did a (mostly) ironman (I did have to reset once because I lost I think Cleo in chapter 3) and I did things mostly blind so I definitely missed a few secretive things that I didn’t know about.
Unit Review
Of the two lords, I’d say that Cleo left a better impression on me. Her strength was ridiculous – it was actually capped as soon as she got her promo bonuses. Charisma is always useful, and access to staves after promotion on a character who doesn’t fatigue gave her a good overall utility side on top of how hard she hit. She also didn’t have a glaring weakness in any stat, so I never felt that I had to cover for weaknesses with her at any point.
Loewe… honestly, I’d say his main use came from his class. His growths weren’t consistent enough to be anything impressive and I don’t know if he got the memo that strength is a stat that can increase on level up. I think he got 4 strength over the course of the entire game, and one of those strength levels wasn’t until the final chapter. That said, bows with canto plus is incredibly useful and his bow rank was easy to train, so he could still be relevant in the late game with a Master Bow, especially on outdoor maps.
Groto was a super fun character to use. A combination of his personal skill and the fact that he didn’t need a promotion item is what convinced me to pick him up in the third interlude, and I definitely don’t regret it. I’d say if anything holds him back the most, it’s his axe rank. It never went above C, and his weapon level doesn’t increase particularly fast considering he never really doubles and just aims for the crit one shot every combat. The one other thing of note I’d say about Groto is that his HP is so high, I don’t think he ever had to sit out a single chapter due to never getting fatigued.
Classic example of “jack of all trades, master of none” but that was exactly what I needed him to be. He was never a standout unit in my army, but he was always consistent and reliable. Savior did save me from death on a couple occasions as well. He actually got some fantastic levels in the last two chapters, so that does make him look a bit better here than he actually was in most of the game for me. I don’t think his weapon levels increased a single time outside of promotion gains, so no access to A rank weapons didn’t do him many favors either.
This guy is nutty. His skill plus his PRF was a ton of fun to play with. 60 uses is insane – he still had over 20 uses on his PRF by endgame. By the end, I found myself mainly using the King Sword or a Hand Axe for range/weapon triangle instead of his PRF. I think I got a bit Luck screwed considering it’s his highest growth – there were a couple times I used him to bait in a Brave Lance and ended up facing an uncomfortable amount of crit, but thankfully I never got unlucky there.
Here she is. The MVP of the playthrough. The savior of the world. All tremble before the might of Tobie!!
Seriously though, she was nutty. I picked her up because one of my only early deaths was Emil and I felt I needed to prioritize lances in the first interlude. I don’t think I’d have considered her otherwise, but holy cannoli am I glad I picked her up. I recognize that mine definitely got strength blessed, but my god is a strength blessed Tobie ridiculously good. She easily took out the bosses of each of the last two chapters – including taking out the final boss literally all on her own. She carried me for a long time too, considering I made her my first promotion because she was already doing so well. If she’s getting a buff in the future like you’ve said, I’ll be looking forward to that. I’d say her one downside was her lance rank. She hit A, but she hit it pretty late – the start of chapter 23, I believe.
When I first saw Apsis, his whole gimmick hurt my head in the best way possible. I had to pick him up. I also think mine leveled pretty well, 18 speed is nice considering he doesn’t have the best growth in it. He was an absolute magic nuke by the endgame, and managing his tomes was a really enjoyable, unique experience. I will say I never once used the health restoring tome in either the primary OR secondary slot, but I did find some use out of each of the others at some point. If anything, I’m just a bit bummed out over how late he joined. I would have loved to have more time to play around with this really creative gimmick.
How is this character allowed? It absolutely boggles my mind that I’m (I think) the first person to be posting a screenshot of an endgame Sera. She is the biggest “get out of jail free” card I’ve ever experienced getting to play in a hack. Her low strength hardly mattered when she had insane speed and 5 PCC. A killing edge was absolutely all she needed. Later on, the Maiodao seemed literally to be a match made in heaven with her – a brave sword that didn’t weigh her down and had just enough crit for her 5 PCC to be guaranteeing crits on the second two attacks. There are definitely some maps that are just naturally designed for her to abuse her gimmick more, but she’s nuts in basically any chapter. I cannot wrap my head around how this character is allowed, but I’m so glad she is.
I dunno if Valse is a bit overtuned or if I just got extremely lucky with mine. I actually only picked Valse up because I was planning on using Hornet and he had a natural support started with her already. Turns out it was a really good idea. This guy was incredibly good, capping his Strength, and nearing Defense and Speed caps too. I was sitting on the Azurium item waiting for someone that I thought I might want to give it to, and ended up settling on Valse. Really glad I did this, as not only could he water walk, but the Res buff turned him into an all-around tank who could just be an absolute juggernaut by endgame. I’m super glad I ended up giving this guy a shot, he was incredibly worth it.
Not too much to say about this guy. He just does everything you’d want your Chapter 1 healer to do. He’s the easiest character to get to A staves, he’s got 3 movement stars, and he capped his magic. As a bonus, his high build allowed him to be great at grabbing captured enemies to take their stuff and release them. What more could I ask of the Chapter 1 healer? Just incredibly solid utility through the whole game.
What set Ngondala apart from other late game characters was pretty much just the A light and B staves. This allowed her to Purge and use nice utility staves for no investment whatsoever. She was a pretty easy pickup for chapters in the endgame where I had an extra deployment slot or two.
Other than Sera, Hornet is the one other character that is going to cause me to ask: how is this character allowed? She’s basically a ballista but on a horse with canto plus. Not sure why I’d use Nahiza when Hornet exists, doesn’t require the special ballista weapons, and has canto plus. Her personal bow helped her sometimes hit the threshold to use her 4 PCC, and by the time it was running out, she had access to the Brave Bow and could just delete things from a safe range with 0 downsides. Plenty of late game bosses have 1-3 range weapons to force you to take retaliation attacks from them and then Hornet just shows up like “yeah but what if Brave Bow from 4 spaces away?” Absolutely busted, but again, so glad I got to use her. What an incredibly fun unit.
I originally picked Longxia over the other earlygame axe users because she got some insane level ups in her join chapter. This helped her snowball into a hard midgame carry, even to the point where I gave her my second promotion after Tobie. But honestly, after promotion… I feel like she began to fall off a bit. I’m not going to say she was ever bad, but I think she was actually pretty mediocre by endgame compared to so many of the other ridiculous units I had. Still, she was perfectly serviceable through endgame, and apparently got the most kills of anyone in my army, so I gotta give credit where credit is due.
I HAD to pick Tippany when I saw her in the second interlude. Her funky stat spread just hit all the right buttons for me – good staff rank, as much movement growth as magic growth, 0 PCC but 3 movement stars… I absolutely needed to use her. My Fangai didn’t have as much staff rank as her by her join time, so I sadly ended up dropping him in favor of Tippany, but I can’t say I regret it much because I found her incredibly fun to use. I think she’s just a super cool use of Thracia mechanics with a unique combination that to me really shows how cool these mechanics are.
Iskra was a really fun early game mage. Her skill was pretty unique, though I found it wasn’t mattering as often as I may have wanted it to. I also apparently missed a PRF for her, so that’s sad. I feel she was quite serviceable in the early game, but kinda fell off just before and honestly even just after her promotion. Maybe her PRF would have changed that. However, after promotion, she started getting some insanely good levels, and that helped her snowball into one of my best offensive units by endgame. I almost dropped her at one point, but I’m glad I stuck with her, because the payoff was excellent.
She dance.
Honorable Mentions go to:
- Asha and Mira for doing thiefy things at many points during the game
- Ilse, Rashid, and Hans, for being temporary filler units on enough chapters to justify me shouting them out here
- Alena, Fangai, and Leina, for being units I thought I was going to use until I stopped using them
- Emil, Varga, Zwieback, and Nora, the playthrough’s 4 deaths, whose sacrifices were not in vain. Particular shoutouts to Zwieback for being the one unit of those 4 I’d intended to use in the long term – I’m a huge fan of Bow Armors, and I was incredibly sad when he died to me messing up enemy ranges. It was 100% my fault.
A Bug/Some Small Oddities
- So, the biggie, I’m glad I could tell it was about to be buggy and saved a state as this was happening to me. When I redid chapter 3, I was in a situation where I had 3 units left on the map. Loewe, Varga, and Cleo who was, at the time, being rescued by Varga. If I brought either Loewe OR Varga to the escape point, it would end the map. Escaping with Loewe would, of course, leave Varga behind because the map was over and he was still there. Which obviously, shouldn’t happen, because he was holding Cleo and she was thus still on the map and it shouldn’t have ended. If I escaped with Varga/Cleo instead, I would find myself in a position where I was at the start of chapter 4 WITHOUT LOEWE! There was no way I was letting one of my lords glitch out of existence and I wasn’t redoing chapter 3 for a third time, so I just cut my losses and “left Varga behind” even though I, by all means, should have been able to escape with him as he was holding Cleo.
- In Chapter 22, when the thief spawns in the top right corner… he’s trapped. Like, he literally can’t move from the staircase, the barrels block him. This seems… not optimal, as I had one turn of feeling pressured to move and then the thief just escaped because he had nothing to do, and I could go back to turtling if I wanted.
- Pretty minor, maybe even intentional but I’d lean toward probably not intentional – Tobie has 1 more point of Build when unmounted than when mounted. This is true both when promoted and when unpromoted.
A Few General Thoughts
So yeah, as I said earlier, I think the gameplay in this hack was incredibly strong. That said, there were a couple chapters that stood out that I wasn’t as big of a fan of, and I’d say those were 3 and 11, and those stand out to me basically for polar opposite reasons. 3 felt too rough and not blind friendly at all. I was heavily punished for trying to get the chests when enemies who were way too strong spawned closer to my army than I was expecting them to. I feel like these reinforcements were both a tad strong AND a tad early – even just 1 turn later and I’d still feel incredibly pressured without the chapter making me want to tear my hair out. Even when redoing the second time, skipping some items, and going as fast as I felt possible, I still lost Emil (and Varga to the previously discussed bug.) This chapter left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth as just being too difficult, which no other chapter did. It was singlehandedly responsible for 2 of my 4 deaths and my only reset, and I didn’t feel like I could have “played better,” I just felt frustrated. Conversely, I didn’t think there was enough going on in chapter 11. Once I neutralized the thieves, there was nothing left pushing me forward, and the latter half of that chapter felt pretty empty as a result. Maybe this is just more of a breather chapter than anything else, and if so that’s valid enough, but I did find myself wishing to be forced ahead and challenged more at the end of that chapter – perhaps something like the boss starting to move and spawning a wave of reinforcements on that same turn as well or something like that. I do think some endgame maps were stronger than others, but in general I think endgame is a lot harder to do well since the player can have such a varied army at this point, so I don’t really have much to say overall about the later chapters. I think I just prefer early/midgame FE in general.
I also want to give a huge shoutout to chapter 6 for the arena gimmick! I’ve never seen anything like it, and I thought that it was incredibly creative and enjoyable to play.
Overall, I had an incredibly fun time with this hack! Thanks so much to everyone involved in making it, and I really hope to see more hacks with these mechanics in the future!
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Hey, glad to hear that you enjoyed the hack! It’s good to see that despite some significant deviations from Thracia, it’s still enjoyable to Thracia fans. The low number of skills (besides Apsis) was definitely intentional, which also gives PCC and move stars more weight. I would put the gameplay being solid largely on the number of devs involved, which allowed people to put more focus into their chapters without experiencing burnout or any one developer’s habits from becoming repetitive.
On the topic of units, it’s always funny to see which of the lords popped off. Usually I’ve seen this be Loewe, but Cleo definitely can be quite strong with her all-arounder build and staff utility.
Also, that’s definitely the most insane Tobie I’ve ever seen. The buffs I mentioned are mostly WEXP related and some minor stat buffs otherwise because most of what I’ve seen indicates that people don’t pick her often. Maybe I shouldn’t have buffed her though… 
Valse is typically not quite that good, particularly in his Def, but he’s definitely a high tier combat unit overall who benefits a lot from being Str focused in a class that gives a large Spd promo.
Sera and Hornet can both definitely “break” the game in their own way; they do have some limitations that hold them back (Sera fatigues every other map if she exploits her skill much, and Hornet in having essentially no enemy phase), but they’re both easily top tier.
I fixed the bugs/issues mentioned here and uploaded those changes to the main patch for future players. The escape one was a fairly quick fix that just came down to something being in the wrong order in the Escape code made for the hack, and there were a couple other Build related issues with mount/dismount classes that I noticed while looking at the class table and fixed. I’ll look at some of the map issues you mentioned while I’m playing through the game again and making various tweaks for the next update.
As for other Thracia-like hacks, Sun God’s Wrath is the only other complete one I know of, which has most of Thracia’s mechanics and a ton of other stuff as well. I’d also like to see more myself, as no matter what flaws it may have, Thracia is an incredibly interesting game (and it seems many hackers agree with this as well, according to this survey’s results).
Lastly, as a more general note: I’ve made unit tweaks and changes through Interlude 2 now, with significant buffs to 8 and 11’s units, along with a couple in Interlude 2. I plan to playtest and modify the first half of the game and then move onto the second half, do the same, and release that as one patch. Also, Cromar has grown even more glorious when there’s fog (credit to knabepicer for making these edits to the Hero anim used in BoB):
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Thanks for the response! In terms of the characters, I do think it’s worth me mentioning that despite how insane my Tobie was, I do think she needs the small buffs. As I said, I don’t think I’d have even considered her if I hadn’t lost my Emil and been left with no lance user. This was the only thing that made her look appealing to me at all, I’d probably have grabbed Cadenza or maybe Awa otherwise.
I do think you hit the nail on the head with Sera and Hornet’s biggest weaknesses too. Those are definitely what holds them both back the most, but it doesn’t stop them from being insane units.
Glad to hear the escape bug was an easy fix! It’s good to know no one else has to deal with it. Thanks for the quick fix to that!
I do know of Sun God’s Wrath, to be fair I don’t think I’ve given that one a shot yet and I probably should once the rush of the holiday season is over. Thracia mechanics are definitely incredibly fun to play with, and I think they work really well within the context of a GBA hack.
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Is there any benefit of saving McCullm the retired pirate in chapter 6? I landed a kill hit on him and not sure if I shoulda reload the save. Didn’t get any item after in instance I saved him by talking with the ring to Cormar. I am split because I got excellent stats on level up when my myrmidon who killed McCullam
Respect man. Not reloading when you lose a unit.
brofist.gif
What illicit drug is this dude on?
Eh, I think Cromar specifically has to kill him.
And as per buldak, the most crippling illicit substance of all, depression.
Nope. You can kill McCullom yourself or have his troubolador healer talk with Cromar while she has sister ring in her inventory. You win the sister ring from the arena after defeating 3 waves of enemies. If she has sister ring in her inventory she can make Cromar stop and McCullom will flee after expressing his regrets and thanks. But you don’t get nothing in return for saving him. Maybe down the road when story progresses?
The guide says to use mGBA for the compatibility with Bells hack. But what setting guys do you use? My default settings for mGBA have weird issues with sound getting cut off. I have no issues whatsoever when using Pizza Boy Pro (paid version) which I use when playing the hack on android.
Saving McCallum does have an effect later in the game. I can’t speak to the sound issues at all on mGBA because I tested using default settings and didn’t notice any, but if your emulator is working fine, then it should be fine to keep using it.
Small inconsistency in dialogue.
What happens with the units left behind? Can you get them back later?
Is it possible to recruit Mifan?
To be fair, my memory is spotty and I beat this hack like…3-5 months ago.
As per those units, you don’t know about Thraica 776’s infamous chapter 6 do you?
I thought I fixed this bug, but I’ll have to double check. Units left behind are gone for good.
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Is there any benefit of saving Hernandez? Saving his crew is nigh-impossible. They could have been possible if Hernandez and his crew spawned on 3 or 4 turn but definitely not on the second.
//EDIT: Turn 3 Hernandez crew is all dead turn 4 Hernandez himself kicked the bucket. Didn’t manage to save any of them 
//EDIT: What is the optimal number of units for player to train? Usual deployment is limited to 10-12 form what I noticed. 12-18?
Hernandez
To my knowledge, no. He only appears if you saved him in Ch2. Pretty sure it is expected for him to go out in a blaze of glory, and I do not think we set any additional flags for him being alive at this point.
As for units, hard to say what’s “optimal”. The way the EXP formula works, you can get away with using whomever really. In my runs, I’ve generally at least attempted to use everyone and roll with the RNG as I refine the squad based on fatigue availability and overall need / desire to train. I think most of the dev team playtest the hack with a somewhat similar mindset.
The EXP formula encourages spreading EXP around because of how generous it gets if you’re below level and stingy if you’re above – so funneling EXP into too few units would generally not be ideal given this and fatigue forcing the occasional benching.
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I can confirm that on pizza boy pro and probably on basic version too the game do not hang on chapter 12 turn 10.
Thracia you get those units back in 21x.
yeah but this game is not thracia
also ive beaten bob twice and i used like 25 units both times
Wondering if anyone has encountered the same bug as me and found a workaround. In Ch 21 I always get left hanging indefinitely waiting for the turn 6 player phase to start after the two thieves pop out of the cave where Cephalid is. After the turn 5 other phase they show up and target cursor appears over Cephalid/the cave, if he’s dead, as if a line of dialogue is to follow but never does. Unit idle animations playing but no control.
Tried a couple of chapter restarts. Tried blocking the cave and tiles they come out on, but they just go to the nearest open instead. Using retroarch and have tried the same save file on beetle, vba-next, and mGBA cores.
Sounds like a new bug, I can take a look at the event and patch a fix sometime today.