Enjoying this so far not sure if it is known yet looking at the bug fixes from the last update the random enemies not counter attacking(likely due to aftershock) is still present and Emil is able to quad with his perf skill.
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Yeah, I actually just fixed this along with a few other issues and uploaded a new patch, version 1.3. Didn’t officially announce it yet because I was working on a few other things, but it does fix both of these problems.
Thank you, and nice work on the quick fix.
Hello all, a new patch has been uploaded to the downloads folder, v1.3. This mainly addresses various smaller issues that came to my attention recently or that I had time to fix.
Changelog
- Fixed the Burn tome to always apply its effect as intended
- Fixed the NonCombatant skill to do what it says it does (unable to attack/capture)
- Enemies with NonCombatant and Watchful cannot be stolen from with the Thief staff
- More Aftershock issues fixed (hopefully the last ones)
- Ice Sword animation changed
- Removed various procs that sometimes triggered unintentionally, removed a few enemy procs
- Removed skills from various calc loops, speeding up combat
- Pushed Boro’s spawn in Chapter 1 back by 1 turn
- Berserker promotion fixed to give 2 weapon levels
- Fixed various issues with music being played unintentionally
- Other miscellaneous fixes
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I can’t find the secret shop in chapter 15 at all, I’ve restarted the chapter 2 times already and still can’t find it. Can someone tell me where it is or at least which side of the map it’s on? The house doesn’t give me enough information on finding it.
Hint
It’s in the sandy area inside the fort. There should be a suspicious area there.
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Thank you! For some reason I kept checking everywhere but that spot.
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So, I just finished the game and figured I’d share my thoughts. First, I should say I thoroughly enjoyed playing through Bells of Byelen. I really do think there’s something about the telephone style of design that allows you to really focus in and polish your designated chapter to heart’s content. Even what I would have considered the weaker chapters of this game were still very well done comparatively to chapters in other hacks or games. I hope that this style of design becomes a lot more prevalent going forward.
Also, not sure if this has been reported by the way, but when I restarted the final chapter due to a game over, the additional items that I had given two of the final chapter units had disappeared.
Gameplay
I played Bells Ironman Style and while at times it felt very challenging, it didn’t always necessarily feel unfair. A large majority of the first half of this hack is very Player Phase oriented and rushes you, either through a turn limit, super reinforcements that start popping up, or treasure being looted earlier than you’d expect. I definitely felt the pressure and had to make sure I optimized every turn as best as I could or I’d either fail the chapter or miss some critical loot. I will say that after about the 8th or so time of super reinforcements threatening to pop-out I was certainly sick of the concept.
Likewise, I know people didn’t like the Fatigue mechanic, but as someone who loves working with a ton of viable units, I really enjoyed that I had a reason to spread the love. I went the entire game without having anyone cross the fatigue threshold and it hardly impacted my game in any real negative way.
I will say that this game has made me rethink how I feel about 1RN. Namely that I thought I’d want it, but I really don’t. Missing a 97% is not fun, particularly when the Capture penalties are so severe. I lost about three units, including Trajan, to 95% Capture rates that missed.
I think the first half of the game is certainly harder than the second. In total I game overed three times. Chapter 9 from just failing to get out before being swarmed to death, and Chapters 23 and Endgame-2 from oopsing the enemy’s range. The fear of death and an overarching sense of masochism felt a lot more prevalent in the first half though. When I was first thinking about writing this, I was going to add a point about how I think the game never throws the player a bone in the form of gold or Heroes Proofs, but I think you’re a lot more generous during the latter endgame portion, which probably makes up for the difficulty.
Chapter 7 was still largely my favorite Chapter for what I described in my last post, while my least was, I think 13? The one where you get Darby and your Dancer. It’s a kill the boss chapter but the Paladin Boss seems to rush you way too fast. There’s a ton of chests behind a locked door with a sub-boss, and villages, but by the time I opened the door and killed the sub-boss the chapter was essentially forced over from the Paladin rushing my guys. Definitely one of those chapters where I felt rushed despite feeling like I played pretty quickly and seems as though it could use a bit more leniency.
Characters
For a hack with 70 characters there are a LOT more hits than misses. I think that again has to do with the telephone design style ensuring that the characters each dev works on gets a bit more TLC. Thanks to Fatigue I never felt like I was missing out on using a character I thought was cool. Overall balance was decent as well I thought with a few exceptions. I don’t expect every character to be amazing because in many cases they either fill a niche or feel as though they’re there to relieve your heavy hitters. Filone for example, seemed enticing because of her decent growths and skill. But with her abysmal HP you’ll hardly ever get more than 1 Chapter out of her before you need to bench her.
My least favorite character to use though was by far Cleo. Her Strength and Magic are good enough and she’s saved by being in a good class with Canto, but her defenses are absurdly bad. Low DEF is expected for a Pegasus Knight but her RES also being bad, along with her poor speed ensuring she’d be doubled, meant that even random mooks could kill her in one round of combat. This wasn’t for lack of training her either. Towards the midgame even my trained Cleo couldn’t fight Soldiers 1v1, and by endgame she was relegated to either landing capture hits or using a Mend Staff.
Loved using Carl. Loved using Groto. Love using Mink and Fangai. Tried using Apsis and I liked his concept but he felt more like homework. Maybe I overthought it.
Story
The story itself was decent. I think of course if any part of the hack suffers from this design style it would be this. Cleo particularly stands out as an egregious example. The whole Korovoi plot she pulls, coupled with her giving Loewe shit after he finds out what he really is made me strongly dislike her. She doesn’t come off as experiencing character growth as much as she does having borderline personality disorder.
As for the actual plot, I think the whole small rebellion thing lends itself well to the time sensitive nature of the first part of the game. I think the first half of the story is very strong. Once things began getting into the realm of magic rituals and rules that seemed to consistently change my attention did begin to lapse, but again I think this is just something that can’t be avoided when you have 20+ different writers.
The supports that I’ve read so far were good and thank you for including all of them unlocked. I really enjoyed reading Tippany’s supports in particular, as well as the female brigand who’s name I can’t recall at the moment.
Units
Some standout units I had and my thoughts:
Not very durable but doesn’t need to be with 8-9 move Canto and Marksman Bows. Was able to do some nutty things with him with the terrain and the above mentioned
Way too frail and more often used as a healbot than anything else.
Great unit in the first half that falls off in mid-game until she gets the right weapons. No innate crit for Swordmasters really hurts, but once she has a Brave or Master Sword she’s pretty much killing everything in one round. Her high HP also makes her a reliable workhorse.
An insanely fun unit to use. Given how mean this hack had been up to getting him I had been under the impression his PRF weapon was a Devil Weapon because of how flat out good he seemed. Coupled with 5 Vigor stars and a High HP stat for reliability he is beyond crazy.
Actually did not think I was going to use him at first but Dark Mages seem extremely strong in this hack thanks to their durability, ability to use staves, and the lack of enemy light magic. Stayed strong the entire run
So there was a weird bug where on the chapter I got him he was at max fatigue. Thought that would put me off but really glad I used him. Has a strong PRF, especially once he bulks up enough to not be weighed down by it, and the Master Knight promotion is extremely good.
I found Mink far better than Cadenza. Defensive Rallys just don’t really matter after a certain point and he seems to have stronger growths than the other mages.
Sturdy lance wielder. Once has a Brave Lance he’s killing most things in one round. Overall strong, reliable guy.
Another reliable workhorse. Very much functions like a Dread Fighter. I saw that you patched Berserker’s having proper Weapon Ranks. Unfortunately despite how much I used her I think she only got to about the middle of B-Rank so I had to bench her, but was still a strong staple on my team.
He’s Carl but with axes and a worse PRF. Felt like more of a true Berserker than Longxia. Got good use out of him all the way through the end of the game and was great at taking out the more lethal enemy units before they could attack.
I felt she’d benefit more from promoting into a Bow Trooper, but still a nice unit to use.
Special mentions to Volrun, Tara, Tippany, and Shaw.
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So I’m playing through and am I missing something like all the growth rates seem incredibly low for everyone and I swear I didn’t choose to play like hard version or something. But like I was under the impression the gameplay mechanics weren’t that different from vanilla Fire emblem?
The main thing to take note of is that while this Bells of Byelen plays like ‘vanilla’ Fire Emblem, to me it took most of its inspiration and multiple game elements from Thracia 776, which was by far the most difficult of all the vanilla FE games. Low growth rates were part of that.
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I’m not built for this lol. I play fire emblem on easy I’m here for the supports and the story. I’m chapter 8 and literally this dude just shows up with reinforcements and just wipes the floor with me and it’s not like I can push because my units are all so underwhelming lol. Imma need to take a break and come back in a couple weeks before i throw my laptop.
Is it just me or the Arena in chapter 6 is bugged? I entered, defetead the first 3 axe guys, but no money, life restoration or new challengers next turn. Am I doing anything wrong?
This game is heavily, and I mean HEAVILY based on fire emblem thracia, where many characters had low growths. The difference is that in Thracia the stats cap was 20 and here is not, meaning everything will be much more difficult.
This game has 20 stat caps
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Is it just me or the Arena in chapter 6 is bugged? I entered, defetead the first 3 axe guys, but no money, life restoration or new challengers next turn. Am I doing anything wrong? Please help
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Wait, WHAT? I hadn’t go that far yet because of the aren bug, so I just thought this game’s stats cap would be your typical gba FE game’s. My gosh, this game is literally Thracia.
Emphasis mine. Loog’s post is comprehensive.
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A recent change to fix a small arena issue ended up creating another one 
. Went through and fixed that one, tested it, and it all seems to be fine now. Thanks for the report.
So if I download the patch once again I’ll be able to play the arena properly? I mean, I downloaded the game just this morning and the thread hasn’t been updated since October. I’m guessing the so called Sister Ring is the main prize for winning the gauntlet as well.
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All the updates to the patch have been done in the g drive link itself, so the link here has never needed to change over the past month or so. You can see when you click through, that the patch was last modified about an hour ago.