[FE8][Complete] Bells of Byelen (24 Chapters)

[thandragon]

Amazing hack. Lots of weird changes compared to vanilla FE8, but got used to it. I didn’t play FE5.

• Skills are orignal and innovative
• the story is AMAZING.
• Not sure If i found all of them, but secret shops were a bit of a hassle and too hard to find?, esp considering non-access to supply.
• Grinding weapon ranks was difficult. Some magic users were on staff duty, but even when they mostly used their “main” weapon, I couldn’t even achieve A-rank. While I think it’s a good thing to use it as a balance leverage, it could have some improvement (e.g. my Varga, early character didn’t hit A-rank on swords at endgame.)

Bugs:

• Got a freeze after battle (and dialog) of Varga and his wife (stuck in map animation)
• Attacking with Apotheosis displays different numbers in battle preview.
• Azurium’s waterwalking ability doesn’t properly work on several maps.

Questions

1. can you just unequip all tomes after acquiring Apotheosis?
2. Konovai’s soldiers that are in your army had some scenes investigating their leader’s disappearence, but what’s the conclusion?
3. What happens if Cromar kills the pirate (or you kill it)?
4. There was a prisonner on the left in the chapter you capture Coralia (the same as the on showing up when suspending chapter). He mentionned something about returning a favor after freeing him. What is it?
5. Is postgame abandonned?
6. What happens to Myran (Cromar’s sister) if: 1. the pirate’s dead 2. Cromar is dead 3. You capture their units?
7. What happens if you don’t free Loewe in chapter 1?
8. Is there a reason why Pelecaye joins Korovai (in the cutscene) if you don’t recruit him? He’s replaced by a generic soldier if you do.

[ArcherBias]

this art is incredible

[Norikins]

this art is incredible too

[aburniol]

hello!
Thanks for the game. It’s really amazing at the moment.

I’m having difficutlies with one bug in Chapter 15. I have been looking for the same bug but i don’t seem to find it.

Thw thing is that after Loewe’s promotion, i go to the selection menu in chapter 15 and Loewe is gone.

Have you seen that before? Is there a solution?

[LegendofLoog]

This sounds vaguely familiar. I think I’ve fixed this already, so if you redownload the patch and transfer your save, it should be fine as long as you didn’t save in preps.

[aburniol]

It works
Many thanks. I couldn’t wait to continue playing

[discoghost]

just finished it, spent about 40 hours. i really liked the ending. great job polishing. one of the best.

[Brax]

Hey can some pleaseeeee provide me a list paired characters that have paired epilogue/ending cause i really couldn’t figure it out myself, and thank u in advance

[knabepicer]

Every support pairing has a paired ending.

[Chesh]

Is this a permanent fix or something you do manually each time? Which debugger popup is this under?

[LegendofLoog]

Hello, everyone. I’m writing a post today to detail some of the changes going into the next update of Bells of Byelen, v2, which will feature very substantial changes to the game. I’ve occasionally mentioned it in the past (at times jokingly called “Project Bells”), but for one reason or another, I’ve never managed to get very far into it. Recently, though, my time has freed up decently, and I’ve found the motivation to implement the majority of the changes I want to make, up to Chapter 6. With this, I’m uploading v1.6, which captures all of these changes, to a Testing folder in the main download link. If anyone wants to play this version and provide feedback, I’d appreciate it, but for the most part, it’s here so that various aspects that others added (Levin, ArcherBias, and RandomWizard to name a few) are out there now instead of waiting until whenever v2 is done.

At this point, a question that you might be asking is: Why update the game like this, when it is already [COMPLETE]? There are a couple reasons for this, which are below if you’re interested.

Reasons for V2

• To start with, most of BoB dev took place while I was in college, where I generally had a good amount of free time/will to procrastinate on academic work. However, as the final chapters finished up, I graduated and moved onto the job hunt, which brought with it (on my end) a pressure to be done with the project and move on. A lot of changes were still made in this time, but there were a good amount that I gave up on doing or never implemented in the best way possible. It’s my goal now to finish out these types of tweaks in a satisfying way, along with making the ones that I didn’t have time to do before the release.
• What makes this update more sweeping than just this largely came from the reaction to the hack post-release, with how many people have played it. Because of this big response, though, a lot of feedback has come pouring in. A significant amount of it, from my perspective, has concerned “cohesion”, which is a natural struggle point for a telephone. BoB lies in an awkward spot where it certainly can, at times, be compared to a solo project in consistent quality, but it still has the same unevenness that most telephones do. Even after this update, I expect that’ll be the case, but the primary goal is to get BoB as close as I reasonably can to a solo project’s level of cohesiveness. Ultimately, I know that BoB can be even better than it is right now without changing the spirit of the game, so I wanted to make the changes necessary to make that happen.
• What goes into this? Well, for one thing, taking a look at all the stat numbers in the game again. It’s currently a mish-mash of some ripped from FE5, some tweaked because those were bad, some new ones, and so on. Class and item stats have gotten a once-over, and most character stats are also changing a fair amount while keeping most of the same leanings and intent. Items will be given out with more care for the units that can use them, so that units who rely on their weapon ranks have a greater niche. And also, caps are being raised to 25 universal when promoting, as 20 just didn’t leave enough space to avoid cap smashing without basically nerfing every unit in the game, which would kind of suck.
• From a narrative perspective, this means rewrites, some of which are in this update. While I do think the narrative is pretty solid, all things considered, there are some chapters that stick out, some plot threads that go nowhere, and some characters that aren’t very consistent. My goal here is to trim or add where necessary so that the narrative is more straightforward and clear. In some cases, new chapters will be added where necessary for the plot to make more sense.
• In the end, the changes can be likened to a “director’s cut” of what’s in 1.4. I feel confident that the end product will be better, or I wouldn’t be doing this, but the old version before all of these changes will remain in the GDrive link out of respect to the team and all the people that played the original version. That’s pretty much all I have to say on the “why”, though, so let’s get into the “what”.

Otherwise, feel free to read on if you want to see what the specific changes are so far. Fair warning that it’s extremely in-depth; this is as much a devblog as it is a public changelog for me to refer to, haha.

Classes and Items

• As mentioned previously, every class has been adjusted in some way. Some have been changed less than others, but to talk about some common trends, HP stats have largely decreased. This is reflected in some player units as well. Notably, this makes both your units and enemy units a little less durable in the earlygame, which leads to slightly faster combat. It also means that Fatigue will be a little more relevant, though this change is marginal.
• Outside of this, basically all classes have gotten increased bases, which allows for more differentiation between them as enemies. On the other hand, enemy growths have gone down very slightly in most cases, so growths/bases now more closely align. Lastly, Bld stats have generally gone down, as along with HP, it was a fairly inflated stat.
• Also, classes now have base Lck aligning with their growth. Lck on generics has largely been removed, which makes some enemy types easier to crit than others. Here’s a couple of examples on what this looks like:
  
  
• As with classes, many item stats have changed as well. These changes are a bit too many to list, so I’ll just talk about some overarching things. There’s a bit of an odd dichotomy with the Iron->Steel->Trained->Silver group, because Trained and Silver weapons don’t really have any notable differences besides Silvers being better in every way, in contrast to Iron/Steel having some level of tradeoffs. Silvers have been made heavier and also higher Mt so that if Trained is like Iron+, Silvers are now like Steel+. Prices have also been completely redone to be more varied across weapon types. The rest of this section will note some of the additions/removals of certain items.
• To start with, a couple new Equips were added to the earlygame, which largely had none because we hadn’t gotten the mechanic in at the time. One of these is in Ch 1, the Hide Shield, which is a basic +2 Def and a way to introduce the mechanic early. This Equip, is infinite use, and a number of Equips will be changed to match this. In many cases, the extra mental calculus of thinking about Equip uses isn’t worth the effect, which is the motivation behind this change.
• Further, a couple of Scrolls have been added to the earlygame. The Egan Scroll (Ch 5) gives +20% Mag/Res/Lck, and the Asgeir Scroll (Ch 6) gives +10% Spd/Def and +20% Lck. Along with the Beiyr scroll’s buff to +20% Str/Skl/Lck, the hope is that this’ll form a nice set of “starter” scrolls so that every unit has a scroll that is useful for them. Scrolls have also lost their Hoplon Guard effect, primarily because there are so many of them and the effect is boring in that quantity.
  
• Statboosters have also been changed. Largely, I nerfed them to their state in the current game because of 20 caps and not wanting to ram them too hard. Now, though, caps have been lifted, and I’ve changed my mind on them being quite as weak as some are now. Some of these will be added where it makes sense, though the amount will be fairly limited as a result of their increase in power. Here’re the current boosts:
  • Goddess Icon/Angelic Robe/Secret Book/Talisman: +4
  • Energy Ring/Spirit Dust: +3
  • Speedwing/Dracoshield/Body Ring: +2
  • Boots: +1
• Slims have been removed because basically no unit benefited from their weight anyway. In their place, Axe/Sword/Lance/Bows all have a Short variant, which gives a bit of Hit, is a little heavier, and also can’t crit. This is decently useful for setting up captures safely and not suffering from randomly critting a guy you wanted to take from.
• A new D Rank, 1-3 range Light tome has also been added, Yseod. With Lightning being un-critted (so that Light mages can be used more readily as enemies), this gives your Light units something unique early that they can do compared to other weapon types.
• Similarly, a “new” D Rank lance has been added, the Chargelance. It’s basically just Emil’s Prf but un-Prf’d from him. This was done because it doesn’t change how he plays and often is pretty underwhelming by the time he gets it. Lances could use the additional weapon variety, so now it shows up early in the game in Tobie’s inventory.
  
• Finally, a couple more removed items: Cadenza no longer has Ballad of War (Charisma tome) and Counter Bow is removed. The latter shows up once in the very lategame and was essentially added in error; it was initially made in Ch 6, then unused, and its effect has always been nonfunctional.
• As for Ballad of War, it’s a bit of an awkward item that encourages you not to use it, and Cadenza has plenty of other things going for him that makes it unneeded. This item slot was used for some R-Text purposes, which is a nice segue into the next big change.
• Last thing on items: The convoy has been expanded to 250 items, with (hopefully) no bugs that I can see.

Supports and Skills

• Supports currently didn’t see much use, in part because of difficulty of triggering, but more (in my opinion) because of difficulty in understanding when it’s active. 3H Linked Attacks were something I thought were interesting, so I added it late in development, but I underestimated how much not having the popup in battle would impact using them. Beyond that, not knowing what the bonuses were probably contributed to this as well.
• I decided that trying to figure out how to add a Linked Attack display wasn’t worth it, so BoB is going back to standard support range as in GBA. I’ve also added a Support R-text display, as Affinities are not present and all bonuses are custom per pairing. If the support is inactive, then it’ll show up as gray in the stat screen.
  
• On the topic of the stat screen, it received a few changes. Battle/Win/Loss is now displayed on the 3rd page, along with the aforementioned supports. The first page has been rearranged a little, and PCC has been moved to Page 2, replacing the useless “Equipment” text. Rng has also been replaced by AS for a generally more useful stat.
• Lastly, Level and XP have been re-added to the MMB. I don’t think Level is particularly useful, but seeing XP can be when deciding who to give a kill over to, so here it is.
• On skills, a number of them have been changed. Here’s the list:
  • Avenger (Loewe): Now also increases Hit by missing HP.
  • Hex → Heartseeker (Delilah): -15 Avo → -20 Avo.
  • Odd/Even Rhythm (Alex/Axel): Gives 10 Crit and 10 C.Avo.
  • Savior (Faolan): Also ignores capture penalties during battle.
  • Radiance (Leina): Radiant status effect now lasts 3 turns.
  • Headshot (Filone): Now increases Atk by 50% of enemy’s missing HP. Updates during battle, only on initiation.
  • Azurium Might → Azure Grace (Azurium): Now gives Spd +2 instead of Res.
• Lastly, there is a new skill called Umbral Insight, which calls down fog after combat, but increases non-Mov/Con growths by (7 - Fog Vision) * 5. Res +4. It’s a questionably useful skill scroll that you get for beating Zeus, which is probably pretty good on Cromar.
  

Critical Hits and Misc Changes

• Critical System: While 2x Atk crits certainly serve their purpose, they’re somewhat annoying to calculate compared to just multiplying your Dmg in the forecast. However, I also saw this as an opportunity to make PCC matter more by changing the Crit system.
  • Now, overflowing on Crit because of PCC is actually relevant! A critical roll between 0 and 100 will do 2 x Damage, a critical roll between 101 and 199 will deal 3 x Damage, and so on, going all the way up to 6 x Damage for the 401 - 500 range. This makes units with high PCC more varied, as overflowing past 100 actually matters now! This multiplier will be shown in the battle screen when a critical hit triggers to make it clear what level of critical the unit reached.
  • This is explained in the Guide, as well.
    
• Exp - Overall, I’m satisfied with how experience is currently, but there are some changes:
  • When a unit levels up, their “internal” level increases as well. Instead of checking level itself for exp, this internal level is tracked. What this means in practice is that promoting at different levels does change how much Exp you gain; a unit who promoted at Level 10 will get exp as if they’re Level 15, while a unit who promoted at Level 15 will get exp as if they’re Level 20. The point of this is to make early promo less heavily punished from an experience standpoint.
  • Bugfix: Dance doesn’t give Exp if fatigued.
  • Minimum Attack Exp: 1, Minimum Kill Exp: 2
  • Steal Exp: 10 + 5 * Rank of Item (None = 0, E = 1, D = 2…)
• Capture/Rescue - Now works at equal Bld (Ballistae can’t be rescued).
• Escape - Bugs relating to escaping while a required unit is rescued/rescuing are fixed.
• Dismount - Stat penalties now removed. Only the Mov reduction matters, which stays.
• Fatigue: Steal now increases Fatigue based on the rank of the item stolen.
• Leadership Stars: Back to 3 Hit/3 Avo. Hitrates get a little too reliable later in the game, and with supports being more accessible, that would be even more true with +Hit only.
• Hunter Unarmed animation properly triggers now.
• Tileset used in Ch 9 and 10 now has proper terrain data.

Overall Narrative Changes

• There are a couple goals here, on a broad scale (specific chapter rewrites will be mentioned later). Largely, I want the chapters to flow better together than they do right now, which means some edits for style and content. Chapters that don’t progress the plot as much will be filled out with more character moments, to help build up to the bigger events that come later. Beyond that, though, there are some other additions.
• All notable enemies past Ch 2 will now have capture quotes if they are capturable. This system undoes some of the jank surrounding specific capture conditions and gives some of the bosses a bit more characterization. All bosses, from Ch 3 to Ch 6, now have these.
  
• Also, all units will have unique escape quotes on every new Escape map. So far, this is done in both Ch 1 and Ch 3.
• A number of battle quotes have been added, since battle quotes are cool and a lot chapters had very few or none beyond the generic battle quote. In addition to this, triggering a specific battle quote will now stop the generic one from showing up.
  • Ch 1 - Iskra and Svetomir vs. Raschwitz; Boro vs. Loewe, Mira, Cleo
  • Ch 2 - Mira, Cleo, Delilah vs. Tyr
  • Ch 3 - Dragana, Alex, Axel, Emil vs. Emory
  • Ch 4 - Existing battle quotes rewritten, Zwieback vs. Hilmar
  • Ch 5 - Longxia, Fangai, Iskra vs. Riggan
  • Ch 6 - Longxia and Mira vs. Draken, Leina and Cromar vs. McCallum
• Lastly, the game now features world map events! I created the world map myself, following ZessDynamite’s guide here, and in most chapters past Ch 3, you’ll see the Liberators going from one destination to another. The goal here is making their journey more clear and putting a place to the locations that are mentioned in the story.
  

Chapter 1

• The basic setup for these writeups will be Units, Gameplay, and Writing sections detailing the changes.

• Units

  • Cleo
    • +1 Lv, -1 HP, +2 Str, +1 Mag, +2 Skl, +2 Spd, +1 Res, -2 Bld
    • +5% Str, -10% Mag, +5% Skl, +5% Spd, -15% Lck, -5% Bld, +1% Mov, +10% HP
    • +25 Axe Rank
    • Argilabrys: +2 Mt, +3 Wt (irrelevant lol)
  • Loewe
    • -1 Lv, +1 Str, +3 Def, -5 HP, -1 Bld
    • +5% Str, +10% Skl, +10% Spd, -5% Lck, +20% Def, -5% Bld
    • +1 Vigor Star, +20 Bow Rank
  • Mira
    • +2 Str, -1 Mag, +3 Skl, +1 Spd, -1 Res, -3 Lck, +1 Bld
    • +5% HP, +5% Skl, +15% Spd, -15% Lck, +10% Def, -4% Res, -4% Bld, -4% Mag
  • Iskra
    • -2 HP, +1 Str, +2 Mag, +2 Spd, -1 Lck, +1 Def, -2 Res
    • +10% HP, -5% Str, +5% Def, -15% Res, +1% Mov
    • -1 PCC
  • Emil
    • -3 HP, +1 Str, +2 Spd, +2 Lck, -1 Def, -1 Bld
    • +10% Str, +10% Spd, -5% Lck, +1% Mov
    • No longer gains a Prf in Ch 16
  • Svetomir
    • -2 HP, +3 Str, +1 Spd, +1 Lck, -1 Res
    • +5% Skl, +5% Lck, +10% Def, -5% Bld
  • Alena
    • -3 HP, +2 Str, +1 Mag, +1 Spd, -2 Res, +1 Lck, -1 Bld
    • +5% Mag, +15% Spd, -5% Lck
    • +1 PCC, Comes with a Killing Edge
  • Most of the changes that you see won’t matter a whole lot and are there primarily to align bases/growths more closely. The big things here are the buffs to Loewe/Cleo weapon rank, Alena getting more PCC and a Killing Edge, and Mira now being able to steal all Irons.

• Gameplay

  • The gameplay changes here weren’t massive, as the chapter already pretty much flows as I like. There are some small enemy placement tweaks, but overall, it’s similar. The biggest change is that I added a little opening to the left chest room, as Boro’s spawn timer often punishes players if they have a lower Mov unit get the chest there. Now, whoever goes there can just run straight up, making it much easier to Escape.
  • On the topic of Boro, he’s now a Halberdier. There are a couple reasons for this; one is that you never get one, and another is that I’m planning to have him join significantly earlier at Ch 17. If you read the text there, he basically joins at that moment; everything after is juggling the hot potato because people wanted to add their own units instead (which is understandable). Him being a Champion would overlap a little too hard with Shaw, and he can roughly fit as a Halb, so that’s the reasoning behind it.
  • He also shows up with the Impaler as a little nod to when he does eventually join. Further, if you beat him here, he won’t show back up as an enemy in Ch 2.
  • Also, Senny and Helman now go back to escaping in the top right, so that they don’t run into enemies if the player isn’t fast enough. All escape points are now indicated by color (green = NPC, blue = player, etc).
  • Lastly, there’s significantly more tutorialization to introduce the basic mechanics that are necessary (Steal, Capture) and some on Equips, since I added an Equip here. Somewhat of a general change, but battle music is mostly gone (here and going forward). Map music plays through consistently, outside of boss battles.

• Writing

  • There were a lot of little adjustments here, largely around the Talks. Most got slimmed down/rewritten slightly to fit what happens later, as lots of things were set up in this chapter largely for the benefit of the people who came later in the telephone. Emil and Cleo’s talk got moved to Ch. 2 to reduce the Talk density a little bit, since it works there.
  • It’s a small thing, but Cleo and Loewe’s roles in the talk about Escape are flipped to be more consistent with the game; Cleo being focused on the mission, Loewe being focused on saving everyone. Cleo’s manner of speech, from here forward, is also a little less stiff while still being noticeably more formal than Loewe is.
  • Also, the Dragana/Cidor scene at the end is slimmed down. It hits on a bunch of different topics, but a lot of them really weren’t that relevant until later anyway.
  • Now, for the largest change. The initial talk with Loewe and Catrin has been rewritten entirely to introduce the world map! Hopefully, in a fairly natural way, where Catrin asks Loewe to point out the parts of the map (Shoutout to Levin for the young Loewe sprite, by the way). The point of this change is to make it more clear in the player’s head where a lot of these places being mentioned actually are, to put a place to the names, and also to make use of the world map early.
  • As a side note, the two soldiers who show up with Dragana are now explicitly Trajan and Boro, but younger. It’s a nice touch that RandomWizard recommended, so here they are.

Chapter 2

• Units

  • Varga
    • +1 HP, +3 Str, +4 Spd, +2 Lck, +1 Def, -1 Bld, +1 Lv
    • +10% HP, +5% Str, +20% Def, +5% Bld, +2% Mov
    • +25 Sword Rank, Comes with a Shortsword
  • Delilah
    • +1 HP, +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +5 Lck, -1 Def, -1 Res, +1 Bld
    • +5% Mag, +5% Skl, +10% Spd, +10% Res, +3% Mov
    • +2 PCC, C Rank Light
  • In the current game, Varga’s a bit sad. He has his uses in the dungeons, but as you go on, he has little going for him even ignoring his Mov. He’s been buffed to more accurately reflect his status in-story in gameplay. The Shortsword is there to help him kill things less, which should tell you how much stronger he is now.
  • Delilah is still super frail, but she’s reasonably faster, and with 3 PCC and C Rank Light, she has a guaranteed crit setup with Malkhut (which can be captured in Chapter 5). Her HP issues mean she fatigues often, but now, hitting A Light should be very reasonable.

• Gameplay

  • This chapter’s always been the least changed in dev since it’s really solid, and that continues here. Some reinforcement issues were cleaned up, and very minor enemy placement changes were made. The Fire chest was replaced by a Steel Axe since Fire is easily stealable, and the Steel Axe in Ch 3 was replaced by Lightning so Delilah at least has a guaranteed weapon going into 4 preps. Also, Tyr now has a Goddess Icon to steal.

• Writing

  • Again, very minor changes. Dragana has an immediate response to you opening the door, before transitioning into the end event, and if Boro’s on the map, he’ll also have a reaction and leave after seeing her be released.

Chapter 3

• Units

  • Alex/Axel
    • -4 HP, +1 Str, +1 Skl, +1 Spd, -1 Lck, +1 Def, +1 Res, -1 Bld
    • +5% Skl, +5% Spd, +5% Def, -10% Lck, -5% Mag
    • +30 Axe Rank
  • The main thing here for them is Axe rank, but their support being visible and their skills giving +10 Crit/C.Avo will help a bit. Otherwise, their Prfs now tell you that they work on both of them, which has always been the case (just a bit of trolling).

• Gameplay

  • Not a ton of changes here. Enemy placement was fiddled with, and the map itself was lightly squished horizontally since it had a bit of dead space that could be cut freely. The map should be a bit shorter, as a result. I fixed some doors that opened 2 tiles up because that surprise owned a few players. I also changed the anti-turtle for this map and lightly pushed back some reinforcements, along with removing their personal bases so that they are fightable, if you need to.
  • Instead, Cidor shows up at the start of Turn 15 with the soldiers he has in the end event and cuts you off, Game Overing you. It makes more sense in the story for this to happen, and realistically, taking this long is pretty hard anyway, so I don’t think it’ll change the way the map plays, too much.

• Writing

  • The start event has been rewritten a bit, as it was pretty bare and had some flow issues coming from Ch 2. The start event now explains how Dragana and the Liberators got into this situation, taking this as an opportunity to give her a bit more characterization.
  • The end event is rewritten a bit as well, to make it more logical why Dragana stops to fight Cidor and also give Mira more text with Cidor (they don’t talk much currently). Emotion portraits for Loewe and Cleo are added here since they now exist, and the end event now more naturally flows into Chapter 4.

Chapter 4

• Units

  • Filone
    • -2 HP, +1 Str, +2 Skl, +2 Spd, -1 Def, +2 Res, +2 Luck
    • +5% HP, -5% Skl, +5% Spd, -10% Def, -10% Mag, +10% Luck, +8% Mov
    • +20 Bow Rank, -1 PCC
  • Zwieback
    • -1 Lv, +5 Str, +2 Skl, +1 Spd, +2 Lck, +1 Bld
    • +20% Str, +5% Spd, +15% Def, +3% Res, -5% Lck, +10% Bld, +1% Mov
    • Now has a Shortbow in inventory.
  • Filone’s skill edit is somewhat of a buff, along with the +20 Bow Rank making higher ranks significantly more achievable. Along with the higher Mov growth at the cost of losing in other areas that don’t matter for her anyway, she’s probably funnier.
  • Zwieback is a more straightforward buff, as his growths were really bad. Notably, he oneshots a lot of things very comfortably with Steel Bow + Culling. Shortbow is added for a similar reason to Varga, as the armor bros hit, at times, harder than you want them to

• Gameplay

  • This chapter is probably the most changed out of the initial bunch. The objective was changed to Rout to avoid having 2 Defeat Boss/Survive maps in a row, and in particular, this map could get very hairy if you chose to stick it out with the high amount of spawns.
  • Enemies have generally been redistributed and reduced, so the map is more of a breather chapter now after the prison arc, which is probably a welcome change, haha. Hilmar was moved down to an island at the bottom to make the map a little longer than it would be otherwise, and he now has the Tempered Ring. Along with him is a Physic staffer with a Red Gem, which is a nice early capture for Svetomir. Also, Yseod is added here.

• Writing

  • The chapter has generally been rewritten but largely follows the same plot beats. Characters more closely match how they are throughout the story (Loewe, for instance, has had his edge toned down here since it was an outlier). In general, it shouldn’t stick out from the rest of this sequence narratively and flows naturally into 5.
  • The Hilmar scene with Cidor was replaced with a Tiberius scene instead as a way to build up to his recruitment later and give Cidor someone consistent to bounce off of.
  • The end event was also rewritten, and an additional scene is added to give Loewe a chance to process Dragana’s death, which he seemingly has done by 5, but now, the new 4 gives him more of a chance to grieve and reflect in the wake of her death.
  • Also, I added Loewe and Cleo reuniting with their mounts in the start event, for fun.

Chapter 5

• Units

  • Fangai
    • +1 Lv, -3 Str, -2 Mag, +1 Skl, +2 Spd, +2 Def, +3 Res, +1 Lck, -3 Bld
    • +5% HP, -10% Str, +5% Mag/Skl/Spd, +10% Lck, +1% Mov
    • +25 Dark Rank
  • Longxia
    • +3 Lv, +1 HP, +3 Str, +6 Mag, +6 Skl, +3 Res
    • +25% HP, +5% Str, +5% Mag, +10% Bld
    • Comes with a Lunar Axe (now D Rank)
  • Fangai and Longxia both had oddly low levels, so they’ve both increased. Fangai’s gone all into the “generalist” mold that he already occupied, but he’s also gained some Dark rank. Longxia, as the magic axe unit, now has a magic axe to use and much more Mag.

• Gameplay

  • Changes here are fairly small. Some inventories were shuffled around here, some enemies moved around, and so on. Tellius Torches were added by Riggan so you can see where he’s at as you get close to where he is. The turn count on the Survive condition was increased by 1 so reaching Riggan is a little more reasonable, especially now that he has a Scroll to grab. The music here was changed to be 4’s, also.

• Writing

  • The start event has some small rewrites for redundancy with 4 and world map events existing, and a lot of additional eventing to make the start event more dynamic.
  • The end event has some additional dialogue based on if you capture Riggan or not, but beyond this, it also has significantly reduced the length of Kwame’s loredump. Notably, a lot of the writing that’s handled in Ch 5x (where the Liberators plan on where to go next) is removed, as the exact plan isn’t necessary here. It also removes some things that are maybe contradictory, like Byelen specifically dying from the blessed sword instead of all the heroes.
  • Further, Kwame’s monologue moment at the end doesn’t make sense in context of how his character actually developed (instead of when he was being hinted to be a royal of Chouwouj, which no one ever picked up on), so this was also pruned. Lastly, the Halaka Suhaja (which is how Kwame detects that Byelen’s blessing is in Loewe) is removed entirely. This is because, knowing where he ends up, Kwame shouldn’t need something like this to tell, so removing one more proper noun is good.

Interlude 1

• Units

  • Awa
    • -3 HP, +2 Str, +3 Skl, +1 Lck, +1 Def, +1 Bld
    • +20% HP, +5% Str/Skl, +10% Spd, -5% Lck, +5% Def, -15% Bld, -4% Mag/Res
  • Faolan
    • +1 Lv, -2 HP, +2 Str, +5 Skl, +1 Spd, +3 Lck, -1 Def, -2 Bld
    • +5% HP/Skl/Spd, +10% Lck, +2% Mov
  • These changes are just to make the two (and Emil) more distinct statistically. Awa’s largely tankier, and Faolan’s Skl and reliability when capturing is played up.
  • Matthias
    • +1 Lv, +1 HP, +3 Mag, +3 Skl, +3 Spd, -2 Lck, -1 Def, +2 Res, +2 Bld
    • +20% HP, +4% Str, +5% Mag/Skl/Spd,+5% Def, -5% Res, +1% Mov
    • +30 Staff Rank, +1 Movement Star
    • Heal → Mend, Lumen buffed
  • Cadenza
    • +1 Lv, +5 HP, +2 Mag, +1 Skl, +4 Def, -2 Res, +1 Bld
    • -2% Str, +10% Mag, -5% Skl, +5% Spd, +13% Lck, -5% Def, -5% Res, -5% Bld
    • +25 Anima/Light Rank, -1 Vigor Star
    • Inventory: Wind/Yseod, Ballad of War removed
    • Rally Res: +2 to its effect
  • Matthias was pretty mediocre in his current state, so he got some significant buffs in general. Lumen is a highly accurate, big chip option now, and his increase in staff rank along with high Mag makes him likely to be one of the best staffers in the long run.
  • Cadenza had a lot going on, so he’s been focused a little more on being a tanky-ish mage. His ranks got bumped to help him get to Cs faster, and his Rallies were also buffed. It’s probably a net buff, despite the reduced Vigor and Prf removal.
  • Mish
    • +1 HP, +2 Str, +1 Mag, +2 Skl, +4 Spd, +3 Lck, +1 Def, +2 Res
    • -5% Mag, -40% Res
    • +1 PCC, -1 Vigor Star
    • Devil’s Dagger: +10 Crit
  • Tobie
    • -1 Lv, -3 HP, -2 Mag, +2 Skl, +2 Lck, +1 Def, +2 Res
    • +5% Str/Mag/Skl/Def, -1% Bld, -1% Mov
    • +30 Lance Rank, +2 Vigor Star, +1 PCC
    • Longlance replaced by Chargelance
  • One of Mish’s coin flips was owned (RIP Res) to bring them a little more in line with other units, and they gained PCC/lost a Vigor Star to be Tobie’s setup but reversed. This combined with Devil Dagger crit buff means their Crit setup is more “reliable”, and they have better contributions out of the box thanks to just generally better bases.
  • Tobie’s been knocked down a level to match Mish, has marginally better bases, marginally better growths, but the big thing is she’s gained a lot outside of her stats: Lance rank and Vigor/PCC, along with her Mish support giving her a lot of Avo. I expect Chargelance makes her more appealing too, since she uses it pretty well.

• Gameplay

  • I gave Cleo 15 Mov on this chapter so it’s easier to move around, but otherwise, it’s the same as it’s been (I may have also disabled Shove/Rescuing the random green units).

• Writing

  • Just some general rewrites. It’s a little less cheeky about who Korovai is, since I wanted to leave that to other people at the time, and now, it flows more naturally into what comes afterwards (the reason the group goes to the Yuria Islands is to restock and meet up with Iberis, who serves as Korovai’s envoy).
  • I also added the world map to the scene where they plan where to go next.

Chapter 6

• Units

  • Cromar
    • +3 HP, +1 Str/Spd, -1 Mag/Lck/Res/Def, -2 Bld
    • -10% Str/Mag, -20% Skl, -15% Spd, -5% Lck/Def, -10% Res, +10% Bld, +1% Mov
    • +15 Sword/Axe Rank
  • Leina
    • +2 Lv, -4 HP, -1 Skl, +2 Spd, +3 Lck, +2 Def, +2 Res
    • +15% HP, +5% Mag, -10% Lck, +1% Mov
    • +30 Staff Rank
  • Cromar isn’t just “Zieg from TRS” anymore stat-wise, though his bases still lean in a similar direction, while his growths have been largely been hit across the board. That said, what’s left are still really solid growths. Also, he got slightly higher ranks.
  • Leina’s Staff rank, instead of being complete ass, is now actually workable. Her Mag still sucks, but she’ll hit D quicker and thus have an easier time reaching higher ranks.

• Gameplay

  • This map has also had some significant gameplay updates, though they don’t change as much as 4.
  • Some are small things: Barod’s arena just gives you gold now instead of giving Red Gems, since it can be annoying to actually sell them in this chapter. The units who are red arbitrarily here (so that you can’t rescue them) are now just green and unrescuable.
  • Leina joins before preps and can be in whatever deploy slot you want, which makes getting the Sister Ring recruit for Cromar (which now just checks that you got the item, not that you have it in inventory) easier.
  • Also, the items in the villages are now Greatsword, Killer Bow, and Asgeir Scroll to give items that are more likely to be useful. The Staff choice from talking to two of the arena spectators is also removed, as Physic is already given and Barrier will be later.
  • For the bigger changes: The objective is now to Seize both boats, Draken and McCallum’s, so that there’s a bit more going on objective wise.
  • The map is now slightly smaller, enemy placement has been tweaked, and both Draken and McCallum have been moved a bit further into the corners of the map.
  • An Inn has been added to the bottom right, where Veid now is instead of just sitting by the arena. If you defeat Zeus, you can talk to him and receive the Umbralium, which gives you the skill “Umbral Insight” (mentioned earlier). This gives more of a reason to actually go to that area.
  • One round of the arena has been removed, as it drags on for too long (the arena is now reasonably cleared in 10 turns or less, which is nice).
  • Tellius Torches have been added around the map to help with the visibility issues, especially for the reinforcements.

• Writing

  • Writing-wise, Ch 6 has always stuck out as feeling like it didn’t belong with the rest of the game. As a result, I took a full editing pass on this one, although events are not too different from the setup of the original. Generally speaking, it should be much more consistent with the rest of the game, narrative-wise.
  • Loewe leaving the boat unguarded (with only Kwame being there with him) is shown, directly leading into McCallum taking their boat. The Cromar arena event is lightly altered to flow better into their confrontation.
  • Cleo and Loewe have more of an argument on whether to deal with Draken’s pirates, which is meant to highlight the difference between the two: Loewe is unwilling to leave the townspeople there to die, while Cleo is focused only on their current mission.
  • Iberis forces their hand out of a grudge against Draken for stealing the Azurium from her, as they need to cooperate with her to gain Korovai’s approval (or so she says).
  • Lastly, the opening lore scrawl and everything relating to Alf and Eitha here is gone since it’s completely irrelevant and comes up later in only one battle quote.
  • The ending event is also redone completely. The basics of it are there, but Cleo and Loewe’s argument before the chapter is resolved here. Barod talks to them and thanks them for handling the pirates, with a little bit of foreshadowing on his relation to Kwame.
  • Iberis is here, too, and this leads into the events of Chapter 7. Lastly, Cleo and Kwame have a discussion that starts building up to what will (hopefully) be a central theme of the Freyse arc, which is that Cleo is willing to do what must be done if it means carrying on Dragana’s legacy, which ultimately culminates with the events of Interlude 2.

Lastly, I just want to point out some of the changes made on the presentation side that are represented in this update. Levin created or made significant edits to all of the following new portraits: Cidor, Young Loewe, Raschwitz, Tiberius, Riggan, and Coralia, shown below:

And ArcherBias has added a portrait for Tobie (shown below) and multiple new map sprites for certain classes, like Thieves and one that hasn’t shown up just yet, along with some new music. RandomWizard also added a new portrait for Barod, the Fightmonger (arena master of 6).

Those are all the big changes that I wanted to point out. Again, if anyone wants to test what’s there currently in the Testing folder, I’d appreciate it (the game will stop at Chapter 6 end event). Thanks for reading, and hopefully the next devblog (should cover Chapter 7 through Chapter 13) will come sooner rather than later.

[Pandan]

Digging the dev blog, Loog. Looking forward to following along and finding ways to insert Riggan into more critical story moments.

[LewynCollins]

So you are going to give the entire game a big tweeking, uh? Well, I’m eager to see how that goes.

[MorkerNK]

Hello! I finished the V1 game a couple days ago and It was amazing! Definitely will play It again when V2 Is completed. I’m interested in seeing how much It will change.

[tweetyboy]

I need to jump back into this, I remember an early chapter being too hard and I got annoyed and quit but it may be one of those times you take a break from the game and come back and breeze through whatever was kicking your ass. I remember being super into it and loving the characters.

[JrpgAddict]

What about a No FTG variant patch for V2?? will that be considered like Blademaster did for The Sun God’s Wrath?

[ArcherBias]

Im not loog but as a member of the dev team i can assure you that there is an approximate 0% chance of loog releasing a no fatigue patch

[Pandan]

What about a No FTG variant patch for V2?? will that be considered like Blademaster did for The Sun God’s Wrath?

Some men can change, Tauroneo. Others cannot… I am of the latter type. There is no other reason.

[dropscpii]

Hi all, first time posting here, created this account just to give feedback on the games I loved (This one, Vision Quest, Call of The Armor, Four Kings etc.).

First i’d like to say I was in a very difficult period after my daughter was born and these games played in my cellphone emulator were life saviors in sleepless nights in which I had to keep some level of attention but had essentially nothing to do and couldn’t read a book (lights out), watch TV or play in my pc.

To get things going, this is an awesome hack. In general I think all games I’ve played are either on par or better than main game series. It’s a given that most mechanics and the whole concept was already there and you developed on it, but making good story is hard and making balanced game while making it fun and challenging is also hard. Congrats, really.

I really loved the story, though a bit convoluted on the seed mechanics at the end. I never played Thracia so several things were new to me like Capture, Fatigue, PCC and Vigor. I loved them all, though super old game they felt refreshing for a regular modern FE player.

I’m excited to play V2 after your changes, even after playing this game twice back to back.
The second time I played I changed some things on the game by the files on github. Super hard to edit on those, I gotta say. But I like to buff some chars I didn’t use on the previous play just to see they going.

In agree with your sentiment that stats caps should be a bit higher. What I did in my second playthrough was to increase just a couple of stats on some classes. Like Swordmasters cap at 25 in SKL and SPD, generals cap at 25 in DEF, Paladins cap at 22 in everything. Some changes like that.

I’ll give my opinion on some chars and what I did to buff the ones I didn’t use.

Loewe

I may have been unlucky but he was definitely not reliable, low DEF/RES and STR on my first playthrough. His ability didn’t seem to matter for the whole game.
On second playthrough I gave him Bow Range +1. Super fun and didn’t seem too overpowered.

Cleo

Solid all around. I like main characters with staves.
No changes to second playthrough.

Varga

Okish in the beggining but fell quickly for me mid game. Never understood the purpose for magic damage on his Aqua Brand.
On second playthrough I gave him Provoke and changed Aqua Brand to hit RES but not use MAG stat. A bit too much…

Svetomir

Really really good for taking captives. Necessary for the Weapon level.

Alex and Axel

Didn’t use much. the rhythms were not super important.
On second playthrough I gave them Wrath and Vantage (one each). I liked it better

Alena

I love myrmidons and I liked her. On second playthrough I gave her Astra. It did not work, not sure how to make it work.

Mink

Did not use at first. On second playthrough I gave him the skills that were supposedly for him (Far Shock and Whirlwind) but they did nothing. Did use a bit of him on the second time.

Leina

Loved her, no need for improvement. The third promotion makes her absurd.

Ojasvi

Loved her, no need for improvement.

Iberis

Really really good on my first run, had to bench on second just to test other stuff.

Buldak

Really loved his build growth, super important both playthroughs.

Iskra

I liked her, was expcting a bit more glass cannon. The aftershock skill is nice at the beggining and irrelevant by mid game. Ok with sword.

Longxia

I wanted to like her but she was too fast and too weak on my first run, on second playthrough I gave her Desperation but wasn’t enough.

Filone and Zweiback

Filled their purposes without being too niche or overwhelming. Really liked them.

Hornet

Loved it, super fun and not super powerful.

Valse

Loved it, super fun and super powerful.

Nora

Did not use first time, on second playthrough I gave her Crit Boost and felt she needed something like that.

Hans

Did not use first time, on second playthrough I gave him Headshot for fun. It was fun.

Fangai

Used a bit on first time but something was missing , on second playthrough I gave him Lifetaker

Delilah

Did not use first time, very unreliable, on second playthrough I gave her more DEF/RES so she could make use of HEX.

Nikolas

I liked him but his stats were not great, on second playthrough I gave him a bit more stats (don’t remember numbers)

Jacinth

She is a dancer with Shade/10.

Matthias

Good mage in general. Didn’t change him as I used him a lot on first playthrough.

Hans

Did not used first time, on second playthrough I gave him Headshot for fun. It was fun.

Emil

Probably the reason I decided to play again and go through those build files. I hated him. Benefits from sprinting super far and has really low SPD/DEF/RES and his Charge weapon is not good enough by the time we have it. Changed DEF/RES growth to 40%, gave him the Charge spear in the fiorst chapter. He became useful, not good still.

Ichwep

Loved everything about her design, one of my MVPs.

Carl

Loved everything about his design, one of my MVPs. Overpowered blade.

Augur

Couldn’t make it work, no idea to make it better on second playthrough.

Jenny

Couldn’t make it work, no idea to make it better on second playthrough.

Cromar

Did not touch it. Did not like him.

Thanks for the time you spent creating this game you all.