Playing on Hard mode, i am on chapter 9 and its been very very easy so far.
Will it get harder?
Also can u make it so we can downl the resources too instead of only viewing?
Finished the Prologue through Chapter 3. I donāt have a lot to say about the playable cast themselves yet, since I havenāt gotten that far in, but I will echo Pandan and Xiliriteās complaints that all Bows being 1-2-Range feels really weird and not pleasant. Iām sure the game is balanced around this, but even so I would recommend at least thinking about alternate ways to make Bows stand out, because as it stands now they have basically no weaknesses as a weapon type except (debatably) for Triangle neutrality.
As for the story, the writing itself so far is competent in terms of character interaction, but a little rushed in terms of the general plot. I legitimately cannot remember the names of the two enemy(?) kingdoms, and the use of some kind of map to illustrate their maneuvers wouldāve been appreciated. I know your title screen already includes a map of the continent, so maybe you can figure out a way to implement this.
Besides those, I have encountered no other issues with the game and will continue playing later when I have spare time.
All links to resources have updated and moved off of dropbox and onto google drive.
2 Likes
Congratulations on this release. 
I got to Ch. 9 using a real hardware (DS Lite via SuperCard SD) and both the plot and map construction are decent and enjoyable, but nothing outstanding or remarkable. I was expecting something more innovative and original but I have a bit of bitterness in my mouth: the plot is trite and already heard elsewhere, the character portraits are the usual (but retouched and recolored), the animations seem to me to be the same as always, and the bgms are few and repetitive. Given the eager anticipation I expected more, but gameplay is still very good and smooth.
Maybe it will improve later onā¦
The finished chapter 14 the is really fun but Itās extremely easy on hard mode.I Didnāt face a single challenge yet.I think there should be some variety of weapons that the enemies have.
Also I think the vanilla stat screen looked a bit old & this hack needs some polishing overall.
Not to disparage the quality of the hack, but is it really so hard to pick up that the series of anticipation posts were probably just because of the uncommon step of announcing a window for the full complete hack to be released all at once? Certainly the OP never claimed it to be groundshattering work that would forever upend the standards to which romhacks are held 
11 Likes
Iām not against an easy hack sometimes.
Itās chill and smooth, i donāt have to reset and rage like many a others hack and it feel good.
4 Likes
Hey Shark -
Beat the hack today. Thanks again for making it.
Overall it was pretty straightforward. I appreciated the simplicity and that none of the maps felt like roadblocks. A big function of this was the ease of the hack - on hard it was not too difficult outside of a few distinct turns throughout the 21 chapter run. I was grateful that no map ever felt like it wore out its welcome - they were generally quick and easy enough to get through before Iād get bored or be too punished by a reset.
I do feel like many of the gameās design decisions left me feeling a bit confused - 1-2 range bows being universal made them unequivocally the best weapon type in the game. The breaker skills also are probably a bit too strong in general, Ruby was getting 0 hit on axe enemies as a swordmaster, including a few axe bosses. I basically took any promo that gave me bows, a breaker skill, or both. For mages, I opted for anima whenever possible. Had monsters appeared somewhere in the first 3/4 of the game, I may have opted for a Slayer unit to help in the final few maps, but Cassandra was great in the finale (ty for adding them)
However, Aerin is so cracked that a lot if it didnāt matter too much. I was surprised that I didnāt use bow users more. Instead, I relied predominantly on Aerin, Marina, and Ruby to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Crow was the only unit who felt irredeemably bad - they have very little to steal/do before Oberon shows up, who completely obsoletes the need for Crow. Aubrey similarly is better than Lydia, but not by nearly such a noticeable amount. Everyone else looked pretty usable, but Crow and Lydia were the only two who felt strictly outclassed.
In addition, Iād note that the gameās difficulty goaded me into lowmanning a bit - it was faster to clear maps w/ a smaller army near the end given the increasing strength of the enemy and their general size - i mostly juggernaut towards the end w/ a few units, namely the three above + mages who could heal + Janna summons.
I think the biggest issues that cause this are the general strength of enemies around the mid-late game and the map layouts. In general, the game is generous w/ deploy slots, offering me more units than i really need given the enemy strength. This meant oftentimes I had units who didnāt contribute much each map.
When I tried to spread EXP around, most of my units were lower level - I was around level 11-13 when most promo items came in, for example (I tended to promote around lvl 15). Because there was generally not enough EXP to go around and the map layouts meant i didnāt have enough to do per turn, there started to become a power disparity between my units. The layout issue was exacerbated by most of the maps being fairly linear w/ little reason to split. Between that and finishing off enemies quickly, EXP started to naturally funnel into a few units who were consistently out in front. I apologize if Iām not articulating myself well here.
I appreciated the simplicity of the story, albeit it moved very briskly - it made it hard to get invested in what was happening on screen, with my main focus shifting away from the narrative and towards viewing each map as an opportunity to grind up a few units. This isnāt a bad thing, but felt it was worth noting.
Lastly, Iāll note that the vanilla music really hurt the presentation. I got tired of hearing the same few themes repeatedly. I strongly encourage changing a few out w/ some tunes from other games to make the maps more distinct. Between this, the general ease, and the story pacing (Not to mention the speed I played this at - I ripped through it in like 3 days which is unheard of for me), the experience is a bit of a blur. I think there are a few quick changes you could make on the music front that would help each map become more distinct and memorable.
Overall I had a good time w/ it and think itās impressive that almost all of the art and palettes were custom. There are a few small tweaks you could make that I think would elevate the experience further. Because the hack sticks close to vanilla, it has a lot of similar issues. If you donāt mind these, then I think whoever picks it up will have a good time w/ it. There were times where I wish you deviated more, but overall it played well enough that it didnāt end up mattering much and I was able to enjoy myself.
Iāll also add again that not having any map that made me want to drop the hack is huge - itās so hard to not have that āoneā map that acts as a roadblock - this hack didnāt have any, and thus it was easy to get through overall.
I think this is a great āfirst hackā for someone to play and would recommend it to others looking to try a hack for the first time - itās accessible and easy to get into.
Thanks again for making it. Nice work.
Some unit screenshots (Aerin breaks the stat screen lol)
BTW few bugs to report:
- many of the village events didnāt work. The anti-turtles on hard were generally pretty well-timed, but villages didnāt get destroyed. Make sure you set the event to ā1ā instead of ā0ā and that your tile changes are in the right order.
- There were a few textboxes that extended too far off screen. Check builder to see if it calls these out.
- The final chapter events donāt loop correctly. I tried skipping and got a black screen. When I pressed A it kept taking me back to two scenes.
For fun, the influences I felt while playing:
- FE8
- FE7
- Order of the Crimson Arm
- Road to Ruin
- Requiem (I swear Aerin felt like stronger Val for the first 3/4 of the game)
Thanks again.
10 Likes
Thanks for the detailed feedback. Iāll address those bugs right away. (If I can find the textboxesā¦)
To give a couple scattered thoughts about your other feedback:
I genuinely had no idea music would be such a sticking point for people ā I generally play hacks muted with my own music playing. Total blind spot on my end, I suppose? I wish I had taken the time to swap out the songs before release, but I can always update the game later.
Iām happy to hear that the hack is easy to pick up and accessible ā it doesnāt seem hard enough or far enough from vanilla for the hardcore crowd, but I wanted a project I could share with anybody whoās played any fire emblem. I think Iām still happy with the result, even if it doesnāt resonate with everyone in the romhacking community.
I understand that deploy is overly generous on some maps ā I think I overcorrected due to my dislike of very restricted deploy chapters in games such as FE7 and some VQ chapters (Menahan, Selanne and Jae force deploying on a low deploy chapter stuck out as a pet peeve for me).
I purposefully made bows strong because I was tired of them being bad in all of my favorite games (FE6 through 9), but this seems to have been really controversial. I also planned far less bow accessibility, but had a bit too much fun coming up with new classes, and Krash held a gun to my head until I added 'em back on to warrior. Looks like these changes werenāt for everyone.
Thank you again for playing through Blessed Heart and sharing your thoughts with me.
6 Likes
Yeah itās an easy change at least - not a big deal but it would make a huge difference to making each map feel more distinct. Similarly, a custom stat screen or recoloring the vanilla one would help a lot too on the presentation front.
Tbf, I donāt think it needed to deviate from vanilla for what you set out to do. Everyone has their preferences of course. The hack was good and worth playing even if it isnāt built perfectly to my preferences - I always appreciate different takes on FE. None of the changes were really to the detriment of my enjoyment of it, in part because the hack wasnāt too difficult.
I think the deploy you had wouldāve been better if enemies were more difficult and ORKO was less common. Alternatively, if promo items showed up a bit later it may help w/ this too. Itās a small detail, but one I noticed. Itās overall not a big deal but did change how I played.
Yeah understandable. I think it was the kind of thing that sounded more centralizing on paper than in practice. Most of the bow units didnāt have the stats to really do that much compared to some of my other units, so it balances itself better than I thought it would.
Really the best thing about universal 1-2 bows was the nerf to fliers it caused - PPāing archers became much more dangerous.
Youāre welcome - happy to give it a try and share. Congrats again on release - itās a strong hack!
4 Likes
Minor Bugfix patch v1.01 has been released.
Fixed some minor text bugs, issues with villages not burning, and erroneous looping scenes in the epilogue cutscenes.
Also customized the stat screen background graphic, since I got many requests to do so.
The patch was released as a quick hotfix so people can view the ending cutscenes properly, and wasnāt thoroughly tested. Please continue to report any bugs either here in this topic or on discord.
4 Likes
Pretty frustrated about this, but I had to do another emergency fix.
v1.01 breaks chapter 5, so you need v1.02. The DL link in the OP has been updated.
The technical explanation for what happened is I updated FEBuilder for the first time in 1-2 years, and the new error detection system yelled at me to fix broken events in unused dummy chapters, so I deleted those events. However, one map shared itās map event pointer with chapter 5, wiping itās functionality on accident.
5 Likes
Bug report that Cassandraās magic animations in her promoted class donāt display properly; theyāre set for Anima, not Light.
Edit: Also, restarting Chapter 18 allows you to infinitely loop her promotion. She also has a 0 con cap.
1 Like
Today I finished this hack on real hardware (DS lite via SuperCard SD) and did not encounter any graphical or sound problems there, apart from the chapter where the scene of the pirate who fails to destroy the village repeats itself, despite a message saying otherwise (a problem perhaps already reported).
Very good map structure and enemy placement, but (except for the last chapter) there are too few of them, and a few rounds of reinforcements are missing.
The plot, quite mundane, becomes more interesting toward the end, where, however, it is too rushed and not very thorough. Few and repetitive background music, but excellent and touching the BGM taken from F.E.IV (SNES) I think. All in all among the best ten F.E. Hacks in recent years. Thanks again.
3 Likes
Fun hack. It was nice to play a chill hack where I didnāt have to worry so much about optimizing and could just run with my favorites. Crow was the MVP after his boosted experience gains let him promote to 20/1 well before anyone else, but the bow users were fun too.
The hack really shines aesthetically. I like the portraits a lot.
Congrats on your induction into the coveted [complete] club and good luck with your future projects!
1 Like
Iām happy to release Blessed Heart v1.1 ā The Music Update!
Iāve added 36 tracks to the game to spice up the map and battle themes. No more listening to vanilla FE8 music all chapter long! Iām hoping this will improve the general gameplay experience and help solidify Blessed Heartās unique identity. If the use of vanilla tracks for cutscenes is still a problem, I can look into adding more tracks in the future.
Full patch notes can be accessed in the discord server or in dropbox ā just click on the olā download link. I made some minor gameplay adjustments to make things flow a touch smoother, and to help other weapons compete a bit better with bows.
These changes have made the game a hair easier, so Iām interested in looking into some ways to optionally increase the difficulty in later updates for the hardcore crowd to enjoy. Feel free to share any ideas!
12 Likes
I really enjoyed this hack. Felt good to play a FE hack thatās chill but can catch you off guard and mess you up if youāre TOO chill.
LOVE the visuals and character mugs and skin tones (People of color!!). My only ācompliantā is that itās too short because itās too good. 
3 Likes
Iām liking the hack thus far. Quick question: was the weapon triangle bonuses altered in any way? Calculating the hit rate manually with Callahan against a lance using cavalier seems like the bonus is +10/-10. Calculating it with Aerina yields the normal +15/-15. I MIGHT just be wrong with my math, but Iām pretty confident in my mental math, Iām tempted to restart the game and find that enemy again just to double check.
Facing a boss in an early chapter that has an Axereaver, Aerina with the estoc which doubles triangle bonuses gets +4/-4 damage over a normal sword. I would think it would just be an additional swing of 2 in both directions, since the normal weapon triangle in this case is being reversed, then doubled, then doubled again with the estoc, so Iām not sure where the Estoc is getting the additional +2.
Iām asking, but also a little embarrassed cause Iām positive Iām showing my ignorance somewhere.
Weapon triangle should be identical to Vanilla FE8 ā +15/-15 to accuracy. I checked Callahan myself just now, and it holds up, so you may have made a minor mistake adding up numbers.
I just tested the Estoc vs Axereaver thing myself, and it looks like itās +30/-30 accuracy, and +2/-2 to damage. It appears that the weapon triangle is NOT being doubled in favor of the player when youāre beating up a reaver with a normal weapon, which I didnāt actually know would happen!
This explains the Estoc dealing 4 more damage than the iron sword ā the Estoc has 3 points more might to begin with, and the extra point comes from the doubled weapon triangle, which wasnāt in play until that moment.