[FE8] [COMPLETE] Fire Emblem: A Star Wars Story (SIGURD)

[Augenis]

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away…

Since I see that other contestants are putting their entries in as separate threads, I have decided to start one as well, in case anyone wanted to drop any comments or feedback and not clutter the main thread. This is my entry for the SIGURD one chapter hack contest, which I originally posted on the main thread over a week ago.

Apply patch to an unedited FE8 ROM with a patching tool of choice.

Plot

War! The REPUBLIC is crumbling
under attacks by the ruthless
Sith Lord, Count Dooku.
Three years since the war's
beginning, the JEDI COUNCIL
is informed of an ancient relic.
This artifact, called the
FIRE EMBLEM, is said to allow
its user to peer into the Living
Force. Grandmaster YODA
hopes it may tell of the source
of the growing Dark Side of the Force.
Two Jedi and their Clone Troopers
are sent to find the FIRE EMBLEM
and retrieve it....

Screenshots

Credits

GRAPHICS

Republic Cruiser image in the intro from https://www.reddit.com/r/StarfieldShips/comments/170i9rf/consularclass_republic_cruiser_star_wars_build/
Space Station tileset by Ryan914 and Dark
Arica sprite spliced from Adult Nino by Vilkalizer
Clone Trooper sprite by SurfingKyogre
Droid and Magnaguard class card sprites ripped from SW Episode 3 on GBA
Lance Bonewalker map sprite by Epicer
Generic Necromancer map sprite (slightly edited) by an unknown user, battle animations by Eldritch Abomination
Mobile Missile Launcher map sprite by Amyd (from Advance Wars)
Ending cutscene CGs cropped and edited from the Clone Wars comics
Status background based on KOTOR 2 and edited from Kirb’s black status background

MUSIC

Clone Army March (player phase), Droid Army March (enemy phase) and Duel of Fates (boss music) by SurfingKyogre
Other custom music from this website - MIDI Movie Theme Songs & Video Clips - Star Wars Movies (support the official release)

PATCHES

FEBuilder by 7743

SkillSystem by circleseverywhere and others (see the full credit list on FEU):
-Alongside other things integrated, this includes the background image change hacks, Skip:Opening, AoE Area of Effect by Vesly, NarrowFont by Scraiza, and Dragon Veins.
Skip:Game Opening Demo by Fati
Toggle New Game Text by circleseverywhere
16 Tracks/12 Sounds Fix by Agro/Brendor
Difficulty Select Skip by StanH
Tutorial Disabler by 7743
Convert Chapter Titles to Text by circleseverywhere
Remove fog from background of the save menu by pikmin
Add Event: Split Menu by Stan and circleseverywhere
Actions After Talk (Contemporary Style) by circleseverywhere
AddEvent: Set All Unit Status in specific coord by 7743
Add Event: Lose Item (All units and transporters) by Kaito
Group AI by Vesly, originally by PhantomeSentine

PLAYTESTING

Thanks to Plasmis34 and Vlak for doing playtests for this submission.

If you enjoyed this submission, make sure to also give a look to my primary project on the forum, Life of Seiros. You get to play as Rhea in that one!

[Unoriginalusername]

I think you should post some screenshots

[Augenis]

I didn’t post any screenshots on the SIGURD thread post since it generally isn’t really done (could influence the judges a little, and I’d rather play it fair) - and also I feel like it’s more fun to keep a lid on what the hack is about for now, so people can experience it with no preconceptions.

I’ll add screenshots after the contest concludes.

[Frog]

Just finished playing this. It was fun!

Feedback

All the custom graphics was definitely the highlight for me - the CGs, spaceship tileset, and especially the two Star Wars-style portraits, really gave it Star Wars vibes despite being an FE hack. The use of actual Star Wars music as well was pretty cool, and the ending cutscene was funny

In terms of gameplay, the droids stood absolutely no chance, which is certainly lore accurate. It wasn’t completely trivial though thanks to the Gha’tchas & Magnaguards - I sent Se’het to solo the entire left side, so the Gha’tcha reinforcements there made things a bit tricky. Thankfully, the ridiculously long range of the Valken & DC-17m salvaged the situation.

Speaking of these two though, the Valken was so much better than pretty much every other weapon that the map quickly devolved into finding ways to use it 3 times per turn with trades. And everyone who couldn’t use it (except CT-68992 who just spammed DC-17m every turn past turn 2 instead) kind of became dead weight. One more thing about DC-17m: it doesn’t say that only CT-68992 could use it, so I had to find that out the hard way when the unit I traded it to couldn’t use it. Still, defeating the final Managuard squad without ever entering their range with these weapons was fun.

Lastly, the unique mechanics here such as the Dragon Force Veins and the initial choice for Arica’s skill were great! I chose Force Push, which let Se’het reach the boss on Player Phase without baiting it first, so that was nice. The renamed stats/weapon ranks were a nice touch too, although keeping def/res despite changing str/mag felt a bit awkward.

Overall though, it was a nice Star Wars homage & a fun experience of clone troopers + jedi absolutely decimating droids.

[Augenis]

Thank you very much for doing a playthrough of the entry!

Feedback

I’m very glad the presentation and story worked for you! Can’t claim to be a great artist myself, but I tried my best to convey the Star Wars vibe with all the tools I got - and it’s good to hear that the hack sold it.

The gameplay was intended to be somewhat sandbox-ey and not particularly tough, and it’s good to hear that I succeeded there as well. You’re given a selection of options, from the weapons, Engineer equipments, Force abilities and customization for Arica, to have a quick fun romp through droids. Though it does sound like the Valken is too centralizing for the clones, yeah. I don’t want to straight up make it Clone Sniper locked, so my instinct would be to perhaps nerf it and instead make the Sniper himself stronger (since he’s calculated to deal exactly the damage to kill a Ghatcha at base), but if there’s some other idea rising from your experience then I’d be happy to hear it.

I assume besides the unmentioned weapon lock and the balance feedback above, there weren’t other issues to note? Either way, sounds like you had a good time, so guess the “make a fun chapter” task was successful

[Frog]

Replies

Yeah, nerfing the Valken & buffing the Sniper could work. The sandbox vibes definitely came through, it just felt like the solution tended to always be the same despite all these cool tools - ex. I never used the jetpack because the Engineer was always launching grenades instead. But that also depends on personal playstyle probably, so take it with a grain of salt.

Can’t really think of any other issues - it felt like the hack had a very specific vision & managed to achieve it, so yeah, it was great!

[Augenis]

Hey all! I’m on a weekend’s leave from the army, and it’s been a long enough time plus the SIGURD contest is coming to a close fairly soon, so I have decided to finally update the opening post with a basic introduction to the plot as well as screenshots - I figured there isn’t a reason to stay tight-lipped on the OP at this point, now that it seems a lot of people played it. (Over 100 clicks, that’s more than I thought).

See you all!