[FE8] [COMPLETE] Fire Emblem: Journeys (v1.1.1, 18 chapters)

[Relic]

Hey there! This is my hack! Been working on it for a few months, and it’s gotten to a place that I’m pretty happy with, so decided to show it off here.
This hack is intended to be played without resetting for lost units. It’s based around every unit having 0mt basic iron weapons and very few weapons with mt being buyable. You’ll have to manage your resources extra carefully and decide where your powerful weapons will be useful and when you can get away with maybe eating a counter while using iron weapons. Please don’t be scared of not resetting for lost units, as the game’s been designed around it and you’ll get plenty of tools to complete the game with! Resetting is always an option, but the intended mode of play is to play ironman-style.
Some features include:

• Very few buyable weapons, they’ll all be gotten through chests/drops/villages with two exceptions
• 0mt basic weapons, like SoV
• an emphasis on Player Phase and resource management
• A 20 chapter campaign with 2 arcs, 2 gaiden chapters
• 41 playable characters
  
  

Credits

Nuramon for male Villager, Ephraim infantry
Alusq and Maiser6 for male armored mercenary
Iscaneus and Leo_link for male awakening-style myrmidon
DertheVaporeon for DS Pirate
Spud for Champion
SALVAGED for their cavalier and paladin
FE7if for Blade Lord and Ephraim-Style Ash
Eldritch Abomination and Shin19 for male generic necromancer
ZoramineFae for Kitsune Doog
Alusq for male deserter
Circle for SkillSystems, HPBars_with_warnings, HPBars_with_warnings Cache, HPBars_simple
7743 for FEBuilder, Display Escape Menu, Simple Setting of Sacred Weapons 2, Fix CG Fade Glitch, Change to have multiple units that can be seize, Remove Enemy Control Glitch
aera for Add Event: Character Retreat
Tequila for Unlock various restrictions of 5x, FE8-Battle Stats with Anims Off, Attack and capture enemies with reduced speed like FE5(Tequila Version), Rogue Robbery, fix_lz77decompress, Weapon Lock Ex Installer
circleseverywhere for Map Danger Zone (Select: Toggle) and Convert Chapter Titles to Text
Agro/Brendor for 16_tracks_12_sounds
MrGreen3339 for their Jake portrait
Flasuban for their Aridon and Carrie portraits
Smokeguy77 for their portrait
Stan for ExModularSave and Skip World Map Fix 20190505 and UnitActionRework
Hextator for 01command_hack, 48command_hack, Anti-Huffman
ipatix for Improved Sound Mixer
Nintenlord for Remove Easy Mode
Snakey1 for Stairs
FireEmblemier for their portraits
anon95016704 for their fe7 style splice
Ganondorf for Lugh x Raigh portrait
HonokaSuzimiya for their portraits(rex and drew)
P33RL355 for their portrait(james)
AmBrosiac for their Ervin portrait
YangKai for their tactician portrait
Zarg for their portrait (Adrian)
Laurent for their portraits
DerTheVaporeon and Nuramon for General with Shield
Zmr for General portrait(Reginald), Rosea portrait, and helping with maps
WAve for their thief portrait(Quincy)
CapibaraInSpace for their portrait
Circles for status screen background
GabrielKnight for their f!Fencer animation and samurai
Miguel-Rojo for their portrait
AmBrosiac for their portrait
Sajina from discord for help with the chapter 3, 10, and 12 maps, and
TDAWS for playtest feedback and kiyo support
Sme for their portrait and music
RandomWizard for Vincent’s mug and their music
Massive thanks to Sphealnuke(Juggernaut) for all the portraits they’ve done
Rivian for their help on the title screen
epicer for Grnath’s portrait

Download link
Hack discord if you want to ask questions or provide feedback/want to help me work on it!
The general idea of the first arc of the story is that two soldiers in training, Rosea and Vincent, have escaped from a mysterious attack on their home. Their main goal for the first arc is to gather help in order to take it back, traveling to a port city well known for their mercenaries and many other locations to gather forces to bring justice to their oppressors.
Known Bugs (I’m working to fix these):
In Chapters 3, 6, and 15, if you escape with a phantom/have a phantom when Rosea escapes, the chapter will softlock. Please be aware of this
Some units can use others’ prfs

[Pandan]

Congrats on the release! Think you’re on the right track with a gameplay first approach.

I’d recommend that for your escape points, you use the flashing withdrawal point marker to show where the player needs to go. Alternatively, just use an out of place tile to signify where they may be heading.

Are there any features or gameplay philosophies that you’re following that would give a player some expectation of what to expect? I think this can help with interest.

I’d also recommend showing a few gameplay screenshots so people can see the maps.

EDIT: beat me to the punch on the last point!

[Relic]

Thanks for the advice! I’ll try to implement the fix for the escape points asap.

As for gameplay features, I’ve not got much that’s super unique aside the fact that it’s based more around resource management with lower use weapons, basic 0mt iron weapons, and no buyable weapons.

[Pandan]

That’s cool stuff, def the sort of thing that id recommend for a first post to help players know what they’re getting into

[Relic]

Chapter 11 has now been added! There have also been a lot of bugfixes and small rebalances/changes over the last 4 days, so it should be a lot more bug-free and better to play now! From now, the next big update should be chapter 12 and some dialogue/story in the first few chapters, with the final length being 16 chapters.

[Relic]

Alright I said the next big update would be when chapter 12 and dialogue was added, but I’ve done a lot of major rebalancing and bugfixes that should make the game a lot more playable today, if you got stuck on something it should be fixed now. If there’s anymore bugs found, please post here or message me about them! Chapter 12 is halfway complete, and I’m starting on the dialogue, so that should be coming soon too.

[Relic]

Chapter 12 and 13 are in with rough maps! Chapter 12 may be a bit of an eyesore since I’m not great with mountains, but they’re both completely functional, and dialogue insertion is happening too, though it’s going a bit slower than I’d hoped. By next Monday, the first 2-4 chapters should be complete with dialogue, though, so look out for that.

[knabepicer]

hack bad

edit: for clarification as to why this was posted apropos of nothing:

[Relic]

Another new update today! Includes things such as buffing player units, dialogue being rewritten, new stealables on enemies, new weapons, new portraits, one playable unit having a finalized palette, and chapter 14! Dialogue insertion is complete up till chapter 3 beginning, and I’m planning on having a few more chapters done by the end of the week. I’m currently looking for help with character palettes/portraits so if you’re interested you can message me. Otherwise, I’ll be working on dialogue mostly, so chapter 15 will probably come later than the other chapters.

Pictures

[Relic]

Another small update, I’ve completed a bunch of story stuff till ch7 beginning. It’s very barebones as it’s not supposed to be the focus, but hopefully the whole thing seems more polished because of it. I’ve also done a tiny bit of rebalancing in earlier chapters, due to my concern that buffed player units might trivialise the game. I’m also working on supports, but don’t expect too many of these or them to arrive very soon, since I’ve still got to finish the rest of the hack before them. But for those who are curious, there are about 18 chains planned across the entire cast. I’ll also probably be nerfing support bonuses due to the massive stat deflation going on. In addition, I’m still looking for feedback on the difficulty, map design, unit balance, etc, so feel free to leave feedback on that if you have any!

No pics this time since I dont have much to show.

[TDAWS-Megapikman132]

I completed my first stream of this hack; so far I’m up to chapter 5.

There’s lots to like, and lots that needs work, but ultimately I’m having a good time. As far as the goals that the hack is setting out to accomplish, I think that the weapon system, while not perfect, has merit, and there are the beginnings of a player phase focused game here.

[Relic]

New patch today! I kinda got bored of dialogue, so a preliminary version of ch15 is in. I’ve made a bunch of other miscellaneous smaller changes, and an overhaul for chapter 4 is on its way. I’ve got the basic story complete till chapter 9 beginning. Next update should hopefully be that chapters 1-4 and 12-15 get polish, with basic story up till chapter 12 done.

Pics

[Relic]

Just a quick bugfix, there was a softlock bug on ch9 that has been fixed. Thought it warranted a post since it’s a pretty big bug.

[Relic]

Got a new patch that features the supports system mechanics working correctly (no convos yet, affinities don’t display in the unit status screen either), a a lot of minor rebalancing of some units, added in some more missing dialogue, and heavily changed a few chapters and maps. Most of the larger map/unit balance changes are focused on early chapters. Lots of the feedback that resulted in these changes were from Megapikman132’s streams, so big thanks to him!
I’ll probably be doing some more frequent updates in the coming few weeks too. Not gonna say what my goal for next time is, since it never turns out to be the same as what I deliver, but it’ll hopefully be big.

Pictures

[Relic]

Got a new update out, been doing a bunch of unit rebalancing.

Changes/Additons

-Enemy Res decreased across the board due to the fact that physical units were overshadowing magic users by a lot
-Mark and Sia got nerfed, Matt got buffed as the prior two were overshadowing their unpromoted counterparts
-Promotion bonuses for defense decreased because +2 defense on promotion is broken on heroes and warriors
-Enemy layouts on several maps heavily changed, so the maps flow much better
-Shop in chapter 10 was moved to chapter 11
-Bugfixes and error changes, including the softlock on ch13 being fixed
-Dialogue until beginning on chapter 13, more recruitment convos
-Reinforcements added to chapter 7 and 12
-More stuff I’m not remembering

And as always, if you don’t like the hack, please leave a reply telling me why! Feedback is always very important and appreciated!

[Relic]

Finally, the time has come. The gameplay side of this hack has been completed. You can play chapters 1-16 with hopefully minimal bugs, though beating ch16 will not do anything. My priority after this is probably to make sure all the vanilla characters are eliminated from the game, then the story and supports. I would like to thank everyone who playtested and helped me make changes for this, and I’m still open to feedback about it, so don’t be afraid to leave it here.

[TDAWS-Megapikman132]

I guess this means I’ll have to replay the earlier chapters. Again. For the 4th time.
Joking aside, I can’t wait to try out the new content!

[Relic]

Yeah, I really should make my updates more spaced out, haha. At least every time I’m improving pretty much every chapter, right?

[Relic]

Today’s update features a lot of minor changes, like buffs to Ron and Rex, and some changes to chapter 9, as well as changing the chapter 2 reinforcements. Not much, but the major things I have to announce is that the hack now has a discord you can join by clicking this link! I’m looking for people to give feedback, and especially for anyone who has any sort of interest in doing portraits, even if it’s just one portrait. The discord is a pretty good way of getting timely feedback on ideas and changes I’ve planned, so if you’re interested in contributing to how the hack develops, feel free to come on over!

[Relic]

Today’s update has some pretty big news…Vincent has a custom mug, courtesy of @RandomWizard, instead of just being Ephraim! Along with that, all of the recruitment/village dialogue is complete across all chapters, and I’ve made a bunch of balance/minor map fixes. Thanks to Sajina from discord for the overhauls of chapters 3, 10, and 12, as well! With this, the hack is getting pretty close to completion as far as content goes. I’m still in need of a couple mugs and help with some palettes, but besides that, I’ve just got to get more playtesting done on the last 8 chapters of the game in order to tweak them to be better, supports (about 16 chains left), and finishing the ending of the game! I expect for the first complete release to be around mid-July, but I do have plans for after that. Hope everyone enjoys!