The nation of Lhavrain is one plagued with war. One from without, raging upon its eastern border, and one from within, brewing deep within the heart of its people. One such woman leads her rebellion to topple Lhavrain’s most powerful hold; that of House Thavra, where that woman was raised. For her foe, standing as Lhavrain’s last bastion, is her very own mother…
Fire Emblem - Pillars of the Horizon is a single chapter FE8 hack, with gameplay by @Rexacuse and story by myself, aiming to capture the feel of Radiant Dawn’s defend chapters, such as 3-13 and Elincia’s Gambit. It also tells the story of a family torn apart by war and grief, and of fatalism pitted against hope. Your enemy is both more powerful and more numerous, and your back is against the wall; can you save Thavra from its inevitable fate?
This was a lot of fun to make! I’m really proud of the result, Livvy’s writing is incredible as always, and I’m really satisfied with how the chapter plays.
This was a fun chapter! I definitely recommend to anyone in the mood for an Elincia’s Gambit-style map.
Spoilers
The map definitely really nails that stressful feel as you see more and more reinforcements piling up, and then the relief as allies appear, and the tables turn on the enemy. Very well executed.
Story-wise, I think it did a pretty good job within the 1-chapter constraints, it definitely tugged on my heartstrings. I think the ending tries to do a little too much at once with Leah’s realization and all, but definitely a very solid short tale. (I had Katherine do it because I’m evil and fucked up like that).
The story was truly incredible here. At first, it was a bit confusing with the large amount of characters & offscreen background story, but the mid-battle flashbacks and talks/supports helped a lot with clearing it up. The ending was very good as well and truly tragic - I appreciate that it accounted for Franseca’s death in my playthrough. I also chose to have Katherina execute Leah, although I checked out the other option afterwards as well - both were great.
The highlight for me was the talk/support conversations, though. There were so many of them, and they really helped flesh out the cast despite this being a 1-chapter hack. They also added some much needed comic relief to contrast the sombre tone of the rest of the hack - I especially enjoyed Lilac’s and Whittaker’s conversations with their reinforcement counterparts.
In terms of gameplay, it felt very oppressive, which definitely matched the tone of the hack. The mix of high enemy HP, essentially no doubling, and very low hit rates across the board made defeating even a single enemy feel like a massive feat, which reminded me a lot of The Lonely Mirror. However, it was also pretty frustrating, since you were constantly gambling on sub-80 hit rates, and sometimes facing 10+ crit change from enemies in the later parts, which… I wasn’t huge on. Also, there were so many instance of units being a few points of damage off from defeating foes, which added to the frustration a lot - Whittaker’s Armourslayer always being just shy of 1-hitting armours felt especially bad.
Nevertheless, it was certainly good gameplay-story integration if nothing else, and maybe even intentional. And once the player reinforcements arrived, the entire map was flipped on its head and turned into an easy romp - which was, again, great gameplay-story integration.
I did end up resorting to save states, but mostly because I wanted to see more talks/supports so was less willing to let units die than usual. Still, as mentioned before, Franseca died for me, and also the bishop from the reinforcements. I don’t think it’s too hard per se, just requires a very different playstyle from what I’m used to.
Overall, it was an incredibly good & polished story with a fitting gameplay, which felt very different compared to most other chapters!
Was suprised how invested I became in the characters, given the 1 chapter format and fe4 portraits. The occasional flashbacks and coversations added so much great characterization, that I wish I could spend more time with these characters in a longer form project. Gameplay was fun and fairly challenging, though I didn’t like how promoted enemies had the bonus crit skill and how there was no way to mitigate their crit chance other than just not letting them attack. I love defend maps and this was a great one.
Well, now that the judging process is over, it looks like we won SIGURD!
Our project is tied with The Pen, which is a really nifty project that you should all check out. I also wanna give a shout-out to Ava Turr and No Grave Unturned, which were some of our favourites from the event.
We’ve talked about vague plans to do some polish stuff that we never got to do before the deadline, but honestly we might just be lazy and never do them ever. It’s funnier to pretend that this is us resting on our laurels, growing complacent in victory, but it’s mostly just that we’re busy with other things that are more important, so This will probably be the only version of the game unless we’re struck with a sudden burst of motivation at the same time in the same direction.
If you haven’t played the AWARD WINNING Pillars of the Horizon yet, or any of the other SIGURD entries (especially the ones I mentioned up above!), you should! The event’s really cool!!!
This will probably be the only version of the game unless we’re struck with a sudden burst of motivation at the same time in the same direction.