Hi all,
Proud to announce a new hack I’ve created, titled Fire Emblem: Vision Quest . This is an FE8 hack built with FEBuilder.
Download Link for Vision Quest v3
Normal mode is recommended for a first run of the game and is what it is balanced around.
Links
Link to Reverse Recruitment patch by Kyrads
The Story Behind Fire Emblem: Vision Quest - YouTube
View the FEE3 2019 Demo Video Here!
About Me
Want to include this section to provide more insight into my design choices. I’ve been an FE fan since FE7 hit the west. I knew of Fire Emblem through melee and immediately went to purchase the game after my friend showed me the game where “Marth uses an axe and Roy was mistranslated”. (For the record, the first chapter he showed me was New Resolve, and the first animation I remember is watching Guy crit-kill a monk. I was immediately intrigued).
Since then, I’ve played every mainline FE game. While I’ve enjoyed all of them to varying degrees, my favorites are FE3 (feels the most Fire Emblem-y of all the games, I’d say), FE5 (neat mechanics, Dalsin’s my favorite character in the series, and Leif is my favorite lord.), and FE9 (best cast, worldbuilding and writing). I got into emulation when I wanted to play FE6 in English, and then learned about rom-hacking through Tactics Universe (better known now as The Last Promise). I wanted to make my own hack since I learned you could do it, and used to mess around in Nightmare to change classes around. Once I learned of all the new things available to hackers in FE8 (which was untouched back in the day), I decided to dive in after writing up a script.
When it came to making a hack, I wanted to create a game that would be challenging and fun, while offering enough variance to (potentially) make each playthrough unique. I dislike the newer entries emphasis on skills, so I wanted to implement a more pared down skill system that added unit flavor without making anyone gamebreaking (ie there are no proc skills in this hack, while all foot units get shove). I also wanted to make effective weapons useful and enemies threatening, so I think (From my initial testing) that this game is more player phase focused on the whole, but I’ll leave that judgment up to you. I made common throwing weapons weaker and heavier so they’re less desirable to use, and gave swords more of a niche by creating a diverse array of effective swords.
From a story perspective, I wanted to make a story that deviated from the norm and focused on small scale events, similar to Thracia. I also wanted the central character to not be of noble birth (and not find out he’s a noble later on in the story, I promise). Additionally, while the story does touch on more serious topics, I tried to pepper in some humor and lighten things up. I hope that the story isn’t cringey and that you find it serviceable. (I promise the endgame boss is not controlled by a dragon)
Plot
The continent of Yaska is home to six nations, but the largest and most powerful is Nevan, an Empire composed of states that swear allegiance to the Emperor. In the rural state of Belaro, Lord Gradin, head of state, imposes cruel taxes on the people and jails those that cannot pay.
A young farmer, Storch, along with his hometown friends, fear the worst. Seeking to protect themselves and their families, they look to procure funds through less than savory means. Conflicted, the group begins their plunge into banditry in hopes for a better tomorrow.
Hack Features & Details
- Story set on a new continent, Yaska.
- 41 chapters
- 62 playable characters
- Concept I’m calling ‘inverse branched promotions’ (ie There’s an unpromoted Axe Fighter and Bow Fighter class, then they promote into Warrior and gain the weapon they couldn’t use unpromoted.)
- Custom weapons (and rehashes of Kaga-era weapons)
- Early game Warp & Rescue.
- Generic female enemies.
- Armor knights with 5 move. (because I want you to use them)
- Pared down skills to give units a niche without making anything wonky
- Each class gets a skill at level 15 unpromoted, mono-weapon infantry get a crit bonus at level 5 promoted. Thieves come with steal/cunning and rogues get Steal+ at lvl 5.
- Universal promotion items
- Stronger bows (and no 1 range BS).
- Fog of War
- FE5 style trading
- New (and old) tracks
- Escape maps with spooky bosses.
- Tellius style supports
- Convoy Combine feature - can merge used items into a single item.
Patch Download and Instructions:
- You’ll need to use a UPS patching tool, such as NUPS.
- You can download the file here on Dropbox.
Screenshots:
Known Bugs
- 1-3’s end event can cause the game to freeze, skipping the event avoids this problem.
- Some of the transitions are a little buggy looking. These will be fixed in a future release, and it should not affect gameplay.
- Storch’s promoted animation hangs against heroes wielding axes in some occasions. Please be mindful of this, not sure what the deal is.
- The “R: Info” button shows up in the prep armory. This is a known visual glitch caused by the convoy combine feature.
- The guide menu tends to break in random chapters. This is a side effect from an older patch used to expand save data. This likely will not be fixed anytime soon.
- You cannot canto after supports. While you can complete other actions, like a talk, trade, or attack, the game does not work nicely with canto after supporting. Plan accordingly.
- The prep screen and support viewer cannot handle showing all of the unique map sprites at once, and as such, will appear glitchy. This has no bearing on gameplay.
- Map sprite OAM limit gets hit in a few places, and so sometimes units won’t appear properly on the map - this will be fixed in a future update.
- List function doesn’t work properly after 4-1 due to the convoy split setup. All of your items will still be there and functional on units or in the convoy itself.
Resources
Gaiden Requirements
1-7x - Gunnar alive
1-7xx - Gunnar alive
2-1x - Honeydew alive
2-3x - Visit the village
2-5x - Duck and Mango alive
3-3x - Michael alive
4-1x - Kir alive
4-3x - Lajos and Onderdonk alive
Endgame X - Gunnar, Cassius, Otilie, Freyja, Tien, Radoslav alive (This chapter is an easter egg please do not go crazy trying to get it)
Affinity/Support Bonus Calculator - this exists in the guide in-game, sharing here for easy calcs.
World Map - The Continent of Yaska
Player character portrait sheet
Credits
Staff Credits
- Project Lead - Pandan
- Writing - Pandan
- Eventing: Pandan (w/ support from Pikmin1211 and Snakey1)
- Maps: Pandan (w/ Zoramine for the aesthetics on 1-7)
- Palettes: Spear Doggo, Pikmin1211, Author Pendragon, Pandan
- Music: Pandan, A_Reliable_Chair, Scraiza
- Supports - Pandan, Runa, Levin, Zanryu
- Portraits & Map Sprites: Laurent_Lacroix, Melia, Zaim/Zmr, Card, Zanyru, DerTheVaporeon, Levin, Scraiza, Glaceo, Peerless, myst1c1p4nd4, Author Pendragon (& Pandan for concept sprites/edits)
- Playtesting: Bloopy, WarPath, A_Reliable_Chair, KMoran2085, Bartz, Josh, Jace, Scraiza, Levin, Laurent_Lacroix, Tequila, Pushwall, TDAWS, epicer, Kyrads, Xenith
Credits (please correct me if this is wrong/inaccurate)
7743 for FEBuilder and willingness to provide technical support
Tequila for patches: Show Battle Stats w/ Anims off
Circles Everywhere: Skill system
Circles Everywhere: (and VBA team): Gaiden music MIDIs, among other things I can’t think of off the top of my head.
Zane for the modular mini-mug box, and Scraiza for the custom box.
Sme for magic sword rework
Klokinator for compiling the Animations Repository, made my life so much easier. There’s a few with credits, but most are uncredited, so apologies to those I missed.
NickT for his collection of free-to-use mugs
MK404 for FE10 Fighter battle animation
LG’s sprite freebies
Capibara’s F2U mug collection
Black Mage for Female Fighter
Temp for Female Warrior
The Blind Archer for Halberdier 2.0
Subbastian for Wyvern Axe Map Sprite
Sme for FE3 music rips and amazing MIDI → GBA guide.
Alusq for the Armored Merc
AstraLunaSol for the M/F Soldier, map sprites, and battle cards
Team SALVAGED for cavalier, paladin, mercenary, and armor knight animations
Scraiza for the Bow Fighter map sprite
Sephie for the sword pegasus map sprite
Flasuban for the soldier M and F map sprites
Scraiza for the custom Storch sprite
Pikmin1211, Maiser6, Ukelele, SD9K, Temp, Black Mage, and Wan for the F!rogue repalette animation
Cipher Lee for Greil Lord animation.
L95 for horse map sprites and class card
Pikmin1211 for the MK404 F!fighter edit and map sprites
Vlak for the axe nomad trooper edit, Pikmin1211 for the repalette.
Pikmin1211 for the gem weapon icons (emerald axe, sapphire lance, ruby sword).
Scraiza for the small text hack to fit long names (Onderdonk, Honeydew, etc.)
Wan and Pikmin1211 for the battle screen
HyperGammaSpaces for Sagittae
InvdrZim13 and Tequila for playtesting and sharing valuable feedback very early on in development of the hack
And many more
By @Wes
