Steel Blade Gang yeet!
I’ve enjoyed making my progress on this game albeit a bit behind…only at the end of Part 1.
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Great! I loaded up on physics in the 2nd secret shop.
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I’m almost at the end of part 2, and so far I thought part 1 was better in terms of the story. I can definitely get behind a bunch of thieves who are trying to make a living who then find a purpose greater than themselves.
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Yeah that’s understandable. Part 2 can be seen as “fillery”, but it is much more about the characters and how they transition versus a self-contained story arc. I can understand how it is less satisfying in that way.
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I just hope there’s an actual arena to look forward to so I can 20/20 my characters haha.
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Love all the hidden secrets you put in the game. Like I dont even use Titus but I was forced to deploy him on 2E. talked to Lori and got an S Tome.
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There are arenas but there on time based maps. Most people when making hacks either don’t have them at all or have them but places time limits on the chapters so you can’t abuse them.
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(Spoilers maybe? Just to be safe putting this here just in case) I’ve read somewhere that Storch has endings depending on his support branches, so I was wondering if there was an actual support guide/character ending guide at all? If not that’s fine I just always love picking supports before I start a new FE game up for endings alone.
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I don’t have a guide for character endings made, can tell you though that Storch has an ending with each of his partners.
All supports can be viewed in the ‘extras -> support viewer’ menu if you want to see both the full list and the individual conversations.
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Thanks for reporting. I think this has to do with how she exits the map, but I’ll need to do some more testing to say for sure.
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Ah, I knew about the support room but I had no idea about the actual support lines leading to character endings, since most of the A ranks for everyone seems ambiguous for most. Thank you for you time~
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No worries! There isn’t much rhyme or reason to the paired endings, most characters have at least one paired ending option.
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I wanted to share a statement I put together here regarding my feelings on some recent events and how they relate to my experience and VQ.
The below does not have anything to do with the game itself, so feel free to ignore if you are only here for project info.
On Cowardice and Accepting Inevitability
The recent situation that has hit the FE community (and broader gaming communities) has been exhausting, to say the least. As someone who is only very loosely involved, I’ve largely kept to myself and on the sidelines, doing what I feel is within my power to do and say. This namely manifested in asking Mangs to discontinue his let’s play of my hack project, Vision Quest.
I’ve taken some time to analyze the situation at hand, as well as my role in the community as an adult and leader to iron out my thoughts on how I should’ve handled myself in hopes that it can help others going forward.
Now I feel prepared to speak.
To preface this, I started hacking because I wanted to make my own Fire Emblem game. If I could make a product that I enjoyed playing (and more importantly, building), then that was enough to make it a worthwhile endeavor. The notoriety of completing a hack did not appeal to me.
I know other hack makers have experienced this, but as I got closer to completion of the project, and it started to get more attention, there was a lot of discussion between myself and the other devs on what seemed like an inevitability - a Mangs LP. He was one of the few Fire Emblem YouTubers who even looked at hacks, and while it was great that he showcased the efforts from our community, historically, he did not always present them in the best light or make an effort to work with creators to provide the best showcase possible.
Again, pretty much anyone involved in the development of VQ knew I distinctly did not want this, but sometime last month, I received a screenshot of an image of someone trying to convince him to play the game with their name blocked out.
I do not know why whoever did this felt the need to block out their name, but it left me feeling betrayed in a weird way. Perhaps I am being too selfish or myopic in my view of this, but that’s how I feel about it.
Knowing this was coming, my heart sank. I was uncomfortable and unhappy. I did not want this spotlight.
This is when I could’ve made a choice. I could’ve acted upon those emotions. I could’ve just said “I’m not comfortable with you featuring my work on your channel”.
But I was scared.
It is intimidating to go up against someone with a huge following (90K+ subscribers at the time). I felt like it would’ve been both selfish and rude to say “please don’t play this on your youtube channel.” My discomfort with the situation did not go away, but I accepted this as the inevitability of finishing a project. I felt like I didn’t have a say.
So I let it happen.
10 videos later, the news of the allegations hit, and I mustered up the courage to edit my comments to ask him to discontinue the LP. While many were supportive in those comments, there were others who labeled me a “coward”, compared romhackers to sexual predators, told me that I cannot tell him what to do, and that I should be grateful my work is getting shown off at all.
Despite these detractors, I was relieved when it was all over. I felt much better knowing it wouldn’t be continuing. Even those he had been complimentary of the game, it’s still nerve-wracking waking up every day not knowing what thousands of people are going to think about you and your work because of a single person’s opinion.
The reason I am saying all of this is that I know I am not the first creator in this community to have this happen to them. But during my 2+ years of development on the project, this period was probably the worst for me emotionally. That said, I know I am not the last that this will happen to.
It is difficult for me to open up about my feelings like this, and I realize that what actually happened, to many, is not dire. I probably come across as silly, petty, or overly emotional, and I get that. It’s one of the reasons I was hesitant to speak up at all.
For those of you reading, I hope that you can find courage where I did not to speak out when you are uncomfortable, and not accept what you perceive as inevitable.
Whether it is a similar situation to mine, or in any other interaction you may have with someone in the community, I hope you can find the strength to do what I would not do.
I now ask myself - what can I do?
I will start by being less afraid to speak out and help give voice to those who have none when I can. While my own channel exists predominantly to playtest other projects (so thus I am in contact and have approval from the creator), I will contact project creators when possible and get their feedback to ensure they’re comfortable with their work being shown off in this way. It’s my responsibility to help create the community I want to be part of, and it starts with my own behavior and actions.
Thank you for reading.
I ask that this thread does not devolve into some sort of flame war. While the person in question lead me to feel this way, my situation is not unique to him - so I hope you can separate my anecdote from the man. It’s been an emotional few weeks and I felt compelled to use whatever platform I have to speak on my experience in hopes it can help others. That’s all.
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I feel ya, pal.
I was terrified when Mangs started his Justice & Pride LP. I thought it would be another EN situation.
All I wanted was to make an FE game people could play and have fun with, not have every detail scrutinized by an LPer known to criticize hacks. I was frankly surprised to see J&P get as much praise as it did.
But here we are now, in a post-allegations world. I feel your sense of relief now that the LPs are over, knowing you don’t have the burden of the viewerbase anymore.
I’m not sure if this is the best time & place to be posting this reply, but seeing what you said, I felt like I should say something too.
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Just gonna put my two cents as someone who played both J&P and VQ. I absolutely had a blast with both hacks, and honestly I would’ve never heard of them if I hadn’t seen Mangs play them.
Tho I do play some FE rom hacks when I encounter them, I don’t really keep up with the community (and so I didn’t know the type of stuff Mangs was responsible for). Didn’t agree with a lot of the comments Mangs made when playing these hacks (especially when he played stupidly) but overall enjoyed seeing the gameplay because that’s what inspired me to redownload an emulator to play them.
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Gotta love the idea of spawning reinforcements with reaver/effective weapons. Really puts pressure on you to finish the map (and give the feeling of constantly being pursued as the Kuching army should be)
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So I finished the whole thing and I can easily this is one of the best hacks i have played. Now I would like to make a brief criticism about it in general. To break it down I wanna talk about characters, plot on one hand and units, map design on another. Obvious spoiler warning is obvious.
To start character that were interesting/relevant.
Storch just screams Ike if he grew up as a farmer than a merc. He is well rounded and consistent. You did very well in setting up his relationships and all of them had plenty of depth. It got a little irritating near the end when he conflicted with Titus and adamantly wanted to stay as a farmer. He never even considered the good he could do if he took the power of a lord and a bit one track minded but it paid off with the epilogue. 7/10
Esfir, a fantastic execution of a mature adult woman. She is knowledgeable, caring, beautiful but also sly, witty and all around voice of reason for the team. Her dynamic with Storch was used well to inform the player of key facts without making him look like a clueless bumpkin (cough cough Jagen Marth). She also has consistency in properly addressing everyone for example she was casual and friendly with the team, motherly to Lera and Marlen but respectful to lordly figures. Yet skittish around Titus. 8/10
Titus, honestly I am very impressed the more I look back on it. In the beginning he was a generic man of justice wanting to genuinely do good for the people, but as time went on he kept getting more and more suspect. I am a little iffy about the device you used to enable him down this path (a hallucination from a cactus, really?). But to see his buttery words become more and more fake till they turned into straight up lies was brilliant. You did well in avoiding the pitfall of “tell not show” in his fall from grace. 8/10 As a side note you reuse lines often on several occasions. Something along the lines of “my good man” or “cheese and wine” are said repeatedly. There are other luxury foods beyond those two you know but I will get to the food later.
Waluyo, he is a bit more cardboard compared to the previous three. That of course is mainly due to the fact he doesn’t get even a fraction of the screentime the other main characters got. However his ability to stay level headed yet take risks was something I sorely wished Micaiah had done in RD. So a definite plus. Also I am a little confused about his age. He seems like a proper married man, love interest helps and the others strongly trust him as chief yet the game constantly remarks him being a new young chief and has no value in the eyes of other clan chieftains.
The rest of them are all somewhat one note but have enough substance to make them much better than fateswakening characters. Not taking supports into account of course.
Vagelis, plays the straight man against Arkady’s funny man but the context of Arkady being thirsty for women and alcohol only to be shot down by him was repeated excessively. Loved the in battle talk convo’s tho. He was the only one to get a paired ending because I kept accidentally getting B B C or too many C supports for the other characters. It was with the other nomad hunter girl Seruni. Their relationship was adorable.
The rest have nothing note worthy beyond what you presented but I still like them.
Marlen, Lera, Sigrid, Naia, Michael,Osane, Seruni, Larissa, Zuzana, Kusuma, Kir, Natsuko, Sri, Dewi, Radoslav, Stina, Vernon, Onderdonk, Timmonen, Erasmus and Zoya.
Now for the gameplay.
The final 20
Storch: Basically Ike. Had a bit of hit issues but there is no shortage of secret books, several accurate high level swords and that beautiful scissor axe.
Titus: Slow and has trouble tanking mages. Pursuit helps and is overall a solid unit.
Waluyo: Darting blow helps him double on player phase with heavy axes. Sky piercer and abundant longbows gave him incredible range. Axes gave him strong offensive potential and 1-2 range. His prf axe is kinda meh though; a bow could’ve been better. Fully functional right out of the gate. His hand axe animation is garbage tho.
Onderdonk: First of all where did you come up with this name? Second man loves his curry. Many maps in this hack didn’t seem to need fliers so I actually ended up benching most of them halfway through the game as archers and mages were everywhere. So when I finally need them he pulled through and is a pretty decent unit.
Sigrid: This is what you get when you mix awakening growth rates with paragon. A monster that can pretty much cleave through armies. Who needs defense when you got capped avoid and over 50 hp. With a brave prf weapon she utterly shredded every remaining bosses. Only low availability keeps her from breaking the game.
Timmonen: Solid unit. Strong and reliable nothing more nothing less. Like his character too.
Bulan: Why so stingy with dark mages in the early game? Really good tho. Strong offense, nice staff utility. Darkstone was a bit op too. Portrait looks very good.
Seruni: Strength blessed.
Naia: I am a sucker for female swordmasters. Abundant 1-2 range swords, interesting dao weapons and surprisingly good bulk.
Vagelis: Speed blessed. A MVP to this run. Thanks to his high con he was able to wreak havoc with op bows.
Arkady: I mentioned the scissor axe before but damn that weapon is so good. He had been using it and the S rank axe. Had a ton of fun with this guy.
Michael: Typical dancer but acrobat and boots makes him stupidly mobile. The rings weren’t worth much however. I guess they would be more useful on harder difficulties. Also two power rings were completely overkill.
Esfir: Another unit I am very happy to give the boots to. 8 mov and pass made it so much more easier to run around the map looting treasure and stealing items. Having so much stealables with steal+ meant she was busy in just about every map. She had a few strength issues at first but nothing a few energy rings couldn’t help and her prf sword. You really should put some kind of ‘awareness’ or no steal skill on some bosses because they are just free loot. For example in the penultimate chapter Bromhilda rushes you like an idiot. All you need to do is wait till she comes close yoink the fili shield, dance, yoink the iron rune and one shot her with the boogjacht. Is that really how you want your penultimate enemy to go down? The same goes for the emperor I could easily just take his rune off him. You should patch this oversight quick.
Osane: I enjoy custom sprites and animations. Staff mage was adorable and having an anima sage that has a good staff rank almost non existant in fe GBA. The low con hurts her speed especially with that low cap so she struggled to double. Not to mention the nerfed staff range. But you gave such a huge variety to choose from I had a field day with her. Three sleep staves, two berserk staves, physic, sagittae, arcwind.
Larisa: The successor to Kevin from the last promise. Now even better. Had some strength issues but strong riposte really helped out. Needs a barrier staff every now and then but the three magic effective weapons, magekiller, heretic lance and moonrazer as well as her op prf weapon. She was mvp in the early to mid game as well as the endgame.
Erasmus: Kinda meh but when he was about duel Zuzana to recruit her he straight up blasted her with a crit at base level. This gave me a good laugh so kept him through the endgame.
Cassius: Chickens really? The idea was so dumb it was good. Also death by cursed chicken is a fitting end for the emperor.
Zuzana: Double S ranks, authority stars, female hero sign me up.
Lori: When you break the hp cap at base level.
Anwen: The only character I do not see any value whatsoever. She is completely out classed by Ketut(Waluyo’s fiancee). Sigrid utterly blows her out of the water in terms of offense and Osane has better staff utility. Her character is interesting but as a unit she has absolutely nothing of interest. In fact she is a bit of a liability as she gets doubled and one rounded by the wyvern lords in her joining chapter.
Your map design was great but the last three maps were awful.
While I admire the short and sweet nature of these maps those last maps that play an integral part were too simple and boring. In the Horvath chapter you assault the temple of the Moonwalker. But the battle takes place outside on a small map. You can see pretty much what’s going on and where you need to go. Its just attack advance and defeat boss. It could’ve been so much more if say it took place inside the temple where dark mages try to escape(with loot) and you need to rout as many as you can while Horvath charges you in a kill boss condition. And the fight takes place in various locations over a labyrinth.
The next one the penultimate battle, you picked the tile set from the caer pelyn mountain from vanilla sacred stones and there is my problem. I am assuming we are fighting to enter the city gates. If we are at the cultural center of the continent why are we fighting on a dusty mountainside. Against an idiot that rushes to her death, a Camus that we never even encountered, and a defense force thinner than fe3’s enemy density. This could’ve easily taken place in city streets and depicted the chaos we are bringing in against them. It could’ve been like Ostia from the binding blade. Alexander would be guarding the castle gate instead of the city gate. Bromhilda could be stalking the army by circling the map and calling in wyvern reinforcements staying out of range. Once entering the castle courtyard Bromhilda would then switch to aggressive and strike.
The final chapter is even worse. Why use tile set from Jehanna castle, at least make it from Bern castle from fe6 or Grado keep from fe8. It makes the castle look like an ancient museum instead of a historical castle housing the royal family. It feels cramped like corridor fighting from thracia. There is no throne room no grandeur. Even the final boss was an utter scrub. At least make his weapon unbreakable. I understand he was meant to be a throw away pawn but he is still a final boss. With a berserk staff and some healing I can pretty much sit back spam end turn and watch him get cursed to death by a green infernal chicken.
Still love this hack and will someday replay it.
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Finished this game a couple days ago and decided to give a ‘little’ feedback. The short version is I really enjoyed it, this the most polished hack I’ve played and one of my favorite experiences with GBA Fire Emblem. I already want to play it again at a more relaxed normal difficulty.
I completed the game on Hard, so keep in mind all comments are based off my experiences playing on that difficulty. I recruited every unit and got every gaiden, unfortunately not everyone survived (RIP Zoya, Ruslan, and Rakkaus). This was by no means a clean run, there were lots of resets and some rare save states but they were for marking progress in a chapter I really didn’t want to restart and not for anything like manipulating level ups or cheesing bosses.
General
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Difficulty wise I think this hack was fair, most chapters were challenging but usually had some margin of error so that it didn’t feel like the stars had to align for chapters to go well. The game rarely lets you sit on your laurels which to me keeps it more engaging.
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The variety of map objectives in this hack was greatly appreciated. Side objectives also added an extra layer of difficulty if you wanted to get bonus rewards and the rewards usually justified the additional risk.
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Pretty much every QoL feature I can think of is in this hack and I appreciate them a lot. Also loved having the support system from FE9 as it’s my favorite implementation of it.
Music
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Love the variety of tracks that were used, was awesome to hear some stuff from games I haven’t played in a very long time
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For the ‘dream sequence’ chapters I liked that the map track continues even during combat animations. Idk if I would want it in every chapter but I certainly wouldn’t mind if more chapters did this.
Units
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Geez there are a lot of units. And a lot of them are interesting. And there are so many supports between them (thank you for having all supports unlocked at the start btw)! Hard mode kind of restricted which ones I was willing to try but I have already been thinking about what other units I would want to try out when I play again.
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Balance wise I think it’s pretty solid, some units may struggle to be viable in hard mode but I think pretty much any unit could be utilized to varying levels of success.
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Units I loved the design/character of:
- Onisim
- Sarka
- Lori
- Esfir
- Gunnar
- Kir
- Seruni
- Michael
- Helga
- Cassius
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Personal Tierlist based on my experiences and extrapolation for the units I didn’t use much:
Skills
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I like the skill system for this hack (1 personal, canto or shove, and 1 class skill if you hit lvl 15). I also appreciate that the skills for this hack are somewhat muted compared to others, as well as the lack of % chance skills.
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Personal skills did a good job of helping flesh out the characters (i.e. Helga having intimidate).
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I do think two of the class skills underperform and could benefit from a buff/rework.
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Camaraderie’s 10%hp conditional heal compared to Intimidate, Duelist Blow, and Certain Blow in the other single weapon classes feels underwhelming. I think something like armored blow (the class models do have shields) could be a suitable replacement, or even just buffing the heal %.
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Fiery Blood could also be a little better, keeping my unit damaged on hard mode while certainly possible wasn’t something I ever wanted to do and the +2 dmg never felt valuable enough to set it up (activating it from leveling up hp was nice though). I think just bumping up the damage by 1 or 2 points makes the skill more appealing for people interested in actively utilizing it.
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I think my favorite skills were the ones involving movement and the ones that affected combat under certain conditions (light weight, thunderstorm, spur skills, etc.). I didn’t utilize Pivot much but Reposition, Shove, and Swap were awesome and setting up kills/repositioning with them felt very satisfying.
Gameplay
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I know a lot of people say it but hit rates did feel weird in this hack. I think this is probably due to both the enemy density and the length of the hack providing more opportunities for units to hit low and miss high compared to most other GBA games/hacks.
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Having multiple stealable items in most chapters as well as the eventual possibilities of steal+ was nice as it makes thieves always feel useful and adds another layer of strategy to plan out how to steal those items while progressing the map objective.
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I appreciate that all reinforcements were not ambush spawns and were usually telegraphed in some way. The only time I was actually frustrated with reinforcements was the chapter in part 4 where you’re escorting the green units to the fort and 4 fighters spawn right below it and I just didn’t have enough units in the area to stop them from killing one of the green bois (I reset and easily dealt with them it just completely caught me off guard). The boss does mention the reinforcements and how they’ll deploy but I don’t recall how well the fighter reinforcements are telegraphed, it’s easily possible they were blatantly mentioned, and I just missed it. Despite all that this chapter was still one of my favorites to play.
Endgame Squad
Not gonna include any of the part 4 units simply cause none of them really had any changes with their stats. I thought my Storch and Titus were extremely blessed but after accounting for stat boosters (didn’t get any from secret shops) they were pretty in-line with their averages with one or two stats that grew above average. They may be a little too strong as I could throw them pretty haphazardly into most part 4 maps (especially Titus).
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