Oh, c’mon, Pandan. That’s just evil.
Oh, well. Based on the name, I think my guess for this chapter might’ve been off after all. But that’s all right, that title gives me another idea…
The novelty of a gaiden after the credits roll was too tempting to not try.
I’m treating it as an easter egg or glorified cutscene that expands on a few select character endings.
This speaks to me on a whole other level
Not gonna lie, I thought this was a new update.
T_T
Getting close. Need to finish testing a chapter and then am waiting on a few new art assets.
Hey I forgot to mention in miscellaneous
- I loved all the horses names!
- The real names of Duck and Mango
- Cool palette of some non-playable boss and characters in act 3 and 4, especially Sjostrom, Stroganoff, Blanchard, the sniper boss in the fog of war map and the bishop in the gaiden chapter
- A bald guy named Blaine
- I actually have a friend called Bosco who is really similar to the character, that was cool
Hello Pandan.
I never spoke in this forum, but i create à account just for you say thank you for this incredible game. Really amazing!
Hi Laharl,
Thanks for the kind words! Glad you had a fun time.
In other news, updates are moving along smoothly. I’m currently working on the most important update of all:
At this point I’m wondering if Food Quest wouldn’t be a more relevant title for this game.
Thanks everyone for submitting questions to Q&A - can hear my responses below:
Hoping to wrap up most of what’s left this weekend. Looking forward to sharing an update w/ you all soon.
Great video nadnap can’t wait to play the v2
I had to do a double take when I heard “I’m supposed to finish it today.” Dude, that’s not something you just drop like it’s no biggie.
In all seriousness, great video, and please, take your time. We can wait.
Hi all,
Excited to announce Vision Quest v2.0 (Also in first post). This has been a long time coming, and I appreciate everyone’s feedback over the past few months (heck, almost a year) since the release of v1. I decided to call this update v2.0 since it is the most major update since the current July patch, including new content.
Beyond this, the primary goal of v2 is to address some balance and technical issues, while also improving the smoothness of the difficulty. Overall, the tweaks are fairly minor and those familiar with the game likely won’t find it vastly different than v1 - ideally, you’ll find it to be a bit smoother and overall a better experience.
Here is a quick overview of the changes:
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The save glitch that occurs at endgame was fixed (Thank you @Snakey1)
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Honeydew now gets HM bonuses.
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Arckady, Hokulani, Maelle, Menahan, Jae, Selanne, Cygnus, Freyja, Osane, and Sarka all received buffs of varying degrees. For example, Maelle is now level 15 instead of 10, and Arckady now comes with a prf and slightly better bases. Osane and Maelle’s stat lines have been completely reworked to help them carve a more unique niche among similar units (and stink less). I pretty consistently got complaints about the performance of these units (some more than others, of course) and felt that some redesigns and buffs were in order to make them more competitive. While I don’t think this will drastically change their performance, they should feel, if nothing else, better than before.
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Moon affinity was tweaked to give +5 crit avoid and +2.5 avoid. This reflects what was in the guide, but not on the back-end (they were swapped).
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Arckady’s hatchet is replaced with a prf weapon that should make him less crappy on HM (if only slightly. He still seems strong on NM at least!)
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Items have been shuffled around a bit to improve difficulty. For example, earth seal locations have shifted slightly (mostly further back). Shop + armory items have also been tweaked a bit. The change to make preps armories only 100% of their retail price was a late min decision, so I took time to change up the in-map armories to make them more enticing to visit mid-map. Don’t expect anything super wild, however.
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Part 2 enemies have been buffed with more levels + better inventories to improve difficulty.
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2-5x’s map was completely redone. The objective and premise are the same, but it should be a smoother play w/ fewer chokepoints.
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New gaidens: 3-3x (keep Waluyo and Michael alive) and Endgame X (after the credits roll) are added. Endgame X is basically a glorified cutscene, but wanted the player to play the scene for the novelty of a gaiden after the endgame map. It’s an easter egg and reward for keeping a few specific units alive. There are now 43 total chapters in the hack. 3-3x is pretty experimental and its flow feels different from most of what is in the hack.
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New animations including EldritchAbomination’s chickens, Levin’s f!paladin by SALVAGED, and gazelles by Vlak.
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Updated portraits for Freyja and Selanne (Thank you Levin!)
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Added 4 new tracks to the sound room: Seaside Hill from Sonic Heroes, Voices of the Temple from Donkey Kong Country, Venus Lighthouse from the Last Promise (I mean, Golden Sun), and Guile Theme from Dream of Five (actually SF2).
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Stina’s portrait now changes if you get to A support with Bulan. You can thank Scraiza for this one.
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A recipe book is now available in the guide. You can make some of my favorite recipes as well as learn more about some of the food referenced throughout the game.
One of the bigger elephants in the room (or the rom), is that in my stupor as a newbie hacker, I gave the units personal bases to try and balance them. This worked well short term, but ultimately made the difficulty feel uneven throughout. I wanted to originally tackle this as part of the update and revert back to using strictly autolevels to make the game’s experience and difficulty curve a bit smoother, and to avoid enemy quality spikes and dips. However, I decided that fixing this would not be worth meticulously re-engineering stats chapter by chapter, especially because overall I was pretty satisfied with how the game played and feedback indicated there were only a few standout issues, which I tried to address through other means. Additionally, OAM is still an issue in preps towards the late game with the quantity of map sprites. It doesn’t impact much besides preps with a full or close to full squad in part 4 and the support viewer, so I apologize for this.
If you’re making a hack, take it from me, don’t give enemies personal bases. Use Shuusuke’s autolevel patch for normal mode instead - it’s a much more elegant solution and makes scaling across the game and each difficulty easier. This is currently the only major issue in the hack that I’d love to fix eventually, but probably never will - just going to take it as a learning for next time. It is inevitable that with 40+ chapters there will be stuff to pick apart ad nauseam, unfortunately.
That should cover it - I’m hoping barring any technical issues or the release of new animations, this is the final update of Vision Quest, thus making this the definitive [complete] VQ experience. While there are other things that could be added and improved, I could spend the rest of my life trying to fix them, so at this point, I’m content to say that I am officially done. I’m working with Izumi, creator of Oifey bot, to make Vision Quest available on it so you can easily access stats when not using FEBuilder.
Reflecting on it all, while I don’t think I will ever be 100% satisfied with the game and recognize its issues and design choices I would never make again, it’s been a fun learning experience and I’m ultimately proud of what the team and I were able to build over the past 3 years. It’s been wild to see what aspects of the game inspires others, and to see others debate about it like any other FE game. It’s been quite an experience as a creator.
Grateful as always for all of your support, please get the new patch in the first post!
As always, keep the feedback coming.
Lastly, in celebration of this milestone, I thought it would be fun to share my earliest documentation on the hack, dating back to October 2017, when I drafted up the first few bullets that would become part 1. It was fun to review and see what I changed over the course of development from this email I drafted to myself while stuck on the subway years ago.
Looking through old notes, it looks like I’d revisit this concept again ~6 months later in April 2018 when I started writing the script out chapter by chapter, much of which is still in the game today.
22-Oct-17 VQ draft
Nevan is the largest and greatest empire on the continent. It’s capitol is impregnable, built within a great mountain range that few dare to cross. The interior of the mountain is full of rare minerals that are mined and sold. The people there live lavish lives, well protected by not only the mountain range, but the fearsome dracoknights that guard the capitol.
Outside the capitol and the interior, rural Nevan is adorned with farming villages that serve to grow food for the nation and act as a rest stop for traders en route to other cities to sell the minerals for weaponry and more.
While the capitol is ruled by the Emperor, he has many lords that oversee the outer parts of his nation to ensure peace. Given the wide land that the Emperor oversees, his eye does not catch all misdeeds.
In northwest Nevan in the state of Belaro, the people live under strict rule of Lord Gradin, who heavily taxes the people in order to afford his luxurious lifestyle. In times of poverty, banditry and is on the rise, and some men and women who would otherwise lead simple lives, find themselves performing unscrupulous acts…
Characters:
1 Storch (Sword Lord): Leader of the group. Son of a poor farmer, turns to banditry to make money to feed his family unbeknownst to them.
2 Vagelis (Bow Fighter): A stoic hunter and longtime friend of Storch.
3 Esfir (Thief): A quiet woman with a dark past, joins Storch to make money for her young daughter.
4 Lera (Wind Mage): Daughter of Esfir, stubborn, bold and with a quick temper.
5 Arckady (Axe Merc): Local woodcutter and Vagelis’ cousin.
6 Larisa (Lance Knight): Daughter of the town blacksmith. She likes to make mischief.
7 Marlen (Sword Cav): Storch’s younger brother, gets involved in the conflict against his brother’s will.
8 Onisim (Priest): A priest that joins Storch after rescuing him from other bandits.
9 Nazar (Pirate): A bandit that is captured by Storch in a conflict and agrees to fight with them.
10 Titus (Thunder Mage): A noble from a neighboring state that empathizes with Storch’s struggle, yet is ambitious to take over the Nevanese state for himself.
11 Helga (Axe Wyvern): Titus’ bodyguard.
12 Dewi (Troubadour): A fugitive from Kuching who fled years ago. A carefree drunk.
13 Sri (Bow Scout): Dewi’s twin brother, a boisterous drunkard.
14 Ruslan (Lance Wyvern): Former imperial soldier that retired early to enjoy life. A bit of a soundrel.
Prologue: A Forced Hand
Storch, Vagelis, Esfir, Lera and Arckady decide to raid a wealthier part of town, and unfortunately end up getting seen by Gradin’s soldiers and become fugitives.
Chapter 1: A Rose By Another Name
Storch and team get a tip from Esfir that a poorly guarded merchant caravan from the capitol is stopping en route to Mahala to sell rare metals. Storch and team attempt to make an assault at night, but are met by other bandits. They fight the bandits off and the merchants mistake them as members of the town militia, and they are seen as heroes.
Chapter 2: Doomed Hometown
Storch and his team are at base when they learn that the part of town where Storch’s family lives is under attack. Storch meets up with his younger brother, Marlen, who protects his family from the bandits looking to settle the score. Larisa hears the fighting and joins in to save her friends.
Chapter 3: Port of Belaro
Storch and team are planning the next score at port, anticipating a large shipment from Mahala by boat, when the town they’re staying in is attacked. They recruit Onisim who flees the town church and Nazar, who defects when his boss is defeated.
Chapter 4: The Law of the Land
After defending the port, Gradin’s soldiers arrive and recognize Storch as the assailants from the prologue. The villagers try to reason with them but the soldiers attack and Storch and team escape, now realizing they are at war with the state.
Chapter 5: Am I A Hero?
Storch and team decide that they must skip town in order to protect their families. They begin making their escape when they overhear soldiers talking about imprisoning commoners who refuse to pay the heavy taxes. Enraged, Storch and team attack Gradin’s men and are joined by Dewi and Sri, who are out late after a night of drinking.
Chapter 5x: Graveyard Shift
Must recruit Dewi and Sri
Dewi and Sri recommend that the team head over to an old graveyard by the coast to hide safely. They are met by a group of mysterious shaman and fight.
Chapter 6: The Jailer’s Malice
Storch learns that his parents have been taken prisoner, along with many others from their hometown. Esfir learns the route where they are transporting the prisoners, and the group launches an assault to free them. Many commoner learn of Storch’s exploits and come to see him as a hero and wish for him to liberate them from Gradin.
Chapter 7: Thunder’s Call
The team is found by a messenger who tells them that a regional lord, Titus wishes to aid them in their conflict. Storch, seen now as a a hero, wrestles with whether he is meant to lead or simply pass over rule to Titus. Per Titus’ suggestion, the team launches an attack on Gradin’s forces near his manse.
Chapter 8: Back to Basics
Given their numbers, the team decides the best way to assault Gradin is to sneak into the castle at night and capture Gradin with minimal fighting. The team decides to sneak in at night and enter the castle through the rear.
Chapter 9: Great Expectations
The team enters Gradin’s manse and fights his 2nd in command.
Chapter 10: I Never Wanted This
Entering the main part of the manse, the team heads for the throne room to find that it has been vacated, and Gradin is nowhere to be found. It is then when they realize that they have been surrounded and are trapped inside. They fight Gradin and emerge victorious. Storch, fearful that Titus’ rule will lead to the same thing down the road, Storch agrees to stay on as regent during the reconstruction period, but yearns for his simpler life.
This was a really really enjoyable hack and Im lookinh forward to what you make next!
Ahh, there we go! I’ll have to wrap up my current TearRing Saga run so I can get started on this.
Congratulations on the release! If I encounter any issues, I’ll be sure to report them as I go. Hopefully, however, there’ll be nothing too big.
Woops, fixed this - new patch at the link. Thanks.
Heck yeah!! I’ve been waiting to give a go at this again and now I definitely have a reason to now. Thanks for all your hard work into making such a masterpiece!