I see. Never played them but I was aware of repalletes existing in other hacks.
If they’re mercenaries too, this in a way could be coloured in all different ways lol. But I doubt that.
A door in Chapter 3-1 won’t register as openable.
Also, is the Bard class supposed to be have no movement penalty on pillars?
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Pretty sure the door behavior is vanilla since it doesn’t expect you to use a key from the inside.
Michael has acrobat as a personal skill so he ignores terrain penalties.
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No, I tried it from both sides. It doesn’t work.
Alrighty! This is gonna be long, so buckle up…
So a few months ago I decided it might be fun to read through all the supports in this game, one character per day. I finished up recently – soon after hearing about the Lengths of Time announcement, conveniently enough – and felt like rebounding my opinions a bit.
Final opinion on all characters, based solely on their supports
Again, this is going strictly off supports, and not taking gameplay or main story into account (with the exception of the three main leads).
Tiers are mostly qualitative and therefore not necessarily hierarchical.
I took notes on my opinions involving all the characters, and ended up filling up a document with ~17k words total. But I’m sure nobody wants to slog through all of that text, so I tried to abridge it all down into quick summaries along with some general commentary on the support writing as a whole. The first few folders are the longest but they get shorter as you go down, I promise
General notes
On metacommentary supports
There’s a handful of supports which are mainly about discussing Fire Emblem gameplay mechanics, either from GBA or other titles. Now I love myself a good meta joke – I have a huge soft spot for meta humor – but in terms of characterization most of the VQ meta supports are kind of lukewarm for me. I think it’s because most of their substance is just “yo what if we alluded to X feature in Fire Emblem” which comes off like the Yodel and Dayan support in FE6. Supports like these just tend to kind of exist, maybe garnering a laugh or two, and they don’t really do much for building up the characters’ personalities.
Ruslan-Kir is the meta support that I liked the most since it’s used in a productive way. It showcases Kir being a good teacher and trying to find the best way for Ruslan to learn, while also demonstrating that yes Ruslan isn’t competent but he’s also not outright dumb. he just learns differently. This is the best VQ meta support in the game for me, because it’s deliberately used to characterize them both instead of solely lampshading a game mechanic.
On food supports
I did a food support myself last week. talking about food irl is just a Vision Quest reference, change my mind
I found the food supports to be inoffensive at worst and fun at best. But from a strict lens of what they brought to the table for a character, they also often felt like fluff without characterization. I feel like you enjoyed writing them though, and they definitely feel like your shtick so so all the more power to you. keep on keepin’ on man.
On fizzling/failed romance endings
You really seem to like these, huh? lmao
I found these to be a mixed bag. Some of them felt realistic – with how some of the relationships were built up, like Storch/Larisa, Cashew/Maelle, and Duck/Stina, it felt natural that things would turn out this way. A few of them like Naia-Bosco felt a bit like surprise sidearms though, if only because they had an optimistic A support followed by a pessimistic ending. Those endings left me a bit conflicted – it makes sense that relationships would fizzle like this in real life but the narrative payoff here doesn’t feel satisfying for me.
Fizzling romances also started to feel a liiiiittle too common at some point, to the point that when it happened for the tenth or so time I started thinking “oh, again?” Though maybe that’s moreso because I was reading all the supports in a sequence, it’s not like a player would unlock them all in one playthrough… I think.
On offscreen occurrences
I noticed a pattern in VQ supports where sometimes character backstories will mention parts of the lore that aren’t mentioned or connected to anything in the main story whatsoever. As of now I’m thinking of instances like the Unagi Purge in Menahan-Hokulani B, the Wabooz uprising in Radoslav’s backstory, or the other Mostynian nobles in Stina-Duck. You could even count more minor, less historic events like pink Kelik Anisa’s kidnapping/adoption into Kuching.
It feels like these events solely exist in a support-oriented vacuum instead of being meaningfully connected to the main story, and that’s a big part of why I don’t find them quite as compelling. I kind of wish they were relevant to VQ’s plot, or at least mentioned somewhere else, instead of just being throwaway backstory details?
In the Unagi Purge for example, we’ve never heard of a Lord Unagi before nor seen him onscreen – he hasn’t been mentioned once. And we haven’t spent enough time in Mahala to really know much about the country either, so we have little to no emotional connection to the event as a whole. It kinda falls a little flatter to me personally, because they’re talking about someone whose personality, kingdom, and actions we haven’t seen firsthand, and also has no face or appearance in the flesh.
that said, there are definitely exceptions like Tien’s history with Kosuke and Rakkaus mentioning the Sea Lion, to be fair.
Most memorable characters
Looking back, I talked about a few of them in my initial post after completing VQ, but ig it wouldn’t hurt to share in a bit more detail. These are really long, but the other folders aren’t half as long as these are
Rakkaus
I think Rakkaus is a character who isn’t quite as thematically focused as some of the others I put in top tier. He doesn’t have a clear concrete backstory like Anisa does, nor a thematic focus like Ruslan. Yet rather than only centering around one core aspect that I really like, I feel he’s able to convey his fun and charming personality very clearly without having any supports who are outright duds or boring to me. I feel none of his supports fall flat for me, all of them are solid and convey the various aspects of his personality really well. It’s just a lot of fun seeing all the different sides of him – seeing him be wry and snarky to mess with people, seeing him ham it up and act dramatic because it amuses him, or lower his outer shell of barbed quips and appreciate the things people do for him, or try to be a figure of guidance for Cashew… It makes for an overall package who feels entertaining yet also notably complex, at least for me.
Easily my favorite Vision Quest character, no questions asked. I am still a little confused by Menahan B though, since I’m pretty sure the Sea Lion was an enemy WE fought and killed in the chicken gaiden already by the time Rakkaus joins the party… so Rakkaus is just lying through his teeth about killing the Sea Lion to flex on Menahan? I wouldn’t put it against Rakkaus to lie for cred, knowing him. Though maybe he just beat the Sea Lion in a duel without actually killing him…? I am not sure.
Sri
Sri is much like Dewi in that he isn’t super interesting outside of supports but he’s still just really great all around. Easy top tier choice here albeit influenced by my own personal bias – he’s a character that just personally meshes with me really well. And how can I say no to such a good-looking guy?
I do like how his alcoholism is taken seriously as a problem too though, the context of his dad makes sense as to why he became the way he is – dude probably grew up surrounded with liquor. He also does something really cool and interesting that I hadn’t seen before in older FE games and hacks, which really blows me away: his normal ending ends in tragedy since he dies of alcohol poisoning. But if Dewi helps him out and intervenes with his alcohol problem, his ending directly gets better and his future gets better which is really interesting imo. This particular concept of a character having a crappy normal ending, but can improve their life in a paired ending is really intriguing to me, and I like how you handled it with Sri (though I kind of wish there were more ways to make his life better).
It’s too bad that Surya wasn’t enough to get him to change. It’s really crushing to hear Surya’s words of advice that dying to alcohol deeply hurts one’s family members, especially since we know Dewi firsthand and how much she worries about him, but Sri just kinda brushes them off and his ending doesn’t change with an A with Surya.
Pink Kelik (anisa)
I really like Anisa as a character and it’s not just because she has pink hair that clashes sharply with her personality, nor is it because she says things like “I’m not here to make friends” that could just as easily come out of an edgelord’s mouth. I feel she just always adds to the dynamic between characters in some positive way, in the same way that Vagelis does with all of his cutting remarks. but she’s more than that too, there are other aspects of her that are clearly fleshed out and explored in a really interesting way I think. She’s no-nonsense, yes, but she’s also got a prickly and somewhat self deprecating side showing how accustomed she is to feeling ostracized by her culture.
I really love her relationship with Hollace in particular. they do the whole long lost family thing really well and realistically imo, contrary to like FE Fates where people meet their long lost sibling and are instantly “woh we’re besties”. here pink Kelik and Hollace are having a lot of trouble really connecting to each other. And while they do somewhat succeed in the end, pink Kelik even acknowledges “yeah I didn’t even know I had siblings till recently, and we’re really different as adults now so idk how well we’d mesh”. it also helps frame pink Kelik’s kelik-ness, showing why she’s so defensive and why she’s always acting as the straight man in other convos. I usually dislike the long-lost sibling trope but this imo is how to do that kind of story in a good way.
Ruslan and Papillion
Going off story appearances Ruslan’s only remarkable cause of his wyvern, but I honestly really like his supports. he’s one of my favorites now which I didn’t expect going into reading this. a really cool guy tbh and not just because of Papillion
“If I fail, people scoff at me. If I run away, no one notices.”
I really like how despite all his failures in the academy and how much he struggles as a student, he still comes off as a sharp guy. like with Helga where he slyly sets the wyverns up, or with Dewi where he’s mindful enough to realize that certain historical events are taught differently in Nevanese schools compared to in Kuching. it gives me the impression that he just wasn’t fit for the academy’s stricter and harsher teaching style, rather than being dumb, and it’s a consistent feel throughout all his supports (and something that kir even picks up on). I really like this character mold a lot.
Kir A is super emblematic of this, and it’s touching to see Kir recognize Ruslan’s talent and learning style being different rather than dismissing him as a bad student, which I wasn’t expecting from a support chain that basically exists to parody FE.
Duck
a while back Devisio told me that Duck is going to be the jagen of VQ2, and seeing the announcement I’m honestly super hyped to see more of him.
“I see you judging me right now. Go ahead. Judge me. Call me a coward. Call me a traitor.” is such a gem of a line. Duck’s seen people like Stina before, he knows how they react to his life story. No doubt he’s been shamed and judged tons for his decisions, but he’s used to it now, so he challenges it and pushes back. Yet when Stina explains why she feels the way she does, he’s still open to sympathy. It feels like a very human support to me, I get the vibe that there’s still a lot of distance between them that will always be there even in an A support.
Rereading the Gunnar one, I think part why I’ve grown so fond of Duck is cause he has a few light shades of Samto FE3 in him. He’s very down to earth, and he’s also the type to help a friend out with the drop of a hat. he hears Gunnar’s story and he’s immediately like “y’know what, let me help you once we’re done, I’ll do what I can to help you reach your goal”. it’s just so… Samto-esque and I like that a lot.
Duck is a character who’s really grown on me, he feels like a free spirit and a total bro who isn’t afraid to give the clothes off his back to an ally in need, nor is he afraid to speak his mind and stand his ground when it matters. With how he occasionally has these very outspoken moments, it makes sense that he pushed back against his imposing father. I liked him somewhat when I first played, but he really shot up now that I’ve actually got a better grasp of who he is. he hits all the right notes for me and I’m looking forward to seeing him in VQ2.
Characters I generally enjoyed a lot
- Vagelis’s personality and the themes in Sarka’s supports happen to mesh well with my personal character tastes
- Dewi has an enjoyable dynamic with her brother and Ruslan, and the end to the Titus support is solid
- Bulan comes off like a less conventional FE ally, she’s kind of a manipulative asshole at times and I like seeing that in recruitable characters. The reveal that she can’t control her foresight but instead uses her reputation as an anchor to gain leverage over people is a concept that I enjoyed a lot.
- Granted, he’s not actually that young compared to mainline FE, but imo Cashew is how to write a “young” character correctly. No need to shout “I’m not a kid” a billion times like other FE kid characters do. For me Cashew comes off like an inexperienced guy with big feelings that he isn’t quite sure what to do with, and that conveys his youthfulness more than enough. I also quite enjoyed his older brother/younger brother supports with Rakkaus and Dreyfus. I get the feeling that he respects Dreyfus because Dreyfus is thoughtful enough to actually give him the time of day, instead of brushing him off as just a kid, and that’s a detail I really liked.
- Helga is a retainer who doesn’t feel like a satellite character solely revolving around her Lord, and there isn’t enough of those types of character in FE games
- Naia stands out because of her Mango support. parts of her past just aren’t revealed at all because she doesn’t want to talk about it, which isn’t common in FE characters these days. You don’t usually just… not learn about certain parts of a character’s history like we do with Naia.
- Gunnar’s supports, while a little infodumpy and a bit less closely tied to the main story than I’d like, are really cool. He’s a very blank and unresponsive character but that makes the moments when he expresses actual emotion (Cassius, Bosco A) more vivid.
Characters who I thought had some really great supports, but also some duds
- Honeydew has a lot of supports that feel like fluff, but I really like her Arckady and Cashew A supports. It’s not often that we see a character like her that just isn’t sure if she’s fallen in love yet. (I do love seeing normal FE tropes subverted meaningfully, if it isn’t clear by now lol)
- I am totally enamored with the concept of Mango’s A support with Freyja. I love seeing characters have their own goals and interests instead of all aligning perfectly with the lord. I just wish this idea of Mango wanting to desert the army because she’s afraid her body’s starting to wear out was foreshadowed across the whole support chain, instead of only being in Freyja A.
- Considering his relationship with Michael it soon became clear to me that Dreyfus is kind of perfect for being a mentor for Cashew, being an older brother and all. I like his Naia support as well but wasn’t as into the rest
- Kir comes off like a much, much more optimistic take of Orson’s story in FE8.
- I really liked Surya’s supports with the fugitive siblings and Waluyo but I wasn’t super keen on the rest
- Arckady is carried by his fun interactions with Vagelis and the mild comedy of seeing him get pushed around by the people he hits on
- Natsuko’s Batari support is poking fun at literary analysis…
- Titus was surprisingly goofy and flamboyant considering his later plot developments. It makes his gradual change in-story feel a little odd, having read the supports. I kind of wish there was more foreshadowing to that plot twist in his supports. At least his Rakkaus support is charming
- I don’t really have much to say about Michael, Osane, Sigrid, Otillie, and Jae that isn’t already summed up in the tier description. I liked some of their supports but some fell flat for me
Characters who I thought lacked standout moments, but were consistently good
- Bosco comes off as this rowdy guy who doesn’t mince words, and it makes for some fun interactions. It makes sense that he’d be awkward with Gunnar and insensitive with Naia, and I like that he gets called out for his anger (though I’d hate to interact with him irl)
- Hokulani and Vernon both come off as instructor/teacher archetypes, which is conveyed pretty consistently for both of them.
- Esfir was interesting to me because she had some supports where she was giving guidance, and others where she was receiving it. Not sure why but I was intrigued by this fluctuation in the mentor/mentee dynamics… the Onisim A support kind of bothers me though
- I appreciate at least one of Radoslav’s supports alluded to his bulky frame and big Con
- Cajon is very consistent as a character, he’s a sheltered noble who acts like a joker. I wouldn’t call him incredibly novel or memorable, but he’s not bad
-
Zuzana, Lori, and Timmonen have few supports, but I like what little I got to see of them. The politics support between Timmonen and Lori was particularly strong for me. We don’t see postwar politics like that often, the politics is usually focused on what happens during the war and not after – though ofc this is a C/B only so it’s a little underdeveloped
Not much else to say about Selanne and Maelle, they were fine
Characters I was indifferent to
- I wish I liked Larisa more, but I feel like I’m struggling to find a good grasp on what her personality is like even after reading all her supports.
- Zuljalal is dumb as a brick and I have little of substance to say about him except he made me laugh a few times
- I really wanted to like Lajos conceptually. I found his backstory interesting but so many of his supports don’t feel connected to that at all
- Cassius had some good ideas behind him but I feel he kind of ended up being a walking exposition dump in execution
- I feel Ketut and Waluyo suffer noticeably from only having C-B supports. Ketut-pink Kelik comes to mind as one I would’ve liked to see more of
- I kind of wish Kusuma had more supports about Hindrawan
- I don’t know why Erasmus’s supports fell flat for me, aside from the Sigrid one. I really like him in the main story… maybe it’s because he has so few?
- Anwen’s supports do more to characterize her support partners than they do to characterize Anwen herself
- Not much to say about Batari, Freyja, Tien, Menahan, Zoya, Cygnus, and Lera
Kitozawa tier
- After my first read I honestly thought Zakawat was meant to deliberately parody and poke fun at edgelord characters with some of the things he says… I am almost embarrassed at how much I laughed reading his dialogue. He just kept talking about “the blade…” and I had a hard time taking him seriously.
Storch tier
- Putting Storch in his own tier was kind of a meme. In truth he’s inoffensive for the most part but all of his romantic choices are just super ??? for me. Like why did he think trying to romance his dead brother’s girlfriend was a good idea at all? lol
- Stina hits close to home in a not so great way. I won’t say she’s poorly written, but I don’t like her as a person.
Mixed feelings
- Hollace… I already talked about his Pink Kelik support but the Titus support has lots of thematic overlap with the Seliph-Muirne conversation in FE4 which is awesome. I really love these two supports, they’re two of my favorites in the game, but I have no strong feelings whatsoever about the rest of his supports.
- Onderdonk is seriously making me reconsider how I judge characters as a whole. I found most of his supports to be stale, but having read them all I think I have a really good sense as to who Onderdonk is and what he’s like. He’s a simple guy, he’s humble and he knows he’s an oddity but he lets it roll off his back. I think he’s characterized well, and he feels like a grounded and well written character despite the actual content of his support chains being generally forgettable for me.
- Seruni is in a similar boat to Onderdonk. I don’t have any strong feelings about most of her supports, but I feel like I have a good idea of who she is – and isn’t that kind of the whole point of supports in the first place?
- Nazar would be higher if he wasn’t an ass to Sri, though at least he tried to make amends
- Onisim is inoffensive for the most part, but the Esfir A support bothers me. I feel like “yo I heard sea shanties about your days as a stripper and I always wanted to hear you sing when I was young” is not what you want to hear from a priest in the middle of a confession. It came off as a really jarring tonal shift in what was otherwise a fine contextual support, and it made me kind of understand why Esfir is so reluctant to talk about her past. The weirder thing for me is that Onisim is patient and sensitive in the Dewi support, which shows that he can read the mood accurately… and yet he’s totally tone-deaf in Esfir A
- Marlen remains my least favorite character in the hack while simultaneously having my favorite growth arc. I really don’t like characters whose main primary personality is being someone else’s kid sibling. I’m also not a fan of how he kinda rehashes Lowen’s food gimmick but without any of the depth and characterization that made it work so well with Lowen. But I do appreciate how Marlen tries to strike out and become more independent in the later supports, like in the Vernon support… and admittedly his supports with Sri and Duck are pretty good too.
Finally, here’s some typos (and 1 or 2 lore inconsistencies) that I noticed along the way. I haven’t been checking this thread regularly so I didn’t realize that you weren’t doing any more updates, but I’ll drop them here anyways just in case you ever feel like returning to VQ for some reason, or if someone else wants to implement them or something idk.
Typos and stuff
- Osane says she’s four years older than Cashew in Cashew-Osane A, but in Bosco-Osane she says she’s 22 (and Cashew is 16)
- Erasmus-Zuzana B plays the same support as Erasmus-Zuzana C
- In Tien-Vernon B, after “Colonel Kitozawa’s forces”, Vernon speaks Tien’s reply. From this point on in the B support Vernon says Tien’s lines and Tien says Vernon’s.
- There’s a missing [A] in one of the Vernon-Zakawat lines, can’t remember which one
- In Lera-Vernon A, Vernon disappears in the end when Lera was supposed to
- In Otillie-Hokulani B, Otillie says “Who am I to talk to you [sic] someone like you about anything?”
- In Duck-Mango C, Mango says “…if you don’t let it roll off your back, you [sic] it weighs you down like a stone.”
- In Dreyfus-Mango A, the text bubble doesn’t shift to Mango after Dreyfus says “Winner takes all”.
- In Naia-Mango B, the characters keep their eyes closed for (presumably) longer than they should. Mango just straight up doesn’t open them again
- In Ketut-Onderdonk B, Onderdonk says “kindess”, missing an N
- In Stina-Bulan A, Stina never opens up her eyes again
- In Surya-Sri C, he says “I see you afre a Kuchingi as well!”
- In Kir-Surya B, “I was thinking we could call it a pair up” is missing a period at the end of the sentence.
- In Ketut-Pink Kelik C, pink Kelik says “Stop right there” without a period. “favorite types of desert” is also missing a period at the end
- In Bulan-Pink Kelik B, pink Kelik says “It helped use [sic] feed the army for weeks”
- In Ketut-Batari C, Ketut says Batari’s first line
- In Cajon-Pink Kelik B, there’s a ] before one of pink kelik’s lines
- In Michael-Cajon B, the characters’ dialogues are swapped
- In Stina-Sarka B, Stina says “Your heads [sic] in the clouds.”
- In Pink Kelik-Hollace B, at some point the dialogue should switch to pink Kelik but remains on Hollace
- In Seruni-Vagelis A, Vagelis says “the long mornings less lonely”
- There’s duplicate text in Timmonen-Lori B
- In Zakawat-Zuljalal A, Zakawat never opens his eyes again
- In Gunnar-Radoslav A, Radoslav never opens his eyes again after he closes them
- In Duck-Sarka A, there’s a ] before one of Duck’s lines
- In Sarka-Stina C, “States” is capitalized when she says “Nevanese States”
- In Duck-Helga C, Helga calls Gradin “Grain”
- In Otillie-Larisa B, Larisa calls her “Otitlie” at one point
- In Menahan-Lori B, Menahan says “wod”
- In Hokulani-Menahan B, one of Hokulani’s lines is missing a [A]
- In Cygnus-Jae C, Cygnus says “in tact” instead of “intact”
- In the support viewer, Cygnus-Maelle A plays a Sigrid-Maelle support instead
- In Osane-Bosco A, Osane says “ticks” instead of “tics”
- In Titus-Rakkaus A, Titus calls him “Rakkauas”
Do note that I’m using an old patch (the first patch with all chapters completed, but before the addition of the extra endgame and Part 3 gaiden). So it’s certainly possible you’ve fixed these already. I also didn’t start recording typos/errors till I got down to Vernon so I’m sure I might’ve missed one or two in earlier supports.
Well, that’s that I guess. Part of why I wanted to do this was because I feel support writing often goes underappreciated and underread in hacks, and I wanted to show that this kind of time and effort isn’t necessarily thankless. The support viewer being 100% unlocked was one of my favorite QoL features of this hack, and I’m happy I got a chance to put it to use!
It probably goes without saying at this point but writing is something that’s important to me – though somewhere along the line I got the impression that VQ was a gameplay-first hack with story being secondary, so perhaps I’m being a bit harsh with my critiques here. I do enjoy digging deep into hack writing like this, regardless. I feel like I’ve learned a decent amount in general about what to do/what not to do for hack writing from this little endeavor, and I had a really fun time reading everything you wrote.
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Ruslan and Dewi was one of my favorite supports. It truly felt like two people who never, ever, should have met under normal circumstances getting to know one another. I haven’t gotten to see their ending yet (currently on my 3rd playthrough, I am on the penultimate chapter) but I do have high hopes for a happy ending. They’re just a rare perfect match.
Edit: They don’t have an ending… damn. Also Bosco’s and Naia’s ending is unnecessarily unhappy I agree. Hell, she was the one that first pushed to look towards the future. She has every right to deny him whatever he asks for, but, the ending just sounds like she did a total 180 on him. And it wasn’t just an old common dead friend they had in common - they loved scones, or ice-cream, whatever it was. Yes, their friend was a part of that memory, but it hardly means it has to dominate their relationship. A small segment of poor writing amongst piles of golden writing, oh well, hard to complain past that 
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Thanks for sharing these - I appreciate you taking the time to read all of the supports (gosh it took me writing at least a chain every day or so for 6 months to do all of them lol), and seeing this type of analysis and appreciation makes the effort feel worthwhile. I’m not surprised there’s some inconsistency, but some of it may have been fixed in the newer version.
I’m pretty much aligned w/ you on your feelings. Some of the supports and pairings I had really clear ideas for, and others honestly I was at a loss for what to do or say.
I put this list together after I finished VQ dev, but it’s basically my tier list of “how much I enjoyed writing these characters / how easy were they to write” and I def see some alignment w/ you. Note this is both main story, boss dialogue, supports, etc. - all of it.
Ruslan and Sri in particular were characters I struggled to write, but I’m glad that you found the pay off worthwhile. I think for Sri the subject matter can be heavy, plus trying to write a mostly realistic take on an alcoholic is hard and can be emotionally taxing.
Ruslan I felt like as I was writing him, I never really knew what I was doing. I felt like he benefited a lot from who his partners were more so than him on his own merits, but you’re not the first to hold him in high regard, so maybe it was a happy accident on my part lol.
Onisim/Esfir A I get, although it’s one of my favorite chains, it was the first one I wrote and also probably the most detached from how the characters act in their other supports. I’m rusty since it’s been a long time since I’ve written or read them, but IIRC Esfir and Onisim are usually in more guiding roles in their supports, so I wanted to use their support to give more insight into their character when they aren’t acting in those roles. Both have down things they aren’t proud of, and to me, it was a bit about finding acceptance in that and building a closeness to share those details. I can see how this can come across as odd in context of everything else, but it made sense to me when writing it.
I agree w/ you that Rakkaus probably has the best bunch of supports in the game and I’m super happy with how they came out. He was fun to write. IIRC the Sea Lion stuff is referring to the past, but he may be BS’ing Menahan. Considering timing of when this would happen, he wouldn’t have known that the group defeated the Sea Lion in 2-1x and they’re both older, so I’m inclined to think I was referring to the past. However, knowing Rakkaus, he was probably embellishing the truth here, too. I honestly don’t remember.
I’m glad you liked the Anisa/Hollace stuff. I really wanted to play up that Hollace’s memory and her non-memory of the event are so different, and that Anisa feels like a true outsider. I agree w/ you and also dislike when media makes long lost stuff feel like it’s no big deal.
As for sad romance stuff, especially Storch’s, I feel like too often FE games don’t give the female characters in the pairings any agency. They just fall for the dude w/o regards to their own goals or ambitions, and it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. All the pairings that worked I wanted to work because they’d be able to support each others’ goals and such w/o contradicting their own personal arcs.
Storch is someone who is desperately trying to return to a past state where he felt happy, and it makes sense that he’d pursue companionship with people from that part of his life (+Esfir, who makes him feel safe). However, all 3 of them have their own plans and ambitions and want to move forward - Esfir from her past, Naia from the heartbreak of losing Augustyn (as she does w/ Bosco), and Larisa who has bigger ambitions than sitting at home w/ Storch in Rask. Not to mention that he also essentially ghosted her for close to a decade.
Yeah Duck is unquestionably my favorite character to write. I found getting into his voice to be easy and almost always rewarding, and it’s been fun writing an older version of him in the new project.
I know I didn’t respond to everything, but thanks again for sharing all of this. Glad it was worthwhile.
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Glad you enjoyed writing the supports for the cast of Vision Quest. I really enjoyed Storch and Kusuma, Duck and Mango, Tien and Hokulani, Sri and Nazar, Dewi and Ruslan, Hollace and Anisa, Otillie and Osane, and Titus and Zoya in my first playthrough. I will return playing Vision Quest one day, with a second planned playthrough one day with a different team set up with a few units that I am willing to try out on. Hope you will one day finish Lengths of Time with some new supports for the new cast and develop some interesting stories as well.
I’ll be honest, this classic moment is all I could think of during Storch and Larissa’s A support.
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I lied. It’s actually cold!!!
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I played this hack several months ago and I remember quite enjoying it. So much so that yesterday I woke up and decided to compile average stats for it. Here they are for the convenient viewing of the public (Also lemme know if I made any mistakes I spent a day grinding this out lol).
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Definitely seems right, super aggressive overall, makes sense!
(oops, forgot to reply to the specific post. oh well)
I appreciate you rebounding your thoughts and sharing a bit of the writing process! It’s neat to hear your own opinions on the characters from a dev standpoint as well. It definitely felt like you were having fun with Rakkaus’s dialogue in particular.
You make a good point on romances. It does feel like the support system sometimes makes romance feel really straightforward, like once two characters get to an A/S they suddenly are magnetized together and instantly hook up regardless of whether it meshes with their own goals in life or not (this feels especially present in some games like Fates where everyone can get with anyone thanks to the kid system). In this light I also appreciated the handful of platonic endings in the game as well.
Storch seems to have shades of the “A=romance” mentality considering how many times he asks someone to settle down with him in his A supports lol. I’m still a little offput by his choices of partners considering their awkward previous relationships, but with that specific mindset it makes some amount of sense at least.
I’ll be looking forward to seeing the sequel’s story unfold.
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For sure. Yeah, Storch is intentionally written to make questionable choices here.
His better endings usually are because he isn’t trying to force his ideal of the past onto others, and instead chooses to look and move forward, and is better off for it.
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Is this rom compatible with any randomizers? I’m sure it could be devastating in hard mode if you bad luck, but would be really fun to be able to randomize recruitment order, items, etc.
Also looking for any suggestions on romhacks with similar gameplay to this. I’ve tried a lot and they’re cool but it takes a lot to pull off a good FE hack cause theres just so many… things lol, this one nailed it for me
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You can check out “Call of the Armor” (made by Pandan and a bunch of other talented hackers)
You can also check out “Sun God’s Wrath” by Blademaster. Amazing title if you’re looking for a different FE experience.
Lastly, I’d recommend “Cerulean Coast” by Rivian. It’s in its baby phase but shows lots of promise
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Thanks for sharing - glad you enjoyed it. Unsure if it would work with a randomizer, I haven’t tried it. My guess is you’d need to tweak it so that the game knows which player units to move around since both character and class tables are adjusted from vanilla FE8.
Hard to say what I’d recommend w/ similar gameplay. Road to Ruin is my favorite, but I think it plays a bit differently than VQ overall. Call of the Armor I worked on w/ a team as AtomicBanjo mentioned, and some of the maps may feel similar to VQ. It had 14 different chapter creators so it’s a pretty wide range. Was a fun project to work on.
@Kyrads is working on a VQ Reverse Recruitment patch as well, but unsure when it will be ready to share.
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Another bug report, probably one everyone’s mentioned. Waluyo’s class still has hitreg effects show up when he misses with a 1-range axe.
Also, the Lance Cav’s map movement uses regular foot infantry sounds and not cavalry sounds.
Hey Pandan, I just finished the game and wanted to say you did a great job! I’ve been working on a hack of my own for a couple years now, I’ve gotten a good amount of inspiration from yours. Although its not ALL good, Volume (Volume? Act? Yeah) 1 was easily the best but afterwards I feel like it dropped off, but all the hard work you put into it still made me appreciate it. The best part is that it feels like a real fire emblem game, the worst part is that it feels like a real fire emblem game haha. With that ending I really HAVE to ask, is there a sequel to this? There was still a lot left and I have to wonder what will happen. Thank you for your hard work!
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He’s currently working on the sequel.