It took about 4 tries for me to get through it after the rematch. Keep trying! I also used the patch from Post 1, not the one on Romhacking like I initially did.
I had a save state right at the boss which was helpful
I can’t find class skills in the guide at all, and neither can I find anything about Thief Skills anywhere. Can you assist?
Just started playing this, and am having an absolute blast!!
One question for something I couldn’t figure out that’s bugging me in chapter 7xx: the young Storch is holding a lover’s ring. Is this anything more than an easter egg? I tried trading with him to no avail, did I perhaps miss something? It seems like it could have been important to attempt to acquire. I could have tried stealing from him I suppose. It’s just bugging me now haha
I’m fairly sure its just lore, it’s possible you’re given this item later if you protect them or something? But I’ve done 3 or 4 playthroughs and dont think so
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Regarding storch, I like him, I think my only gripe would be his portrait lol!
Related, I think Titus is perfectly designed, like he’s really strong and it’s hard to find any good reason not use him, but I just dont like him because of his character, his vibe lol, and I think thats sort of the point narratively. His whole personality is sort of not taking no for an answer and taking things too far.
Might start another run today, as I go I’m gonna pop this thang open in FEbuilder and make a doc of all the treasure in chests and villages for reference, will post here. I think with how the games set up where its unlikely you’re gonna be able to nail every objective on a map especially on hard mode, it’s good to know what is where so you can know what to prioritize based on how the teams looking.
IDK how popular of an opinion but, I think FE is best when 100%ing everything is sort of the high score and you’re not gonna get that on every map, makes the game way more dynamic. Love that about this game
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Thank you for a lovely game! I had a lot of fun playing, especially in acts 1 and 2.
I’ve been reading through the comments, and have realized I might be in the minority with respect to some elements that I thought were weaker, but maybe that makes them worth sharing anyway.
All of this should be read through the lens of ‘it was a quite fun hack to play through, and I enjoyed the experience overall’. In particular, the level of difficulty and the feeling of constantly optimizing for individual puzzles on a turn-by-turn basis made Acts 1 and 2 some of the tightest Fire Emblem gameplay I’ve experienced.
Readability
The game would be improved by a focus on readability. Enemy units should indicate what they do by their appearance. Sword knights, Axe knights, and Spear knights are undermined when they wield reaver items. Because each map includes anywhere from 10-30% of units with reaver items, you’re required to check the weapons of each unit. At this point, the differentiated sprites serve no purpose. Especially with the abundance of ruby, sapphire, and emerald weapons, a lancereaver sword knight could be replaced with a sapphire spear lance knight with no meaningful impact to gameplay, and great improvements to map readability.
Similarly, it is helpful that text prompts tell me which units are a loss condition on most maps. But it isn’t clear that fighting or not fighting a boss has no story or gameplay impact outside of their chapter. For example, in your first encounter with Leslie it doesn’t seem to matter whether she is killed or not. Similarly, when you storm the fort with Lori there’s no impact if some or all of her forces die, which surprised me. I was also surprised that Zoya and Leslie’s interactions didn’t change anything, though this is indirectly stated in the recruitment guide.
Act 3
The change in pacing, tone, and difficulty makes act 3 feel disjointed from the rest of the game.
The narrative purpose is solid. We learn about the Kuchingi, their culture, and their plight. More importantly, Storch has his first real opportunity to show leadership and that he is a down-to-earth person willing to ignore orders for the sake of what is right.
The problem is that the difficulty abruptly shifts. We go from a consistent difficulty curve in acts 1 and 2 to a one-note bulldoze everything style of gameplay. The lack of a rogue unit removes the previous emphasis on carefully positioning to capitalize on enemy loot, and your many cavalry accompanied by a dancer makes cutting a swath through the opposition trivial. Maps feel tailor made to be easy for your squad, which would be more appropriate in a power fantasy than in a narrative about an unjust and overwhelming invasion. By the end of act 2, I was resetting maps up to 20 times. I restarted once during all of act 3.
From a gameplay perspective, Act 3 feels like it would have been more appropriate as an accompanying title or sequel. It serves only to flood your army and prevent you from fielding all of the units you’ve grown attached to. Having gameplay that doesn’t center around optimizing each Steal attempt was refreshing, but that’s undercut on return to Act 4 where your rogue units will just be gaining access to Steal+. The abundant items result in a huge power spike to your army at the start of the fourth act, and sell Chief Waluyo’s band as a completely self-sufficient group that could easily have fought off the entire invasion from Nevan without issue.
Anti-Stalling Mechanics
During the early chapters of the game, the inbound waves of enemies are thematically appropriate and terrifying. When you are on the run from an invading force and rushing through soldiers who you do not have time to kill, a squad of several wyverns twice your level gives the game an amazing sense of urgency.
Unfortunately, this pattern loses its effectiveness as your squad levels up and as waves of reinforcements become increasingly improbable. How does a band of chicken hunting pirates have support from an entire unit of air cavalry, for example? And once you have an archer or two prepared to deal with the endless waves of flyers, those reinforcements serve to encourage grinding. Not prevent it. Dying to a spawning druid’s Fenrir tome feels a little cheap.
It also tends to push you towards a single style of gameplay, centering around a deathball cavalry charge to bulldoze weaker units, while preventing new units from being trained up and getting air time.
If the goal is to give the player a clearly telegraphed and limited timeframe, it probably makes more sense to just do that. Maps with turn limits, while basic, are… fine. Just show me the number of turns I have up front, and let the loss condition do the pressuring.
Dialogue and Characters
In places, the writing feels stilted or contrived. This often coincides with conversations about some specific topic or hobby. For example, Chief Waluyo refers to a curry dinner no less than three times, and in the first conversation we get an entire recipe for the meal. Given that cutscenes tend to be front-loaded with these slice of life elements, I didn’t want to skip them in case I missed more meaningful narrative cues towards the end. The result is minutes and minutes of dialogue that doesn’t relate to the world, to the characters, to their relationships, the plot, or the story’s themes.
Related, flawed characters are interesting when they interact with the narrative in some way, grow from their experiences, or shine light on another character’s experiences or worldview. But without that journey, they tend to hurt the story and come off as one-note. Arckady starts the story as a womanizer with nothing to contribute in conversations, and ends the story as a womanizer with nothing to contribute in conversations.
Music
The music selection felt disjointed. This isn’t really a problem as the player can always turn off background music (which I did by Act 2), but was unfortunate.
Again, thanks for an awesome game and an experience. I could ramble about the elements and moments I enjoyed at length, but this post is long enough as is.
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Some fair points here! Act 3 is probably my “least” favorite as well (though I love it all really, this is easily my favorite fire emblem game, I think gameplay wise is kinda shits on any official games), but mostly for two specific reasons:
First, the first couple Act 3 chapters feel sort of on rails, as in, the squad is so limited and the difficulty decently high, there isn’t that much variation in how you can run it, like the first chapter in act 3 is sort of procedurally beaten, if you get me. I think this could be easily “fixed” by just giving you more of the act 3 characters earlier so you have to make some choices regarding your load out.
Second, and while I love this game specifically for the antistalling and I think its mostly very effective, there is an Act 3 chapter (chapter 3?) where you can easily farm the crap out of the reinforcement paladins and sort of trivialize the rest of the act.
Also, I wrote a review of the Act 1 units, considering both usefulness when you get them, how much TLC they need, and will they be worthwhile to keep in the team. I’ve played Act 1 five times. Warning: Long lol
Act 1 Unit Review
Vision Quest Characters Reviews
Storch - Main Lord! Pretty solid, basically a Hero, which I’ll talk about more but he’s a pretty good one. Balanced, forgetting the abilities he gets. Though I will say, aesthetically I do prefer a hero.
Esfir (Thief) - Sort of a Jeigan but Thief? Maybe like Sothe in RD but I haven’t played it so I’m not exactly sure? I say Jeigan because she comes at a high level and has decent bulk for a thief, but definitely doesn’t fall off as hard as regular Jeigans. It’s sort of a toss up whether her ability is better or worse than Otilie, but Esfir is still alive by the time you recruit Otilie, I don’t see any real reason to switch to Otilie who’s a lot lower leveled at recruitment and squishier. It’s possible Otilie is better if you really commit to it.
Vagelis (Bow Fighter) - This guy is amazing. Very chunky, overall good base stats and growths, I pretty much always use him and he doesn’t die often. A nice play on GBA fighter, he can deal damage out of harm’s way but if the squad needs someone to safely soak a hit or two, definitely one of the best characters in the game and especially good in Act 1. Gets access to at least one prf, a powerful longbow.
Arckady (Axe Merc) - This guy is just OK in my experience. His ability is pretty good, but he’s rather squishy and at risk of dying early in the game without a huge payoff in terms of him scaling up. He feels underwhelming compared to the other starter units for sure. I don’t think he’s really that much better or worse than the many mercs you get in this game. Often dies on me.
(So… I’ll talk about this now, I think this game is very balanced, but in my experience Heroes have the short end of the stick compared to the other 3 infantry melee classes in terms of the passive they unlock. They do also get access to either swords or axes when they promote, but I really can’t think of any instances where I was able to really utilize and level up axes when I promote a sword merc, its just easier to stick with the one weapon type and use -reavers or whatever when necessary)
Lera (Tome Mage) - Is quite good, if she gets enough stat ups… My Lera always gets really good, or somehow gets totally RNG screwed. Probably the best sage, and will be very strong and fast if things dont go wrong. CON is pretty low, and I suspect late game, just hypothetically, the magic users with bigger CON might be better. Ability is quite good and can save her ass, but this is balanced by a complete lack of bulk. Definitely worth feeding body rings,
Natsuko - Invaluable early game, and if she dies early in Act 1, which can happen easily, that’s gonna make things a lot tougher. Her ability is pretty good, but once her actual speed stat gets going, it becomes somewhat obsolete. I say kill as much stuff as you safely can with her Lady Blade, and if she gets good stats, roll with her, but if not I usually replace her with another flier(s).
Marlen (Sword Cav) - This guy puzzles me. In my 5 times playing Act 1, he has never lived to see Paladinhood, ALWAYS dies. I think he could be good, and if Larisa dies early he’s probably your tankiest bet for a while. He’s got very balanced stats, no doubt would be really strong, but again I can never keep him alive for some reason even though he’s not terribly squishy.
Larisa (Lance Knight) - Holy crap! Knights in this game are really strong! All 3 of them are great. S tier character here, and her ability is insanely good (+3 def to nearby units). If she dies early, thats gonna make Act 1 really hard. Also very few lance users in act 1 especially early on, I always use this character. Basically becomes invincible later and can tank the crap out of stuff early on.
Onisim (Priest) - Another S tier character, kind of the Vagelis of healers. Very chunky, though sometimes his low speed undermines that. Rarely dies and can get in there to heal and even tank a hit or two. Once he’s promoted he’s a monster. I’m sure some of his growths are stunted compared to other healers, but I never notice it and the bulk is just crazy for a healer. I always use this guy.
Nazar (Pirate) - Top tier character. Maybe I just get lucky, but this guy winds up maxing a ton of stats well before 20. Does insane damage with a ton of speed, and really not the worst defenses for a pirate. His skill is a little stunted to balance that out, but a secret book or two does the trick and then he’s OP. At risk of dying for sure, he’s not a tank, but once he gets going no stopping him. Plus his promo sprite is awesome.
Sri (Bow Nomad) - This guys just OK, more often than not his stats wind up sucking. But, he is a guy on a horse with a bow and beggars can’t be choosers. I usually use him, but swap him out after Act 1 if his stats don’t turn out or he dies, which is somewhat common. Just overall not the greatest stats, but gets the job done.
Dewi (Troubadour) - I like her passive, not sure how impactful it is, but it’s not bad. Kinda hard to keep alive, its the healer on a horse thats easy to overextend and she cannot take a hit, contrasts strongly with Onisim and I’d say Onisim is clearly the better character if you were to compare them. A lot better when promoted, just she always dies on me as I’m trying to squeeze out more levels before promoting. Decent candidate for early promo to secure your investment.
Gunnar (Sword Merc) - Or should I say, RES Merc? I like this guy aesthetically and I enjoy the gimmick of mage killer. This does leave him a bit underwhelming otherwise, he cannot take melee hits and sometimes his STR winds up bad. Doesn’t always die, but it’s not uncommon. Fun unit that I don’t think is top tier but isn’t terrible either.
Osane (Staff Mage) - An interesting concept… Out of the box, clearly the worst of the 3 early game healers with Dewi having a horse and Onisim being a god. Usually I bench her unless my other healers die. Pretty good once promoted, I used her once and it turned out well I just was always farming exp. Its unfortunate because of Lera dies or gets RNG screwed, this is an appealing alternative but it just takes forever to get her to a Sage because of healing exp only on a Mage. Functionally, I think this character is really just a healer backup with some payoff later if you’re committed. I just get antsy wanting her to be a sage.
Bosco (Soldier) - I really like this guy, can get decently tanky and is a great class. His ability is quite good, giving you extra damage when you initiate. Takes a second to get going and his speed isn’t awesome, I don’t think he’s OP, but overall a great choice and I always use him.
Ruslan (Lance Wyvern) - I’m not sure this guy is all that great and its puzzling comparing him to Helga who you get the very next chapter (or next–next?). Ability is ok, the repositioning abilities have’t come in that handy for me though overall. In a nutshell, he just has worse stats than Helga across the board almost, I only use him if Helga dies. Another lance user in Act 1 is welcome though. Just, hard to find any reason to use him over Helga, his base stats and growths are just not as good. I think his niche coulda been just a litttttle more res.
Lajos (Sniper) - Prepromote Sniper, pretty run of the mill. Act 1 in a vacuum, this guy is amazing, but I’m usually focused on Vagelis and/or Sri, I only use him if the squad needs support, otherwise I’d rather give the exp to other units.
Helga (Axe Wyvern) - Pretty strong unit. Kinda like Bosco where they’re good but take some time to get going and can struggle with speed. But out of the box I think she’s conspicuously better than Ruslan. Probably the best flier in the game, but I don’t think fliers are that overpowered, which is good, but this ain’t no Cormag.
Titus (Mage Armor Lord) - Very strong, can tank a bit, his prf tome he comes with is great, bolting he comes with is great. B in anima out of the box. Kinda hard to find any reason not to use this character, gets pretty overpowered later. I think he gets access to all magic when promoted.
Otilie (Thief) - Just another thief, I’m sure she winds up stronger than Esfir when it comes down to it later on, but as I mentioned she’s gonna be like half Esfirs level, so this is kind of a backup thief. Update: Honestly, this unit is way stronger than Esfir if you don’t mind trading walk through enemies for 0 terrain cost.
Hollace (Sword Knight) - Just by virtue of being an armor knight, pretty damn good, though I do think the other two are better. Probably wouldn’t go wrong using all the 3. I usually don’t use him unless Larisa dies though, and I think Kir is better and more convenient to use.
Zoya (Soldier) - Very strong and can very well out of the box have better stats across almost the whole board compared to Bosco even if he’s higher leveled, maybe slightly less bulk. Somehow, I can never keep her alive, but I’m always in awe of the base stats and stat ups. Similar to Larisa, has a Spur ability that gives nearby units +3str which is insanely good. S tier character if she doesn’t get walloped on her way to Halberdier.
Honeydew (Axe Merc) - Already on our 3rd merc here, and 4th if you count Storch! Very similar to Arckady, she’s good, maybe better stats overall, but again Hero aren’t as great as the other infantry. I trained her once and she was good, but same situation where Hero can’t really tank much but also can’t really crit the crap out of stuff either so it puts her in a weird spot, she’s pretty squishy. Great speed and strength. Not exactly filling any huge gaps in my party when you receive her. Has Nihil which is useful but not thaaaat useful. Out the box with 18 speed is pretty crazy though.
Duck (Axe Cav) - This guy is so cool and so strong, always use him. I’d say he’s an S tier character but when promoted he’s weak to both anti-armor and anti-horse, which becomes quite common later on so need to be somewhat careful, but often he just gets so tanky to not mind. Really good stats, though not like crazy good. Did I mention he is cool. You get him late in Act 1 though, so don’t expect him to pull too much weight in those last 1.5 chapters, but in Act 2 I try to get him to promo asap.
Sarka (Paladin) - Run of the mill prepromo paladin, definitely useful if the squads hurting but I usually bench her.
On the topic of Ruslan, having Reposition on a flyer is something I found to be invaluable. Reposition gives options that shove doesn’t in areas with lots of walls or high enemy density, and the ability to flip non-flyer allies over cliffs walls and rivers is excellent. As a part of your Vanguard, he can speed up your self-sufficient units and get them into key positions (balista and such) much sooner.
I guess we’ll find out… my Helga got bodied pretty early this run so I’ve subbed in Ruslan. I guess for me, reposition feels better on a unit thats tankier maybe? Basically, it just feels like his base stats and growths are sort of low compared to Helga who you get the next chapter, and I’m not sure reposition is so good that he should have these lower stats in comparison.
This is all splitting hairs though, I think every character in this game is definitely usable, which is kinda why I keep coming back to it, every run winds up different.
Also, I might take it back about Otilie… Pretty gnarly growths for a thief, My Esfir is lvl 15 and Otilie out of the box is basically as strong off bases alone. Not sure which is more valuable overall, 0 terrains costs or walk through units? I wanna say walk through units if getting treasure is the objective though. I could see Otilie actually becoming a decent combat unit, whereas I’m not sure if Esfir will ever really get there
Also, curious, has anyone been able to get all the treasure on the final chapter of Act 1 on Hard WITHOUT using Warp? Only way I’ve been able to is to basically bumrush south and then warp whoever has the best chance of one rounding the thief and then tanking the other units down there
I found a bug in this version where Radoslav’s promotion animation doesn’t play. Also there is no screen showing his stat increases after promotion. He just becomes a druid and gets higher stats but none of the animations play. Has anyone else experienced this?
How many supports can one unit have? Is it 5?
It’s still 5, no change from base GBA FE.
Hey so I encountered a chapter breaking glitch that I cannot explain and have no idea what I did to cause it or how to fix it:
On chapter 2-5x the one where you have to escort Fitzpatrick to the goal, he got to a point, but then just… straight up vanished at the end. After that, I was unable to win the chapter despite having gotten him to the end without any casualties. I tried hard quiting/resetting/waiting a few turns to see if anything happened…and it did not.
Things that I did that might have caused this:
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I used a turn of warp to buy myself extra time to soak up experience with my units. If Fitzpatrick was never meant to be warped… well I did and that would be a good disclaimer to leave somewhere.
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He vanished in the forest near the gate.
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I had killed every unit except the backup mage and the archer at the top of the map.
If there’s any more information you need I can provide it. I have a video I could also provide in a clip of the moment he disappeared off the map. Just trying to figure out what happened. The only thing odd I can recall doing was using the warp staff on him. Thoughts/ideas would be appreciated. Thank you.
I finished this hack a few weeks ago and I was so impressed with it that it gave me a rush of inspiration for my own, the progress of which had slowed to a halt. More than anything I just want to say that I absolutely loved it and I can feel the time and care that was put into it.
One thing in particular that I really liked was the way the game is divided into acts rather than just a mass of chapters. I had been wanting to divide my chapter into acts (and incidentally have two separates armies that join up, the way Waluyo’s army is controlled in Act 3 and then joins up with Storch’s in Act 4), but I have very little experience and I understand computers about as well as a caveman.
I was wondering if you could give me a quick rundown of how you divided it into acts and how you managed to have 2 separate armies that are controlled independently and join up. If you don’t feel equipped to explain that or don’t want to, is it okay if I pop the game in FEBuilder and dissect that data to see what I can glean? I don’t mind to just do that but I don’t want to do it without permission lest it feel like a violation of privacy. Thank you!
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Ive noticed that Natsuko is locked to level 10. Is there some sort of reason behind why she can’t gain exp past that point?
Glad you had a good time. Yes happy to share. If you look at the events at the end of part 2 and end of part 3, you can see the commands I used to temporarily remove units from the army to simulate a different group. This is the same command the base game uses for Forde/Kyle/Ephraim.
I needed to use custom code (look up Tequila’s ASM thread on the forum) to split the convoy to give Waluyo a unique 50 slot supply. This was paired with another custom hack to expand save data to give the convoy 200 slots (look up Expanded Modular Save)
Hope that is helpful
That works perfectly for my purposes! Thank you so much.
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Hey, I’ve made it to Part 3-3, loving it so far by the way, some brilliant and funny writing/characters in here, keep it up for whatever future stories you may write (if you ever do)! I’ve ran into a problem where, at the end of 3-3 the game will crash following the first scene of dialogue. The background flashes between the normal night-village background and a black screen. Attempting to skip the end cutscene entirely just causes a black screen. Music plays as normal.
Tried a couple of things, getting a new fe8, repatching, trying older patches, swapping emulators, none of which have seemed to work. I am playing on the newest patch, is this a known bug or something new? I spared the boss, but lost one of the NPC’s, all units are alive, I don’t know if any of these factors will make a difference. Really loving this game, would love to finish it.
Alternatives I can think of is restarting the chapter or busting into FEbuilder and seeing if a scripting error occured (I’m no romhacker though).
If you know of anything that could cause this, could you let me know how to fix it? thanks so much.
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