Wow, Wayward Trooper, you have no idea how much it means to me to hear your detailed feedback on my hack. It’s been a labor of love for the past 8 months and I haven’t really shown it to anyone besides my few early playtesters. Your thoughts on the game and your enjoyment of it are incredibly validating and, to quote best girl Lady Julia, have been a balm to my heart.
I’m glad I was able to succeed, in your view, on my main mission when making this hack - to make something that might feel (almost) like another game in the GBA FE compendium. It took a lot of time and daydreaming to think up all the different characters, their motivations, supports, and so on, so glad you enjoyed meeting them and building a party to defeat all the game’s many villains.
Spoilerish Comments
Creating the flashback Gaiden was a big lift, for me. All those custom mugs, palettes, and items just for a single chapter! Took me forever, but I wanted the player to ‘feel’ the Incident instead of just getting a cutscene of it. Glad you enjoyed it.
Eleanora, Ruslan, and Shiela were maybe my three favorite characters to write. Just fonts of warmth and joy amidst a gritty war. Eleanora soloing chapter 18 (also my favorite chapter to play) would be hilarious. A dancer with no allies to dance for.
You let Galen go without A-supporting Miley? Oof. I feel bad for the guy! His fault for disappearing for 5 or so chapters, I suppose.
Making PRFs might be the most fun part of designing a Fire Emblem hack. And I didn’t even add unique SkillSys skills to them. The opportunity for creativity there is immense. Shadowbane feels great to use. Those 30 uses rip by quick! Kiss of Death, as you noted, is super strong and stays powerful the entire game. Turns out killer longbows absolutely slap.
I spent a lot of time working through the story and the themes that sit underneath it. Bloodlines, inheritance, freedom vs obligation, noble blood vs noble deeds, and parenting. The more I think about it, so much of the game is the impact parents have on their children. Tordred’s cruelty to Zeddard, Dorian’s disdain for Edric, Fenix’s devotion to Elyse, Helena and Forness’s love for Julia. It all comes back to that.
Lots more to say but I’ll leave the rambling there for now. I want to reiterate, reading your detailed commentary made not just my day or my week but probably my whole season!
A few questions…
Who stole Edric’s heart, for you? I’m assuming Freya but I can’t tell from your screenshots. Or is he all alone?
No love for Tancred? Starts with B-rank in Dark, gets C-rank staves on promotion, huge defense growth for a caster… he’s a staple in a lot of my playthroughs
any supported or paired endings you enjoyed or that surprised you? You mentioned that Gareth / Sheila A-support surprised you. The heart wants what the heart wants can’t blame Shiela for trying.
You mentioned Hilda but she didn’t show up in your end game crew. Did the zero-to-hero paladin queen die?
How did you find the final chapter? It felt really hard to me, but your team looks so cracked I wouldn’t be surprised if Alexias was juggernauting the death dragons himself.
Okay @Vorgus , I am very confused right now. Supports here are supposed to be Tellius style, right? Well I used Elyse in every chapter she was able, and I was always sure to make them speak to each other every time the oportunity arose. Once in the gardens, another when going to rescue Sophiaa’s brother… And never again did I get the chance to make them speak. Not even during the final chapter. I was completely unable to unlock their A support convo, and there are no more chapters after this one, so I ended up not havinf my so desired Edric x Elyse. I am 100% this is bugged. Not only that, Sophia and Othelo’s A support is completely impossible to achieve. Right now, I only have a C support with them… During the final chapter!
Elyse and Othello are only available for a few chapters near the end. They only gain support points at chapter start. So, for Othello and Sophia, they basically need to hit C support at Chapter 24, B Support at Chapter 25, and A support at the Final Chapter. I thought I had designed the numbers to do exactly this… but it seems I don’t have it right yet.
Elyse is even more complex. She and Edric gain support points in early game, chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. For story reasons, they should only hit C support before Elyse leaves the party. Her and Edric’s B support and A support should only occur when she returns at chapter 22 and beyond.
So her support with Edric needs to grow slowly in the early game… and then very fast in Chapters 22, 23, 24, 25, and Final. I thought I was able to do this, if you field then both in every possible chapter, but again I might be mistaken.
So, this is something I still need to resolve. Any advice on the matter would be greatly appreciated.
In the meantime, you can see all supports in the support room, at game start. It’s fully unlocked by default.
I decided to pair Freya with Shorn; Besides them working well together covering weaknesses and being crit hungry staples, I liked their paired ending name (Silver and Gold! classic), and giving Shorn the emotional closure he needed felt important to me. Since it doesn’t mention kids and it was a heartfelt farewell, I’m reading between the lines that they were either really close brothers-in-arms, or even lovers
Tancred surprised me; I did end up using him quite a bit, and his story was well written, if very tragic. What caught me off guard was he hung around 10 speed on the chapters I deployed him, but consistently doubled every class that wasn’t a speed demon- I’m thinking that had a lot to do with having a solid constitution and strength that offset the weight of flux tomes. I ultimately didn’t use him more since dark tomes were the scarcest and least varied tomes of the bunch, and he and Galen had similar magic stats after chapter 15 or so
Hilda was very fun to use! A personal javelin was a great addition; part of it was bias (I’m not a fan of paladin units in general, and the horde of fliers did a good enough job covering the need for rescues and high mobility). She turned out a better then Galan up until he promoted, and chapter 18 was a good opportunity for him to shine and pick up some key levels Hilda didn’t get on the deployment heavy chapter 17. She was very spirited and idealistic, which made for a good contrast with the main cast of battle hardened mercenaries, and I liked her supports with Alexias and Catrine. I would say was overlap with Galan and preferring Gareth that made me bench her
I was split between Catrine and Julia up until the literal endgame (well Angel of Death, but still), but I had to see how Julia and Harlan played out, and I was happy to see Catrine as a bright spot in Edric’s life, plus I think her seer powers and expertise on prophecy were important to Edric, as much as their many children and their tender romance- plus, two low-born folk are now King and Queen, break the chain!
Julia and Harlan was as much a sweet redemption plot as it was a cleverly written little love story. Any of Shiela’s supports were fun (except with Shorn, but all his supports were pretty emotional gut punches) as well as Alexias; both were good foils Shiela with her loot goblin, flirty tendencies, and Alexias put on the appearance of being a poetic, spoony bard type while being far more clever then everyone else when he wasn’t obsessing over cute girls. some of the little reveals were fun and added layers as well - Gareth playing the flute and Galan juggling spring to mind. I wish Freya and Nadya had some kind of paired ending- they both supported each other very well emotionally, and were key in redeeming and rally Northall for me
Those screen caps are from right before fighting Zeddard (before he revived). The combination of dragons, status effect boss weapons, and non-stop reinforcements kept me on my toes and covering my healers and more vulnerable units. Edric, Alexias and Elyse did a good job cleaning house, but they were the only ones able to one or two round anything without using the S rank weapons. I sadly didn’t get to use the A rank holy weapons much, which I think would have helped as well, might have to see on a second playthrough
I thought as much. And trust me: I deployed Elyse, Othelo and Sophia in every single chapter they were available.
I thought as much. And trust me: I deployed Elyse, Othelo and Sophia in every single chapter they were available, it is bugged. Or an error during programmating, or whatever (I am not a programmer, so I have no clue).
In any case, this game’s story is a solid 10/10 for me. The thing I liked the least was the battle against sinistrals song, from Lufia II, as it wasn’t the full song sounding, just a part of it that made it sound very repetitive… Which means that you made a great and solid game, if that is the only thing I can complain about . Well, apart from the supports stuff, but I am sure you will solve the problem soon enough…
And you better do, because I have the custom of playing every game twice in a row, but I won’t until the problem is solved. I might die of withdrawal symptoms before too long
When you defeat Zeddard, he should reappear at the beggining of the map with all his reinforcements, right? However, if you defeat it by counterattacking in HIS turn, instead of defeating him in your turn, he will reappear exactly where he was before, while his reinforcements still appear in the bottom part of the map where you started. Is this intended?
Edit no, wait. Actually, he seems to reappear at the bottom of the map… But when your turn starts, he is suddenly up there again.
Also, I really hope …
Summary
…Zeddard’s final words mean we are getting another game from you some day. And the epilogue is a way too big cliffhunger for you to not do anything with it… Specially since Edric’s mother could easily be the Queen of Dawn.
I’ve seen a bit of a pattern here, not to bash the creator of the hack obviously, just observations.
When the game design is being criticize I seem the author being a bit defensive about it. That’s normal, since Vorgus has pour his passion into this great hack. I understand what it feels to have your game design being in the spotlight and picked apart by people.
This hack seems promising I still need to continue playing it, but for what people have been saying it has some flaws inherent from the game design.
Bulky reinforcements, tons of reinforcements, units following a similar design on growths and bases from FE7-8. Some of this features clash against each other in a bad way.
Spacing out the reinforcements, making small adjustments in enemy’s growths, making those reinforcements a bit less bulky can really make it to be a better experience overall.
Of course, you had to have in account that you don’t need to appeal to everyone with your game design, but also if you let your vision for the game blind you, you can lose track (not saying or implying that this is happening here, just stating a fact). But is also good having feedback from parties outside the scope, so you check glaring issues that target audience can’t spot.
Thankfully, my main mam Vorgus has responded the feedback in a fair way, kuddos there! I like how you’re managing everything mane. Keep going you have a nice future as a romhacker!
Appreciate your thoughts. I don’t mean ever to get defensive, and I love read all the advice, whether it’s small fixes or more design-based constructive criticism.
The game will be updated to address bugs and adjust common complaints. Obviously I can’t make everyone happy, but I will definitely take all suggestions into consideration.
I for one think the difficulty in hard is fairly balanced, if you expect the reinforcements they present a fair and enjoyable challenge (except those annoying thieves that I need to back track and re-steal the things they snatch from my units). I’m still at chapter 8, but so far I’m enjoying it thoroughly the gameplay and story, simple yet solid, with good dialogue, which is usually the achilles heel of most hacks. There’s not so much visual flair, but that’s usually just a bonus and not the essential, and the hack more than makes up for it with interesting characters and good gameplay (i’m not an expert on assessing map design but so far it’s been pretty fun)
I too consider the hard difficulty to be fair. As I said, the reinforcements during early chapters may be too heavy, but I did manage to end those chapters with all my units alive and having opened every chest, so it’s a matter of perspective. Having Hilda really smoothed things, she basically carried the survive chapters by herself, while helping others grow (that girl is the actual goat, like Alexeias).
The moment between Galen & Milley in Chapter 5 is sooooo cute. “He has plans…in the bedroom” lol…now to try everything in my power to pair her with someone else because I never go for the obvious pairing lol
I checked on FEBuilder if the event is there, and it is, but for some reason when I do the chapter he just doesn’t appear?? Is it because of my difficulty? (playing on normal)
I’ll make sure it’s fixed in the game’s first update.
You can fix it in FEBuilder yourself, if you know how.
Open the event in FEBuilder. Copy the hardmode exclusive reinforcement line. Paste (to make a new copy of it). In the copy, change the event front hard mode exclusive reinforcement to regular reinforcement. You can find that event in the ‘Unit Placer’ event set. Populate it with the same reinforcement as the original hardmode exclusive line. Then delete the original.
Is it possible to get a quick rundown of what happens mid-fight during chapter 24?
Chapter 24
I warpskipped it by killing Royce earlier than expected, not knowing that he was actually the only boss you have to kill to end the map. Apparently Velaina was injured but I’m not sure what happened.
Around turn 5, Velaina goes aggressive and attacks you. Killing her gives you the S-rank Dark tome. Upon being defeated, she teleports back to Zeddard, mortally wounded. She explains that she can repair Zeddard’s half of the Dark Amulet, and make it whole. All she needs is the Arcane Forge, back in Tellias. She and Zeddard retreat to do exactly this, as winning this battle is no longer necessary.
Once they leave, abandoning Royce, and you defeat his waves of soldiers, he and the remaining paladins charge at you in a suicidal attack.
can’t blame Shiela for trying.
. Well, apart from the supports stuff, but I am sure you will solve the problem soon enough…