So I’m having some problems with re-patching the hack with the latest patch. I was playing on the patch that was before the july24 patch and the new patch had a fix on the wyvern rider promotion getting CON +2. So i DLed the latest patch and patched it to a clean fe8 rom, copied my save file from the previous patch and proceeded to promote my wyvern rider but he didn’t get the CON +2 on promotion. Am I doing something wrong?
If you’re using the newest patch, promoting any wyvern rider should result in you getting +2 con for each promotion. You may have somehow not applied the newest patch, but I don’t think that should be the case. I’ll look into this.
I’m sure that I used the newly patched rom when i promoted my wyvern rider. I don’t know if the bug is still there or there is something wrong with how I copied my save file to the new rom. I have separate folders for each versions of the patch with each of their own rom and save file.
Hey, cool game and congrats on finally finishing it. I’ve been following your progress and was ecstatic to hear your project was done. I just finished my first run of the game and have only one critique. After beating the game, the supports aren’t available in the extras menu. It could be because I have an old version of the patch but I wanted to be sure and let you know. But besides that I had fun playing good job man.
1 Like
So do I have to play CT to understand whats going on in this?
1 Like
Not Blademaster here, but the plot is self contained enough that playing CT is not necessary. In fact, I actively advise you not to play CT, read the LP if you really want to know but even that was painful. SGW can stand on its own.
1 Like
No, you should not have to. But there are some things that may have more meaning if you did.
V1.10 will add supports unlocked from the start. I don’t believe there’s documentation on how to trigger the event that unlocks supports otherwise, but I could be mistaken.
Hey fan of the hack here. I recenty played and I noticed that the skill “resourceful” doesn’t appear to work? Also as a side note, even if it did, I feel it wouldn’t be super useful on the class who gets it aka archers since bows tend to do more than enough damage on fliers. Then again, idk if Lex or the other archers need buffs lol but.
1 Like
I see. I agree and will give them a different skill.
Hello! I finished Sun God’s Wrath a couple days ago, and here are my final thoughts on each aspect of the game. This is going to be a really long post, so please bear with me.
- GAMEPLAY
I mean, I was sold the moment I saw there was capture.
Then I found out there’s move and con growths, scrolls, rewards and penalties depending on your turn count, two Samson/Arrans, a crapton of special weapons, three promotion tiers, fatigue, unit likes and dislikes sheets, supports that grow by deploying two units together, revamped magic, guest units, dragon veins…
Goodness, dude, you just went above and beyond with the mechanics. I’d call them the main selling point of the game, personally. There’s so much to SGW, but I think all the added stuff works very well together. It all gives the game its own unique feeling, that is unlike any other FE I’ve played.
The rest in spoilers because this is too long, I got way carried away
Capture in particular was pretty well implemented. It wasn’t as much of a necessity as in Thracia, but for the most part I always preferred to capture my equipment. The three tiers of promotion was another thing that I quite liked. With the growth nerfs and delayed skill gains, there was a legitimate draw back to promoting, but usually it wasn’t enough to offset just how useful a lot of the tier 3 promotions were. Take Bella, for instance. She gained staves and magic from promotion, turning from merely a strong fighter to a surprisingly serviceable backup staffbot that could still fight just fine with axes.
Of course, this wouldn’t be a fun game if these mechanics were wasted on garbage maps. Thankfully, the map design is tight and fast-paced. One thing I enjoy is that, instead of outright making it impossible to turtle, you reward the player for being at least moderately fast. It’s a different way to discourage turtling than most other hacks I’ve seen (usually it goes “HURRY OR I SPAWN INVINCIBLE ENEMIES ON YOU”),
and I really dig it. It was always a nice extra bit of satisfaction when I finished a map on time and got those sweet, sweet rewards.
There’s one major stinker among the maps, however: Mandrake’s map. Look, I get the joke - it’s that one map from Thracia everyone hates, haha. Except there’s a reason everyone hates it. In a game filled with enticing, interesting and fast-paced maps, this sticks out because it’s a map that forces you to go aaaaaaaaaaaaaall the way around. One mistake, and you gotta do it all over again / lose a unit. I suppose warpskipping is an option, but I’ve always hated the Thracia endgame due to that exact issue. What’s the point of the game if it encourages you to outright skip it?
And the worst part is, I’m not sure how it’d be possible to fix this map without removing it entirely. It’s already less unbearable than Thracia’s version, if only because you only need to arrive to the endpoint with one unit, but it’s still way too long and way too full of bullshit for this game. If you found a way to implement DSFE-style savepoins, that’d be a decent way to at least make it a bit more forgiving. And DSFE-style savepoints are great in general, so there’s a suggestion for a future update, if the opportunity arises.
Leaving that aside. The cast is what I’d like to call a very “Kaga” cast. It’s not the most balanced cast, perhaps, but almost everyone has something unique that sets them apart. Evan’s surprisingly reliable crit-based kit, Lex’s godly learned skills to compensate for his weak start, Bella becoming a backup healer, Eren’s insane movement, SPOILERS being able to double things with siege tomes thanks to Adept…
There were a few units that I’ll admit seemed rather weird (Kenton is so much worse than Sakura it’s not even funny, Ryan’s magic is so low that he can’t hold a candle to Hawk), but for the most part, everyone had some sort of trait that set them apart. Some more subtle than others.
Difficulty-wise, I played on hard, which isn’t recommended on the first turn, but honestly, I never felt I was in over my head or anything. The difficulty always felt just right, to the point where I have to wonder if normal might not be a bit too easy. The game did get pretty damn tough towards the endgame, but again, isn’t that the way it should be? The game gets more difficult at the end?
All in all, I would call this a pretty bonkers game - and I mean that in a good way. There’s so much stuff going on, it’s almost overwhelming at times, but it makes for a quite memorable experience. My regards for that.
Now, please bear with me. I'm going to say a few words about every single unit in the game. Just 'cause I can. I will also post the endgame stats of my final team.
I apologize if I forget anyone. The lack of an official list of units anywhere made this rather difficult.
Astrea: Pretty serviceable lord. She started rather weak, only being able to get work done with magical swords, but then she promoted and became a pretty effective tactical nuke. Also, enough speed to double most things is great.
Relina: Had problems with strength the whole game, but her excellent defense at least made her less risky to use. Not that it matters. Her main selling point was her skills that raise speed. Just for that, it’s worth keeping her around.
Ulysses: Serviceable capture-bot for the first few chapters, but he couldn’t keep up with the rest of the team in stats or usefulness, as he didn’t seem to have much of a niche beyond just “horse”, so I dropped him.
Lex: He started absolutely horrible, to the point where I considered dropping him. Thank God I didn’t, because he has probably the best offense-oriented skillset in the game. Galeforce on top of brave everything? Jesus… In the endgame, this guy killed two enemies per turn. Period. What an absolute force of nature. His offense is completely broken, but he has no enemy phase to speak of, and his speed and defenses are shaky, so I think it balances him out somewhat.
Evan: Extremely versatile unit. Anything he doubled, he killed, and with his awesome defenses, he was my main tank for most of the game. He was also a great healer. He doesn’t get that much out of a tier 3 promotion, so he was one of the last to get it, but that just speaks volumes of how versatile he is right off the bat. One of the most fun units in the game, in my opinion.
Condor: (or as I like to call her, archer Derrick) Lex but better during the earlygame. Eventually he got his godly skillset and she fell behind offensively, but she still had her own niche in her unparalleled defenses and defensive rallies. The two of them made an excellent team. She got the boots so she could keep up with him.
Katherin: Eehhh… I tried. I really did, I was deploying her as late as chapter 21. But she wouldn’t gain strength, and her magic was garbage, and so was her defense, and she was swordlocked without magical swords too. This girl has nothing to her name.
Dexithea: Two words: Raw stats. Dexithea has absolutely no utility beyond her raw stats, and she doesn’t need anything else. She crushed everything in her path the entire game, and that’s all I really wanted her to do. Also, female brigand. How awesome is that?
Bella: R.I.P. Bertha. Anyway, she destroys everything in her first few chapters, but her low speed held her back afterwards. She usually only got one hit on the enemy, but that was enough in most cases. Then she promoted to tier 3 and became a backup healer, which is all sorts of great. Also, rally strength. Not the best unit, but she’s fine.
Fuuma: Even more than Bella, he was a great pseudo-Jeigan for the earlygame, killing most things with Inferno and his Assassinate skill. Even missing out on a couple chapters didn’t do much to reduce his usefulness. He fell off after Sakura arrived and could do everything he did better than him.
Jenna: Broom witch! Just for that I had to use her. And use her I did, for most of the game. She’s serviceable, but her terrible defenses and awful staff ranks for her first two promotion tiers are pretty big flaws. Eventually Artemis promoted to dark flier, and Jenna lost her niche, so she went to the bench.
Charles: Flier with bad stats. Never bothered.
Artemis: I’ve always liked dark mages, but funnily enough, although she’s in the traditional dark magic class, she’s far worse than Evan at using dark magic. Still, she was rather good with anima, and a flying mage with thief utility isn’t something I’m about to complain about!
Nereid: Worse than the dancers at thief utility, worse than everyone else at fighting, not enough defenses to serve as a tank… It always seemed that someone else did her job better than her. I used her semi-regularly still, but she was always mediocre.
Joe: Hah! If only for his hilarious face, I had to use him. He provides extra protection to those around him, and Re-move is hilarious on a unit like him. Still, he couldn’t keep up with Condor, so he eventually fell off and was benched.
Gerome: Okay mage surrounded by great mages. Never bothered.
Geralt: Shove and prepromotedness gave him some occasional uses, but I only deployed him in, like, four maps or something like that.
Nicole: Archer without Condor’s defenses and Lex’s hilarious skills. Not exactly the most engaging unit. It was a huge disappointment when Dexithea slaughtered Gintoki and I discovered that only this girl can use the Emblem Bow. Pfeh…
Janet: Dancer/10. Great thief utility too, but as a fighter she sucks. Getting one-shot by everything isn’t fun.
Kirin: Healbot without all of Evan’s other utility. I guess she could work if he dies? But as it is, she’s the only pure staffbot in the game, and she arrives later than the hybrid mage, so…
Clint: I’ve always liked knights. His character is hilarious, and he looks like he could be decently fun to use. Perhaps in another run.
Derek: Probably would’ve been better than Nereid. He seemed to trade off thief utility for actually fair stats. Also, dragon veins. But the dancers can do that too.
Oreades: Hah! Drunkard fighter is hilarious. Balanced stats all around make him seem like a decently fun unit that I might be willing to use in the future.
Roa: Artemis 2: Electric Boogaloo. Still inferior to Evan, and his lack of thief utility made him inferior to Artemis who recruits him, so… meh.
Germano: I didn’t use him because I had Relina, but he looks like he could be a less useful Relina with better offensive stats. That sounds okay, maybe I’ll use him in another run!
Chrysley: Another really interesting unit that I sadly had no room for. Getting movement from cavalry units nearby sounds like the best movement option any of the knights get, and axes are great. Next run, next run.
Baryl: D E S P O I L. Not much else, really.
Sakura: Excellent prepromote. She’s the first tier 3 the player gets, and in her, they find a reliable swordswoman with Astra, magic for the tankier enemies, and huge movement right off the bat. Really good unit.
Kenton: Ahahahahahahah… What the hell happened here? Not only is he an Est myrmidon, he’s an Est myrmidon that joins right next to a tier 3 prepromote that makes him look like a helpless baby. I’m probably going to use him in some other run, if only because he’s so bad that he’s good.
Daedalus: The game liked to pretend he was a main character, but he arrived late, with pretty mediocre stats, so he never was much use as a unit. Doesn’t help that as a unit he’s just Hector. I get that people like Hector, but for me it’s always boring to see Hector lookalikes in hacks. He spent his entire life being dragged around and occasionally helping with rescue chains. No bench, only because I couldn’t do it.
Joanne: Two dancers? And one of them is a manakete that can heal and do thief stuff without a lockpick? Ohohohohoho, don’t mind if I do! Their increased utility and the generous deployment slots this game offers only helped to encourage me to field her and Janet together.
Iris: Not bad at all! She mowed down fellow dragons with ease, giving her quite the niche in plenty of maps. Didn’t bring her to the endgame, so I’ve no stats to show, but I used her consistently for most of the game.
Eren: In chapter 11, when contemplating both choices, I figured that, being not only the more morally correct choice but also the easiest option gameplay-wise, the game really wanted me to kill the bael. So instead, I killed Victor, just to see what’d happen.
Arran is my favorite Archanean character, so that’s already a win for me. And then…
M O V E M E N T
Oh, and he also instantly capped speed. I’m so glad I murdered that blond guy instead of the spiders. One of my favorite units in the game.
Aoifye: R.I.P.
Torrid: Backup healer on wings that axed things. Solid filler for a few chapters.
Clea: A.W.O.L.
Carter: Sniper with extra range sounded nice, but Lex existed and was already a demigod at this point, so I didn’t feel too compelled to use this fellow.
Hawk: I’ll be honest, I only used this guy because I love the FE6 bishop sprite and green is my favorite color. Thankfully, this guy is also a really strong unit, with huge magic for staffing purposes and great support skills. His bulk was bad, but still, good mage overall.
Ryan: Ryan is kinda like Kenton. He starts next to Hawk, and with his magic of 11, he just can’t keep up. Still, he’s not quite as useless as Kenton. Healers are always good. He’s just outclassed.
Lila: Again, another staffbot that’s worse than Hawk, but at least she has movement as a legit advantage. Decent filler for the next couple of chapters.
Elliot: Lategame lord? Okay, sure! His only shaky stat was his speed. Other than that, he was a great unit right off the bat.
Nina: Now that’s better! Rally literally everything, flier utility, actually decent stats to compete with Hawk… No endgame stats, but still, pretty solid unit that I used consistently for most of the remaining chapters.
Alice: Too slow and brittle to be of much use, but she makes for a serviceable archer, I suppose.
Iskander: A lot more solid than Alice, with good defenses and offenses to serve as a fine frontliner in a pinch. I can see him being quite the savior in an Ironman run gone wrong.
Barry: At first I wondered what use a guy with 9 speed could possibly have this late into the game. Then I noticed he has Wary Fighter. I didn’t use him much, but I can see him being great to lure speedy enemies closer safely.
Kat: Alester blood if you lost the rest of the Alester blood. Beyond that, she’s basically just a trained Katherin.
Dullahan: Fun fact, I almost forgot this guy while writing this list. Dullahan is… he’s pretty bad, all right. Flier utility is nice, but he comes too late with stats too questionable to be of much real use.
Leo: Basically Hellen 2 that trades off power and doubling with meteor for rally utility and enough speed to regular-double most things. Both are solid units for the endgame, able to jump in and put in work with no investment.
Jeff: Useful in his join chapter to fend off wolves. He probably could’ve replaced Sakura afterwards, but she already supported Hawk and I was fond of her, so he hit the bench.
Cyrus: I like how he comes out of nowhere and his whole character is that he uses the Emblem Lance. Judging by his stats and, well, his weapon, I think he could be good filler for the endgame. But I already had Eren and his insane movement, so screw the Emblem Lance.
MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD
Hellen: I love that this woman is playable. Never would’ve expected it. Mediocre bulk and speed made her a poor choice for the frontlines, but who cares? She could double with meteor thanks to Adept. I repeat, she could double with meteor. How awesome is that? You kick ass, girl. Ergh… girl that’s almost 30 years older than me.
Rody: I also love that this guy is playable. He murdered his father (at least I think Gill was his father?) and got a movement point out of it. Then he proceeded to tank a couple of enemies in the final chapter. I just… I love that this completely insane murderer is playable, all right? It’s the kind of thing you can only see in a hack like this.
Pyron: WHAT?! NOW THIS GUY’S PLAYABLE, TOO?! THE MAIN VILLAIN IS PLAYABLE! PLAYABLE! WHAT ELSE!? IS PARIS SOMEHOW RECRUITABLE TOO AND I JUST MISSED HIM!? OH, AND PYRON WAS BETTER AGAINST ZALMOXIS THAN DONOVAN, TO BOOT! THIS IS AMAZING AND I LOVE IT!
Donovan: The virgin Donovan vs the chad Pyron. I don’t really like that meme, but it’s the best way to describe these two. You go through all the trouble to rescue this guy, and for what? A guy whose speed is capped just low enough that he can’t double Zalmoxis even with Relina’s aid. Aura Blade is effective against him, but Pyron still dealt more damage to him because he doubled. Bella, of all people, was forced to finish off Zalmoxis because Donovan couldn’t do it. Sigh… What a waste you are, Don.
Mikey: 10/10 I’d say more, but he’s too epic to describe with words. I kinda love that he’s better than Donovan, too. Poor guy can’t catch a break.
- STORY
I’ll be honest. At first, I didn’t quite know what to make of the story. I knew it was a sequel to Corrupt Theocracy, which was… a peculiar choice, all right. It started as your basic FE hack stuff: you’re mercenaries and you’re fighting an army of people who want to invade the world. I know people hate Marth lords, but when 75% of hack protagonists are mercs, it results in the same kinda feeling.
The earlier chapters also suffer from the “as you know, let me tell you exposition we both know so the player can also know” writing flaw, making them a bit too “dense” for my liking.
Then it got insane. Hoo, boy, did it get insane. The game started to introduce 10 characters and 2 factions per chapter, and it was all so overwhelming, I could barely keep up with everything. I think it was around chapter 5 that I began to think “holy shit this is absolutely nuts and I love it”.
MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD
NPCs dying left and right, seemingly major characters are introduced and die instantly (Mandrake’s sons and the two Red Army subgenerals, for example), half of Propater are traitors, fuckin’ generic-looking underlings Og and Dartanion being built up throughout the entire game as legit threats, every single chapter after the Cyra tower defense has 5-10 bosses…
And then, the payoff. What a glorious finale. Not only did you manage to make a better Black Knight fight than IntSys (seriously, saving Donovan was great), but you made TWO final chapters depending on the player’s choice. And let’s not forget about the fact that you somehow managed to one-up the old “teenagers kill God” JRPG trope by having Astrea go “fuck all of you seriously” and waging war on TWO gods at once!
In one of the finales, she literally allies herself with Pyron so she can kick Zalmoxis’s ass more easily! Pyron, the guy who’s shown to be the obvious final boss throughout the entire game, is playable in one of the final chapters! I don’t know about you, but I find that to be the better outcome. Donovan is just too obvious (props for not forcing him to die, though), and Og massacring Pyron was rather underwhelming, despite the build-up he got throughout the game. And, shit, Pyron is playable! How amazing is that!?
It’s absurd. The story is insanely fast-paced and so huge, I cannot help but admire it. It may not be the deepest or most tightly-written story ever, but fuck me if it wasn’t absolutely fun. That’s the word I’d use to describe it - it was so much fun to watch as you added more and more characters and factions and lore and stuff to the already immense pile.
I also like how you didn’t take your story 100% seriously the entire time, and threw in some levity just for the heck of it. I’m not saying it’s bad to write a super serious war drama, but for once, it’s nice to get something different. Gill’s “people don’t always die when they’re killed” line, Janet and Joanne’s likes, recolored Arran being part of an Arran/Samson choice, Lex’s A support with Condor, Evil Moulder, all the game title drops, Rody and Pyron of all people being recruitable characters, Serious and his lore (I just love that he has lore), the chapter 19 meme squad, Mikey randomly coming back to life with Guile’s theme playing in the background… This game had me rolling sometimes, I swear.
I think my favorite funny moment in the entire game was when, in the second desert chapter, I accidentally left Lex in Carbos’s range. I was playing with a friend, and we were mostly just singing Lex’s praises at that point, because holy hell did he get broken with Galeforce and Double Lion. We were both shocked when Carbos doubled and murdered Lex in one round. At this point I started complaining, “how in the world did this happen? What kind of speed does this big-nosed bastard have?”
It was then that I opened Carbos’s likes/dislikes screen. You glorious bastard, Blademaster. You knew that this was going to happen to someone, and you put that there on purpose for good measure. I hate you. But I love you too.
In summary. It may not be a deep, impactful war drama, but it’s so much fun with its mach 10 pace and absurdly large scale, that I honestly don’t think it would’ve been better off that way. Sometimes this kind of plot is just what a game needs.
- MUSIC
Good choices overall! You made good use of your music. Most of the ports were pretty great, too. There were some pretty unique choices, too, like the map theme for Mandrake’s map, or the fog theme. I also liked the amount of boss themes the game used.
- GRAPHICS
All the animations worked fine and looked great. No complaints there.
As for magic, it’s always hell to make custom spells, so that’s not an aspect I tend to bash too harshly. In this game, it’s the same deal as most others. Slow and a bit wonky, but it doesn’t hurt my eyes, so hey, that’s enough.
Although, I gotta say, Cosmic Eye was beautiful. In a way, it’s like the whole game itself in the form of a spell animation: you just threw every single light spell into this one animation, because fuck caution. A bit less would’ve been enough, but this is so gloriously overkill, so hilariously over the top, that I’m okay with it.
- CONCLUSION
What a fun game. That’s the word I’d use to describe this one. It’s fun, it’s really fun. It oozes fun from its every pore, as crude a description as that is. A million new mechanics, an insane story that is extremely fun to watch unfold, mostly great maps, a unique cast with many different units, replay value… It is just so much fun. I love it. It’s a great time, and it gets my utmost recommendation.
Praise be to Mikey, savior of the world and bearer of the haircut of the gods.
…And, uh… I’m sorry for the bible-sized post.
Final issues and glitches
- This is a weird glitch. Starting in chapter 23, when I went to check supports in the prepscreen, the prep music didn’t stop. Instead, the support music player over it, resulting in a painful cacophony. Upon exiting the menu, a second instance of the prep music started to play over the old one. You can even stack prep musics for extra pain. No idea what causes it, because I’m certain it didn’t happen before.
- The generic Fomortiises don’t give experience. Just a leftover from the original game where he, being the final boss, obviously didn’t give any. In this game he’s a generic enemy, though – A late one, but a generic nonetheless. It may be worth seeing if there’s a way to make him give experience.
- The game froze on the following frame when I had Nina attack an enemy with explosion but she missed. Thank goodness I could save myself with rewind…
- Units with maxed magic can still gain levels. It’s merely a visual issue, as the gains aren’t mantained. I noticed Vision Quest and Four Kings also had this issue, so I suppose it’s just a problem with the magic/strength split patch.
- The dark flier reinforcements in chapter 22 are called “monster”, even though they very much aren’t monsters.
- This chest in chapter 23 turns into a solid block when opened.
- Cosmic Eye can be sold for 1 gold, unlike the rest of the unique treasure in this game.
- Elliot’s name is still green in chapter 24, even though he isn’t and cannot be deployed. Really minor issue, just thought I’d report it anyway while I’m at it.
- Sol and Aether don’t seem to properly display the HP recovery. It happens, but it isn’t shown in the battle like when nosferatu is used.
- Why does Sun Meteor have -106 hit?
- There’s a small issue with the generic palette for enemy female warriors. A stray green that looks too bright. See it there, on her foot? It’s not too big, but it looks off. Make it into a dark brown, and it’ll look better.
STORY SPOILERS AHEAD
- Beige, as an NPC in the final chapter, has a really weird burgundy palette. He has a proper palette as an enemy.
- The following palettes don’t match up with the portraits of the characters: Both Donovans, Alice, Froid, Barry, Kat, Leo, Paris, endgame Mikey, brave Daedalus. I’ll post here suggested fixes for the palettes. I’ve no codes that you can insert, sadly, they’re just ideas for how you could improve these palettes.
- A couple of story complaints now. First, Barry and Kat. They just… appear, in chapter 22. No scenes to introduce them, nothing. Barry isn’t even seen before this chapter. Did you just forget to write them an introductory scene?
- In Scribe’s list of likes and dislikes, it is stated that he likes Cyra. I thought that you’d do something interesting with that, maybe even make him recruitable, but instead he just… dies. His fondness for Cyra is never brought up in the story. Is it just a plotpoint you forgot about, or what?
- Another character I have a small issue with is the Bandit King. He appears in two scenes, then Og and Beige appear to… Kill him? I can only guess they do, because he never appears again. It’s a safe assumption, but still, it may be good to make it a bit clearer that he dies there.
- This is the big one: Ciri and Yin. The last time they’re seen is when Yang is getting killed by Rody. Yin orders Ciri to run for it, which, okay, fair enough, maybe he just fell to Rody as well to buy Ciri time to escape.
…but what about Ciri? Unless I missed something, she just vanishes off the face of the earth! The game just seems to forget about her entirely. Which, hey, I understand, there’s a ton of NPCs in this game that are far more relevant and memorable than Ciri. In fact, I too completely forgot about her until I saw her name in Mikey’s likes in the endgame. But still. Maybe write in a scene or two to give her some resolution?
Typos
Gintoki’s line against Dexithea is too long for the textbox.
Like you asked me to
That’s a clunky line. Maybe change it to, say, “So you’re the one responsible for my wife’s death?!”
I’d be lying if I said I don’t feel a sense of personal anger
Since our forces’ defeat
I’m pretty sure “take something under control” is incorrect. Change the “take” to “bring”, perhaps.
Similarly, that “to” is unnecessary. Change it to “retreat here”
That works, but the two uses of “accomplish” in a row look iffy.
Why Pyron chose to let
And that he’s being given a chance
Not an individual’s class
The last comma between “sexy” and “beauties” is unnecessary.
…That’s a sentence I just said. Huh.
Ahahahahahahah… “motherfucker” is usually spelled without spaces in between. Also, I love this woman. She’s awesome.
Would you rather I die
This was child’s play
To be broken through to
I wasn’t aware that there was a character named Parley.
All business
Is almost in sight.
Extremely small one: there’s a period at the end of Og’s endgame dislikes, but there aren’t periods in any other likes or dislikes for any unit.
He rose
Off your hands for you
2 Likes
Thank you very much for this post and I’m glad you enjoyed the game! Fun is the only thing I can ask people to have playing this hack, and I’m really glad that’s the main takeaway you had! To address some of the points that you brought up:
Thank you for pointing this out. It really says to me that the extra time I spent working on this hack paid off, as many of the mechanics you mention as highlights of this hack were only introduced in the last year because I made the effort to add them in. I’m also glad you found that everything feels like it fit together.
One gameplay change I want to mention for V1.10 is that the growth rate nerfs upon promotion are being removed and growth rates in general are being lowered to help balance scrolls and prevent power leveling.
Gameplay spoilers
I really tried to make the Mandrake chapter easier. The warp tiles are in the same location, you get a rescue and warp staff at the start, and some units are immune to the warp tiles.
Would you say the warp tiles or just some of the enemies made the map as difficult as it is? Or just the slog through the map? I don’t want to change the map up too much because I feel that ruins the homage, but I don’t want it to be too annoying and not fun to play.
Kenton is already on the list of units to get buffed. Ryan I’m not so sure about. His magic is low, but his speed is high and magic is effective against so many things I never felt there was a need to buff him and thought he was a pretty good unit. He can put in some work with S rank tomes too.
I did try and balance the cast as best I could so each unit felt unique, so I’m glad you came away with that.
It’s a shame Ulysses didn’t work out for you. Quite a few people use him and he ends up pretty beefy. Lex is widely agreed by most people to be the best unit in the game (him or Jenna seems to be the consensus).
Kenton, Kat, and Katherin will all have access to magic swords in V1.10, so I hope that helps them out.
Fuuma I feel has some good utility compared to Sakura because of his steal skill and assassinate.
Charles is a unit that becomes pretty OP when invested in.
Joe is a really useful unit. The naginata really helps in the early game.
Kirin is another character that I plan to buff. Though I think not enough people realize she can use tomes at base.
Baryl is really strong. A lot of people use him to destroy the final boss with his personal weapon.
Daedalus can be really OP with supports. That and the helswath in the late game.
Glad you found Eren so much fun! I was a bit worried that people would find Aoifaye to be much better than him.
Hmm… I thought SPOILER did more damage. I’ll have to fix that since it shouldn’t be that way.
Story spoilers
I’m glad you found the story to be crazy and that it added to your enjoyment of the hack!
There are some scenes with Og that are only seen if you let certain characters live. I can adjust them so that you see more of him slowly building in strength before the finale, but if you have more feedback on this point I’d love to see it.
As the sequel to Corrupt Theocracy, I didn’t think it would be possible to really create a super serious story, so I did my best to had in some lighthearted jokes and references here and there. I’m glad you enjoyed all of them to their fullest!
Carbos’s like is actually a pokemon reference to how “Carbos” boosts speed, but I’m glad you ran into a funny situation like that!
I’ve run into that odd sound glitch before, but I could never replicate it.
I don’t know if it’s possible to make the DK’s give experience.
What enemy was Nina fighting in that frame?
Yes, that is a bug with the magic split patch.
The chest bug was reported to me on discord.
I’m aware of the elliot issue, but it’s so minor I’m not going to look into it.
Sol and aether is a skill system bug.
The hit for that weapon goes over 127 and causes it to loop around and be negative. I can try other things to address that.
That green color may be from the original warrior palette, but I’ll check it out.
I will try and incorporate the palette recommendations you made. The barry one is a big oversight on my part since he used to have a brown shirt.
Story feedback
Barry is mentioned a few times and shows up in the scene where the fake donovan is confronted by him, Kat, and Nova. They didn’t die in the chapter 21 battle, so they join in chapter 22. I can add more dialogue for them.
Scribe is originally from Cyra, but that may only be apparent if you really pay attention to the story. It’s more of a throwaway thing than anything important.
I thought that Og saying they would have a small “parley”, a reference to the scene with Kuroth and Gustav, was enough of a indication that he was about to kill the bandit king. Otherwise he’s just a minor character.
Ciri and Yin die in that battle. If you have Rody fight Ben they talk about it I believe? I can add a talk convo between Rody and Mikey.
Typos
Unless stated below, I went with all the recommendations you went with as stated or made minor adjustments:
Changed second accomplish to finished
He did fuck her mom, so I thought it would be a bit appropriate given the character’s personality.
Thank you again for the feedback and recommendations, and I’m glad you had fun! I’m hoping I can finally get V1.10 out this weekend, so please look forward to that if you decide to replay the hack!
Spoilery replies to the replies. Watch the spoilers!
Hmm, well, that’s fair enough. It’s not like I ever put the growth thing to much use, anyway. Most units got enough benefits out of promoting that the growth loss was a small price to pay.
The warp tiles were fine thanks to the immune units being able to trigger them safely, enemy placement is tough but fair, and there are enough options for vision that it’s not like we were moving in the absolute darkness.
It’s the long, boring slog where a single mistake puts you right back at the beginning that is my problem. Maybe I’m just bad, but I had to try this map so many times that I ended up memorizing the enemy locations. After 10 turns of making the exact same moves in the first hallway, there was always some piece of shit that managed to pop out of the fog at the perfect time to screw me over. Urgh…
Like I said, it’s a difficult map to fix without just plain trashing it. It’s already better than the original, but the problems that remain are core issues with the map’s design itself. Namely the long, drawn-out hallway that just screams “warpskip or bust.”
Though I guess at this point it’s just a personal gripe of mine. Plenty of people have no issue with warpskipping. I just think that skipping parts of the game is no fun. Fine by me if someone wants to do it, but I hate it when maps are designed in a way that actively makes them worse to play normally. Looking at you, FE5 chapter 22…
Jenna? Interesting choice. I’d say Evan was the number 2 for me. Or, well, more like number 1 until Lex got Galeforce. Great tank, kills everything with crits, heals, eventually gains longbow range for all weapons… He’s really versatile!
Wait… she can?
…D’oh!
Well, if you want a suggestion, maybe you could give her a tome to start with? Being a cleric that starts with only staves in her inventory, it’s really easy to assume that she’s a regular FE staffbot. Perhaps give her a regular lightning tome? That should suffice. Or at least have her bring up in the dialogue that she can fight, even if she doesn’t like it.
Duly noted on my list of units to use in my next run, alongside Kenton, Chrysley and Germano, and obviously Aoifye and Clea.
What kind of monster is Aoifye that you were worried people would find Eren to be bad? The guy is insane! 10% movement growth alone is incredible! It’s the reason Leonie is one of my favorite TearRing Saga units, for crying out loud!
And then there’s his huge strength growth, the fact that he caps speed with a couple procs, his good defenses, the fact that he’s recolored Arran (incidentally, is there any reason why Eren is recolored but Aoifye is just standard Oifey?)… He’s awesome!
BLUE SPOILER’s problem is that, with his speed capped so low and a pitiful bonus of +2 from his weapon, he cannot double the final boss. RED SPOILER can double with Relina’s help, so that makes him better despite the lack of effective damage.
That said, the difference was minimal. A couple points of damage, really. If you increase BLUE SPOILER’s speed, he’ll destroy the final boss. I’m not sure if that’s the intent, so be careful when buffing the guy. My recommendation is that you increase his strength instead, so he deals enough damage to match RED SPOILER with Relina’s speed boost. That should be enough.
I must’ve missed a good few of them.
Still, the build-up was fine. The problem with Og is that his stats, both as an NPC and a boss, are shaky, so the scene where he so easily wrecks Pyron falls flat. I mean, he has a 40% hitrate against him, that’s hilarious. He’s also less threatening as a boss than Pyron would’ve been. I’d say he should get buffed in the “good” route, then it’ll be much better.
Ooohhhh right, Barry is seen in that scene, I’d forgotten. Still, after getting one scene in the entire game each, they just randomly spawn on the map in chapter 22 without any fanfare. I recommend giving them a quick recruitment scene to refresh the player’s memory about them. Just have them go “hey Astrea, Barry’s all recovered now, we’re ready to fight”, that should do it.
…Yeah, that’s pretty obvious, I agree. To be honest, it was perfectly clear that that’s what happened. I don’t know why I even complained about it. Sorry. I guess I just got used to watching NPCs get murdered onscreen, so the one time it didn’t happen it felt strange.
Then again, a scripted battle would ruin the sudden reveal of Beige’s return and Og’s buffed-up form, so… yeah, forget I said anything about that scene.
Ohhhh, yeah, you’re right, Ben does mention Ciri (though not by name) if Rody fights him. Still, good idea to give him a convo with Mikey. Ben dies so fast that it’s very easy to miss the dialogue.
…Goddamnit, though. I liked Ciri. What did NPCs ever do to you, man? I can count the amount of NPCs that survive with the fingers of one hand! Not that it’s bad, mind. In fact, I think I love how many people die in this game. Quite ballsy, for a lack of a better word.
Ah, so that’s why it’s spelled that way. It still looks a little weird to me, but it’s your call. Definitely keep the word itself, though. No matter the spelling, it is perfect for her.
It was a male Maelduin with an axe. One of the turn 2 reinforcements in chapter 21, the ones that show up behind where the team starts. Also, don’t take my word for it, but I’m pretty sure the crash didn’t happen if she landed the attack, only when she missed.
I’ll definitely replay it at some point. I’ve replayed all FEs that I’ve enjoyed, and this definitely counts among them. Until then, please keep up the good work! I’ll be keeping an eye on this hack’s further progress in the future!
1 Like
Spoiler reply
I’ve thought about adding a map change event to speed up chapter 23. Maybe I’ll just open the left hand side to the left units don’t have to walk around as much.
Yeah, I definitely want to do that with Kirin’s equipment.
Aoifaye essentially has FE4 Aoifaye’s stats so it’s not that Eren is bad, but Aoifaye is much better is my concern. It’s super meta like that. He’s only recolored because that’s what the original mug looked like.
I’ll double check the damage the two of them deal in that case, but it’s worth noting that Relina and Iris can boost his speed to let Blue double.
Really? I thought Og was scarier because he moves.
Definitely.
They didn’t join my army.
I did change it to your recommendation. Should I not have?
Got it. I’ll double check, but I thought I had fixed this.
Thanks again for the feedback and your support!
Spoilery spoileroo
That’s a great idea. As it is, the left team spends the entire map trying desperately to catch up. If you open up the left side, not only will both teams get to do things, but they’ll be able to clean up both sides at once, preventing the infuriating ambushes around Cyrus’s area that made me reset more times than I’d like to admit.
I’d say go for it. It’s a subtle enough modification that it won’t ruin the homage. I’d expect most people to realize it when they see the middle area, anyway.
Oh right, Iris has a similar skill. Hmmm… In that case, it might be fine. Alone or with both Relina and Iris, Blue is better. With only one of Relina and Iris, Red is slightly better, but not that much. Maybe a tweak won’t be necessary after all.
His stats are much lower than Pyron’s, he can’t attack at range and him moving only amounts to “let’s wait for Og here and then we blast him and move on”. It took me two units to kill him. It was way too easy. In the same circumstances, Pyron would’ve made for a far more difficult opponent.
Og and Beige could both use a buff. Beige went down in a single round, it was pathetic.
But… You made the army!
Well, my recommendation was simply to change the spelling from “mother fucker” to “motherfucker”, since that’s how it’s most commonly written. That’s a fine change, I think.
Unless you misunderstood me and changed it to something like “poopnose”. Then please change it back.
I just removed the space to make it one word.
1 Like
Man, what a hack.
It feels kinda difficult to choose what to start off with, I think I’ll start with my overall feelings and praise and then list some of my nitpicks/issues.
I’ve called this hack TLP 2.0 and I mean that in a mostly positive sense, it really shows off what the modern hacking community can do with FE8 and it’s just a blast to play. Aside from some chapters (I hate FoW maps, add in Thracia warp tiles and it’s savestate time…) this was a great hack to play and all the features mostly work well together. I think the character balance was pretty good overall, I mostly liked the promo system, but I found the early game prepromotes like Sakura to be in a bit of a meh position, since their growths are meh from the start and quite a few units would end up with similar or even better ‘bases’ after 1/2 promos. I already saw that you plan to rebalance the units growths a bit and don’t lower them based on unit tier which I think is a good idea. In that case you might want to buff the early game characters a bit, since they won’t have access to scrolls as much.
Nitpicks:
My first nitpick would be the FoW music, I guess it qualifies as sort of tense/creepy, but mostly I found it monotonous and annoying and I always put on some other sound when it came to FoW maps, but that’s just my taste.
Second nitpick is a minor story aspect, the naming of things/characters. I didn’t play Corrupt Theocracy, so I don’t know how much of the lore and names were taken from that, but I feel like how random names are makes it even harder to keep track of the very fast moving plot and the millions of characters that get introduced. What exactly do I mean by that - The names seem kind of random in the sense that they often feel anachronistic and don’t evoke the sense that the nations/factions have a coherent history/culture. Probably a personal taste issue again, but I found it jarring how a 102 year old half-dragon guy is named Jeff and another younger one Daedalus.
This was way too much text for what amounts to a nitpick, but it’s connected to my main issue with the story and that is that there’s just so much characters/factions etc. that get introduced and its very difficult to keep track of it all. The plot also moves super fast to the point that it feels like your core characters don’t have much agency, don’t develop and hardly build relationships with each other organically (I guess some of that happens in supports, but those are limited). I think towards the end I finally got what you were going for and I thought the final maps were pretty satisfying, both from a story and gameplay perspective.
After those issues I just want to close by repeating that I overall had a blast with this hack, gameplay-wise it’s very fun and it’s obvious how much effort you put into all the features and I think it paid off very well. Also loved a lot of the jokes and references!
2 Likes
Thank you for the feedback and I’m glad you liked the hack!
I’m surprised to see you say you didn’t think Sakura was very good as others have said she’s a pretty great unit. I’m glad you enjoyed the gameplay!
One of my Playtesters also said that he didn’t like the FoW music and thought it got repetitive too fast. Did you start to develop your feelings about the FoW music in the first map it plays in, or in a later one?
The names of certain characters are carried over from Corrupt Theocracy, so they were left in tact. In regards to anachronism, that’s something I never paid attention to or even ever thought about. It’s not something I can change at this point any more that I did without making SGW no longer be a sequel to CT, for better or worse regrettably.
Others have told me that they felt the main cast wasn’t very developed, especially when compared to the villains. I had hoped that because the names I used were a bit on the more simpler side, it would make things easy to follow and tried my best to make the factions more explained, but I didn’t want to bloat the hack with more text than there was. I’ve been working on this hack for a long time, so it is difficult for me to judge how hard it is to follow. In regards to the pacing, when you say fast do you mean the plot moved too fast or the text got to the point too fast, sacrificing development?
Regarding Sakura: I think I didn’t elaborate enough on what I meant, because I think she’s perfectly useable, but with the way her growths are pretty low from her jointime I think it’ll be hard for her to reach similar heights as some of the units that join tier 1 with good bases and levels to gain with higher growth rates. For example characters like Baryl or Oifey have pretty solid bases as well and after their promos they’ll just eclipse her.
FoW music: I started getting tired of it by the end of the first FoW map, yeah.
Names/Story pace: I mean that a lot of characters/factions get introduced and then things happen with them, but its often hard to care about them, because we had so little time to learn about them or their relationships to other characters. In regards to the main cast I mean that most of the dialogue between chapters is just about the next chapter objective and there’s little talk between the playable characters about anything else to develop them, like I couldn’t tell you much from the story dialogue about what kind of person Daedalus is other than his position as a prince, and he’s supposed to be the secondary lord. I mean this probably boils down to a preference for character driven stories on my end, because I would say very similar things about FE6, where it seems like Roy just goes from place to place to do X thing and not much happens with him as a character.
1 Like
Ah, I see. I tried to save character development for the supports and leave the story for the story. There can be a lot of text at times, and I really just wanted to get straight to the point with the story and leave extra things like that for the support dialogue. It probably doesn’t come across as super interesting either way, but that’s fine. Thank you again for the feedback!
1 Like
