God, ar ya far real my friend?
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wait voice feature?! I play on mute what am I missing! Edit: I unmuted. Wow what a nice addition!
Yeah for sure unplayable after mine just frozen during the enemy turn afterwards
This is strange, I’ve never encountered this bug before.
Did this only happen after you visited the tile, or did it happen before?
I’ve been trying to re-create this bug and many of the other bugs reported as well, but I can’t seem to re-create them.
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It happens every time I visit the tile, after the dialogue ends and Perry gets their canto activated
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ditto
It it helps I am using Mgba
looks like the emulator might be the problem
I’m on chapter 3 now. I’d like to say that the game has some fun ideas going for it thus far. I like getting to chose the starting class for the MC, and I also enjoy what you’re doing with the supports mechanically (even though supports feel very strong already).
That being said, I unfortunately have to echo previous sentiment regarding the quality of the script. I would like first to stress that the plot is quite fine thus far, but the grammar is generally subpar, to a somewhat distressing degree. Putting aside typos and the usual English grammar trappings that learners (and some native speakers) struggle with (your/you’re, then/than), the sentence structure is often a little off, and the sentences themselves are often missing some words or punctuation. It’s never so bad that the meaning doesn’t come across, but the text would benefit immensely from having a full revision, with the help of a tool like Antidote or Grammarly. Thankfully, for better or worse, the grammar and spelling mistakes seem quite consistent (like tactician being consistently spelled “tactition”), which should make it easier if you want to double down and correct them.
I hope this doesn’t come across as too scathing; I want to stress again that there are definitely plenty of good things about the game thus far. The objective here is to encourage you into polishing it further.
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Ok, so I just downloaded this like 20 minutes ago and I’ve heard there were somes gripes with the grammar during dialogue, but I certainly didn’t expect the classic mode difficulty selection to have grammar issues too. I’m gonna be in for a ride aren’t I?
That being said, just some constructive criticism, “Recommended for you want to play tough simulations” sounds very weird when read out loud. The use of the word ‘for’ is incomplete, as it’s missing the pronoun ‘who’. I also find the use of the word ‘simulations’ to be baffling, because I don’t see a medieval setting as having simulations. I think a better way to phrase this would be “Recommended for those who want to play tough situations”, or maybe “Recommended if you want to play tough situations”. I get it, grammar is really hard, but I hope you learn from the criticism and patch up some of these mistakes in the future.
Anyways, I’m gonna get back to actually playing the game. I’m trying out hard mode because I’m not a coward. Wish me luck.
Tht is like the most emulator with the least bugs though. It’s literally the always recommended one lol
I hear many of the criticisms with the grammatical issues that are in the hack, which I do plan on fixing. To put it simply: I do have a weakness in grammar, so I do appreciate the criticisms.
That said, I’m not sure about being able to update Sealed Hope for a while.
Basically, my laptop that I use has suffered the Black Screen of death, so it’s unusable right now.
But ALSO, my hard-drive that I used for back-ups corrupted, meaning not only have I possibly lost all my saved data and changes, but other projects I had been working on.
I do have a main PC that I can use, but I’m not exactly in a thrilled mood to be working on the hack for now.
So suffice to say, don’t expect updates for the hack for a while. When I have things sorted out, I’ll work on many of the criticisms and bugs (or trying to re-create the bugs) many of you have pointed out.
I appreciate those giving Sealed Hope a chance, problems and all!
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Just wanted to give a heads up that visting the “secret” location on Chapter 4 breaks the game (everyone has infinite movement). Not sure if you’ll have a thread or some sort for people to post bugs they find, but it could be helpful.
Also sorry to hear about your laptop and losing data. It sucks and I hope you can recover a lot of your stuff.
I’ve seen other people mention that bug too. The game was tested on VBA and VBA-M, so that’s the emulator I chose to play this on. I did the chapter 4 secret and didn’t run into any issues. Maybe try an emulator switch and see if you run into the bug again.
Can I get some help for chapter 19? I’ve been stuck here for a while and I don’t really understand the hint. After I kill the main boss I go into a cutscene and it takes me back to the main menu
Just played through it and had some fun. This is pretty impressive for being a sole-creator project and I appreciate how you released a full hack in one go.
I’ve compiled some of my comments below for you. Full disclaimer that I haven’t written a review in a bit so sorry if it’s scattered.
Gameplay
Overall the gameplay was mixed. I played on Normal (cause I suck at Fire Emblem) but in hindsight, I should have played on Hard. Both the early game and end game were pretty easy and I found that I didn’t really have to do much thinking. I initially enjoyed the concept of Fates weapons but quickly realized it just turned into “everyone uses a killer or brave weapon” once you sell off your benched units weapons. Using the same weapon progression & advancement as the GBA games but giving them unlimited uses just removes the uniqueness or variation that the Fates weapons had. I have zero experience with FEBuilder, but I wonder if having different tiers of weapons having different strengths/uses would encourage the player to equip more than just the tier’s best weapon. Also Nosferatu probably shouldn’t double with infinite uses.
The thing that truly broke the game for me was Bond Fragments. I initially read that you only get them when your units get an A support, but I realized that everytime Llyr or one of the original quad got a B support with each other, they each got a Bond Fragment. Since the early game is so heavily focused on sticking in a pack, I had gotten around 12 Bond Fragments by Chapter 5. That’s 84 free BST which is… uhh, insane. For reference, I promoted my Taynum and use the remaining bond fragments I had on her to see how high she could go.
Here is her at the start of Chapter 6.
HP: 50
Str: 18
Mag: 30 (Cap)
Skill: 29
Spd: 29
Luck: 24
Def: 34
Res: 30 (Cap)
Here is the boss’ stats for reference (who is a Nomad):
HP: 45
Str: 17
Mag: 4
Skill: 24
Spd: 16
Luck: 8
Def: 10
Res: 8
I didn’t train her any differently than the rest of my crew, she was just the example I chose to make. I like the concept of bond fragments, but when you get so many of them early on with such a small roster, your core team essentially become juggernauts that steamroll the rest of the game because they will always be leagues ahead of the enemies. I think if bond fragments were either heavily reduced for the early game or given out more uniformly throughout the campaign, they wouldn’t wreck the difficulty. It also doesn’t help that by end game, most of your units are capped in a number of stats, and simply rolling over whoever they come across thanks to universally high growth rates.
Map design was fine. My only comment here is that some of them seemed needlessly big with waves of weak enemies which just feeds into juggernauting. Some maps were route maps when they probably should have been kill boss, and some defend maps didn’t end even when you wiped the map clean. Just things to think about.
Also did you reduce the FOG vision to only 2 tiles on Chapter 5 when we only have a measly torch? That’s mean.
Story
I’m not gonna lie, when I initially read the premise for the plot, I had very low expectations. A story centered around a smart, inexperienced teenager (or young adult) who happens to be best friends with everyone in power, allowing them to steamroll around the story until they become so strong that they kill God is not that interesting. Instead, I liked the narrative suspence we learn more about who is actually pulling the strings. The story wasn’t new, but I was mostly engaged and felt that it added to the experience. I do have a few more pointed comments though.
As other people have pointed out, there are some grammatical errors that are consistent. I don’t know if you can run your script through spell check of any sort, but it may help. As someone who can’t spell for shit either, I would definitely recommend a proof reader but that’s hard to do when it’s a solo project.
I found the dialogue itself to be pretty stiff. This is a classic issue with newer writers and can be hard to spot in your own writing. The flashback scenes especially felt weird with child Mao and Llyr speaking very proper and wooden English despite being both kids and not a textbook. You don’t have to intentionally chop up your dialogue, but I would recommend reading some of it out loud to see how you can make it flow better.
I think that the characters talking about stress, grief, and doubt across more than one chapter was good and helped humanize them. It helped counter the perfect protagonist vibe we see often in rom hacks and was a nice change. While some parts of it were a little cheesy, I would rather have it than it be completely removed.
I enjoyed the supports and look forward to reading through some of the conversations that I didn’t unlock on my playthrough. I liked how characters had conversations with each other surrounding the chapter at hand as it really tied the story to the gameplay. I wish more Fire Emblem games did this.
I thought the cast was pretty solid overall. Most of them felt fairly organic and had decent chemistry with each other (as well as a few meme characters) which made me want to use them outside of just their utility. Adding the backstories to the epilogue was definitely above and beyond what I expected and I appreciate your commitment to the world and character building.
Overall, I had a good experience playing through and look forward to seeing the eventual patches.
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So I managed to fix my Laptop’s Black Screen of death earlier than expected, and recovered some of my corrupted data, which boosted my morale a bit to fixing Sealed Hope a bit. Anyways, here’s the Patch Notes!
Patch Notes
Dialogue:
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Fixed many grammatical errors
Some have purposely not been fixed (such as “Somethin”) as their intention is to show that the character is pronouncing the word as such. This does not mean every spelling error is purposefully meant to be incorrect, as spelling errors can still exist. -
Updated dialogue in an attempt to make certain scenes clearer.
Characters:
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Yarin has had his Mgc increased from 14 → 17.
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Serena has had her Mgc, Skill, & Spd increased from 16 → 19.
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Serena has been given one Leadership Star.
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Steve’s magnificence has been increased from 100 → 101.1.
Supports:
- Increased certain support growth points gained.
Weapons:
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Killer weapons has had their prices reduced from 5000 → 3500.
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The Longbow has had it’s price reduced from 4000 → 3000.
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Brave weapons has had their prices increased from 3000 → 5000.
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Heal has had it’s price increased from 200 → 280.
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Mend has had it’s price increased from 300 → 420.
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Recover & Physic has had their prices increased from 400 → 600.
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Fortify has had it’s price increased from 1000 → 1700.
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Vulneraries has had it’s price increased from 50 → 100.
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Tara Shield has had it’s price increased from 2000 → 3250.
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Esub Guard has had it’s price increased from 2500 → 3250.
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Updated the Tara Shield to have it’s passive +3 Def boost.
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Updated the Esub Guard to have it’s passive +3 Res boost.
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Updated the Member Card to have it’s passive +3 Lck boost.
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Longbow has had it’s Hit increased from 65 → 75, & it’s Weight reduced from 10 → 8.
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Fenrir has had it’s Hit increased from 75 → 80, & it’s Weight reduced from 8 → 5.
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The Sea’s Calling has had it’s Hit increased from 80 → 85.
Map Changes:
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Certain map tiles have been updated.
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Replaced the Nosferatu tome for Fenrir in the Chapter 10 Armory.
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Added a (droppable) Chain Bow into Gala’s inventory in Chapter 10.
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Changed the Chapter 12 Chain Bow to a Silver Axe.
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Moved the Chapter 13 Secret Shop to a new position.
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Added a Nosferatu tome & a (droppable) Fire tome into Serena’s inventory in Chapter 13.
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Replaced the Nosferatu tome for Flux in the Chapter 13 Armory.
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Replaced the Nosferatu tome for Flux in the Chapter 17 Armory.
Uncertain:
- Added a patch that supposedly fixed Visit from any tile.
4 Likes
That’s awesome. Looking forward to more changes in the future.
Thoughts on Patch Notes
Glad to see the dialogue is getting patched up. It’s gonna be a long road to clear everything up and you gotta start somewhere.
I don’t have many thoughts on the character balance. They seem like good changes to otherwise mediocre units.
Some of the supports are already quite fast, so I’m interested to see which ones were made to be faster.
Changing the prices of weapons was absolutely justified. Having killer weapons be more expensive than braves was kinda ridiculous. During my own playthrough I made it to the first secret shop selling killer weapons and found myself too poor to afford anything. Meanwhile I go to the secret shop selling braves and I effectively clean out the store. Increasing the price on staves makes me sad, but it’s also justified. Having Fenrir be 5 weight is kinda wild though.
The removal of Nosferatu from most armories is probably a good choice. Other misc. changes are whatever.
As for other things I hope to be addressed in the future:
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BondEssence is really freaking good. That’s probably the point, but still, it’s way too easy too get a whole bunch of them early on and make a super soldier by chapter 7 without really trying to.
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Chapter 5 made me want to throw my PC out the window. Seriously, 2 tiles of vision, and we don’t get any thieves. Buyable torches are not good enough to save this map from being a dumpster fire.
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This may seem like a nitpick, but the fact that none of the countries have any named cities really struck me as lazy worldbuilding. I was floored when the group travels to the capital of Xeltnic and we hear Leonard tell us “this is the Xeltnic capital” and I’d think, ‘Wait, does the capital of Xeltnic not have a name?’ Obviously, this is gonna require a lot of effort, because there are examples of this all across the game, but small things like this go a long way.
Overall, these are some really good changes. Keep up the good work.
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I’m just happy you were able to save your computer!
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It’s just me, or the battle animation is slower, compared to other hacks?
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