[FE8][Demo] Fire Emblem: Ash Blossom

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Hi! I’ve been working on this silly lil’ hack since last October. Very slowly.

Lance_000

This demo is a five-chapter long Prologue with eighteen playable characters split across two armies. I plan to make at least thirteen more chapters and roughly twenty more characters after this.

Ash Blossom features a few things that make it different from GBA Fire Emblem that you should know before jumping in:

  • Speed is directly reduced by weight, meaning Constitution is only for rescuing.
  • Many units, including bosses, have Prf weapons or skills. (Not all of them, though!)
  • While this won’t come into play for now, units will automatically promote at Level 15.
  • Until much later into the game (probably), money plays no role in the economy, instead the player must rely on droppable items and stealing.
  • You can rescue and drop in the same turn.
Download

Not available at the moment.

Screenshots

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Patch Notes

Version: April 2nd 2022

  • Huge bug removed.
  • Mason’s and Daphnee’s growths raised.
  • Prelude 4 (P-4) has been heavily altered. More changes pending for the future.
  • New music added.

The demo will be featured in FEE3 this year, but not made publically available again until all eventing and dialogue is finished for the first five chapters.

That said, I hope you’ll have as much fun with this demo as I had putting it together!

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Congrats on the release, will give this a try.

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Gave it a run after I found there actually was a public release. I thought it was a great demo, map visuals were nice, the chapters and the maps were quite fun. Look forward to the next version.

Units

While I didn’t have much time to use each unit due to party switches, all of them felt quite valuable on their map.

How only some units have skills, each of which are quite centralising to the unit appeals to me because it makes them more distinct without needing a ton of complexity.

The prfs were pretty fun to use. The thief crit prf was a particular favourite. Design wise counter priest is quite a funny unit. The dual magic stave units seem like they might be overly centralising as they have both damage and utility. Killing edge being 50 crit was nice since if the myrm couldn’t pull some good one rounds she’d me obselete since everyone two rounds.

A minor nitpick is that the Geraldine doesn’t feel like a jeigan in the conventional sense. She can still get two rounded, may or may not one round, and feels like a normal unit. Call me old-fashioned, but I’m more used to the iron sword/silver lance where the jeigan can more controllably move between chipping and one rounding.

Maps

Design wise overall, I appreciate the heavy focus on high reliability gameplay as well as relaying information to the player.

The first three maps were pretty short and punchy chapters. They did a good job of introducing units and easing players into it without being a cakewalk. Only thing of note is how I foolishly tried to pull the ch3 brigand boss with the sword peg.

Chapters 4 and 5 were where the difficulty in regards to anti-turtle amps up a bit. Felt like I had to up my game in terms of turn optimization. In ch5 bottom branch felt a lot easier than top because at bottom you catch the thief on his own after dealing with most the enemies and on top not letting the thief into boss range moves your units into a more dangerous spot against the wave of 3 enemies plus a supporting dark mage.

Chapter 4

I put this in its own section because there’s a bit more to talk about.

I think some units who start with only prfs should start with an iron alternative. This is especially important for Harmidias who gets doubled by cavs/soldiers/myrms, and there’s two specific spots where his bulk would have been helpful.

The first is overlap between the killing edge and steel sword myrm that requires Expuere or Mason to survive the overlap.The myrms turning green then immediately resolve the second brigand. However, as I don’t believe this was conveyed to the player, its pretty likely they would end up wrapping around north and ignoring the centre, especially with the assumption they would have to deal with the 2 additional myrms on top of other charging enemies. I think the brigand could be delayed by 1 turn to allow better player flexibility, and not knowing that specific interaction between brigand and green unit really warps the approach to the map blind.

The boss and sword cavalier overlap (with a few tiles of exception) kills everyone except unequipped Harmadias so ignoring it is compulsory which feels very odd. It’s also a tad odd that the only armor on the map where sextuple effectives are introduced has reaver and effectiveness on said weapon, but he’s not difficult to bring down so that’s not a huge issue.

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I agree with your complaints on P-4. It’s a map that has been very tough to get right. I think in the next release I’m gonna give the boss a Short Spear and keep his Prf for later use…

As for Harmidias, I have not been able to convey it yet, but him being doubled is a good thing as Divine Favour’s effect is more similar to Jugdral Miracle rather than Skillsys Miracle.

I will remedy this by adding a Guide menu that explains some skill key words among other things.

Something I haven’t received a complaint about that I will point out and change myself is the Spear Guard in P-5 being able to ohko a good amount of your squishier units. Giving him a weaker weapon would suffice to make it less punishing.

Geraldine isn’t as much a Jeigan as she is more similar to someone like say Camilla. A prepromote who starts with roughly similar stats to other unpromoted units but reaps the benefit of what both designs would offer in high weapon ranks and move and good growths. She’s one of the four lords so I didn’t want her to be a Jeigan.

I’m glad you enjoyed it and I really appreciate some of the stuff you’ve pointed out!

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I’ve taken note of all you’ve proposed for P-4. I’ve added a forest tile in the middle and changed it so the myrmidons don’t fully overlap with each other. This would make it much easier to recruit Coralie without having to move Exupere seven tiles every turn.

Rudolph has been moved one tile to the south to not overlap with the cavaliers. He also now has a Short Spear instead of his Prf. As an added bonus I’ve replaced the Poleax fighter with another armour knight. I feel I should keep weapons like the Poleax in more isolated spots like I have with the Claymore in P-2.

I didn’t really know about the green myrmidons and the brigand. Controllable greenies are a very new addition that will totally cause issues later down the line if I’m not careful, but honestly it just sounds cool doesn’t it?

The brigand now moves on turn 3, in earlier renditions he used to target the house to the left, and I didn’t accommodate for the changes made.

On another note, I’ve gotten feedback in the past that people were really wishing for shoving. Perhaps I could introduce this item earlier than intended…
geraldine gaming.emulator-451

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New wewease just dwopped, gamews!

I have yet to adwess the Hawmidias issue, because I’m too wazy to figuwe out Guide menus x3 but thewe have been quite a few new fixes, incwuding some new music.

Have fun uwu

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Chain called by the grave

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Flip Imperial Order

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Finally got around to trying this. I played the first two maps and need to finish off the rest of the demo, but my overall impression is positive.

It’s clear a lot of effort went into the aesthetics of the hack. While I am less keen on the trend towards darker colors and narrow font for everything, the hack has its own distinct vibe and overall looks clean. Can tell there was a lot of time spent to get this looking as it does, with the battle frame, icons, music, etc. Even the little clicky noises are different, which was a nice touch.

Story throws a lot at you at once - writing feels a bit placeholder-ish still, but overall I felt like I was thrown into a conflict w/ a ton of characters w/o much context. While I appreciate getting a lot of units from the get go, I felt like I entered the game mid-story narratively. Perhaps this is intentional, but a little more grounding here could help, preferably in ch1 end event or ch2. I’m guessing more will become clear later and none of it is bad, so these are only my impressions after spending ~40 minutes with the game.

Ch1 was pretty snappy, no real complaints. Felt like it was well-intended in what it asked you to do, and gave you tools to approach it multiple ways - which I always appreciate.

Felt similarly about ch2. The bottom side juuust feels a little too tight. Would’ve loved an extra unit, but this is super minor. While I like the moving boss, unsure why the throne needed to be empty.

Regardless, neither map outstayed their welcome. Not a huge fan of the counter on each boss, but it wasn’t egregious and it’s easy enough to cope with.

It’s clear that you spent a lot of time tweaking weapons and numbers to get things to this state and it ultimately culminates in a pretty smooth experience so far.

Inspirations that I’m picking up:

  • Fates/Conquest
  • Souls of the Forest
  • Bloodlines
  • New Mystery
  • Death or Glory

Will finish off the rest and share my thoughts then. Keep up the good work :+1:

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Thanks for the feedback on aesthetics! Changing all the sound effects was quite a bit of work, so I’m glad you pointed it out.

P-1 and P-2 are definitely in mediam res. I haven’t written the talks for P-2 and P-3 yet, but this was supposed to be just another mission for Geraldine. I’ll do my best to provide as much context as possible without obvious exposition dumps.

I think in P-2 I’m going to move the throne a tile south, both Geraldine and Clemence actually miss it by one tile when moving their full range each turn, whoops! I’m going to make one of the enemies moving south spawn a turn later, it gets pretty tight, yeah.

You almost got them right! Swap out New Mystery for Shadow Dragon and Death or Glory (never played it lol) for Radiant Dawn.

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Yeah I think moving an enemy or having the reinforcement come in a turn later makes sense.

On story it isn’t a huge deal, but felt it was worth noting.

I’m sure more will become clear in the next two chapters. I’ll follow up once I get around to playing them.

The death or glory vibes came from the soldier lord and the general “war” vibes / dark colors. Worth checking out for notes on tone - has a diff angle than most hacks do.

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Played P-3 and P-4. Some general notes:

  • Add how many points of skill to secret book desc. Assuming this may be the same elsewhere, but from preps, can’t tell how many points I am getting.
  • Bronze weapons on enemies show crit warning - I think there is an easy hex edit change, I recommend asking on the discord since I don’t recall how I did it for LoT

P-3

  • Right side is just a touch too hectic upfront. The 5/4 split that’s encouraged by the starting position (At least that’s how I read it because the unit that spawns at the middle spot can move left on turn 1 and attack the enemy) means your forces on the right are spread a bit thin. I guess you could do something with Avignon flying over the mountain, but I felt like for an escape map, my first few turns were fairly defensive given the quantity of enemies and not being able to take more than a single hit before dying. I recommend either adding a 10th unit for a 5/5 split or reduce enemies on the right. Getting rid of one of the enemies there (perhaps the flier that starts atop the mountain) that come around turn 2-3 would be ideal and help flow a ton. Left side I think could also benefit from a trimming, but if you send 5 units that way, it is significantly more manageable. My split was all the cavs + Clemence on the right and everyone else on the left.
  • Finishing out the chapter, it felt like it hollowed out after that initial pressure. There wasn’t much to do towards the end. All enemies were cleared a turn before reinforcements spawned, but they didn’t feel threatening enough to make me feel like i needed to book it - from a glance, I could’ve farmed them, but I presume more enemies w/ scarier stuff comes later. If so, this is fine. If not, make them spookier.
  • Overall I feel like this chapter would benefit a lot from pushing enemies back a bit so it’s a smoother flow throughout. First few turns are combat heavy, then it hollows out until you get the boss, then it’s 2-3 turns of running w/ everyone. Hope this is helpful - happy to share more detail here if you need.

P-4

  • Daphne is my kind of unit.
  • All the prfs are neat. I’m sure you’ll get complaints that you have to use them at this stage, but I think that’s fine given how generous uses seem to be for them. Only change I’d consider is giving Mr. Divine Favour something else to hold for EP, but Mason comes w/ 2 spears for a reason, so not a huge deal.
  • The green unit thing is funny. I didn’t get a chance to move the units because as soon as I got Coralie the green units pulled a ton of units on EP and died before I could try them. I feel like some placement adjustment will ensure players can actually use them.
  • Similar to last map, biggest issue is really around the pacing. I didn’t have time to get to the bottom chest before the boss and top right house requires Exupere to go there. I prob could’ve routed better to get the chest sooner, but there wasn’t any reason to not stick to the middle path since only the one vuln soldier is towards the bottom, and you can pull them up anyway. Perhaps incentivizing more of a split play or reason to venture down there will help. Boss moving back also could help with flow a bit here.

I lost both soldiers but will retry again and take on P-5 later.

Overall it’s clear the effort is here, especially in the realm of aesthetics and getting creative w/ items. I think w/ some tweaks to map flow and the insertion of the story, you’ll be in a good place w/ what it seems you set out to achieve.

Personally, I’d argue the gameplay is a bit too matchup oriented (ie you need X unit to kill Y enemy or else you have no reasonable answer and that there’s a little bit too much damage and ORKO’ing going on this early, which surprised me on hard mode. These are very much my own personal preferences and you shouldn’t adjust this unless this feels against your design vision.

Still early and getting a feel for the game and what it is asking of me. It’s varied turn by turn, but some turns feel exceedingly difficult while others feel empty. I think this all goes back to map flow and for me, as a player, getting a sense of how difficult you’re aiming for it to be - is this supposed to be SotF lunatic? Is it supposed to be Bloodlines difficulty? I feel like rn it straddles between the two and I find my mind gear-shifting w/ something that is more precise matchup oriented while also combating some shakier hitrates and lower HP values. It’s something for me to get used to, and def isn’t bad, but worth considering as you think about smoothing out difficulty. Again I think map flow will shape a lot of what the difficulty ends up looking like, and right now it can be smoothed out in a few places.

Let me know if there’s anything else I can clarify.

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geraldine gaming.emulator-527geraldine gaming.emulator-528
This is definitely a certified FE8 moment.

I will consult someone regarding the Bronze weapon thing.

It generally seems like a lot of complaints are regarding how upfront all of the maps are, which is a very valid complaint. I’ve changed P-2 because of this (the reinforcements and only one thief instead of two), but I’ve sort of neglected to do this with other maps. Mostly stemming from the fact that I only recently found out how to change unit groups without having to make a new one from scratch or like erasing and remaking a lot of enemies just to remove one or two.

Harmidias is in a pretty rough spot, I’m not sure exactly what is missing, but something is. The green units could be alleviated by moving them a bit forward and moving some enemies to be reinforcements.

I think I could make the P-3 reinforcements spawn a turn or so earlier, and make them tougher.

  • Daphne is my kind of unit.

LET’S GOOOOOOO WOOOOOOOOO YEAAHHHHH BABYYYY THAT’S WHAT I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR THAT’S WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT

is this supposed to be SotF lunatic? Is it supposed to be Bloodlines difficulty?

The plan was to make this hack pretty easy, but the pacing issues make the challenges I throw at you too plentiful for that. I think if I scale it all back it would be more like SotF normal/hard instead?

But uhhh yeah thanks for the feedback, you can look forward to some changes.

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It’s more the juxtaposition - p-3 and p-4 kinda empty out fast. I like busy early turns, but it feels uneven across the board atm.

Taking a defense penalty and not having an alternative option for EP probably leaves a sour impression. The damage is nice though. Hard to say how much help they need based on 1 chapter alone.

Yeah scaling back the density upfront to allow misses to be easier to recover from would do a lot for smoothing out difficulty.

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WIll there be supports in this game? I ask this before I play any hack lol

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Supports without conversations tied to them. Ranks rise and sink during key moments in gameplay.

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