[FE8] FE1 Shadow Dragon Faithful Remaster V1.9.1

[Ok_Dude]

Download:Fire Emblem 1 Remaster V1.9.1
Back-up Download:Fire Emblem 1 Remaster V1.9.1

This Rom Hack tries to produce a mostly faithful GBA remaster of FE1. The dialogue and character names used in this Rom Hack are taken from the official 2020 localization. FE3 portraits, which are far better and don’t look out of place, are used in place of the FE1 portraits which were originally to be included. Some quality of life features are also incorporated into this hack, and they are listed below. Unfortunately, due to limitations, not all features could be fully implemented. The list of FE1 features that were both included and excluded is provided below.

The user, @Slig, has made his own alternative version of this hack with different changes. If you want, you should check it out. The link is below.

[FE8] [Complete] A Not-So-Faithful FE1 Remaster

This is an alternate version of the “FE1 Shadow Dragon Faithful Remaster” that was first released by Ok_Dude in May 2023. I was very much on board with this project because I think FE1 is actually a great game and that a lot of it holds up surprisingly well, but it is held back by how slowly it runs and the lack of all the quality of life features that the series has built up over time. I helped out a bit to make the hack more faithful to the original game, and in the process I started poking ar…

Screenshots:

Additions and Quality of Life:

• L button can skip animations.
• L button can cycle between enemies.
• Fast unit/text speed on by default.
• Show heal amount.
• Skill System Patch.
• Convoy 100 increased to 200.
• Battle stats with animations off.
• Talk and weapon warning icons.
• Actionless talk.
• Select Enables Danger Zones.
• HP Bars.
• Growth rates stat-screen.
• Damage pop-up in battle animations.
• Attack effects on map animation when battle animations are off.
• FE3 Book 1 music.
• GBA Portraits.

FE1 Included Features:

• FE1 Maps: Each tile type remains the same as it was in FE1. To enhance the visual design, some aesthetic improvements were done.
• All stat caps are 20 except for Res cap of 7 and HP cap of 52.
• FE1 Growth Rates and Base Stats.
• FE1 Stat Boosters values.
• FE1 Classes: Curate, Ballistician, Freelancer, Hunter, Manakete, and Horseman,
• FE1 Promotions: Only Mercenaries, Archers, Cavaliers, Pegasus Knights, Mages, and Curates can promote. All other classes can’t promote.
• Constitution doesn’t effect weapons.
• Units have 1 constitution to prevent rescue.
• Swords can be used by Knights and Pegasus Knights.
• Certain Classes are locked to only one weapon type.
• Staves do not give Curates or Bishops experience points.
• Curates gain bonus exp when surviving combat.
• FE1 Terrain movement costs.
• FE1 Character endings, death, and battle quotes…
• FE1 Weapon and Magic Stats.
• FE1 Magic: Aum Staff, Bolganone, Thoron, Swarm, Aura, Imhullu, Starlight, Earthstone, and Magestone.
• FE1 Weapons: Arrowspate, Stonehoist, Hoistflamme, Thunderbolt, Pachyderm, Levin Sword, Devil Sword, Mercurius, Falchion, Gradivus, Bowgun, and Parthia.
• Only cavaliers are affected by Ridersbane.
• Falchion and Gradivus can be used to heal.
• Generals can’t use Levin Swords.
• Physic, Warp, and Fortify staff ranges are infinite.
• Aum staff reviving a dead unit.
• The might of the tome is fixed to magic damage.
• There is only one form of magic.
• Pure Waters and Vulneraries now have five uses each.
• Medeus negating ranged attacks.
• Marth’s Provoke.
• No Canto or Steal.
• Village vists are Marth only.
• Dialogue conversations having no backgrounds. With the the exemption of the ending scene due to a bug.
• Recruitable enemies rush to talk to Marth. Palla and Catria are adjusted to recruit both of them. This is due to a bug if both can talk to Marth at the same time.
• Fixed enemy base stats.
• Only one difficulty.
• Enemies have no luck and res.
• The threshold for attacking speed is 1.
• Speed increasing avoid by 1 instead of 2.
• No Weapon Triangle.
• 1RN: Displayed hit rate is the same as the actual hit rate.
• Inventories only having 4 slots.
• Ambush Spawns.
• Geosphere damaging all units when used.
• Starsphere negating the durability of a weapon.

FE1 Partially Included Features:

• Arena: The arena payout is 10x. Equipped weapons being used and being able to break. Arena’s bet amounts aren’t same as FE1 but are instead vanilla FE8 bet amounts. Ballisticians and Manaketes are prevented from the arena due to bugs.
• EXP: The EXP gains don’t match FE1 perfectly. Bonus EXP for bosses is now 10. Removed thief’s EXP bonus. Added Curates EXP gains.
• Due to limitations, some text had to be modified or shortened.
• Recruitable enemies having randomized luck. Instead they use their base luck stats from other games.
• Marth’s Lockpick ability: After gaining the Fire Emblem, Marth is able to open chests. He can also pick bridges and doors as a side effect.
• Parthia’s Stat Boosts: Rather than acting like pure water, Parthia offers 5 res.
• The bridge key is implemented; however, it also opens doors. The same applies for the door keys but for bridges instead.
• Manual: This item is useless because there is no WLV stat.
• FE1 Supply: The supply tent has been implemented, but accessing it no longer costs gold.
• Xane’s ability is implemented, although it’s not a one-to-one match, and there might be some issues.

FE1 Excluded Features:

• FE1 styled trading.
• Equipping items requires an action.
• Backgrounds are absent from shops, armories, and arenas.
• Weapon Level Stat: Switches to using FE11 weapon experience ranks. Character weapon ranks have been modified to match the base WLV from FE1.
• Enemies with experience stats.
• Crit rate being affected by luck.
• Magical avoid being affected by luck.
• Luck not increasing avoid. Instead it’s FE11/12’s avoid Speed+Luck/2 instead of Speed*2+Luck.
• Terrain healing tiles being dynamic.
• Base stat gains from FE1 promotions.
• Mercurius increasing growth rates.
• All non-Manakete damage is negated by the Falchion.
• Lightsphere ignoring enemy’s terrain bonuses.
• Glitches and exploits from the original game.

Issues

• Visual glitches in the green squares on the infinite range staff.
• Cleared turns chapter names that were displayed incorrectly in the credits.
• The character ending B W L do not display properly.

Credits

• Patches: 7743, aera, Huichelaar, Tequila, UNKNOWN, circleseverywhere, Contro, Vesly, Viktor Hahn, Kaito, Stan, Hextator, HyperGammaSpaces, Snakey1, Circles, Zane, ipatix, Sme, Scraiza, Nintenlord, Monkeybard, Black Mage, Blaze, Rossendale, StanH, Leonarth, Teraspark, sd9k, Kao, blademaster, Primefusion, AuraWolf, Scraiza
• Animations: Norikins, St Jack, Ren_Ookami, L95, Blaze, Leo_link, Spud, MeatOfJustice, TheBlindArcher, EldritchAbomination, MK404, Vilkalizer, DerTheVaporeon, Lord_Tweed, Akkuma407, Dominus_Vobiscum, Blazer, Jubby, Mikey Seregon, Arch, SHYUTERz, Tykky, Jotari,
• Icons & Unit Cards: Aruka, Yggdra, Spud, L95, 2WB, Batima, Beansy, Maxim, Purple, SacredStones, Topaz, Pushwall, SamirPlayz
• Map Tileset: ZoramineFae,
• Music: Sme,
• FE3 Portraits: Biraku Emblem,
• Portraits: Thorn,
• Other: Merpin’s Dark Dragon Reborn was used for cross-referencing.

[JeyTheCount]

@Ok_Dude

• Inventories only having 4 slots.
• Vanilla FE8 supply replaces the storage system.
• FE1 styled trading.
• Equipping items requires an action.
• Backgrounds are absent from shops, armories, and arenas.
• Weapon Level Stat: Switches to using FE11 weapon ranks. Character weapon ranks have been modified to match the base WLV from FE1.
• Enemies with experience stats.
• Crit rate being affected by luck.
• Magical avoid being affected by luck.
• Luck not increasing avoid. Instead it’s FE11/12’s avoid Speed+Luck/2 instead of Speed*2+Luck.
• 1RN: Displayed hit rate is the same as the actual hit rate.
• Terrain healing tiles being dynamic.
• Xane’s Ability: The freelancer ability to switch classes. Good luck using Xane because he is essentially a meme unit.
• Base stat gains from FE1 promotions.
• Mercurius increasing growth rates.
• All non-Manakete damage is negated by the Falchion.
• Aum staff reviving a dead unit.
• Geosphere damaging all units when used.
• Lightsphere ignoring enemy’s terrain bonuses.
• Glitches and exploits from the original game.

So not that faithful

[Ok_Dude]

I did say “mostly faithful”

[WaywardTroper]

So you have no intention of including any of the Gaidens or improvements from the DS remake then?

Thats fair, if so, keep this essentially FE1 that plays like FE6 in some ways then, or the most “accessible” way to play the original

[Ok_Dude]

@WaywardTroper

So you have no intention of including any of the Gaidens or improvements from the DS remake then?

No. I wanted to recreate the original “feel” of FE1 as closely as I could. While including some improvements that do not entirely alter it, such as growth rate screens and HP bars.

@WaywardTroper

or the most “accessible” way to play the original

Basically yes.

[blood]

You know, @Norikins ripped the Imhullu animation from Heroes and ported it to GBA a while back. Although it had some graphic and script issues, I cleaned it up and used it in my project. If you’re interested, and if @Norikins allows it, I’d be willing to share.

[Norikins]

I wasn’t aware the one on the Repo has issues. Please do link the fixed version! Hopefully the fixed version can get on the Repo too, credited as {Norikins, blood}.
On the topic of this hack, I’m glad for a proper FE1 GBA remake. It’s funny how many April fool jokes lead to something real.

Two previous hacks (Shrouded Wyvern, the aforementioned April Fools joke) and Souls of the forest have implemented a Xane-like shape-shifter.

Pikmin has made 1RN asm.

Sacred Echoes has units promote up to class bases. Gamma has credited MacPlusTrees
([FE8] Gaiden Style Promotion Gains ASM Hack) but that code has led to freezing in my experience. Sacred Echoes actual promotion routine, looking in the ROM, is completely different, so during some stage of development the old MacPlusTrees code was replaced, so Gamma probably discovered the bug as well, and then rewrote the promotion routine.

SME has made Aum staff ASM, and it is implementable in FEBuilder if importing the .event file via Import EA, and copying the adresses of the AumUsability and AumEffect to the relevant item editors.

There is an FEBuilder patch for more weapon levels, WeaponRankEX [Documentation for FEBuilder], allowing up to 14, but the highest weapon level needed in FE1 is 12 for the Gradivus. FEBuilder does give a warning about it “being incompatible with some other patches” though. It’s not a stat, but gives more than just ABCDES.

The convoy tile can probably be implemented through running a range event which calls the convoy. If you’re lazy, you could just do an enemy Merlinus tent with the “supply” bitflag. That way enemies won’t attack the convoy. I have tried using enemy Merlinuses and they work fine. A range event would be more accurate, though.

Shrouded Wyvern surprisingly implements the FE1 exp system. From how far in I’ve played, I haven’t used the legendary weapons or spheres. And I don’t know if it had the effects of luck in certain calculations implemented.

Maybe if you reach out to some of these creators they will share their ASM.

I myself have a hunch on how to implement Bridge Keys. I’ll need to test it out though before I let you know how it works.

[Valena-NO.23]

Dear author, in the fifth chapter, Merric can talk to Wendy, but Wendy can’t join. In addition, arena won 10 times the gambling money once. Is this intentional?

[Ok_Dude]

@Valena-NO.23

Dear author, in the fifth chapter, Merric can talk to Wendy, but Wendy can’t join. In addition, arena won 10 times the gambling money once. Is this intentional?

Thank you for reporting this. I have fixed this issue. And yes, the arena 10x payout is indeed intentional, just as Kaga intended.

@Norikins

“Pikmin has made 1RN asm.”
“SME has made Aum staff ASM”

I was not aware of these. Thanks for letting me know.

@Norikins

Two previous hacks (Shrouded Wyvern, the aforementioned April Fools joke) and Souls of the forest have implemented a Xane-like shape-shifter.

Interesting, I will check these out.

@Norikins

There is an FEBuilder patch for more weapon levels,

This might work out, but I should play-test it first before making a final decision because the patch has been flagged as having the potential to cause freezing.

@Norikins

([FE8] Gaiden Style Promotion Gains ASM Hack )

Unfortunately this patch is incompatible with skillsys patch.

@Norikins

The convoy tile can probably be implemented through running a range event which calls the convoy. If you’re lazy, you could just do an enemy Merlinus tent with the “supply” bitflag. That way enemies won’t attack the convoy. I have tried using enemy Merlinuses and they work fine. A range event would be more accurate, though.

I actually attempted to do this, but I was unable to get the supply command to show up while the tent is an enemy.

@Norikins

I myself have a hunch on how to implement Bridge Keys. I’ll need to test it out though before I let you know how it works.

It’s not really a big deal that the Bridge Keys don’t function exactly as they should. Since the player has the option, use them properly.

I want to thank you again for taking the time to write this lengthy response; it was very helpful.

[Ok_Dude]

New Update!
v1.1 Changelog:

• Added Aum Staff.
• Added 1 RN.
• Fixed Wendell’s recruitment.

[JeyTheCount]

For Xane one could go with the path of a dragon stone like item.
Basically have him have item that transforms him into an armour knight, cavalier etc

[Jack_G]

I just played the first 3 chapters and can definitely say you have captured that original fe1 feel. Turns out fe1 can actually be fun without the drawbacks of its outdated system. My favourite aspect by far is the maps (I took a look at all of the maps in febuilder), all of them look really good while still staying faithful to the original.

The only question I have is why did you decide to include skill systems? As far as I can tell, the only skill you have used is provoke on Marth. Almost all of the qol changes of skill systems can be used independently. It just feels like a somewhat unnecessary addition. I understand that you want to be as faithful as possible, but I think provoke on the main lord is a bad idea anyway as it can easily ruin an ironman or cause a reset.

Oh and by the way, an oversight I noticed is that pegasus knights seem to use infantry movement sounds rather than flying movement sounds.

[theghostcreator]

@Jack_G

but I think provoke on the main lord is a bad idea anyway

A lot of the things about FE1 are bad ideas by today’s standards, it’s over three decades old, things like limited promotions come to mind.
This is about accuracy to FE1 so adhering to these decisions is kinda the point? If skillsystem helps with that then why not use it?

[JeyTheCount]

I played FE1 some time ago, it aged very gracefully. The FE gameplay loop is just very well designed and timeless.

Provoke on Marth is funny and accurate.
It really saved my ass a couples and of times

[Jack_G]

The creator literally has a whole list of “FE1 excluded features” most of which are more severe than provoke on Marth. Making a few small changes that would overall improve the experience is fine.

[theghostcreator]

Those are due to technical limitations to my understanding. That is completely different than simply choosing not to include a feature.

[Jack_G]

What I’m saying is that it’s a lesser of 2 evils type situation. I personally think it would be better to forgoe the provoke skill in order to remove skill systems than to implement skill systems solely for the purpose of Marth having provoke, which is a pretty insignificant feature to begin with. I suppose it just comes down more to personal preference as I am personally not a fan of skill systems and prefer things to stay as vanilla as possible.

[theghostcreator]

The hack wants to be as faithful as possible, your distaste for the skill system does not change that. If you want things to be as vanilla as possible then why are you commenting on a ‘faithful’ remake? AKA not vanilla?

[Jack_G]

When did I say I don’t want it to be faithful? The entire point of the remake is to combine the experience of the original game with the improved accessibility and qol features of the gba titles. If you don’t want a single thing to be changed from the original, then the only way you are going to get that is if you go and play fire emblem 1.

Different people want different things to be changed in a remake, whether or not you agree with me on which things need to be changed doesn’t matter. There are so many variables that could potentially be changed, that you are never going to please everyone.

You are hyper focusing on one part of my comment, acting as if I dislike what the hack is trying to achieve, when actually I mostly had praise for the hack.

[theghostcreator]

You fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of a faithful remake. As said in the OP they wanted to have the game be as close to the original as possible, and provoke is a part of that. The skillsystem is also unintrusive other than that one singular factor which in of itself is intended to serve as a parallel to the original mechanic.
The request to remove such a feature is to go against the stated goal of the project and as such is a flawed argument by design. The purposes of remakes are left up to the creator, not the critic.