What will your bastion look like?
Fire Emblem: A Bastion of Our Own is a FE8 romhack built utilizing FEBuilder that began from the premise of ‘What if the nation of individuals that sought to conquer the entire world won?’ The problem with power and control isn’t about obtaining it. It’s about keeping it.
This story follows Aurelia, and up-and-coming mercenary within the Everweald, where the decline of the Levician empire caused a schism leading to the birth of a new rebelling nation. In the present day, times are tough and tensions are rising. Aurelia must learn to make hard choices, decide who to recruit alongside her, and learn what it takes to be a leader.
Features:
- Currently 42 playable units in this 13 chapter demo.
- Recruitment based gaiden chapters for recruiting some units. You’ll pick a few from a pool at each gaiden chapter.
- Traversable World Map!!
- Fates style weapon triangle (Swd/Anima < Lnc/Knives < Axe/Bows)
- Slightly stronger weapon triangle (+/- 20 hit, +/-2 Might)
- Overall weapon overhaul (see gameplay section for more info)
-Added knives as new weapon type. (No fates-debuffs, they’re strong enough)
-Dark/Light combined into weapon triangle ‘Neutral’ magic.
-Strong 2-3 range bows, NO 1 range bows.
-Bronze and mithril as new weapon tiers
-Heavy weapons that have slight differences. - Light-moderate use of the classic skill system
-Playable characters and bosses generally get one personal skill.
-All infantry get shove, all mounts get canto.
-Few class based skills (Basically just +crit skills, convoy lord, and rogue/thief skills)
-A few skill scrolls can also be found. - Many talk conversations give things, read secrets for more info.
Background
I’ve been playing Fire Emblem since I received FE8 in the 3ds ambassador program years ago. I’ve since played through nearly every English release, with my favorites among them being FE6, FE8, and Echoes.
I’ve wanted to make a romhack for nearly 10 years, since back when I was still in high school. Actually, I wanted to use the FE7x program (which I believe became tactile), but it was not nearly released yet. I still have some original design documents, most of which are absolutely terrible and never went beyond the planning phase. That being said, there were still a few things in these that I managed to keep to this day, including 2-3 range bows and recruitment chapters.
In the past few years I had became engrossed in DnD, which is relevant because this hack takes a step of inspiration towards that level of worldbuilding and dialogue. In fact, I am using some story beats and inspiration from my campaign into this rom hack, which takes place in the Everweald. One character is even an amalgamation of the player characters in my tabletop campaign.
This has been in development since April 2024, and I’m really happy with the amount of progress I’ve made since then.
Story/Lore Primer
It was my intention that this romhack would have a very simple story. Complicated stories in Fire Emblem are quite difficult to implement well. There are only two major nations alongside a few smaller subgroups. I also wanted a slightly more grounded storyline, 12 people are not going to topple an entire country on their own in this game.
In the early sections of the story, more focus is going to be put into worldbuilding and individual character interactions until the player has enough knowledge of the world through these conversations. It will pick up slightly more in the mid and late game.
I am working on a spoiler free story and lore primer with a reduced version to put into the game’s help menu. However I would like new players to go through the game and make sure that everything can be picked up on without any kind of guide. Please provide feedback on anything you feel might feel there is a lack of context over when it comes to overall worldbuilding and story.
Finally, a note on character names. Most names are latin or ancient greek in origin, though there is a bit of creative leeway involved. And some mercenaries will also use nicknames instead. I wanted to keep a consistent naming scheme for everyone in the cast to avoid the ‘Aerith and Bob’ problem.
Gameplay
My goals when creating this game were focused around trying to make something very replayable that is ironman friendly. Many chapters will have additional bonus objectives and rewards for finishing chapters quickly, giving players the tools they need to do so.
In Fire Emblem design, I have a strong belief in unit specialization and differentiation. Each unit should have their own strengths and weaknesses, otherwise it becomes too trivial to juggernaut on one or a few units. I also find myself disliking chapters where only a few characters are given to the player, so you begin with six units and quickly get many more. You always are given a healthy amount of deployment slots.
There are many anti-turtling incentives and punishments, nearly in every chapter. This is because I always find myself playing ‘safe’ and turtling if there is no penalty against doing so.
The difficulty that I’m aiming for is around FE6 level for normal and hard respectively, without a lot of the BS that FE6 throws at you like same turn reinforcements.
When it comes to additional gameplay changes:
-Pikes and Mauls have been added to have a complement to ‘blades’ for lances/axes. They are heavy and inaccurate, but quite powerful. Originally I was going to use a feature in skillsystem for making them not able to follow up attack, but this option was bugged. I decided to give them the ‘wary fighter’ skill as a workaround, and actually came to like them for low speed units. This is the change I’m most worried about, as I’m sure a gut instinct reaction is that they would slow the gameplay down. However, they are quite nice on the player because low speed units are SO bad in fire emblem, I believe it gives slow units a nice tool to be a bit more viable. They are generally a bit rare on enemies so the game is not too slow.
-Bow weaponry has access to ‘Warbows’ which are all around stat-wise better than normal bows, but are only 2 range.
-Knives also have access to ‘Daggers’ which pierce defense, but are still quite weak. I see them being better in the later game, they’re a bit mid in the early game.
-Light and Dark are merged as ‘Neutral’ magic, which is weapon triangle neutral. Currently this means that shamans can also use light and monks can use dark. I wanted to try this out, but it will likely change in a future release.
-Light magic no longer has might to them, but instead grants boosts to the users stats, usually magic but there are special tomes that increase other stats. Raising magic instead of having might usually makes little difference, however this means equipping a light tome improves stave use through healing more HP and range on status/traversal staves. This is important because:
-Healing staves are overall slightly nerfed and heal less. However, there is also a tier of staves that are 1-2 range now as well. Recover will actually be a useful staff here!
-Bronze weapons are infinite durability, but very weak ‘E’ tier weapons. It feels good to save a few uses of your iron weapons if you don’t need the extra might.
-Mithril weapons are ‘C’ tier weapons that are stronger, much more accurate, but also much heavier than steel weaponry.
-Poison is stronger than it is normally so it’s actually a threat, but antitoxins are infinite use.
-Currently using branching promotions, with master seals for everyone.
Feedback
Please provide any and all feedback about what you like and do not like about the current state of this demo.
I am particularly interested in feedback about the following changes:
-All map design
-Bows (Are they strong?)
-Heavy weapons w/ the ‘Wary Fighter’ skill.
-The changes that combine light and dark magic.
-A stronger fates based weapon triangle.
-The recruitment based chapters. (Are they okay for pacing? Does it feel fun to choose between units?)
-Is the use of skill system reasonable, and not too much skill bloat?
-Overall world, story, and world map.
For balancing feedback, I am mostly interested in feedback on hard mode, as this is what I would like to balance the game around.
I am currently a bit less interested in feedback on portraits, battle palettes in this current state. This is because depending on the reception and feedback that I receive, I may be interested in commissioning original portraits that may change what units look like, so many portraits and palettes could change.
Secrets
This secrets section will include any talk conversation that grants an item, skill, or ‘stat adjustment’, which is an offer to slightly increase a character’s stat in one area while decreasing it in another. It will also include secret shops and a few other mechanics.
Proglogue - A conversation between Cornelia and Flavia will grant a vulnerary.
Ch1 - A conversation between Aurelia and Tycho will grant a javelin.
Ch1 - A conversation between Aereus and Marius will grant a heal staff.
Ch2 - A conversation between Amatia and Valeria will grant a light tome.
Ch3x - A conversation between Aurelia and Vitus will start the Vitus dialogue chain.
Ch4 - A conversation between Aurelia and Vitus will continue their dialogue chain.
Ch4 - A conversation between Cornelia and Tiberius will grant a half-broken steel bow.
Ch4 - Completing this chapter in 10 turns or less grants the S-ranked lance.
Ch4 - A conversation between Gloria and Marius will grant the ‘Steal’ skill to Gloria.
Ch5 - A conversation between Aurelia and Vitus will continue their dialogue chain.
Ch5 - A conversation between Gaia and Aquilo will offer an optional stat adjustment for Gaia.
Ch6 - A conversation between Aurelia and Vitus will finish their dialogue chain. If you complete every talk, Vitus will get a bonus to his stats and be able to use lances afterward.
Ch6 - A conversation between Amatia and Valeria will grant a pure water.
Ch7 - A conversation between Hestia and Cassia will grant a torch.
Ch7 - A conversation between Amatia and Eight will grant a torch staff.
Ch7 - Completing the chapter while saving every NPC grants the S-ranked light tome.
Ch8 - A conversation between Vulpes and Servius will grant a beacon bow.
Ch8 - A conversation between Petrus and Persephone will offer an optional stat adjustment for Persephone.
Ch8 - A conversation between Aurelia and Aquilo will grant Aquilo the ‘Wrath’ skill.
Ch9 - A conversation between Lykon and Amatia will grant Amatia a stat adjustment.
Ch10 - A conversation between Aurelia and Petronia will grant a Talisman.
Ch10 - A conversation between Tiberius and Flavia will grant Flavia a stat adjustment.
Ch11 - A conversation between Tycho and Scylla will grant you an Arrowslicer.
Ch11 - Completing the chapter in 8 turns or less grants the S-ranked anima tome.
Ch11 - You may choose to ally yourself with Levicia at this time. Doing so early will upgrade the perserva, restoring weapon uses, making it 1-2 range, and more might/hit. But this locks you into the Levicia path permanently. (Though, no effect in the demo yet)
Ch12 - A conversation between Niobe and Mydon will grant a Light rune.
Ch12 - A conversation between Eight and Atticus grants 1000 gold.
Ch12 - A secret shop can be found at the shadowed tile in the top left of the spire.
Credits
I am ever thankful to FE universe and everyone within it that has provided countless free to use resources on the repository that has been made available.
Some credits listed may currently be planned, but not yet inserted, but I wanted to make sure to list these too.
7743 for FEBuilder and everything that went into it.
Febuilder Patches:
16 Tracks_12 Sounds
Switch character endings text with flag
AnimNumbers Damage Popups
AoE Effect
AutoGenLeftOAM
Fix CG Fade Glitch
Change class power b to table
Set victory BGM by chapter
Convert chapter tiles to text
Actions after support
Actions after talk
Critcap
CSACreator
DancerAI
Map Danger Zone
Draw Attack Effect
Drumfix
Remove enemy control glitch
Escape Menu
Split Menu
Character Retreat
Get Unit Status
Set Unit Status
Lose Item
Get number of clear turns
Give unit experience points
Send units items to transporter
SilentGiveItem
Simple escape event
ExModularSave
FE8 Battle Stats
Rogue Robbery
01command
48command
Anti-huffman
FillAIDangerMap
Fix dodge to front
Fix lz77decompress
Use Handaxe as generic motion
HPBars
Icon Display
M4a hq mixer
Magic sword rework
Skip world map fix
ModularMinimap - visionquest style
Set recovery amount of staff
Display exit tiles on map marker
Narrowfont
Summon multiple classes
Switch death quote
Make NPC ally third power
Prevent exchange of valables
3 promotion branch options
Durabilitybasedevent
Skill Systems
Sound_NIMAP
Melee/Ranged different spell loader
Stairs
Add blank to portrait on status screen
Steal with full inventory
Prevent exchangeofvaluables
UnitActionRework
Flag27greenshallnotpass - ultraxblade (need to insert still, but…)
Character Portraits:
MegaCowSamMan
Cravat
RandomWizard
CapibaraInSpace
Laurent
AmBrosiac
Garytop
Levin64
SirNicee
Amema003
ZeldaCrafter
JiroPaiPai
NickT
Alusq
Dutch Introvert
Tobiki
LaurentLaicrox
Valak
Al
Goldblitzx
Der
CanDy
HyperGammaSpaces
Beansy
Raymond
Ghostblade
Yasako
Armory
ObsidianDaddy
LonkFromCalifornia
MeatOfJustice
Levin64
Jopettajah
GenericPretsel
Alexsplode
L95
Roxannity
Zelkami Yasuko
ZoramineFae
Lenh
Spealnuke
Flasuban
Matthieu
RedLightning
Cynon
Epicer
King
Mel
SSHX
Helix0981
Imperial
Serif
Battle Frames and stat screen:
Cynon
Battle Animations:
Huichelaar
Jotari
Ayr
Eldritch
Pikmin
Der
GabrielKnight
Leo_Link
Dutch_Introvert
Salvaged
Vilkalizer
Delvsian_Nights
MK404
St.Jack
Pushwall
Nuramon
MeatOfJustice
Solum
Zeldacrafter
Alexplode
Sme
SphealNuke
Redbean
It’sJustJay
Metero
Camus Regan
Fiuke Bnuy
Temp
Spud
Ultrafenix
Seal
Flasuban
Markex133
TyTheBub
Velvet
Marlon0024
Ririk
Class Cards:
SwordofHeavenAndEarth
Salvaged
N426
Pikmin
Jj09
Nuramon
Leo_Link
Der
Skidmarc25
TBA
Melia
Spud
SphealNuke
SamirPlayz
Rasdel
Blademaster
Itranc
Melia
WhydidImakethisaccount
Scriza
Laurent Lacroix
Flasuban
FaerieFruit
DarkJaden
RobertFPY
L95
Class Map Animations:
Der
Pushwall
IS
ArcherBias
Seliost1
DoraDrago
Ryn
N426
Pikmin
Zoramine
Flasuban
Taratino500
Salvaged
Rasdel
Primefusion
Kemui52
Dutch_Introvert
L95
Eldritch_Abomination
Rdroyn
Dondon151
MeatOfJustice
Unknown
Sphealnuke
TopazLight
FEGirls
Agro
Alusq
Alice
Alexplode
Tordo45
EA
Blademaster
Hanakko
Feier
Rexacuse
Peerless
VelvetKisune
StreetHero
Blood
Marri
ArcaneEli
MaxLimit
Yikes!
Faeriefruit
Spell Animations:
Seal
Sacred War
Shyuterz
Blazer
Jubby
Arch
Orihara_Saki
Sme
Mikey Seregon
Hiroto
Scriaza
St Jack
Aegius
PurpleMage
Bonzai
IS
Norikins
Teraspark
Item Icons:
SacredWar
Ereshkigal
Leif
Ryan914
Batima
Beansy
FuriousHaunter
GeorgeReds
Kyrads
Lisandra Brave
LordGlenn
Zane
Celice
EldritchA
IndogutsuTenbuki
GabrielKnight
Seal
Zarg
TopazLight
Zelix
Peerless
AtelierLabs
Map Palettes:
Zoramine
Der
Lu
N426
Wave
Randomwizard
HyperGammaSpaces
Vennobennu
Pushwall
World Map:
Mapgen4
FEMapCreator - for base design help
BwdYeti
CG’s / Title Screen:
Pixlr image creator
Music:
A Reliable Chair
Pandan
Thegis
Runa
Sme
Mr Green3339
Mychahel
Psyche
MeatOfJustice
Saxor
Feier
Alusq
Dolkar
Pikmin
SurgingKyogre
RealxViperz
7743
MonopolyRubix
Miffe
Nyawenyye
Current Build
The current version goes until chapter 12, counting the prologue there are 13 gameplay focused chapters as well as three recruitment chapters.
Originally, I wanted to make slightly more content before putting out a demo. However, I am increasingly interested in getting good feedback particularly about design, map, and gameplay decisions in this game. I really want to know if other people find the gameplay fun!
I recommend hard mode for even moderately experienced players, normal mode might be a bit on the easier side, I am still tinkering with the difficulty. Ideally I’m aiming for FE6 level difficulty for normal/hard, though I think difficulty lies slightly on the easier side currently. Please let me know if you disagree!
UPS File link: Dropbox
Please report bugs or issues alongside any general feedback. I have only been using VBA for my testing, I apologize if a different emulator causes an issue somewhere.
Known Issues / Current limitations:
-The arena’s are glitchy because of changed classes and items and have not yet been fixed, savestate before using.
-Many characters currently have basic or poor battle palettes. I’ve thought this to be a bit of a lower priority, because I want to gather feedback on gameplay first.
-The Class reel is currently not modified, once again it’s a lower priority imo.
-The antitoxin seems to have buggy visuals, but they should just be cosmetic.
-No supports or support mechanics have currently been implemented, conversations are blank but should function as normal FE8 mechanics currently.
-Ch 9 involves a fight with a third faction, which has some outstanding issues involving fighting green units.
