There’s no fully original tracks. It’s a mixture of directly ripped tracks from other GBA games and ports from ArcherBias, Trikki Nikki and Sekhmet. You can find the sources and music porters in the Sound Room, and when the website is up and running, that will have the full titles for the games instead of just acronyms. Medium-term I plan to find what the original titles of the GBA rips are and put those in the Sound Room, mostly so people can find them for themselves, but I don’t have them off-hand since they don’t have any titles internally. The other titles are already listed under their original track names.
3 Likes
Anghara: You blockhead! Why would you willingly put yourself in such an obvious trap!?
Browyn:
Had a blast with this and hope to play more of it in the future. Really good game
5 Likes
Glad you enjoyed!
2 Likes
A few minor tweaks. Nothing major enough to really demand a repatch, mostly typos (many of which were caught by the good people of the Homecoming discord, which, by the way, exists).
v 0.1.1 Patchnotes
- Chapters now preceded by the map graphic
- Ruffians are now Hollow. Pirates are now correctly set to Anarchic, and have the correct flavour text
- Corrected slight palette glitching when Bronwyn felt sad
- Cadecber no longer glues his eyes shut in C6 post-mortem
- Number of times Gwyngyll says ‘of the’ halved
- Various other typos fixed
7 Likes
Fire Emblem Advance
It sounds perfect. Plus it makes so much sense if this is a hypothetical FE6 if FE6 never happened.
1 Like
To celebrate Fire Emblem Advance: Homecoming (2003) running on the original hardware, v. 0.1.2 has released. The usual cycle of these is that they come thick and fast as initial things are hammered out, then go dormant for awhile as ‘fixes’ give way to ‘tweaks’ and ‘rebalancing’. Still, there’s nothing especially urgent about this patch, but it does make a few gameplay changes (mostly making C6 easier and giving you more stuff).
0.1.2 Patchnotes
- Fixed various WEXP discrepancies, including Prf tomes and Withering not giving WEXP
- Bolting and Swarming Hex 3 → 5 WEXP. Now noted in tooltip
- Pure Water reduced in price from 900 → 750
- CIMA tracks now renamed to original names from placeholder titles
- Battle with Elvira now unused due to softlock error on turbo
- Gildas: +1 Skl/Def
- C3: Shops now sell Pure Waters instead of Herbal Tinctures (Vulneraries)
- C6: Stairwells corrected to be one tile shorter. Second wave of reinforcements delayed by one turn. A new chest containing a Brutal Blade exists. Engineers now give Treasure Keys when recruited instead of dropping from Grunts
- C7: Removed southwestern Swarming Hex user
- C9: Shops now sell Pure Waters instead of Herbal Tinctures (Vulneraries)
- C10: Fimbulvetr adepts now correctly have Fafnir
- Valkyrie now has description
- Corrected Artillerist stats to no longer have several Female Summoner holdover stats
12 Likes
That almost looks like a wiiboy.
Trying and love the character art
1 Like
Finished this up earlier this week and wanted to take a minute to leave a detailed review! There are some spoilers here, as I discuss some recruitable characters and some thoughts on the plot, so fair warning for those who don’t want any spoilers at all, though Ive tried to keep my comments relatively broad.
Before I talk specifics, I’ll just start by saying that a high level this is a very polished product, even though its only halfway done. It plays smooth, nothing is very obviously broken under the hood, the story does not suffer from the obvious amateurism or teenage edginess that plagues some projects, and the game is neither stupidly easy nor actively unfriendly.
On the spectrum with “vanilla” FE fan games (projects like Last Promise or even Dream of Five) on one end, something like Cerulean Crescent on the other, and games like Drums of War or Vision Quest somewhere in between, this definitely leans towards the vanilla end in terms of overall feel. There are still some mechanical changes and some unique elements that make it feel enjoyable even if you’ve played other hacks before, which I’ll talk about later. Overall though, you’re not really playing this hack because you want a radically new experience, you’re choosing this hack because you want a really good and polished version of the Fire Emblem experience that tells a fun story and innovates in its own ways.
Detailed Gameplay Thoughts
- As I mentioned, the difficulty is not bad overall, and there’s definitely a more gradual curve here. Drums of War was really good, but I know anecdotally that some folks bounced off of it because after the first chapter it ramps up pretty quick, and theres two chapters at the end of that game’s first Act (a Defense mission and an escape through Fog of War) that I know a lot of people simply felt overwhelmed by. There were two maps in particular that did feel MORE challenging, near the end of the run, but even then I kind of felt like I probably could have won a lot more easily if I played less aggressive, took my time, and/or wasn’t dead set on finishing every “stretch goal” in the chapter. I should note that I did NOT play an Ironman (and that might be a different experience).
- Related to difficulty, the maps also inherently feel less “pressured”, which can be nice for a slightly more relaxed experience. I don’t think I ever really felt like “oh if I don’t play super aggressively then on Turn 5 an unkillable team of “Fuck You” reinforcements is going to show up and kick my teeth in.”
- As always, mission briefings are super helpful especially given that fan games don’t tend to have decent guides. These provide a good signpost of generally what to expect.
- I know the goal was to create an alternative FE6, but I also think the game overall was very reminiscent of Shadow Dragon/New Mystery, particularly in the pace you acquire your army and the way some characters would join in large packs (in particular, the group in Ch 8 was reminiscent of getting the Wolfpack, and the group in Ch2 felt a lot like getting Barst, Bord & Cord).
- High deployments are nice for using a large chunk of the roster.
- Role of mages was neat overall with their PRFs, though these varied. Eilonwy, Islwyn and Trefor were used frequently due to their prfs; others fell more short. I’ll chat about these in character reviews. The idea in general though of a low-res environment where both ally and enemy mages are strong player-phase tools that are protected by a shell of phys units was pretty effective overall.
- Most of the basic gameplay changes are, I think, pretty good.
– Erasing “outlier rolls” in combat is a small but smart change. No missing with a 95%, no getting hit by a 3%, and no enemies rolling 1% crits. This is just like a really reinforced 2 RNG system and I thought it was fun.
– Cavs losing access to swords until promotion is a neat change that I think helps to rein them in without having to totally tank their stats (which is the alternative we often get) and is nice because it makes it easier to see them on the map and know who to send to counter them without having to manually check if they have a sword or lance.
– 2-3 range bows, which I know have been a fixture of Do5 and Drums of War, continue to rock and provide a great niche for these units, particularly when enemies hit hard and being able to soften up a kill is very valuable.
– A small change that I liked was borrowing FE5’s approach where magic swords use RES – this seems like a nice alternative to doing a STR/MAG split OR having a situation where a strong phys unit just gets to also automatically deal a million damage with a magic sword. Given that DEF is used a lot more than RES due to enemy types, this also helps to make it relevant for characters to have high RES and lets you do some shenanigans with Barrier/Pure Water & the Light Brand.
– Scout is a fun-looking class and I liked its spd niche
– If the Miracle Tonic stays in, it’s a fun tool for letting units go off alone a bit more or just in general letting them heal. MAYBE it shouldn’t be a full heal, but I don’t know. Conversely, the lack of mass Vulneraries was nice and had a surprisingly noticeable impact on the feel of the game.
– The mixing of light magic with anima is nice for simplicity
Chapter-By-Chapter Comments
1- Ch 1 was good. Lots of chance to get to know your suddenly large enemy and start thinking about who will get a spot and who’s getting an early bench. Not too much pressure outside of protecting your villages.
2- Ch 2 is a good map. Two sides, you can kinda loosely split up by weapon type and keep raising your chosen units on some relatively easy foes.
3- Ch 3 is good again. Not too stressful. Lots of opportunity to use your units and focus some xp to your chosen favorites.
4- Ch 4 was fun, but I felt like the premise was maybe underbaked. After the first 2 or 3 turns everything was a foregone conclusion and I was just mopping up.
5- This was one of my favorite maps in the hack. Lots of different things going on, a little more difficulty than earlier missions, but lots of options for how to approach the mission. Trefors little camp in the west was cool, and the flow of enemies from multiple directions kept me more on my toes. Ultimately, I ended up assassinating the boss right near the end of the map and it felt like an earned, tactical victory.
6- This was one of the two maps where I reset a few times, mostly just due to the reinforcing cavalry being a real threat. However, I was trying to simultaneously whether their assault and push further in towards the ballistas, and I do think if I had just focused on establishing and holding a position, then going in after reinforcements were done, this would have been fine. Fun overall though!
7- This was kind of a funny or silly mission, though my internal radar inherently wondered if something will come up later with these two (i.e. will they be used as a figurehead by the opposition? Not sure). Not too hard. Liked the idea of recruiting the Loyalists, though they should maybe be toned down slightly since after getting even just 1 or 2 of these Ironclads they were ready to go finish 90% of the map for me.
8- A little more hectic with the time pressure, but fun overall. I liked that you simultaneously had the established party and the “new party” taking their own sides of the fight and trying to link up (and I think if you wanted you COULD have basically just had the new folks sit tight, you’d just give up some loot). I had a few minor glitches here where the bosses used wrong portrait while speaking but that was it.
9- This was another map that stood out as good to me. I didn’t understand what was happening with the refugees but it made sense at the end that they were kind of a “timer” and I think this was telegraphed I just wasn’t realizing. Trying to reach all the villages to pre-empt the militias was also kinda fun; I personally couldn’t reach the top ones, but don’t really know if that was an issue of timers being tough or if a better player could have done it (and it wasn’t the end of the world anyways to fight a few villages). The tone also tracked well through the mission.
10- The other map I reset a few times. This was a good challenge, lots of fronts to contend with. It does feel like if you really wanted, you could spring for the southeast room and just camp out there to wait things out with a small front line. I was struggling trying to push too aggressively and take out all the ballistas, eventually I just accepted this wasn’t reasonable. Did get to beat the “bonus boss” in the southwest though, so still felt accomplished. One of many maps towards the end, as a side note, where I started thinking “okay too many reaver enemies”.
11- A decent map, and relaxing after the previous map which was a little tougher. Not a lot of further thoughts here. By this time, I had good tools.
12- Maybe a little too easy and short. I finished this thing off in just a handful of turns and it didn’t feel really intentional. This is kind of just an end-of-act narrative map so that’s not the end of the world, but if one map would benefit from some change it might be this. Maybe adding more “stretch rewards” to incentivize you to try to do more actual combat would be good. As it was, I basically sprinted by characters down, flew Hrolf and Sian across the river to pick them up, and then retreated across the gorge before the rest of my army had even crossed the bridge in the first place. This map also of course is limited by the fact that it puts Anghara in the heat, and by now she’s starting to slow down, so that’s another element that I know probably limits how much you can do. This issue overall might also just disappear in the next version – part of the incentive to rush was also just knowing that I was at the end of the game.
Characters
I’ll chat about folks in loose groups. Order is kind of haphazard. I also don’t know growths so lots of discussion is anecdotal or based on impressions that may not be accurate. Overall, most characters got at least SOME use, with only a few exceptions. I also think I got everyone but if I missed any units, someone please let me know!
Ratings at the end are for how much I liked the portraits, not a gameplay tier list – and this is all relative to each other, as the overall quality is really high.
- Bronwyn was a fun Lord who turns out pretty well. She got a good amount of use, and generally fit her characterization where she started out weak and needing some spoonfeeding, but was growing to be more capable by the end of the Act. I also may have underestimated how good her Rapier was, and its possible she was always really strong and it just took a few chapters for me to understood her usage. As a side note, making Rapier reaving is smart: its always dumb that the MC has effectiveness against armors and cavs and then has a weapon type that is actually countered by their weapon type (conversely, this is why Hector’s Wolf Beil slaps).
As a side note, My ONLY sadness is that I really thought she would gain magic and a prf on promotion: being the grandchild of a famous Witch Queen, having THAT promo portrait, and having a game where you highlighted the strength of your unique mages I really thought this was going to be where this went. This isn’t a critique at all just felt like sharing lol.
- Anghara is a straightforward Jagen, gameplay wise. If she does stay central as the game goes forward, she probably wouldn’t mind some decent growths if she doesn’t already have them. Overall though her bases were surprisingly decent outside of HP. As a character, I also really liked her.
Like the portraits for both, especially Anghara which was one of my faves. Bronwyn A, Anghara S.
Lorcan & Gwenael are a fun pair of Christmas cavs. Lorcan’s strength is kinda rough, but he ended up getting an energy ring from me towards the end, and got one of the promotions. Gwenael was the “preferred cav” for me early, but her speed was getting to be more and more of a defensive liability as the game went on and everything started doubling her. Still fielded both at the end.
Both feel like a good approach to cavaliers. As I noted earlier, sometimes we get Cavs who feel really weak as a tradeoff for mobility. These folks always felt serviceable and useful, they just had to be confined to the enemy time they are good against. As the stats show, they were a mainstay in my army.
Liked both portraits a lot – they convey an interesting pair with lots of characterization. Lorcan A, Gwenael A.
The Archers! I haven’t included the archer we get right at the end of the demo, though I’ll likely be using him as well once I’m back. He’s not quite as good as Maewen was, but he’s pretty comparable overall and I’m excited to give him a go (he’ll be taking Caradoc’s spot).
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Of the other three, its probably pretty obvious that I focused on the first two. 2-3 range bows is great and makes archers invaluable, and these were a part of my roster for some time. I originally liked Caradoc more, based solely on portrait/vibes, but he just couldn’t keep up with Maewen. Not sure if she was blessed or this is just natural, but she really outpaced him and ended up crazy strong.
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He, on the other hand, was increasingly a liability and if I was paying more attention I should have swapped him out for Rattler. He just didn’t do a lot of damage due to low speed, and low defence and res meant he was also a huge defensive liability (seriously, there are VERY few units in this hack who can survive can getting doubled).
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I wish I’d used Rattler. Didn’t give him much of a go, but looking at the base stats now he was pretty ready to roll.
Portrait wise, I liked Caradoc. Rattler is fun in a gimmicky way. Maewen I like the colour scheme, but something about the portrait is just a little underwhelming to me. Not bad, but not my fave. Caradoc B, Maewen C, Rattler B.
The healers!
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I ultimately used Coretta over Aneurin, but this was really based on basically nothing at all. More speed is always nice, but honestly I suspect these two were probably pretty interchangeable.
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Nerysse is fragile, and she came relatively late and low levelled, but its hard to beat a healer on a horse. Definitely think I’d be gradually transitioning this direction.
More broadly, the fact that mages don’t all get staves on promotion inherently makes healers more worth keeping around I think, rather than what I often do which is to just have several mages who take up a part time, gig economy job throwing out heals on the side.
Portrait wise: Aneurin is kinda an odd looking dude but I liked him. Coretta is generic but fine. Like Nerysse’s vibe. Anuerin B, Coretta B, Nerysse A.
Fliers!
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I couldn’t find my screenshot of Merry and unfortunately I simply don’t care to go back and take another. Merry was underwhelming to me. In a world of 2-3 range bows, using an early fragile peg knight is even more perilous, and I never felt like I got a ton out of her other than visiting villages, etc. Cavs only having spears though does help a bit as it gives her more of a niche as one of only a few sword users. I might use her more in the future, but the problem is she’s also got some pretty good flier competition.
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Hrolf was one of my favorite units, and not just because he reminded me of Haar. He’s got a really unique, vivid visual design, and gameplay wise he did a lot of work for me (especially because I didn’t have a ton of great axe units). Low Res is also less impactful than low def, since it can be somewhat circumvented, and there were lots of good axes to use (I liked the Lictor Axe). He was one of my best fighters even BEFORE thinking about the fact he could fly. The fact you have to pay 400 gold a chapter to use him is also kind of neat: even though this is just objectively a drawback, it actually made him MORE fun to use because it felt like a nice bit of characterization (and its not like gold was ever super tight throughout the game anyways).
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Sian joins a bit later but for me at least was just a clear upgrade over Merry. I like her design, and she does some neat things gameplay wise. The fact she has high res and we’re starting to get Res swords also helps her – you can do some fun stuff with Pure Water/Barrier, for sure.
Portrait wise, Merry is fine but forgettable, thought the other two were great. Hrolf S, Sian A, Merry B.
Fighters (and Brutes!)
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I liked Ludolf, design-wise, and so he was an easy choice. The fact he came a chapter earlier also helped him. Conversely, I didn’t use Arne or Nete to any meaningful degree, so its hard to judge them (but also, post Arne). They were basically just a Bord & Cord; they joined with very little fanfare and obviously didn’t have much role in the game (and this seemed intentional). So I can’t offer a lot of input on them.
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Ludolf, on the other hand, was pretty good throughout the game, but towards the end of my run I started to notice that damn, this man just really did not want to develop his strength to any significant degree. Possible this was bad rolls, but I wonder what his growths were. He was still reasonably functional due to Axe base MT, and I like that he got Champion. He was less of an offensive unit than a relatively resilient frontliner with good HP, SPD, and DEF. When I inevitably do the full playthrough though, I might give more of a shot to one of Arne or Nete.
Portrait wise: Ludolf A, Arne B. Nete gets a C only because I don’t know if I even get a strong sense of personality or even what her class would be from her portrait.
“Scouts”!
I didn’t get a lot of mileage out of either of these units, but I kind of liked the class as a concept.
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I originally used Per, at least, out of the initial crew of Per/Nete/Arne, because I wanted to try out the class and I felt like he had some personality. And he wasn’t bad but he also wasn’t anything super spectacular. A good filler unit until units I liked more came along. Also didn’t help that he was kind of directly competing with Lorcan & Gwenael and I liked them better. But the general idea of basically a Lance Myrmidon is a neat class.
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Gower was fine, a decent later-joining unit. His overall stats are okay; nothing special, but decently bulky. He originally got a promotion just because he was a mandatory deploy in Ch11 and I hadn’t realized I could use the Infantry Seal on my Ironclads instead, so I figured “why not see if this guy is any good for the 2 chapters left in my run”. No strong opinions on him.
Portraits: Per B, Gower B/C (nothing really bad, but a bit more forgettable).
The sword infantry!.. One of these things is not like the other.
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Seriously though, Shaker I maybe should have put separately because he obviously is meant to fill a different role. I get the impression he’s meant to more of a generic, semi-bulky infantry. I didn’t use him so I cant actually gauge, but playable undead are always fun!
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Lasse I had no attachment to. Another unit that contributed a bit early but was benched before long. Probably a fine unit and might get a shot one day, but I wasn’t super compelled.
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Gwyngyll I actually liked design-wise. Didn’t make the team this time through, but actually might in a future run. I think in most cases it feels like she would turn out better than Lasse overall (especially since both are gonna max Skill/Spd).
Portrait Ratings: Lasse B, Shaker B, Gwyngyll A.
I think anybody who has played a semi-difficult romhack knows that despite being pretty meh in mainline, Ironclads can be quite critical in fan games. Having a unit that can actually reliably hold a line and NOT get one-shot by everything that moves is invaluable. These two are no exception.
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I liked Dave(tt) a lot and did a lot of work through the early/mid game. Does what an armor should, and has just enough HP to survive most of the mages so far, though the continued 0 zero res is gradually getting more and more worrying. Felt very key at a number of different points. Sorry Dave, you definitely should have gotten that seal over Gower.
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Deheuba I also really liked, though we got a LOT less time with her, as she joined after the action was cooling down in 11 and Ch 12 was pretty quick. I kind of feel like she will fulfill the overall goal of “survival” better than Dave due to her higher Res – those are some pretty good mixed-bulk stats. Somehow even slower, but at that point does it matter?
Portrait wise liked both. The black armor and red hair on Deheuba really popped in particular for me though. Davett A, Deheuba S.
Almost done! Grouping these folks together for discussion purpose, because I didn’t want to talk about Rhlain with the Christmas cavs or group the skirmishers with the archers, so I figured I’d discuss everyone at once here. Also gonna own: wow, I should have really taken more time to look at stats here when thinking about units.
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Gildas I felt was useful – a very “plug and play” unit at a time where having someone who felt bulky was an asset to the team. I knew that he was basically a prepromote that probably seems overly strong due to promoted bases but will fall off quickly, and intended to slot him in really briefly and eventually rotate him out when I got someone better. But damn, looking at him now next to Rhlain, who I barely used, that gap looks REALLY small, and even in the niche I was looking at him for I think I overrated him.
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Conversely, Rhlain got almost no use, and probably deserved a shot! I was like “I already have two cavs, who needs a third?” but stats wise he absolutely would have held up. As a side note, I’m kinda fine with this (and the other cases, like Gower or Sian, who feel similar) approach where later joining units are pretty good, because while it sucks to be like “damn why did I bother training Unit X”, if these units don’t have competitive stats they just discarded automatically in favor of the units you’ve been using since earlier and are attached to. Anyways – I’ll give him a look next time.
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Llewelyn and Hywel have the same problem, which is that 2-3 range bows are SO good that I didn’t really want to use bow cavalry. I used Llewelyn slightly more because I probably overvalue speed, but neither unit made a huge impression. After promotion, assuming they still get swords, I imagine I might get a little more use out of one of these folks, and Llewelyn was fine as a filler (and the mobility WAS nice in Ch 10 to shift between different “fronts” of the fight).
Portrait wise: Gildas B, Rhlain B, Hywel B, Llewelyn A.
I genuinely didn’t realize I hadn’t talked about her, but I’ll keep this short. Dancer Tier unit. Early dancers are always particularly fun, because they open up a lot of options and make recruiting enemies (like Quistan) a lot less onerous of a task. She’s not quite on Calista’s level, from DoW, but I liked her. Feels surprisingly bulky, and I don’t think I was ever actually worried about her dying, which is nice. Not much else to say.
Portrait: A.
Finally, the mages! I saved these for last because its obvious that there were intentional design decisions behind each of these characters to an even greater extent than other classes. Some worked great, and some didn’t work quite as well.
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Eilonwy was, probably evidently, my favorite. Good attack and speed made her good at her job of magic assassin, especially with her prf – when I needed someone to kill a boss, especially, she was the go-to pick. You do have to be careful though – pre-promotion, I think she was someone I had to reset for a few times because I didn’t account for 3 range bows and she got blown up, etc. Definitely squishy.
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Trefor was a good unit. He got a surprisingly decent amount of personality just out of the context of where you meet him and the fact that he’s dragging along some undead when he joins (and the fact that he looks like he works at Fantasy Hot Topic). I was kind of sad that it felt like it would be using 3 slots to deploy him and his crew, so the skeles never came along, but maybe next time I’ll give it a try. Even as is, he was a fun unit and filled (what I assume was) his intended role as an anti-mage with high damage and high res. His prf was also good – not too flashy, but did the job, and 3 range is great.
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Islwyn was good. Late joining, and again, didn’t get to use her much, but her prf was solid design wise. Gives her a niche but almost by definition is not overpowered. Would be great for weakening enemies and feeding kills to another unit. HP condition does prevent it from getting too out of hand. Also surprisingly bulky for a mage (7 Def, 12 speed, and 37 health? Nice). Feel like I get what this was going for, even if she’s not crazy OP.
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Jasper was one of the two mages, on the other hand, that didn’t quite work for me. He’s evidently meant to be the “tanky mage” who ISNT a wrecking crew the same way as some of the others, but has his own identity and use. Surprisingly decent defense, and the prf giving 8(?) more, helps him. In practice though, he just couldn’t really do the job for me and still died really easily, mostly because he was always getting doubled, his actual HP total was still low, and even mages did good damage to him. He had more bulk than any other mage and even most infantry units, but he took enough damage that he couldn’t really be a tank (and the fact the prf was 1 range hurt his ability to play safe and have it as an insurance policy). In my personal experience, he’s the unit I think most needed an adjustment: whether that means giving him more HP to better fulfill his tank role, more SPD so he isn’t getting doubled, or even looking at slapping Wary Fighter on his prf or making it 1-2 range. Lots of options here but think something would help him out a lot. I really wanted to make him work and think there’s a really cool unit in here with some tweaks.
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Finally, Quistan. This is a unit I just didn’t vibe with. And that’s probably okay! But I wasn’t really sure what role this character was meant to fulfill, other than to do the same as Eilonwy. The challenge here is that the prf feels like overkill. “Deal 1 billion damage and instantly kill any enemy” is actually busted, but I don’t remember if there was much that I felt like Eilonwy couldn’t kill where I needed this instead. And the tradeoff for this being a tactical nuke is that it only has 8 uses, so its something you have to VERY intentionally use to blow up a boss, in contrast to every other unit who has enough uses on the prf that you can actually think about it as part of their regular identity. Especially for a unit that joins when you’ve still got 70% of the game to go – maybe on a Gotoh an 8 use prf would be fine. I would gladly take a weaker prf in exchange for being able to actually use it without feeling a huge sense of “oh god I should have saved it”. Others might like this character overall, btu this was basically just an instant bench to me
Portraits: Eilonwy A, Trefor B, Islwyn B, Quistan B, Jasper A
Plot Discussion
Finally, some VERY brief discussion of the story / plot so far. I’ve really enjoyed it: there’s a good amount of worldbuilding, while still being pretty easy to keep up with.
The biggest strength of the plot has been that, at least early, you as the player know there’s a lot going on but its not entirely clear exactly who you should trust and who has their own designs. Is Anghara cooking up plots of her own? Can the royals be trusted? Was the prologue a false flag attack by someone? Even when it comes to the characters you end up trusting, you can definitely feel like they have their own agendas and aren’t 100% reliable. There’s a good sense of scope and politics happening in the background of the game, and even by the end its not 100% clear that anybody really had an “evil plan” per se as much as a lot of characters acting and reacting in response to events and sometimes having goals that come in conflict with one another.
Except for one character, who is obviously a dick. But its not immediately apparent from when this character appears, and even this does seem like a situation gets away from that character and they have to scramble, more than they are inherently evil. I do think a few more scenes/lines playing up the positives of this character early on might be helpful and make some of that fall from grace feel more pronounced; or even just characters talking positively about that character and giving them a good reputation. It does feel clear maybe a bit too early that this person sucks or at least will end up sucking. Depending how the second half of the plot develops though this may ultimately be fine.
The churches are fun, I like the idea of Law, Balance, and Chaos as the primary religions, in conflict with one another, and the idea that you get good and bad versions of each (i.e. Law vs Tyranny, Chaos vs Anarchy, Balance vs Hollow). SMT vibes intensify. This is seemingly a large plot happening in the background, which we haven’t got a lot of but I imagine will be more integrated as we approach the end. Similarly, obviously Esper is a plot element that isn’t really explored in the first half, but 10 points if you can guess what character may turn out to be a manakete.
Bronwyn and Anghara are definitely the stars of the hack, story wise. Bronwyn is a LITTLE annoying early on, with indecision/bad decision-making, but the fact everyone kind of acknowledges this in universe AND the fact it makes sense helps. Anghara is just great from start to finish.
Brand and the Chancellor are both good characters too.
Overall, this was a really great experience and I’m excited to see where you end up!
9 Likes
if it means anything quistan doesnt actually hit oneshot thresholds on every boss, i remember having to get a lucky crit on the chapter 10 paladin boss to kill it with eschaton
1 Like
In some ways, thats even worse lol - but you’re right, I forgot the crit rate is only 30%.
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Glad you enjoyed! And thank you for the detailed thoughts. This is highly appreciated.
Re C9 timers: I was able to get to all the villages, but I have no idea if Parr tuned the timers after my run or not since I tend to play the earliest version possible of the game. My file’s early enough to have potions still, haha
oh yeah forgot to mention
some of the portraits that got some extra attention are because they were my standout units on my test run done on all placeholders : P
favoritism at my finest
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yoooo, finished the demo. Really like it so far, guess I’ll share my thoughts and units below, spoilers for both ahead!
Units
Bron. Rapier good, thank god it has a lot of uses. Mine one has 10 uses left, hoping for a refill in coming chapters, pretty please? Early on she sucks, but after ch6 I felt she found her stride. Gave her ambrosia for a specific strat in ch10. Lord that, I think, is good to train, nice!
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Anghara. Yeah! Jagen! Light brand is pretty good on her, with her Bron support she one rounds armors, which is really nice on a few maps. Proving once again that RES is the best stat in ALL fire emblem games.
Lorcan. Dropped Gwen, I don’t really like using a lot of cavs. Lorc was okay? He prolly rescued dropped more than fought, I promoted him at level 14 at ch 11, so yeah just didn’t use him for combat a lot, but his combat is serviceable. I chose him because I though he will be “the bulky cav”, but I’m guessing design space is that no paladin will be bulky, only CTPs.
Anie. Healer/10.
Jasper. Has potential to be one of the coolest units in the game. Enemy phase mage sounds really good, but his stats make it so conditional. His PRF is a heavy, high might tome; It weighs him down so much that more often than not he will get doubled, that by itself is not an issue, because it’s so high-might that he just one shots enemies with it. But it’s still sooo specific.
SO, to effectively use him on enemy phase, you need to:
Make sure he one shot every enemy he’s about to enemy phase, or else he gets doubled.
Make sure he has enough hp to survive all enemies he’s gonna kill, which is a lot more limiting than it sounds because his def and hp are so low.
All while taking into account that other units can enemy phase too and potentially get better results with dodging thanks to WTA and critting with killer weapons.
And his player phase action needs to happen in a perfect position to set him up for a good enemy phase while he has 5 move…
Honestly I’m surprised he works as well as he does know, considering all of the above. I think the most he took out on enemy phase was 3 units, again I could do that with other units. His player phase combat is alright at least, kinda sucks to sometimes miss one shotting thresholds.
I kinda get why he feels so neutered, just a little bit of bulk or hp can turn this guy into a monster, and potentially a boring unit. Kinda wish I gave ambrosia to him, but ohwell. Maybe his PRF can have +1 range on player phase only somehow, that’s the only non boring suggestions I could think of.
Mae. Feels bad with 5 move, “swap” alleviates that a little. Didn’t double a lot, one rounded enemies that any person could have one rounded, even Yew bow didn’t noticeably improve her combat. She did one shot some myrms with Yew, so that’s nice, I guess? She has decent mixed bulk, there’s like three places where I actually found that to be useful. The most valuable one is prolly that part with light brand pegasi and other mages in the corner of ch10. Surely fighting fliers, that my other units don’t oneshot would make her more useful, surely…
He’s so fucking ass, lmao
Sigh, is this what I get for using my early game archers? god damnit.
Per. Giga filler, I promoted him on checkpoint. I can never complain too much about him, I just never invested in him heavily, he does his job.
Nete. I put so much favoritism into her, and she’s so mid. She’s is pretty interesting, though. Her mixed bulk allowed her to do some decent enemy phasing, not that she killed any one on those enemy phases, but whatever. Because her strength is so low, she missed one shots on some frail enemy mages, takes damage from them and thus effectively less bulky than Arne, which kinda sucks. Either that or she needs constant physic support, but Anie sometimes can’t keep up with how much damage she takes. Lots of things to consider with her when planning out a turn, which I find fun, if nothing else. Surely a magical axe with that MASSIVE 12 RESISTANCE will fix her combat, surely…
Arne. One thing I didn’t touch with Nete, is that their start is kinda bad. They’re fine on their join, somehow immediately fall off and then after some maps are decent again, weird how that works. I can’t believe he’s stronger and faster than her, even though I promoed him at lv10, when I promoed Nete at lv13. Has hit issues compared to her, which is balance I guess. I do like Arne overall, though. He grew on me.
Good unit. I dropped him because I’m not a fan of using good axe units. Has surprisingly good bulk.
Lasse. My man! Good unit feel, comes in has killing edge, it allows him to get ahead. Constantly keeps one rounding a lot of enemies, one rounds axe mercs that not a lot of people can one round, starts to get good enemy phasing potential because his avoid gets so high. HE CAN"T STOP WINNING!!! KEEP GAMBLING!
Nerysse. Healer/10. Barely managed to get her lv10 on the very last map too, by spamming mends. At least mends are pretty cheap in this game and sold in prep shop. Maybe in coming maps she’ll have decent combat too, considering her speed stat.
Meiri. Dancer with some sauce?! I almost don’t feel bad using a unit this overpowered. Crit dance is really good.
Plot
I like the plot so far, and looking forward to how it develops. At first I thought this hack was gonna parody fe11 plot. Events before the plot literally seem like a parody of a generic fe plot, our journey sort of starts like Marth’s tale, so I was looking forward to seeing how it was gonna subvert that.
So far nothing too out of the ordinary; The guy that was a dick, turned out to be an even bigger(or smaller) dick, we prolly not gonna be dealing with him for 14 chapters straight, so there’s an evil cult maybe and a resurrected dragon that might be true endgame, Esper is gonna be more plot relevant I’m sure. However, one character that stuck out to me as non standard is Bronwyn, surprisingly. I’m not talking about her coming into her role as a leader, that I think is pretty standard, more about that she slips sometimes and reveals that the stuff is getting to her. There’s a type of genre of games that I like to call “MC goes batshit crazy and you all you can do is watch the train-wreck”. Games like In Stars in Time or Butterfly Circuit come to mind. Although, obviously, this is just my speculation on how Bron’s character arc will go. Really excited to see what happens next!
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We’re coming home with this one 
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A bit late but just dropping by to teampost rather than just lurk for once and give thanks to sharing both NQR’s plans / current works. I’ve played through DoW and Do5 a few times each so I knew right away I was going do the same at least a couple more here and I’ve had a great time with both runs so far.
Very small spoilers, Content Warning: Glazing ahead
Random Things I Like
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Gameplay wise while this would be true of all maps, the thing that stands out to me most is how much defence maps put pressure on the player. There was a distinct feeling at least for me that I’m the one being put up against a metaphorical wall and being caught from several sides which is delicate but appreciable to balance. Control is the name of the game and you are set to be losing it.
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The deploy counts and exp gains allow you to rotate units which is chefs kiss.
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Swap can be…very fun. I love being like “oh this unit might be good there next turn. Or would be perfect for so and so to target. Time to cha cha slide.”
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It’d be criminal not to mention the status profile UI. The contrasting dragons against the light background is incredibly crisp and lovely to look at.
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A small and neat touch how the prologue has alt portraits for Anghara, Lorcan, and Gwen. The general variety of position and expressions across the cast is always wonderful to see.
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Music is not usually people’s first pick but it’s worth saying something since the usual staples among Phoenix Wright tracks usually fit previously but I’d like to highlight a couple. My favorite track is probably 14, so far? It’s really easy to listen to and something about it just has me jamming and eager to play. The shop theme is also an earworm. Specifically the way 52 is used in this is perfect, absolute banger choice.
Spoilers ahead, don’t read if you haven’t completed or don’t care.
Run 2 Team
1 should come before 2 but I wrote this first and RNG provided some different results per run (some are also used twice). This team had an express purpose to see what reinforcements might pop out on Chapter 12 and see how much of the units there they could kill (All of them. Someone made the right choice by running).
First our chubby princess. She had a pretty strong start but really struggled to gain a lot of stats in her later levels. Received ???. The early sprint still made her one of my most valuable units, however, and I’ve still got hope that her promotion levels will bring good things whether it be maintaining her kill power, more surprising bulk from what I’ve seen of her across two runs, or coming back up to doubling speed.
I really like how she comes into her own and look forward to seeing how she both flourishes as well as falters as she steps into her role. It’s an interesting mirror after Rena.
Even in a what-if scenario of alt FE6 we still get Marcus! Alright, that’s not fair, her bases are better and offer great early game performance. Old lady just says why do you expect me to grow, you babbling fool, at my age you shouldn’t expect anything other than the reverse.
An interesting mentor figure storywise that can make understandable mistakes and touch on the heart strings just right. I noticed by Chapter 12 she gets a silent bump to her support rank with Bronwyn too which I appreciate.
Gurl rocks. She often is seen securing kills alongside Lorcan or rushing up to Davett’s side to secure a frontline. The latter two tie for most reliable unit of this run.
Additionally going forward I might go off the mark with some of these, but I thought they’d be fun to write and I hope to read.
Seems most likely to: Rescue via Princess Carry (maybe holding the horse too)
A speedy cav who can get kills just by sheer ability to double, granted one who dares not be in range of more than 1 enemy lest he meet a equally swift end. Admittedly in a cast bearing a blessed Merry and a decent Hrolf, this leaves his performance with something to be desired, yet still serviceable. A unit I’ve rotated in and out the group depending on the needs of a chapter or to raise someone else like Sian.
Seems most likely to: Quell any discontent amidst a unit with just “The Look”
Look at that smile!
Speaking of her, lemme introduce lil’ miss “I’m gonna get power for my first 6 levels and then every other after.” She’s been carrying my team (both figuratively and literally) and making it look easy. Promoted at lvl 18 because she was close to capping things and I wanted to use lances with her before the demo ended, but prior to that she and Anghara swapped the Light Brand between them. Then Sian showed up who is the very natural user of it. With over halfway progress to S ranking swords, she’s surely making my final team.
Seems most likely to: Form a secret handshake
One would think having single digit speed would’ve seen him phased out of my team by now. Surprisingly not. He’s still mostly doubling armors and putting in work, and while niche, sometimes I have him use Thunder or squeeze in a kill using flame burst or something, then have another unit trade angel beacon to his equip slot to act as a psuedofrontliner. Like Lorcan, he’s someone I have to be careful with for the opposite reason but he’s still “solid-squishy” over just “squishy”.
Seems most likely to: Start a tea collection after the war
Okay, listen. This man f- reads unit descriptor Oh. Hm.
I absolutely adore how generals feel here. Davett is truly a wall that has aggro’d entire enemy pods like the Merit Crest group in CH 10 and walked off with barely a scratch, a far cry from my first playthrough’s turn 1 where on the same map my early attempts to push had me swiftly retreating to the bottom right. Has a great amount of kill power where it counts.
Seems most likely to: Have one of those rare 1hp survival moments alongside a comrade who helps him find purpose in life beyond meatshielding. That…or it just reinforces the soldier life harder on him til he finds a battle that finally ends him.
The portrait work here? Hunk with a capital H. Apply what I was going to say for Davett here but finish it.
He didn’t gain pwr often but I think this straddles a good line in unit identity for reasons CXM outlined above. Base use of axes helps his seemingly lower str growth and his spd/def make him a decent counter to other axe users with a sword later. At first glance he seems to overshadow Arne and Nete in the beginning but it’s clear later on he serves a much different role.
Seems most likely to: Have a secret romance he keeps from the group. Bonus points if Hrolf has merc solidarity Support ranks and knows when few others do.
He’s no Radu with a gun for an arm but he does his job well. I can see a world where horse archers sheer movement put him out of a job but there have been many moments where either he sniped through forests on the first defence map or he saw enemy archers behind fortifications and went “Nah, I’d win.” One of the Top 10 reasons it’s a good thing I try to save money for Hrolf so I haven’t put a Killer Bow in his hands yet.
Seems most likely to: Play beer pong with Davett. He always wins.
Not as stellar as my Caradoc but honestly she’s fine. They perform roughly the same and while she’s sat out for a map or two she works without issue. An archer pair with supports can be really powerful from my experience and both supporting Davett from behind lines makes for a combo I greatly enjoy.
Seems most likely to: Be a night person.
Dodge tank. Girlie said you aren’t lowering me to “healbot” look I can do so much more and…well anything that approached her often ended up dead, as her record shows. Has close to S rank in staves so Jasper has been training them in her stead while she shoots fireballs like a pro.
Seems most likely to: Form a “only normal person around my age” friendship with Bronwyn.
Having an increased deployment cost makes me shift him and out of the crew more frequently, but when I do pay for him I make sure he gets put to work. Will likely be made a permanent fixture for this run for appreciable bulk and being a consistent axe user (the recent load of cash also helps).
Seems most likely to: Have an extra pouch on his drake to yoink enemy stuff and sell later as part of his cut in the contract. Man secretly breaks the inventory limit because capitalism.
Danced away without drawing the ire of a single enemy, must be nice being one on a team of armor knights and taxis. She saw no use of her personal item in this run, but I know just how potent it can be thanks to my first. In a normal playthrough, it’s good. In a playthrough without a simple reroll and reload, it’s a godsend.
Seems most likely to: Have the longest record on those rites where people walk over hot coals.
I liked her recruitment dialogue, so she’s in. Plus due to a certain duo something about the armor knight + dark mage user combo just sits right with me. At worst, if I somehow don’t give Merry the next Ambrosial Fruit I will give it to her partner in crime. Then she’ll invent a new ranged weapon called Flying Book.
Seems most likely to: Be an innocent bystander in a mansion murder mystery.
See above. I’m missing a Dark magic user. Her prf…interests me. She’s in. So far killed a couple generals so she’s making a great career for herself.
Seems most likely to: Be the first to find a body in a mansion murder mystery. Proceeds to confuse everyone, including the killer, by contaminating evidence. Causes infighting. When the arrest finally happens (in no small part of her own actions, of course) claims credit for helping and politely inquires into compensation.
Run 1 Team
Admittedly, I’m not much of one to do ironmans. It normally takes the fun out of things for me, as if having a toy wrenched from you at a young age.
So when I was first feeling things out and managed to lose a couple units on the very first chapter, I was tempted to say okay and just redo the chapter, but I decided to stick with it partly because of the encouragement in the intro post, but also because the circumstances felt ripe for it in experiencing the story. Bronwyn is new to being a leader (let alone fighting), and nerves are surely getting the best of her so things going…not so well kind of fits for a blind playthrough.
And thus began a run of gestures towards our main star “This girlie can fit so much trauma.”
Due to my mistakes, this Bronwyn was a bit shakier of a leader than the second, having lost about half her potential cast. But what she is instead is someone who never really slowed down, capping speed in the later teens with power not long to follow. Her biggest MVP moment was on the final turn of the second defence map, taking on Arilda after a Devilish Whirl and then soloing the following calvary who barely had much hope touching her with her Rapier. Really made her pre-battle speech touching in hindsight.
After losing Jasper and Caradoc on the first real map and then Merry on the third, investing 2 Inner Fires into the Jeigan probably was…a choice. Admittedly did the same for Garath and Haban because Favoritism and being a sucker for their types yet in hindsight after my second run I realized how lucky I got with this one because she’s only had one or two “bad” level ups, and even one was a point of res. I’ll chalk it up to this Anghara realizing her charge needed more muscle to back her up, and boy has she done just that.
My first run had…weird RNG. I was thinking Lorcan and Gwen were supposed to be subversions because she was gaining lots of spd at first and Lorcan defense, but the end result is a very jack of all trades feel. May feels strange to use the same units twice in a run but I’m just thankful to have a potential support cav squad rolling around to help divert the scuff. Still rocks.
Lorcan has had a lot of clutch turns this run where he’s been single points from death to the point one of my Miracle Tonics has been permanently on his person, simultaneously his to use but also ready to be ferried towards others en masse like a water cooler on a sweltering day. Like to think he’s not only noticed the intentional sacrifice once or twice on this run but viewed it with an understanding eye.
The swingier of the two mages. Yet the one who lived, if in no small part due to me leaving her in archer range during chapter 1, looking at her defence, and immediately saying “oh gosh, oh gosh. wait there’s a swap function!”. Since then, Eilonwy has made liberal use of the Thunder tomes available throughout the story to act as a psuedo-archer when not finding a target to either double with firebolt safely or swap to Keening Flare when she gets above 50% chance to crit.
I know from my second playthrough that she gets dark magic on promotion which I’m curious to see in her hands. Her Con is very low but she has so much speed that in the same vein with Ludolf she’ll probably do some serious work with it.
Vengeance from afar. Often softens up targets from absolute safety and lets her allies get the kills in part because I’ve an abundance of longbow uses to spare. Frequent Dance target.
Not quite as good as the #arnepostchallenge Arne but still hits like a truck. Given his absolute refusal to gain speed, he’ll likely end up making good use of shortbows and tanking 2-range exchanges others can’t take.
Seems most likely to: Make an enemy retreat with that hard stare. Just one look at him and “lolnope”, guy’s made to be a bouncer and exudes his aura well.
Per is…a weird performer for me. In a team with cavs that outdo him in just about every way at first, he’s someone who really could’ve used a diverse equipment set to shore up his weaknesses that I couldn’t afford him, so he was just on cleanup duty until more recent maps where his spd & lck has reached the point hes doing the swordmaster thing of “oh, were you trying to hit me?”
Seems most likely to: Be a reoccurring opponent / friendly rival in something like pokemon. More setting appropriate has vibes of a guy who would start kill counts in Helms Deep.
Dancer/10. Dodged lightning for me in C10 and used her prf at critical moments to guarantee success.
Still strong enough to be a reckoning but not something I would dare provoke from the game unless I absolutely have to. The Coretta who actually uses her Barrier staff.
For Trefor, this might’ve started a bit personal. His recruitment was probably the moment I’d say I got my teeth kicked in most this run because I was (admittedly slowly) moving half of my forces more south of him when the northern forces came and lunged for his thralls. By the end Shaker was (more) dead as well as Davett and Ludolf.
His statistics don’t show this because he’s sifted in and out but his prf can be cracked and I love it. Killer Dark Luna Thunder sounds like song name from a band he’d listen to and even pegasi aught to give it a listen if they care to keep living. I bought a Withering for him which bumped him from “does decent damage” to “can maybe oneshot someone.”
Seems most likely to: Mutter when striking a breakthrough in his research, creeping out anyone who has their tent near his at night. One more for the trio of a guy who would name his thralls the way he did.
Megu-I mean Quistan here has a prf that just screams shiny big red button. Don’t you wanna press it? Don’t you?
I haven’t. Yet. For now Quistan serves lightning and big flame bursts, occasionally trying to convince Meirion to do that dance he saw once…
Seems most likely to: Work in a theatre where magic is used for special effects that one day disappears in a sudden fire no one could explain. Was never sighted in the area again.
10/10 face that says she’s punched a previous boss in theirs. Originally had a comrade in arms who lost the job thanks to uh…some really bad luck not moments after her recruitment. Her equipment and performance has been stellar. She comes out the box great and even if I’m a bit sad she lost her swordie solidarity.
Seems most likely to: Find someone selling shoddy swords on the street and purposefully break one to expose them in public.
Sian quietly does good work. Obvious Light Brand use aside, she has okay use for normal weapons, the only downside is her lower luck means she’s more likely to take scrapes when diving down near infantry.
Seems most likely to: Take a close friend up to see the view from on high. Cue accidental fall and swift recovery scene.
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Glad you enjoyed! I like the character writeups, those are very fun : D
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A few times I passed this topic while scrolling, thinking that it was an advance wars fire emblem hack(which is not something of interest to me) just because of the “advance” in the name. Now that I actually see it it looks fire and I will definately try it and be looking out for updates.
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No concrete updates, but rest assured, a lot is going on behind the scenes.
Such as: grass tilespam!
The internal file is pre-preps on the fourth-last map. Everything up to that point has its main writing complete, and has stood up to playtesting by both myself and Lumi.
As for what comes later:
Almost every main plot sequence in the campaign has been written. Many battle / death quotes, villages and endings (and such) have to be done, along with a couple remaining scenes, but we really are in the home stretch on that front.
Most of what’s left is polish. Most of the maps are kind of ugly placeholders at the moment; sprucing them up visually can wait until I’m sure I’m happy with where everything is placed. Some portraits still have to be done. I have a small group of willing beta testers, but before I inflict this on them, I’m going to conduct a final round of testing myself, with slightly more fresh eyes. Both of my campaigns so far have had rocky 1.0s, and I do not want to repeat that.
Forget what I said about placeholders, this mountain is of course final.
As a result, I feel pretty confident about saying that we will be good to go by the time FEE3 releases, and probably a little before. I’m currently leaning towards the next release being the full campaign, but I might release up to Chapter 18. We’ll see, but it looks like they’ll be close enough together to completion that I may as well just package it all together. There’s also a trailer that I made… some months ago, at this point, that was given over to the Hack Awards, so look out for that. Thanks for your support, and I’m hoping to give you something to sink your teeth into soon.
Swordmaster (7F) is of course a hugely different class to Swordmaster (16).
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