[FE8] Fire Emblem Advance: Homecoming [COMPLETE]

Trefor is one of my favorites so I gave him a bit of extra sauce in his promo design haha

4 Likes
Spoiler

Trefor was one of my favourite characters as well. I didn’t have room to deploy him in chapters 16 and 17 because I was trying to level some other characters, but don’t worry, I deployed him in chapter 18 so he wouldn’t fall behind. :smiley:

Anyway, just finished the game about 15 minutes ago. Excellent work - truly legendary. Bronwyn is so well-written and there were more than a couple of story moments that made me do that heavy drama inhale. I seriously can’t wait for the next NQR project - no matter what it is, I’m sure it’ll be peak.

4 Likes

I also enjoyed chapter 18.

Spoilers

Is there any way to tell when you’ve gotten the most gold out of the chapter? I managed to hold off for a fair bit before the end. R.I.P guys I sent to die, unless there was a way to save the non plot death there.

It did feel kinda nice taking down The Corpse formally known as Prince, though I’m sad he had to take his snarky general with him.

Gone too soon…

2 Likes

mention

1 Like

On ch 3, are the villages supposed to be visitable? I am unable to.

Spoilers

Full turn limit is 16, though I dont remember if we cut off increases from turn 12 on or not, so it’s one of those.

Yellow houses in theory should be a hp heal and no dialogue but i think the events may not be set up properly for that so i’ll file that issue. Red houses should give you stuff and be visitable.

3 Likes

Game completed! Had a very good time. Gameplay was well balanced with only chapter 9 feeling a bit too overwhelming, the last couple of reinforcements having really good weapons kinda did me in and I gave up on getting all the droppables. The artwork for both the sprites and CGs were fantastic, and with a more melancholic tone to the story, I think that goal of this feeling like an alternate universe version of FE6 was accomplished.

More spoilery thoughts and the usual endgame team screenshots below.

Story thoughts and spoilers

“Ignorance is not bliss.” seemed to be the running theme of the story, it’s first introduced with Bronwyn being raised completely unaware of her homeland, and being used as a pawn at the start. But it’s with Brand I noticed it being something that the whole narrative echoes. Asbjorn kept the ugliness of the war from him. Having a romanticized view of warfare and ignorant of the fact that it doesn’t have winners, only survivors, lead him to his downfall. It’s almost enough to make me feel bad for the kid. Not enough for me to not want to shank him, though. And then finally, the man who wielded ignorance like a blade, Asbjorn himself. Keeping Bronwyn in that gilded cage, giving his son the wrong view of the war, lying to his wife and army about trying to win the war via poison, and finally, being ignorant to the fact that all of his sins would lose his favor with the gods. That he was still the Hero he used to be, and that Bronwyn was all the evil her grandmother was.

Speaking of that grandmother, I think she ended up being my favorite character. With the Death of Anghara you feel like you’ve lost the last traces of Brecilien in the story, only for her presence to absolutely explode after the failed possession shenanigans. She made a good contrast to Bronnie and helped fill the void left by Anghara after her death.

It’s the obligatory endgame team screenshots!

I’m pretty sure I got lucky, because almost all of her levels were amazing and once promoted she became one of my main fighters. Naturally hit 20/20 Didn’t really use staves after getting them, other than Grandma Sicko Mode’s cane. It was fun watching her grow into someone I would call a true queen by the end of the game. Not with the iron grip of a tyrant, but a gentle stroke of the cheek by someone who genuinely cares.

The Gotoh, but with the number go up fun of the est! I figured being a draconic something or other was the twist, but getting to control him as a full gosh darned dragon the whole time was a treat.

I liked her little subplot, and in a cruel twist of fate, she got more defense levels than a lot of my other early game characters. Didn’t fight a lot, but Physic is Physic.

You can dance if you want to, leave your abusive ex behind.

Necromancer! There aren’t enough of these guys in Fire Emblem. So having one side with me filled me with the strength of 7000 power liches.

DD A G

With Longbows being a thing, better bases than my other archers at the time, and the fact I have a skeleton enlisted in the army shot her up to one of my favorite units to use. Plus, she’s tanky as hell! Love this gal. (The promoted sprites for all three of these guys are my favorite in the entire game, btw.)

The Milk was not wrong.

Used these two the whole game, constantly together. They weren’t as powerful as a few others by the endgame, but they made good clean up duty for any enemies that were low health.

Most of that strength came from his levels as a Hero, for a majority of the game he was acting like a meatshield. He had sole access to axes though, so his low attack didn’t matter too much when he had exclusive use of some of the highest power items in the game. Also used some blades on him for the funny. Had my favorite final battle quote.

My best combat unit for most of the game, even if he’s knocked down by a stiff breeze. He would consistently get 0 hit chance against anything with an axe though, so if there weren’t any lances in sight I just had him go to town. Kinda lost some steam at the end thanks to how crazy Bronnie got, but still got a lot of use nonetheless.

…It’s funny, I used all three but I genuinely never even tried to triangle attack, so I don’t know if it’s here or not. All three got a lot of use, and magic swords not being rare and using res as a stat meant they could actually take down tougher enemies you wouldn’t expect a pegasus knight to be able to handle.

I had room for one more dude so I brought him for Moral support. Rhian, my original 16th guy, died at chapter 18. (Funny trick, by the way, making the previous mission a 14 mission deploy when the one before was 16. Rhian and Troubador girl I was actually using R.I.P :c)

6 Likes

Skellies ftw! Also thank you, because your comment made me go and check on triangle attack as I’m also using the 3 seraphs and hadn’t yet. Not much use for you now that most enemies fled that stronk Bron but can confirm it’s in. Also not too hard to set up with Levin Kris having up to 3 range.

Spoiler

4 Likes

thank you for playing and glad you enjoyed! glad you liked the art.

very happy that treforgang’s promo set seems to be a hit :smiley:

3 Likes

Damn, Parr has another game I didn’t know about? Hell yeah, let me at it!

NO WAY, that it amazing :sob:

7 Likes

My Bronwyn has 11 speed at level 17 it’s over for me

Game is amazing so far tho! So impressed with the art design

4 Likes

I played thru this over the past week or so. It’s hard to know if feedback is even necessary on a work that’s this “Complete,” as it were. This is completely polished, in visuals, story, gameplay. Every piece feels like a deliberate and well considered part of a whole. This was wonderful.

Like it would be for any audience member, there’s tidbits here or there that don’t match my personal taste, but I don’t think there’s much use to wasting words about it. All the team’s design decisions were bold, clear and coheasive.

With that, I hope that I can at least compliment this in ways that are meaningful:

  1. The story split an impressive balance between being a dead-to-rights Fire Emblem tale, with all of the appropriate story beats… and despite being such an honest recreation, having a central premise that turns the usual story on its head. It was so fun to realize that there is “prequel” already baked into here, an FE7 to this alternate FE6 - Absjorn’s story, before Bronwyn’s. It made the final chapters and the bosses of the final chapters, all that more bittersweet. Just a very smart use of plot, character and exposition.

  2. The art, like everyone is bound to mention when talking about this hack, is outstanding. I started dipping my toes into spriting after being inspired by the full release of Dream of Five, with a few of my edits/sprites making it into a released hack. It’s a pleasure to get a second dose of inspiriation to keep getting better at it, get a view of what it would look like to take the hobby more seriously and work magic with it. Thanks for the push.

2 Likes

@Parrhesia was wondering if we could get a reverse challenge mode (Vantage+) for all 3 romhacks u and ur team made?

I finished a romhack that had reverse mode and it was an amazing experience that got me ADDICTED for more!!

:sob:

yes i am shamelessly asking all romhacks i love if they can add this mode, prolly not but i still have to ask for future challenge runs!

1 Like

Glad you enjoyed! Honored to know my art’s an inspiration :saluting_face:

This would probably be a bit too high effort for our hacks, since we don’t use skillsys as a base. Adding Skillsys to a finished hack will likely break quite a few things from patch and custom code clashing, so the other option would mean I’d have to go write a bunch of custom code in C for this instead of just enabling some skills.

3 Likes

I understand, i asked around a bit and got the same answer, i just though it was like a patch u can install on febuilder but its wayy deeper then that, thanks anyways.

Ill just use the “we got fake reverse mode at home” wich = giving enemies 2 turns to atk

:sob: :joy:

2 Likes

This game is so underrated

The quality of the game is so good.

2 Likes

Finally got across the finish line on this one.

I will probably edit this up later with more details, but just some big thoughts at this stage:

STORY (SPOILERS)

I was a big fan of the story. Thought it was well delivered, and I loved that it really did feel like there were several distinct “Acts” within the story (to me, its up to when Brand kills the Chancellor, then from there to Brand’s death, and then the final stretch). I also really appreciated the level of ambiguity that did kind of exist here. Some characters were pretty unquestionably awful, but especially down the stretch I loved the fact that it actually felt a bit unsettling to think about whether we were really in the right.

Another commenter above made a similar observation, about how it was funny to have a game that per word of the creators was intending to be an FE6 parallel have the sense that there was also a prequel story, like an FE7. But the distinction thats key, I think, is that unlike FE6/7, we aren’t playing the children of the prequel’s heroes - we’re essentially playing the descendants of the villians, and for the last several chapters we are mowing down an army of characters who feel like they would have been the party of the previous game (from the blue-haired Lord to the Christmas Cavs Brokk & Eitri).

UNITS / CHARACTERS

I liked the cast a lot,

Story (and vibe)-wise, the biggest standouts were probably Anghara (by a mile), then Bronwyn (great arc and progression), and then I did really like Corentin and Kaelin as well. I also really enjoyed the flavor of Hrolf as well throughout the game, even though he didn’t really have story relevance, and thought Brychan was a really cool character as well for what he was. I also found Asbjorn to be an excellently done character.

Gameplay wise, I felt like the case might be a bit too “backloaded”. Lots of great units near the end of the game, and most of the characters from early on felt like they just couldn’t keep up, even with relatively high levels of investment. Through the final several chapters, I really felt like I was highly centralized around mostly new units (plus Bronwyn), as almost every other unit I had had become a liability. Maybe units got screwed, or maybe I picked not great characters (and I know some folks had really good experiences with certain units), but for me really only Hrolf and Lorcan were still meaningfully contributing, while Deheuba, Gwenael, Ludolf, Corentin, and a few others had reached a point where they were constantly getting one rounded by enemies with Brave Weapons or Light Brands and forcing resets (or, like Eilowny, they’d been benched several chapters previously), leading me to use them incredibly conservatively to keep them safe. Meanwhile, it was down to units like Eskuldur, Enrhyn, Drycha, Esper and (Sorcerer whose name I’m blanking on who has Evoker Mantra). It was cool, but also a bit disappointing to feel like the rest of my cast was outclassed.

I know this is really tough to manage, because late recruits almost always NEED to be stronger than early game characters or should at least open up new niches - you get attached to your early units, so if the new units are just “equally good”, then they get auto-benched and might as well not exist (note that this obviously differs in Ironman formats, etc, where it may be fair to make early units strong as a reward for bringing them along, with late units as replacements that are intended to be slightly worse). And again, my experience is anecdotal - others may have very different experiences. But for my money, at least, I’d wonder if there isn’t some room at least to just give some of those earlier units a LITTLE more kick in the late game.

MAPS / MOMENTS (Spoilers)

By far, the standout map of the game is Chapter 18. Just… damn. So well done. As soon as Anghara got those stat boosts, I knew things were looking rough for her and for anybody else I dragged onto this map. I chose this as the place for some of my “B-Team” to die, and regret nothing. Gorgeous map. It would be nice to be able to see more clearly what I “won” in the end with my performance, but I was quite happy with this.

I also really enjoyed the revamped early game, and the final stretch was excellent.

I loved throughout the frequency of “generals”/”elites” with special portraits, etc (even in Chapter 1!). It gives more flavor to always feel like there are these prominent aces on the other side (most of whom arent recruitable), instead of the typical “if it has a face, its joining you” (cue the famous Awkward Zombie comic).

Overall, super impressed. This and Hag are my two fave projects of the year so far, both have been very different from each other but both extremely satisfying.

Cheers!

4 Likes

I just started playing this last night. Bronwyn is very cute and the plot is intriguing. It’s already feeling like a tenouddaten.

3 Likes

Good news I have Come Home. Various thoughts to follow (spoilers blurred as needed inside the dropdowns.)

Review of various points

–Story: Good stuff. Love a good “and then what?”, executed with love for the series. Goddamn, Asbjorn, I wanted you to remember how to not suck right up to the end, you were supposed to be the chosen one-- Anyway, the aftermath of the Accords was well examined, nothing tied up so easily with a bow. I appreciated also that it wasn’t a simple, cynical “actually the ‘good guys’ from earlier were actually the bad guys all along”, rather a “things were more complicated, and also it’s also just very possible to slide from genuine good intentions into corruption.”

– Main Protag: I quite liked Bronwyn. Nice blend of the “compassionate princess” type and trying to be a good person with the harsh realities she was thrust into. The villain aesthetic clashing heavily with her personality is definitely a charm point.

–Art: Lumi/10, respect the legend, no notes. Some favorites though in no particular order: Fychan (freckles cute! hair cute! cute!!!), Nete (idk I have a soft spot for her), Swestra, Coretta (promo especially), Meirionn, Corentin, Lasse (bro. your hat.), Trefor, and of course our mother who art in war crimes, Anghara. Also all the generics tbh! I like that the cast is super varied and not all cookie cutter anime pretty. (Corentin can be pretty though. He’s allowed.)

Also, the custom UI was pretty sweet.

–Music: Good choices. I most often noticed it when the frantic map music was matching up with the amount of screwed that I was, but I also really liked the somber-yet-grand motif from Lock’s Quest that turned up in a couple of tracks.

–Gameplay: I’m a wuss. That said, my frustration was rarely with anything other than “this is hard and I am kind of a scrub.” Information was always readily available and the challenge wasn’t derived from cheap tricks. Definitely the most difficulty I’ve had with one of your hacks, but that’s okay, I was expecting that.

– Chapter 18: oh my god man

You already got a bit of direct liveblog from me when the penny dropped regarding what was gonna happen, but I wanted to call out the execution of that as being really good anyway. The growing sense of things going more and more wrong, until that moment of “ah. we’re not making it out of this one, are we”… oof ow. It’s the sort of thing that can only be pulled off once in a while, lest the feeling of it be cheapened, but you very definitely landed it.

Quibbles

– I admit I was a bit thrown by the depths of Brand’s misogyny towards Bronwyn. I think the thing is that I’m not quite sure where he got that much of it-- it makes perfect sense for him to be hopped up on prejudices about nationality and religion, and to dismiss Bronwyn’s intelligence based on her upbringing and the fact that he’s a hubristic little ass. And it also makes sense for him to resent being saddled with the responsibility of having kids with her, but the amount that he belittles her specifically along the reproductive angle is. Idk. For all Asbjorn’s failings that doesn’t seem like something he’d teach his kid, doesn’t seem to be something super endemic to Palnata, and overall made me go “who have you been talking to, Brand, Wulfram and Jurechka DoW?” Just kind of stuck out a bit.

– I had to give this one a good think, because it is known that I am Support Conversations Georg and I didn’t want this to just be about personal taste on a conscious design decision, but ultimately the supports (lack thereof) were kind of hard for me to keep my head wrapped around. With no conversations and no indicators that the levels were going up, it was easy for me to forget that supports mechanically existed up until getting Gildan and the squad and getting an explicit reminder. I think keeping in the “support level up” messaging when relevant might have helped keep them mechanically more visible-- granted I don’t know if Builder actually lets you do that when manually raising a support. Might be a limitation of the medium I guess.

Stuff I’m generally curious about

– So the vast majority of the nonbinary characters in this are associated with Voluspa (either with the Frost temple or the ice side of Balance.) Which is an interesting contrast since the Frost devotion tends to be about lawfulness often to the point of rigidity. Of course ice is one form of something famously un-rigid… was the religious devotion to Frost perhaps focused more on Water in general in eras past, with the symbolism of fluidity reflecting in the clergy (even as an artifact when the culture later shifted to have a stronger emphasis on Order)?

or did we all just freeze our genders off in palnata (this is a joke please laugh)

– Speaking of Balance, obviously the Temple of Balance was founded as a means of control. They did seem to have their own agenda outside of upholding Asbjorn’s order at times but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. Did they have their own weird ambitions, or am I reading too much/not enough into it? (i am kind of sleep deprived. )

Anyway overall, very solid Fire Emblem that provides a more grounded take on areas the series has approached but not covered as interestingly I think. Aesthetics are chefkiss, story is real good, gameplay leans towards a part of the series that is a little less my personal taste but I can still tell it’s quite well executed. Great work.

5 Likes
I’m on Chapter 18

I have complete and utter faith in Per.

4 Likes