while waiting for future hacks by them you could check out their other avaible hacks
2 Likes
This FE hack is great, I really like the custom colors and designs🙂
2 Likes
Hello there, just finished it and created an account to write a review.
So, where should I start? The E3 trailer. Its deliberately retro style (I guess the opening four fragments serve the same purpose) and visuals perfectly in sync with the music’s rhythm are brilliant, and the final recommendation and packaging had me chuckling.
Next, naturally, is the art. At first, I was slightly perplexed by these portraits, because their style is unique. However, as I progressed through the game, I realized they complemented the overall design perfectly — or rather, that the style ought to be this way. Moreover, they have new portraits after being promoted! Another amazing thing was the redesigned experience bar. Based on the story, I think it’s the shape of a flame? Yet I can’t help thinking of petals… The combat animations are exceptionally smooth, making it a pity to skip them. The circular composition of the ice dragon and fire dragon reminds me of the Taiji diagram.
Then there’s the music. I’m unfamiliar with most of the sources, but I’m particularly fond of the music for the belief-related scenes (No. 42 in the sound room), which sounds dreamy. Nos. 65 and 66 are also great.
And the plot. The narrative effectively drove me forward, keeping me hooked until the end. Almost always. That’s quite reasonable, after all, DoW is my favorite hack.
Chapter-By-Chapter brief review, fragmented, contains spoilers
I use s/l because I’m not a good player. And I tend to use the initial units, as I believe there are no truly poor units, which clearly caused some trouble later.
During the game, I shared the story with my classmate, Lai. Below are some snippets of our conversation.
Prologue. A suspenseful opening. It appears this story is set in the southern hemisphere.
Ch 1. I’d played DoW, so I was quite nervous at the beginning. But soon I found that it was much gentler.
Lai: Bronwyn seems like a character who’ll grow into her role. Oh yeah!
Ch 2. Its difficulty level is appropriate for the story. I’d played DoW, so I had some theories about Esper.
Ch 3. Still not too much pressure. I began to fancy myself as an improving FE player.
Ch 4. A little stressful. I nearly lost Ludolf, but RNG suddenly produced a good result.
Ch 5. S/L several times to get a team capable of dealing with the reinforcements above. Killed the boss at the eighth turn.
Ch 6. Progress was a little slow in the central part of the map. I finished it just at the last turn.
Ch 7. I recruited all Loyalists and let them all dead, my bad.
Ch 8. I used two extra turns to defeat the boss to give Per exp. But he didn’t grow much.
Ch 9. The AI of many enemies is ‘guard’, as the plot implied. Somehow, I forgot about the village in the top right. Killing militiamen brings no experience; as the narrative demonstrates, it is a senseless slaughter…
Ch 10. The illusion of becoming better at FE was shattered. I reset, giving up the secondary objective.
Ch 11. A wrong strategy resulted in the inability to obtain the chest and Merry survived. But between virtual items and virtual lives, I would always choose the latter.
Ch 12. I’d loaded several times in the earlier turns, searching for a route that would keep Anghara safe.
Ch 13. I didn’t quite get the target. But killing them all must be the right thing to do. Support implies a lot 
Ch 14. I played rather aggressively because I was concerned about the safety of the left wing. This ended up a dangerous state, but I still managed to overcome it. Though most of them won’t be joining the team, keeping them alive made me feel well. I imagine Bronwyn feels the same.
Too late to discover that some units could move across mountains.
Spending several turns attempting to gain some exp for the healer, if only I’d known…
Ch 15. Another gentle chapter. The sacrifice of green units shall not be forgotten.
Lai: So, the advisor departed? A bit sad.
I: If she surrendered, would you dare to use her?
Lai: …
Lai: Nope.
Alas, a crisis of confidence.
Ch 16. Defeated the boss at the ninth turn. I thought his reinforcements would be numerous.
Ch 17. The calm before the storm. The longer, rapidly vanishing scroll effectively set the mood, and the relatively cheerful plot (more blood and fewer holes 
) made me feel even more uneasy. Btw, I’d been wondering whose perspective the opening scroll represents, as it clearly carries an emotional bias and knows too much.
Ch 18. The storm. 13 turns. During the enemy’s turn, the last few foes overwhelmed Anghara. The sudden change in the music and emotionless brief description before (or after?) each turn were absolutely brilliant. I could feel Parrhesia truly showing his skills.
“So f-- far… from home”, this reminds me of DoW.
The atmosphere of this chapter fits a performance that switch between day and night, in my opinion.
There is much to be said about this chapter, but if I were to sum up my feelings in a single sentence, it would be this: “那雪正下得紧”. (Yeah, I used Chinese because it’s a quotation.)
Ch 19. Dryche’s Mov. If I give her Fleet Spirit, does that count as a cure
Ch 20. Colorful skeletons, fitting for their former identities, great.
Ch 21. I played cautiously, then in the final turn, discovered just one tile away from the village at the top. Reset angrily. Played aggressively, visited every village, but still missing the boss on the far left.
Ch 22. I like the color scheme of those wyvern riders. Using swap to reposition the dancer, I let Bronwyn kill the warchief on the turn she appears.
I’d played DoW (long time no say), so… don’t drink unless get some salt first…
Ch 23. Exciting romantic scenes!
Really?
I: Classic character setup and storyline. Too classic…
Lai: So do I.
I: Let’s forget about it. At the very least… her right of succession cannot be denied.
Lai: Yeah…
A crisis of confidence, not targeted at that guy.
Go back to the map. The pressure from the Pegasus knight and enemies near the sniper was intense, then was just mopping up.
I find this tower rather ominous; I suggest demolishing it after the war
Ch 24. Given the plot, I thought there would be a turn limit. I attempted to break the walls, but the swarm of enemies made me feel threatened, so I ultimately chose to play it safe. This chapter somewhat recalls Ch 14 of DoW, though this time the enemy numbers are more restrained. (Though I really love DoW, Ch 14 made me sick from killing too many.)
I gradually found that Heroic Struggle is perfectly suited to the Christmas cavs, particularly given LaL’s plot.
Ch 25. The description of ‘immortality’ unsettled me, but thankfully I soon realized this chapter was time-limited.
Bits and pieces, a few spoilers
This is the first time I’ve seen the NQR logo. Bunny and… Mustela? Indeed, not rodents.
In the turn count, Ch 19 and 20 are listed as ‘final’ 
Ludolf was the only one who still alive when Anghara was defeated. Thus, he disappeared in the ending part. I guess he was vaporised.
Bronwyn, I know you don’t want to be seen as your grandmother, but, could you please increase your Res a little 
In short， with its well-balanced difficulty curve, harmonious and neat art style, and compelling plot, Homecoming is undoubtedly one of the finest hacks I’ve completed (though I haven’t played many). Thank you very much for your work.
4 Likes
Thank you for playing, glad you enjoyed!
Yeah, the exp bar is designed after a flame. There’s some limitations of what I can do due to needing it to work with repeating tiles, but glad you noticed!
你也是中国人？
4 Likes
I realised that I had intended to add a sentence after the quotation: ‘If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.’ Too sleepy last night…
所以答案是……是的，我是中国人，土生土长 (◦˙▽˙◦)
1 Like
What else can I say, I loved this hack. The chapters were great, the story was fantastic, Luminescent Blade’s visuals were drop dead gorgeous (as always). It’s just peak old-school GBAFE, like DoW and Dream of Five. All I can say is I’m thankful y’all brought these works into existence because they were a joy to play through.
I want to specifically shout out new recruits being playable out of the box, even if you have a pretty stacked party. Made it a lot more palatable for me to bronze-man through the game.
I also want to say that the villains in this game are probably the best of NQR’s hackrom trilogy. I was both eager to knock them down while also pitying them as I did so. The Brand death scenemade me tear up, and that’s despite him being objectively despicable! The main antagonist was also phenomenal. I loved how his past mimics that of your typical FE lord, and his less-than-noble actions being direct consequences of what he experienced there. Kind of like what Marth could end up like if he wasn’t basically perfect.
In terms of unit showcases, my team was pretty standard. Lots of pegasus knights because I love fliers (and the ones in this game are kind of cracked). I will give a special shoutout to this game’s “Est”, for being a very satisfying zero-to-hero while also having the payoff of a hilarious ending reveal.
TL;DR, this hack is amazing, and everyone who worked on this is talented beyond measure.
3 Likes
Made it up to Chapter 7.
Spoiler Thoughts:
The King of Palnata is either a fool when it comes to politics outside his own realm, or he’s trying to start a war and take over Veila for himself out of sheer fear of a second Black Queen.
His entire plan for the princess has two holes so large, it’s not even funny.
Namely:
1.) You never let her and her arranged husband meet. You never give them a chance to actually connect with each other even though she’s to be his wife.
You’re just upping the odds of your son’s wife pulling a scandal on him… or you’re deliberately trying to make sure he doesn’t get too attached to her.
2.) You expect a princess with the mannerisms and such of her own country’s sworn enemy to be recognized as such by her own people. Really?
You’ve never even taken her to Veila, nor bothered to even teach her about it.
You’re either begging for a revolt to start when she just becomes seen as a puppet queen… Or you’re deliberately trying to provoke one because you don’t need her to live. (Casus Belli would apply if she married the prince…)
“An eye for an eye makes the world go blind.” As it were.
The way I see it personally, the king is so, so afraid of a second Black Queen that he dismissed the idea of a true unity a long time ago.
Instead, he would rather play the long game and then go to war and take it all over because he doesn’t ever want to take that chance.
I do think, assuming he’s not a fool, he actually would have sent the assassins to kill the princess and arranged events to unfold the way they did so that either way, he’d have pretext for a war on Veila.
Anghara would either likely blame the king for failing to protect her, and start an international incident, or this provides the pretext to start the story off as we know it.
Because removing Cadogan both reduces the amount of Veilan forces and also plunges the country into a state that’s easier for you to take over.
From the sound of it, he only didn’t do it back then because of likely sheer exhaustion and a lack of resources to actually hold Veila… things he now presumably has. (Also because killing the infant princess would just be provoking and starting a war that quite frankly he couldn’t have afforded to fight).
Though in his defense, this is a sticky situation regardless- that risk is something that, honestly, would ward off the idea of showing compassion and mercy from the logical perspective.
Why give a potential enemy anything to work with?
But then, the illogical thing is often what brings about the lasting peace…
… though of course I could be completely off-base but I digress. (Especially since I’m rambling).
Fun hack so far!
EDIT: How the flywheels did I not notice all this was showing by default?
No wonder everyone does spoiler blur these days…
1 Like
Stuck on Chapter 1; the enemies here are too fast, struggling to keep everyone alive
Cleared Chapter 18.
Spoilers Feedback:
I love Chapter 18; my one main complaint is that while everyone gets a lot of neat stuff to work with, the issue now becomes that, depending on who you benched prior, some people are way underleveled- and not just that, but to the point where they can’t even use the weapons they come with.
My suggestion personally is to alleviate this by putting in something that would boost up everyone’s weapon ranks temporarily so that they could wield all their weapons.
Otherwise you get fun moments like Rhihian having no way of using anything else he comes with this chapter except the Javelin at base. (Yes Promotion does help alleviate this but there are people I have that are legitimately single-digit levels… and you don’t get the promo items until after the chapter starts and you’re kinda encouraged to start going on the offensive from the start…)
Also does anything change if nobody else dies prior to the chapter ending?
Story thought wise..
I feel so bad for Bronwyn- there’s nothing like turning out to have a gift and have it be tainted with the scent of destruction and ruin…
Both Asbjorn and Brand have the same flaws I feel like- Pride and Prejudice.
The only difference is that Asbjorn can keep his in check for the most part- and Brand couldn’t.
Ironically, being isolated is what kept Branwyn from falling into the same pitfall (but not without consequences)… and it is because of those qualities that she’ll hopefully make for a better queen.
Oh, and I do appreciate the “Do not go gentle into that good night” reference. Very apt.
Also random thought that came to mind after clearing Chapter 18 (a modification of something from Herodotus here):
“Go tell the Veilans, stranger passing by, that here obedient to their laws we lie.”
EDIT: Fixed to actually spoiler now. Whoops!
3 Likes
Just a note, discourse software is a little janky and you’ll have to manually collapse spoiler boxes in preview for them to actually spoiler.
as for the question
they’re all treated as dead–gwen and lorcan are special cases since they have a retreat flag due to them having nontrivial amounts of dialogue pre-18. The implication is asbjorn (or his guys) killed them all offscreen
2 Likes
Damn, okay. Well, that actually is a load off my mind lol. You should’ve seen me losing my mind- I’m proud of going 14 turns without a single casualty. Actually made it up to turn 15 or so (I think) once people stsrted to finally die.
I paid a huge price in blood and lost some of my best reservists, but goddamn if I didn’t make it worth it.
Shout-out to Hrolf and Trefor especially- the former who earned every single coin of that 400 gold and then some… And that said, I’m gonna try and redo 18 later with different people because I want to not have to sacrifice as many of my better reservists.
Update: Redid it with different units. Also broke one of my taboos of early promoting for this.
The end result…
16 turns lasted (well, end of Turn 15’s Enemy Phase, but not withoutncasualties around turn 12 or so, shamefully. (With some luck, I think, I actually could have made it all the way through without casualties…).
Turns out the map forcefully ends at that point.
Above: My team for this chapter on redoing it.
I’d like to thank Brychan especially for contributing massive amounts of bodies.
Gildas’s whole squad also contributed a whole lot of work tol- Hywel and Llewyn both were key players in using their Killer Shortbows to crit to death enemies. Jasper used his Prf and Aneurin’s Fire Blast tome to great effect by the end… everyone put forward something for this and I couldn’t be happier.
Could I do this with Anghara only and last the turns needed to die freely? Sure, and that would save everyone else.
But that would give Asbjorn the supplies and screw me out of gold… and I’m not having that.
Also, every named character except for Asbjorn on the enemy side was taken down this time.
3 Likes
Is there something wrong with my rom? The advice part of chapter’s 6 Mission command seems inaccurate to the gameplay.
No, but it’s probably out of date. There was a change made to the reinforcements but it took a few patches before that change was reflected in the Advice. If it is up to date then it’s a fix slated for the next release.
Cleared it!
Closing Thoughts:
This was a fun experience overall- I do like how brisk the pace of gameplay remains throughout the game. And the aesthetic sense for the portraits and such is a unique one that I really appreciate- it makes the world seem more alive.
Truly, the only way to end the cycle is through forgiveness, however irrational it might be.
That said, I do appreciate Bronwyn’s ultimate verdict on Asbjorn- not to forgive him, but pity him instead.
But that’s enough for the story. Gameplay wise…
I think some units could use a few tune-ups. Namely:
Arne and Nete are hamstrung badly by their speed it feels like- it’s fine for the early game but by the mid it starts to show and the late game absolutely has it become apparent that their low speed kinda limits their options as to what they can handle.
They don’t feel good to use because they get doubled and because they have low defenses, their HP pool gets depleted very very quickly… and hitting hard only matters if you actually get the chance to. (And they don’t do a good job dodging either without WTA; not helped either by a lack of support options…
Getting doubled is an issuebfor armor Knights who can typically handle it by tanking it with their good defense stat but Arne and Nete just don’t got it.
At least the Great Knight is an armored unit with cav mobility who can handle things.
Jasper also suffers a similar issue because while his PRF tome is meant to make him defensively tanky and that works for the early game, it feels like by the lategame he can’t do that because his speed stat is too low to truly let him and that problem is only further compounded by his lack of bulk.
Shaker and Rattler are… weird. They’re unique but I feel like they both suffer from different issues.
They both have no Luck and no Res, which is already kind of bad in and of itself, but it feels like they have average stats otherwise and can’t carve a niche for themselves because it seems like somebody else can do them better. (And no Luck does also kinda impact their hit rates).
Their support with Trefor does help patch up their flaws but it still means that neither one can really handle extended combat… though that might be the intent.
Otherwise, nothing else to report. Good hack!
2 Likes
Final Team
She was fairly mediocre in the earlygame, barely killing any guards or cavaliers with her rapier. After promoting though, she became a fairly balanced and strong frontliner, especially with the Prf Staff.
Lategame Manakete, what is there to say? He doesn’t start tanky or fast enough to be used as a wall, and he often need chipping/dancing to get a kill, but aside from that, he’s hard to dislike.
Earlygame healer, with an actual speed and defense stat? Gimme! Her lower Staff rank compared to the old man wasn’t really a burden, so she quickly assumed healing duties, and later became the sole user of Unmaking Wish. Worth promoting later.
Wasn’t expecting much of the early game flier, but I was continuously proven wrong every time she hit her pwr growth. One of the most versatile and useful units in the game.
Holy shit, she was so good, getting both speed and pwr in multiple level ups, and never really stopped either. Possibly top one of my units.
Again, wasn’t expecting much of the early game myrm, but he had such great base stats, and hit just enough pwr level to stay good. Swordmasters getting 20% crit, plus multiple availablecrit swords, made them one of the best classes in the game.
Dancer. Gave her the boots as soon as I got it. Barely used her rings, which was a big mistake. In total, used her first ring twice (the second use being on the final chapter, to deal with the dangerous marksman) and her second ring only once. Don’t be hoarders, pals!
Funny est go Boom and Bang on enemies. Her first usable chapter was very good to her as well, with all the gargoyles and stationery guards.
Wasn’t expecting her to be so good honestly. Supply access, good defense and pwr, superb speed with luck. Made use of the last 13 uses of bronwyn’s rapier, and then switched to a lancereaver.
From the start, he was getting far faster than the Red Cav, which had started to fall off due to speed issues.and then she died in chapter 18. Lorcan himself wasn’t doing so hot in the final few chapters, but he never felt inadequate to bring.
Really wanted another marksman, and caradoc was trash. So Corentin was left. Wish he had gotten more Spd.
God I was surprised to see she had 30% growth in her speed, cuz she just refused to get any more points in it. Basically just used her for the sake of favoritism.
Used him just so I could say I had an infinite use weapon and a dedicated elder magic user. Was good enough to at least kill Dreadnought.
Again, swordmasters are cracked in this game. Used her prf a fair amount.
Kinda underwhelming? But also one of the better magic users. Her prf was pretty useful to guarantee kills.
Standard Pre promoted Pegasus knight. Sufficed and her double defenses were useful.
5 Likes
Well now I HAVE to play it next
Lebbians🙏
2 Likes
Bad news about Corentin.
10 Likes
These kids straight! Good for them.
Edit:I do not actually know if this is true, but Corentin is not a girl so you know.
1 Like
Oh shit my bad
Uhhhh queers🙏
1 Like