[FE8] Fire Emblem: All Under Heaven [WIP] [16/26 Chapters]

[gerb]

All Under Heaven is a FE8 romhack I’ve been working on for a while, and I hope you all can enjoy.
This current release has 16 complete and playable chapters, with a total of ~26 planned.

Download link:

Dropbox

Story:
“A Contemporary Account of the War’s End”
‘The year is 1276 S.C., the war between Soltera and Valoria has raged on for 86 years.
At the time, no one thought the bloodshed would cease, nor how intertwined
other powers on the continent of Ninia would be drawn into it. This book
chronicles the stories of the unsung heroes of the end of the conflict, often unappreciated by other historical works. A bright young woman from Valoria, Juliet, and an ambitious nobleman from Soltera, Arcturus, will have their stories told for the first time in this first hand historical account.’

Features

Play as two fully fleshed out parties on opposite sides of a conflict
Each party has their own separate gold and convoy!
Standard hack qol features
No rout maps
Player phase focused gameplay
World map cutscenes
Fun and varied win conditions
Interesting new weapons
Branching promotions
Every player unit has a personal skill, and every promoted class has a class skill.
Class skills or enemy personal skills are never procs.
Many new classes to make branching promotions still feel unique.
Leadership stars
Tons of custom music
Upgradable prf weapons
Fun and creative unit designs

Screenshots

Design and balancing

Promotion bonuses have been entirely rebalanced to make certain classes more appealing
Swords have been buffed, magic swords aren’t as rare as vanilla, but are not as common as hand axes or javelins.
Swords have a niche as having better and more plentiful effective weapons.
Bows have more damage and accuracy. No generic 1-range bows exist, longbow is the only 2-3 range bow.
Wind magic is added and is effective against flyers.
Light magic is buffed and has many tomes with unique utility.
Thief class line has access to daggers, low mt 1-range weapons that ignore defense. No lockpicks, thieves can open chests and doors by default.
Slight nerfs to 1-2 range axes and lances.
Slim weapons give +1 speed while equipped.
Armors have 5 move, promoted armor classes have 6 move.

Planned features

Supports are not implemented yet
A-Rank supports give special, unique rewards (skill, weapon access, or an item)

Known bugs

Chapter name on save screen is wrong for chapters with world maps

Credits

Battle Animations

SALVAGED - Axe merc, t1 cavalier, lord, paladin, and justicar BAs
Jeorge_Reds - Archer, Falcoknight BAs
DerTheVaporeon - Lord, male archer, Baron, warmonk, axe merc BAs
Redbean - Flagbearer, Female Soldier BA
St Jack - Master knight, Ballastician, female hero BA
Spud - Bow Knight, Halberdier, Master of Arms BA
MeteorSR23 - Holy Knight BA
Zoramine Fae - Holy Knight BA
Epicer - Crossbow BAs
Pushwall - Warrior, Bow Fighter BA
Fiuke_Bnuy - Female Ranger, Falcoknight BAs
Jey the Count - Female Ranger, Malig knight BAs
Aruka - MK BA
Kenpuhu - MK BA
Seal - MK BA
Sacred War - MK BA
Maiser6 - Reaver, female thief, female rogue BA
BatimaTheBat - Cleric, Assassin BA
UltraFenix - Valkyrie BA, male assassin, Baron BA
Alexsplode - Vestal BA
TheBlindArcher - Halberdier, t1 armor BAs
MeatOfJustice - Halberdier BA
Leolink - Master of Arms, Bow Fighter, Baron, Adventurer BAs
Iscaneous - Master of Arms, Baron BA
Nurmaon - Master of Arms, Baron, villager, Adventurer BAs
Dora Drago - Master of Arms, Chieftain BAs
Itranc - Master of Arms, Adventurer BAs
Flasuban - Soldier BA
Eliwan - Pirate, female rogue BA
Ayr - Battle Maiden BA
MK404 - Sword Peg BA
Marlon0024 - Battle Maiden BA
Sirknite31 -Battle maiden BA
Keks_Krebs - Female assassin BA
Beccarte - female Assassin BA
SD9K - female assassin, female rogue BA
Knabepicer - Bow fighter BA
The_Big_Dededester - Baron BA
eCut - t1 wyvern, female berserker BA
Alfred Kamon - t1 wyvern BA
jj09 - Chieftain, Malig knight, female pirate BA
Pikmin1211 - Malig Knight, female thief, female rogue BA
Furious Squid - Female Pirate BA
Lisandra_Brave - t1 mage BA
N426 - tome BA
Ukelele - Female rogue BA
Temp - female rogue BA
Black Mage - Female rogue BA
Sme - Female rogue BA
Sphealnuke - Sniper crossbow BA
Greg - Sniper crossbow BA

Portraits

ZoramineFae
Cravat
Melia
MrGreen
TheBlindArcher
Yggdra
Max Limit
N426
L95
Zmr
Zelkami
SaintRubenio
ItsJustJay
Toa
Helix0981
Eden
EldritchAbomination
SSHX
Parrhesia
Nickt
Monk-han
Ambrosiac
Dutch Introvert
Armory
Capibarainspace
DrGreen3339
Ghostblade
Kanna
LaurentLaicrox
Levin64
Memestaralbert

Music

Dolkar
HunterAurzo
SurfingKyogre
Saxor_The_Nobody
RandomWizard

Map Sprites

SALVAGED - justicar and lords
MeatOfJustice - lords
Alusq - militia
Rasdel - sword brigand
BoneManSeth - lords
Flasuban - axe merc, battle maiden
ArcherBias - axe merc
ArcaneEli - sky master
Pikmin1211 - holy knight and dark knight
Aruka - Ballastician
Kenpuhu - ballastician
DerTheVaporeon - Master of arms
Unknown - axe wyvern
Hypergammaspaces - dark knight

Spell and skill effects

Mariode
Norikins
Bonzai
Blazer
Arch
Orihara_Saki
Beansy
Seal
Sacred War
SHYUTERz

Tilesets

Knabepicer - fe5 dungeon tileset
N426 - fields, desert, village,snow castle tilesets
Dark - fields tileset
Unknown - fields tileset
Gamma - Desert tileset
ZoramineFae - Desert, village tilesets
Venno - Desert, village tileset
Flasuban - village tileset
WAve - cave tileset

And of course a big thanks to people like 7743 and Vesley, Klokinator, and Teq, and anyone who helped me when I asked questions in the discord.
This project is only possible with the help of the assets others have made, and if I missed anyone, please kindly remind me and I will be happy to credit you.

[IcicleDisaster]

Is there a demo for your hack that you forgot to link or is this just a summary of your unreleased hack?

[knabepicer]

They probably don’t have permissions to post links/images yet, since this seems to be their first and only post (need to have posted in at least one other thread not created by yourself to get full permissions now, iirc).

[gerb]

This is the case it seems, thanks for the heads up. I was trying to figure out how to get permissions for that lol

[TheLegendaryMr.Stark]

sounds cool, ill be checking this out

[cb1052]

Hi, I played your hack.

Since I had a lot of feedback, I put it into a separate document.

AUH Feedback.pdf

One more piece:

A-Rank supports give special, unique rewards (skill, weapon access, or an item)

I see you’re planning to do this. I would personally not support retroactively including this idea into the hack, as it might just make units become too broken/maps to not be balanced around getting supports (rather than just a small stat bonus). Also, it might feel like you would be restricted into writing a support about a specific topic due to gameplay integration, or have the support rewards awkwardly forced into the supports.

[Layrora]

Why does he have two?In the fifth chapter

[gerb]

First of all I want to thank you for playing it all the way through. I feel like such a detailed review deserves a detailed response.
(light spoilers ahead)

Thanks for the review!

The main concept I didn’t want to budge on was the perspectives alternating every chapter, and while I knew there would be either narrative or gameplay hiccups from it, I wanted to maintain that concept while working around it as best as possible, though the fast unit scaling was an immediate and obvious consequence of this, as is the story “interrupting itself” at times as you said. With the part you mentioned specifically, the intention was that each side was doing something equally interesting, though I think the Valorian chapters are a bit more dramatic at that point compared to as you rightfully say, the filler-ish nature of chapter 10.

Something I went back and forth on was the amount of exposition and dialog between each chapter. I wasn’t sure if there was generally too much writing in each opening and ending chapter, and if it would be better off to have an interlude with a large portion of narrative going on. I think it’s easy to see what you’re getting at with the king, and other events of the interlude, perhaps giving all the topics more time earlier on would be better.

I at one point had characters say something like “Hey, quit daydreaming!” after all their flashbacks, but I didn’t like it, maybe you could say I thought they were “cringe”, so I got rid of them, but maybe the story flows better with them? Hard to say.

Seraphic weapons are expensive mainly for narrative purposes, but you might be right that they are a bit too expensive and can be cheaper while still maintaining that purpose.

Steal+ is really hard to balance around because once you let a unit have it, every enemy has to be designed with it in mind, and I knew that going in. I was fine with players stealing staves on chapter 12, but it’s possible it could be too much. Kind of the intent is that the latter half of chapter 12 is somewhat of a winding maze so it would be very unlikely for a player to reach the sleep staff with all its uses intact. I’ll look into it, though.

I’d considered replacing some of the obviously weaker skill scrolls (camaraderie etc) with stronger ones, but I wasn’t sure if it was perhaps too much player power at the time. I’ll consider replacing them with non-skill rewards or more useful skills that feel good to get.

The “14 y.o. Arcturus mug” is based on Roy who I believe is canonically 15 at the time of FE6, so, even though I agree with you, I thought it would work out, but maybe I’ll workshop that one a bit more lol.

Chapter 6 might be the map that has actually gone through the most iterations, for whatever reason, even though it’s pretty simple. In the previous ones I always made sure the houses were within turn 1 distance of your units, so you could easily check them and see they aren’t visitable without wasting a turn, but I forgot to maintain that here. Thanks for pointing it out.

The red valley tileset was something that I struggled a lot with, I had a ton of iterations of it, and I always ended up with it looking too pink or looking too saturated.

Besides rout maps, the two map types in FE games I dislike the most are fog of war maps and desert maps. However, I decided I had to have at least one of each, just to see if I could make them more fun. I think chapter 9 solves my personal issues with fog of war maps (leaning too heavily on the players incomplete information). I did consider the possibility that someone would undeploy on chapter 9, but I considered that to be a clever way to approach the map rather than something worth fixing, especially since there are drops you would likely miss if you had done so. If I thought that undeploying was a natural or obvious strategy for maps more often I would try to fix it, but I think as a one-off I find it kind of cool.

Chapter 10 does feel kind of iffy to me, but I like the concept of a constantly changing map. I think perhaps more aggressive enemies or more enemies coming from behind you, and less desert tiles, could fix the problem.

I know that re-move is pretty broken, but I wanted to try to make it work by putting it on a unit with bad combat stats to limit snowballing. Similar to why the unit with galeforce has such bad combat. It’s possible that with promotion bonuses and her current stat line she could become a problem late game, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it.

The purge spam is definitely slightly overtuned but I wasn’t sure if lowering the range or lowering the damage on siege tomes was more appropriate. I also thought the barrier staves you can buy from preps screen would be enough, but you’re probably right that they aren’t. I personally enjoy siege tomes, but the chapter 13 boss and chapter 14 might be a little extreme. I’ll try different things to see how it feels.

The sword armor is a bit weak but I think she’s fun to use. I’ve been hesitant on buffing her because I think her skill is quite good, I think her promotions are quite good, and based on my experience in other hacks I think that armors with magic access tend to be quite strong, if not boring, to use, since they tend to match up so favorably against physical units. If I had to
buff her in some way I would probably give her more starting weapon rank and a weapon with less weight.

Embarrassingly I forgot about female aid calculation being different in GBAFE, in the next revision I will definitely include this, among some of the other things you mentioned.

Thanks again so much for playing, looking through it with such a keen and critical eye, and then writing up such a massive review. I appreciate it a ton.

If you don’t mind me asking, what were your favorite/least favorite maps, and your favorite/least favorite units, gameplay wise?

[cb1052]

text wall with spoilers

Seraphic weapons are expensive mainly for narrative purposes

Yeah, I think giving them like 20 uses and making their price like 5000-7500 would still give the effect of being “narratively expensive”.

The red valley tileset was something that I struggled a lot with, I had a ton of iterations of it, and I always ended up with it looking too pink or looking too saturated.

Maybe I could make a tileset palette?

Besides rout maps, the two map types in FE games I dislike the most are fog of war maps and desert maps.

A shame, because rout maps are awesome as long as you don’t have a “reinforcement whackamole” situation.

I know that re-move is pretty broken, but I wanted to try to make it work by putting it on a unit with bad combat stats to limit snowballing. Similar to why the unit with galeforce has such bad combat.

I think the problem isn’t really snowballing for combat, it’s that the unit with re-move can potentially get unlimited staff actions or even rescue drop utility. A rigging-brained player would probably be able to 1-2 turn every map or something. I think the re-move skill is essentially the “worst of both worlds” between galeforce/powerstaff and movement stars because of its unlimited nature, and honestly I think I would prefer if Loretta had powerstaff, since it’s reliable lmao. (Maybe nerf her staff rank to compensate? But then you don’t have a guaranteed Rescue user for the American trap on that map.) Galeforce on the dancer with weak combat is very neat because you can just use her to finish off a weakened enemy before dancing.

I also thought the barrier staves you can buy from preps screen would be enough, but you’re probably right that they aren’t.

I think I bought like 1 barrier, but even after barrier a lot of units get oneshot by a crit, and besides that map is combat intensive to the point of not really having room to barrier someone. Also, can you even buy barrier on one of the routes?

One bit of feedback I forgot to mention: It’s weird that this game has unlimited take/give but not unlimited trade. I think you should just add unlimited trade.

Unit Reviews

Valoria Side
Juliet: She was underwhelming despite her PRF all the way up until promotion, where she became flagrantly the best unit. She was never really fast enough to double most things.
Armand: Marcus/10. Probably would have been a lot better with a less restrictive EXP formula.
Drog: I mean he’s okay I guess? Never really did anything super impressive but his decent bulk is nice.
Yuika: Got stat screwed and ended up being pretty useless. I made her a soldier for better stats. She ended up at like level 6 or something.
Blake: Got speed screwed, I think this dude needs more base speed. He wasn’t doubling cavs on chapter 13 and his speed is just shakier than I’d like.
Josie: Healer on a horse. Never promoted.
Pieter: Used him because his name was Peter but spelled funny (Dutch). It was pretty cool that he could oneshot early on although that quickly fell off. Made him a dark knight in ch.15.
Fello: Not recruitable, unfortunately. Unless…?
Liora: Very good unit, was able to ORKO a lot, basically felt like Asbel. I made her a sage for staff access.
Barry: Decent axe guy. His con is maybe too high for most units to rescue him which is a pain. Made him a warrior. BTW his berserker palette is a bit messed up.
Marie: I wish she didn’t face low% crit from most things but she sure is a pegasus knight with pegasus knight stats.
Pachi: Wrath is a hell of a drug. Wrath + double lion is a hell of a hell of a drug. This guy’s awesome.
Karkin: Didn’t promote him. I wish his prf gave canto+ though. Actually speaking of steal+ maybe it would be a good idea to give this guy lower con so steal+ is only a factor for Ober (because Amber has no con) and also make seraphic weapons heavier (but still not heavy enough to weigh anyone down, more like iron weight)? Just throwing an idea out there.
Isolde: Pretty fun trainee with a good prf that makes her useful at base. Made her a mage knight.
Mikelis: Healer. Didn’t really use him much but he seems alright.
Anton: Decent armor knight. It feels like his skill wanting you to deploy Zinaida actively holds him back which is funny.
Zinaida: Bad. I already said my piece about her.
Circe: Healer. Her combat is pretty bad but it doesn’t matter.
Olaf: Not recruitable. Let him die as a green unit. Does he even have a death quote? I don’t remember seeing it.
Eckard: Very disappointing unit, felt consistently short of thresholds to be useful.
Flau: I didn’t recruit this unit lmao

Soltera Side
Arcturus: Was consistently middling. Can’t use his prf particularly well because of his low magic even after upgrading it, almost never doubles, and isn’t quite as bulky as I would like.
Ober: Pretty cool thief Jagen. Promoted him with the first master seal to rogue.
Jade: Healer without a horse. Never promoted.
Ludwig: Was the most consistently okay unit ever and got supplanted for later joiners. I appreciated his bulk. Expertise is kind of a garbage skill but I popped off when it was useful once in the playthrough (against the chapter 10 sniper).
Isabella: Skillsys bond poisoned my water supply + her stats aren’t even good. This unit sucks. Nosferatu seems way underpowered.
Alexios: Glass cannon merc in maps where that’s not necessarily in high demand, but still better than Isabella. Killing edge would have probably helped his combat a lot (although you could just give it to Ober).
Schuetz: Surprisingly good at damage stacking to hit oneshots on enemies, and was bulky too. He ended up getting really speed blessed for me and tore through 14 and 16 with hand axes as a MoA.
Cleon: Flier with decent but not exciting stats. Felt like Ludwig 2 combat wise.
Esma: Pretty cool unit, I liked her prf/arcane bow/longbow/steel as weapon options for her. I forgot she even had a skill. Made her an arch knight.
Shels: Seems pretty bad honestly. Cannot take physical damage and is often short of killing even with light brand. Prf is good but it doesn’t make up for her subpar performance otherwise.
Kotetsu: My favorite unit in the hack. I gave him wrath and made him a general. He Kotetsu’d all over the place.
Saghil: Pilum is a good weapon, but this guy is just Ludwig 3. Never used the supply skill with him.
Faris: Consistently short of oneshotting mages in a way that made him just feel bad to use. Bowgun is kinda not worth it most of the time because he gets doubled with it and it can’t oneshot except for the targets it’s effective against. But strongbow can kill fliers that bowgun can anyway.
Rhaki: Pretty cool defensive sage, liked his staff utility. It’s kinda bizarre that he joins and has no real way of doing magical damage, but I suppose I’m okay with it.
Loretta: I already said my thing on Loretta.
Fotia: Is a dancer. Galeforce is cool.
Amber: She seemed kinda bad when I tried to train her up. She really gets owned by the purge guys on her join map which is unfortunate. Overall I thnk the maps where she exists are not really conducive to using her.
Jeena: Promoted her to chieftain where she used blood tide. I don’t have much to say about this unit.
Lindsey: Celerity is really good and she can be a rallybot, even if her combat might not be good. Seems alright.
Joll: I don’t know what to say about this unit because I’ve only had her for like 5 turns.

As far as maps are concerned I feel like I’ve given my opinions on them. I don’t really have strong negative feelings on any of them except maybe 13, which I think is overtuned. I also think the top side enemy cluster in 8 could be nerfed a little bit. 16 is pretty mediocre as well. Honestly I kinda like 4 a lot, it’s a neat puzzle to play it aggressively. 12 was pretty fun as well (for its difficulty) and 15 was also fun (for being a surprisingly straightforward and fast map).

[gerb]

@cb1052

Maybe I could make a tileset palette?

If you did I would be super grateful!

[tweetyboy]

I really like the concept so far!!! I love when there are rewards with supports. It makes the supports even more unique and adds replayablity cause you want to see the rewards you get for certain supports with people. Long as they unique I love that idea. Supports are one of my favorite features of fire emblem in general and this just enhances that experience. Love the mugs, like the story concept. Excited for more