Hello everyone! I wanted to introduce you to my project, month in the making.
Fire Emblem-Crossroads is a romhack I’ve been working on for quite some time now. Originaly it was supposed for my use only. But creating your own little world with his cast of characters makes you want to share it with others. Also, I’d like your opinions, what you’d be excited to see, what seems to sucks, and so on.
Story
Calistea is a peaceful country in the north-west of the continent. Despite some minor skirmishes, it didn’t see combat in several decades. But things have changed.
With their new emperor (of course it’s an emperor), the young and ambitious Anselm, recently crowned, the Empire (obviously) of Eisenmark decided it needed to invade Calistea. With its surprise offensive, the invasion was over in an instant. The capital of Calistea has fallen, with it’s royal familly disposed of, and its main defenders with it. Calistea has fallen.
Lisandru, the son of the lord of Rocca Serra who died defending the crown, is still in his quiet domain, not aware of the recent event. All he knows so far is that his father went to the capital defend his king.
The story then begins when Eisenmark’s force -along with the recent news- arrive at Rocca Serra’s footsteps. Lisandru and his closest retainers have to flee for their survival.
Mechanics and Particularity
- The game has a FE8 base, and it uses the Cskill System. Toned down, so no combats arts, gaiden-style spell etc…
- The main focus is on the characters. Everything is made to grow attached to them, to expand their backgrounds, and make them exist outside their recruitment chapters WITHOUT being made main characters.
- 36 playable characters, balanced with their personal growths, singular personal skill, class, utility
- 27 chapters + 10 “Gaiden” (more on that later)
- Completely reworked class trees. With more than 10 T2 additional classes, and a couple T1 original classes. No T2 classes is shared in any trees. T2 classes have a singular class skill each.
- Str/Mag split with actual relevance in gameplay
- A faction system. Nothing revolutionnary, you follow other groups in their own adventures in parralels of Lisandru’s army. They have their own motivations, group dynamics, and reasons to join (or not?) the war.
- The “Familiar face” system. Ever wondered what your guys were doing before being in a Fire Emblem roster? What kind of life they had? Or reputation they used to have? Surely they met other people than the one your controling… and those people have goals and motivations too. The familiar face system bring those people in the battlefield. You’ll have to face them, and by doing that, you could learn something about your guys, and even earn a nice little reward… every FF has its own personal rival in your army. There is a little less than 70, so everyone has several encounters available
- The FFs are effectively Mini bosses. They are stronger then generic enemys, and all have a little gimmick. A Myrmidon FF with a killing edge and Vantage+Wrath, an actual enemy Lord, a weirdly fast knight terrified of magic, a Brigand with a beef with your strong but slightly slow merc, so he traded strengh for speed and is equipped with a Swordreaver… and so on.
- Completely reworked OST. No original BGM from FE8 vanilla left
- Antoine
- No World map. No skirmish, no arena. The exp you have is what you see in front of you. Better start making decisions fast.
Progress so far/Asset situations
I’ve been working on it for about a month and half now. I’m working night shift in a hotel so I have “free time” where I can work out the creative stuff, and during my actual free time I can put it on FEBuilder. Everything creative like the scenario (from the first line of dialogue to the credits) is done. The characters, Batlle/Death quotes, supports and everything else is done too and implemented in FEB. The only thing remaining are the maps, and the chapters themselves. Basically the not so fun part. But once i find the good workflow it will go smoothly.
Every asset from the romhack is all pulled from the repository. Nothing is found on google or anything like that (except 2 portraits, but it’s ok. Once you see it you’ll understand) credits are OBVIOUSLY going to be made, and if you find some of your work in it, and not your name. Don’t hesitate to insult my ungrateful face in horrible way until I add it. It will happen. Some of the assets are slightly altered/recolored (badly. I’m a terrible artist and even worse ar pixel art)
Now, I did ask ChatGPT (boooooh) to make renditions of the cast+major antagonist. You could say they are HD rendition of how I saw the guys… I could include it in the folder if you guys are interested. Yes AI is bad but hey. Who knows? If it gets some traction maybe real artist would like to do some real fan art 
I think that’s about it? I hope it will be done soonish. Probably before the end of the year. But to be honest? I’m way too far into development to just quit. So it’s not a matter of “if” but “when”.
If i did anything wrong too just let me know. And of course any input is appreciated. Either it’s advice, opinions or just how hyped or not you are. And of course if you have any questions I’d be happy to answer.