Holy shit just recently finished this and loved it! Really appreciated the older and more jaded protag, how the beginning scrawl was hilarious xenophobic propoganda but still gave info, and hte gameplay even if I did have conniptions occasionally on whether to get money or unit.
2 Likes
Finished the game today! I honestly canāt think of anything bad to say, really loved it. Everything was really refined and I enjoyed how āvanillaā the gameplay was. The story and the characters were all well written and I got really invested in the world. Really well done!
Just about to go to sleep, so canāt really organize my thoughts well, but this was easily one of the better if not among the best Fire Emblem experiences. Canāt wait to try out Dream of Five sometime soon!
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Just asking out of curiosity, those it have paired endings
Thereās a few.
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Quick review: Finished the game this morning, after playing it on and off for over a year. Itās one of my favorite fire emblem games, and made an account to leave a review. There were two highlights for me in this hack:
(1) The excellent story very different from standard FE fantasy/anime storytelling. I appreciated the (mostly) more grounded story, with good twists and turns as the captain MC and her company navigate the perils of a rebellion against a corrupt republic empire.
(2) Very well tuned difficulty with fun mission objectives that challenge you and keep a strong momentum throughout (barring a misty swamp mission that overstayed itās welcome a bit, at least for my team comp). I abused the ārestart turnā option quite a lot to get through the campaign, but I appreciate that there are many opportunities to recruit strong new characters if one wants to go more iron-man.
Many many thanks for creating this hack ā Iām now moving on to Dream of Five :).
PS: perhaps relevant for some, I played the game on an Analogue Pocket and it worked perfectly well.
7 Likes
Iām currently on chapter 12, little over halfway through, and Iām certain this will be my favorite hack by the time Iām finished. The visuals are beautiful, the music choices are well thought-out, the maps are engaging (albeit a little large), unit feel is solid across the board (youāre a genius for giving the dancer 30 hp at base), and it has perhaps the most compelling cast of any fe game Iāve played to date. I constantly have a smile on my face watching them interact, and Iāve created several save states to bookmark moments that I found particularly enjoyable (Roxelana and Calista make me want to shed real tears). The boss recruitment mechanic is exciting, and your choices hold a lot of weight given how tight the economy is. I do wish that we could view unit growths, but I think thus far thatās my only gripe design-wise.
The amount of effort on display here is stunning, I cannot wait to finish the rest of the hack and I look forward to seeing what you cook up in the future.
Are you a Joe Abercrombie fan by chance? Your writing contains a good bit more hope and less cynicism than his, but the overall tone and several of the characters remind me of his work.
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Really glad to hear you enjoy the campaign! Iām not familiar with the author, but maybe Iāll have to add him to my reading list, as Iāve done with other times someoneās asked me if Iāve been inspired by such and such a writer or series. Itās probably the best way to accidentally compile a reading list Iāve ever stumbled intoā¦
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Just finished this today and wow what a great run. I absolutely love it especially Kaleste and Callista iykyk ;> Much love for the captain, to her Dragon Queen and the company 
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Just finished, what an awesome ride! The only rom hack Iāve played before is Vision Quest, and this was very different but also very good. Thank you to Parrhesia for this experience. Here are my thoughts (spoiler-free besides character names):
Story
- The story was straightforward and well-executed. I empathized with the heroesā plights and thought the backstory of the world was elegantly weaved in through the chapters.
- I LOVED how background info and gameplay info were delivered, using Roxelanaās voice when possible. It was extremely convincing and set the tone of the game well. You should be proud - this is one of the only games Iāve ever played in which codex entries were a highlight! I felt myself wanting a Drums of War fan wiki to peruse.
- I liked how the army was not faceless since many characters survive being wounded, and can thus be used in cutscenes.
- The supports were really thoughtfully made, and the scene writing was always extremely good!
Gameplay
- The gameplay was superbly well-balanced for hardmode FE. I really liked the balance of the end chapters - they were easier than the early and middle game like they should be in fire emblem, but the enemies were still tough and I still needed to step carefully and strike hard. I never had any overpowered units but my whole army felt useful.
- Good forecasting of enemy reinforcements, and also good job tying the story and gameplay together. I felt the Companyās hope and fear and desperation all the time.
- Boss-recruitment was cool! At the end of the game I had too much money and also too many good units, so maybe the non-ransom money could have been decreased. The economy felt tight in the early game in a good and interesting way, then got less balanced as the game went on.
- I missed personal skills, but not as much as I expected. The diversity of the cast means characters are usually distinguished by their class and stats, and donāt necessarily need skills to feel unique. But I really liked them in Vision Quest as another fun levelup benchmark to hit, and another way to make certain units stand out.
- I really liked how weapons are balanced. Iron is bad but economical, as it should be, and steel is actually quite important to hit damage breakpoints. Slim weapons were a good idea. The S-rank weapons feel SO important to the late game and the game is short enough that I had to plan a lot around obtaining weapon rank, when normally I donāt pay much attention to it.
- Supports felt really powerful and I felt rewarded for putting my units in squads with good support networks. This was improved because of how well-written the supports were. I did notice because of how much I cared about supports, the death or benching of units could have a ripple effect. I was really excited to use Clio, but I realized I had benched or lost all of her supporting units, and so I kept a similar unit with more supports.
- I understand publicizing gameplay numbers like growths is the subject of a philosophical disagreement. I personally like to see growths, and it would be easier and less spoiler-prone to be able to check unit growths without having to navigate to the website.
Aesthetics
- I thought the music was well-selected. I especially loved the map theme in the late game, They Will Remember Us.
- The portraitwork was really nice. Iām not an expert so I canāt tell whatās a splice and whatās not, but almost all of them were great and consistently themed. I liked how much attention was put on their clothing, e.g. Rioghain vs Clio vs Estrelle and etc. The only sprite that stood out to me as odd was Saszkia, there seemed something different stylistically about her but I couldnāt tell why.
Thank you again Parrhesia!! I had an amazing time and Iām really looking forward to experiencing Dream of 5 and your current project.
3 Likes
Just wanted to gush a little bit because I think this hack is just really neat. I completed an iron man run of this game recently, one of the only ones I have ever done, execpt for games like iron emblem, because I liked this game so much. The enemy placement and unique style of dynamic reinforcements, bosses, and really just complexity for each map is something that I love to see in rom hacks and fire emblem in general. I honestly love ever chapter bar a few of the tamer ones. The first and third chapters feel quite simple compared to the rest, but I have to say, every other chapter has something amazing and unique to do while making it feel like a rush of defending and attacking. The endgame map 2 is probably the best chapter in the game with a great mix of defending and pushing back against the collosal wave of reinforcements. I think that completing this game in an iron man setting really allowed me to see the benefit of all the characters. I lost a lot of guys, ones that made me have to switch up and use less desirable units, but it was never worse for it. The system of gaining allies in exchange for money works so well in an iron man setting. The extra thought being put into whether I can hold out without that unit or if I really need another unit on the field is just great strategy gameplay.
Honestly I think the game is too short for its own good. I rushed through the iron man quite quickly and I remember almost every map and their gimmicks. This is what I love to see in a rom hack, really elevating the gameplay, and not to mention the story, which is done extremely well. Even on my iron man run, I started to read the chapter intros again because it was just a story I could get invested into even though Iāve read it before, with some great moments. The usage of music and story book text helps elevate the experience and make it more than a basic fe story. Overall this is what I consider a top tier, punchy, concise package, that I am wholly excited to see a sequel for whenever your amazing team can complete it.
Hats off to all of you, 10/10
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Due to wanting better organization for the rest of our projects for the long term, weāve decided to move to using the formerly Dream of Five server as the full combined NQR project server. Hereās the discord link if yall are interested: https://discord.gg/TJMKnNXhxg
9 Likes
I just finished this romhack; another great job, and now Iāve finished all 3 of your posted hacks. The quality of writing is stellar, and the main lords are all so compelling. Iām not sure which is my favourite; theyāre all so good. I may have to give the win to Bronwyn over in Advance: Homecoming though; I could barely even step away from her tale for more than a few minutes at a time when I played it last week.
I do want to say that I was taken a bit aback when Clio and Evander left permanently after act 3 and took Zabraven and Judita with them. Was that telegraphed earlier in the story and I just missed it? Losing two of my ultimate weapons wasnāt gamebreaking, but it was super annoying that there didnāt seem to be a way to avoid it, and the weapons donāt get put back into the inventory.
Anyway, that small gripe aside, I gleefully await your future projects. 
2 Likes
No, thatās a bug.
1 Like
Really glad you enjoyed despite one of the most bizarre and painful one-off glitches Iāve ever heard! I do plan on one final patch to come so Iāll triple-check Act 3, but I canāt even think what might have caused thatā¦ But thanks for your generous thoughts, first and foremost.
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Youāre very welcome and theyāre much deserved. I just finished a second playthrough of Dream of Five about 10 minutes ago - itād been quite a while since my first run - and I forgot how awesome it is. Thyra alone is probably the best custom job in the history of FE romhacks, and also a great character on top of that. I think itās official; Iām a huge fanboy.
2 Likes