I don’t actually see those particular animations used often so I figured it was better then just ephram but with long hair. I have sorta ironed out what happening, for some reason if she gets hit it locks up.
Ok, well I finished this a few days ago to let how I felt stew around for a bit and I’ve got my thoughts sorted so, I’ll start with the negative and move to the positive.
Negative:
The story has some pacing problems compared to the other telephone hacks out there, mainly near the end, with some notable hiccups being around once the towera come into play. There was also some attempt at intrigue that kinda fumbled over itself since it all gets spelled out in the end anyhow. At some points it really felt like there needed to be a few more chapters just to better connect some of the plot threads near the end just so it didn’t feel rushed. Basically chapter 16 onwards feels like the entire story chose to hit a nitro pad and speed into the ending.
Recruitment: I feel I need to make special mention of some of the recruitments/recruitables being obtuse or straight irksome whith how they were handled. In particular the mutually exclusive recruits, they could have been handled so much better, or at the very least both have a second recruit check for if you fielded both of their sisters to recruit them, like i did.
Their reasoning being just “that other guy is kind of a dick” is completely unacceptable when the players army has two blood tied units that should be able to tell them “suck it up and help us” to both of them. I’d even just take an event to make the other one leave over the current Nothing that happens, not even a battle quote if you attack them with their sister after recruiting the other. then having them show up one the final map as a boss with no setup feels so asinine it actually made me mad.
For reference I took the bishop and so I had to wonder why did the swordmaster, on the final map, spawn holding a prf for a completely unrealated unit. These two units felt so half-assed that they are what held up me posting this. Just two units made me need to write this wall of text because of how badly they were handled.
Secrets: additionally I found the three secret promotions completely by accident was mostly irked from thinking “how would anybody guess this?”.
Ramsus: I can honestly understand, but I only got that one because I noticed the guy who had a personal gripe with him that goes completely unexplained was there so I deployed him.
Liam: his wasn’t that suprising considering it’s from a talk against Albri-whatever, but that Typhoon tome is busted, I just wish his portrait stayed consistant afterwards cause the random flipflopping between black and gold was weird.
Erina: this is the only one I take any real problem with considering with her 20% offence growth once you get any other healer she is outclassed, master knight barely salvaged her, she finished with 17 power at endgame and that only from me feeding her some ringas along the way. Her increadibad magic is what makes her hidden promotion being a thing so aggravating since the actual event is basically “oh hey this tome i just got is glowing for no reason poof i am now a master knight, hey neat a sword” it comes off like it was done just for the sake of it and no other reason.
But those are my only real complaints aside from endgame 3,4 and 5 dragging on forever and some gendered animations being inconsistent or overused, female Halberdier and Duke being from the same set, while Lieutenant and jenna’s other option being shared being the major culprits.
The two biggest positives I have though I feel made this so much more enjoyable as mechanics, and I was elated to see someone tackle these two idea so well.
Necromancy and Transformational magic. I loved these two idea being fleshed out the way they were, having a choice of who to raise or what to transform into was actually very helpful on so many maps. Hell sometimes I just turned Rumina to a Deathgoyle to reach treasure faster, I cannot stress enough how much I want more hacks to use these two systems in this way going forward.
These two fully fleshed out mechanics I feel outweigh the negatives to me.
Hopefully I wasn’t too “beratey” with my complaints, but I’ve played enough hacks now to know if someone doesn’t complain it won’t get addressed so. Anyway, I did enjoy myself in spite of my irritation with how some of this was handled.
i should clarify, that my irritation is solely due to them feeling incomplete. I did not intend to be as harsh as this clearly came off, sorry about that Gold. Granted I should have also stated in my positives that this was on the whole rather well written, what few holes I found though I could fit my whole foot in, those two being the only real examples I’ve got.
I also didn’t really know who wrote what so I am sorry if it seemed like I was overly critical of just you. It certainly wasn’t intentional, and while I know the credits of who did what are in the rom, I didn’t really look it over.
I’m not saying it was bad, just that some things that could have been accounted for weren’t, and is only caused from the inherent issue with making mutually exclusive units. To be perfectly honest I didn’t need/use either of them but the light tome was more needed then a +15 skill sword, this was before I cleared the map and got both, I could have just as easily killed both and that actually makes me wonder what happens on the final map if that is what the player did.
Though I am still curious about giving liam that personal tome on the final map, there are so many possible outcomes that make that tome being there kinda pointless. Namely either him being dead or undeployed due to bad levels.
Tl:dr sorry, I didn’t intentionally single you out on the writing thing that was just my biggest gripe overall, I try to be constructive but they just felt incomplete. Again, sorry for being kinda dickish there.
@Olivia Thanks to u and ur team for this hack, it was fun.
Little 1.0.7 patch for you guys
- Fixed female soldier battle anim
- Fixed Endgame 3 lux tome shop
- Changed Lieutenant map sprite
3 Likes
Just finished playing! Apparently I first picked it up on jan 17th, but dropped it at ch5 (don’t recall why) and so restarted when going for this recently.
I had a fun time overall with this hack and thank everyone who contributed to making it.
Worth noting the feedback is with playing blind, soft-ironman and after ch1 I was playing with (sometimes signifigantly) less units than deployment cap for a while due to mistakes.
- All units I promoted were at level cap
- Jeff and Torie felt unquie, but useful.
- Alvaro and Rumina were both very fun units although wish the former’s tutorial was little more in depth and the latter came with one.
Bow and staff options could’ve been nice too - Not-hard-to-find secret shops were a treat. (unless there’s a 3rd I missed?) Arbalest was very fun in player hands.
- All 3 boots went to dancer, and all 3 Hammerne were used on Purge.
- 5-mov armor and 6 promoted was very nice.
- Not-overly-rare range 3 options was fun.
Chapter-specific feedback
- Ch1: Curious if the red gem is at all viable without rng manipulation.
- Ch4: Really wish player could’ve gotten torch staff or item, I lost my thief and so the map was terrible. Maybe should’ve just reset?
- Ch6: I really like the treasure hint, most hacks it feels arbitrary if the player will find things or not without guide or savescum.
- Ch9: Thief warning is nice.
- Ch13: Seems some units have listed mov but don’t move.
- E-4: Found it very not-fun. Lost 4 times before a win. Even then wasn’t 100% accuracy option.
- Endgame X: I thought it was cool dead units returned as foes, but the map overstayed its welcome. Also felt like stat inflation.
Bugs and oddities
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Both of Petra’s Prfs say “effective vs inf” but are anti armor/cav
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in Ch7 if player takes too long among others, the Arbalest Druid boss eventually charge but still have listed – mov, leading to some confusion of enemy range.
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Short Bow has vanilla cost, making it awful to buy.
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Necromany typo, under stats of blake it mentions “Soilder” class.
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Noticed hack has a bug where using “give-all” when convoy is >100 items only deposits top item.
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Promotion display class name bug with Grunyere and Jenna when going from t0 to t1.
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Heart doesn’t stack growths with Metis, unsure if inteded. If yes, a warning would be nice.
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Pre-ch15 there’s a visual bug during the combat round. No stats are shown, just background.
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Is Jenna meant to be able to reach level 20? Also shouldn’t promotion be pikewoman? For that matter typo in name; “pikesman”.
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E-2 boss dropping Metis tome is pretty pointless so late
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E-2 secret shop has some oddities;
** Metis tome is pretty much useless so late, Fiendish bow has no icon, Bronze bow probably isn’t meant to be for sale. -
Is endgame supposed ot have 2 arenas?
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Deathlass have weapons in inventory during part 2 of endgame they can’t use but also don’t drop
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I was able to kill forben after just wylfred in part 3. Is the 'invulnerable" supposed to be literal or just “really hard to kill before both allies die?”
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don’t recall chapter but at some point an enemy shaman had “glowing effective damage flux” while being healed
Almost-entire cast, more detailed
- Ramsus died in ch1. range-2 Jeigen is neat though and from what I recall he had decent bases and growths so as to not fall off right away.
- Leif died in ch1. Don’t recall them well.
- Liam… also died ch1! Don’t recall specifics but hear they can become great.
- Terry died on ch12, after a fair bit of investing too including a Heart. Was a pretty nice glass-cannon unit. Not as fast as Turner and with less def/res but hit harder and had more hp.
- Grunhilde: Very strong unit early on with great pwr/def, my first promote too. Bow/ staff armor was a first to me too. I’ve seen one or the other but never both together on unpromoted armor. Lack of speed often wasn’t an issue on player phase due to one-hitting foe. Ended up falling off though and stopped deploying them partway through the game.
- Erina died within a few turns of joining. Nice bases and growths, specially def. Wanted to make her a tank but that didn’t work out. Surprised to see from other screenshots she didn’t turn into a Valkyrie.
- Deandre: Early was good, but fell off.
- Amaran l was on final team and deployed most maps since joining. Took some time for pwr to catch up but even before then had amazing spd and luk. Was an early range-3 option too.
- Kane was pretty great in terms of pwr and def early but lack of speed resulting in being benched.
*** Realized I didn’t seen Ben, Swftpawe or Alvaro (probably most of units that were resurrected?) in the epilogue cards. There’s more I’ve forgotten.
- Swyftpawe died in ch4, before the end. Fog of war without a torch item/staff or thief is awful. Had a cool Prf I saw in endgame secret shop and apparently was able to get a copy of earlier. Don’t recall how they were combat wise.
- Ben only was deployed for talk options but while out used staff some. Not combat viable. Coming with hammerne was nice. Sadly, died on e-1 before recruitment.
- Alvaro looked pretty meh on the surface in regards to bases by that point, then he joined and… wow! Very fun unit. Sadly died to single digit crit after just a few chapters.
- Chayse was one of my best units, ending up with pwr/spd/skl capped. Bulky enough to use Arbalest well too, 28 AS with it was insane. Before promotion had some trouble although the anti-mage bow was very helpful.
- Turner was on and off my team several times. Overall felt like a solid all-rounder although leaned toward glass cannon.
- Datura died on the chapter they joined. From what I recall pretty average bases/growths although some of the missed weapon options, including Shamshir seemed nice
- Pavani is a really solid unit. caps pwr early and ended up having enough spd to double most things since joining. Noticed they have different stat caps to Amaran though despite being same class theoretically.
- Randolf was a huge help upon joining and for a few more chapters given that I was still in a unit deficit. Very solid bases for when joining but couldn’t keep up.
- Mary didn’t hit very hard, ever. But tanky pegasus knight was cool. Also flying utility as up to this point managed to lose both my previous pegasus and wyvenr knights.
- Torie was very cool for having canto after using pick or steal. Not very good in combat though but still range 3 utility and later Arbalest.
- Jeff was very cool as well. Like Alavro on the surface seemed “eh” but a different story in player hands. Was useful for several maps but ended up falling off and benched.
- Tillie. Typical frail dancer, not much to say. 11 mov was funny though by the time I finished.
- Enoch was great in all but res and luk. Hoplon fixed the latter. Speedy armor was very fun, and useful too. General doubling swordmaster is pretty amusing. Died from a simple mistake in Endgame X but otherwise deployed every map since joining
- Iris never saw combat as a player unit. Bases felt low by that point.
- Grunyere was my other top-tier unit alongside Chayse. Ended up capping all but res and hp which were plenty high. I was skeptical of such a late game trainne but am glad I fed them.
- Masato wasn’t as fast as Enoch but more well rounded. Like the above I was skeptical about a late unpromoted unit but ended up being fantastic.
- Hemming was really solid unit including coming with 2 special tomes but sadly died in E-1.
- Rumina had a lot of fun utility, including just being a rouge. Deployed every map.
- Baal. Between bases and growths joins too late to be relevant unless player is really behind on units.
- Miuu, as above.
- Serah felt mediocre for when they join but hard ot go wrong with more arbalest.
- Phileas only saw combat 3 types and got 1 kill. high def is nice but the other stats couldn’t make up for it and so benched right away.
- Jason is decent, just I had better options by the point. Only saw 3 battles ,2 kills.
- Jenna was an even later trainnee! They were to blame for E-1 taking so long as I fed them almost every kill. Despite similiar stats to Grunyere ended up being used a lot less in actual combat.
- Christel (also don’t recall her having an end card) , another flying utility unit! Really great bases too. Like Mary never hit too hard though.
- Coltrane answered my question of “Does the player get a manakete?” a range 12-12 weapon felt unique. Overall nice unit and wish I could use hammerne on the mentioned weapon as well as have had them for more chapters.
- Georgio was listed alongside “???” in end card, with an eruinas listing of 741 kills and 12 deaths without any combat. Anyway, long range is fun but lack of speed meant kills were only via crit or anti-air. tiny mov didn’t help either. Never re-deployed them.
- Flavius was MVP for final map. Didn’t feel fun though.
- Finally, Deigo. Ended up capping all but luk/def/hp. Gaining dark magic was very nice. Saw most combat of any unit at 183 battles.
- Petra was pretty viable throughout the game, they did get metis tome early which helps im sure alongside not promoting until 20.
6 Likes
Minor bugfix update for anyone who happens to be mid-playthrough right now.
Contains some fixes to a certain unit’s summoning ability, chapter 16’s objective, and Petra’s animations. Correct patch file is 1.0.8 now.
Thanks to Spensir for working on a twenty trillion year old game and giving me excuses to bump the thread.
19 Likes
There is any guide for recruitment? Im on ch2 and have already stumbled upon some hidden items on the map, there is a guide for those too? Im a completionist and like to know every secret to 100% the hack 
Having never played a telephone hack to completion before, I didn’t know what to expect from Embers Entwined. To begin, the choice to play it wasn’t even my own - I ran a poll asking which hack on a list I should play next and EE was the write-in victor. Since when has a write-in candidate ever won? Regardless, I knew next to nothing about the content of EE going in. While I had interacted with many of the chapter contributors before, I hadn’t played a chapter created by about half of them before. Furthermore, while many discussions about elements of EE went over my head, I did pick up whispers of its tumultuous development history over time. All of this culminated in an insatiable curiosity about the hack and I couldn’t wait to experience it myself.
There’s no beating around the bush about the dire state of EE’s front half. The early chapters are spent futzing around introducing plot threads that aren’t followed up on. The transition between Chapters 6 and 7 is easily the most egregious here. Chapter 6 tells a rich, tightly-written story about Datura freeing her tribesmen from their maddening watch over a decayed ruin, introducing intrigue about Albrecht and the Ashen Emblem for a following contributor to build on. Datura herself is a standout character in both design and stage presence, and her chapter features a novel pacing and anti-turtling incentive.
Chapter 7 takes all the high-quality ingredients 6 brought to the table and blends them into slop. The intrigue around Albrecht is immediately resolved by introducing him as a shallow sorcerer whose strongest affect is that he laughs evilly in different ways… traits shared by Forben in Chapter 1. The gameplay of Chapter 7 is similarly uninspired. It’s a rout map featuring monsters and dark mages. The new playable unit Pavani is a prepromote Bishop with no distinct personality nor connection to the main story nor role in her own join map. It’s the least interesting possible way to follow up on Chapter 6 and the low point of the hack both narratively and mechanically. And if not for choices made later, it probably would’ve stayed that way throughout.
It cannot be overstated how much Chapter 10 set the groundwork for the latter half of the hack. The first half of EE had several disparate plot points not adequately fleshed out: Diego’s status as one of Alvaro’s many bastards, Cassius’s ambitions beyond the borders of Malus, Rumina’s poppings-up, and the interconnected machinations of Forben, Luke, and Albrecht. Mechanically the only thing connecting most chapters was the presence of multiple bosses, most of whom had extremely thin characterization. Chapter 10’s introduction of necromancy as a plot point both ties every element of the preceding story together and provides a throughline to be followed for the remainder of the hack. Forben returns as a playable unit to flesh him out as a distinct character from Albrecht, and slain bosses reappear both on the player and enemy side to bolster ranks and reinforce the concept.
All of this is done without sacrificing the tone of the story so far. EE’s myriad of bosses have a variety of personalities and their reappearances are used to achieve a variety of effects. And this variety WORKS. Burnie, Beatrix, Ephesio, Wolfgang, and the rest of Alvaro’s summons all have distinct reasons for accepting Forben’s call, some for dramatic effect and some for comedic. Boss enemy reappearances are similarly varied: Alocasia for instance is given a chance to interact with Datura while possessed of reason, and Georgio’s presence as a fleet used for comic relief.
The telephone aspect of EE greatly enhances the use of its bosses. Any writer can take a character they established and resurrect them for use later, but a telephone contributor doing so shows a level of thought and care for what was established beforehand. Beatrix is a throwaway boss in Chapter 3 hinted at wanting vengeance for her family no matter the cost; the choice to bring her back as one of Forben’s summons shows a large degree of interest in the character that may have gone beyond what the creator intended. The first time Forben goes beyond a generic cackling madman is in his first conversation with Beatrix when he shows genuine regret for her circumstances and vows to defeat death itself. This first declaration of motivation will carry on from Chapter 10 all the way to endgame.
This is the essence of a brilliant telephone. The many ideas put forth by a dozen different contributors coagulate and become more than the sum of their parts. I loved almost every aspect of the latter half of EE. I loved the rug-pull with the Empress’s true nature, I loved the distinct aesthetics of the three towers, I loved the arbitrary of new playable units having lived in the towers for centuries, and I loved three necromancers incessantly refusing to stay dead. The gameplay here hits its stride as well, with the standardization of former boss resurrections tightening enemy formations and solidifying an EE design style. I started mentally cataloguing which bosses hadn’t yet reappeared and got excited when they did! I confess I pogged in real life when Volos showed up as a reinforcement in endgame. I thought they forgot about him!
It took me an entire day (with breaks, obviously) to play endgame. It was brilliant. Every bit of praise I levied towards the boss reappearances and use of grand setpieces was driven to its natural extreme while still feeling like it belonged in the established world and sandbox. I could not see this type of endgame and its buildup being present in any solo-written hack. In general I couldn’t see a hack like EE, both its warts and its strokes of greatness, its ebbs and flows in map quality, its heavy bugginess in some chapters and intense polish in others, its lack of focus earlygame and intense focus lategame, ever being developed by one person. The telephone aspect elevates the hack so much, and I found it a smashing success. The team members should be proud of themselves! (And add Krash back to the main credits! No idea why he was relegated to the special thanks.)
19 Likes
… What do you mean by hidden items? Ch. 2 doesn’t have any.
Secret List
Deesa gets her prf in ch. 5 if she talks to a green unit who appears partway through the map. Grunhilde gets her prf in ch. 5 if she talks to one of the bosses. If the bard talks to the boss of ch. 9 and is later deployed in E-3, something will happen. Rasmus gets a promotion at the start of ch. 14 if deployed. The Sage gets a promotion at the end of ch. 14 if he’s alive and an additional benefit if he was deployed. Erina gets a promotion if deployed in ch. 16. Rasmus has a beneficial talk convo in ch. 16. Turner and his family members get a prf in ch. 16 if they talk to each other. The ch. 1 shaman promotes and receives the S rank anima tome if he talks to the boss of E-1 (ch. 18).
The two secret shops are in ch. 15 and ch. 20, on tiles that enemies with member cards start on.
Also, you will want to save your talismans for a unit who joins in ch. 10.
3 Likes
By curiosity, is there a recruitment guide somewhere ? I’m the kinda guy who likes recruiting every unit possible
1 Like
I just ask @Olivia in the FEU Discord. There is no recruitment guide for this Hack so you have to go in blind.
1 Like
Honestly all of the recruitments in the game are extremely difficult to miss, except for one
It’s a secret involving a pretty innocuous event early on
Have Tillie talk to the boss of Chapter 9. This has no immediate effect, but will cause cool things to occur later
4 Likes
Oh, thank you for the heads up !
Thankyou @ATHATH and @BobbyAsaka for your secret amd Recruitment guide
I want you to know that your review of Ember Entwined is the reason I am going to give this hack a chance and opening myself up to the full experience of the Hack both the good and the bad. Thank you for your thoughtful review 
2 Likes
Dear god text wall is real he can hurt me. Ya me being the unemployed (not really) i am i read it all (ya really read it)
2 Likes
As the creator of Chapter 7 (who doesn’t check the forum often), I completely agree with you on that. I used to be quite defensive of it, but after really just looking at what’s there and looking what came before it, it really is the worst thing I’ve ever put in a hack. Genuinely Duo Geno levels of amateurishness.
I could honestly start a thread with all the things I hate about it, but what personally offends me now was the attitude I had while making it. I went in with no premise and no ideas, and then didn’t bother to look for any, instead falling back on “bad guy summons bad monsters” with unfortunately the most enigmatic and interesting background character we had. And then I made him laugh weird, because Forben. And I still don’t know what I was going for with Pavani.
The whole thing is so embarassing that for a while I genuinely considered doing a rewrite of the entirety of EE, except Chapter 7 isn’t a flaming heap of dogshit and everything diverges from there, but that’s not fair to everyone else, who had their turn after me and put in real effort and real dedication, while I pretty much gave up and attempted to strongarm the whole plot into a direction it didn’t need to be. It’s been so long, I don’t even know if I had read the plot when I wrote the damn chapter-
7 Likes
typo: “Spread the Word” not “Worth”
notice a bug where if you rescue Juanita from the balcony and try to move the unit that rescue her onto the stair and use the stair function while that unit is carrying her. Juanita will disappear. Effective preventing Diego from talking to her and gaining the Legacy Blade
Just found out Diego does not have access to the supply only Petra have access to the supply, even though Diego is considered one of the Main Protagonist of the Hack. Please fix!
Who’s idea was it to give the player this guy Gruyere in chapter 13 with such a horrible starting stats in a map where every enemy can have a chance to 1 round him. I can’t even promote him like I did with Masato who also appear in chpater 13.
Comparing Gruyere with a regular enemy
Masato at least came at level 10 which I promote instantly to General with Good Defensive Stats
Which didn’t help when I was surprised by the Reinforcement spawn at the starting location. This map is Hard
I just found a new bug if Eustace use the Rescue staff on any target he will disappear from the map and the target for the rescue staff will not be teleport next to him, but he will still show up in the list of units can you fix it @Xilirite?
Lovely new portrait for Liam 
This is the most beautiful map I have ever seen in any Fire Emblem Romhack. My compliment to the map designer.
Typo here: Including not Inclusing
Finally Finish The Hack overall I had a great time playing this Hack. Thanks @GigaExcalibur for giving me details about the Hack and tempering my expectation about the characters and stories through his review of the Hack. Also Thank you @ATHATH and @BobbyAsaka for revealing the Hack secrets events and shops. You guys help me enjoy the Hack to it fullest.
All the things I enjoy can be found below:
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This Hack Has one of the Best map design I have ever seen in any Fire Emblem Romhack
My favorite was this one made by @KrashBoomBang
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The unique weapons that some characters get is amazing to use
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The Secret Promoted Class was also something I really enjoy seeing
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The Character’s portraits was also of high quality compare to all the other hack I have tried
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This Hack is also one of the most difficult Hack I have ever played. Which required me to think very carefully about the unit’s movements, placements relative to the enemy spawn, placements and speed of each map, which I think is a good thing for a Hack to have. I also had to restart and abuse save states many times to ensure I did not lose any member of my Army.
Now come the parts that I did not enjoy about the hack while very small but still significant enough to list here:
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The Story like @GigaExcalibur said was all over the place in the starting chapters. The story of the entire hack lack cohesion and it seem like there were multiple people involve in the writing of the story and each one wanted to move in a different direction compare to the other writers. Who ever wrote the story for the Later chapters really brought the story to a satisfying end taking what was written in the first few chapters into consideration.
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Some of the Dialogue written for some enemy and player characters was really childish and cringe. It seem like it was written by a 12 year-old kid
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There are too many interesting side characters with so many different story lines tie to them that did not get any time devoted to them to explore their characters and stories. That I feel sad that they were forgotten about to make space for the main characters. For Example
- Rumina relationship with Swyftpawe and Swyftpawe relationship with her brother Phileas.
- Grunhilde relationship with her Husband and what happen to her in the war that happened before the main story. Why was Masato mentioned that Grunhilde is the last surviving member of a clan.
- How did Hemming do this: return to life after being kill, what revive him and how did he have a change of heart the Player did not receive any explanation and just have to accept Hemming is now part of the team?
- What is the Deal with Zaid and his Family why is he so cold to them to his own wife Chell even.
- What was Stewart doing after we broke his curse to get so powerful when you meet him again later, also why did he change his name?
PS: Will Rumina get his own Seperate Romhack that go over his life and adventure after he leave Petra?
THANKS FOR THE GREAT EXPERIENCE GUYS! 