[FE8] Fire Emblem: Liberty's Beacon [7/?][Latest patch 03/16/25]

[MegaCowsamMan]

Jus’ played through the latest demo. Had a lot of fun with it! The amount of stealables is a bit much, the maps might be a bit too big for my liking, and it could be a bit more difficult, but what we have here is excellent.

Things that stand out to me were chapter were quite memorable thanks to the plethora of mechanics, and the wonderful character writing we have here. Gideon and Asaph stand out for sure! Diolague was great too, with characters using figures of speech quite often.

Random Notes/Bugs

Bug Report: Some of the tiles in chapter 1 display the castle tileset.

Bug Report: In chapter 1, Asaph and Amanda’s portraits are swapped during their battle quotes.

Bug =Report: When Galeazzo attacks one of the NPC Cavaliers in chapter 1x, the game had a massive visual glitch. This doesn’t affect gameplay, and I cannot find a way to replicate it, but I thought I’d mention it.

I’ll be following along with the progress of this hack, and will be sure to give each new demo a go. Keep it up!

[Cygnus]

The Galeazzo bug is well-documented, and Ch 1x’s story is being reworked to where he will not be “there”, in a sense.

Thank you for your feedback! I admit, with the amount of playables I frontload I find it very difficult to make smaller maps. I’m working on making a deploy-cut breather map that aims to be smaller than any map I’ve made so far!

The amount of stealables is definitely large by design; I don’t intend to have anyone steal everything on the map. (Nor do I ever do that.) I’m working on coding a personal skill for Asaph that’s built around stealing, hence the larger amount of stealable items than vanilla. (Btw, did you know you can steal Heal staves from enemy healers?!)

Thanks for the feedback!

[MegaCowsamMan]

@Cygnus

I admit, with the amount of playables I frontload I find it very difficult to make smaller maps. I’m working on making a deploy-cut breather map that aims to be smaller than any map I’ve made so far!

That would be fantastic actually.

@Cygnus

The amount of stealables is definitely large by design; I don’t intend to have anyone steal everything on the map.

Yeah, I can understand that. Guess it’s just me not remembering to steal that much.

@Cygnus

Btw, did you know you can steal Heal staves from enemy healers

Oh yeah. I’ll admit, I got pretty excited. Not much hacks that I’ve played make use of that mechanic.

[Cygnus]

Just a small head’s up, life did get in the way a little but my latest patch is on its way! Sorry guys, I really wanted to push out a patch in February but I was going through a brief period of burn out. New patch is live!

Preliminary Patch notes

Summary

I’ve put off releasing the new patch long enough, so here it is. For those who are “caught up”, the new chapter is placed between the old Chapter 4 and 5; making the old Chapter 5 now Chapter 6. This should be the last occurrence of this happening.

Ch 1-Thieves By Necessity
-The Soldier and Fighter that start fairly close to the starting cast now have an Iron Lance and Iron Axe, respectively. I went a bit overboard on the number of 1-2 range weapons in this first chapter and due to the relative enemy bulk, it made it harder to defeat that small squad of enemies without losing somebody. Nobody wants to have to reset on Turn 2.
Asaph
6 Str->8 Str
2 Def->3 Def

Asaph now has 8 base Strength and 3 base Defense. A certain playtester had mentioned how weak he feels, so I increased his strength slightly to play into the glass cannon fantasy more.
(Rather than just being a glass unit that can one-tap mages in the early game)

Melonie
13 Spd>14 Spd

Melonie is in a weird place balance-wise. Statistically she doubles roughly the same things as Asaph on average, but lacks 1-2 range until the first obtainable Wind Sword in Chapter 4.
Her Brave Foil has been somewhat of a point of contention for some players as well, but I decided to include a neat little bonus for it–it now is effectively a Brave Lancereaver, which should improve her match-ups against soldiers and lance cavalry.

Skadi
Untouched.

Joan
8 Str>10 Str
6 Def>8 Def

At its core, Joan’s role in the Southern Daggers was always to be the glue that helps keep the frontline held together–and me taking inspiration from Conquest Silas’ bases further proves that. That being said, for awhile I was afraid of making her too strong but now I think she’s in a pretty good spot. Her bases are reminiscent of Silas’ in Conquest and her access to both the Flame Lance and an E Sword rank makes her a versatile unit to use. Her Level has been increased to 5 in order to curb the amount of EXP she can gain in Chapter 1. Looking at Silas now, it’s kind of insane how crazy his bases are. Only time will tell if Joan is further buffed as I make the game gradually a bit more difficult.

Gideon

Str 10>9
HP 25>22
Def 9>7
Lv 6>9
Gideon is a powerful character for a unit that can generally only fight on Player Phase;
and now that Iron Bows have 8 Mt he needed a few tweaks. It was a bit funny that he had better bulk than Joan but I think it’s for the best if he takes the nerfs on the knee. His higher base level curbs his Exp gain for a few chapters but also puts him one level away from the first Master Seal. (Once I choose to add it)

Elliot

Untouched. General feedback is that he’s in a good place right now. I’m surprised more people haven’t mentioned that he can effectively Nostank any low-Resistance enemy that can’t one-round him.

Amanda feels little less than a set-piece for the chapter right now, but considering it’s a timed Arrive map, I guess that’s not a bad place to be at. At one point, I’d like to make it so that every unit has to Arrive to clear the map.

Chapter 1x Journey Begins
The story in Chapter 1x has been rewritten, and Arglas has been removed. Viktoria the Sentinel now joins the fray!

-An Outlaw with a droppable Scorch tome has been added.

Chapter 2 Warm Welcome
No notable updates.

Chapter 3-Outset
Anna
Added a Tool weapon for Anna to use–the Medical Knife! Anna can now 1-2 range enemies with a Defense-nullifying knife that lowers the enemy’s Defense and Res on hit. This is bound to be a very strong tool that may evolve into her warping the game’s difficulty around her. We’ll see how it’s received.

Updated the prep shop ui.

-Chapter 3’s Fog level has been decreased. (More fog vision)

-Septa’s spawn point has been changed. She now starts closer to the player army so she can gain more EXP on her join map.
-The two enemy Pegasus Knights have been removed.
-Map was made one tile shorter by the south.

Chapter 4-Strange Bedfellows
-Chapter 4’s scenario has changed slightly.
-Adjusted enemy types
-Terah now rejoins in Chapter 4 with Caliope.

-Changed the boss in Chapter 4.

Chapter 5-Into The Breach
-Added a new story chapter, Into The Breach.
-Added new context to Caliope’s backstory.
-Added a new playable unit, Sharla.

Chapter 6-The Coming Storm
-Significantly buffed the boss of Chapter 6, Pallardia.

Liberty's Beacon - Google Drive

That should be all the significant patch changes for now, unless I’ve forgotten some. Hope this patch brings more players into the world of Falibria!

[IcicleDisaster]

I found 2 bugs this playthrough:

1. Whenever a unit would Talk or Support they would turn invisible until they ended their turn or attacked.

2. My emulator froze when I brought up Sharla’s profile. Their was also additional bugs with characters showing up across the profile and colors inverting.

Additional notes:

1. Lost Joan on the first chapter and decided to ironman through it. From her death quote it sounded like she was actually dead and not incapacitated like plot relevant characters normally are (Titania, Seth, etc) yet she still ended up popping up for her scenes like if she was still alive. My advice is to change her death quote to clarify that she isn’t dead, just too wounded to continue.

2. The new chapter, Into the Breach, is pretty weak from multiple angles. The actual map is just a fortress map without an interesting layout or different ways to tackle it. I liked that the enemies were grouped together so they attacked in waves but other than that there wasn’t anything memorable about the map, the enemies, or the boss.

Sharla’s just hanging out by the entrance for some reason and there’s no connection as to why she’s here. Why is she at the entrance of the fortress to begin with? Wouldn’t she be in some kind of storage room since she fell asleep in a crate? Are Spiderskins common around Falibria? Asaph seems remarkably chill when he talks to her so I assume he’s at least heard of her kind before. She is really interesting as a unit, I like the ludonarrative resonance with her being able to sneak through enemy lines and attack from the flank. It’s very flavorful.

Also, Asaph and Calliope’s reason to be here seems a bit contrived. Og commands his daughter, presumably his heir apparent, to take back a border fort because…he doesn’t have enough soldiers to do it himself? You noted that there would be new context to Calliope’s backstory in this chapter but I don’t remember there being anything. I might have missed it or forgotten about it though.

I hate to say it but Chapter 5 feels like a band filler chapter. At the end you even note that you don’t know what the outro of this chapter should be about. I would personally scrap this chapter and either do something else or turn Chapter 6 back into Chapter 5.

3. Viktoria feels redundant since we already have a Jeigan in Skadi. To salt the wound, Skadi doesn’t have to worry about weapons breaking. Hell, Viktoria doesn’t even have a movement skill to set her apart. Right now, she’s probably destined to get immediately benched in most of my playthroughs. Admittedly, I played this on Normal so in Hard or higher she might have more of a fighting chance to stay on the team with a higher level of difficulty.

I am sorry I couldn’t give more positive feedback with this review. The only new stuff was Chapter 5 and I did not like Chapter 5 that much. I still think this hack has a lot of potential so please don’t get discouraged, My favorite character in this hack so far is Gideon!

[Cygnus]

For number 1, I’m not sure how to fix that at all. Quite a strange bug, thank you for reporting it.

For number 2, I haven’t encountered that bug before. I assume you’re playing on MGBA?

Viktoria feels redundant since we already have a Jeigan in Skadi. To salt the wound, Skadi doesn’t have to worry about weapons breaking. Hell, Viktoria doesn’t even have a movement skill to set her apart. Right now, she’s probably destined to get immediately benched in most of my playthroughs. Admittedly, I played this on Normal so in Hard or higher she might have more of a fighting chance to stay on the team with a higher level of difficulty.

Viktoria is fairly redundant, you’re right. I added her because I removed the cutscene from Ch 1x where Arglas saves Caliope, but I needed a fifth unit to round out the army in that chapter. I really don’t know what to do with some of my cast members. Honestly, I’m thinking of scrapping that chapter too, at least how it plays now. I never really get excited to play it and I still haven’t determined the chapter when Polyphemus and Eurydice return.

Also, Asaph and Calliope’s reason to be here seems a bit contrived. Og commands his daughter, presumably his heir apparent, to take back a border fort because…he doesn’t have enough soldiers to do it himself? You noted that there would be new context to Calliope’s backstory in this chapter but I don’t remember there being anything. I might have missed it or forgotten about it though.

Oh, by that I meant we get to meet Caliope’s father and find out his concerns regarding the way he rules and the significance of Liberty’s Beacon. To be honest, I’m still finding my feet with Caliope as a character and I fear I’m nearing my fourth or fifth rewrite because I don’t know what to do with my setting. I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy Chapter 5, I’ll take a look at reworking it or finding a different map for Sharla to appear on.

As a heads up, I just launched an emergency patch update! In Ch 3, Anna can cause the game to freeze before the chapter starts. I thought I had saved my rom when I fixed it, but apparently that was not the case. The new patch addresses this issue!

[IcicleDisaster]

Yes, I used the MGBA emulator to play your hack.

I understand what you mean about backstory now. One thing that I ruminated on was the difference between Asaph’s perspective on things versus Og’s perspective on things. They come from two very different backgrounds and might see elements of recent events differently. I completely understand where you are coming with Calliope, I’ve struggled with that as well. One thing that helps me is stripping her character down to three elements: What she wants, what she needs, and a secret she keeps. What she wants is not necessarily what she needs and vice versa. The secret can be something that affects the plot or something revealed in her supports that helps give her a little flavor, it can be as big or as small as you’d like.

[ShirleyVaga]

I should check out this updated version

[lpxfly]

Only made it through the first two chapters so far but this is already looking really nice. Will be looking forward to what’s to come. Keep it up!

[Cygnus]

Glad you enjoy it so far.

As a head’s up, the next patch I work on will not be publicly available for awhile. I want to reach a more professional quality with my patch cycles before I start posting them here again.

Part of the reason for this has been my struggles in making a coherent plot for my project. You see, my project never started with a proper story outline. My game’s earlygame story has been reworked close to four times. Maybe five, if I count the point in time when this hack took place in Grado. In fact, I never even originally expected to get more than a couple chapters made for this game, and I will be the first to admit that I do not consider myself a game dev. This is just a hobby after all.

That is why I would like to offer both my sincerest apologies and thanks for those who have play-tested this game through myriad chapter and story changes, or even those who have just given the first chapter a shot. I learned a lot of lessons while working on this project, such as that planning ahead is crucial and essential for success. As somebody who was diagnosed with ADHD a few years ago, proper planning has always been a shortcoming for me finishing projects I’ve started.

I think part of the problem is I just don’t PLAY enough Fire Emblem these days. Yes, I love the series and characters but I struggle to complete Fire Emblem campaigns now because so many things hold my attention. I’ve actually never beaten a Fire Emblem romhack, not even a shorter one. That’s my confession for you guys.

I don’t doubt that one day I will complete this project, but in my terms it might not be as quickly as I had originally hoped. My plan for this year is to have at least 10 chapters made, fine-tuned and play-tested by FEE3, which should be doable if I don’t take an extremely long break.

What does this mean for the future? I don’t want to create a public discord for this project at this point in time, as that will pressure me to put out updates more frequently. I’ve been considering looking for somebody to help me as a co-writer or sounding board at some point, just so when I get stuck on a plot-hole or need help with working through an important character moment, I have somebody to talk about it with. I’m not writing Tolstoy, but I want to make sure that you guys (the audience) are able to find something to enjoy about the hack if you like it, whether it’s the story, gameplay or music!

If someone ever wants to try out a new patch, you know how to reach me. I will forever be your transparent hackrom creator, never keeping you in the dark. Beacon in hand, forging a path towards liberty.

-Cygnus