[FE8] Fire Emblem Sengoku : Oda v105 (WIP, 8 chapters done)

Here’s a recording showcasing the fun & interesting objective of the first chapter. I skipped the story, but hopefully this encourages people to try it out. Definitely an underrated gem.

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Prologue why does the pikeman have skeleton map sprite xd
Why dont you put the guide directly in the hack as reminder? We might not have that good memory to memorize ur guide (or put it as option if player dont wanna get spoiled)

Following is only refering to non-Japanese elements in the hack
The portraits are very non-Japanese (welp I shouldnt be picky about it since u dont have portrait maker at this moment)
Ancient japanese retain their hair because they believed that hair is a part of their body gifted from their parents or some sorts of reasons and some tie it up like a ponytail
And the japanede soldiers (or samurais) have different armors then western armors (and is kinda funny)
For the weapon names: yumi is basically bow in japanese but i suppose japan bows are longer?
Straight sword (westernish sword in vanilla) are called chokuto (ignored the sign above the last o) and isnt most popular in japan
As for blades, they have tachi/odachi which is bigger version of japan sword and needs two hands to wield and mostly used in calvary i think(maybe just wiki japan swords urself)

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If by guide you mean the changelog, I might…if I can remember every change I made. If you mean something like advice for clearing each chapter, I was never much of a fan of doing that.

And yeah, for aesthetic stuff I’m really just doing minimal work on them, since I focus on the gameplay. I don’t really plan on going out of my way to ask for assets either since I’m just using what’s already F2U when I have to, and even if I do, it’d be only when I feel like the gameplay is mostly finalized, would feel cheap otherwise. If people like the gameplay/story and want to make assets I’d be very appreciative but at this point, I don’t mind sticking to only recolors (aside from 2 tracing attempts when I went farther than that) and F2U stuff.

Thanks for mentioning the “japanese feel” side of things. Though I’m not sure I want to rename existing things to fit that (eg. sword to ken or axe to ono), I want to keep it familiar to GBA FE on that front (I feel like people will find the unit names strange enough). But for new things I’m more willing to do it (such as using Yari instead of Greatlance or Kunai instead of Knife).

Work on chapter 5’s finishing touches is almost done, and the next version will be posted soon.

Its ok I think if you wanna keep the player non-confused about the names

Good choice. Yes, I found the names difficult to remember. But I also mix up anglicized names, and I feel that it’s important to promote diversity & demonstrate representation in media. Familiarity is important too, so either design choice is valid, even if I may have expressed minor frustration over mixing up my units. :+1:

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That’s naming conventions for you, back then. Lots of "Nobu"s in the Oda clan.

Will this hack have a fiery conclusion? How far is the story intended to go?

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I see what you did there.

Plans

Currently I plan on making the story go no much farther than 1582, which is when the Honnoji Incident happened. I’m leaning towards making Honnoji be the final chapter (or at least the first part of it) and letting the player decide which side to take there, which will determine the second part and allowing the possibility of non-historical endings, too.

But other than that, I don’t want to extend the timeline further. I think that anything after Honnoji would feel anticlimatic, and more fitting for the Tokugawa version of the series, if I get around to making it. It’s still far from that point though, so I won’t say I’m 100% certain that that’s how I’ll do it, but it’s the most likely direction so far.

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Updated to v068, changes:

Main:
-Added chapter 4.
-Added debug mode. When starting a new game, you’ll be taken to the debug chapter and you can choose which chapter to start playing on. Your units will be autoleveled and you will be given most items that can be earned in skipped chapters.
-Reworked unit stats.
-Finalized all units’ support partners settings.

Aesthetic:
-Imported 2 songs from FE6.
-All named units got their portraits, some are just recolors.

Other:
-Added some tiles and edited some terrain, necessary for chapter 4. (Shallows, second version of Forts and Gates)
-Some AI additions and fixes, necessary for the mechanic of chapter 4 (Kessen).
-Reset the difficulty levels, easy and normal are now 0, and hard remains what they were for previous levels. Testing was done on Normal and that will be the focus of development for now.
-Minor stuff that I either don’t remember or don’t think are relevant for other people to know.

Known issues:
-Some battle terrain and backgrounds in chapter 4 will be visually incorrect.

NOTE: Previous saves will certainly have compatibility issues later on, even if they work initially, so start on a fresh save. The debug mode mitigates this and is intended for facilitating playtesting. I’ll keep debug mode enabled until the hack is pretty much finished and a clearer analysis can be made regarding progression.

Info on Chapter 4
Map

image

Map with highlights

image

R: Notable reinforcements (there are others). The purple reinforcements on the top right are allied to the player but it requires something in exchange, otherwise they will leave or not even appear in the map.

Historic overview

Loosely inspired on the Battle of Kanōguchi. The second and final battle between Oda Nobuhide, the Tiger of Owari, and Saito Dosan, the Viper of Mino. The siege of Ogaki ended in failure thanks to the Viper’s scheming, but Nobuhide still intends to conquer Mino. The two clans deploy all their commanders in one last decisive battle (Kessen).

Gameplay overview

This battle intends to set the ground for Kessen chapters. A Kessen has two phases: the Influence and the Rout phase. In either phase, a clan loses if their leader(s) are defeated.

In the influence phase, the clans compete to control the forts spread around the battlefield. Every start of turn after the first, the clan that controls the majority of the forts will gain a point. When a clan would gain its 11th point in this manner, that clan wins the Influence phase. However, if at any point during the Influence phase a clan controls all forts in the map, they immediately win the Influence phase regardless of score. The clan that wins the Influence phase gains an advance moving onto the Rout phase.

The Rout phase is self-explanatory. The clans will make a final charge, and the clan that routs the other wins the battle.

The flow of this battle will change as you play. You start with only 2 forts while the enemy has 9, each guarded by a miniboss, so you have to be on the offensive and claim at least 4 additional forts before the Saito gains their 11th point, which would mean losing the Influence phase and making victory nigh impossible.

If you control less forts than the Saito, they will mainly reinforce their defenses to try and stall you. If you control more forts, they will go on the offensive, including reinforcements from behind your lines. This means that you often have to consider if you want to keep pressing on when you have the advantage, or focus on defending to make sure they don’t reclaim their forts. The waves of reinforcements also put constant pressure and you may realistically abandon forts to not risk losing units at times.

Another mechanic, not necessarily tied to Kessens, is the weather. Every 2 turns, it alternates between sunny and rainy. Rain does not slow down units (like it does in vanilla), but it directly and exclusively affect the new Shallows terrain. They cost minor extra movement points if it’s sunny, but become essentially rivers when it’s rainy, so most units simply can’t cross them. This is another mechanic that constantly shifts the flow of the battle, as paths open and close.

As always, hope people have fun playing this new chapter. It was quite something to set up. Feedback is always appreciated as well.

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Apparently I forgot to upload this update that I had ready a while ago, so here’s v073.

-Background additions like unit names and portraits
-Slight stat/growth changes to some units and classes
-Added a small negative side-effect in chapter 1 to forming a truce in the prologue.

More info

Nobumitsu will leave the battlefield after a certain point in chapter 1 if you formed a truce with the Matsudaira in the prologue. This is based on history, as it is said Nobumitsu and Kiyoyasu planned to collude to remove Nobuhide from power.

-Unit changes in chapter 4.

More info

Sukemasa no longer has S-rank, his Azai units drop their cavalry-effective weapons when defeated (both which make him more manageable to defeat), Hirotada now moves from his fort to attack enemies in range, and other more minor changes.

-Reinforcements in chapter 4 now change based on the current round’s winner as well as current score, so there’s a bigger variety of units in the field. No more armor knight spam.
-Removed one of the recruitable bosses from chapter 2x, going to have another one in a different chapter.

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This project is complete? Interesting poroject, pls do not give up (^o^)/

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Thanks. The project is far from complete and I make new chapters very slowly, so it probably won’t be completed for a while, but I don’t intend to give up on it.

If you have any suggestions or feedback for the hack, feel free to let me know, it’s very appreciated.

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There’s a story that Akechi Mitsuhide actually accused another retainer of being a traitor; there’s some mythology wrapped into this with the guy using a metal fan to prevent a decapitation via sliding doors (yeah… it’s a weird story), but the narrative merit of Akechi accusing someone else of being a traitor is pretty significant. I don’t know to what degree TV/film adaptations of Nobunaga’s life have portrayed this event, but it’s present in a number of texts and would be useful if you want to add another layer to the narrative.

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I did know Murashige rebelled against Nobunaga some time after he captured the capital, but I didn’t know about Mitsuhide’s involvement with that. I’m not too fond of adding mythology as part of the story, but at the very least now I know how to lead into Araki’s rebellion, so thanks for bringing it up. There’s potential for branching there too, including having repercussions at Honnoji, which is where I expect quite a few consequences will have an effect.

Updated to v081, changelog:

-Added chapter 5.
-Reverted armor knights to only use lances.
-Added the Templar class, which promotes from armor knights and gains staves.
-Non-playable units can gain exp when I want them to.
-Playable thieves can steal items from NPCs (you don’t get a thief yet, this is for later).
-Non-playable units also get droppable items when they kill.

Info on Chapter 5
Map

Map with highlights

PS : Player start.
PA : Player ambush. These units are set during preparations and will be hidden when the chapter starts. They will re-appear when an enemy destroys a snag near them, stunning most of them for 1 turn.
T : Target. The objective of this chapter is to make it so at the end of the turn count, this unit is being rescued either by a playable unit or NPC.
B : Bandits. If you pay them 2000 gold at the start of the chapter, they will become NPCs and assist you in this chapter, rescuing the target it possible. If you don’t pay them, they will become enemies and aim for the village, and may even attack the target.
Defeat condition: You fail this chapter if an enemy escapes with the target to the south, if a bandit kills the target, or if, at the end of the turn count, the target is being rescued by an enemy or no-one.
The orange zone in the middle is where the enemies will start, and the red arrows are where enemy reinforcements will come in from.

Historic overview

Based on the abduction of Matsudaira Takechiyo (later known as Tokugawa Ieyasu) as an infant, when he was being transported from the Matsudaira clan to the Imagawa clan, in 1548.

Gameplay overview

Unlike the previous chapter, the objective of this one is straightforward. An unusual objective, that to my knowledge has not been done before in a hack, which is based on competing with the enemy to be rescuing the unit at the end.

The village near the starting point can be destroyed by the player if they feel like the extra path is worth it (the 3 tiles behind the village are shallows, not river, so all units can cross them if it’s not raining), but you will lose the village’s reward in exchange. If the player neglects the village, eventually the non-bandit enemies might grow desperate and try to destroy it.

For 2000 gold, you can turn the bandits (4 brigands, 1 pirate and 1 thief, which spawn 3 turns in a row) into NPCs. Whether because you want to play it safe and have more allies, or to use them as bait, or to have them take the penalties for rescuing instead of one of your units, or to make a diversion for the enemies, or to simply not have to worry about them destroying the village, it’s a choice you can consider. On the other hand, the NPC bandits may steal or take droppable items from enemies, so there’s another reason against doing it, other than having to spend 2000 gold.

The units set in the bushes (which are actually roof terrain) will be hidden after preparations and will spring into action when an enemy destroyed a nearby snag. When this happens, most enemies will become unable to move, abruptly ending the enemy phase, and will give you (and the bandits, if you’re allied with them) one turn to attack them when they’re unable to counterattack and dodge with a +30 bonus to crit rate. These are key opportunities, so don’t waste them.

I hope that those who play have fun, and a reminder that I made debug mode set to on so you can skip directly to any complete chapter with autoleveled units and (most) items you would have gotten in previous maps. Feedback is greatly appreciated.

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Ok but is there a debug mode to help me skip halfway through your chapters? 3 hours into a chapter i got a game over rip real hardware so no savestate

Truth though that your hack would really benefit from mid chapter saves if those ever become a thing

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What can I say, the longer the chapter, the longer the fun.

If there are patches to add mid-chapter saves, or to make it so resuming does not erase suspend data, or to make it so copying a save file also copies suspend data, I might use those.

EDIT: Updated previous post with information on the new chapter.

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Updated to v082 after Leche’s playtesting with adjustments and fixes to chapter 5 as well as some promotion issues that I’d overlooked.

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It’s been a while. Tags didn’t exist back when I last updated.

Updated to 0v93. Changelog:
-Misc balance changes
-Misc bugfixes noticed thanks to playtester feedback
-Importing of some more FE7 songs
-Suspend was changed, now it’s essentially battle save. This was a suggestion due to how I make longer maps, making it scary to rely on autosave, so now you can choose which turn Resume will take you back to, instead of having to restart the chapter
-Most importantly, chapter 6 was added, more information in the spoilers below. No one else has played this at the time of this update, naturally, so things may change with feedback.

Chapter 6 summary

(map screenshot pending)
The objective of this chapter is Survive. There are 5 possible endings, and there’s no turn limit, so the map can keep playing until one of the conditions for one of the endings is reached.
Your party starts split in two, half will be outside of the fort being defended, and the other half will be inside. The outsiders are unable to act until one of the insiders manage to get out of the fort and circle around the back. Once this happens, there will be a delay and then they will be able to move. This is meant to emulate requesting reinforcements from the main force.
This can affect the ending, for example, if an enemy seizes, whether or not you requested reinforcements determines whether you’ll get the neutral or bad ending.
The leader of the insiders, Nobuhiro, can give orders to the NPCs with his special Order command, only for that chapter. The playable insiders will use the purple palette until reinforcements are requested, and will change to blue afterwards.

That’s it for now, hope those who play enjoy this new chapter. Feedback is appreciated.

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Updated to v098, no new chapters this time. I fixed some minor bugs and made a few gameplay adjustments as well, thanks to both my latest full playthrough as well as previous playtesting from other people.

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