Title Screen Song is great. Interesting angle on the story (family of mercenaries)
Played up to Chapter 3 and the difficulty is reasonable. Besides Weston, the growths for the other characters are mediocre. This is based on all my character’s level ups up till now. The good thing is that getting supports between the characters can help mitigate their ok stats.
Hey, thanks for playing!
I’m actually close to quite a major update to the game, so a great deal of both the story and gameplay elements (and some art as well) will likely change drastically.
On the gameplay side, I have reduced map size and enemy density for most maps, while also giving the player stronger tools to work with.
On the story side, the hack no longer takes place in the world of FE8, and essentially every single scene has been rewritten or replaced entirely (or at the very least polished to be more readable), although the core characters are the same. Don’t worry, none of the 7 have been written out.
A little teaser of things to come in the next release, which I hope to have out within a few weeks:
ok, nice. I will stop playing and wait for the release of the patch.
Hello everyone,
To be completely honest, after FEE3, I nearly called it quits on this project. At the time, it seemed I only received negative to middling feedback on the hack. The project was not where I wanted it to be, not something I was proud of, and I doubted my project could ever compare to some of the great works I saw displayed at FEE3.
However, following some time off playing BotW, I came back determined to put in the work to make this project something I could be proud of. It is with great anticipation that I present the V0.8 release.
This release only include one new chapter, but much of the already-released game is greatyly overhauled. Several maps were completely redone, and enemy placement was drastically changed. My old dialogue was not something I was proud of, and nearly everything was rewritten. Most notably, the hack no longer takes place in Magvel, and is in a completely new world!
Here is the world map(now insertable, as opposed to the one a few posts above):
Many new features were added: entirely new weapon icons, menus, new prfs. Now, hopefully, only mugs are the eyesore to look at!
Nancy desparately needs a makeover to be not just Echidna…
All in all, thank you to everyone for their support. I love making this game, and I love the community I’ve found while doing so, so thank you from the bottom of my heart. I hope you enjoy the release!
Gave this a quick look before I had to go to work. The prologue was nice. The way you introduced each nation was pretty good. For the actual chapter it wasn’t too bad I had to just trade the vulnerary around to keep Scott going. Going to make my way and edit this post tonight once I get back home.
Congrats on the new release! Know it can be hard to go back to the drawing board and rework the project. Glad you stuck with it. Looking forward to seeing the updates.
@WarPath I should mention Michelle and Jeremiah at least for me still have that 0 move when they’re playable, so check on your end if that’s the case.
Edit: Never mind, I got it fixed. I restarted the chapter and that fixed it.
Looks like an azgaar generated map.
Congrats on the overhaul, I’ve been there. It takes a lot of determination to pull off.
Huh, I’ve never encountered that bug for myself in any playthrough. To clarify, you mean that in subsequent chapters, once they’re blue and no longer green units, they still have nullified move?
Yes. When they’re green in ch5, they have nullified move, correct? In my case Michelle had nullified move in ch6 as well. As for Jeremiah, he had nullified move in chapter 7. This is when I reported the bug. However, upon restarting both Michelle and Jeremiah had their normal movement.
Thanks for the report! I’ve not encountered that, but it’s an easy enough fix to hopefully prevent it from happening again by un-nullifying their move before they turn blue. Will update the patch once I do so
Hey all,
Just wanted to let everyone know I uploaded a new patch, which hotfixes some issues that have been pointed out to me (most notably, the potential bug Zarg shared above, and a couple strange graphical things Pikmin1211 pointed out). The new patch should not break saves of the patch uploaded yesterday, so feel free to switch over.
Thanks to everyone for their support! Feel free to point out more issues as you find them, and I’ll do my best to get them taken care of.
I’ve been meaning to post some feedback here, so better late than never, I guess? Because it’s been some time since I played through the current patch (Ch 13 being the last, I believe), feel free to correct me should I be mistaken or say something incorrect.
With that out of the way:
The improvements compared to previous release are significant. I especially like the bonus objectives (clear in X turns), not to mention there is some story-gameplay integration with them as well. The baddies wreaking havoc at the magic academy/school makes a lot of sense. Other areas of notable improvement include chapter 8. While I don’t recall playing it before, I’m basing my opinion on what I saw back in Pandan’s LP.
Gameplay in general is solid. It’s challenging enough to keep you from getting complacent especially towards the end of the patch, but not ruthlessly hard. I don’t know what the intended total amount of chapters is going to be, but so far the quality for the most part remains consistent. In my experience this is something some projects struggle with, especially if they’re more on the lengthier side. By consistent quality I mean that there is no significant fluctuation in difficulty and the maps remain distinct enough.
This section contains some bugs I’ve noticed, as well as pet peeves of mine.
There seems to be some old dialogue left.
Since Rausten supposedly no longer exists, Brandon cannot be from Rausten.
Some enemies don’t seem to have a description.
Assassins can’t steal. Since Rogue doesn’t seem to be an option for promotion, I believe it’d be prudent to give Assassins the ability to steal. Iirc this General had a Master Seal.
My issue with these Scouts is that they have so much hp. They’re on par with Generals, for example.
Personally I’d decrease their hp by several points, more closer to Snipers/Rangers. The other enemies with high hp tend to be ones with low speed, so double attacking is more feasible.
My other pet peeve is that Ariel’s map sprite has her holding a sword, but she uses bows instead. There is a female bow-wielding mymridon map sprites in the Ultimate Repo, I think they fit better for Ariel.
This is how my team/army looks like (at the start of ch13).
Arianna, especially with her Yew Bow, can delete almost anything on player phase. I like how you made bow users good by giving them good stats. While Yew Bow is a really good weapon, there are plenty of times where Arianna gets the job done with some other weapon.
Katie is pretty great. She’s almost like a Swordmaster on a horse. Speaking of, I believe Katie and Michelle are a bit too similar stats-wise. It might be a good idea to further differentiate them somehow.
Andrew proved himself pretty quickly. He got some really good level ups and ever since then he’s been a staple in my crew. Having an unit that can nuke monsters is really valuable in my experience.
Joe is such a good unit. I especially like how he has a prf, the Greatbow, but he is not too reliant on it. My problem with prfs is that vast majority of the time it’s the prf that is good, not the character, and in order to retain viability or a niche, the character has to rely heavily on their prf. Take the prf away and the character is utterly mediocre. This is not the case with Joe. Greatbow allows much more versatility in how you can use Joe, but in case you need to give him an axe, he still performs well. Gameplay-wise Joe is very similar to Garath from Dream of Five, which I believe is intentional. But that’s a good thing in my book, because I like Garath.
Nancy is good combat unit, almost too good considering that she’s supposed to be terribly sick. Then again, I don’t know how you’d integrate that in the way she plays, maybe lower her HP? A good combat unit with low max HP and thus low durability?
You really like your Killer Lances, don’t you? While I don’t think having killer weapons on enemies is in on itself something bad, I think you’re better off using some other weapons for the reinforcements in ch4. The biggest issue here is the unpredictability or critical hits. If you need a lighter weapon than steels, try a flier-effective weapon. In case you need more damage, try Silver or even Brave. Is it too early for a Brave weapon? Maybe, but at least the damage it deals is consistent and so easier to plan around.
Is ch6x a breather chapter? I feel like this map needs something more. There is not a lot of enemy variety, the map doesn’t really apply pressure in my experience, and it lacks any anti-turtling incentives as far as I’m aware. I understand you don’t want to screw the player over, but right now I think you’re letting them off the hook a bit too easy.
In my opinion ch9 also needs to apply more pressure. It feels more like “defeat boss in X turns” map than “survive”. Maybe adding more reinforcements towards the end of the map (turns 6-9?) as well as making the map a bit more compact might do the trick.
Ch13 has some issues that detract from the overall experience. First, I find the topmost village quite hard to reach. There’s plenty of hard-hitting cavalry there with varying weaponry, I had to rely on a couple of lucky dodges there. To make things worse, the village gives you a Torch staff. Torch staves are not particularly valuable in the first place, but you actually can buy those from the shop in that same map. Considering the trouble you (or in this case, I) had to go through, the reward is pretty underwhelming.
Other issue I have with this map is that the myrmidon on the lower fort can get critted to death without you being able to do anything. One of the scouts can reach the myrm by turn 3 iirc, and the scout in fact has a crit chance, albeit low, against them. You can’t trade with green units anyway, so why not give them a Hoplon Guard?
Lastly, in my opinion the reveal/objective change happens too soon. You’ve barely played for a single turn before it happens. You probably could make it so that the twist happens when one of the forts is retaken. Currently the objective display does not change to reflect the twist.
Now, to save the best for last, I’m going to say a few words on ch11. First of all, having the ability to choose which one of the bosses to defeat is great. What’s more, since all of them come with different weapons, there is a meaningful decision to be made here: do you want to take down the one that is easiest for you to kill, or do you want the strong Nocturne tome? Do you go for the immediate reward or delayed payoff (I’m not sure how feasible it is for Kristia to have A rank in dark magic at this point)? To top things off, the way they’re positioned allow you to reach the Nocturne guy a bit faster, but taking him on is no easy feat. There’s a trade-off between ending the map earlier if you manage to kill him, or playing it safe but then it comes down to the wire whether you can beat the map in time or not. My only criticism of this map is that it looks too much like the Rausten map from vanilla fe 8.
I think that’s everything. I’m looking forward to next release.
Hey dude,
Really appreciate the detailed review! I’m glad you overall had a good time, and liked the new update! It took quite a bit of willpower to redo large chunks of the game, so it’s good to see it’s resulted in an improvement.
Those bugs will definitely be fixed in the future. The assassins not stealing is a big one, thanks for the report on that. Shows you how often I promote my thieves when testing. Scouts also apparently had very high HP growth and base, which I’m surprised I hadn’t noticed before. Will be addressed. Would like to come up with something more custom for Ariel’s map sprite/animation as well, and make it myself, but it’s not high priority. I will likely do it some day when I’m trying to procrastinate formatting text haha.
Your units all look good! Katie/Michelle’s similarity is something I’ve struggled with for a while. I may eventually change one of them to a different weapon type. Lowering Nancy’s HP is a good idea, I’ll look into it. As you might suspect, she has a pretty important role in the story as it goes on, so balancing her as you get further into the game is something I’m very concerned with. I’m glad you like Joe, he is one of my personal favorites as both a character and a unit. He is definitely Garath-inspired, as a bow-focused Warrior prepromote.
Killer lance reinforcements are a relic of an earlier build, I think I may go with something like Steel Pikes now. Thanks for pointing that out.
6x is def more of a breather, and is focused on the fam. The irl 7 siblings like it as a reunion, so the general premise likely won’t change. However, you’re not the only one who’s thought it’s a little bit of a snooze, and I’m working to spice it up currently while keeping it relatively chill. A little teaser for that is a certain food-related item:
I get you on Ch. 9. The pacing is really uneven, and I’ll see what I can do with reinforcements. It used to be pretty unfair/unfun in older builds, and I may have eased the pressure throttle back a bit too much.
The Ch. 13 issues have been brought up by others as well. As the most recent chapter, it’s the least thouroughly tested, and I think that shows in this release. I’ve already worked to make the pacing more fair and less RNG-based, and the Hoplon Guard idea is a good one. Hopefully the changes I’m already making to it will make the experience more enjoyable, and cut out some of the frustration. The twist is really meant to be more for story than for gameplay, the gameplay spirit of the chapter really isn’t one of objective-change. I’ll see what I can come up with to make it more interesting though.
Again, thanks for playing! Unfortunately, it’s shaping up right now to look like the next release will break saves, which I know is a major bummer for those who have played the game before. Hopefully, the changes that altering save data makes will be worth it overall.
I’ve quickly played “Circle of Four” a handful of times. I played the same version that I had when I made the critique earlier, so maybe some of the things I’m going to point out don’t apply to the latest revision.
Everything is good for the first two turns. From the third turn on, however, the reinforcements start to pile up quickly. The units I have at this point don’t have the necessary speed/strength to one-round most enemies by themselves (with the exception of effective weaponry), and must pair up to take one enemy. Constant reinforcements from the sides don’t make me hurry up, quite the opposite. I have to stay longer near the stairs to take them out in player phase, because taking them in enemy phase is not an option considering their damage output and movement range. The female assassins only exacerbate this problem; they’re too busted for a map with already many tough enemies. Combine this with a measly 9 turns to defeat a boss, and you have quite a frustrating map. It doesn’t seem possible to have everyone survive, or get all the chests.
Again, this goes for the version I downloaded on January. The map could have been totally revamped for all I know.
Hey dude,
This map has been significantly re-paced since then, although I appreciate the feedback. Enemy placement, reinforcement pacing, and enemy strength relative to player have all been changed. Old version was pretty difficult to get everything.
You can try switching over to the new patch for a new version of the map, although I’m unsure what jank switching from the November to the March patch so late into the game may cause. Player unit balance and resources have been changed also though, so the units from your old save may be imbalanced in one way or another for the new version. You can always give it a go, though!
I remember your earlier feedback and took a fair amount of it into consideration with the latest patch. Again, thanks for giving the project a look and dropping honest feedback, it is very appreciated.
Alright, I’ve downloaded the latest version and have begun a new playthrough, and I’m ready to give my new thoughts. The difficulty is lower overall, and I’m happy to see that. Each paragraph will mainly talk about each chapter.
Chapters 1 and 2 might need a tiny tone down in difficulty. They feel like they leave too little room for error. Maybe one less enemy per map? I don’t know, I’m just throwing things at the wall.
I’m glad that Katie doesn’t move immediately in chapter 4. That prevents her from dying before the player can do anything about it. However, chapter 4 still feels like it spams reinforcements.
Chapter 5 is significantly more enjoyable thanks to the lower enemy stats and density. My only complaint would be the wyverns – I wanted to shop, and because of them I had to waste a bunch of turns fighting them. That reduced the size of my army for the rest of the map, and made the time limit more tight than it should. Possible solutions I can think of are: 1, space out wyvern reinforcements; or 2, wait one or two more turns before the boss appears.
Chapter 5x is an interesting one. You have an anti-turle incentive, but in order to get the prize, I pretty much had to send my fighting units full move into the frontline, without regard for possible damage taken. It felt like I was relying too much in RNG to not screw me over to even have a chance at getting to the boss. Perhaps you should extend the timer to 11 turns or something like that: not too long for total turtling to work, but not too short for lucky dodges to guide the player through.
If I remember correctly, Kimberley’s chapter had monsters ambush spawn close to her in the previous version, but now they appear before player phase like all other reinforcements. That was a good change. However, these fliers feel a little overpowered, especially when I have to weather the storm from more than one side. Another complaint is that the thief that appears in the northeastern room leaves too quickly: because the stairs are so close to the chest, if the player realizes the thief just appeared and their troops are not in the room already, the treasure is pretty much lost, since there’s two pesky enemies and a door getting in the player’s way. That’s what happened to me, at least. I was so caught up in defending from the OP fliers that I hadn’t had any time to break into the room, so when the thief appeared, once I tried to break in, I was 1-2 turns short, because I was fighting that nasty mage knight with crit chance and the myrmidon.
Chapter 8 is thankfully easier as well. I like how you delayed the bandits’ appearance by one turn, because in the previous version it felt like there was too little time to save the village. The map is challenging but manageable, but I think it was a bit of a sucker punch to put a swordslayer and an axereaver close to where Nancy and Joe start. I also felt like there was 1-2 too many enemies going for them. The killer bow archer was also a bit of a pain to deal with because only Joe could take a crit and live.
The bridge chapter is slightly easier, but not by much. I still have no idea how I’m supposed to have my units survive, save the allies to the east, visit both shops, save the villages to the west, and slay the bosses all at once. I don’t like how if you kill one boss, the other charges on the next turn, because I accidentally attracted Amos, had to kill him immediately, and then I had to run away from the general, which forced me to abandon the green units. I also felt that there were too many reinforcements from the sides (the pegasi are fine). Maybe Amos shouldn’t move until a certain turn hits, because it’s rather difficult to deal with all the initial western troops plus reinforcements without pulling him.
Circle of Four is still really fricking hard. There are far too many reinforcements. Honestly, I don’t think this map even needs reinforcements. Trying to get everything in 12 turns with such a big map is still a challenge. It doesn’t help that the map before this one is extremely difficult as well. By the way, the cutscene in which the four shamans appear and kill the emperor’s guard is bugged – the knights don’t die.
The chapter that introduces Cale is fine… as fine as a desert map can be, that is. But it’s annoying that the boss decides to charge Cale at a certain point. I know you don’t want the player to turtle, but this isn’t the first boss who does this and it begins to get tiring, personally. I feel like I can’t get a break. Or maybe I’m whining too much because I’m generally against punishing turtling, LOL.
Reinforce forts, eh? It’s a nice concept that I was looking forward to, but it crashed in execution. Because a single green unit death means game over, I have to go fast. But if I go fast, the enemies swarm me. If I make it so the enemies don’t kill me, they kill the green units instead. It’s like no matter what I do, I get screwed over one way or another. Add to this the fact that the greenies can get RNG screwed and you get a pretty bad player experience. Consider making the game over requirement ALL green unit deaths, or introduce the enemy reinforcements later. The player needs some breathing room. It also doesn’t help that the boss decides to move (is this the third boss that does that? Fourth?) while I’m trying to make sense of what is going on in every corner of the map.
Hey dude,
Appreciate your feedback and interest in the project once again! I will take a look at these chapters. A couple of your qualms have already been addressed, namely Ch. 13, which had some unfairness to it that I’d overlooked in my excitement to release a new patch.
On that cutscene scripted battle bug- I’ve heard of that occurring once before, but even with a save from a player who saw it, I was unable to replicate it myself. I chalked it up as a weird one-time thing, but apparently that’s not the case. Very odd to see it reported again, I may have to consult some experts to sort it out.
On a lot of the optional objectives- they’re meant to be challenges for those so inclined, but the game is designed to be perfectly playable and beatable for those who want to play at a slower pace. Obviously, a couple of chapters have harder time limits that aren’t optional, and I can look into making these more lenient. But generally I try to make these much more attainable than the optional objectives. The game gets significantly easier if you ignore side objectives in these cases as well, which is an option I try to leave open for the player, if they so choose to cut bait and focus on the main objective.
Thanks again for playing, and I hope you overall had a good time with the new patch, both the updated gamplay and the story/graphics overhaul. It’s very cool and encouraging to hear that someone other than me has played this game more than once!
Good luck on finishing this hack! Nice portraits!
Thank you! I hope to have an update within the next couple of months, I may post some teaser screenshots for that soon.
