[FE8] Fire Emblem: Souls of the Forest

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Having recently beat this hack as well, I was caught off guard by that at first too. Although, I think the design of the map allows for even stat-screwed units to make it through with some clever movement and inventory management: hand out defensive items, leave anyone who can tank 99 magic damage with weapons, and then have a bunch of unarmed healing, rescue, and dance bots. Not to mention, considering Sybil is force-deployed on every map once you get her, It’s kinda weird you decided NOT to train her.

This isn’t to say your criticisms aren’t valid, I do definitely think Souls of the Forest’s endgame has perhaps one of the most ridiculously stat-inflated endgames from any hack I’ve ever played (with the possible exception of Code of the Black Knight’s Route D). I just think that it isn’t quite as player hostile as you are making it out to be.

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It was more of a coalecing pile of things all stacking together to just make the endgame more of a slog then it needed to be due to, all of a sudden, the dev deciding to make over half of all class unusable after a certain point.

Warriors wielding 1-2 brave axes univerally after a set point, the fog-snipers, those spirits, the 1-15 bolting. It all adds up, but no it’s purely the 200% crit that is wholely unacceptable.

There is literally a thread of a guy getting lambasted by several members of the community (myself included) for wanting to give the weapon triangle auto-crit on advantage and yet somehow this hack literally just giving every enemy on the final map guarenteed crits it suddenly okay?

It baffles me.

Wether or not you can play around it is Irrelevant to the point of that being atrocously player hostle design that has only 1-2 solutions that make the map insanely reset heavy and intollerably unfun.

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Huh, I didn’t realize that so many people hated that part of the map so much. I mean, I found the final spirit fight to be pretty… easy actually, especially compared to how intimidating the first phase was. Considering how slow (movement wise) and relatively frail the spirits are, it was pretty easy to pick them apart on player-phase while staying out of their range on enemy phase. It’s like fighting a bunch of snipers and manaketes that don’t have defense, at least in my view.

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Well, that’s why I say how difficult it is to an individual isn’t a factor. It’s how easily it can snowball into a wipe if you make a single misplay or if a single unit isn’t stat capable enough to kill the spirits in one turn.

I can’t speak for the current version since I never played it but on the version I beat, the spirits all had 30 speed and 80 HP with that item that halves damage received. You had to devote multiple characters to killing a single spirit which made also unequiping weapons for that 1-15 range bolting a pain in the ass.

Stack that with there not being 18 characters total who could even have higher then 25 speed (in the verson I played) and you get the overly oppressive map full of enemies that kill any unit you don’t place perfectly which can snowball very quickly.

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In the current version, all of the elementals are crazy strong, even having more HP at 99.
But…

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All their weapons are either 1 range, 2 range, or 3 range only. They also have an effective speed of 0 because they have no con lol. So they seem a lot more manageable than what you are describing.

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well, I can’t exactly show you what went screwy in my run due to Final1-2 apparently VIOLENTLY breaks if you reset it without savestates. but uh, here’s a slight thing to note.

if you don’t deal exactly 100 damage in a single round to one of those, a different ones range overlaps in multiple locations. in my personal testing of that map, without any heroic weapons, doubling up on, or maxed out characters, actually clearing that map deathless is actually fairly hard depending on your resources, I didn’t have a Berserk Staff anymore several items in the version you played didn’t exist for me, and I still don’t agree with some of the writing. but that’s me.

and that’s if you even can actually get to that map since if I remember correctly, you have to get through Rakel’s corpse with her capped out everything sans luck wielding a 1-2 range nosferatu luna axe who can’t be crit and takes half damage which I still actually hate narratively speaking.

Edit: I really feel like this conversation is likely tp keep going in circles. So I say lets just just agree to disagree.

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Scraiza has beaten the game on 0% growths mode multiple times, I assure you being “slighty stat screwed” won’t hardlock you at any point lol

Any unit does decently well against enemies as long as you’re using strong weapons (like golds, heroics, legendaries, barrier blade, shieldbearer, devil axe, munio) You can’t even lose these weapons by getting a bunch of your units killed bc every item that’s on a unit that dies goes to the convoy. And having good combat aside there’s still a ton of other strategies you can use like warp skipping, rescue skipping, putting enemies you can’t beat to sleep, and of course just outright lowering the difficulty in the settings.

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That likely relies on stacking multiple passive stats from a few of the S weapon coupled with the dancer staves. Plus you get exactly one sleep, berserk and silence and they’re locked to a single unit you can actually fail to recruit.

I still don’t get why people are suddenly trying to defend something here that another thread literally had a guy being told was a horrid idea though.

I mean, I can’t even actually replay the damned final map since most of my units disappear and whoever is left are turned into civilians due to some wierd crap in the rom. (Probably some kind of version issue)

I just don’t like how the final map is built around “der if you don’t oneshot me I kill you guarrenteed” enemies. It’s lazy design.

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I still don’t get why people are suddenly trying to defend something here that another thread literally had a guy being told was a horrid idea though.

I think it’s because comparably, these enemies are both, relatively frail and slow, easily able to be attacked without getting hit back, have incredibly low mov compared to your units (meaning if you carve out enough space T1, you’re basically golden), and are at a point where you will be guaranteed to have all the best stuff (and in turn, REALLY good damage). This is compared to an entire game based around guaranteed 3x crits

I don’t even like the final map or the one right before it. I think they’re boring to hell and back and really tedious, more just spectacle of “OHH SHIT” for like a minute without any much oomph behind the whole thing.

But I just think it’s insanely frusturating you’re comparing these two as if they’re exactly the same, while ignoring the widely different circumstances that make one much more tolerable than the other. Alongside beating a dead horse on a design issue with the map that has more or less been fixed since the version you’d played, since it’s no longer “oneshot me or die”

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Actually I did check them in the most recent version. They’re still pretty much “one shot me or die” i mean the screenshot a few posts up kinda show 99 atk and 200 crit. Even with 30 res and 80 hp you can’t survive their attack.

I think the lowest personally got one if their hits to was about 34 damage. without an Iron rune that’s 112 damage.

Edit: I won’t deny I’m beating a dead horse, but this particular horse needs beaten imo.

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They’re only oneshotting you in retaliation if you’re choosing to attack them at the single range they can counter at. If you’re choosing to attack them where they can counter on PP, that’s just a problem as a player rather than a design issue.
This has already been said, both in my post and one before and you’re making it instead seem like it’s a guaranteed instakill counter no matter what.

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Or if you, heaven forbid, misplace a unit. And considering you don’t get midmap saves in this hack. If you for whatever reason have to reset and didn’'t have or don’t use a savestate you already have to redo finale-1 at best but could end up with this
X Souls of the Forest.emulator-0
at worst.

this is what happens whenever I load finale-1. this is likely due to a version difference but I’ve got no idea. and I’m sure as shit not replaying this hack till the Rakel route is finished since I already beat, and didn’t like, the Valsythe route.

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Nothing here has anything to do with what I’m trying to say,. Which is just that calling them “oneshot or die” implies “if you don’t kill the enemy in THAT combat, you die” which is practically untrue unless you let it happen. Since alot has to go wrong to not notice the combat forecast telling you the enemy can retaliate with a guaranteed kill.
If you misplace, you can always rescue units by in large, no staves needed. (Which heck, is even a good way to avoid disarming order!) As said before, I mostly agree Final 1/2 sucks, but I just don’t like seeing claims that’re just objectively wrong and some really unfairly put comparisons. While beating an issue thats been fundamentally fixed a while ago (while presenting it as a currently still existing problem)

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Well, I mean I don’t actually know how the issue was fixed considering from, as far as I can tell, the enemies on finale-2 are identacle to when I faced them almost a year ago based off that screenshot and looking around in the builder.

I mean this with genuine sincerity, how exactly was this issue fixed?

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To keep it short, because finale 2 is not the entire game, nor is that the only place where content is added or changed. Butterfly effect n’ all that type of stuff. The class-specific items for footlocked units also go a long way to giving more action economy and offense when it comes to taking out the enemies. These are fairly hard to miss out on as of the latest release.

This is along with buffs to units (especially the gotohs, and all of peg/falco knights) and items being made since version 0.9 . These in turn flatten the curve and make things more consistent come final-2.
TL;DR Given more tools that’re very hard to miss, and pre-existing tools (both units AND items) have been made stronger, in turn smoothing out the curve for finale-2.

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I suppose I can see that, but having not played with those items existing and still seeing the final map completely unchanged you can understand where I’m coming from right?

I think the simplest way I could phrase it is, “it doesn’t matter if a poorly balanced map is made easier with new items, since it doesn’t change the fact the map was bad to begin with”.

Like, sure it’s easier but the fact is you do still have a unit who game overs you if one of those nubblins slips by unnoticed which could completely ruin your save like mine.

Which is another whole can of worms of a topic.

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I finished SotF yesterday. I could write a more extensive review of it, but instead I’ll just clarify something: you can tank Disarming Order and you can tank the 99 atk / 200 crit stuff in E-2, you’re just doing it wrong. You have two damage-halving items you can put on anyone, Magebanes are also damage-halving here because they work against all types of magic, and Mage Slayers are damage-quartering. For the 2 and 3 range ones there is also Shieldbearer. And if someone’s magical bulk is just under the survival threshold, you can try giving them a Warding Seal (+4 res, exceeds the cap) and/or using the Bolster staff on them (-3 damage taken). Not to mention that for E-2 specifically:

You do get two Lucky Seals for free, which have an Iron Rune effect. You might not consider bringing them when you first get to E-2, but you can still pull them from your convoy while you’re there. The option exists.

I felt that E-1 was overreliant on Sibyl (with her being one of very few reliable ways to damage the boss – seriously, it’s extremely hard to even damage that boss, and Sibyl with her prf is by far the best option), but I thought E-2 was fine. I could also see E-1 being frustrating if you lost some tools, but you do get several damage-mitigating weapons and items for basically free, so it’s a matter of stacking them properly. When I played E-1, I was able to optimize inventory and deployment enough that my entire team was able to tank one Disarming Order each. And of course, if you’re a more Advanced Gamer than me, you could do what the chapter actually intends you to do and trade single weapons around so that the boss repeatedly blasts someone with damage reduction and not anyone else.

Point is, I can see the frustration with E-1 and E-2, but you have the tools to beat it right there. And I think E-2 is reasonable; yes, it looks like you will get overwhelmed, because you are being approached from every direction, but the enemies have very low Movement and there are no obstacles anywhere. Just move your entire group in unison away from the starting position and gang up on smaller enemy groups and you’ll be fine. Or be like the Epic Gamers I’ve seen who are able to clear this map in 1 turn (I am not an Epic Gamer, I have dropped stuff due to difficulty many times).

This whole spiel probably sounds patronizing, but it isn’t meant to be. I’m just trying to explain that as someone who isn’t that good at the game, I thought Endgame was reasonable. I really feel like you should be able to beat it if you were able to get there in the first place. I don’t think it’s perfect (E-1 really demands a trained Sibyl, because every alternative is worse), but it’s beatable, and it’s memorable. Compare to SoHaE where if you didn’t save a select few weapons for Endgame (and you don’t get multiple copies of these weapons), you most likely don’t have a way to kill the final boss.

I could talk about the whole game here, but Endgame is fresh in my mind (because I beat it literally yesterday), so I figured I should post about it first. It was a very memorable sequence of maps.

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Ok, let me point something out here.

  1. You got a single Lucky Seal in the version I beat.
  2. I know you can tank disarming light, I had a unit just for it.
  3. After double checking the shop inventories, the last viable shop for the Magebane is 18, considering how magic loaded the last 5 maps are. You honestly expect me to have enough of them lying around to cover that many units. Much less have a majority of sword users deployed that far in advance for some shit you literally couldn’t see coming unless you’ve already played the map.

My whole complaints with it are solely around the fact that we have recorded instances in other threads that people actively hate enemies with absolute crit and yet somehow for some dumb fucking reason it gets a pass here.

It’s lazy design for your enemies only means of being a threat is to ensure they kill anyone they actually manage to attack.

It’s basically “why design an actual map layout with any real challenge when I can just make a black background and fill it full of enemies who can cause an instant game over if you fuck up a single units placement”.

Lets also not forget this goddamn chestnut
gah
oh joy look at that a bricked save that renders retrying the final map impossible.

edit: out of the 75-ish hacks I’ve played to completion, including meme hacks, this one’s final 3 maps for this route is quite honestly the worst ones I’ve ever played.

and this list includes at least one hack I actively had to inform the creator about a mistake in the second to last map that made finishing it impossible due to a door not opening if you recruited a secret character on it that same unit’s death was the trigger for the door.

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No, it’s just one of your options. And you can, in fact, check the map before you play it.

Fair enough to the other two points.

I’m not sure what you mean by it getting a “pass.” Are people actively saying “yeah, absolute Crit is terrible, but in SotF, it’s fine?”

I don’t see why that can’t be considered a challenge. And like I said – and as you seem to know – if you really want to tank a hit from them, you can. But you don’t have to. Hell, the map is probably beatable just with the forced units.

Can’t comment here, I had no technical issues throughout my playthrough

Agree to disagree? It seems like you just really hate the design choices for E-1 and E-2 personally. I can’t imagine endgames that are literally unplayable due to technical issues, or which softlock you if you didn’t do something specific before playing them, are better.

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This is pure personal experience, but I had no idea what E-1 looked like, and yet I had enough Magebanes / Mage Slayers to equip quite a few units. I’m not going to use this as an argument because it’s a result of the way I played the game (not that I played in a nonstandard way), but from my perspective, it’s not unlikely to have spares lying around.