[FE8] Fire Emblem: Steel Over Blood(10/? Chapters) [WIP_Project]

Bacon_Eggs · February 1, 2025, 10:19pm

Which path would you take when your allegiance is divided by your morals or bloodline?

Download it here!

Join the FE STEEL OVER BLOOD discord server!!!

Steel over Blood has been a romhack I’ve taken way too long to work on. If anybody had seen my old journal entries back in 2022, you’d be familiar with my humble beginnings. It never had a public release despite the entries I made about it… until now. The project has mostly been developed using FEBuilder and has been something I have been working on in between college courses. And only recently have I polished enough chapters in order to release something I can be confident to share with the public.

This romhack is a love letter to my introduction to the series, which was the 3DS era, and it also blends a lot of other media I enjoy, as well as nods and references to some people I made friends with in the community and memorable experiences I’ve had throughout the series. But it’s not really made exclusively just for fanfare; it’s also my way of expressing my love for writing fictional stories. And with how Fire Emblem is, it offers me a chance to write a library of different characters with different backstories and chemistry between one another.

Story:
The Ulkfold Empire, a once-mighty nation, enjoyed decades of peace with its rival, the Kingdom of Centaurus–until the Empire’s capital was ravaged by a sudden, brutal invasion. The Empire blamed Centaurus for this sudden attack, reigniting a bitter war and shattering their fragile peace.

Enter Lenora, a young, idealistic lady of House Leonfé who wants nothing more than to prove herself and make a mark in history. But with her homeland ravaged by war, dark truths get uncovered, leaving her confused and questioning her loyalty. The line between steel and blood is far thinner than she imagined.

Her father once told her, ‘When steel clashes, blood will flow. But when blood is spilled, steel will rise.’ It never made sense to her back then, but now, those words haunt her-Steel Over Blood is not just a saying; it’s a warning.

Features:

10 Playable chapters, with a planned 24 chapter total upon completion.
A focus on story and character dialogue over difficulty/challenging gameplay.
Normal is the intended way to play, as hard and lunatic are untested, so play at your own risk.
Fates EXP system.
Utilizes SkillSys and has custom personal skills for many units.
Thieves, assassins, and tricksters use dagger weapons. And daggers replace light magic in my romhack.
Units follow the 3DS style stat spread and calculation.
Mostly custom-made portraits for a large majority of characters in the romhack, with some repo portraits used for minor characters, except for a few exceptions.
Every playable unit has a personal skill + learnable class skills. Each class has 1-2 skills that can be learned.
Shove is a built-in skill that can be learned by any infantry unit, similar to the Tellius games.
Include Danger zone highlighting with the select button.
Include HP bars and effective weapon notice icons on the map, + droppable weapon icon on the map.
Talk and Support map dialogue does not end the unit’s turn.

Before I continue, I want to thank some specific individuals who have been supporting me for so long. Such as HusbandoEmblem (which I do not know if he is around here anymore), Melledoneus (Fire Emblem Genesis), FlamingZelda, Glaceo, BlindArcher, ZessDynamite, Yasako, and of course 7743 for creating FEBuilder. There’s a larger list of people who helped me through this journey of making this hack, and honestly, I just wrote down the people who came to mind as I was writing.

FEE3 Trailer:

And another thank you to Glaceo for writing this. This guy has probably made 80% of the portraits in my game, and I am incredibly lucky to get the chance to work with such an amazing artist:

Screenshots

Feedback/Suggestions

Please send feedback and suggestions in this thread or join the FE Steel Over Blood discord channel!

Credits

Complete rehaul and new coded skills for SkillSys by Contro.
Custom Stat Screen by Cygnus.
Custom Title Screen by Antroprix.
Custom Menu and Save UI by HyperGammaSpace.
Custom Skill Icons by ZessDynamite, PhantomSentine, Jeorge_Reds.
Various early game balancing help and playtesting as well as major adjustments on Chapter 5 unit placement balance, eventing and map adjustments by FlamingZelda.
Custom CG’s by Antroprix, Beno, and SamoseArtwork.
Custom Battle Platforms by Cynon.
Custom Palace Halls Background by Cynon.
Custom Tilesets by Zora, Zoramine Fae, and Atlus.
Roar and Laurence’s C-A support written by Olivia.
Ch2 and Ch3’s map designed by Apparoid.
Ch7 map designed by Atlus.
SHYUTERz, HIROTO, Fenreir, 7743, Blazer, Narumon, Struedelmuffin, Mikey_Seregon, Windsweep, Mariode and BwdYeti, SkidMarc25 for spell & skill animation.
New map sprites by flasuban, Glaceo, Tordo45, Der, Pikimin, L95, Mikey_Seregon, Narumon, TBA, Rexacuse, Peerless, Alusq, Pushwall, Shin19, SALVAGED, Eldritch Abomination, N426, Blue Druid, Unkown, MeatofJustice, StreetHero, Sable Mage.
Custom Lenora map sprite by Glaceo.
New Item Icons by Batima, LordGlenn, Zelix, Zane, Peerless, Seal, SacredStones, Orihara Saki, Beansy, Jubby, Zarg, Erishkigal, Celice, George Reds, XVI, 2WB, and FuriousHaunter.
New Class Card icons by Narumon, Leif, SkidMarc25, Electric_Serge, Eldritch Abomination, Der, SALVAGED, Jj09, Scraiza, Sword of HaE, TBA, Yellowtoad, Pikmin, Melia, N426, MeatOfJustice, Spud, Beno and IS.

Commissioned Portraits:

Glaceo for Lenora, Thierris, Ylva, Bonnie, Heidi, Hiro, Godefroy, Charlotte, Carter, Luther, Mathias, Viktor, Cynthia, Satomi, Ludwig, Margaratt, and Glaceo the Shopkeeper.
ZessDynamite for Hyde, Maren, Lydia, Janice, Varnhame, Kinu, and Jenmu.
TheBlindArcher for Laurence, Justin, Obert, Odilia, Suzzane, Élénore, Darren, Leviticus, Suliaman, Ash, Maddie, Majd, Primrose, Kali, and BlindArcher the Armorer and Ilgrim.
TheBlindArcher for touch ups on PhantomSentine’s portrait of his character, Johanna.
Yasako for Badger, Roar and Nicolas.
BuskHusker for Fleur.
Fortuna for Fé, Aurora, and Odyssia.
HusbandoEmblem for Hermine, Xavier, Palmeria, Kali, Kisaragi, Thilda, Penelope, Deon, Henrietta, Suzzane, Odilia, Élénore.

Custom Music:

Ristar for Pride & Arrogance, Bright Sandstorm and Custom level up, item break and item acquire SFX.
Cynon for Title screen music, Dungeon 2, Combat 2, the Key to the Future, and enemy battle music.

Animation:

Lenora Repalleted cutom animation by DATonDemand.
Thierris Custom Animation by SteamingTofu.
Bonnie Pirate Repal by Fuyu.
Hunter animation by MeatofJustice.
Mage Knight Repal by BatimaTheBat.
Troubadour Repal by Eldirtch, BatimaTheBat.
Sainted Knight by Team SALVAGED, Leo_link, Flasuban, The_Big_Dededester, CelestiaHeart.
Weyfarer, Knight, Mercenary, Hero, Pirate, Wyvern Lord, Prince, Soldier animation by Narumon
Female Assassin animation by Pushwall, Jj09.Bow by Itranc. Hair by Raulster/Alice.
Myrmidon animation by Leo_Link
Male Brigand by Iscaneus.
Female Brigand, Wyvern Rider M/F by eCut.
FEGirls Female Berserker.
Female Fighter by Black Mage.
Trickster, Dark Knight, Malig Knight animation by Leo_Link.
Thief repal and knife animation by Pikmin.
Griffon Rider by Blue Driod.
Griffon Lord by Ayr.
Dark Flier, Axe Spirits, Halberdier by TBA.
Roar Animation by Greentea.
Cavalier M/F by SALVAGED.
War Monk, Hermine animation by DerTheVaporeon.
Villager animation by Jeorge_Reds.
Mage, Sage animation by Gamma.
Goat Demon Animation ripped by Deathbringer and formatted by Dark.
Spirit, male Priest animation by Eldritch Abomination.
Kitsune animation by DatonDemand.
Female Warrior animation by Temp.

Art stuff for the game

Title screen made by Antroprix

CG in higher resolution made by Antroprix

by DoinThangs

by Yoshiko

Concept art by BuskHusker

by Mona

by Obsidian_Daddy

by Brice Merry, Artist and Author of The Magic Aunt WebToon series.

Promotions

Cavalier at level 10 can promote to Paladin or Great Knight
Soldier at level 10 can promote to Halberdier or General
Knight at level 10 can promote to General or Great Knight
Fighter at level 10 can promote to Warrior or Hero
Brigand at level 10 can promote to Berserker or War Monk/War Cleric
Pirate at level 10 can promote to Berserker or War Monk/War Cleric
Priest/Cleric at level 10 can promote to War Cleric or Mage Knight
Troubadour at level 10 can promote to Sainted Knight or Mage Knight
Mercenary at level 10 can promote to Hero or Bow Knight
Myrmidon at level 10 can promote to Swordmaster or Assassin
Archer at level 10 can promote to Sniper or Bow Knight
Hunter at level 10 can promote to Wayferer or Trickster
Thief at level 10 can promote to Assassin or Trickster
Pegasus Knight at level 10 can promote to Falco Knight or Dark Flier
Wyvern Rider at level 10 can promote to Wyvern Lord or Malig Knight
Griffon Rider at level 10 can promote to Griffon Lord or Malig Knight
Mage at level 10 can promote to Sage or Mage Knight
Dark Mage at level 10 can promote to Druid or Dark Knight
Cadet at level 10 promotes to Mercenary or Myrmidon.
Villager at level 10 promotes to Archer or Hunter.

Class Skills

Cavalier
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 10: Elbow Room
Paladin
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Savior
- level 15: Aegis
Knight
- level 10: Indoor Fighter
General
- level 5: Wary Fighter
- level 15: Pavise
Great Knight
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Luna
- level 15: Armored Blow
Thief
- Class Skill: Cunning + Lock Touch
- level 15: Celerity
Assassin
- Class Skill: Cunning + Locktouch
- level 5: Lucky Seven
- level 15: Daggerfaire
Mercenary
- level 5: Strong riposte
Hero
- level 5: Sol
- level 15: Axe Breaker
Fighter
- level 10: Heavy Blade
Brigand/Pirate
- level 10: Gamble
Warrior
- level 5: Rally Strength
- level 15: Axefaire
Myrmidon
- level 5: Duelist’s Blow
- level 10: Vantage
Swordmaster
- level 5: Astra
- level 15: Swordfaire
Soldier
- level 5: Seal Defense
Halberdier:
- level 5: Seal Speed
- level 15: Lancefaire
Archer
- level 10: Quick Draw
Sniper
- Class Skill: Sure Shot
- level 5: Certain Blow
- level 15: Bowfaire
Bow Knight
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Rally Skill
- level 15: Dagger Breaker
Hunter
- level 5: Seal Resistance
Weyfarer
- level 5: Seal Luck
- level 15: Tome Breaker
Wyvern Rider
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 10: Tantivy
Wyvern Lord
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Rally Defense
- level 15: Sword Breaker
Malig Knight
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Savage Blow
- level 15: Trample
Pegasus Knight
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Darting Blow
- level 10: Relief
Falco Knight
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Rally Speed
- level 15: Warding Blow
Dark Flier
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Rally Movement
- level 15: Galeforce
Griffon Rider
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Certain Blow
- level 15: Tantivy
Griffon Lord
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Wind Disciple
- level 15: Lance Breaker
Priest/Cleric
- level 10: Miracle
War Monk/War Cleric
- level 5: Rally Luck
- level 15: Renewal
Troubadour
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Demoiselle
Sainted Knight
- Class Skill: Canto
- level 5: Glacies
- level 15: Counter Magic

Gultykappa · February 2, 2025, 12:26am

I mean if Glaceo said it, I’ll have to play the ROM hack “Fire Emblem: Steel Over Blood” by Beno.

tweetyboy · February 2, 2025, 6:17am

You had me at story/dialogue over gameplay! I feel like so many hacks focus on hard gameplay over story and their characters, so I love to see when that’s not the case. That being said I’m assuming this will have integrated supports and endings?

Augenis · February 2, 2025, 7:02am

I shall play this hack

DATonDemand · February 2, 2025, 7:13am

I as a significantly less competent and famous fire emblem sprite artist then glaceo shall also commend people to play this hack yes hack made by my pal Beno.

IcicleDisaster · February 2, 2025, 9:49pm

This is a good hack and I enjoyed my time with it. The difficulty was perfect for me. The enemy had a lot of javelins and hand axes which caught me off guard a few times at the start. My MVP was definitely Justin, he could face tank anything physical and even nabbed a few Res levels so he could comfortably survive a round with a mage. Everyone contributed even though I didn’t need to choose who to deploy yet. Characters were good if a bit bland. I felt that Justin’s justice shtick is Arthur from Fates personality but downed down. Herminie’s description claims she likes dark humor but I didn’t get too much of that from her in her Talks and her Support with Badger, more Maribelle then Henry. Admittedly, there’s only six chapters here so there wasn’t a lot of time to get to know the characters.

The story was good but there were some elements that confused me. The opening scrawl indicates that the Emperor was loved by his people for three decades of his rule but Luther claims that he was a weak king who was dragging the country down. I guess he could just be justifying his naked power grab but aside from the rebels no one seems chuffed about a king they like getting deposed. Also, I believe it was mentioned that the kingdom’s been at peace for some time because their paying war reparations but Chapter 6 reveals that Centauraus has been besieging a Ulkford fort for some period of time? I might be misremembering story elements though.

The hack’s portraits are top notch and one of the best elements of this hack. It’s a very good start to a hack and I am excited to see what’s in store next but it is going to need polishing to really shine.

Rivian · February 3, 2025, 5:51am

Cool stuff.

Unit Impressions

One of the coolest trainees I’ve seen. Starts with aptitude and has enough stats to combine for 2 round kills, so is pretty easy to bump stats up.
Growths being pretty mediocre after losing aptitude after trainee levels doesn’t matter that much when she can outstat every other unit in like 4 chapters.

Lord is pretty solid. Managed to barely get ahead of the speed curve to orko stuff with doubles and decent enough bulk for two hits.

Laurence succeeded in being a pretty average guy. Generally kills in 2 hits, still just fast enough to explode from a double (for now).

Badger feels a bit like Laurence but without the horse, which meant he was pretty unimpressive in comparison.

Roar demoting from cavalier to soldier is really funny. Aside from that, pretty similar to Badger.

I got pretty unlucky with Hermine’s growths but I think her stat spread is pretty unimpressive even if I rolled average. Opportunist is a nice buffer but 1-2 range is also pretty frequent.

Justin manages to be pretty dominant in the early game as quite of few classes can’t actually pass his 3 AS double threshold. With that speed gap only getting worse and magic enemies getting stronger, I suspect he’ll fall off more as the game gets longer.

Ylva trades off some defensive stats compared to Badger to have a much better offensive spread and I reckon that’s more than what Badger’s worth.

Suzanne’s pretty good once she gets a few speed levels to double and kill a whole bunch of class types. With 60%, odds are mostly in her favour to cross thresholds.

Carter just joins with the most insane bases and is a flier. Not much else to say.

Xavier’s base stats look solid and having 1-2 is nice, but daggers seem to go off magic so he can’t do much. I assume that is just a bug.

Nicholas is really interesting. Terrible stats but guaranteed brave, combined with ranged sword access, gives him some pretty big damage.

Maps

The difficulty ended up being pretty good fit for me. Generally player units were much stronger to not be too difficult, but enemies could output some serious damage if not careful.

I appreciate the fact that there were a lot of use pairs of classes to make a good weapon match ups, but layouts were still pretty diverse to not have one unit do too well.

Early chapters were pretty quick and fair.

The whole water draining map was pretty neat. I liked how you were encouraged to open up the way for the an army split with your other split.

This might not come as a surprise but I wasn’t really a fan of the rain map. The back half of the map feels much better when roads are more solid, but in the early sections, the aesthetic use of plain tiles in the roads (usually a good idea) makes traversing this area feel tedious and difficult to understand give the tile mix-ups.
I think rain is at its best when it creates barriers to either slow down enemies or change how some areas are accessible and not having to power through it.

I liked how in chapter 6, strategic use of opening the doors plays a role to engage charging enemies easier.

Story

My favourite part of the story is chapter 3.
I really enjoy the kind of drama where the main character is forced into an undesirable position without an easy out. She wants to support her father, but her father’s coup betrays her original ideas of loyalty to her kingdom.

There’s also dialogue which fleshes out perspectives for and against the coup which is great to see.

It’s interesting how she explicitly denies her father is an usurper despite arguing with her father earlier. I guess it shows how she’ll reflexively stick up for family regardless.

I do wish there was more time devoted to the main character’s struggles as part of a regime she doesn’t support.
While speaking up against the general is her decision, I feel that being immediately forced out takes struggle of and how she might value her divided loyalties out of her hands too quickly, as the decision is essentially made for her.

As of the end of the demo, I wasn’t expecting the party to go off gallivanting for a third party against their historical rival, still in the name of their empire. I suppose the party doesn’t actually know that they’ve all become marked for death by their home, so I’m curious to see where things go from here.

This whole bit of some guy coming in with most ridiculous over-the-top introduction only to be just some random mini-boss is pretty funny.

Bugs

Something funky happens with the mug here. I think it might only happens if I skip compared to A press, but not fully sure.

Tile change for the opened door still has shadows.

Not sure what’s up with this lone cavalier.

This says iron bow is the drop but knight crest drops instead.

Never seen higher current than max use before.

Bacon_Eggs · February 3, 2025, 8:24pm

Hi, thank you for playing my hack. I actually am surprised to hear Justin was your MVP, it’s a new for me to hear lol. As for Hermine, I had planned to lean more into her dark humor in the early stages of my hack but I found myself disliking her character because of it, so I decided to tone it down and add some comedic elements, which made me enjoy writing her more. Though she still likes dark humor to a certain extent but with Badger, that trait isn’t brought up for the sake of prioritizing their unique relationship over Hermine tossing some dark humor here and there.

As for your second point, Chapter 5 had some villagers explains that the village was developed between the borders of the two counties after the peace treaty to further improve Centaurus and Ulkfold relations, which is why it’s outside the Empire’s wall. And only recently had been attacked once the peace treaty was broken, and the fort was nearby and acted as a temporary base for the invaders, I left it as optional dialogue to discover over feeding the reader too much information. Although I might’ve not made it clear enough, so it might be my fault lol. I’ll have to double check and make sure I included these details.

Overall, thank you for the feedback! I appreciate it so much and will take some of your points into consideration as I continue to work on my hack. Look forward to the next update!

Bacon_Eggs · February 3, 2025, 8:26pm

I’ve had some issues like that happen when I try to skip dialogues myself but it is interesting to see portrait overlap. I’ve never seen that before

Bacon_Eggs · February 3, 2025, 8:28pm

Thank you, sir. And I don’t think you’re significantly less competent, you’re significantly super competent and cool. So stay cool

ShirleyVaga · February 4, 2025, 8:59am

Quite the good hack. Really like the edited battle sprites and how the maps look.
Keep up the good work.

ElPinguinot · February 4, 2025, 6:20pm

congrats for the first release ! Can’t wait to see how you translate 3ds FE into gba FE, be it in storytelling or gameplay, I will be sure to check it out

Emeraldkma · February 5, 2025, 2:01am

I just downloaded the file from dropbox but what do I use to make it run? I’m confused as hell

PKLucky · February 5, 2025, 2:06am

Do you know how to patch a ROM? If not, here’s a tutorial:

Emeraldkma · February 5, 2025, 2:26am

The thing is, I only have the patch file, I don’t have the original rom. The download link I followed above only gave me the patch, not the rom itself.

PKLucky · February 5, 2025, 2:27am

Yeah, unfortunately you have to find that on your own. It’s against forum rules to post direct links to roms

Augenis · February 6, 2025, 12:39pm

I have now played this hack, finished chapter 3 on the bus to work this morning.

I agree with the other posters that this has promise and was overall pretty well crafted. The portraits are, as already said here before, very gorgeous, even if the witch at the end of chapter 3, err, looks like she was drawn with one hand. The gameplay is also very well done and offers a challenge while not being too much, and I like that it isn’t over-complicated thus far.

The story is also off to a good start, although the fairly frequent grammar errors take me out somewhat. A pass through the dialogue to check those would definitely go far in making it more polished.

Bacon_Eggs · February 8, 2025, 8:36am

Still?!? I keep reviewing it but I always end up finding another grammatical error, I thought I cleaned it up this time!

NotYourDILF · February 11, 2025, 1:56am

Just finished the first three chapters, I have to say it feels good. Hits the nostalgia of old FE with some nice touches from newer entries. I’m a huge fan of having a recruit unit available from the first chapter, I really enjoy trying to craft the quickest path to Lvl 10 I can.

Tried to join the discord server but it said the link was invalid.

Bacon_Eggs · February 11, 2025, 4:13am

I changed the link so it doesn’t expire, try it again