Alright, so I’ve been working on trying to build up a ROMHack here for a while now. And, well, I’ve finally got somewhere with it.
So- this is (the first version of) Fire Emblem: The Archon’s Curse:
PLANNED FEATURES
- 48 Playable Units
- Supports
- 30 Maps (40 in total if route split taken into account)
- Double Route Split (Lords reunite then split again)
- Good storyline, I guess.
CURRENT FEATURES
- 21 Playable Units
- Supports with conversations for currently playable units (though some are a little barebones)
- 10 Maps (Prologue through Chapter 7)
- New and returning classes such as soldier, nomad, nephilim and hoplite.
- Two lords
STORYLINE
The continent of Hellanos is one that has seen many a war. It has only been about 30 years since the last major conflict, the Iron War, but the scars still run deep in the people of the land.
Stephen, the Prince of Pannon- is dethroned on the day of his coronation by a violent coup led by General Lucian, who believes that he is the rightful king of the country. The story follows Stephen on his campaign to regain the throne and bring peace back to Pannon. He teams up with a mercenary from Aquitane named Joannes, whose leading the Riteful Resistance, a rebel group fighting against Lucian’s regime. Joannes, however, suspects that there is more going on…
Some Characters:
Stephen: The Prince of Pannon attempting to regain his throne.
Joannes: A mercenary from Aquitane leading the Riteful Resistance for his own reasons.
Kristoph: An ageing priest from the town of Ijara, and old friend to Stephen’s late father, King Calvin.
Samuel: The younger brother of Lord Sullivan, a Duke who turned against Pannon to fight for Lucian.
Gustav: The King of Aquitane.
Lucian: A Pannonian general who led a coup against the royal family an appointed himself King.
Vincent: A cruel and bloodthirsty general. Lucian’s right-hand man.
MAP SAMPLES
SCREENSHOTS
Patch Download: (Updated)
Changelog:
15/12/2020
- Most characters stats redone / buffed
- Chapter 2x reworked
- Reinforcements reworked
- Supports now have three range to develop, rather than one range
(Side note there’s currently a bug where the reinforcements in chapter 3 don’t spawn, but it doesn’t break the game or anything they just don’t show up.)
31/12/2020
- Some more stat redoes regarding characters like Bruno and Samuel
- Added a new chapter, Chapter 1x: Another Tale (It’s a fairly rudimentary one-screen prologue style thing but still)
- Fixed the Ch. 3 reinforcements bug.
2/1/2021
- Redone Chapter 1x
If there are any bugs let me know. A couple scenes may be a little bit glitchy, but I’m fairly sure there’s nothing game breaking in there.
11 Likes
Ah, something new, eh? I’ll give this a shot and let you know what I think.
Okay, I blasted through the demo. I’m not gonna comment on the story much. I did read it, but I don’t particularly have any real criticisms or anything. It all looked good enough to me. I’ll focus on gameplay stuff instead, and I’ll go chapter by chapter.
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Prologue: Robert is OHKOing and doubling everything while Stephen is 3HKOing and not doubling. There’s clearly a discrepancy here. Though it’s hard to make a tiny, 3-unit prologue interesting to begin with. I would recommend having Robert start with an iron sword and Stephen start with an iron bow, though. Maybe make the enemies slower so that Stephen can actually double things here.
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Chapter 1: The spawn for Therese and Jasper is kinda awkward, and disincentivizes you from going through the forest path so that you can reach them quickly, which defeats the purpose of having two paths there to begin with. This chapter also begins the really annoying trend with reinforcements, where they spawn during player phase upon entering a zone. The pegasus knights were super weak and far away, so they weren’t any trouble, but it’s a very jarring way to handle reinforcements.
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Chapter 2: Again, the reinforcements here (i.e. the thief that spawns when you recruit Irene) are super weird, and you can screw yourself out of the chests if you aren’t prepared for his spawn. This map also begins another really annoying trend with the next several maps: it’s clearly designed to be a seize map, but the objective is not seize. In this case, it’s kill boss. What is the point of this? Just make it seize.
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Chapter 2x: This map was downright awful. Again, a map that is clearly designed to be seize, but now it’s rout. Why do this?! In addition, the structure of the map is annoying, as you have to rush left to save/recruit William and get the thief (who appears impossible to catch early, making that energy ring unobtainable), then backtrack to the throne. I really wish Joannes and Samuel started with iron swords, because the mercenary right at the start is bound to cause issues when you only have two axe units and a killing edge myrmidon. Lastly, the boss of this chapter is a massive asshole, and I was forced to rig with Samuel just to kill him. He 2HKOs everybody, doubles Joannes and William, has crit on everybody, and is really dodgy. Samuel only had ~50 hit with his killing edge, and did not double. It was horrible.
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Chapter 3: A little bit cramped, but played pretty alright. The brigand reinforcements weren’t a problem since I triggered them with Robert. The ballista covered a large area but was easy to destroy on turn 2. Overall, no real complaints with this map.
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Chapter 4: This map was just mean. Gene and Margot are in a horrible position on turn 1, and since I only have one flier, I can only reliable save one of them immediately, while the other runs the risk of dying on the first enemy phase. Over the mountains above the spawn area, there’s a squad of pegasus knights that are impossible to see and can easily ambush any unit who moves slightly too far up on turn 1. And that horseslayer soldier nearly killed Robert because again, I could not see him as he was too far right and I would only reveal him if I overextended with Gene. Margot and Gene should just join on turn 1 player phase as blue units. That would make this way more bearable. After that terrible start, the map was just fine. Though the brigand going for the village could be a problem, I think just making it easier to push forward on turn 1 will alleviate that potential issue.
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Chapter 5: For the third time, a map that is designed to be seize but is instead kill boss. Why do this? Please just make it seize. Igor’s reinforcements and the rain were weird, and I don’t understand why you have rain at all if it only affects Irene, who already isn’t great due to her terrible bulk. She really doesn’t need to be limited further. Putting an arena this early seems like a bad idea, as you could very easily use it to grind everyone as much as you want. Otherwise, the map was pretty alright.
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Chapter 6: Those wyvern reinforcements nearly killed Robert. They sucked. These reinforcements really need a warning of some kind. Otherwise, nothing to really point out.
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Chapter 7: I like this map. Finally another seize map, with very good incentive to split my forces and move fast for the two recruitables/promo items. The wyvern reinforcements were weird but at least spawned very far away. Bruno’s position and his AI seem like he can die super easily. You should make him head right instead of up, or give him an elixir to use. Overall, the best map in the hack.
Next up, unit thoughts. These will be pretty brief, but in general I noticed units have very similar growths. Almost everyone has offenses hovering around 50, HP hovering around 60, and def/res hovering around 30. Base stats across the board were also pretty low, even for units who joined later like Bruno. You really need to vary up units’ growths and bases to make people stand out more. I also noticed that you’ll tend to give a few people good defense growths but middling defense bases, such as Artem. This does not make a unit bulky. Base defense (and HP) is what makes a unit bulky.
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Stephen: He’s alright. I like that he has bows, and his speed stat is pretty good. I just wish he had a bow to start.
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Robert: Standard Jagen, obviously really good since this hack is only 9 chapters long right now. He’ll definitely fall off later. Wish he started with a sword.
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Kristoph: Standard early healer. I like that you get a healer in the very first map. His base magic is super bad though, and he only has D staves. Exp from healing is very high at least.
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Therese: She reminds me of my own slow lance cav in Four Kings, Bradley. Very similar stats, with good strength and defense but bad skill and speed. Therese would be fine on her own, but…
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Jasper: Jasper is the best unit in the game. His bases are so much better than Therese for no good reason. She has +1 strength and defense over him, but he’s got a whopping +3 speed. And he’s still got a high strength growth, only 5% less than her, while also have +20% skill and speed. Her main “advantage” is +25% defense, but that’s meaningless for the reason I stated earlier. My Jasper ended up capping speed and nearly capping strength while also having good defense. He’s the best target of exp for most of the game. If you want a fast cav to go with your slow cav, you really should make Jasper have worse strength and defense.
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Esther: This is just Neimi. She’s awful.
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Justin: What the fuck is this. He’s like Ross but without a hatchet. His growths are basically the same as everyone else, too, so he doesn’t even have higher potential than other units. Absolutely worthless.
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Irene: Pretty standard pegasus knight, but her speed base was quite low. The iron lance got her doubled by mercenaries and myrmidons. Low strength and bulk is expected, and are good limiters for her, but she could use some extra base speed.
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Joannes: Basically Hector with iron sword access. Really slow. He’s fine I guess, but that speed will definitely bite him later.
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Samuel: Looks terrible at a glance, but was kinda forced to do stuff because of how weak everyone is in 2x, so he got some levels and performed okay. 5 strength and 9 speed base is pretty ass for a myrmidon though.
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Alex: I admittedly gave her a bunch of favoritism and promoted her, so she was really good. She’s basically a better Joannes. Notably, she had really high base HP, which was quite nice. Made her bulkier than most other people.
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William: Therese but waaaaaaaay worse. 4 move, 2 speed, only 6 strength? Basically incapable of doing anything past 2x.
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Artem: He’s alright. I didn’t really use him, but he’s probably fine.
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Margot: Weak, frail magic chip. Pass.
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Gene: A thief who only ever opened one door and chest because the game gives out lots of keys anyway.
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Beth: Kristoph but better. Has a horse and even has base C staves. Also troubadour only has 6 move, so you should fix that.
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Igor: Worse bases than Alex with nearly identical growths. He’s bad.
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Michael and Wayne: Weak, frail, and inaccurate magic chip. Double pass.
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Bruno and Alaric: They joined too late to do much, but their bases were super weak compared to my other units at the time.
That’s all I got for feedback. It’s a little rough, but it looks promising.
2 Likes
I played a bit of the hack, albeit not as much as Krash did. Still, I think the hack has some promise. Just brush up what you have so far and you’ll have something nice.
PROLOGUE
Text is a bit wordy, maybe cut down a bit on the dialogue.
The map itself is solid, but I wish the boss moved after a certain amount of turns.
Boss should have had a quote with the lord.
If Stephen can use bows, maybe it would have been a good idea to have him start with one.
CHAPTER 1
Soldier’s movement in the beginning was a bit weird. Maybe have the soldier make more moves to make it look smoother.
The beginning of the map is a bit cluttered. Maybe open it up a bit.
The constant cutouts to Castle Pannon is rather annoying. It might be a good idea to just have them at the start of each chapter.
CHAPTER 2
Some tiling errors with the door at the front. Shouldn’t be a tough fix.
Artem should have some boss conversations, he has some weight on much of the cast.
The ranged attack animation on the mercenary has a 50 frame startup at one point. Change it to 5. This applies to the crit animation.
2 Likes
For some reasons Troubadours have 6 move in FE8. But that’s an easy fix.
Regarding maps, I’m probably gonna be changing up a lot more to seize ones, as well as just completely redoing 2x.
Regarding units, I’m probably gonna be nerfing Jasper, for a start. A lot of others will be getting buffs as well, especially the magic brothers and Igor.
Out of curiosity, which units did you end up using for Ch. 7?
Current Changelog:
- Nerfed robert’s speed and attack a little
- Gave Kristoph a major mag buff and a little defence buff
- Gave Therese a slight speed buff
- Nerfed Jasper in terms of both attack and defense
- Buffed Esther all around
- Majorly buffed Justin all around
- Buffed Irene’s speed, and gave her a minor boost in her attack growth
- Raised Joannes’ base speed a little
- Buffed Samuel’s base atk and speed
- Buffed William’s attack and speed
- Raised Artem’s base defence a little
- Buffed Margot’s magic and speed
- Buffed Gene’s skill and speed
- Changed Troubadours/Deacons to 7 move
- Gave Igor a massive attack buff, he’s now sort of a glass cannon character
- Wayne gets a slight magic buff, but a large speed and skill buff
- Michael gets a magic and defence buff
- Bruno gets slight attack buffs and large defence buffs
- Alaric gets buffs in speed and skill
- Robert now starts with a Steel Lance instead of a silver one. Archer drops a bow in prologue which Stephen can pick up and use. Gareth now has a hand axe to compensate this.
- Removed the reinforcements in Chapter 1. Jasper and Therese’s spawn changed.
- Made some tweaks to Chapter 2, had the reinforcements teased by Artem a turn before arriving. It’s also now a seize map.
- Chapter 3 had it’s reinforcements mentioned by Dwight and tweaked to be more challenging.
- Changed the forest in Chapter 4 to allow units to reach Margot / Gene more easily. Pegasus knights moved to the top side of the map, same with Horseslayer soldier.
- Got rid of the rain in Chapter 5, and made the bandit reinforcements spawn above the village, so you have more of a chance of visiting it before they attack it.
- Chapter 6 wyvern reinforcements spawn on turn 3, giving player plenty notice about them. Sullivan also mentions them on the turn before.
- Bruno now spawns with an elixir.
1 Like
For chapter 7, I had Jasper, Alex, Robert, and Stephen doing most of the work. Kristoph and Beth both came along. I actually promoted Kristoph at the start of the map to hit 9/9/8 offenses, so that was pretty sad. Samuel was mostly just there to recruit Bruno but his combat was alright at the time. I brought some other people who didn’t do anything.
Alright.
I should be able to finish off a patch fairly soon- just gotta test the changes I made. A lot of characters got buffs, most of the reinforcement stuff is different now and 2x has been pretty heavily adjusted.
Patch is now done- hopefully most of the problems should be somewhat alleviated.
Heya! Just found out about this hack! I haven’t played it yet, unfortunately, but I wanted to point out that your hack and mine both have a brigand named Igor and I thought that was funny.
Besides that, well… I must say I love that your earlygame healer is an old man, it’s definitely not something you see very often. I wonder if there are other “unconventional” characters like this? I guess I gotta play it to find out.
One little advice I’d like to give you is to not actually write the supports as soon as they become available. Not only does that spare you some immense workload for an optional thing most people won’t even notice, this also allows you some time to think about it and make them interesting. Write them when you get some inspirations, and wait for the hack to be complete to actually write all of them. That’s the only advice I can give you, as you seem to be doing pretty fine everywhere else! I wish you good luck for the future of your hack!
I think the reason I’m doing them as I go is so I don’t end up with a massive dump of 900+ conversations I’ll need to do. If one feels a bit lame, I can always go back and rewrite it.
Just added a new chapter, 1x, to the hack, and changed a few bugs, rebalances, that sorta thing.
It’s not a huge addition by any means, but there’s a couple story changes throughout too.
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