[FE8]Fire Emblem: The Gods of Men (WIP: 7/~24 Chapters playable)

[fishlunge]

They say that, long ago, dragons roamed the Earth. They ruled with an iron fist, and all living things cowered before them. But mankind, dissatisfied with their lot, rose against their oppressors. With the blessings of the gods, they smote the dragons, and established an Empire of Mankind’s Liberation. This empire has stood for a thousand years.

Yet all things must end.

Download Here
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The Gods of Men is a Fire Emblem Romhack made using FEBuilder. I’ve been working on it on-and-off since Spring 2020, although I only started making much progress beyond general planning and obsessive re-drafting of the first few chapters at the end of 2023. My goal with it isn’t to make anything groundbreaking, but I have implemented some changes from vanilla I think are interesting. This is my first project, so there’ll be plenty that can be improved or changed. Any feedback is welcome.

The current release should be playable through Chapter 8 intermission chapter. Ignore the text saying otherwise.

Story Concept

The Gods of Men takes place within the Helstaenian Empire, supposedly founded upon the liberators of old’s defeat of their draconic overlords. Despite revolts, dynastic disputes, wars of conquest, and natural disasters, the Helstaenians have maintained the title of the Empire of Mankind’s Liberation for over a thousand years. In the modern day, major innovations in magic and technology coincide with a period of increased unrest. In this context, Shay Amsrhel, the heir to one of the emperor’s most influential vassals, travels with Arnulph, Prince to the Empire, on a tour of the Southern province, hoping to improve imperial relations following a major famine. Meanwhile, Jacob, a former soldier, leads a small band of rebels in the mountains of the central Empire. The actions of these two people will have a profound effect on the history of the Empire and its people.

Content Warnings

Generally, nothing more severe than what you may find in Genealogy or Three Houses. Specifically, genocide, fratricide, potential child death, mild language. Accordingly, I used the 13+ rating tag. If you find something you think would be best mentioned here, let me know. I don’t always have the best sense of what needs to be warned about.

Features and Gameplay Changes

• 7 playable chapters + 1 Prologue and 1 Gaiden chapter (~24 chapters planned)
• 21 current playable characters, 42+ planned
• Temporary Party splits
• Bows are 2-3 range by default
• Reworked Anima Tomes
• Skills applied via holdable items (haven’t fully tested)
• Integrated freeroam chapters
• Thief-exclusive brave weapons
• Enhanced thief movement
• Spell scrolls usable by all units
• New Classes
• Split Promotions, some changed from vanilla FE8
• Tier 1 cavalry weapon split
• Actual infantry effectiveness
• Buffed soldiers
• Common QoL Edits (Modular Minimug, actions after support/talk, enemy danger zone, etc.)
• Single Difficulty. Ideally close to vanilla normal but may vary at different points. (Also, I’m bad at Fire Emblem, and I need to beat the maps while playtesting, so may lean towards the easier side)

Future Plans

• Total of ~24 chapters, plus a few Gaidens
• Include death conditional dialogues
• Various Aesthetic changes (World map cutscenes, custom save screen, etc.)
• More non-vanilla music
• Etc.

Screenshots

Credits

Engine Hacks/Edits/etc.

• 16_tracks_12_sounds - Agro/Brendor
• Fix CG Fade Glitch
• Remove enemy control glitch - Brendor, 7743 (compatibility)
• 01command_hack - Hexator, 7743 (compatibility)
• 48command_hack - Hexator, 7743 (compatibility)
• Fix issue with glitch on mine when drop enemy
• fix_Iz77decompress - Tequila
• Use HandAxs motion as generic motion for throwing axes - 7743
• Fix stone’s map animation
• Fix weak promoted enemies - Gryz
• Enable faster movement by holding A - Gryz
• Make the add trap data routine have a check to prevent writing past the limit - Leonarth
• Adjust Mode Coefficient Experience Gain - Vennobennu
• Remove pierce glitch - Brendor
• Toggle Health and safety - circleseverywhere
• Toggle new game intro cutscene - circleseverywhere
• Toggle new game text - circleseverywhere
• Skip hand axe wait for return
• Allow visit from any tile - circleseverywhere, gamma
• Fimbulvetr glitch fix - 7743
• Fix CAM1/CAMERA2 going out of bounds - Stan
• AI: prevent healer mistarget - Magika is Now Canon
• Skip: Opening
• Skip: Game opening Demo - Fati
• Skip world map fix
• Skip the event using the opening world map
• Multi-Class Pick Skill - kao, 7743 (compatibility)
• FEditorMagicCSASystem_FE8U - Hexator
• Define Multiple Prohibits the Crit by item - 7743
• Weapon lock ex - 7743
• Magic Sword Rework - Sme
• Convert Chapter Titles to Text - circleseverywhere, 7743
• AnimNumbers Damage pop-up in battle anime - Huichelaar
• AoE Area of Effect - Vesly
• Prohibit support conversations under specific conditions - 7743
• Allow 254 generic minimugs - Gryz, 7743
• MultiTileMerker Display multiple exit markers on the map - 7743
• 256 Color Title Background - Leonarth
• Change to have multiple units that can be seize - 7743
• Prevent freeze for event 0x3B - 7743
• Prevent freeze for event 0x26 - 7743
• Prevent freeze for event 0x38 - 7743
• FixedDamageWeapons - sme
• Fix_GenerateBestMovementScript_Glitch - 7743
• Allow forced units to change their starting position - AuraWolf
• Toggle World Map Monster Skirmishes - FE8_GIRLS
• Support with no conversations - 7743
• fix display for minus statbooster - 7743
• Autocursor Fix - Venno
• Extend item icon list length - aera
• Allow Visit from any tile - circleseverywhere, gamma
• Toggle Difficulty Select Skip - StanH, 7743 (port)
• Gain Support at Various Ranges - Venno
• CasualMode (VER Flag 0xB0) - circleseverywhere, Vesly
• HPBars_with_warnings Cache - circles, Tequila
• Actions After Support (Contemporary Style) - circleseverywhere, 7743 (compatibility)
• Actions After Talk (Contemporary Style) - circleseverywhere, 7743 (compatibility)
• ModularMinimigVox: VisionQuest Style with Item - Pandan, Scraiza, Zane (?)
• Map Danger Zone (Select: Toggle) - circleseverywhere
• Skill System - circleseverywhere, monkeybard & Black Mage (icons), Blaze (stances skill icons), Tequila, Rossendale, StanH, Leonarth, Teraspark, sd9k, Kao, blademaster, Snakey1, Primefusion
• Give the unit experience points - 7743, aera, Vesly
• Set victory BGM by chapter - 7743
• Add event: simple escape event that can be easily created - 7743, aera
• Even if no support conversation, make sure to only show “Support Lv. increased” popup dialog - 7743
• Add Event: AutolvlUnit
• Change support conversation to 5 people instead of 5 times - aera
• ChangeChapterObjective Event - Zeta / 7743 (rewrite)
• AutoGenLeftOAM - 7743
• Event33_CheckUnitVarious_Fix - 7743
• Talk AI - aera
• Simple Escape Event - 7743, aera
• Enable Locked Weapon Prf constraints on staffs and items as well - Tequille, jil2357 / 7743

Map Sprites

• Rogue F - Unknown
• Sergeant - Spud
• Seraph Knight - CamusZekeSirius
• Cavaliers: Axe, Lance, Sword, Bow, Alt F - Team SALVAGED
• Monk F - Teraspark

Battle Sprites

• Sergeant - Spud
• Cavaliers - Axe, Lance, Sword, Bow, M,F - Team SALVAGED
• Wyvern Rider Axe/Handaxe - Mikey Seregon, Alfred Kamon
• Wyvern Knight Axe/Handaxe - St Jack
• Wyvern Knight Repallete - Feaw
• Wyvern Lord Axe/Handaxe - TheBlindArcher
• Rogue F - Temp,Black Mage, Wan
• Assassin F - FPZero, Moocavo, Riku
• Seraph Knight - JeyTheCount
• Ranger Variant (Bow, axe) - Leo, Ririki
• Valkyrie M/Non-religious - DerTheVaporeon, Isaac, Pikmin1211
• SALVAGED Armor Knight - Team SALVAGED

Class Cards

• Tent - Laurent Lacroix
• Seraph Knight - CamusZekeSirius
• Sergeant - Spud, Rasdel
• Cavaliers - Axe, Lance, Sword - Team SALVAGED
• Bow Knight - flasuban, RobertFPY

Tilesets

• Improved Castle Tileset - N426
• Superfields - Wave, Random Wizard, Beast
• Bridge - FE6, provided by Zoramine
• Desert+Bastion+Village - Gamma, ZoramineFae, Venno, N426

Item Icons

• Meteor - Batima
• Elwind (GBA style) - Batima
• Bolganone - Topazlight
• Wind - Batima
• Tornado - Batima
• Elthunder (GBA style) - Batima
• Thoron - Batima

Spell Animations

• Meteor - Blazer, Jubby
• Wind - Arch
• Bolganone (DS) - Mikey Seregon
• Razor Arcwind lite - Arch
• Tornado - Arch
• Thoron - Arch
• Arcthunder - BwdYeti

Music

MUSIC

• With Us (FE9) - SME
• Beneath a New Light (FE5) - SME
• Hidden Machina Village (XC1) - MonopolyRubix, midi by Choice Snarf

This should be everything, but it is possible I missed something, especially in the Engine hacks and ASM. If you notice something uncredited, please let me know so I can credit the appropriate creator.

[KrashBoomBang]

Played through the current demo, overall pretty fine so far. Couple comments:

• I like what you’re going for with the archers largely being for chip against the scarier enemies, noticed various enemies with crit weapons, but since they tended to be faster swordies, their hit rates were poor. I think you should give both archers significantly better skill stats, really focus on making them specifically accurate while maintaining their mediocre strength/speed.
• I would seriously reexamine 4x, it was my least favorite part of the demo. I think you’d be better off just making this a pure escape map and retooling the enemy reinforcements/general pacing so that getting the village doesn’t sandbag your positioning. I could’ve escaped way earlier than I did (turn 9), but I obviously stuck around to get the village and enemies just piled up because I can’t kill them fast enough. I’d reduce the reinforcements and try to get the timings of things nailed down so escaping while getting the village flows better.
• Chapter 4 (I think it was 4? the one where Birgita the monk joins) was probably my favorite map, generally well paced with good objectives to grab, but it had one problem: I rescued Birgita out of her cell, but talking to her did not recruit her. Only opening her cell door actually turned her blue. Definitely fix that.

Oh, and I have to add that the FE8 title theme at half speed is incredibly bizarre.

[fishlunge]

Thank you for the feedback, I really appreciate it. Adressing what you said;

reexamine 4x

I also had some issues with getting bogged down around the southern village in my own playtesting, but I wasn’t sure how exactly to correct it. Designing it, I had figured that the player would tend towards flying Olga down, then rescuing Melissa the next turn, but that was difficult, and somewhat luck-based for me to pull off, given that you’d just have the two units down there. I’ll definitely look into either reworking it or rebuilding the chapter from the ground up.

Only opening her cell door actually turned her blue

Somehow, I hadn’t considered that someone would use the rescue staff there, and thought needing a second unit to recruit her after opening the door would be annoying. That’s why you need to get other people to playtest, I guess.

FE8 title theme at half speed

Yeah, I’m not entirely sure what I was going for there, other than to have something marginally different from vanilla. The goal was to have something that felt familiar, while being different in a glaring enough way to be unsettling, but thinking on it, I don’t think it really works, and I’m not sure it fits the tone I’m going for anyway.

Thanks again for the feedback. I’ll try and see what I can do to fix up some of these issues.

[fishlunge]

Updated Patch is available for download. Fixed a couple bugs, adjusted some text, and put through another draft of chapter 4x so that it’s less of a slog. Any feedback on the changes would be welcome. Still not sure I’m happy with it, and I’m having trouble balancing the overwhelmed feeling I’m going for with something that isn’t painful to play.

First draft of chapter 8 should also be playable, although not all the text is finished and I haven’t had the opportunity to play through it myself yet. Didn’t set chapter goals correctly, so it isn’t playable on current release. I’ll probably update that soon, once I get around to playtesting it.

Link in the Google Drive

[fishlunge]

Updated some dialogue, fixed a couple errors, and rebalanced the Jacob chapters to try and make the party merge a bit smoother. Chapter 8 should be playable and beatable. Any feedback is welcome. Link above has current version.