[FE8] Fire Emblem: TMGC (Complete up to the start of Chapter 21)

[Retina]

It’s been a while. Time for something new. Something very new, indeed.

Ulmaron. A world of constant change. Of mystical researchers. Of fierce warriors. Of fallen kings. Of undying darkness.

A young noble, seeking to prove herself. Her path will place her at the center of a conflict that may very well decide the future of the continent.

Hello, FEU! Retina here. I’m proud to introduce Project TMGC, a new Buildfiles hack.

Before you ask “why TMGC?”, I’ll just say that I needed to call this something, and the words behind the acronym TMGC just popped into my mind. (definitely won’t pull a Project Triangle Strategy and keep the placeholder title)

As this hack is still relatively early in development and constantly changing, I probably won’t constantly update the patch here - rather, you’ll be able to get nightly-ish releases in the Discord server. Additionally, you can always clone the repo and build the patch yourself.

Download the current patch here! (Last updated: 5/7/23)

Join the Discord server to download the latest nightly release and talk with other players! (That’s also where I’m by far the most active if you have feedback or questions.)

Check out the Github here! (If you’re interested in the technical side of things, this is for you.)

Featuring:
-A campaign with 30 planned main chapters, as well as 8 chapters involving 2 side parties! [Current progress: Prologue-Ch.V finished, 21 and onwards oof]
-A whole bunch of interlude chapters featuring Mokha’s FreeMovement Rework - a nice spin on the typical battle-preps chapter.
-A more tightly designed iteration of Code of the Burger King’s stat and weapon design.
-Tellius-style base conversations and redone supports, courtesy of Snek - all supports now provide personalized bonuses.
-Proc skills implemented as 3H-style Combat Arts. (look it was a cooler bullet point back before FEB Skillsys was updated)
-A sprawling soundtrack featuring both F2U and custom music!
-Lots of wacky items and weapons! (including a slew of staves from Teraspark’s staff rework)
-A conversation viewer, so you can read to your heart’s content!
-Much more!

NOTE: This hack is still very WIP. Lots of assets, text, and other elements are subject to change. Additionally, all testing has been done with mGBA - keep that in mind if you use some brand of VBA and things break.

Screenshots:

In addition to Normal, Hard, and Lunatic difficulties, there are also various growth options and a reverse mode toggle - may God’s love be with you if you try them.

Asset credits listed throughout the Github - if I forgot anyone, let me know! (once this thing is more done i’ll formally put together credits in one place)

Special thanks to everyone in FEUcord who has to put up with me in #buildfile_help, as well as everyone in my server - you guys are pretty swell.

just like last time, it’s just a funny name

[Goldblitzx]

Now the abomination that is the Jeff portrait can be seen…

[KrashBoomBang]

I can’t believe you would use the Project naming scheme…

[Hello72207]

Remind me how many milkmen go comedy again?

[Zmr]

For no reason whatsoever, absolutely no reason, I really like the two portraits in that first screenshot.

No reason whatsoever.

[Goldblitzx]

For no reason in particular I really like this Apollo guy, really neat unit.

[Retina]

Normally, I probably won’t update the patch here super often (that’s what the server is for), but there’s a few pretty important changes that I made which’re maybe worth updating for - skill learn levels are now viewable on the statscreen instead of being tucked away in the guide, thievish units now have innate locktouch instead of needing picks, and a few other little things have been altered.

[Rivian]

I from prologue to 10 on lunatic difficult, thought it was overall pretty great and I enjoyed a lot of the features that the buildfile format enabled.

Units

The playable cast had very well defined niches and with everyone being full deployed the whole way, there was no one that I wanted to swap out.

The skills felt impactful and were a crucial part of the gameplay rather than the ‘gain 2 dmg on Tuesday’ kinda deal which was great.

Favourite unit overall is the thief healer. Levin sword was great as an early game crutch, on top of all the movement skill and rallies. She’s about as far way as thieves that feel like trading a deploy slot for items as it gets. Got the canto scroll so she can reposition easier.

Another personal favourite is Natasia because funny fighter big damage.

My best unit across the run was Kenneth with his mixed bulk tanking. Gave him the lightweight so he gets doubled less and since he didn’t have many weapons anyways.

The mercenary with decent bulk and awesome damage, one of my favourite archetypes.

I laughed at Peggy. Turns our that was a mistake since provoke ended up saving my ass. Sadly, never did get a staff bonk kill.

Stefan really grew on me, I could afford to burn weapon uses on adept and he actually got to one rounding without it. Also just being a cav is points in his favour.

All in all, a solid set of playable units thus far and having to bench is going to be tough.

Maps

In summary, I felt that each map flowed well, not having many points of slowdown or excessive drag. Being lunatic difficulty, as a player with little skill but a lot of experience, to me it offered a significant challenge that really encouraged employment of player tools available and with (one exception) didn’t feel unfair.

My favourite chapter is chapter 4 both due to my escape map bias and also because I thought the map flowed very well.

This is the actual feedback part, if I don’t say anything about a map safe to say I thought it was solid.

Chapter 2 felt like an extreme difficulty spike compared to every other map on lunatic. I don’t think the survive format where one gets swarmed is suited for effectively 3 units (the 4th being very hard to recruit), it felt like a puzzle map that I had found a’correct’ move just to progress.

There’s also the factor that a player most likely goes for the left village since they’re probably not sure if the unit is actually missable, and I think going left makes life a lot harder for less reward overall as they do join (though I do appreciate the fact she is not missable).

I think the map would have been better off if the 4th unit joined at the start of the map since I think the map needs a bit more breathing room, and to give the village another reward alternative and let the player pick their path from that instead.

Chapter 5 being a swamp fog map sounded pretty sketch but the map itself worked out rather well. My only complaint would be that the last torch feels like a trap with the boss overlapping its range and brings no benefit.

I found the early turns of chapter 9 to be quite frustrating due to having a ton of units being funnelled through one tile chokes. While I understand this was a very intentional decision, I think in practice it ends up with choking the top with one unit while a lot of units cannot contribute, and this is on top of having to fight for space with green units.

Misc

The base system and support rework are things that have been around for a while, but I haven’t played a hack utilising it until now and I thought it worked out great here. I am not a fan of the regular GBA support system so this alternative felt far superior.
A rather minor note is that with how high hit is, supports that gave minuscule amounts of hit and avoid didn’t feel very meaningful.

The interlude chapters didn’t overstay their welcome and had some nice dialogue. The yoink staff was a neat little thing to pick up.

As usual, hope for more updates in the feature.

[Saifulislam]

Looks very polished.

[Enjin]

Impressive game so far! I love the customization the game gives you at the start, saves you a lot of time of downloading a separate patch, the story is interesting, but I do wonder what that big tower is gonna be used for…
Base conversations? Now that’s new! However I think that underrated character Cassius needs some more conversations don’t you think?
I like various of the map’s mechanics! Like lighting up torches in order to clear the fog
I can’t wait for the future of this hack!

[Vexuria]

Reaally good hack, so good in fact that I might also not have particular reasons to like a screenshot provided in this hack.

[Retina]

It’s been a bit. Time for a new release!

This update covers up to the start of Chapter 15 (Chapter 15 itself is not finished, just to clarify). Obviously, since the previous version went up to Chapter 10, there’s 9 new maps. I swear, that math works out.

Link to the new patch! (don’t worry it’s the same link as in the main post)

Featuring:
-Old friends with new faces! (special thanks to everyone in the server who mugs)

-New friends with new faces!

-Unsubtle references!

-Burglary!

-Optimal builds!

-Financial opportunities!

-A whole lot more!

as always uh
make sure to send feedback
there’s probably like 20 things broken that i don’t know about
thanks love you bye

[Hello72207]

Cassius solo when

[Retina]

sometimes i truly frighten myself

[YummyCatfood]

Man of culture

[Retina]

I haven’t mentioned it yet, but as you’ve probably seen, TMGC will be making an appearance at FEE3 2022. Keep your eyes, nose, and other sensory organs peeled on Day 18!
(also i guess if you squint there might be a new patch available with some updated visuals wink wink)

[JrpgAddict]

Uhhh what???

[BobbyAsaka]

biraku emblem inspired

[MercenaryVictor]

I love the part when you promote someone and the armor/cloth change on portrait

[Define]

Wow 2 side parties?! Sounds a bit too good to be true lol