Try this website
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Looking at all these updates (including a new chapter!) I think it’s safe to say I’ll have to replay this hack in the future.
… maybe on a different difficulty this time?
Who knows?
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WOOOOW INCRIBLE LINK AND GAME HAD OK FOR PLAY NOW, I REALLY REALLY REALLY LOVE U BRO , THX MY HERO !!!
Uhh you’re welcome I guess?
2 Likes
Wait what? Ghost, are you trying to make me replay this one? I was supposed to be patiently waiting for Dawn of the Dark, dammit!
Hey, can save files be transfered when applying a new patch?
I was wondering if its possible to have secret shops location maps or whatnot. (I cant find the one on chap 9 
Thanks 
Hi yes you can update your save for the new patch! Simply patch a new rom just as was done with the first one and rename the .sav file to the name of the newly patched rom.
I won’t make maps for secret shops and there isn’t a secret shop in chapter 9. You’ll be told when there’s a secret shop on a map.
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I meant chapter 19, sorry! I’m going to every suspicious tile I can think of… without any results. (chests, gate, all forts and mountains. Funny that the fort next to the elder gives you 2000 gold tho)
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To be a bit kinder, look around the top of the map
I’m surprised you got all that time to look since the second boss moves and all!
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Using Garth and some savestates just for this 
Thanks for the hint <3
From the new patch notes, MIles secret promotion has been changed, hopefully it does not create new bugs when I update my version?
No bugs should come from it, but I will say I recommend updating the patch before you clear the chapter, there’s something relating to Miles there 
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Well some changes are certainly interesting
Summary
Nothing happens from killing the Elder? 
After far too long, I finally finished the hack, and I have a lot to say overall. While I didn’t enjoy this hack very much, I’ve tried to construct my thoughts in a way that’s hopefully constructive for you nonetheless, since you are making a sequel after all.
Folders have spoilers in them.
Dead ends
This hack did something that I ultimately found to be pretty frustrating: it introduced a ton of cool and novel concepts within its lore, and then its plot did little (if anything) with that planting. There are a lot of things present in this hack that I’ve seen in few of the hacks I’ve tried, but more often than not these ideas are not leveraged to what feels like a meaningful effect. This ultimately made me feel like I had wasted my investment on plot beats that went nowhere.
The addition of elves and dragons fell flat for me when it never really felt like the unique traits of these races came into the spotlight (beyond establishing wyvern insanity in Max’s gaiden chapter, which never really contributes to anything besides Max’s character)—for all intents and purposes it felt like they could’ve been replaced with “people from a different country” and not too much would have changed.
Demons are in a similar boat where I feel like I can’t tell what distinguishes demons from humans besides being “beings of pure magic” as it says in the description, which makes me wonder why it was necessary to make them an entirely separate species. I do think this is part of the point of the demons though, they seem a lot less like demons and more like a subgroup of human culture. But I still would’ve liked to see the demons’ unique traits be important at some point too, i:e if Sal uses some kind of intense magic spell (learned from the dragons maybe? idk) to overload some demon villagers’ bodies to wipe them all out when he goes on his little genocide.
Other concepts like Atom and Tobias being the only two entities in the game who are visibly inhuman, or the tear in Atom’s skull, or Mira having a wolf spirit when no other mage has one, make them stand out starkly against the rest of the cast. These details immediately caught my attention, especially because of their relative uniqueness compared to other hacks, and the fact that these details are never really addressed or relevant in the main story was pretty disappointing. (iirc, Tobias and Atom are the way they are because they gave up their humanity to dark magic but I still wish this came up in the main plot in a meaningful way, especially when they are straight up more demonically-coded than the actual demons are).
Tobias in particular is a character who I was wishing a lot more from in concept alone. I think you mention somewhere in this thread that Tobias deserved more spotlight in the main story, and considering all the plot hooks he brings with his presence alone I am inclined to agree. I really thought his loss of magic and him having an animal skeleton head would’ve tied into the main story in some way, and I admittedly felt a bit jilted to see him with an actual magic stat upon rejoining with no explanation for it, because I’d felt like I had gotten invested in that plot hook for nothing.
Connections
I’m having a hard time understanding what the intent was behind tying the origins of the demons to vanilla FE8. It feels like it really doesn’t add much of significance to the story, and it’s more of a distraction than anything productive. When “Luna” showed up, my initial thought was that she was a placeholder mug, which left me more than a little confused at the completeness of the hack. And when I realized she was literally supposed to be Selena, I kind of… wasn’t sure what to make of it, especially when it doesn’t really feel like she brings much to the story.
I kind of think this hack would’ve been better off without the FE8 ties. The elements that are explicitly Magvel-tied feel like they either don’t contribute significantly to the quality of the story, or they could’ve easily been substituted out with something else that accomplishes their function in the story for relatively little loss.
Polish
This is still a record number of typos from a complete hack. Admittedly a large part of this is because of the first arc (which has apparently been improved since then?) but there’s still a noticeable amount in the rest of the game too. It definitely gets better past a certain point though, so it’s 100% not as egregious as it was in the beginning. I didn’t end up recording the ones I caught because I wasn’t sure if you were still updating this or not.
The organization of A-presses also bothered me a bit, albeit not significantly. I’m generally a proponent of starting a new line after most A-presses personally.
Sal
There are a lot of ingredients for a character I’d really like here. Having a character be so clearly shaped by the events of the early story is a recipe for good things—it adds more weight to those events while also making the character in question feel more closely connected with the plot.
Sal accidentally using the Fire Emblem when he didn’t intend to was really neat, though I wasn’t a fan of him occasionally being talked about like he was the answer to all the problems because it kinda blew in the face of this. And him giving Christof and Hendrik the emblems to try and save their lives was one of the most memorable scenes in the entire hack, and while the circumstances honestly felt contrived and artificial (they’re Sol’s top generals, would they really die to their own army, especially a never-before-seen nobody with 4% hit like Mort?), I really, really, love this idea and how it meshes with the foundation of Sal’s character. I wish it was given more weight by some of the other characters, it would’ve been really cool to see others’ reactions to it.
At the same time, Sal’s whole racism thing kind of came off as kind of forced and rushed regarding how it was executed. The description differences in enemy units and the boss seemingly having a generic description to highlight that Sal doesn’t see him as a person anymore were pretty neat (though the boss also had a bunch of weapon ranks he wasn’t supposed to, so I can’t tell if this is purposeful or not). But something about the actual prose felt pretty blatant in a “look viewer, he’s doing bad things, you’re supposed to dislike him now” kind of way, and it felt like the hand of the author was far too visible with this character arc. This is something I’d have to think on more if I were to ever replay this, but if I had to guess it would be that the existing dialogue comes off as too heavy-handed. Lines like “the corpse is talking” come off as jarring and almost a little ridiculous, especially when he basically completely drops this personality shift a few chapters later.
I’m also left feeling a little dissatisfied with regards to how it was resolved—why did it get wrapped up so abruptly, and why are the words of this random elf elder with no clear connection to Sal enough to change his mind? I feel it would’ve been more meaningful if it tied into what had already been planted by the story prior, and this is something that could’ve tied into the nature of the elves, I think—maybe elves have some kind of sensor that lets them perceive one’s true nature, or maybe they have some magical place that brings out people’s inner selves or something, and then you could have some ripe internal struggle as Sal is forced to face the question of whether Cory and Uxo would be proud of what he did. idk. I’m spitballing ideas here, but the point is that I wish this reversion / abandonment of his racism came about because of something that was more closely connected to Sal himself.
Alternatively, what if Sal started off as kind of racist from the start of the post-timeskip part, and is thinking of re-evaluating his views after interacting with Christof and Hendrik, only to double down once it’s confirmed that Cory is dead? I don’t know if that would’ve worked with the early Christof and Hendrik parts of the story, though.
I also wasn’t fond of how the topic of Cory just seemed to be entirely dropped by the end. Cory’s loss defines Sal so distinctly in the middle of the game, but after he decides not to be racist anymore it practically feels like he forgets about Cory, too. This was especially prevalent in the last chapter—I would’ve appreciated a bit more acknowledgement regarding Sal’s potentially complex feelings about Sol. Seeing him wish for peace would’ve been a lot more interesting to me if it was clear that he was putting aside his own feelings about Cory’s death for a better tomorrow.
Don’t get me wrong. There are definitely some things to appreciate about Sal… but he left me wanting in a lot of ways too.
The Timeskip
While I think the idea in of itself is neat, I feel that there were a few small parts of the execution which left me confused. The fact that there was often very little correlation between pre-timeskip and post-timeskip mugs for the same character was a bit weird for me, especially when they often straight up looked like completely different characters and were hard to recognize beyond their color schemes. It’s somewhat understandable given that most of the mugs seem to be from the repo, but it’s still something that came off a little jarring nonetheless.
I’m also a bit cautious of how some units’ classes changed as well. Mick’s and Sal’s class changes mostly made sense, and while Sagiita’s was in the scope of reason, I would’ve liked some acknowledgement somewhere on her shift to horseback. (Does Sal even comment on her getting a horse? I forgot, but it feels like something worth pointing out if you haven’t seen someone in a decade.) But on the other side of the coin, Fidem’s, Uxo’s, and Max’s class changes really felt like they deserved a bit more context to fill in the gaps regarding what happened in the timeskip for them to shift their styles like this. The detail about Max’s dragon losing its mind is a good step in the right direction, but it’s unsatisfactory when it doesn’t really explain why he abandoned lances for bows.
I think the other Part 1 characters’ lack of a reaction to these more drastic changes also contributes to the feeling that there’s a gap here that should’ve been addressed (discounting Mick/Max and Fidem/Sagiita of course since they’ve been working together).
The Playable Cast
I wasn’t really a fan of the playable cast’s writing as a whole, with a few exceptions, and this made the gameplay of the hack pretty unfun for me.
Recruitable characters in general felt very tacked on, in that they often didn’t give me the impression that they’d get much development or involvement in the story past the point of their joining. I’m really not a fan of this in general—imo every character should be there for a reason and if you can’t give them at least some story contribution of substance, I have to question why you’ve made them playable at all. Wolgar is one of the worst offenders here where his entire existence seems to be for reasons that are completely outside the vacuum of the narrative.
The ones that did get later content either didn’t really feel like a complete arc (Garth reuniting with his siblings ties the world together, but it doesn’t really make him grow as a person…) or were difficult to parse with their lack of a distinct narrative trajectory. Miles in particular was super confusing when a lot of his concepts kind of felt thrown together for the sake of it, rather than adhering to a clear through-line. Like why does he choose to reveal himself in the battle against Valentia when the conflict at hand has nothing to do with him personally? Why was he spying on Sal and hiding his true power in the first place? Is it because Sal is special in some way according to the elves? If so, that means the “Sal accidentally uses the Fire Emblem and is made a hero even though he really isn’t one” beat gets weaker, too.
I honestly think the recruitable demons (Tamaki, Serenity, Kein) are the most promising in terms of what they provide for the overall story. As is, Kein undermines the tone of a serious moment pretty severely, but there’s surely some groundwork for something cool with a bit of expansion (I can imagine him being rewritten into Christof’s body double for some reason). Tamaki feels vitally important to the story as a whole, serving a clear purpose as one of the first demons who actually comes off as affable and kind, and I really wish he got more battle quotes as a result. Serenity was neat for very similar reasons, though I wish she was involved more in her gaiden chapter.
Mick, Uxo, and Raigholm were all promising concepts, although I think they were all dragged down by most of their development occurring within the offscreen timeskip. Raigholm in particular probably had the most room to leave an impact and do things in the story past Part 1, especially given his relationship with Sal. Eagle also seems like he has things to unpack, but I didn’t read his supports, so I can’t say.
Juniper having 15% Res is lame when their Res is capped. Giving them a high Res growth would’ve been fun statistical storytelling.
I think there must’ve been like 10 or less total unique battle quotes in this hack, and this likely contributed a lot towards my negative feelings on the cast. Some well-placed battle quotes would’ve gone a long way with making them more interesting—though I think the lack of battle quotes might also partially be because of some of the character concepts being so tacked on, too. The recruitable demons in particular could’ve had a lot of potentially rich interactions with so many of the bosses (Valentia feeling even more justified in killing Sal since there are demons in his ranks? Louis asking Tamaki why he won’t spare him, stirring up feelings of conflict in Tamaki’s heart?)
Alternate Seals
I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, but there was a point where I didn’t have enough Master Seals to promote all the units I wanted to, and as such was forced to either use Alternate Seals or just not promote them at all. This was kind of unfortunate when I wasn’t really that interested in the alternate promotions beyond the Garth feather thing. A few of my units, like Subaru, just never ended up getting promoted as a result of this, since I felt their alternate classes weren’t a good fit for their characterization.
Maybe I just missed some (though I don’t think I did…), but I kind of wish there were more Master Seals as a result of this, or at least enough so that promoting a full team without using alternate seals is still an option.
The Villains
This is by and large the most praiseworthy part of the hack, and it’s not even close. While I didn’t really care about the playable characters, the villain cadre were a very different story. The differing levels of trust between Sol and his generals, and how it felt like there were only a few that he trusted enough to drop the demon king facade and truly be himself around, was by far the most interesting part of the story, and I really hope you can continue this kind of quality with the sequel. I honestly found myself wishing that I could’ve played as them instead.
My one big gripe with them, though, is that most of the villains didn’t really feel that active in the plot, which made them feel pretty disconnected from Sal and the actual conflict. They kind of just sat around and talked for the most part rather than affecting the story directly, and some of the parts where they did do things (i:e the daughter killing the prisoner) felt underwhelming. I think Shackled Power would be a good reference here with regards to what I would’ve liked to see from them—that hack’s villains all feel like they bring a meaningful contribution to the villain faction’s war efforts.
I hate to say this since I’m not sure how it would affect the villain dynamic, but I found myself kind of wishing that there were fewer villains. It felt like the two daughters could’ve been combined into one character, especially when the daughter who you fight in the Uxo and Mick chapter who curses Sal for killing Magnus isn’t the one who was playing chess with Magnus (iirc? or am I just forgetful?). Austin also feels like he didn’t really do much in the plot and probably could’ve been merged with Seritar, and Christof and Hendrik feel pretty interchangeable beyond the fact that there is one of them for each seal. Magnus is mostly good how he is though, I think, though I wish we got to learn about his eye.
Also, teeny tiny mild nitpick but “Lia” and “Ilia” are way too close together name-wise and it’s hard to remember which is which
EDIT: The Ending
I don’t get how Sol dying is supposed to correlate to people becoming less racist towards demons. I guess it would give Sal time to try and change public opinion, but I feel like killing the demon king would only fan the flames of demon hatred among the populace.
The epilogue in general was also super abrupt in terms of how short it was.
I think that’s about all I have to say about this hack. I’m not sure if you’re still updating this or if you’ve honed in entirely on making the sequel, so I’m hoping this feedback is helpful to you in some way regardless.
3 Likes
Oh wow this is huge for me! There’s a ton of stuff here to unpack and improve upon
This is hugely helpful for me, I am not yet finished updating Host of the Dark and will be looking to improve the narrative based on these criticisms. I feel like a lot of the shortcomings are a result of early decisions that I didn’t feel comfortable in cutting or changing to be honest.
The push and pull between Sal being just pulled along in the conflict and his later avid hatred of demonkind is one that I feel really did undermine a lot of the early potential in Sal as a character.
Most of the stuff with Tobias and his threads are mostly resolved in supports since he was as I admitted really brushed to the side by the plot, something that I do seek to improve upon both in this hack and the sequel.
The one thing I will correct is the seals dilemma you had
Master seals are buyable in preps from chapter 15 onwards, this has been missed more than a few times so I do think I should say something about that in the hack tbf
7 Likes
Pros
Summary
- Various easter eggs.
- Clear effort into portraits and arts, considering there’s also a time skip.
- “Prologue” of several chapter was pretty cool concept.
- Game with “first playthrough” experience in mind.
- Promotion very flexible (alt seals)
- Incentive to early promote
- funny easter eggs (like summoning chapter 7)
Cons
Summary
Mostly story consistency and missing lore pieces.
- How did Cory die? Couldn’t he just have left?
- Why can they not kill Sal? (demons)
- Shift in power doesn’t make too much sense (in lore power scaling). The quest for the 2 relics was supposed to “give a chance” to fight back. But when Magnus got killed, demons were talking about how the war is lost.
- Some characters were not really recognizable post time skip. I thought the second Sal was another Sal with the same name for a bit.
I’d say its an overall, decent hack with good attempt to implement ideas. I think the story felt “diluted” and not homogenous. Certain aspects of the story or lore were too sudden and the progression wasn’t exactly smooth.
If you ever do another hack, I think there’s a lot of potential
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Hey, glad to hear that you got something out of it. If I ever replay I’ll be sure to be more diligent with polish suggestions, typo reports and what not. Best of luck with your future work on this hack and its sequel.
Speaking personally, this isn’t the first time in a hack that I’ve ignored the prep shop because I didn’t know it had something that I needed the entire time. I think it’s reasonable to expect people to think that prep shops only have irons or whatever considering that’s how they are in vanilla, but having been burned by ignoring it one too many times, I’m definitely going to be more diligent about checking preps in the future in hacks lol
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I didn’t have the black screen glitch at the start of the game thankfully but now i’m on chapter 16 and as soon as i try to preview the map or start the level the game goes black and nothing seems to fix it. I tried reloading the game, promoting units thinking maybe there was some weird numbers bug, waiting for the screen to move on and even tried to skip the scene thinking maybe the cutscene broke. Do i just have to restart the whole game and hope it doesn’t break again? Was liking the game a lot until this happened
Hello! Thank you for reporting this, I haven’t ever had this reported so I’m not sure how this is caused or it’s fixed but I have playtested the latest patch extensively.
I recommend checking more extensively for what could fix this deployment perhaps?
Thanks again
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Not sure what caused it but I replayed the last 2 chapters (don’t know why i didn’t think to try that before) and skipped the chapter 15 end cutscene and now the chapter works fine. I’m not sure if it was an error caused by something i did in a level, cutscene broke or just unlucky but either way i’m happy i can keep playing lol
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Thank you for updating me! With this information I have a lead for fixing this bug and advice to give for others who have encountered this bug.