[FE8] Legacy of Sorrow (9 chapters, last updated Oct. 14, 2023)

[bpat]

Hello, I am bpat and I present to you the first six chapters of my FE8 hack Legacy of Sorrow. You can download it here. The latest patch is LegacyOfSorrow_10-13-23.ups. I also created a discord server for anyone interested in chatting about this game.

I am always open to feedback and I’d love to hear your thoughts on this game, so don’t hesitate to let me know what you think either here on FEU or on discord.

Plot

Two years ago, the King of Melerra was deposed by several powerful nobles backed by the Empire of Galt, and the Kingdom was ceded to the Empire as a vassal state. Prince Edgar, the sole survivor or Melerra’s royal family, gathers allies in hopes of liberating his nation. His actions will determine the fate of not just Melerra, but the entire continent…

Game information and features

Legacy of Sorrow is a simple game mechanically but still a complex game strategically. Playable units will have very limited access to skills, with most of them being present in vanilla GBA FE games. Many weapons are different from what you are used to in other Fire Emblem games and hacks, so make sure to examine the stats of each of them.

There is one unique mechanic to this game, which is the rune system, inspired by quietus from Triangle Strategy. Beginning in chapter 2, you will gain access to runes, which temporarily empower your units in various ways. Most runes can only be invoked once per chapter, and the total number of times you can invoke a rune per chapter is limited, but they refresh at the end of each chapter so don’t hesitate to use them when they may be helpful.

This game is intended to be fairly challenging, though only early maps have been released thus far so it hopefully isn’t too hard currently. Expect your units to sometimes get doubled and occasionally risk being defeated in a single round of combat by powerful enemies. However, you will still have plenty of tools to handle the challenges the game presents you.

This game is not meant to be ironmanned, but you can certainly try if you are up for the challenge. Currently, the dialogue assumes characters are alive and recruited, so if you lose a unit you may see their ghost appear in dialogue

Every unit is intended to be useful. While some may be better than others, none will be dead weight and none will be completely dominant.

I have also made a few mechanical changes:

• Units can trade multiple times per turn (Thracia trade).
• Preparation shop sells most E-D rank weapons, including steel and 1-2 range weapons.
• Weight gives a flat penalty to speed regardless of the wielder’s constitution.
• Hit and avoid formulas have been changed to 2.5*skill + 0.5*luck and speed + 2*luck respectively.
• Status staves such as the freeze staff will never miss.
• Magic weapons will count as both their weapon and magic type for triangle effects.
• Stat boosters are less potent.
• Cavaliers can no longer use swords and knights and wyvern riders use axes instead of lances.
• Units send their inventory to the convoy upon death.

Difficulty options

Two difficulties are planned: easy and normal. Normal difficulty is intended to fairly challenging and it is the intended difficulty for most players. If you are struggling with normal or would prefer a more laid-back experience, easy mode should be a better fit for you.

Normally, there will a separate patch for easy and normal mode. If you would like to switch difficulties between chapters, your save for one difficulty will be compatible with the other. However, at this moment, the easy mode patch is still a work in progress. I hope to have it ready in the near future. If you are interested in testing easy mode, please let me know, as it could use some testing to refine.

On easy mode enemies are less numerous and sometimes have weaker weapons compared to normal mode. Additionally, several timed side objectives will have more lenient timers. However, enemy stats do not differ between difficulty modes, so easy mode will be far from trivial. Expect normal mode to be close to what you would expect from a hard mode, and easy mode to be similar to what you would expect from a normal mode in terms of difficulty.

Screenshots

FEE3 2022 showcase

FEE3 2022: Legacy of Sorrow by bpat

FEE3 2021 showcase

FEE3 2021: Legacy of Sorrow by bpat

FEE3 2020 showcase

[FEE3 2020] Legacy of Sorrow by bpat

Recruitment guide

Recruits are straightforward in this game, but in case you’re unsure, these are all the missable recruitments. Anyone not listed here will join automatically.

• Matthias: Talk with Edgar in ch1
• Jane: Talk with Edgar in ch2
• Sasha: Talk with Edgar in ch3
• Justin: Visit the northeast village in ch5
• Ted: Talk with Celia in ch5
• Lucy: Talk with Celia in ch6
• Clint: Talk with Rose in ch7
• Victoria: Talk with anyone in ch8
• Marie, Evelyn, Donovan, and Trent: Defeat the soldier guarding their cell.
• Joey: Visit the western village in ch9

Plans for future releases

I intend to add the following to Legacy of Sorrow in future releases.

• Many new items not present in mainline Fire Emblem games.
• Many more chapters, for a total length in the 20-25 chapter range.
• Custom classes, including hybrid classes that wield physical weapons as well as magic or staves.

I do not plan on including the following features in this game.

• Skills beyond simple innate class skills and enemy boss skills.
• Split promotions.
• Route split.

Known issues

I intend to address these in the future. For the time being, I hope they will not hinder your enjoyment of this game.

• The dialogue assumes most characters are recruited and alive.
• Many characters have placeholder portraits and lack a custom palette.
• Chapter 9 currently has no writing and minimal eventing.

Credits

It’s difficult to keep track of the many people who helped me. If I forgot to mention your contribution, please let me know!

Hacking

• Skill system: Circleseverywhere. Colorz, Monkeybard, Black Mage, Pikmin1211, Primefusion, Tequila, Rossendale, StanH, Leonarth, 2WB, Teraspark, Darrman, SD9k, Kao, blademaster, Snakey1, Zeta, Kirb, Sme, Ganzap
• FEBuilder’s entire existence: 7743
• Modular Minimug Box: Zane
• AI lag fix: hypergammaspaces, Vesly
• Chapter titles: Circles
• CHAI fix: Tequila
• Staff exp: Tequila
• Palette insertion: Teraspark
• Portrait height fix: 2WB
• Send inventory to convoy upon death: Pikmin1211
• Rune submenu: Contro and Vesly
• Shopping edits: Aura Wolf
• Helping me learn hacking in general: Sme, Leonarth, Pikmin1211, Vesly, Contro, circleseverywhere

Art

• Portraits: MournfulRelic, Roze, Goldblitzx, LaurentLacroix, Nickt, CapibaraInSpace, Cravat, XVI, AmBrosiac, RandomWizard, Obsidian_Daddy, JiroPaiPai
• Portrait touchups: Sterling_Glovner, Epicer, Feier, Roze
• Palettes: Epicer
• Animations: Nuramon, Alusq, Yangfly Master, Glenwing, MK404, TBA, Orihara_Saki, Feaw, Mikey Seregon, Alfred Kamon, Black Mage, Wan
• Icons: Lisandra Brave, Beansy, Snakey1, Ereshkigal, Zelix

Music

• Sme, SaXor, RandomWizard, Pandan, Chair, ArcherBias, Pikmin1211, Alusq, Thegis

[CookieMaster]

that’s funny, I focused completely on dialogue in my romhack instead of gameplay. It’s kind of like a comic book now that I think of it.

[thedman975]

Saw your hack on the FEU youtube channel, looks really cool! Yours is the first hack I’ve seen with a Freeze staff. Did you hack in the freeze staff yourself or is there a publically available patch for it?

[bpat]

I believe the functionality for the freeze status is bundled with skillsystem and I used Teraspark’s Item Effect Revamp to get a staff to apply it.

[bpat]

Hello everyone, it’s been a while since I’ve updated this thread haha. I’d hoped to make more progress over the past year, but instead I ended up completely reorganizing the project and re-implementing it piece by piece which took a bit more time than I expected. I hope the wait was worth it, because the game has undergone massive improvements. The old chapter 1 is gone, and the remaining chapters have undergone significant revisions. Two completely new chapters are included, and in my totally subjective opinion they are the best yet. Additionally, several new units and items are available and I’ve polished the game visually as well.

I have two more incomplete chapters in various stages of completion, which will conclude the end of the first major arc of this game. Here’s a preview of the chapter 9 map (subject to change, of course).

Hopefully the next release won’t take quite as long as this one
Until then, I hope you enjoy the newly updated version of this hack, which can be found at the top of the thread.

[bpat]

I made a quick fix to the patches at the top of the thread. Nothing that should affect gameplay, but it fixes a missing talk conversation and some weapon ranks that don’t really matter. If your patch ends with “11-3-21b” then your version has these fixes. One more thing I forgot to mention is preparations shops contain most D and lower ranked weapons, including steels and 1-2 range. I suggest you take advantage of this because the game gives you more money than you’ll realistically be able to use

[GodsPetTurtle]

Playtester here, if your making a hack you should consider giving this hack a whirl to learn a few things about smooth gameplay I know that I certainly have and have much more to learn from it. Looking forward to the showcase tomorrow!

[Pandan]

Almost done w/ the patch, will share full thoughts here when complete.

My overarching thesis on hard mode is that it feels like a difficulty mod for FE1/FE3 - has a real “classic” FE feel, but with better difficulty and balance. Just need to finish the last chapter.

[bpat]

This hack was just showcased at FEE3. Check it out if you’re interested!

FEE3 2021: Legacy of Sorrow by bpat

[bpat]

Hi FEUniverse, after a long time, I have finally updated this game to include the entirety of the first major arc, and it contains many new items and characters in addition to two new chapters. It also includes an entirely new mechanic based off the quietus mechanic from Triangle Strategy that I am especially excited for people to experience. I hope you all enjoy the new content, and as always, I appreciate any feedback you may have.

Here is the FEE3 2022 showcase, which shows off many of the cool new things this update includes:

FEE3 2022: Legacy of Sorrow by bpat

[bpat]

If you downloaded yesterday’s patch, I have made a quick hotfix for two major bugs (steel axes having WTA vs iron swords, chapter 8 reinforcements not spawning.) I have updated the patch in the dropbox at the top of this page to have LegacyOfSorrow_NormalMode_10-20-22.ups, which contains these fixes. if you are using LegacyOfSorrow_NormalMode_10-19-22.ups, please use the new patch to resolve these issues. If you have an existing save from yesterday’s patch it will work on the new patch just fine.

[TSUNAMI]

I am looking forward to your works very much. Good works always make me feel motivated

[Aneira]

Hi, I’ve been on a sequence of playing WIPs, so I wanted to submit a review.

Narrative

Summary

~Pretty regulation FE hack story. I would probably appreciate some more context or expatiation about the sociopolitical environment (I was perplexed on the situation for Edgar’s guerrilla insurrection during the initial couple chapters). I did enjoy that it maintained a vigorous pace and didn’t encumber you with superfluous or verbose details the way some games do, though I think you could expand on some of the more emotional characterization scenes–elaborating on Edgar’s uncertainty and inexperience, how unprepared he is, would make him more… sympathetic isn’t the apt word here, but it could make him feel more relatable and get the player more invested in his campaign. Though I understand gameplay’s obviously the primary focus at this point, and overall, it was perfectly fine.

Gameplay

Summary

I really enjoyed the demo gameplay so far, the later more experimental maps more so. Most units felt like sufficiently competent contributors, and no one felt so “centralizing” that I was compelled to keep deploying them (Net positive, in my perspective). Chapter 5 was definitely pretty frenetic and challenging, and chapter 8 was a unique experience with compelling anti-turtle objectives. I do think most of the castle seize maps could apply slightly more pressure on the player later in the chapters, because it turned out pretty easy to just intercept the reinforcements and dismantle the multiple stationary formations around the boss chambers (Primarily in 4 & 8). I suppose the outdoor chapters in 3/5/7 just cultivated a challenging atmosphere that the more sinuous castle maps didn’t maintain all the way to the end, though I totally understand if they’re intended to be “breathers”.

I did find myself desiring supplementary ranged chip damage in the early portion, since you don’t receive any auxiliary mages or archers for a period, but are inundated with physical infantry, though I could have been underusing magic swords.

The maps were pretty dense, and you engendered a distinctive experience from the density without having exceptionally acute enemy quality vs. player units. Overall, there’s relative parity vs. the enemy, which I think complements the Echoes-inspired AS mechanic, emphasis on uniqueness via speed tiers, and blade access, which enables sword units (except possibly the second thief, whom I immediately benched) to excel here. You also achieved something special here in how speed functions as a defensive stat more than an offensive one, so kudos for making the player reconsider it the most since I played Double or Nothing haha.

I’m not certain if this is supposed to be an ironman-conducive game, but you absolutely could play in that manner, so not sure if you wanted to promulgate it that way? The copious inventories every new recruit possesses also facilitate that.

My only frustration was how Celia had to recruit a couple specific units, since that can restrict your dancer’s turn and reduce the total mobility you have to reach the other unit (5 movement vs. she could dance for, say, Edgar, and he could gain 10 movement), but that’s a quibble.

Overall, I really enjoyed the gameplay mechanics and how you accomplished an original experience here. I’d definitely recommend it and would anticipate playing a future release! Thanks for producing it!

[bpat]

Hi, thanks for all this feedback. I’m glad you had a good time playing this game. I definitely agree with you on places where the story could be improved, I’ve been going back to revise earlier scenes and add new ones, and I will keep your comments in mind while I work on these.

Regarding gameplay, it seems the maps you liked most are also some of my favorites. I generally find indoor maps harder to design, and especially in chapter 8 I erred towards making later parts of it easy as resetting late in that map would be really rough, though I’ve considered adding rewards for clearing these maps quickly as a way to encourage playing aggressively in later turns. Chapter 8 especially gets really easy once you reach the chests and cells so I’ll do some thinking about how to make the throne room more interesting.

The lack of early mages is intentional, though I hadn’t thought about it from the angle of the player lacking ranged options in general. Magic swords are intended to help with this, but you’re rarely killing enemies in a single round with these and javelins and hand axes are worse aside from countering mages. I don’t plan on changing early recruits to involve more ranged units but this is interesting to ponder.

Personally, I like dense chapters but I don’t like games where you mow down hordes of enemies on enemy phase with 1-2 range, so I ended up making a game with lots of strong enemies . I never liked con affecting weight in GBA games, hence the gaiden system here, and I’m happy to hear you found AS interesting in this game where you have to worry about getting doubled rather than just whether or not you can double. With this in mind It’s probably not a surprise that Doubled or Nothing is one of my favorite hacks haha.

I didn’t intend for this game to be ironmanned but I’d like to make it at least somewhat reasonable, or at least reasonable to not reset for every lost unit. Inventories are actually sent to the convoy if a unit dies so units having stacked inventories is unrelated to ironmanning, I’m planning on toning this down a tiny bit in the next release but units will still show up with around 3 weapons in most cases past the first few maps.

I see what you mean about Celia recruitments, especially since it can be hard to use dance effectively on the same turn she recruits someone. I’ll at least consider giving Ted and Lucy alternate recruit options, especially Lucy since recruiting her with Edgar would be much more convenient than with Celia.

Thanks again for posting your thoughts, your feedback is greatly appreciated!

[bpat]

Hi all, I finally got around to updating this game, even if the update didn’t contain quite as much as I hoped, as I’ve been busy working on several group projects on top of this one. You can find the updated patch in the link at the top of the thread. While there’s only one new chapter, there are a ton of minor tweaks that enhance the gameplay experience, and the entire script has been improved upon. Almost no dialogue went unedited since the previous update, and I’d like to think I got a fair bit better at writing since I first started this project. I don’t have a full changelog, but here’s a list of what comes to mind.

Changelog

• Chapter 9 has been added, though writing and eventing are still WIP
• Major script changes and improvements
• Many units received balance tweaks, especially underperformers
• Several new weapons have been added, and others have been tweaked
• Promotions are now available, and level does not reset upon promotion
• Sword variants of armor knights have been added, both promote into general
• Experience formula was tweaked, making it slightly easier to catch up if underleveled and slightly harder to become overleveled
• Skill now gives 1 crit per point, but only when you have another source of crit like a killer weapon
• Preparations shop now updates as you make progress through the game
• Several chapters and bosses were made slightly easier
• Rune availability is more frontloaded
• Some portraits have been updated
• Probably a lot of other stuff I forgot!

Below is the map of the new chapter. As always, if you have any feedback, I’d love to hear it.

[bpat]

So the previous patch had a ton of text errors, and the ones I’m aware of have been fixed now. I uploaded an update at the same link at the top of the thread so if you don’t like buggy text, I suggest updating; your saves will still work.

The very cool LTCer lowres demonstrated a low turn count clear of chapter 7 for this year’s FEE3 showcase of this game. His clear makes use of the unique mechanics of this game and is a lot of fun to watch. Unlike previous presentations, this one goes a lot quicker than a full chapter LP

FEE3 2023: Legacy of Sorrow by bpat

[bpat]

I uploaded a quick update because I accidentally broke chapter 5 completely, the patch LegacyOfSorrow_10-14-23.ups in the Drobbox link has the fix and will be compatible with existing saves. I apologize for the inconvenience.