[FE8] Long-Lost Friends [v0.1.2: Prologue - Chapter 4]

Download for Long-Lost Friends (v0.1.2 Patch + Credits)

Long-Lost Friends is an FE8 romhack developed by one person with the help of many F2U/F2E resources, for both mechanics and aesthetics. This patch has 5 chapters (Prologue - Chapter 4) and only the default difficulty (Normal Mode).

12
34
56
78
910

I’ve edited both the Guide and Help Text to (hopefully) make learning the many changes LLF brings to FE8 easier to find. I highly recommend looking at both of those ingame resources. Besides things like new items, item stats, and class bases, here are the mechanics that I think are the most impactful:

Brief List of Changes (not exhaustive)
  • The Weapon Triangle and Magic Triangle adjust Mt by +/- 3. The effect on Hit is unchanged (+/- 15).
  • Plan: This map command lets you move and act with ANY unit on the map. Use it to help create strategies and reduce the mental load on you by enacting what you want to do in the game…in the game. Select “Future” to activate turn events, or select “Act” to go back to where the game was before planning started.
    • To prevent exploits, no permanent progress is made if planning is on. Additionally, a RN randomizer has been implemented.
  • Tome Range is not universally 1-2. Some may only be locked to 1 or 2 range for a different benefit.
  • Bargains: The preparation shop changes the first three items in its selection every chapter. Each bargain can only be bought once.
  • Modern unit cycling (press “L” on an enemy to go to the next enemy, instead of a player unit), an accessible Guide during preparations, toggles for whether you want to see enemy unit AI and/or reinforcement warnings, and other QoL changes.
Skill Usage

Opinions on how Skills should feature in Fire Emblem varies widely, so here’s a section on how they’re incorporated in Long-Lost Friends:

  • Almost all player units have just one skill. This is generally a utility skill like Shove or Savior. Mounted units have Canto for this purpose.
  • 3 of the playable units have skills in addition to their utility skill to further differentiate themselves from the rest of the cast.
  • Bosses have at least 1 skill to improve their combat. There are three such skills that exist in the current patch, but they’re very simple and not as “conditional” as you may be expecting. For instance, the most common skill always increases their Hit by 15.
Known Issues
  • Player units don’t have unique death quotes
  • Units don’t have custom/ ”expected” battle palettes
  • After setting an active support, the rank display may mistakenly change (this is only a visual issue)
  • Glancing Blows do not have a visual cue; you can only tell one has occurred if the damage is halved
  • Promotion information can be accessed from character helptext, but not class helptext
  • If you select an enemy or NPC while planning, their map sprite may disappear (until the game has to reload the sprite)
  • If animations and planning are on and a player unit’s death would trigger a Game Over, the graphics will be a bit buggy after the “planning game over” notice goes away.
  • If a unit is rescuing someone, the stat screen shows a red arrow next to Pow instead of Spd
Personal Thoughts/Future Plans?

I’m not sure if I’ll continue development on this particular project, but as someone that’s basically lurked in the FEGBA hacking scene for 10 or so years, I’ve axed many projects that were never publicly shown. While I’m not proud of this project as a whole, I wanted to…

  • …have a “place” for the things that I’m actually proud of making to exist in.
  • …release before Engage comes out, so that deadline put pressure on me to actually work on this.
  • …release before I axed it (despite the short length of this demo, its development time is embarrassingly long).
  • …hopefully reveal any bugs in assembly hacks unique to LLF before I make such hacks publicly accessible. (I also want to do a look at everything and see if I can make it more friendly as standalone downloads too, so that’s not the only reason these aren’t available)

Thanks for reading and/or playing, if you decide to do so! I don’t have a discord server for this, so please leave any thoughts in this thread; posting this has made me pretty nervous, but I’ll try to be somewhat reasonable with my reply timing.

Download for Long-Lost Friends (v0.1.2 Patch + Credits)

38 Likes

AURAWOLF!

Great to see you! Definitely gonna try this out.

4 Likes

I’ve only played this hack for twenty minutes or so and I’m already in love with it! The QoL and unique tech are absolutely mind-blowing (and as a buildfiler I’m super excited at the prospect of this tech releasing), and the map design itself is fun and challenging.

7 Likes

Looks cool, appreciate the amount of effort that went into the presentation and menus. Keen to give this a try.

5 Likes

Thank you for the kind words, everyone. This goes to the people talking about it in the FEU discord, too!

I’m glad to hear that the game itself has held up so far. Obviously, it’s a little too early to tell for sure, but I’m stunned (in a good way) by how positive the reception’s been, which is why it’s taken me so long to post again despite saying that I would reply in a timely manner

I noticed a very minor visual bug thanks to a screenshot I saw lying around, so I fixed it on my end. I don’t think it warrants uploading an updated patch yet.

For anyone curious about it

If a unit is rescuing someone, one of the red arrows on the stat screen is next to Pow instead of Spd.

EDIT: I just realized that I forgot to update the Guide about status effects (Rally Mov, Sleep, etc.). These updates to the Guide will make it into the next patch.

Status Effect information

UpdatedGuideOnEffects1UpdatedGuideOnEffects2
UpdatedGuideOnEffects3UpdatedGuideOnEffects4

4 Likes

0.1.1_10.1.1_2

I just uploaded a new patch since I was revisiting some code! Besides the above fixes I mentioned a few months ago, I also recently found a game crashing bug with the Guardian staff, so that also needed to be addressed.

At this point, I don’t think I’m ready to go back to working on this project, but I wanted to get this out since I had to look at my assembly stuff anyways. Speaking of which, if you’ve been following the project because of those hacks, the buildfile is now public!

3 Likes