Hello everyone, I’m here to share a community project that has been developing in the FEU discord over the last few months. This release contains 8 chapters, 6 of which can be chosen in any order and scale accordingly. The basic premise for development was simple: Sky pirates (extremely cool) and Mega Man (due to how chapter choices work).
The story follows one such pirate captain named Lua, a former merchant who, after a stroke of bad luck, left civilized society and formed her own pirate crew. After an encounter with her old mentor, she begins preparations to sail further into the outskirts, in search of a mythical treasure…
Some key gameplay features:
Chapter Sets that can be selected in Hubs
Two new weapon types (Knife/Gun) with a new WT (Tome->Bow->Knife)
Revamped WTA, applying +2 Mt, +20 Hit, and Engage’s Break status (cannot counter for a round)
All infantry/armors have Steal+/Locktouch, with Armors also being unbreakable
All units have a single defining personal skill, with less powerful skill scrolls also being usable
Music that adapts during battle animations, becoming more tense (similar to modern Fire Emblem games with Calm/Ablaze). Battling certain bosses will change the map theme to be the boss theme, as well!
More Details
Chapter Sets - After completing the first chapter, the player is allowed to select 1 of 6 chapters. Any chapter not done “scales”, with all units in it gaining one level. Once all 6 are completed, the player can then move onto the next main story chapter. Two players may have very different experiences, depending on the order taken with these chapters.
Chapter Hubs - An extension of the former, the player explores a hub in order to find these chapter givers, indicated by red glowing squares. However, there are other things to do here; various members of the crew and potential recruits can be spoken to in the hub. In the future, there may be more things to do here, such as minigames or sidequests.
New Weapon Types - Knives help form a new triangle, Tomes->Bows->Knives (like Fates, but not intersecting with the normal triangle). They have a subtype called Daggers which have unconditional Desperation, and normal Knives are just 1-2 range (but no debuffs). Guns are not involved in either triangle and are 2 range weapons that use Skill as their damage stat.
Item Based Promotions - Not very relevant to the current build, since promotion items show up in the final chapter, but unit promotions are tied to the item they use to promote. For example, a Fighter will promote to Warrior using a Hunter’s Mark, but needs a Brave’s Crest to promote to Hero. This adds a bit more to split promos, adding a tradeoff in item used instead of just choosing the best one.
Class Traits - All infantry classes can Steal any unequipped item where Wt <= Con and Spd >= enemy Spd. Armors can do this, along with being unaffected by Break.
Fliers don’t have Canto, though they can gain it in other ways. All mounted units have 25 - Con for Aid but cannot rescue other mounts.
Break - Just like Engage, using WTA against an enemy will leave them unable to counter for the next round of combat. This is restored at the start of their turn.
Skills/Accessories - Only one personal skill per unit, and each personal skill is meant to define the unit who uses it. Skill scrolls do exist, but they are generally less powerful.
Equippable accessories can also be put in a unit’s inventory, which typically grant skill equivalents or stat boosts.
Mechanical Changes - Levels don’t reset on promotion, and the maximum level is 30.
Promotions give stats based on difference between unpromoted and promoted class bases.
Spd no longer gives Avoid, Lck only gives Avoid. Classes have base Lck.
There is no E weapon rank, and units gain 1 WEXP per round. Thresholds go like this: D from 51 to 75, C from 76 to 115, B from 116 to 175, A from 176 to 250, S at 251.
The exp formula is overhauled to slow down units that are ahead and speed up units that are behind, while also being somewhat slower than FE8 exp.
Stat Changes - Weapon Triangle is 2/20 Mt/Hit.
Hit is increased by 3 x Skl, Avo by 3 x Lck.
Crit is only increased by weapon Crit and skills, and no Crit Avoid exists.
If any of this interests you, please give the hack a try! All feedback is welcome, and I’ll try to address any bugs/issues that spring up as quickly as possible (all testing done with mGBA v0.8.4).
Further, if you’re interested in joining the development team, all of it is done via the #community_project channel in FEU’s discord. Forms for Hub B signups will be there shortly if you’d like to help create chapters, but spriters/musicians/wizards are all welcome as well! Download Pirate Project (v0.1)
Another awesome community project that shows how creative it can be. Gorgeous sprite work and a unique setting featuring sky Islands it’s accompanied by an original OST that elevates the swashbuckling experience. Personal skills are unit defining and impactful, which in my eyes is a great thing. Alot of replayability already in this 8 map experience with 6 of them being able to be played in any order. Looking forward to more!
Figured I’d push the thread to mention that a few bugs of varying importance have been fixed (for a bit, there was a crash caused by Leandra’s animations. The patch should mostly be fine outside of occasional enemies gaining odd stat bonuses, which is likely tied to Tonics.
Played the hack, enjoyed most of it - a pretty strong initial version with both individually compelling units to use and recruit as well as varied chapters in a free-form selection, allowing different progressions and playstyles depending on the chapter order as different characters take a larger role due to their earlier availability depending on your choices.
Review
Mechanically, I enjoy this, leaning into A-5 as one of my most liked chapters due to the unique weapons spread across it and what they entail for the player’s weapon supply for the rest of their game. Having varied objectives across the current chapters (Survive, Rout, Boss-slaying, two-step Escapes…) allows the game to not run stale, as well as their mini-side objectives the game sometimes throws into the player, turning some chapters into something more than just ‘Escaping’ or so.
Beyond the goods of this hack, my gripes are far and in-between, and beyond petty complaints such as the secret reward of one of the chapters (Forest Friend, a skill that allows characters to traverse Forest tiles with 1 mov. cost and Thickets with 2 mov. cost) being somewhat overshadowed by Acrobat, a later reward in another chapter that effectively grants better mobility boosts (beyond Thicket trespassing, which are normally impassable), my main issue so far is that the ‘Hub’ (current Act 1 phase) feels awfully empty, with only three potential recruitment convos and the mission selection NPCs, alongside the conversations with the OG crew NPCs (that are good and are an extra step towards characterizing characters).
I think that both adding ‘generic NPCs’ in the style of other patrons in the pub or as the villagers of some houses (or crews) the more missions are done (or have some change with such progress) could give the Hub a bit more liveliness, as it grows empty the more events and chapters you do.
Alternatively, NPC sub-quests on a very lesser note (standard fetch quests as part of other chapters or defeating specific foes) could potentially open the way for small additions into other chapters (ranging from simple quests such as acquiring an axe for a shipwright to gather more logs, to character-picky quests requiring some sort of threshold to clear - f.e., choosing a character that must get 10 steals within an arc, and on success, you gain a reward after completing such mission, to more targeted quests, working as a slight personal arc on a character requiring them to do something specific within a chapter to progress).
In short, my only subtractions to this already promising project is that the hub (which can potentially work as a relief segment) dies out in interactions very early.
Beyond this, I have enjoyed this game, and I will await further updates.
Hey all, I added a new patch, v0.1.1, which pushes a few more bugfixes and did a general lookover with unit stats/skills, with some generally meh units (Biko, Hermen, Medwyn) getting significant buffs. Also, development of the next hub will begin on 1/1, so if you’re interested in it, it’ll be taking place in FEU’s discord as mentioned in the OP.
Hello, I updated the patch to v0.1.2. This patch again makes some small tweaks to unit stats (nothing major), but it also adds a large amount of cutscene eventing by Mufflebuns to make story beats more dynamic in the hub chapters, which should make the narrative more engaging.
Also, promotions and classes have been finalized, and while they aren’t very relevant yet since promo items show up at the tail end of the demo, some of them can technically be accessed. All classes have 2 promo options, as in FE8, but here, both are accessed by using a specific promo item, of which there are six. For example, Pilar, as a Ninja, can access Master Ninja (Knife/Sword) using a Brave Crest and Trickster (Knife/Tome) using a Magi Ring.
The hope is that this provides more interesting promotion tradeoffs than everyone using a Master Seal, while also not being as restricting as something like FE6. Also, with Break existing and strong WT bonuses, different weapon types will likely matter more (with monoweapon classes getting a unique trait instead).
Lastly, Hub B development has begun in the discord, so if you’d like to contribute in any way, feel free to join! The next set of chapters (around 6 more) should be finished sometime in March. Until then, this will be the last patch, barring any minor bugfixes that may crop up.
