The prep shop does update. It’s not always consistent and I might need to rework it but you can still get more than Iron weapons later on in the game. There’s no way to grind, but the extra chapters and smaller casts on each route means that there’s not really a need to do so. Plus, there are arenas if you really want to grind.
i really wish i could use this as a basis for a pme tbh
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I mean, I won’t stop you. Just make sure you credit me!
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oh, how nice, thanks
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Hii~Hii~ I just finished the hack (last version). I liked it overall (7/10).
I played on Maddening + Classic + Ironman + IRL speedrun (little thinking, no prep, fast turns) + no guide + Promoted most units on LV10 or as soon as I had an item + I let die or sacrificed units a lot, specially the frail ones like mages, that usually requires extra thinking time to keep alive. I also did not steal most items (chests nor enemy ones).
While I am not a newbie at FE nor hackroms, but even with those conditions I found the game extremely easy except on the middle chapters (18 to 26), which were moderately challenging. When I mean “extremely easy”, I mean that it was way easier than vanilla Sacred Stones, which is already on the easy end, so it was more in the unsatisfying “just too broken unbalanced” kind of too easy side of things rather of being easy but still requiring to think around, train units and what not like in Blazing Sword’s Eliwood Normal or even the vanilla Sacred Stones to some extent.
So I will give some detailed opinion now and you can do with it as you wish, I just hope the feedback is of some use (or you find it entertaining at least).
- Leadership is just broken. I had 100 hit all the game in all circumstances, except for maybe Dozla Steel Axe vs Sword users, and even that was in the high 80’s usually. Avoid is also partially broken as enemies never had more than 50 hit, and it was relatively easy to reach 0 hit with some skills (vs enemies with the triangle in their favor). I would reduce the effect per star to 1+ Hit 1+ Avo, or at least 2+ Hit 1+ Avo. Allies just get way more stars than enemies.
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The price for silver/etc is just too low. On the first shop with them available, I brought enough that I got severely oversupplied (5+ leftover of each type) for all the game. This made money useless, and nearly all non-Silver weapons useless relatively early on game. I would personally triple the price of all value weapons and items + reduce Rennac’s skill to a 20% discount maximum.
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On the same topic, due the spam of personal weapons, new story gifts, and new characters joining with value equips unbalanced equips, so that the weapons/items dropped by defeated enemies adds way too many quality items, so that you have way more than you can even spend by spamming them all no stop. I would reduce enemy drops a lot to compensate.
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Hard (a friend played on Hard)/Maddening only, but I think enemy base stats and growths are in the low side, so I would raise them a bit, while tweaking chap’s 18-26 to keep the same relative difficulty as current. This is to avoid making 1-10 and 27-30 a walk in the park and it would improve things relevantly for 11-17 too.
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Enemies would use sightly better skills at least. The system right now feels like only the player has 6+ skills while enemies have virtually 0, adding to the unbalanced feel. I think enemy Archer skills are a good example of keeping it simple but also adding deep and balance into the game, and it would be good to see a similar treatment for other classes too.
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I will be honest Seth, Syrennes and Duessel promotions came up to me as extremely random, and just unbalanced further the game. I would have personally never gave them promotions, but if you prefer to keep them, I think making them a “class change” (level is preserved) instead a “promotion”, and keeping level cap on 20 would be a start in the correct direction. Syrenne coming promoted already would make more sense, too. Another alternative is that they already start at those classes.
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For consistency and balance sake, I would add a custom promotion to L’Arachel, and also forbid her, Joshua and Innes from promoting until they get their custom promotions and I would make Innes arrive as Archer and jump to his custom promotion instead. I hope it is not hard to see why I prefer those mesures: having a triple promotion tree while the first class is not traineed just breaks the game as the enemies doesn’t have those “3rd class tier”.
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I would level cap Myrrh back to 20, since her stats skyrockets too much too easily with a few levels more. I would also make every one of her stones just has 20 uses, since she is getting 3 of them now. On my run I just made her attack 55 times total and I used her as much times as I would possibly could.
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I would either remove or remake (extreme makeover) the non-paralogue maps. They have virtually no story, no connection to the main game, they add nothing but extra grind that just feel tedious. You have plenty of things you could do with them relating the new characters, or feature otherwise unexplored parts of the continent or story details.
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Marty, Andrew, Harvey, Lyra, Deema and Mason adds literally 0 new to the game, and feels as filler as FE11’s filler units gifted when you lose too many characters. I would personally just remove them altogether, but if insisting in keeping them, then they need totally different joining reasons moments, logics, personality, add to the game somehow and connect with the continent’s lore etc. However, it is really hard since they really do bloat a lot in the character rooster, it is one of those cases when you need to focus more in quality than quantity. You can use the extra chapters for some of them if insisting in them.
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I would make Eddy a non-promoted archer cavalier to finish the 4 cavaliers one for each weapon. I would make scripted recruits less scripted and more player has to do something too (like Artemis’ one).
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Anything new into the hack that I have not mentioned I loved it personally, like early Syrenne, or Eddy Ethan dynamic, Bonez joining method, or details like Ephraim and Eirika clothe changes, all the quality of lifes (on that, it should mention somewhere hold R = fast battle, and hold A = skip battle), the way split route is handled and other points. All of those things and details does adds up and are the main reason I give the hack a 7/10 instead a 3/10, there is definitively a lot of charm and fun factor and well thought novelties, and the hack would easily reach a 9/10 or even be my go-to recommendation for first Sacred Stones run with balance fixed.
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I am not sure of the viability, but allowing free map after the ending would be cool if possible, even if not really adding or balancing anything about it.
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Hey, I appreciate your feedback! Yeah, the difficulty balancing is definitely a bit all over the place. I kind of went crazy with skills and new stuff. This being my first hack, I just sort of shoved everything I could think of into it lol I’m not planning, at this point, to do much more work on the game in terms of balancing outside of some tweaks here or there. And some of your suggestions, while I definitely see how they could benefit the difficulty balance, kind of go against what I wanted for the game in the first place.
A lot of the new characters are in there mainly because of the route split. If they weren’t there, both armies would be pretty small. And while I admit I went a little crazy on the promotions, I don’t want to just get rid of them entirely, and especially don’t want to keep their level caps at 20. Promoted Syrene is something I initially had, but a number of people suggested making her a pegasus knight and allowing her to promote instead. And Innes as an archer just feels wrong to me 
As for Eddie being an arch cav, I can definitely see that, but Eddie was intended to be a prepromotes since you lose Orson for Chapter 9. I could make him a high leveled T1, but then the issue becomes, what would his promotion paths be? Ranger and Wolf Knight, sure, but there’s no other mounted bow-wielding classes, so I’d have to add another one, which means more skills to spread around.
The enemy having fewer skills is somewhat a product of limitations. FEBuilder allows you to make skills player/enemy only, but not enemy only on maddening mode only. Though it’s probably fine to give enemies more skills on normal/hard mode, so it’s something I’ll potentially look into if I get the time.
Unfortunately, due to the way I structured the chapters, I don’t think world map access at the end of the game would be viable.
Maybe someday I’ll end up remaking Project Jade, now that I’m a bit more experienced in romhacking. But that won’t be happening anytime soon haha. I’m glad you still found some enjoyment out of the game!
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Geez it sounds like you are a glutton for punishment and just like overly hard games lol 
Maddening/Classic and Ironman and stiiiill thought it was too easy. I feel like I die chapter 1 if I played your hack lol
hi! having such a blast with this project— absolutely love the changes you’ve made to the gameplay (thank god for the support changes, love being able to explore more supports without worrying about running out of support slots!) but my game crashed at chapter 16 while trying to promote Colm into an assassin; if I’m quick enough, the game doesn’t freeze and I can look at his other promotions but if I look at his assassin option, the game freezes with a loud buzzing noise.
is there anything I can do to fix this? thanks dude!
edit: just tried it with Joshua as well and it’s definitely the assassin promotion that’s causing issues!
That’s really odd. It probably has something to do with the animations. I’ll look into it.
hi, it’s probably on my end! I’ve switched out the assassin battle animation to a personal favorite of mine (my apologies, truly only for my own eyes and totally forgot I did this!) and when I tried it with the original version, everything works fine. so I probably messed up somewhere! apologies for potentially stressing you out!
problem is I can’t figure out why it’s not working— is it impossible to change the battle animations? obviously no worries if you don’t know what made this switch impossible, I’m just stumped as to why it’s not properly working.
Hmmm, it shouldn’t be an issue to change out animations. Could be an issue with the animation itself?
lol, yup— tried another custom one and it worked fine. interesting, then I’ll just switch back to the original one! thanks again for all your help— and apologies for messing up completely on my own and not figuring out what was wrong!
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Lol you’re good! I’m glad you’re enjoying the hack!
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Wait, this prevents amelia from going cavalier? And from being on the same route as Franz? My second pair of christmas cav is ruined. Also am i screwed if I promote franz at level 12 ish to get his lance?
Started playing this,and aside from the Lack of Tower of Valni and Skirmishes,The Hack IS absolutely fantastic.However,it seems,that the Supports of new Charakters are bugged.Arrived in chapter 18,and Ethan and Eddie are greened Out,they only have a c Support with each other,but Zero Supports remaining.Deema and Andrew have a c Support,but only one Support remaining,meaning,they cant get to A.Other new Chats are affected,too.If it helps,I Play The 100% growth Version,to compensate The Lack of Tower.
Supports have been changed so each character can support with 5 people, rather than 5 times. This causes some visual bugs in the support checker in the prep screen when a character has fewer than 5 support partners but to my knowledge, it’s only visual and they should still be able to support. It’s chapter/deployment based rather than by standing next to each other, so if they’re deployed together they’ll gain the support points. Keep playing and let me know if they still can’t support each other, because in my play testing I remember them being able to support.
Ok,Just reached “Father and Son”.It seems,it is really just a Glitch in the menu.After they had their regular “Talk”,Ethan and Eddie we’re able to rank Up to Level B.Another Question,though.Is it intended,that Helios has 0% Magic growth,even in The 100% Growth Version?Confused me a Lot.Love that Battle Sprite for Amelia as General,btw.Even If she lost her unique overworld Sprite,replaced by a generic General.
Ah, no that was unintentional. I’ll fix that when I can.
I remeber helping this hack brings back such wonderful memories.
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Absolute Mandate of Heaven for the entire team this is such an incredibly great way to experience the game. And I am loving all the new characters & extra maps. Out of curiosity, are triangle attacks still terribly awkward to accomplish in this, or is it easier to activate? I tried looking & failed to find so I hope this isn’t a repeated question
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