Pardon my use of greentext here but i had to do it lmao:
Complains about characters being broken
Playing a hack rom based on Gaiden
6 Likes
In this case it was a āBlame Gaidenā; I was using the Gaiden class power numbers for the EXP formula instead of the updated Echoes ones, which did set Saintsā EXP gain much higher than intended. It will be fixed in the next update.
Speaking of, May 19 will mark five years since Echoesā USA release. My initial goal was to have the final act, Act 5, completed by then. And while I now have about a third of the final act done, my work schedule has recently changed and left me with less free time to work on the project. There are a few too many loose ends for a complete release to be out by then.
One of these loose ends is the final boss. You may have seen some of the previews Nuramon has been posting of the Duma animation - an absolutely fantastic collaboration between him and L95 - and all of the animation frames are now in a complete state and scripting is in progress. This will, however, require some level of animation engine work on my end in order to implement it as intended, and I can already tell it will take me quite a bit more than 10 days when factoring in my work schedule and the other remaining tasks. 
That said, I can at least promise a patch update to mark the occasion, and Iāll focus on bugfixing Act 4 and the first map of Act 5 in the coming days. Only two maps remain to be done, and I want to make sure they make for a proper endgame experience.
25 Likes
Chapter 20A is a bit broken and is exploitable for infinite SteelShields/Hide Shields and EXP
If you level Faye and turned her into a Mage, Once she has Freeze you can just keep stopping the Boss over and over while stealing the shields and killing the Paladins that Respawn.
2 Likes
Hi! First of all this hack is amazing. Gameplay wise the only things I miss from SoV are the ability to go change someoneās class without starting a battle and the smith.
Everything you added however is great, the new classes are fun to have around, knights with axes are great and the new maps are much better.
Iām having a problem with Lukas and Forsyth: after promotion they got the standard axe, so now their basic weapons take up two spaces. Both of those can change from lance to axe and vice versa. This doesnāt happen to Valbar who came with just one lance/axe.
Speaking of weapons, I have some questions.
The convoy has three magic sections which I assume are going to be useless. Is it impossible to take them out?
Atlas mentions using a bow in the Deen chapter, but even after promotion he canāt (unless he can use a bow after promoting twice, didnāt get that far).
What about the cavalier line using swords? Did you decide against it for balance reasons or just to keep it like the original?
Why does the Romphaia cost so much?
2 Likes
Yeah Atlas gets bows at tier 3.
Glad to hear youāve been enjoying it!
- The Lukas/Forsyth issue will fix itself when I release the next patch, so you can just use the same save file and itāll clean the extra weapon out when you next save the game.
- The magic sections in the convoy probably wonāt ever have anything in them, yeahāIād toyed with the idea of handing out Bolting/Purge as limited-use tomes to mess with, and I still havenāt entirely ruled that out. Havenāt looked into removing them from the convoy entirely.
- As mentioned, Atlasās final class gets bow access; he hints at it a little in the Deen chapter but says he ācanāt really hit anything with it yetā (heās got an F rank
) - For cavaliers: both tbh, it cuts down on animation resources to keep them lance-locked, they were lance-locked in Gaiden/Echoes, and getting a Gold Knight with 9 mov and weapon triangle control was a bit much even by Gaiden standards of ābalanceā lol
I have also nerfed the reinforcements on 20A so theyāre not as farmable.
Some physical health issues on my end kind of ruined the idea of putting another public release out for May, unfortunately, but weāre in the home stretch. We have finished story text revision and insertion for the whole game! 
Additionally, Iāve received all the files for Dumaās animation and have gotten a (VERY) rough testing space for the final map set up. Aside from a bugfix to refine the multiweapon system used by Alm and the armor classes, all that remains to be done now is engine hacks surrounding the final map, end credits, and epilogue 
29 Likes
Yeah, I guess itās a good call. In Gaiden and Echoes it would have been fine since thereās no weapon triangle and you can only equip one item anyway, but here thereās balance to consider.
I just always found weird that they canāt use swords when Mycen taught Alm swordfighting and Rudolph used the Falchion to kill Mila. Echoes also has Randall who canonically prefers dual wielding swords.
There is a lot of technical work going into boss animation insertion, but the foundations have been laid for Dumaā¦ Ocular Beamās spell animation isnāt in yet but Iāve seen a preview and it looks fantastic.
Iām going to be pushing through the remaining updates this month as my health allows, and Iāll have at least something ready for FEE3 this year.
23 Likes
Hey! Itās been a while. I was checking out the latest patch and everything was great. I love the new maps and new anims, terrific work as always!
So there are a few bugs I caught and I didnāt see reported.
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If you fight Fernand in Rigel with Alm, thereās this minor convo glitch. (FYI, If Fernandās portrait seems slightly off is because I tinkered with the palette a bit for the whole cast)
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In Dread Mire well, thereās a unit starting position thatās inaccessible off the grid. Poor Valbar man
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Helldogs do not give any exp (not even promoted). I really donāt think that being overleveled was it as Atlas wasnāt getting anything despite being tier 2.
But thatās all Iāve encountered so far, the rest has been addressed I believe. Thanks for all the wonders so far Gamma!
3 Likes
Hi. Just wanna say that this hack is incredibile and how much is time before itās completed? Ps. Great job btw
2 Likes
Where do I promote Celicaās units?
Seabound shrineās the place to be
Dunno if this has been reported yet, but if a unit moves next to a Mila statue, brings up the promotion menu and then cancels out, they will get back their turn in full, so they can move again and attack. Theoretically, theyād be able to move doubly. Itās a very niche idea, since it would involve an unit that can promote and still hasnāt, so I doubt anyone will abuse it, but itās there.
Iāve played throught the first three maps in this hack and I am LOVING it. This is the closest Iāll get to playing Echoes in a while, so thank you so much for it!
This is probably my favorite rom hack of all time, even in its unfinished state, but i do have some criticism. Act 1, i have 2 issues here number 1 villager growths, they deserve to be a little better because they no longer get the growth benefits from their class like for example tobins 25%speed growth. The metis tome partially fixes this but not by much. Number 2 shields, in eches shields are balanced by how they use your inventory slot but they dont here and can be stacked with powerful weapons and as such they should be rare to make up for the balence. You shouldnāt be able to buy them let alone silver shields. Sience hide shields dont suffer a penalty you might aswell give everyone one. Act 2 great. Act 3 axes while they are nice to have they feel nearly usless due to how few unit get excess to them. Barons and atlas thats it, makes axes near usless. My solution is to make the woodcutter a possible male villager promotion, i dont see why that isnt already a thing. Also in act 4 after completing duma tower i was stuck doing chapter 22a on repeat even tho i had completed it already. Good things i noticed. Act 1 fernand joining for a little bit makes sense and giving the deliverance their own chapter to gain experience makes them so much better to use. Act 2 the 2 tile wide choke points are super good allowing for a faster time here. Act 3 sonya and est were refreshing. The better spell list for sonya allowing her to use what is essentially luna and better thunder was a great buff. I would add recover on promotion tho. Est super fun to use now with her growths. Turns her to a killing machine with some effort. Nomah having warp and fortify also made him so much better and now a viable late game unit. And Finally a properly tested hard mode would go a long way. I can be a playtester if needed dm my discord at tyler#9814
5 Likes
Can dread fighters promote into villagers?
1 Like
You can soft lock the game. If you play up to where alm canāt move (after the dragon chapter for him) then go back to grind or something in one of the extra maps.(then forget to move him back )Then play Celicaās route up til Dumaās tower. The game will make you do CHP 21, then lock you at CHP 22
You can also get softlocked if you donāt have enough living units to seize in Dumaās Tower.
Thereās an issue that I thought should be noted with entry animations.
This was reported in the FEU Discord channel: Discord
EDIT: After more testing, the short version is to ensure code 01 is used before code 06 in attack animations, which is not normally the case for ranged axes, to prevent this altogether without side-effects.
For more details:
How to trigger the freeze and countermeasures
What you need to trigger the freeze:
Unit A:
-Does not have an entry animation
-Attacks the enemy and hits
-Has code 13 in their attack animation
-Does not have code 01 before code 06 in their attack animation
Unit B:
-Has an entry animation
-Survives the hit and counterattacks
-Triggers a magic animation that ends before their own HP finishes depleting
So in other words, ranged axes donāt like it when they donāt have an entry animation but their enemy does
My best conclusion is that being in the entry animation somehow cancels out the enemyās code 13, prematurely initiating an attack while the enemyās hand-axe is still flying
The main factor supporting this conclusion is that a unit that dodges, and thus leaves the entry animation, will not freeze when they counterattack
Ways to prevent this:
- Not having any entry animations
- If you must have entry animations, favor using the transformation patch rather than modes 09 and 11
- If you must use modes 09 and 11, make it so all classes have entry animations
- If you canāt make all classes have entry animations, ensure that all classes use code 01 before code 06, in other words fix all ranged axe battle animations
- If you are the maker of entry animations, put code 01 at their end just to be safe, this way itāll never freeze while the side-effect is just a quick frame repeat (preferably thereād be a way to avoid it, but Iām not aware of one)
- If you are the maker of a ranged axe battle animation, put code 01 before code 06
Post in the FEU Discord channel, in case thereās more talked about it afterwards: Discord
This is not specific to Sacred Echoes, anyone making/using entry animations should keep this in mind.
3 Likes
Apologies for the lack of updates lately - my work schedule has picked up and I still donāt have much free time, but my health issues are finally managed well. Boss animation insertion was the last major tech hurdle of the project, and Iām pleased to say itās behind me. A big thank you to @Nuramon and @L95 for all their hard work on the animation side of this:
Unfortunately, given my new schedule, I canāt give a solid estimate on when it will be 100% done. But I can at least say itās currently at 98% or so. The remaining work is mostly graphics and support writing, minor bugfixes, or existing patches Iāve had on the wishlist but never quite found time to integration-test - so itās just a matter of how many uninterrupted chunks of time I can find in the coming months.
I also plan to allow some time for start-to-finish playtesting to adjust the level curve and such (something Iāve had trouble doing myself because of dev time). So I plan on releasing a playable start-to-finish beta patch once the essentials are in, and after that a final release with the nice-to-haves inserted and any remaining balance issues and bugs addressed.
55 Likes
This is gonna be fun