[FE8] The Avenging Dragon [07/28 Chapters]

[Koni]

„The land of Gannith, long shrouded in the darkness of an endless conflict, stands divided. In the west, empires band together, defiant against the dominating might of the kingdom of Regia.

Yet, internal strife weakens their stand, as the coalition of empires teeter on the brink of collapse.

Amidst the chaos, Prince Alec of Phestos embarks on a critical mission to preserve their fragile union.

Unbeknownst to him, even greater peril stirs within the domain of dragons beyond Regia, a looming shadow that threatens to engulf the world.“

[Current Release progress: 07/28 Chapters done]

Download The Avenging Dragon

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Welcome to the project site of “The Avenging Dragon”!

This is a game I’ve been working on for a long time, and now I’m excited to finally share it with everyone. Watch the story of Alec, Alicia and Ciel unfold as they fight to save their world. I hope you enjoy exploring what I’ve created.

Features & Details

• Enjoy an original story set on the continent of Gannith
• A large, unique cast with many different personalities
• Discover many custom animations created by talented artists
• Classic GBA-style gameplay without skills
• Listen to unique music composed specifically for this game
• Classic FE6/7 promotion system
• Dragons — lots of dragons

Screenshots

Credits

Animations
Lord (Alec) by Nuramon
Fighter_Reskin by Leo_Link
Soldier by Alusq
Princess (Alicia) by L95
Prince (Ciel) by L95
Water dragon by L95
Fire dragon by L95
Thief reskin (Askjell) by UltraFenix (Repalette by Pikmin1211, Maiser6.)
Thief reskin (Esther) by UltraFenix (Repalette by Pikmin1211, Maiser6.)
Mage-, sage_reskin (Kilian) by UltraFenix (Original Hatless Mage made by GabrielKnight) (Sage Magic and Staff Basic Animations by Levin64, improved by HyperGammaSpaces.)
Rogue reskin (Askjell) by UltraFenix (Pikmin1211, Maiser6, Ukelele, SD9k, Temp, Black Mage, Wan, Orihara_Saki, ltranc edits to base anim)
Rogue reskin (Esther) by UltraFenix (Animation by eCut, Skitty.)
Nomad Reskin (Takoda) by UltraFenix (Nomad Repalette by Pikmin1211 and Maiser6.)
Nomad soldier reskin by UltraFenix (FE7 Nomad Trooper improved by Levin64.)
Myrmidon reskin (Hassan) by UltraFenix (anim Edit by Leo_Link.)
Swordmaster reskin (Hassan) by UltraFenix (Alternate attack by Glenwing.)
Mercenary-Reskin Armored by Alusq
Sage_reskin (F) by Levin64
Pegasus Knight repalette by Flasuban
Miasma by Struedelmuffin
Myrmidon, swordmaster reskin by UltraFenix

Portraits
Alec, Ian, Ronan, Logan, Duncan, Valery (fix by GoudaGrabber), Robin, Brent, Askjell, Elina, Eric, Flynn, Nora, Liam, Sivert, Charlotta, Bo, Braga, Kevin, Holm, Jannic, Maria, Carden, Trond, Frey, Ronson, Hassan, Manakete, Drayk, Marius by Abzel
Kalla, Taya, Shaye, Riona, Alicia, Chino, Pie, Ciel, Victor, Kilian, Esther, Shana, Alvar, Aegir, Zaheer, Nathaira, Ludvig, Tatyanna, Angus, Conran, Wylie, Lucille, Luthias, Mage dragon, Noah, Takoda by L95

Map sprites
All dragon map sprites by L95
Alicia & Ciel by L95
Alec (Lord) by Feier
Soldier by Feier, flasuban

Tilesets/Palettes
fields1, fields2, cave, village by HyperGammaSpaces
castle1, castle2, fort2, by Atlas

Misc.
Battle Frame by GoudaGrabber (Special thanks to L95 for optimizing it)
All custom icons by Goudagrabber
Palettes (Chino, Duncan, Iruna, Kalla, Levi, Liam, Nora, Shana, Taya) by UltraFenix
Battle preps, player phase1, near victory, attack, defense, boss battle1, arena remix, npc theme, enemy theme1, fog map player1, fog map enemy1 by Treatstar

Patches
16tracks_12sounds by Agro/Brendor
AutoGenLeftOAM by 7743
Convert Chapter Titles to Text_ver2 by circleseverywhere,7743
CSA_Creator_For_FE8U_ver2 by circleseverywhere
drumfix by circleseverywhere
Set Unit State Conditions by Tequila
01command_hack by Hextator, 7743
48command_hack by Hextator, 7743
Anti-Huffman by Hextator, 7743
Fix dodge to front glitch by Snakey1
Group AI by Vesly (originally by PhantomeSentine)
Improved Sound Mixer by ipatix
Character Custom Animation by EA ver 2 by 7743
Skip World Map Fix by Stan
Exceed The Portrait Hackbox By 4 Tiles by tiki, aera
Prevent Rescue by Pikmin1211
SOUND_NIMAP(Native Instrument Map) by circleseverywhere
SOUND_NIMAP2(Native Instrument Map) by Alusq
Melee/Ranged Different - Spell Loader by kao
Adjust Mode Coefficient Experience Gain by Vennobebennu, compability: 7743
Monster Weapon display Fix by Brendor
NarrowFont by Scraiza
HP bars by Circles with additions by Tequila
Remove Easy Mode by Nintenlord

[Marik]

woah, beautiful presentation. looking forward to seeing more

[Sir_Lancelot]

Wow, this looks awesome, I’m gonna play this the first chance I get!

[dancer_A]

koni 2026 koni 2026

very excited to try this out, congrats on your first(?) public release!

[Struedelmuffin]

As someone who playtested this hack prior, Koni is really making something special here. The visuals and music are top-notch, and the story is shaping up to be very interesting. Highly recommend giving this one a go!

[ReedRacer]

I’m loving the portraits I’m seeing! A real treat for the eyes; keep up the good work! I’ll be following this project’s progress from here on out.

[IcicleDisaster]

Interesting hack so far! I really appreciate the custom portraits. The demo end on a cliffhanger so that’s just makes me eager to see what happens next.

[KrashBoomBang]

Played through the demo, and gotta say, this is really verbatim FE6, isn’t it? Far beyond just taking inspiration, you’ve got whole map ideas, unit concepts, and weapon stats just copied from FE6. Obviously I love FE6, but this is very jarring to see in a romhack. Like, when you have a map that is a variant of FE6 chapter 7, with houses that give the same rewards as the houses from FE6 chapter 7, it’s just plain weird. You might wanna consider changing things up to be more distinct, both for maps and units, since this is pretty distracting and kinda prevents the hack from feeling unique.

One more specific suggestion I have is that I do not like the sniper jagen. Being designed so closely to FE6, not having Marcus or an equivalent hurts the pace a lot (especially since the Dieck and Rutger equivalents are also very weak). I largely ended up leaning on the christmas cavs and early peg. They also got wildly overleveled because you left the FE8 earlygame exp boost on (I ended the demo with a level 18 green cav). I recommend changing that, though also giving a jagen who isn’t a sniper as well (and maybe give him a bit more speed while you’re at it). Ranger would work well if he has to keep bows, and then he can get swords.

[Koni]

Thanks for playing! To be honest I completely forgot there was some kind of FE8 early game exp boost, I got to look into it, oops haha.

And while I agree that the inspiration is clearly there, I absolutely disagree of it being a straight up copy. Especially for maps, there’s maybe two I’d say that a layout is similar in idea, but it’s your opinion and that’s fine, but I don’t see it. Chapter 6 might have inspiration in terms of looks from FE6 chapter 7, the construction and gameplay is just different. The one that comes close most is probably chapter 3, but I’m not really bothered by it having the style.

I also changed the hitrates of the weapons to be a bridge of FE6 and FE7, so there’s no copying here either. Axes and light magic in particular resulted in better hitrates. Besides that, even if everything was simply copied over in terms of hitrates, that wouldn’t even be a bad thing per se. Nowadays we are used to projects imitating FE8 more than any other FE. If one dislikes a system used leaning more into another direction is fine, but having the system itself is not bad. I’m not looking in having to creating a completely new hitrate system. Having to balance the custom weapons that will make their appereance is challenging enough honestly. Think I agree the rewards could be too similar though, might look into that. (Edit: Though while looking at the rewards myself, saying they are the simply the same is a bit overblown. There’s some shared similarities.) The sniper jagen I personally like, and I won’t put a classic paladin one earlier, as there will one join soon. The character cast has already been pretty much finalized. I hesitate giving Ian more speed, to have him being able chip units in hard mode for the other characters. (I’ll keep it in mind and look into it again though)

[GoudaGrabber]

I don’t really see how it copies FE6 very closely, to be honest. Especially weapon stats, since axes aren’t complete garbage. Could you explain a little more about what you mean by unit concepts? Do you mean gameplay wise?

[KrashBoomBang]

Omitting the christmas cavs since those are a more longstanding archetype, stuff like the early merc being almost identical to Ogier (when I really wish he were Dieck, haha), the early cleric being almost identical to Ellen, the second pair of cavs in the FE6 chapter 7 styled map, an early archer with stats akin to Wolt, etc. all really stuck out. I can get wanting more vanilla unit design, but the units in this demo felt downright derivative to me.

I also went and doubled check weapon stats, and by the looks of it, javelins and all axes got their hit bumped up by 5-10%, but everything else looks to just be FE6 stats (which results in both axes and lances having equal hit, which is weird).

[LittleGreenWizard]

Hey Koni,
good to see your release, I played it throug until chapter 7 right now and will give my review.
I want to add that I played your hack on normal difficulty.

Expose

I like your picture in your post and it’s always a pleasure for me to test new hack entries with their unique flair. The character portraits are looking clean! Always great to see new things outside the Repo and I think it’s the hack’s biggest strength right now.

Gameplay

I think the gameplay is alright, not that difficult and matches the standard FE8 difficulty in my skill bracket. I like the new pallets and maps, I would however increase weapon accuracy or/and enemy stats as enemies are way to easy to handle, especially in the first chapters. The enemy spam leads to way overleveled units, making enemie even less of a threat.

Story

I found Ciel’s story the most interesting so far, although Alec being the main Lord. Alec still feels little bit too much of a blanc slate but maybe this is cause by the WIP of the story. Let’s see how the future of Tairia, Phestos and Gannith continues.

[Koni]

Hey! Thank you for playing and your review! I’m happy to hear you liked all the new things in the game.

I won’t promise much about hitrates, as I personally like the nature of them, though it is an aspect I’m aware of. Realistically, a +5% is possible, but it depends on how the new weapons play into the balance soon.

The normal mode I will probably work on balancing more. Hearing it is relatively easy is not a first haha… Thanks for telling me!

I’m glad you liked Ciel’s side of the story! I tried to have him appear in segments were it feels natural for the game flow. I hope Alec will feel a little more interesting to you in the future as the story develops. c: If you don’t mind sharing, what did you think of Alicia yet?

Again, thanks for sharing your thoughts!

[Koni]

Hi, time for a new post!

Today I want to show some new screenshots of what’s in store for the future.
Chapter 8 and 9 have been recently completed, though I will wait to publish them, until a few new assets are ready.

Chapter 8:
The group has been picking up Ciel recently. After all the turmoil, they are looking for a place to rest. Now, Ciel is ready to take action. There will also be more promotion items to enjoy!

Chapter 9:
The squad’s moving through a cave with ancient ruins. Looks like the group still has some adjusting to do… Let’s hope they pull through, since this place houses powerful foes… dragons!
They are no joke to face, so they better toughen up.

However, I will also publish a new update to the game.
Ver [07/28].2 will mostly feature bug fixes, adress some balancing, but also add two new songs and a new support chain to the game. Shortly after release, I updated the game to .1 for some hotfixes and I realized, I never made a post about it. I will include both patch notes here, to show what has been changed since the original release.

Ver. [07_28].1

Fixes:

• Fixed ch4 thiefs escaping through walls
• Fixed some grammar issues
• Fixed chapter 7 not ending immediately after defeating Carden
• Fixed Alicia not showing up in cutscenes if she retreated (died)
• Fixed Alicia’s death quote

Misc:

• Changed Kevin’s (ch2 boss) battle quote

Ver. [07_28].2

Chapter 1

• Phestos’ castle cutscenes new map palette

Chapter 2

• Switched some player unit placements

Chapter 4

• New map palette

Chapter 7

• Added house convos

Balancing:

• +5 hit to iron, slim, steel, silver and toxin lance
• Buffed Kalla +5% skl
• Buffed Riona +2 mag, +10% mag, +5% res
• Buffed Valery +10% res
• Nerfed Shaye -5% HP
• Removed sure shot from sniper

Supports:

• Added Elina & Duncan C, B, A

Music:

• A Droll Moment added (Ex: First scene of Chapter 1)
• For Those We Hold Dear added (Ex: Victory Theme)

Misc.:

• HP bars added
• Easy Mode removed
• Location display added in some occasions
• Experience gain from chapter 1-8 fixed (patch)
• Fixed some typo/grammar issues
• Fixed Logan & Ronan’s A support
• Fixed minor issues (BG changes)
• Fixed promotion screen
• Fixed issue where Pie was able to take rescued units from others

That’s it for today, until next time!