[FE8] The Fisher King's Heart -- New hack from Curse of Lagdou creator

[Some-day]

CoL’s unique critical hit system and neat art style really impressed me, so Idownloaded the demo for the new hack as soon as I saw it, and happily found that it is even better than I had imagined.

Feelings

In general, it’s not difficult. Chapter 5 feels like the peak of challenge, but Chapters 6 and 7 return to being smaller-scale campaigns as the number of deployed characters decreases. The bleedout system is as useful as I expected, though due to the game’s difficulty, it mainly serves as a safety net when I make a mistake, rather than being part of my strategy.

As for the story itself, I guess the demo is the first act of the whole story? Although Hero is the cover character for the hack, there hasn’t been much of a presence so far. What impressed me the most was Teacher’s monologue (the first gif shown in the OP), the moving text scrolls work well with the CGs, truely cinematic.

Choices in chapters is my favorite part.

Issues //Pure nitpicking

//With pictures

Generic character portraits in the prologue are broken.

In some chapters, the locations of mandatory deployment units are still have a blue background， as if they can be adjusted.

An extra space in chapter 2.

//Without pictures

There is no animations for Teacher’s level-up, so I can’t instantly see which stats have increased.

Sometimes the player phase doesn’t end automatically. Sadly, I never found out what triggers this.

The rescue cap for all characters is… 20? It’s fine, I’m just surprised.

An issue //Not nitpicking

…just kidding

The music in the prologue is lovely, but the sound room refused to tell me its name (◦`~´◦)

Nice work, easily getting a place on the list of “hacks I enjoy”.

[Dooblerino]

this shit is gonna blow up like crazy. we are privileged to hop on the fisher train before it starts

[Dangania14]

I can already tell this is gonna be a banging new hack.

Prologue

Nice little tutorial, and also the fake out with the player not actually fighting the monsters. One noticeable thing is the way the characters are named, which give off a vibe of “playing a role” inside a story (definitely not a fairy tale however).

Why does mobile create these uneeded “hide details“ things?

Also I’d like to mention that I really like the dialogue. There’s an intangible, unique quality to it that I can’t put into words.

Chapter 1

Now this is where things actually start! Good initial chapter, giving enough room for a player to play and learn how to use the units.

I specially the specific setup with the enemy mage and armor close to Pillow

It immediately gives something to do with her. I do kinda wish her summon ability had an addendum about it being movement-related though; at first I thought I it would summon a generic Phantom, so I didn’t use it immediately.

Recruits:

Teacher

The perfect Jeigan. I enjoy his personality as well.

Hero

Ironically, Hero feel kinda of filler compared to everyone else. She’s definitely better than Him, especially with another staff user joining. And also there’s the AoE healing sword, that heals Her as well. Bows in general feel kinda weak here, Mt-wise, which really damper His performance over Hers.

Dragon

Good unit. Extra turns are always great, and having to plan around how to defeat an enemy in a single strike makes for fun “puzzle-solving” so to speak. Was surprised by their access to bombs, which really complement their personal skill. Specially Heavy Bomb (47 base damage go BOOM).

Pillow

There are not enough to express how much I love her design, both in gameplay and portrait. This sieging, low move flier-not-flier crit slinging woman is PEAK! Her combination of skills allows for an immeasurable amount of possible strategies, but her fragility keeps the actual choices in check! Great work with her.

Edit: her Auto-Repair Prf keeps the latest chapter amount of uses, so if you finish a chapter with less than 2 uses, you start the next chapter with that amount. Might be an issue for future Auto-Repairs too.

Brother

A staff-bot with actual damage! Granted that it comes from the high Mt of bombs, but still! One of the simpler characters. Needs heal? He heals. Need to finish enemy off? He just has to reach down to his sack! (Lol) I like him and his characterization. He’s kinda at the perfect amount of edgy, yet nice to people.

Chapter 2

Another nice little chapter. It has a bit more to it in terms of antiturtling, with how heavy the enemies hit, plus the double mounted reinforcement later on. It’s also nice to see the monstersthat everyone is afraid of, in lore, actually be tough in gameplay too.

Recruits

Hunter

I mean, he’s alright. His skill goes really well with his Hunter’s Bow, and I suppose you could use him to bait physical enemies over. The problem with that is Teacher, who is generally gonna do that job better, or even Pillow’s Sigil. I’m not sure how one could make him better, or if he is even supposed to be better than what he currently is.

Pigeon

I love me a flying thief. I really like her skill, and how it makes use of a pegasus knight funniest problem (not actually doubling). In particular, it makes me excited for heavier, stronger lances to become available, which is always a good thing with units, creating hype for future scaling. Also liked her interaction with Brother, and I hope she doesn’t have to eat pegasus feed again.

Though, regarding her skill,

Does this combine with effectiveness? Like, the Heavy Spear has 12 Mt, and against an armor, it has 36 Mt. Does it double that 36 Mt to 72, or just adds another 12 on top?

I hate writing on mobile.

Yeah no that’s it.

Chapter 3

I really liked this chapter. I’m a sucker for chapter with multiple objectives happening alongside one another, and I specially like “Squad Arena Fights”. The interactions with Baby were also really funny, and I liked the interactions with Wise as well. It’s like the player is inching ever closer to understanding just what exactly are Low Mages.

Recruit

Bunny

She has to be someone’s favorite on the dev team, holy. I almost feel like she should be nerfed out of principle lol. Her initial selection of spears is pretty nice, and thank god the Avoid formula was changed, otherwise she would just Dodge everything. I think the fact it’s so easy to reactivate Destroy is what makes her feel too strong. Maybe making so she has to get a kill first or something? Idk.

On a tangent, but isn’t the Swordbreaker a bit weak? A critical with it is not gonna do much, unless maybe in the hands of Pigeon. Unless it’s also supposed to double as a defensive tool?

Tangent 2

Are we not supposed to lose the 1000 gold saved to keep Brother and Pigeon? My gold count stayed the same between chapters 3 and 4.

Chapter 4

This is the first truly “difficult” chapter. You gotta keep a good pace to escort the nobles (unless you decide to just rescue them) and the enemies are often in tough, yet exploitable formations. Except for the final enemy team around the exit. That one’s really well done. I also liked seeing the effects of the decision regarding Brother’s bomb sale. I really wish the Mogalls were weak to bows, though. Would give the weapon a niche against these fast-and-strong monsters.

Recruits

Pretty good unit, and skills about extra turns are always welcome in my book. I don’t think she has the best showing in her joining chapter (what with the enemies strong formations) but she does much better from chapter 5 onwards. Also cool to see that her skill could have both an offensive and a defensive use, allowing to go all in on 2 enemies or retreating after getting hurt. Edit: maybe her skill could also decrease her avoid? There’s a real chance she might just Dodge the enemy’s retaliation, and not actually activate her skill.

Baby

I forgot to use her skill lol. She’s a good unit, dealing very well with low res units. Her skill is probably good, but not awfully impactful I think. There are at least like, 7 weapon types, unless staves also count. That’s only 2/7 WT advantages each map, including her reaver spell against Low Mages.

I hope this isn’t too many words. So far it’s been a lot of fun, and the flow in the maps is good, which is why I don’t go too deeply into them, and rather talk more about the units provided.

Edit

Are stat booster supposed to have the full 4000 sell value? I normally see these kinda items with a lower value, to incentivise using them instead.

[DoinThangs]

@Dangania14

I hope this isn’t too many words.

No, this is great! The more detailed the feedback, the more helpful it is.
I agree the Swordbreaker needs some work; that’s been a common sentiment so far.
And no, I forgot about the sale value of boosters lmao.
Hope you enjoy the rest, too!

[BobbyAsaka]

By virtue of its short length, I broke my “I’m not going to start anything new until I’m done writing Eternal Winter’s main story” promise to try this. While it feels a little early for me to make any definitive statements—there are a lot of pieces yet to be added that I’m eager to see eventually—I have high hopes for where this ends up going.

Scene quality

The game draws upon Curse of Lagdou’s strengths in a way that builds beyond its predecessor. The writing is tighter in general, scenes are more focused and more engaging, and it still has the more gruesome touch and atmosphere that I appreciated from CoL. I felt like I was looking forward to seeing what was happening next almost every step of the way.

I liked many of the chapter 4 scenes a lot—Baron talking about his cooking staff was not a scene that I was expecting from him but I really enjoyed how it played out. The second scene centered on Elder Prince’s expedition and death is also a notable mention.

Chapter 7’s climax is especially praiseworthy as well. While I feel it’s too early for me to be invested in Warden yet, I really liked Pillow’s part here and how mindful this little bit of script is of everything that’s been touched upon regarding low magic in prior scenes. It made me tense up in a way that I enjoyed, and I liked the way that it played out in the end.

Quick chapters

I appreciate how brisk some of the chapters are. Chapter 6 being so short is a blessing when its most important events happen at the start and end event, because it means I don’t have to trudge an hour or so to the next bit of reading. This also makes the longer and more intensive chapters (chapter 4 and 5) stand out more in a good way—they feel more demanding and it fits the moments they’re meant to capture.

In this light a part of me wishes ch7 was slightly more intensive / longer because it doesn’t really feel like an arc climax, but on the other hand the arc climax is contained mostly within the end event and the combat is kind of just a prelude drawing the cast into it, so I could go either way.

Music

I don’t think this is something that will be noticeable to everyone, but the quantity of iconic tracks from other hacks stands out noticeably, especially the songs from Bells of Byelen. Harvest Dance as a map theme also felt a little unusual when hacks have conditioned me into associating it as a preps theme, but that’s probably just a me thing.

Skull (SPOILERS)

Okay yeah I guess that kinda explains why he’s named that, huh…

The chapter 6 CG is beautiful but this is like the only thing that really bothered me significantly. It felt a little jarring that Skull is the one who starts the riot in chapter 6, when multiple previous chapters were built around humanizing him and emphasizing how he was affected by our protagonists’ actions. He also didn’t strike me as the type to point fingers at low mages given the way he talks about Wise in chapter 3.

Obviously the fight/riot needs to happen for the story, but I want to say I would like this more if there were a new character introduced in ch5 to play this role instead. Like a local thug who appears as a green unit. Maybe he loses someone or something important to him during ch5 and starts pointing fingers after, or maybe his screentime in ch5 establishes more firmly that people blame the low mages for these tragedies.

Alternatively, maybe it could still work with Skull if he lost one of his family in ch5, and ch6 came across more explicitly like he was lashing out and searching for someone to blame because of the loss. But it still feels a little uncertain so I can’t say exactly.

The hack's biggest emotional rollercoaster

I think there were at least eight instances where I saw a new character ID on the map, immediately got excited and opened up their unit description per my usual routine to learn more about who they are, and promptly got slapped in the face by “Placeholder.”

Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, shame on me again. Fool me all throughout the game…

Obviously this is primarily in jest, but this also is a portion of why I feel a little underequipped to dig in detail about this project yet, especially given its intended nature as a mystery. There’s a number of details about the story that I might be meant to know at this point that just aren’t there in the game yet. One thing in particular that I felt was a prominent unaddressed question, whose answer I presumed was just in unwritten unit description text (or at least winked at there), was why there were humans among the lowlanders.

Misc

• I vibe with the bleed out system a lot. I’m sure there are ways to use it to your advantage and what not, but it’s been a lot of fun to pretend it doesn’t exist and approach the game like it has permadeath and then come up with scenarios in my head if someone starts bleeding out. Personally, I think I would enjoy some kind of expensive 1-use item that anyone can use which restores/cures bleed out, just for emergent narrative purposes.
• “King’s rings” as a term makes me smile I’m gonna be real
• The pacing of the prince showing up in front of Eagle and Hero in ch4’s start is a little fast for me. I think I would’ve liked a glimpse of his mug or something before he walks out of the frame
• The base convo for Pigeon/Brother in Chapter 6 is identical to the one that played in a prior chapter.
• I’m probably most interested in Pigeon, Brother, and Gryphon out of the side cast. it helps that if I stare long enough at brother he starts to look like purple kyle and I think it’s mainly because he looks a little scruffy
• If the above comments didn’t make it clear already, much to my surprise I’m especially excited to learn more about Baron and see where he goes. I was not thinking I’d be intrigued by him based on his initial impression but I can see some stones being laid and I want to be there when they fall into place
• I feel a little bad for Recruiter. I would donate my eyebrows to him
• I’m admittedly not entirely enticed yet by the premise of Prince wanting to ascend and steal the lowland queen’s power out of weakness, but it was only just introduced so there’s still benefit of the doubt. I feel like I don’t know enough about the full picture surrounding him yet, but maybe that’s just the point given Hero’s supposed memory loss
• It’s a small thing, but it would be cool to have a separate unit ID/description for the recruited low mages of the enemy army in chapter 7
• In chapter 3, the arena doesn’t seem to progress if Wise is the last enemy alive in the arena and gets removed through the Pillow talk.
• Does the sound room just not work?

Very curious to see how this one unfolds. There’s lots to look forward to.

[ATHATH]

My Snot at the end of the demo:

And my Pillow:

[DoinThangs]

Thanks a lot for the review, Bobby! I was thinking about you while adding a lot of the conditionals, and I’m glad they landed. I’m happy to see someone shout out the Baron in particular, since I really liked how he came out. This isn’t an ironclad promise but I was thinking about adding an additional choice or two to the prologue which would affect things down the line, one of which might be Skull-related to better explain what happened. Either way, though, I’m gonna keep cooking, and thanks for the encouraging words.

[Olivia]

have you considered installing skullsys to help with his development

[ZIHanatsuka]

Will we get a mini Pillow like Frany from CoL? I really like that Smol creature

[ATHATH]

yeah my uncle who works at nintendo said you’ll be able to unlock her if you wait for 50 turns in chapter 1

hyperrealistic blood will come out of skull’s eyes and then he’ll explode and inside of him will be peello