Played On Version 1.16
Difficult Mode
Recruit Guide Used
Seth Was Not Used Past Ch 4
Hello I very much enjoyed this Hack so here are some edited notes I made while playing/review thing If I don’t specifically mention a thing you can assume I enjoyed it or completely missed it
I did poke around in FEBuilderGBA after finishing to check events and such so I wasn’t too wrong about how things work
Spoilers are in each section so all are Hidden
Chapter Overview
Ch 1 was fun hard to make worse than original
Ch 2 was very good not much to say, reinforcements
being part of map and not after thought is good
In Ch 3 I felt the reinforcements near the top left village where quite superfluous and while not hurting the flow of the map they also didn’t improve it
Ch 4 Rotten claws having 1-2 range can be very oppressive especially without Seth due to map size, squishiness of units and lack of 1-2 range for player, I feel this map is more of a difficulty spike than a natural increase but it’s not too bad. Artur’s new class is cool.
In ch 5 the bandit with the battle axe one shots or near one shots most units and could be toned down, perhaps a steel axe would work better?, Although you could just use Seth so it’s not that big a deal this is really nitpick-y for an overall good map, liked the use of unused bandit man
Ch 5x Much improved adding recruitable characters to the top right and left corners and the breakable wall really makes this map much more enjoyable
Ch 6 the spider moved very fast and it felt almost impossible to stop before it killed the last villager as Vanessa was untrained and stronger enemies slowed the advance giving even one more turn [as in original] would be nice, I was also sad to see the fog gone as it was one of the better fog maps, the cav reinforcements where a nice but I wish they where telegraphed as they spawned on top of me
Ch 6x was fun but could use less reinforcements, staggering the south cavs from the center over every two turns would work and the northern ones were mostly fine although I would like more healing there,
I would also swap the luna and physic rewards and raise Novala’s tome rank so he can use it immediately and a staffer can heal the trio at the top I also noticed the map has some unconnected walls and could use some visual clean up
A shaman was also placed on the same tile as the boss which seems unintentional
Ch 7 the killer lance pegs where very unfun to deal with as they where very difficult to deal with from the south as the mountain/cliffs and overlapping enemy ranges blocks Neimi from safely shooting them down early basically giving them a guaranteed approach,
they also have high crit making them super risky to engage at 1 range regardless of phase as they can one shot most units and if they don’t the other peg or the ballista can easily pick them off if they don’t miss, the middling hit makes them very luck based to take on outside of their crit, D’Erica recruit was cool
Ch 8 was a fun and interesting change up to the map that still allowed for the original army split to form naturally yet allowed for convergence if one desires to flow much better
Ch 9 was very similar to vanilla I liked the speedwings being made into a stealable
Ch 10 Epharim could use a second healer, having Natasha go with Epharim would work, Natshia ends up being a little redundent with Erika as she already has many mages that can be promoted and Moulder who is probably the better staffer due to joining earlier, allowing him to out grow her with uncontested heal XP and with how useful healing is in this hack he will get a lot of experience.
Maybe toning down the mercs would be nice as Mia can die really fast form minor mistakes
but that’s probably just a skill issue
Ch 11 basically same as vanilla
Ch 12 Basically same as vanilla
Ch 13 again no fog not the biggest loss but still sad, Funny doggo
Ch 14 I was quite surprised the fog remained on this map, and immediately disappointed to see it go, replacement boat was cool, really good justification for zombie recruitment
Ch 15 Oh my god yes much improved the mountain being removed and the changed objective make the map much more engaging though I doubt anyone could make this map much worse lol
Ch 16 interesting change up adding a boss that encourages splitting the army more than the original, enemies are very oppressive if the player moves fast compared to other maps
Ch 17 Initially I was very put of by the map when I found killing Aias no longer ends the map however once I understood the map I found appreciation for the change up however I find there is very little encouraging the player to push towards Aias as a silver blade really isn’t worth the immense danger the player is put in by going for Aias quickly and I feel the Pablo reinforcements were not telegraphed well making them feel very cruel if you do play passively, I feel encouraging the player to rush Aias either through dialogue or much better rewards would make this map flow better. I would personally go for dialogue either before or on map from Moulder or Erika along the lines of expecting reinforcements from behind and/or wanting to take out Aias quickly or something similar.
If I just missed this exact kind of thing, Oops, my bad, I’m sorry.
Ch 18 Mostly the same not much change, I liked the idea of having a dragonstoneless Myrrh for a chapter, funny doggo
Ch 19 Mostly the same again but lack of second thief hurts a bit as the chest are very spread out and chest keys not buyable
Ch 20 pretty similar, Fado appearing is enough spice I feel for a map like this
Ch 21 pretty similar the changed objective is good and would encourage spliting if Valter didn’t become aggressive based on a range event as the terrain and enemy quality can easily trap the player in an unwinnable situation, perhaps it would be fairer if he became aggressive on Caellach death and vice versa or if aggression was based on turn limit
Ch 21x I found this map unpleasant It feels quite cruel to cut off convoy access especially when
Gaidens aren’t optional and there are units requiring 8,000 gold to recruit and this group of Epharim’s army haven’t been given the opportunity to sort their inventory after Ch 20 with no fore warning that this would be the case Missing Rennac dragged the map a bit due to lacking
chest keys.
The Merc you talk to dying just feels bad and unintuitive if blind especially when there is no warning of this or indication you can only recruit one, as I was using the guide I ended up selling many Items to get enough gold for both mercs and as such I felt cheated, the fact this is not specified in the recruit guide is less than Ideal.
I will say I was tiered when I played this and the Item selling ordeal may have made me feel worse on the map than I otherwise would have
Ch 22 pretty similar although I feel the Ephiram route player placement is much better
the reinforcements once the player reaches past the generals in the first hall are harsh
for players who split and can lead to cheap feeling deaths if the squad on the left side are still outside
Orsen Charge was scary but fun lol
Ch 23 fun enough but pretty much identical to vanilla. Lyon moving I feel is a value neutral change, on one hand it does cause a fun rush south, however the reinforcements still spawning Particularly the Warriors I can see making it a drag if the player lacks fliers as the army has to slowly fight through them to reach Lyon at a reasonable pace, The druids also preoccupy a chunk of the army in this case.
Ch 24 Mostly the same, good map, funny doggo
Ch 25 Again a disappointment of Fog not existing it makes this map kinda boring, I also dislike “”“”“killing”“”“” Riev not ending map, Aura is not a good reward for the resources and danger it requires
Ch 26 Miklan coast has always felt incomplete and this definitely feels less so. I enjoy the reference to FE6, I feel like the bosses should have portraits, if you desire them to be different making them use the “super morph” skin tone from fe7 would work
Ch 27 Again I feel Seth should have a portrait in general the reinforcements go on a little
too long and the final room has really strong enemies when combined with the Shadowshot Gorgon which is also really strong and covers almost the whole room, the warp was useless as the bosses and abundance of enemies would slaughter any duo of my units I ran low on weapons I feel this map would improve if the bosses charged after a time as the reinforcements in the final room are presumably endless it would keep in the pressure they provide anyway and be a final amp up for the end of Erika’s arc
While visually the map is fine I would have liked if the building wasn’t a square box
Ch 28 Same old map, Warp, Patricide, Warp, Seize, it’s a little unreasonable to expect anyone to deal with Jude without a def/res pierce weapon [and a user able to survive her] and they lack phantoms or warp, Her having pierce also makes it bad as she can randomly kill any who attack her or are attacked by her like an undisplayed crit
Endgame Same Jude complaints, less bad as you can jump her from spawn, Lucky I had Amelia
the fe6 ch 22 style tile additions where a nice way to alter the map though I do miss the chests lol
EndgameX Same Jude complaints, less bad as you can jump her from spawn
Each demon king having it’s own summons was initially scary but they ended up not being too strong, very fun change up overall
Story/Characters
Overall a fun rewrite no one felt out of character and swapping each map is fun and uniqe compared to other fe8 remaster/rework/reskin hacks it creates some tension to see what comes next especially with the rewritten parts
The oc units fit well enough into the story, I’m mixed on not seeing the cut/beta characters Nate, and Deni, on one hand it is done in almost every hack in this genre[?] on the other I do like seeing how people interpret them.
While the ocs did have unique portraits the style is inconsistent but that is a very minor nitpick as not everyone can make portraits and they are all on par with Vanilla’s quality at worst and not distractedly far from the vanilla portraits style-wise.
Novala recruitment is a fun thing and I hope this trend of redux/reskin/etc hacks adding random bosses to the playable cast keeps up.
Dialogue in Ch 21x about dismounting feels out of place as fliers are around in all the previous maps were it makes as much sense and nothing was made of it.
I also didn’t like the way the mercs in Ch 21x Die it felt odd that they would try to reason with the boss like that, and as such more annoying than tragic.
Perhaps this is just a case of “Hey I Wouldn’t do that!” and my selling of Items souring me.
It also felt a little inconsistent when one is defeated that they die despite my healer being alive, As Glen and Ismire survive similar circumstances.
But again see above caveat.
However outside of this I found the character revelations satisfying
This chapter feels very much like 19xx A Glimpse In Time of fe7 in that regard
The chapter name was also cool as you can read it as both being about Africa’s Zombification in that Na’amah betrayed Aristobulus and herself in a sense or about the two Mercs recruitment event and the bit with Albertus getting the wyvern was cool
In the Ch 22 end event I think the L’Arachel mentions the original ending of Hamill Canyon where the raustan knights assist Erika? I am unsure though as I played the hack over multiple days
and may have forgor this event.
Ch 23 ending acts as if Drau died if recruited either an alt event where he joins or returns to
Frelia would be better as he is not dead
I really liked Elaine and Harriett
Other Notes, Random Thoughts, Bugs, Etc...
Male Valkyrie class being called Valkyrie is funny as Valkyrie is a term used for women [hence Strategist in fates, This isn’t a complaint I just find it amusing]
Poison deals A LOT of damage for how low HP is relative to enemy quality in the early game I would suggest the “Change the minimum poison damage for each chapter” patch to at least lower the max roll in the early game
despite the name it allows complete control over poison damage in each chapter and even by character although if you want scary poison then you have it!
Spiders have incorrectly scripted ranged animations, as such the game freezes if they use the Rotten claw at range if the use of Rotten claw is unintentional it is not properly class locked.
Torches are available in Ch 12 shop I would recommend removing them as they are just a money black hole with there being no real fog maps
Aircalibur is not effective on fliers which feels weird though the extended range is an interesting trade off
Wind sword also isn’t effective.
I think the Juna fruit would be more fun if the minimum level to use it was reduced to level 5
Ewan being recruited earlier and on a map it is easier to train him on is wonderful for his viability
and enjoyability to use
I feel adding vulneraries and keys to the Preps armory would be nice as Epharim’s army got very few opportunists to restock especially ch 21x and I used a lot of the former and would have liked more of the later
I would Note in the recruitment guide that you can only have one of the Ch 21x mercs
Something like this
“Lorell: Talk to Avery and pay her 8,000 gold. Can only recruit one.”
“Avery: Talk to Lorell and pay him 8,000 gold. Can only recruit one.”
As it will leave out spoilers yet still inform guide users
Summoners losing staves really hurts them on turns they can’t summon or summoning overall isn’t optimal, limiting staves in a way that I find unpleasant when vulneraries only heal 10 hp
The boat in ch 23 would look better when trading with it, If assigned a portrait in Character editor,
you could assign it the class card as a portrait
I feel it would be very easy to make a lot of the units recruitable by the lords, which I like to
have for Iron man purposes, and for convenience, I do understand not everyone being recruitable [e.g. Na’amah] but I feel like Drau for example should be lord recruitable
Female Halberdier stat screen/courser animation[last 3 frame of moving map animation] is offset down and left
Bastion does not have death quote at least in Endgame and EndgameX
I feel Fado and Vigarde should have unique map sprites however I understand the classes were all used up you can expand the table if you enable it in FEBuilderGBA’s options menu however it can cause errors and is advised against if not necessary
I noticed I could flip through the entire army in EndgameX and it can cause some glitchy behavior if the status screen is exited on an undeployed unit
Both versions of Carcino scene play in Epilogue, I recruited Klimt.
People from Jahanna have unchanged skin tone in credits cgs [this is not a serious complaint
I just think it’s funny]
The second last line of Na’amah’s ending is slightly too long and causes a slight visual issue
overlapping the first letter[s] of the final line
Rannac showed up as “Died at fall of Renais” in the character endings, he was unrecruited
Reading an earlier comment I thought I’d note that there is a patch to prevent a soft-lock if the unit being looked for by an event is not on the map
Final Team
Figured I’d show this off, people like to see this kind of thing.
Franz and Dara did not make the Endgame due to deployment slots but were used through whole playthrough up to that point
Liselotte was the main thief when the armies converged she was mostly untrained
