i mean,it says that they can talk to her,but when i go near ismaire with one of them it doesn t work
ok so…i found out a thing
for the both of them it doesnt work
but for joshua it does.
i guess i ll have to redo the map if i want to do the secret chapter
Oh, no yeah you have to talk to Ismaire with Joshua first, then with a healer.
…oh. well i guess ill redo the map
thanks for responding
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I’m a big fan of your work. Especially the way you flashed out Orson’s backstory a bit more, so his appearance and actions do feel more fitting.
I’d really like to upload a playthrough of this project in another forum. Therefore, I wanted to ask if I have your permission to do so.
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Sure, that’s fine, I don’t mind! Might I just ask what the forum is?
it’s the associated forum of Fire-Emblem de, a german fansite.
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Oh, I see. Well, hope the run goes well!
is characters support finished?
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No, I never did finish writing all the supports. There is a list of complete supports in the OP, i think.
Came across this Hack recently.Seems to be pretty cool.Then I arrived in chapter 5…where I usually Grind all deployed Units to Level 20 in Vanilla(yes,every playthrough,because Numbers going up is The best Part of FE.^^).Suddenly,The Boss moved.So I blocked him with Seth,so I can do my Arena grinding.But Then,The Arena closed?Can I assume,that The Tower,The overworld encounters,and The Ruins are broken,too?If so,any Chance of a Version being released,that restores The Level Up/ Money Farm methods?I tried Cheats for Infinite Money and quick Level Up,to compensate,but they dont Work with this Hack,unfortunately.Really Bad luck with FE8 Hack.Every Hack was either given Up on,was Made with little effort,or prevented me from satisfying my Grind addiction.
To end on a more positive Note,I really like getting a Brigand,a rare class.Also,The new Seth Sprite Looks really cool.
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Pretty sure that’s intentional to prevent farming, i’ve never encountered that anyways since i tend to play without touching the arena or the overworld skirmishes (tower of valni maybe)
Sorry you didn’t get to sate that addiction; but in this hack the player does not have access to grinding features (the arena, the tower, the ruins, etc.)
These features were edited out of the game, and using cheat codes for any of them might result in you breaking the hack.
Most hacks these days don’t allow for grinding because it ruins the the balance of the game.
I just finished this hack, and let me tell you that it was amazing! I loved the new characters and stories beats, and the chance to recruit characters that die in canon was awesome! A great hack that I will always recommend!
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So I’ve gotten up to chapter 13 on this, and I definitely have some words on the changes made here. I’ve never actually finished the original game (Though I’m pretty close), but I’ve read enough about it that I know what the vanilla version looks like. So, going through the first 8 chapters one by one…
Prologue
The main change in the intro is that Fado attempts to talk with Vigarde instead of the cutscene ending right there like in vanilla. As for the actual level, Seth has gotten nerfed. I’m not sure how much his stats are lowered compared to vanilla, but the main thing I took note of is his new personal weapon, the Crimson Javelin. It is a 1-2 range lance that weighs 25, completely crippling Seth’s speed so he is not dodging anything while he’s holding that thing and he gets doubled by everything, including sword users. Why is it so heavy anyway? Aren’t javelins supposed to be light so you can, well, throw them? Naturally, I only uses the silver lance he still has and dumped the javelin in the convoy the first chance I got. Another thing to note is that damn near every enemy has a halberd here, making combat with Seth insanely scary since either him or Eirika dying is probably a game over (and also making the Crimson Javelin even more useless since, as I said, Seth isn’t dodging anything with that thing equipped). On the plus side, Eirika now one rounds the basic enemies while she didn’t in vanilla. One last thing to note is that there is a bandit with a goddamn Tomahawk on the right side of the map, and defeating him and visiting the house that he stands on rewards you with an iron sword. Oh yeah there’s also the boss, but I don’t think that he was changed at all.
Chapter 1
The main differences here is what Franz and Gilliam are equipped with; Franz has a Light Brand while Gilliam now has a bow. Armor knights using bows is a nice addition, since armors tended to suck in vanilla and this gives them a bit more utility. There’s also a dracoknight here, but Seth takes care of him pretty easily.
The cutscene with Hayden is also changed a bit; after the chat between Tana and Eirika, Hayden calls Seth back into the room and confesses that Fado’s death wasn’t actually confirmed, the Frelian spies just think he died since he couldn’t have possibly escaped. He’s only telling Seth this because he didn’t want to get Eirika’s hopes up in case Fado was actually dead. Nice setup for later reveals.
Chapter 2
I honestly don’t think anything was changed in this chapter, it just seemed the same as vanilla to me.
Chapter 3
Neimi looks to be a bit stronger than vanilla, as I usually bench her almost right away. Colm seems to be about the same, though. The treasures were a nice addition instead of just lazy iron weapons.
In this chapter, I like to park Ross in front of the wall so he can keep hitting the bandits on the other side with his hatchet, making sure to use Moulder to heal him so he doesn’t die. I’m bringing this up because this trick is even better here since there’s a healer, who will heal up the bandit’s when they get low on hp, allowing Ross to just keep swinging until he hits level 10. Bazba is a bit more annoying, but still very much manageable.
Also in the Grado scene at the end of the chapter, there’s a Sniper opposite to Lyon in the cutscene, though they don’t say anything.
Chapter 4
Artur was changed from a Monk to a custom class called Holy Rider, a mounted light magic class. From what I can gather this is for the sole purpose of preventing him from promoting into a Bishop… There goes any incentive I had in using him in the long run. As for Lute, she seems to be nerfed in terms of growth, though she already got a few bad levels in vanilla so that’s nothing new.
Chapter 5
Ugh, I did not like this chapter. More Dracoknights, and unlike chapter 1 Seth and Gilliam can’t get rid of them easily. There’s also a second recruitable enemy besides Joshua here called Harold, a Brigand, and he seriously complicates things as you need to have the frail Neimi or Colm go talk to him, and he will attack them if they are in range. There’s also his partner who has a Battle Axe, and is surprisingly fast and durable to boot. Another thing to note is that Garcia has a conversation with Seth in this chapter that gives the former some crazy stat boosts. It’s not very likely you’ll have benched Garcia already unless you used the Ross trick two chapters earlier, but this being missable isn’t a good thing because… well, you’ll see. Joshua was as annoying as usual as the only character who can reliably take punishment without killing him in return is Gilliam, and even then you have to hope Joshua doesn’t crit twice in a row. There’s also one final problem; the boss starts moving when your army gets close enough to him, which is a real dick move when killing him ends the chapter. Especially bad since the top house now yields a Metis Tome (which boosts growth rates) rather than a Torch. It’s just a bad time all around.
Also, I noticed that you gave the Jehanna characters (Ismaire, Caellach, Joshua, etc.) dark skin rather than the same skin tone as everyone else. I guess that makes sense.
Chapter 5x
This chapter has two new recruitables; an Archer called Harriett and a Fighter named Elaine. They’re decent, but they also bring up one of my biggest issues with this hack; the new portraits. (Harold doesn’t really count since he has an unused portrait within the original game’s files) Most of them seriously clash with the art style used in the official portraits. Starting with these two, Harriett has this almost cartoonish face that kind of sticks out when she’s speaking with anyone that’s not Elaine (which isn’t very often) and speaking of which I’m pretty sure Elaine’s portrait is an edit of Melady’s from FE6 which has a really ugly looking eyepatch. As for gameplay, these two pretty much force you to take the long way around, which sucks because this hack, like others, adds a breakable wall which saves most of the hassle with fighting enemies. The boss wasn’t on a throne weirdly enough, not that he was much of a challenge to begin with.
Chapter 6
My usual strategy for this chapter is to stick to the top of the map to avoid most of the enemies and use Seth to slaughter the boss. This chapter doesn’t impede that strategy too much, but… well…
Sigh…
Of ALL the chapter bosses you could have made playable, you picked the sociopathic and cowardly war criminal who literally threatens the lives of innocent and powerless civilians!? If this was to give the player a dark magic user earlier than normal, then why couldn’t you just make another OC unit? Also, why does Natasha have to talk to him? Is it just because she’s the only playable unit from Grado at this point in the game? It pretty much guarantees that you have to kill him on the same turn Natasha talks to him because she can’t back away. Speaking of, how the hell did he survive long enough to get healed in the first place? Wouldn’t your army just kill him on the spot? Is this all for a meme? If so, I wasn’t laughing.
This is also the chapter where you can get the hack’s first playable monster; Melville, a Bael. I like to think this is the same Bael that Novala sicced on the civilians earlier because of how legitimately hilarious that would be. The apology to Arachnophobes is also pretty hilarious even though I don’t have a fear of spiders myself. Melville seems like a decent unit, but I didn’t use them that much.
Chapter 6x
The first new chapter, titled “Night Break”. It deals with a prison camp that’s apparently not far off from Renvall given the dialogue, and you can save the prisoners by killing the armor knights guarding each respective cell and unlocking the door with the key they drop, giving you some great items, like a Juna Fruit (which decreases a unit’s level but not their stats) and a Silver Axe (Though nobody in your army is probably going to be able to use it yet). Also this is the first chapter where Novala and Melville are playable, should I have talked about them here? Whatever. The reinforcements are a bit annoying, but you can dispatch them with relative ease and a bit of RNG. As for the boss, it’s a Halberdier named Einar, the apparently sadistic warden of the prison. Facing a promoted boss two chapter earlier than normal does sound scary, but Garcia and Seth can one round him pretty easily, and even Lute can double him. Maybe he gets weighed down by the Short Spear he carries? I didn’t really check. His portrait is a bit better than Harriett’s and Elaine’s, it looks like it could plausibly fit with the other bosses.
The Einar guy fakes his death when he’s initially defeated with an Elixir, but after the battle his “guest of honor” escapes from his cell downstairs due to the panic upstairs. As for who that guest is? It’s Fado, who was taken prisoner following the capital’s fall. His survival does feel a tad fanfiction-y, but I’ll excuse it because it puts who is essentially a nothing character from vanilla to good use. Fado was only in one scene in the original, didn’t even have 10 lines during that scene, and we didn’t see him get killed or even who specifically killed him, we’re just told that he died. Anyway, Einar makes the mistake of trying to stop the guy with the title of Warrior King and pays the ultimate price for his stupidity. That sword came down right on his skull, ouch.
Chapter 7
The main change with this chapter is that there is an axe-wielding armor knight called D’Erica who the boss suckers into sending south because he doesn’t like her for some reason. I looked up how you recruit this unit in the guide (because nobody could talk to her and I just knew she was recruitable) and found out you have to let her escape the map, which thankfully doesn’t trigger any reinforcements like I thought it would. If she escapes, there is a moment at the end of the chapter when she realizes she’s been had and vows to give the boss a piece of her mind. Yeah, a bit late for that one pal.
Chapter 8
And now for the big one.
The chapter in which Orson runs Seth through.
I’m not gonna go all “YOU BASTARD YOU KILLED SETH HE WAS MY FAVORITE CHARACTER AAAAAAAHHHHHHH”. Rather, I just feel like this could have been done better. One issue I have with this is that it’s both very predictable and comes out of nowhere at the same time. What I mean by that is that it’s really obvious that Seth will bite the dust given the very title (The Princess’ Lament, “Princess” likely referring to Eirika), the fact that the major story rewrites start happening in chapter 8, and Orson’s presence in the title, indicating he has a bigger impact on the plot. But next to nothing hints at Seth dying in the game proper. The only real foreshadowing the twist gets in game is the (missable) conversation between Garcia and Ross the chapter prior (which raises the latter’s speed by 2), where the former says something isn’t right (and even then that might be referring to the ballistae in the chapter) and the name of chapter 8 being changed to “Sacrifice” (Which, to give credit, is a lot better than “It’s a Trap!”). I also find it really weird that there isn’t one of those cutscene combat rounds for Orson fatally wounding Seth (It just cuts to black and you hear fighting noises). There was one for Fado wasting that Einar guy a few chapters ago, why isn’t there one here? Another thing is that I don’t see a point in nerfing Seth if he was only going to be around in the first third of the game before biting the dust; I feel like keeping him as is would have made his death sting far more, as by this point Garcia has likely started to outpace him. (At least, he did in my playthrough)
Also with Seth’s end comes a new portrait for Eirika, and I’m not gonna lie here; I hate it. Eirika’s original portrait looks really cute with her big Kawaii eyes and her little smile, in this portrait however her eyes are smaller and more realistic-looking and she also has these weird lips that kind of remind me of JoJo of all things. It just looks so ugly. It actually strikes me as the kind of thing you’d see on a Weird Route mod of Sacred Stones, and I have no idea why that is.
I do like how you repurposed Seth’s “Charge and Hope” line though, that was cool.
As for the gameplay, Eirika is separate from the rest of the army and they have to make their way to her, a neat change complicated by the Paladin that starts near Eirika and races towards her. I do applaud the chap nice enough to provide her with a Lancereaver though.
Also, Ephraim actually got captured here as I found out from the dialogue between Tirado and Eirika (I’d skipped 5x’s ending cutscene.). I thought that meant he wouldn’t arrive to help his sister, but nope, Ephraim and his crew arrive in the same spot on turn 2. I then thought that maybe any gear that may have been traded off of Orson was confiscated, but when I checked the inventories, they were the same as they were at the end of 5x. I don’t really understand the meaning behind that change if it doesn’t mean anything.
I do like the music changes to the prep screen and the map, those fit rather well.
When I got to Tirado my plan was to use Eirika to weaken him and use Ephraim to finish him off, but then Eirika killed him with a crit. I guess it fits, as Eirika had just said she’d kill him with her own two hands.
And now we get to another problem of mine; We only see Eirika’s and Hayden’s reactions to Seth’s fate. Everyone else learns of it offscreen. I would have really liked to see Ephraim’s and Franz’s reactions. The latter is especially damning because he decides to go with Ephraim to Grado because he sees them as responsible for Seth’s death. Oh, and speaking of, Eirika gets Kyle and Forde while Ephraim gets Franz after chapter 8. I’ll post the rest later when I’m further into the hack.
With all these criticisms in mind, I understand that this was your first rom hack and you have definitely improved since then. I watched Zappy McCraw’s playthrough of Hag in White, and I have to say it definitely shows how far you’ve come.
Also this could just be a personal thing.
if you do Erika’s story it actually swaps from ahem doing the work to moulder doing the stuff ahem does even threatening which you do not expect from a priest of all people and making him be able to promote to druid is just top tier cuz of his mass con dif to all the other magic units.
…Do you mean Moulder replacing Seth as the one Eirika talks to after the latter dies? I don’t know, it just feels like Seth’s dialogue being recycled for Moulder . A lot of the dialogue was the same. As for Moulder’s performance as a unit, I haven’t promoted him yet. I was planning to promote him into a Bishop. So far he’s just been a healbot.
do druid his con so much its enough to wield most of the dark tomes with no con loss and he can still staff bot it just doesnt make him S rank staffs as fast and his magic is good enough to not need monster effectiveness long term
lmao I wasn’t expecting a detailed review of Lament in the current year.
Yeah, this thing was mostly an experiment. I wanted to do something I felt I could reasonably finish and so I just threw a bunch of ideas at a FE8 rom to see what I could pull off. I’d like to think I’ve greatly improved in most things since making this (portraits being a major point) and there’s a lot I would do differently today - Although, today I wouldn’t do a rebalance like this, so the point is moot.
…I will admit, though, making the war criminal playable is still a joke that tickles me. You should see some of the playable characters in Hag. That’s not really changed. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.
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I’d love to see this get remade with your current skill set id say the same for last promise aswell as im a fan of that hack but I loved this hack aswell seeing moulder feel in the shoes I knew he could fill in.