[FE8][WIP][30 Chapters][+15 Gaidens] Fire Emblem: Restoration Army (Attempt 3)

UrsusKnight · May 28, 2026, 1:15pm

Thanks for playing! And thanks for the feedback! I think the reasons for the spilt become clearer the further you get into the rom.

The str/mag spilt is important for this hack as later in the game there a many classes with access to both magic and physical weapons, which gives you the option of having units dedicated to one damage type or the other, or having a bit of both. It’s also important for magic weapons which allows physical locked units to use their Magic stat for damage.

But the most important thing it does in this game is unit identity and interesting player choices (this rom makes you make so many choices). Using str/mag gives me another tool to make units feel and play differently.

ramble about str/mag

Example:

Imagine a sword locked foot unit you can promote into a mixed attacker or a sword only user with higher stats.

With the spilt the mixed damage unit with high str/low magic can chose to deal magic damage from two range to a high defense/medium resistance enemy unit. This might do less damage than an effective weapon with weapon triangle advantage or something but they can do it without being counter attacked.

The sword locked unit with higher str could probably deal more damage with an effective weapon with weapon triangle advantage. They are a much more consistent unit but not as much flexible.

In the same situation without the spilt there’s almost no reason not to take the mixed attacker. A high pow unit would always start from high damage, meaning that you always get the best of both worlds. Which isn’t as interesting.

That said, in a game without as much player choice you could definitely achieve the same things with pow as you can with str/mag. But in this game where 16 units are trainees and you get to spilt your army and use skills to build units, the split helps add some constraints to that creativity.

an example in the rom (spoilers for Erin promotion options)

This is actually an easy example from the rom which I think makes an interesting choice.

Erin is a healer trainee with a massive magic growth but a low str growth. She has 3 promo options cleric (can fight with magic and use staves), troubadour (more movement + staves with less useful combat), and Pegasus knight.

Pegasus knight is a weird class for her, since she can’t really make use of her high magic while she’s in the class and will have to get by on her low str. If you can give her a magic lance she’ll be useful but… she won’t be a magic delete button or a really strong support unit.

So why make her a Pegasus knight? Because she can promote into a dark flier (flying offensive lance and magic user), or a seraph knight (flying lance and staff support unit). Both really strong options for her which are not promo options she gets in cleric or troubadour. So you can have her contribute less in the short term to have a really strong unit later.

Without str/mag spilt, I don’t think that choice would be as interesting (or it would have to be formulated very very differently and I’m not that creative).

luxbeacon · May 28, 2026, 2:55pm

I can’t play romhacks without a str/mag split. I’m just so used to it in modern FE and I really dislike that the GBA games removed it.

Question about this hack, since I think I would like to play once it’s completed. Are there any magic weapons that use the strength stat? I feel it’s rare we ever get tomes that deal physical damage. Course they usually become redundant if a mage promotes to a physical class, but it could have its uses.

I always enjoy weird unit stat growths that just work for some reason. Also weapons that use atypical stats to be effective. Like how in the Disgaea series, heal spells are based off resistance, gun damage is based on dexterity and fisticuffs are based on strength & speed. So you have to equip your characters accordingly to boost those stats to maximize damage.

UrsusKnight · May 28, 2026, 6:05pm

It’ll be a bit before it’s completed. ~~end games are weird~~

There are 4 tomes that do physical damage but they don’t use the strength stat. They use the magic stat but target enemy defense. I didn’t make a str tome mostly because mostly mages have the option to branch into mixed classes which makes it kinda redundant. While not all initial physical characters can branch into mixed classes.

I love unit niches a lot so most of the changes I make/have made is to just give every unit a potential home if they are invested in.

UrsusKnight · August 27, 2026, 4:32am

I haven’t made an update post here in a bit so this is an update post:

General things:

thanks to @ditto there are no longer janky warnings not to save during the mid chapter deployments. This feature is now present jn 3 chapters of the rom and likely will be in one more
Terrain bonuses have been increased, no terrain heals anymore (asides from churches). Vulneraries have been lowered in price.

Chapters:

Ryne X3, R16, and S17 are now done
S15 has been made a smidge harder to route the enemy early
R13 has been reworked
Water flows properly on maps using the frontier/western isles tileset

Units:

Hemlock is a new unit in the new horseman class. They are harder hitting nomads with less versatility
Ash, Luin, Gus, Misti got generally buffed.
Teji has been given a secret event to grow more powerful in the mid game.
Oshta and Stravos have been buffed by being given a secret ability. Oshta needs to do an event in r15x to unlock it while Stravos starts with the ability
Luin has a special event if she fights and kills everyone associated with the okodover gang (concluding with Star and a new ability)
More route exclusive units have been added. If you play only one route some side characters become playable
Sun, Robiah and the Bandit twins are not recruitable currently. They may return in ch19
A boss is recruitable
S17 comes with a new unit
Lynx’s mom works properly as a jagen and has unique dialogue if she is recruited over Aaron

Items

Ryne and Silas have their second prf weapons available starting from r16/s17 respectively
Scorpion is no longer brave
Riding axe is buffed by using a better version of the charge skill

Classes:

light cavs lost access to bows but gained the charge skill
Horsemen now exist which are mounted t1 archers to rival nomads. They have more power but less mobility and speed.
Enemy devouts only get counter at max level on hard mode because the play pattern for dealing with them late game was nightmarish

I think that’s everything, or at least everything big and memorable. Life has been busy so I definitely won’t have anything for fee3.

But I will finish this at some point.

Thanks for playing and thanks to everyone who gives feedback and bug reports!

UrsusKnight · August 29, 2026, 1:59pm

Additional minor patch:
R13 - tile changes after the flood event are fixed now

Dangania14 · August 31, 2026, 9:13am

I gave this project another try after years of playing it’s first few versions. I gave up a little later this time, at chapter 6 rather than 1 or 1x. I’m sorry, but I just find the experience thoroughly unfun. The main post says this “isn’t a Kaizo hack”, and I only agree because a Kaizo hack would have more structured game design.

There’s a lot of stuff I just think is either overtuned or undertuned, for enemies and player characters respectively. Enemies start out stronger, and somehow also grow faster than the PUs? Despite our army being comprised of ONLY trainee classes, our xp gain is worse than T1s in other hacks? And having to spend the first 7 or so chapters (gaidens included) without so much as the option to promote, is baffling. And again, unfun.

For how long level ups take, player units also don’t really have that crazy of growth rates? Coupled with their bases at least. But I guess that’s subjective, I dunno.

I understand wanting to make a game where the player is truly the underdog, but that doesn’t justify having to micromanage and pray and hope every turn, that something doesn’t go wrong. That the units Dodge enough, that the enemies target the right PUs.

Also, game design in general feels very foggy. Take the prologue for example. Should you try and divide your units, to clear a path faster and escape, without letting them gang up on you? No, you’re supposed to very clumsily and very slowly make your way over the west, with your whole group. If you did the first thing, well tough luck. [restart chapter] it is! And let’s not mention fucking chapter 1, which was basically impossible originally, and nowadays is just clunky to get though (like every other chapter, unfortunately)

The near universal 4 mov of the PUs makes the whole experience so, so annoying and boring at the same time! So many times, units clump up at the wrong spot, and then reinforcements appear, and suddenly you can’t get away and someone dies. Fun!

Edit: I really like trainees, but this game just really highlights why they aren’t the focus in most projects.

UrsusKnight · August 31, 2026, 1:26pm

I do disagree with you, but I think understand where you are coming from. It’s unfortunate that you didn’t enjoy the rom, but that’s okay! We have different design principles and ideas of what we find fun/interesting.

Responding to your specific feedback:

There are different difficulty modes in the hack for a reason and selecting easier difficulties does make the game less punishing. Hard mode is HARD. If you are not having fun in hard mode or normal try easy. Enemies scale worse than your units on easy mode. If you don’t want to try on easier difficulties that’s also fine, but there’s a reason why they are there and play differently.
The promotion timing is a fair criticism, but xp is different in this rom than other roms. It’s a decision I stand by. Post ch4, (5 chapters if the player hasn’t gotten every gaiden) is a very reasonable time to promote units.
Player units don’t have crazy growth rates as you have access to trainees for the entire game. Classes also contribute to growth rates so units growths change/improve depending on what class they promote into. Starting with the base number too high mitigates the effect of class growths and muddies things.
I suppose this ties into difficulty, but like you can spilt your army in the prologue. I agree the easiest way to complete the level is to take the path of least resistance and walk to the west. But there are many ways to complete the level on hard mode that don’t require much rng. And significantly more on easier difficulties when you have access to a T1 unit Aaron.
The rom also has on turn resets, so resetting the chapter it’s not necessary under most circumstances even if things go wildly wrong.
Not liking 4 move is fair. If you are used to 5 move 4 move really feels like a downgrade. But the ch0-ch5 maps are all built for units with 4 move.

The idea of this rom’s early game is to give the player a lot of tools to deal with tougher opponents beyond just damage. The debuffing bows/daggers/staves, items that block enemy movement, the stat boosting potions, shields, skills and effective Prf weapons are all there to mitigate your units being statistically weaker up until chapter 6/7.

It’s a different approach and I can understand not liking it. But thanks for giving it a try!

Dangania14 · August 31, 2026, 4:26pm

My problem is that Hard mode is regarded by the game itself as the “intended” experience. If it wasn’t for that, I would totally just lower the difficulty, but I generally judge romhacks based on their intended difficulty.

I have a question about this. Do you expect the PUs to all start promoting as soon chapter 4 starts, or only 2-3 PUs? Because my experience was entering chapter 4 with only Lynx on level 10, and everyone else between 5-8. Also promoted Ryne and Irene mid level by using xp potions. Which actually another thing I find questionable is having to promote mid-map, as that is quite bothersome.

My issue is having both normal/mediocre Growths, alongside the reduced xp gain. If it was either thing, I could see the reasoning.

I suppose I’d have to see to believe, cause frankly I didn’t get that impression on my own playthough. Especially with the reinforcements later on, and the forest tiles sucking any semblance of actual movement from my units.

Again, I think it’s weird to have the hardest difficulty be the one to receive the “intended” tag, if the other two are gonna be recommended just as eagerly.

Yeah, true. Though, I find it weird how this is only explicitly told in the 0x tutorial. You know, the one that also has all the uselessly basic FE stuff?

I cannot agree with this. Maps are average size, which is too much for 4 Mov. Plus all the forest tiles, and mages using 3 mov for each of those instead of 2 for some reason, and mounted units getting bogged down by both stairs and forests.

The problem is, enemies are far too tough even with debuffs, not to mention that enemy dagger throwers also crush your own units stats. And they are far too common, appearing from the start, while the first playable thief is only officially gotten in chapter 3 (2x you spend half of the turns before you formally recruit him).

The statboosting potions are complete RNG to get, unless the player is willing to spend great sums of money for the right one. I will give kudos for them actually giving high enough boosts. Maybe not the hit/crit one, tho.

I kinda agree on the Skills/Prf weapons, but one thing that permeates hard mode is enemies having such exaggeratedly high stats, especially compared to the player’s band of weaklings, that these weapons don’t even do enough. They don’t come close to killing, sometimes.

I truly believe Hard mode is simply overtuned. The ideas are there, and they’re interesting ideas, but the enemies are made simply too strong. I mean, let’s look at enemy armors for example. They start getting the ranged shield skill, and suddenly even magic isn’t enough to deal with them. And you have to attack upclose, but the enemy’s strenght stat is too high, so you get one-shoted in return.

If there’s one thing I beg you to check again, is the relation between enemies damage stats, and the average HP base/growth of PUs. More often than not, axe and lance using enemies straight up one shot half the army.

I like the ideas the game presents, but the enemies are too overtuned for those ideas to actually work in a fun way. I’ll go play the game on normal, and see if my gripes persist.

UrsusKnight · August 31, 2026, 5:18pm

Re: Hard mode as the intended experience. This one is tricky. It’s tricky as the intent of the rom is for you to be significantly weaker than your enemies (in the early game), but being significantly weaker than your enemies is not the typical FE experience. When I say it’s intended that also means I balance around hard, then test normal, then easy in that order.

The distinction between the typical fe experience and the intended experience here is hard to communicate and I’m sure others have stumbled into this issue while playing the rom. Hard is not intended if you want a more typical fe experience. I’m clearly still struggling with how to communicate that . The new difficulty descriptions were my most recent attempt.
2-3 for ch4 is about right. Most of the favored trainees should be promoted by ch7, but from what I have seen most trainees are promoted by in the ch5-6 stretch. Ch7 is the first time the game expects the player to have t1 units. Unfavored trainees still have their moment to shine later after ch7.

Mid chapter promotions was a technical limitation on my end as using the fe8 promotion system (promoting between chapters) didn’t work with large number of trainees. Their portraits and dialogue would get swapped and it wouldn’t be clear who was promoting as a result.
Rom is long. When I’m actually done I plan to go back through and modify caps and growths and xp to accommodate the current length of the game. But the current xp/growths situation is due to making the current version of the rom balanced around some choices made in s15+
This is back to the first point basically. Hard mode is balanced differently, it constrains choices but as you get more and more tools you can kinda crack the rom open.
I’ll be real I didn’t know where else to put it in the game itself. The tutorial seems like a good place to put information about the game.
We can disagree. But regarding mages moving 3 on forests… It was only in the rain, and also an oversight. It should still be two tiles even in the rain. The most recent version (yesterday) fixed that so now they move 2 through forests even in the rain.

This is useful feedback about hp thresholds on hard mode. I’ll have to think more about them as I fiddle with the late game. It’s fully possible the main playtesters in the discord and myself are just too good at the early game now.

The first time the player encounters knights and cavaliers they are meant to be seen as significantly stronger than the bandits units the player has been facing. There’s a similar power difference between the Reservist unit Id and the Soldier unit Id later on. In early chapters armors and cavs require a lot of commitment to take down, before they become the standard type of enemy you encounter.

Enemy skills are different on different difficulties. I think armors skill have the ranged def skill on normal/easy but other enemies lose skills or gain skills at different levels so that by the time you encounter enemies with that skill you will have more tools to deal with it.

It’s great that you are willing to give it another go. Feedback about all difficulties is helpful

Dangania14 · August 31, 2026, 6:56pm

I’m glad you’re willing to look at it.

This is the kinda situation I’m talking about btw:

This is the prologue boss on normal. 17 damage, anyone can survive his strike.

This Is him on hard, and this is the protag’s stats:

considering WT, those 3 Def are technically raised to 5. And he still doesn’t survive a single hit from full HP. One would think he’d simply dodge, but 30+ hit rate is higher than most people think. (Also is he supposed to be the weakest on the team? He has the weakest crappy weapon after all)

UrsusKnight · September 1, 2026, 2:34am

Btw feel free to join the discord it’s easier to talk about detailed things there.

new_rock_by_the_water · September 6, 2026, 5:47pm

So, half the cast is missing from my units. Is this intentional? Chapter 6, no one died yet but I’m still playing with the chapter 4x cast.

new_rock_by_the_water · September 7, 2026, 1:18am

Are there two versions of 1x or did I miss the trigger for the gaiden on chapter 1 the first time I played?

UrsusKnight · September 7, 2026, 1:35am

You probably missed it the first time. On easy and normal it’s automatically unlocked but on Hard mode you have to get Ryne to visit the inn in the NW to both to unlock Freya and visit Ch1x.
If you want the guide it is here:

new_rock_by_the_water · September 8, 2026, 1:38am

Just a heads up: I reached chapter 5 again and everything is fine. I hit the lower button and a team of 4 units came to the rescue, in contrast to the entire army showing up when it was bugged last time lol

In chapter 5 all my units are there, victory!

new_rock_by_the_water · September 8, 2026, 7:21pm

No wait, I think the game went into normal mode

goldalaster · September 21, 2026, 2:41pm

Found a weird crashing bug in S12. When Miriel shows up and receives her noble rapier, I go to immediate black screen after I have to throw away an item to make space in her inventory