[FE9] Fire Emblem: Four Riders (6/11 Chapters Playable Demo)

[ATMachine]

Patch Download Link
(At the bottom of the GameBanana page)
(Use DeltaPatcher with a FE9 US .iso only)

FEE3 2025 Trailer

FEE3 2025: Fire Emblem: Four Riders by ATMachine

Project Statement:
Fire Emblem: Four Riders seeks to explore the heyday of the legendary Four Riders of Daein 20 years prior to the start of Path of Radiance. The story follows Gawain, Ike’s father and Greil’s name at the time, as he goes through a meaningful character arc. As I am currently the sole developer, I have set the project to include only 11 chapters in order for it to see a full release. This page is for the Demo Build which includes a vertical slice of the first four chapters.

Features:
6/11 chapters with new scenarios, scripted cutscenes, portraits, dialogue, playable monster classes, and enemies. 13/~18 playable characters with written supports.

Canonicity:
As this is a prequel of FE9, it includes characters and events only vaguely alluded to in canon. In order to give context and characterization to this story I have taken some creative liberties. This includes OC’s that try to add to the less explored elements of the lore left unsaid in FE9/10. I try to be as faithful as possible to things actually stated in the vanilla games. Most of my research is based on the translation of the Tellius Recollection Series by Kantopia.

Remixed Maps:
When I first started this project 6 months ago, all that could be changed with the maps were the textures and enemy/ally placements. Within the past few months, there has been considerable advancements in map editing. We are now able to manipulate and add objects on the map due to some work from Jade and me. If you want to be in on this exciting frontier, join the Gritnea Tower Discord. Due to these tools/info being very recently developed, the demo chapters (1-4) have limited map edits. In the future chapters, I will be more ambitious with reconfiguring the overall flow of the map (The newly released Chapter 6 is fully custom). The hack does have rearranged maps compared to the vanilla and will include trial maps that few players have experienced.

Difficulty:
Due to having only two playtesters so far, the game might need more polishing in this aspect. I aimed for a similar difficulty to FE10 hard mode which might be too much for some. Currently the only difference between the difficulty options when you start the game is Hard has fog of war while the others do not (unless you count exp gained). I think by getting a wave of playtesters from the FEE3 trailer release, I’ll be able to better get a temperature read on what people do or don’t like about the difficulty.

Themes:
Indoctrination, Exposure, In-Group/Out-Group Dynamics

Links:

• Tellius Modding Discord
  The best place for feedback for me would be in the Four Riders forum post. Where Tellius hacking advancements happen these days.
• ATMachine YouTube
  Sometimes I post scripted cutscenes early here.
• Guide
  Might be helpful for recruitment/win conditions
• My Hacking Guides
  Concerns map editing and a dialogue hacking guide

FAQ

Q: Does this hack have X quality of life feature?
A: Right now I’m mainly focusing on scripting and writing the chapters out before focusing on QoL features. Most features the GBA community has does not exist in FE9 yet.

Q: Does this hack have X gameplay change when compared to vanilla FE9?
A: With this most recent update (Ch.6), I did add the new “Rider” class for the eponymous characters. This is achieved by making use of both their promoted and unpromoted class slots to have them mount under specific conditions. Due to this quirk, I decided to give the unmounted classes Blossom to cut the un-promoted EXP gains they would be getting. In the end, they receive slightly more EXP when unmounted. I generally have the philosophy of not changing the stats of any items to keep the feel of FE9 intact and I’ll add new stuff for gameplay changes (like the Wind Edge).

Q: Why start at Tier 2 promotion?
A: This project actually started at the simple question of “Is it possible to start at FE9 Ch.20?” and then ballooned out from there. Due to the relatively short length of the hack, this is a decent place to start and still make level cap. My first chapter still contains the closest to vanilla layout of cutscenes/placements because it was when I was learning and not confident to make entirely new cutscenes. I am still leaving open the possibility of adding more chapters to the front-end, and even have vague ideas of what happens before, but I’d really need to inspire a new generation of FE9 hackers to help in this endeavor because it’s just too much work for one person lol.

Q: What’s stopping you from making whole new maps?
A: We’re getting closer and closer each day. Currently I use the FE9 Map Editor by Jade to rearrange the map objects from other maps onto the base of a preexisting map. Making new ‘base’ maps will be the next hurdle to approach.

Q: Why aren’t battle animations supported?
A: We aren’t there yet when it comes to adding full functionality of the FE10 models.

Q: What is the canonicity of X?
A: Notable creative liberties:

1. I made Gawain (Greil) more ‘insensitive’ towards Laguz, at least at the start, then shown in FE9. I want him to undergo a character arc, especially upon meeting Elena, so please excuse his behavior as he is indoctrinated by living in Daein.
2. I made Bryce into a noble for the sake of a more interesting group dynamic. Let’s just say he matured a lot during those 20 years.
3. Duke Seliora is given more characterization since he is the least developed senator in FE10. His appearance (being not old looking) might bring into question when he became a senator, but I am just having him be there 20 years prior for the sake of the story (it is a decent assumption he was senator).
4. King Daein (whom I gave the name Uthrar) is not given much in the original. It is known that he had 13 children so I made the extrapolation that his strategy is having a large harem of wives through interlocking political arrangements (in order to have that many children; Ashnard has to be the 13th, etc.) Queen Annevere and any other alluded to queens were not mentioned in canon.

Roadmap:

Features to Come

• More Personal Skills
• More Personal Weapons
  *Dark Mage class

Future Chapters

• Chapters 5-8: Dragon Princess/Serenes Massacre Mini-Arc
• Chapter 9-10: Usurpation
• Chapter 11: Vs Greil

Credits:

• Jade: FE10 Model Imports, FE8Anim Editor, FE9 Map Editor, 10-to-9 tool, help with bugs, Vika magic1_N animation fix
• Thane98: Developer of Paragon and Lumina that make hacking FE9 possible.
• Misaha illustration (Ch.1) by @leonmarcellos (Fiver, commission by Zeits)
• fullerga7: Help with bugs
• Forerunner305: Playtesting/Feedback
• Jokx: Playtesting/Feedback
• TacoBell-kun: Playtesting/Feedback
• KrashBoomBang: Playtesting/Feedback
• A special thanks to the members of the Gritnea Tower Discord for their encouragement and inspiration. Make sure to check out their projects in the discord if you crave more Tellius!

Known Issues:
Ch.2:

1. For some unknown reason, you can’t skip the convo where Elena cuts her hair.

Ch.3:

1. When characters fade out in fog of war, it looks weird sometimes.

Ch.5:

1. Vasily refuses to be a forced deploy in Ch.5 although he is needed for the win con.

Ch.6:

1. Vasily and Chanty don’t have a death quote outside of their join chapter.
2. The button UI in the battle prep screen is discolored in chapter 6 because of the lighting change.
3. The room with Geshtina lacks some bonepile placements.
4. You can see the outline of the transparent bone piles used for the skeleton enemies when moving a unit. This was the best I could do for the moment for this implementation while keeping it from not corrupting memory with too many BuildInstHide()'s.

Changelog

v0.11: Fixed the error message on start-up and squashed a lot of other bugs.
v0.2: Ch.5 is out along with a lot of bug fixes and improvements to Ch.1-4 thanks to feedback from Jokx. Zelgius’s weapons have been fixed thanks to Jade.
v0.3: Ch.6 with the first fully custom map (actually 4 maps in one chapter!). Thanks to ralf’s AR code, I was able to make it so we have access to convoy and ordering yellow units around at chapter 1! Thanks to Jade’s address, I was able to disable the Forge! Various reworks to Ch.1-5 due to feedback from TacoBell-kun and KrashBoomBang. I replaced the AI Misaha in Ch.1 with an illustration by @leonmarcellos (Fiver, commission by Zeits)

Placeholder Disclaimer:
In the opening of Ch.1, I use an AI-generated image placeholder of an approximation of Apostle Misaha’s appearance. I haven’t decided on her character design yet but she’ll probably be older looking as implied by RD.

[BarackObama]

Do we finally get custom campaigns for FE9? That’s awesome! Thank you so much for all your hard work. Keep it up! I might check out this romhack soon.

[ATMachine]

Thanks Mr. Stoic! I’ll be releasing a more stable build on the GameBanana page in few days if you’re interested. I would love some feedback if you get a chance to play it, good or bad

[CXM689]

I’m a huge fan of a lot of the projects that come out here - they obviously all require a lot of work and skill, even the simpler ones, so I would never want to diminish the accomplishments of any of the creators in the community. And even within the old engines, there continue to be really unique and creative projects all the time.

With that having been said: it’s so encouraging to see a project pushing the limits of what can be done. We obviously have not had anywhere near as much effort to create original projects in the 3D Fire Emblem engine. And this story in particular is one that I’ve wished could be told since I played FE9 and FE10 as a teenager.

So incredibly interested in this project, and wish you the best of luck!!!

[ATMachine]

Thank you so much for your kind words. I had similar feelings when I first watched the FE10 Daybreak trailer. Then I just said screw it and started development lol.

[Pearl]

You had me hooked at Tellius mod and young Ashnard. I’m so hyped for this, you don’t even know. Everything here looks genuinely awesome and I can’t wait for the full release!

[Kantoor]

Whoa! This looks absolutely incredible!! Totally unprecedented for FE9 modding and all the assets look so good! I especially like the Maradoans.

We are now able to manipulate and add objects on the map due to some work from Jade and me.

That alone is huge, my understanding of FE9 modding up to this point was that it was very fundamentally limited with things like the game getting stuck if any random expected variable is out of place like where a specific unit is during a cutscene; effectively making the type of complex fangames that exist for the GBA unfeasible. Getting something like this off the ground at all is very impressive! I hope your innovations here will inspire more projects in the future.

[Unoriginalusername]

Good luck look great also i think it’s good to plan for high difficulty but you need to also remember people also want to play leisurely from time to time because of that Nintendo also make casual mode

[TacoBell-kun]

I wasn’t able to apply the patch using XDeltaUI. Am I supposed to patch a .iso file featuring the North American version of Path of Radiance?

[ATMachine]

Hi TacoBell-kun (nice name). Yes, I am working with the US version. I’ve only ever used DeltaPatcher so if that’s the issue that’s something else to try. Good luck!

[Anonomoose]

For what it’s worth, I can’t get it to work on US, PAL, or JP versions of the game. I even tried converting them between ciso, nkit, and rsv.

[TacoBell-kun]

I’m using Delta Patcher, and it’s still not patching.

[Anonomoose]

It looks like any type of compression will cause issues with both DeltaPatcher and XDelta. I was able to get it to work by converting a .nkit.iso to an .iso using NKit.

[TacoBell-kun]

I finally got it to work. Too bad that Four Riders uses the same game ID as OG Path of Radiance. I want to be able to play Four Riders without having to delete my Path of Radiance save data.

[TacoBell-kun]

It might be a good idea to create a Dolphin banner for this game. I’m using a program to change the game’s ID so that it doesn’t use the same save file as the original Path of Radiance. But showing up as Path of Radiance in the Dolphin Emulator is still kind of jarring.

Also, it might be worth getting this game play-tested more. Aside from the technical issues (resetting the game doesn’t work, and skipping the story can ruin parts of the game), I noticed that the difficulty of the Chapter 2 boss on Hard mode is inconsistent, and is very dependent on how much Speed he starts with. If he spawns with enough speed, he’ll end up doubling Tauroneo. Not to mention you can’t go back to the base at the start of chapter 2 for some reason.

[ATMachine]

Thanks for letting me know! I will have to include this information with the patch!

[ATMachine]

Thank you for your feedback TacoBell-kun. I really would love if there were more play-testers so I can know what to fix. As this is really the first time someone’s made custom chapter scripting in PoR, I’ve been learning over time how things like quitting, restarting, or skipping parts affect the game. I thought I was able to make it so you can reset now but I’ll have to revisit it. I’ll be testing out a new banner and game ID in the next update. Thanks again for the idea.

[TacoBell-kun]

In Chapter 2, is the prince guy supposed to be able to steal the boss’s Master Seal? He didn’t appear to be of the thief class, but that didn’t stop him from stealing the boss’s Master Seal before I had the chance to kill him.

Either way, seeing how the boss was clearly designed to be very hard already, being an optional side-objective, having the danger of his item drop getting stolen from the player just makes the chapter that much more frustrating.

And yeah. Definitely let the player visit the base during Chapter 2. Even in the game’s story, I’m sure the characters had some time to stock up on items before the mission.

[KrashBoomBang]

I gave this a play this evening. Very impressive stuff. Got some feedback, but first, two major bugs:

• The escape tiles are still usable in chapter 2 before triggering Anna’s escape tutorial, so you can erroneously leave the map early.
• The dragon enemy in chapter 5 softlocks the game if you fight him. Something with his map animations is just broken.

As for actual feedback and thoughts, chapter 1 was probably my favorite, getting all the chests was a challenge. Though I noticed that enemy stat variation can really mess you up here, since it can determine whether Lanvega doubles enemies or not. Either give Lanvega +1 base speed or ensure that all the untransformed laguz cannot have more than 10 speed.

Chapter 2 was solid, if a little unclear on how exactly the objective worked. I think having a more clear text box when the map starts would be better, explaining “you have to pick up Iven and then escape the map while holding him, also this will end the map so you need to escape with him last.”

Chapter 3 was what I’d call the low point. All of the enemies are confined to the bottom right area, but you have to send Greil all the way left to recruit Hotaka, where there are zero enemies. The house in the bottom left also requires walking past the aggressive boss to get it, delaying the map further. I think you need to rework how the enemies on this map are handled. It’s clear you just want it to be summoned stuff from the boss, but that does not populate the map, and the boss moving when you get in range makes it too easy to end it before getting all the houses. Maybe move that bottom left house to the bottom right instead, and then put the boss in the bottom left. The top left houses are so out of the way that I feel like it’d be better to just not have them at all, and put the smite scroll as an enemy drop and have Hotaka just walk towards Greil or spawn closer, like on the left bridge.

Chapter 4 worked pretty well. I think the only major issue is shuffling keys around for all the chests, since they’re all far apart and the middle chest room does not have a chest key drop in it. It’s doubly an issue due to no convoy (why is there no convoy?).

Chapter 5 was just kinda there. I ended up rigging a turn 1 sleep on Almedha so that I didn’t have to deal with her and could keep Vasily on the defend point every turn, which feels like it was intended since you can just buy sleep staves in the shop here.

For unit thoughts, Lanvega is the very clear best unit, and that’s in spite of being a sword/bow paladin. He’s fast and ORKOs stuff when basically the only other person who does that is Hotaka. Greil, Dulaney, and the three generals are all just kinda slow and need to combine for kills. Elena was The Healer and she did her job. Sable, Vasily, and Chanty I didn’t have enough time with them to form much of an opinion.

Lastly, please remove the AI art. If you’re using that for a placeholder anyway, just don’t even bother having it in the first place.

Overall, very impressive little project, super cool that this exists at all.

[ATMachine]

Thank you for the feedback again. I really should take off that Steal skill off of the Prince class. At the time that I added it in, I didn’t have the boss having a drop so it makes sense now to ensure you actually get it if you kill him. I recently figured out what part of the code determines if you go to base or not (at the time I didn’t understand it). I’ll add it in.