I’ve been ROM hacking for a long time, constantly coming up with new ideas for stories and hacks, but now, for the very first time, I’m finally ready to release one of my hacks, and so, I present to you:
Fire Emblem: Blood of the Covenant!
So, just what is Fire Emblem: Blood of the Covenant? Well, it’s a ROM hack of FE8 (Just like basically every other hack nowadays) with a brand new story and characters (that may or may not have taken inspiration from JoJo Part 5) made by yours truly!
Story:
The story of BOTC follows Maya Chiromante, a village girl from the Sanctuis Republic with a strange ability to “sense” things, specifically danger. 5 years following the death of her mother at the hands of the Conquerors, a group of bandits which have a very tight grasp on Sanctuis, she sets out with her long-time friend and confidant Colton to get revenge. However, after her first run-in with the Conquerors ends with her getting captured, she gets an opportunity to join them, and uses it has a chance to destroy the Conquerors from within.
Current Features:
5 Playable chapters (out of 24)
11 Playable characters
Tons of quality of life improvements, such as the removal of Staff animations, health bars, the ability to view growth rates, the ability to view enemy range, etc
Tons of new animations and other graphics to make the game look fresh and unique
New advanced classes, such as the Dark Knight and the Spartan, and a new Trainee class: the Villager.
Things you should know:
This is my first hack that has ever gone anywhere and as such, it means a lot to me and I want it to be good, so please do not be afraid to tell me any and all criticisms you have for it (this includes little things, like grammatical errors)
I know a lot of the portraits aren’t great, but they were the best I could do with the free to use portraits available, I do plan to have only unique portraits in the final release
There are no support conversations yet, but there are talk conversations spread throughout
There aren’t a whole lot of fancy doo-dads and stuff, like the Skill System, since I’m trying to go for a more simple ROM hack in terms of gameplay (I’m also not creative enough to make super cool and unique maps with a lot of experimental ideas like a lot of the other masterminds on this site)
screenshots because that’s what all the cool kids are supposed to have:
Screenshots
Link to download:
*if I missed anyone in the credits for the assets used please let me know
Alright, I guess being the first person to play the hack, I should give my thoughts on it! I only made it 2 chapters but shhhhhhh
Everything I would fix
Maya’s blink/mouth frames
Cody should move back into the house when he leaves the conversation, otherwise it’s a little weird
The first cutscene map is just Chapter 5 of Sacred Stones, I’d stay away from doing that
Please put a space after every time you ellipses (…)
Maybe use REDAs in the cutscene where enemies appear instead of just fading out and having the enemies appear (REDAs being loading movements or whatever they’re called in FEBuilder if you’re using that)
It’s homemade, not home made
The first map has plenty of grass-spam (i.e. you only use one grass tile out of the twelve)
The first map… doesn’t flow very well. Lots of axes despite your only physical unit having lances, the archer has 2-3, you only have two units, the first enemy in range (the brigand on the fort) has A HAMMER THAT ONE SHOTS YOUR KNIGHT, Maya is 1 away from killing everything, everything has 55-65 hit rate… It’s just grindy. I don’t know how I’d fix it, really :c
text quote arrow goes outside
again in chapter 2, make the loading a bit smoother for the units, reda would be nice but in this case doing it during the conversations may work too
enemy fighters have an… interesting palette
did you really have to disable staff animations? i like watching them :c
bruh you got me i thought colton was dead
i’m not the best at design but i feel like making all enemy units move at the same time may not be the most fun idea
bratton (i don’t remember his name, the fighter)'s quote is just gilliam’s
maybe don’t make the first enemy in range on the first turn inside a pillar (fighter in chapter 2)
I didn’t really play much of the hack because I sort of didn’t feel like blocking a chokepoint for five minutes again, but I will say that I like oracle characters. Oracles are cool. I want oracle to destroy the organization. Please predict more future, and please make more hack.
Exact same long opening from FE8, I’d remove that first thing, and actually shocked you haven’t.
That’s alot to go through to test the starting events every time.
Starting map is Serafew, don’t really like it because I can spot it a mile away.
Thank god 5mv knight, doesn’t have a palette though.
Music is really good.
Archer enemy palette messed up
Clerics blink animation isn’t lined up properly, so her eyes move right during blink
PRF weapon sucks. That’s pretty much it, it adds +1dmg and some slight crit. That’s all. No stat boosters or effectiveness. Just water that’s 1dmg stronger then fire.
=-=-= Ch.2 =-=-=
I don’t like how the enemies just, pop and are there. Makes it seem less realistic you know? Make them run into
position, or have them already there before the convo happens or anything else.
Hank and Rufus don’t have palettes either.
Didn’t zoom or move to where Colton was so I thought he was an enemy and was really confused at first.
A KILLER Lance? That’s absurd this early. So that’s a 30% chance just to restart? That’s not fair.
Also enemy fighter palette is off, same for boss.
Why does the healer have a Heal AND Mend? Make it one or the other, it’s just really odd.
Also…
Skipped through cutscenese, but quick look. Slim Sword. Just look at it. Look at the Slim Sword. Now look at the Iron Sword. Biggest thing here, Iron has 5weight, Slim takes 2. In what game, in what world, in what reality, do you have ANY unit that is under 5con? Very very very very very rare right? What are the chances they are a SWORD user? See where I’m going? What is the point of a slim sword? 3damage? 3. Damage. The sword can have 200hit, and it would still be trash because, 3. Damage. The chance to crit for 9, 9! Damage isn’t worth it in the least.
=-=-= Finale thoughts =-=-=
It’s defintely “inspired” by jojo part 5. Well it’s pretty much Jojo part 5. So that’s not the greatest, but whatever, all stories are taken from something. It has the making of a good hack, just needs polishing.
Also what I’d like to point out, I started playing at midnight PST, typed this all up and finished Ch.2 fell asleep during the talking, woke up at 2:40am, finished the chapter and looked at the website to see @Runa beating me here. But reading their review and posting mines was funny because you see VERY similar topics being discussed on our posts and we both took a picture of a… similar situation lol.
So, for the opening, I thought I could find a use for it but honestly all the world building can be done easily in dialogue, so I’ll cut it.
Serafew was a placeholder thing, I’ve already made a replacement for it because these comments reminded me to do that
No one has a Palette yet except for Maya which I need to finish
like I said, some of the portraits aren’t great. I’ll probably make my own by the next release
I agree that Splash is a garbage Prf
I thought I went back and made the enemy spawning look better, since my playtester told me I should, guess I didn’t, I’ll fix it next release. Same thing for the camera zooming to Colton
Chapter 2 as I’ve learned is a mess that I did not think about. So I’ll redo the whole thing in the next release
At first I added the Slim Sword because it had extra hit, but honestly the Iron Sword is fine. So I’ll make the Slim Sword give more WEXP to give it some use
Hello there, I would like to give my thoughts on your hack as well. And I hope I’m not aaaaas fussy as our buddies commenting before me.
Some general stuff first:
The music is really nice.
The mini portraits look a bit funny/weird, but I guess you work on that anyways.
Bosses use original FE8 battle quotes.
Chapter One:
Mayakarp used splash. But nothing happened. Sorry had to be done! One more might or whatever could be good.
Why do the enemies even attack you? Storywise?
Maya and Colton just get “teleported” in front of the village for the dialogue after beating the boss.
Colton just disappears when he gets attacked at the end.
**Chapter two:
Cleric’s eyes move while blinking.
Balfus’ palette is randomizer style.
Why do they get hunted by the knights? That’s not clear at that moment.
I blocked off the choke point with the warrior and his bow and just farmed the units with ranged weapons without ever being in danger. But you said you want to change it completely so whatever.
Chapter three:
Nothing to say here. Could be a bit more difficult maybe.
Chapter four:
Hank and Maya dialogue is amusing.
The thief seems to be extremely bad. He can’t even double every bandit.
So I didn’t know there would be a thief trying to destroy the village. When he reached it, it said village got destroyed but actually it didn’t.
When visiting the village with my thief, the dialogue played and afterwards the dialogue of Maya visiting the village was shown.
Berus has shine but can’t use it.
Chapter five:
My villager reached level 10 and the ross “I got stronger blabla” dialogue started when he can promote but when the dialogue ended I got a blackscreen. That’s where I stopped.
Story:
A lot of things don’t make sense yet or are a bit weird (or I didn’t read properly):
Why does Colton just accept joining the guys that tried to kill him? Maya did it because her life was threatened and she saw a chance to destroy them from within. That’s ok I guess.
Why can Maya command people? She was just a prisoner.
Why does Maya have such a high rank already? Ronnie for example has to ask the leader if he can visit his home town. -> Who are the Conquerers? What are their goals and Maya’s and Colton’s views on them? Why is there a child or teenager (Ronny)? Why does he have to ask for permission to do something? Why does the story go into the direction it goes?
