Fire Emblem: Dark Lord and The Maiden of Light

[8vio]

Hello, I have made this account just to talk about this hack. It is my first time playing a hack and it is probably the best Fire Emblem game I have ever played. I am currently on chapter 21 Kotan route.

I like everything about this game, from characters to chapter design, and I would like to share some things that slightly bugged me. They are all very minor except for one. There could be some minor spoiler:
-During the cutscenes there are some npcs that look exactly the same. In chapter 10 there are two bandits clones onscreen at the same time.
-In the “pick units” and “trade” menus, when I select a character and scroll through the them, Kathe gets skipped.
-What happens to Yotsmung after chapter 18? It looked very interesting as a weapon.
-While all chapters felt very well tought out, chapter 21 Kotan route is a nightmare. It is the only chapter I find unfair. It is not even funny, it is just frustrating. I was very happy of no ambush spawn, until this chapter.

That said, congratulations to you @TytheBub , this game is amazing. The characters are great (I only dislike Wren and Darius’ mugshots, their personalities are fine), the story is compelling and the chapter are, again, well tought out. I am having an absolute blast playing. I am positively surprised of how well you balanced the game and the roster; no character is close to unusable, they all have at least one niche. Will we ever see the map of Brauma?

[TytheBub]

-During the cutscenes there are some npcs that look exactly the same. In chapter 10 there are two bandits clones onscreen at the same time.

Hah, well, you can just blame that on my personal taste

-In the “pick units” and “trade” menus, when I select a character and scroll through the them, Kathe gets skipped.

Well, that’s a weird one. I don’t believe I’ve given her character slot any special treatment. She uses Canas’s slot so it isn’t like it’s special or anything. At least it isn’t game breaking but I’ll have to look at that. There is a thing that allows you to turn the status screen off for certain characters but iirc if that was applied to her, you wouldn’t be able to see her status screen at all but you can very well click on her still to look at it. Hmm.

-What happens to Yotsmung after chapter 18? It looked very interesting as a weapon.

Max swiped it when no one was looking.

It’s back again in the final chapter, after all.

-While all chapters felt very well tought out, chapter 21 Kotan route is a nightmare. It is the only chapter I find unfair. It is not even funny, it is just frustrating. I was very happy of no ambush spawn, until this chapter.

Well, I’m a psychopath who likes the Sacae route in FE6.

Will we ever see the map of Brauma?

Well I do have one I drew in mspaint while I was working on the hack. I don’t think it’s very good but it gives the general idea of the land well enough. If I were to make a much more prettied up map, some things might be different but 95% the same. (Coincidentally, I have been looking at information regarding world map related stuff lately. Maybe something will come of it, I can’t say for sure right now.)
Anyway, since you asked, here it is. Draco being short for the Dragon Mountains Freesia lives in obviously and the ? area is where the last few chapters took place in.

[8vio]

Another relevant thing I loved about this game is how all classes received a nice treatment:
-All single-weapon, unmounted and strenght based classes receive a class exclusive weapon, with the exception of fighter, brigand, pirate, berserker. Is this due to the fact that fighters gets bows after promotion and brigands, pirates and berserkers have special movement?
-All single-weapon, unmounted and strenght based promoted classes have a critical hit boost. I suppose this is more or less the same tought process as above. It balances the fact of being weapon locked.
-Knights having access to 2 types of weapons (and a triangle attack) and all weapons after promotion. Does this balances out their low movement and weapon vulnerability?
-Mounted units are in general very good but not overpowered. Is this due to their statistics?

I have read that this game is unfriendly to early promotions but I do not agree. I have early promoted a lot of units (since many of them join at level 10 or higher) and they were all at least serviceable from start to finish. I think this is a misconception due to the fact that prepromoted units are very good, making an eraly promoted unit (which could be blessed or screwed) look inferior by comparison.

[Mr.PlayThrough]

Alrighty, so I am currently midway through the story and I have a few complaints (lol), but seriously:

• Arthur has an extremely low growth rate, he’s already Lvl 17 Cleric but he still has single digits on all his stats except for luck (magic is a glaring 7 when all of my units are already past the 30 HP mark) he becomes almost unusable in the later chapters due to insufficient heals ( heck even Niya heals more than him and he has Mend while Niya has Heal)

• also Fiana, she has become one of my staple units (cant really replace her since all my other fliers have trash stats) , just stagnated… like literally, after she capped her spd at lvl 13, her other stats just stopped increasing, every level just went to hp and nothing else (she is currently lvl 17 and I am planning to get her to 20 before promoting cuz 1. I’m trying to see if her other stats still increase and 2. no Elysian whip yet)

• myrmidons are terrible in this hack, although they get Wo Dao upon recruitment, they just dont really make a difference since even with a Wo Dao they still rarely crit ( especially Horton, god that guy misses even with a 95 Hit)

• and the Lords, what’s with the stark difference in stat growths? My tactician and Orion are on the same level but Orion already capped Strength and Def while my tactician still has 8 Magic (my only consolation here is that my tactician rarely misses and always doubles due to high Skl and Spd)

All in all, I dont know if I am just unlucky with this playthrough or is the RNG broken on this hack, but deym, the stat distribution is a mess

[PsychoLogical]

I know the absence of the standard 1-2 weaps aka the Hand Axe and Javelin were an intentional design, but it still would’ve been nice if the endgame preparation chapter aka 25x had them available for the endgame instead of them being unavailable until post game.

That’s really all.

[Pushwall]

Spoilery endgame bug report

If Freesia “dies”, the cutscene after defeating the final boss crashes trying to move a unit that doesn’t exist. The branch that tries to spawn her as an NPC if she’s dead doesn’t seem to be working (but on the other hand the same logic being applied to Zahhak in the same scene does work.)

[monk-han]

Hey!
I was havivng a ton of fun with this hack, its one of the few that really feels like a classic FE game!
So since I was learning how to mess with portraits and FE Builder, I customized the game to my liking as a hobby.

I modified some portraits for my favorite characters and also added some portraits for the units when promoted, just like what happens with Ike on path of radiance.
Just wanted to share them with you guys!

Orion


Changed his pallet to differentiate him from Hector, since his name is based on a star I think the white hair and armor fits quite well.

Tactician


named him Verdell and it fit quite well! His promo portrait I did based on Leon since the class was also based on him

Fresia


for Fresia I added a tattoo and a gem. Did this gem thing for most promoted mages
(based on Sephiran from JeyTheCount and Klein as a mage from Freefall)

Wren


armor based on Leons Dad

Sherie


promoted portrait based on Louise from Fe7

Shermie

promoted portrait based on Echidna portrait by Lenh

Blair

Love this guy so much! Promoted portrait based on Dark Knigh portrait by JiroPaipai and Eirene by Ghostblade913

Francine


Also one of my favorites units and also Tactician´s wife, did two versions for her, based on Mathilda by Buskhuster and Sigrun by quotedotlass and electric serge

Emma


Hacked her to turn her into a early game soldier/halberdier ! really like the color scheme

she was based on this portrait, I cant check who did it

Eli


changed eli first portrait a bit based on Will´s hair , and his promoted portrait I did based on Innes and this portrait of Flasuban that I cant check who did it

Chandra


changed her completly, I did like the original but felt it was too plain compared to the other units.
both portraits based by Sonya portraits done by Redbean and Jeythecount

Mide


also changed Mide completly just because I really liked this other portrait, it is named Nobody_c, I dunno if its the artist. For the promoted portrait I used the armor assets from Hinoka portrait by Garytop

Horton


I really liked Horton original design, but I jst really wanted a green haired swordsman… his promoted portrait is based on a Lyn portrait by MonkeyBard and Wasdye

Ashley


Ash promoted portrait based on Elincia by NickT and Stitch!

Ty


same with Mide, I really liked Ty original portrait but I just loved this portrait by Laurent Lacroix so I had to use it! I am sorry though that I cant find who I based his promoted portrait on

Dakini


I really like Dakini concept! Her portrait is basically Rinkah by Jey the Count, and her promo portrait has armor asset from this portrait I cant find the author

Darius


I really like Darius as a character! his promoted portrait was based on MysteriousDancer´s Valter

Kiri

just did a small modification based on Karel by Wasdye

Ronaldo


I really like Ronaldo original portrait, so I almost didnt change it. I only changed it because I love legault and wanted to use his portrait basically. I think the color scheme worked really nice though!

Thats it! What do you guys think?
Really hope you dont feel offended by this, I did not mean it as critisim since I really loved the hack! Just something I did for fun in a hack I really really enjoyed

thanks for making this game!

[ReedRacer]

Whoa, those are super cool! Can’t speak for the hack author as I’m just another guy who played the game, but I love the changes you made (though I’d keep Ronaldo’s original one.)

To be clear, I love both the original portraits as well as the new versions you did. That’s a lot of hard work on your part.

Sorry if it’s a dumb question or if I missed it, but did you also recolor the sprites/combat animations for the characters as well?

[monk-han]

hey man! thanks alot! yeah, I think I also prefer Ronaldo´s original one! haha as i said, I just wanted to play as Legault again, one of my all time faves

yeah I did recolour them all! Actually I even added a lot of new animations to a lot of classes. I can send you the modified rom if you want to check the changes!

[Silver-Star]

That’s some nice portraits and alterations based on the DLATMOL cast. They look really impressive if you ask me. Like the Promoted change of what they look like.

[monk-han]

thanks man! that was exactly the idea!

I was playing them with their original portrait, and only changed it to the new one when promoted

[TytheBub]

Well, I’m glad you liked the game. My characters look the way they do for a reason but that’s still pretty neat with what you did. Also, since you say you’re messing with FEbuilder, good luck if you plan to do your own hack eventually.

[monk-han]

thanks!

yeah man! Thanks. I never meant to propose a change to the original game, the original really works amazingly! Just wanted to do a personal edit for myself and share it with you guys because I really liked the characters

I dont intend to do a hack myself but I do collaborate with some projects with art and animation, also hope to do more art for the Resource Repository

[monk-han]

I can send the modified ROM for you or someone who is interested in playing and judging the changes. But I wont put an UPS modification patch in respect for the original hack

[Darrman]

Don’t do that. Distribution of pre-patched roms is against the rules.

@dancer_A

Do not distribute ROMs or other illegal or plagiarized content through the chat.

[dancer_A]

Yeah maybe make your own project next time instead of hijacking an existing one lol

[monk-han]

ok ! Wont redistribute it wasnt my intetion

It also wasnt my intention to ´´hijack`` anything… as I said, just a customization I did for myself

[Kanna]

Chandra is intended to be ugly , i must say…

[TheDogFromEldenRing]

I consider not making this a word wall but fuck it! if you can spend all this time making a fan game for no other reason than just to do it, the least I can do is praise it.

First off things I didn’t like. (wow look nothing!)

Alright first I loved how our main guy is called a tactician, and he actually does smart strategic moves. too many characters in media are called smart, and don’t do smart things and don’t beat odds our lovely tactician however does and I adore him/myself all the more for it. Second everyone has supports and they’re finished. if there’s one thing that really breaks my immersion playing a romhack it’s when some supports are done and others are not. it really throws me off and hurts the immersion.
Not here though. so many supports and so many high-quality supports made this rom hack an absolute treat! may Naga bless you for actually making the dragon unit fun to use and actually good in a fight by making the dragonstone infinite. Oh my God, I cannot believe that Fire Emblem has not done this already. (OK so I guess there’s like Corrin and is in his dragon stone but shut up I’m talking). Really liked Kiri as a character my God that’s C support between Fresia and Kiri. So many good supports that really make the characters deep. and those final ten chapters my God the plot twist the unexpected allies it was amazing it felt like a final act of a Fire Emblem game I adored just about everything in the final ten chapters it was good before don’t get me wrong, but man did it just take a wild turn. Let me tell you.
I also have to praise you for really making me think I knew a character by looking at their portrait and then just being surprised. I was certain that Ronaldo was going to betray Orion. I felt it in my bones I’ve seen this before I’m a fire emblem veteran, but no I was wrong he’s actually a rat-faced king. An absolute legend I love the guy. when I figured out that my expectations had been played with I knew this was gonna be a ROM hack that actually was gonna have that writing quality I just love to see. A bit of niche price that I think is also needs to be from your way is and I love Orion’s fighting animation and secondly I love how it’s actually mentioned and multiple supports people talk about how absolutely wild the way he fights is and not only do they mention it. In Ronaldo’s support you actually learn how that wasn’t something that had to be done but let me tell you it endeared me so much to him I learned a lot about Orion why his fighting style is so much different, that’s quality craftsmanship right there.
Side note but I actually let Ty die because I thought he was just going to be a one note justice character. boy did uhhh… yeah sorry Ty I’m just used to piss poor right writing I’m so sorry. he was so much deeper than I thought. but not as deep as the Lance that went through his chest. he will be missed. OK, but how about someone who doesn’t miss. So about the Durga question. I knew I was gonna really like this character when in your commentary you said you had a lot of fun writing her, because man she is both intimidating and fun too go up against. I don’t know why is it because she has a little bit more depth than most other antagonists? Is it because she’s been shown to be such a force of nature that actually beating her, with the ice bucket challenge felt so satisfied and it felt like a real victory over her? I’m not sure but I pretty much was always happy when Durga was on screen minus the time that she was Attempting to kill me of course.

Yeah, in summary I don’t think there’s a single bad character simple characters sure but not badly written. also the jokes were pretty funny. whenever the bandits were on screen I swear to God there was a 5050 chance that I’m saying something funny. when they show up and bail you out and are singing I couldn’t believe my eyes. it was so damn funny but later I realized I had actually experienced the greatest humiliation any fire emblem player could have. I WAS SAVED BY BANDITS!. Bandits have one purpose in Fire Emblem and this is to die or be recruited and then die because I have too many axe users. So the fact that I was bailed out by them haunts my dreams I cry waking up knowing that I have been saved by bandits and I’ll never recover.

Final note to serve as the Saul Goodman for Durga these people who say she’s a “murderer” or a “pro genocide” person with no character development. I point to exhibit A of the title card where if you have A support with Durga and the tactician she drags you out of your man cave to go out and win the war this is surprising since she loves war the idea of bringing the greatest military mind to go handle it would greatly lower the time the war would go on. if that’s not character development I don’t know what is.

amazing Romack absolutely adored it, it was a great experience, Cheers Mate!

[ReedRacer]

A Sherie and Shermie supposed to have a super-quick building support? I’m on chapter 9 and I’m already unlocking their A-rank support.