This hack was so good that I had to make an account to comment. Looking forward to seeing more of your work in the future! I enjoyed the writing most of all and I thought your support system was interesting because it made each support convo specific and relevant to each map. Your characterization of Lyon in particular was the best part of the story and the portrayal of his inner struggle was just chef’s kiss. Oh, and the difficulty was just right (although I did do unholy amounts of arena abuse). Anyways, until you decide to make your next project, I’ll be trying out Eckesachs and Princess’ Lament.
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Thank you very much for your kind words! Might I ask that you share your endgame team? I always enjoy seeing people’s teams.
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Oh yeah, of course.
Spoilers
I used the same team more or less for both endings besides the two notable swapouts so I’ll just list all my Lyon ending characters and then have the two replacements at the end.
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Mister Lion? More like Mister GOAT. Used two Juna fruits on this bad boy.
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Lieselott? More like LieseGOAT. I love all my trainee units, plus I had to get a peg-knight early.
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Tiffani is great, great to use and well written too. Had to promote to bishop so she could Slay.
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Tirado has excellent growths and I like his little dynamic with Zabba and Zonta.
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Bone, an excellent thief-warrior thing. Loved his supports with Zabba.
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I knew Selena would be amazing the moment I saw them growths. Never disappointed me and I tried to stick to her canon promotion. Great as both a staff user and a mage.
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Saaga’s pretty funny and so’s her dynamic with Jude, had to let her get the L’Arachel kill. Mostly used her for staff-ing but she’s decent at attacking too.
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Pablo’s just a meme and I didn’t find him particularly special as a unit but him being Rennac’s grandpa and dying cause he chased a single coin down a well is pretty funny.
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Novala? More like GOATvala. His growths are ass and he’s not a particularly strong magic-user but the summons came in handy a lot, especially when you combine his summons with Lyon’s and Medusa’s. Oh, and him being perpetually forgotten is pretty funny.
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Speaking of Medusa, I did like her reveal that Fomortiis is just a big fish in a small pond and her summoning and being strong in her own right made her really fun to use alongside Valter. Their ending together was worth getting.
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Morva, used him to the end so I could sic him on Myrrh to see the dialogue. Worth it and seeing the Mansel support where Latona(?) calls out to him was great.
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Melina, sic’d her on Amelia for the plot. Makes it extra tragic. Also, she’s a trainee so she’s automatically a top tier unit by the end, gave her Nidhogg.
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I know Deni’s prolly an odd choice but I had a niche use for him in double casting Bolting, Purge, Shadowshot, etc. Also his whole plot with Nate is pretty cute. Nice to see the representation.
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Valter, I thought he’d betray me by the end for some reason so I was surprised to see him on our side regardless of what choice you pick. I picked him over Glen cause he ended up getting better growths, I don’t recall whether his growths were genuinely better or if Glen just had bad rolls early on, either way I benched Glen pretty early in favor of this guy.
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Riev - Yes, I decided to have two Bishops cause you can never have enough Slayers. Nah, it was because I wanted to keep it as close to canon as possible. Not amazing per se, but I liked him enough as a character and his dynamic with Selena enough to keep him around.
Now for Swapout number 1 -
Beran! Decent archer if I’m being honest but I don’t recall exactly why I didn’t use him for the Lyon ending. Kind of mediocre in terms of writing compared to most of the cast but at least he was a decent unit.
Swapout number 2 -
Caellach! Great stats, great writing, funny man who broke my heart when the time came to kill him but he had it coming from when he got Lyon to do whatever he did to Joshua. His surprising friendship with Glen was interesting to read too.
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Spoiler
Why is Gerik so OP ? The only one who doesn’t get doubled by him is Lyon but he won’t survive. 23 speed is way too high and his other stats are ridiculous for that level.
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Easy kill
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v1.10 released!
- Fixed a tile in chapter 26 not having the correct platform and background assigned, and a tile in chapter 9 not having the correct platform assigned.
- Fixed L’Arachel’s AI change in chapter 26x potentially causing issues.
- Fixed the secret book on the boat in chapter 13 not being droppable.
- Made playable Morva’s class unpromoted, to further increase his experience gains.
- Increased the boost of secret books and goddess icons to +4 skill and luck, respectively.
- Increased unlock staff’s range to 1-3.
Well, he has no range and his bulk isn’t that high, so you have to try and snipe him from afar. Worst case scenario, he’ll start moving if Saleh arrives and he’s still alive, likely positioning himself in a spot where you can more easily pepper him with arrows and magic.
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I mean, he doesn’t have 1-2 range so i just lowered his HP via magic and arrows (and letting zabba get the kill)
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Alternative strategy: promote Zabba into Assassin and rig a silencer 
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Lmao i promoted her to an assassin about 5 minutes ago, i haven’t been able to play for a while but i’m on break so i’ve been quickly advancing the entire day, speaking of which
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Given this hack likes to shit on Frelia, this is a genuinely good piece of writing. With their supposed experience in recon and covert opps, this seems like exactly the sort of thing they’d plan for.
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I didn’t mean to shit on Frelia in particular, it just lined up like that due to my shenanigans with a certain character lol
Anyway, yeah, I needed a gimmick for Innes since he couldn’t get Nidhogg for his fight, and eventually I figured since he’s supposed to be a pretty good tactician, he could pull off a dastardly trick like this.
3 Likes
I just finished Dark Stone and I must say that was really really difficult. Good thing that I am an evil Overlord and humans are so very replaceable.
Spoilers! The final team:
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Formortiis:
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Mansel:
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Medusa:
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Beran:
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O’Neill:
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Glen:
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Caellach:
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Pablo:
I lost a lot of people in the last chapters. Honorable mentions to:
- Bazba, died to all those strong enemy mages in the end.
- Saar, who died to the huge enemy blob coming your way on the Myrrh Map.
- Saaga, who sadly got one shot by an enemy general with a spear.
- Selena, died because of the final choice.
- Riev, who indeed got carried away in Rausten. He had too much fun.
- McGregor, who forgot to put away his purge against an enemy doggo.
- Aias, with the best death quote btw. Sadly he struggled in the end against all those enemies with their big stats. And maybe because I miscalculated.
Spoilers! My thoughts on my used units:
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Lyon:
Interesting Lord, a bit squishy at the beginning (which I like, reminded me a bit of Micaiah). His high magic allowed me to finally make use of status staves and not let them rot in my inventory, because they will never hit when needed anyways. So that was pretty cool. His unique tome also gave him a unique niche against all those powerful mages and their pesky ~10 crit in the early game. Used both fruits on him. -
Selena:
I had a defense blessed Selena I believe. I gave her two angelic robes and she turned into a formidable front line unit with two range and killing potential. MVP of my run. -
Beran:
Struggled a bit with his low luck, but was a very useful unit against enemy fliers that could take a couple hits with his high defense. -
O’Neill:
Great offensive stats and enough HP to not take a dirt nap right away. -
Riev:
Very useful in the early game because of his solid defense and resistance, as well as being able to deal a good amount of damage with his accuracy. Later fell off a bit and I didn’t equip his unique tome. That’s on me for being a fool though. -
Glen:
He is a flying unit, what more is there to say. I liked his let’s say “bromance” with Caellach. That’s it. Beside that I didn’t find him too interesting or useful. -
Bazba:
Very high speed, HP and strength turned him into a monster, that could defeat anything in his path. Sitting on a hill against Mogalls spelled his doom though sadly. -
Aias:
I liked him, but he was not too great. The stat boosts I used on him made him useful enough at least. He also struggled against all the powerful mages. -
Caellach:
Solid unit. Don’t have many thoughts on him. -
Saar:
His low strength was annoying sometimes, but he had good resistance, defense and luck, which made him a useful frontliner and especially useful against the early game mages with their annoying crit from thunder and light magic. -
Saaga:
Started as a useful healer but after promotion was a powerful offensive mage too. I didn’t like her too much as a character, but as she was the only healer next to Lyon, she is almost a must have. -
Zonta and Zabba:
Sadly they were a little underleveled and I had to sacrifice them in the fight against Gerik and Saleh. I will try them more in a future run. -
Deni:
Died to poison on the very turn he got his dark flute or whatever. That was unfortunate! And you get all the extra dancer/bard items in that chapter too. Oof! -
Monica and the massive monsters:
They had a hard time to shine, both character and gameplay wise. I either benched them or they died a hopefully heroic death. -
Pablo:
While he was tanky, he was also slow and would be in danger of being doubled and killed by a lot of things. With his low luck I turned him into a formidable healer later on. -
McGregor:
Very useful. High magic, high resistance, even after losing two at the end. Very solid unit. -
Vigarde:
Solid unit, sadly died to me not being focused. (Shit, I forgot about that ballista) -
Medusa:
Interesting unit, powerful. Shadow shot came in handy. Summoning came in handy. The lore that gets added with her is interesting (Is it a hint at a future hack?
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Mansel:
Useful staff bot. -
Formortiis:
I did the last two chapters only with him and it felt good! Punch some people in the face.
Spoilers! Thoughts on the story:
The story was solid. Especially in the last chapters where people start to yield to despair. I did not like that Hayden becomes a traitor to his own country. I guess you just needed a way to make a creature campaign hero usable, but somehow that bothered me. But that was just such a minor thing and really just my personal taste.
I think a lot of units had a hard time to be interesting, as the spotlight is on Lyon and the generals. The changes about their growing friendship are interesting.
The supports are cool, I like that they always are based on what is currently happening in the story. As they are very limited though, many units struggle. Especially if their main gimmick is being kinda stupid. I think that happened too often to the lackeys (for example Murray, Novala, Breguet I guess).
Spoilers! Random stuff I noticed:
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Some enemies in the last chapters move even though they show no movement, when you click on them. I noticed it with the necro dragon in front of Myrrh. And Selena and Riev too I think.
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In the chapter at Fort Rigwald: There is a druid that spawns on the same stair tile as a shaman. (Right where your units enter the fort at the start of the chapter, I think the reinforcements come three times and the third time they are on top of each other if I remember correctly.)
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In the chapter against L’Arachel and Dozla I accidentally finished the chapter by killing her, even though I thought I need to kill both. No clue what’s in that super secret treasure:( Maybe you can add the conditions as an info in the guide (or maybe it was clear and I just can’t read. In that case nevermind)
Gameplay:
Damn, I think that was the most difficult GBA Fire Emblem I’ve ever played. You must have turned into an evil dungeon master after creating Eckesachs! For clarification: I did not use the Tower of Valni to grind and did not use the arena. I tried to play as ironman-like as possible. I played on the highest difficulty.
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The game is full of 10 to 15 crit chance enemies. In the early game it is mages with thunder and light magic. Later on 5 crit weapons like Tomahawks get added into the mix. A lot of your units have rather low luck, so you really have to be careful and play around that. Mages are fast in general and books are not too heavy so they are a constant threat. Poor Gheb got doubled by Artur with Purge:D
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If I noticed it correctly Speed gives only 1 dodge instead of 2. As late game Fire Emblem usually turns into the big dodge tanking, that was a big change. Sometimes I really liked that change, other times I wished it was still a thing, mainly when the following happened:
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All the enemy units throw themselves against you in a big blob. I did not like those chapters (Marisa’s, L’Arachel’s and Myrrh’s come to my mind especially). It might be just a personal preference, but I found those chapters to be very difficult and frustrating. I had many losses. Maybe a skill issue.
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Other people have mentioned chapter 5x. I needed a couple tries for that one. There is not much room for mistakes. Especially when Orson joins, you might need to restart on your first try, if you want him. And his beloved.
On the one hand, I liked this chapter’s unforgiveness (is that a word?), on the other hand it can be frustrating and the replayability might also be impacted in a negative way. -
It was difficult to replace lost units in the end. Without grinding a bit they die like flies sadly.
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I did not really enjoy the endgame and noticed I pushed myself through it because I really like your hacks. I will look forward to try the hack on the medium difficulty for a change soon.
Overall I really enjoyed your new project. Thank you for creating this. I look forward to trying it on a lower difficulty, to have a bit more of a chill time and try new characters. Sorry for the wall of text. I hope the summaries at least make the parts that are interesting to you readable:)
3 Likes
I’m happy you enjoyed the hack, even with the difficulty concerns! Yeah, maybe next time you should give normal mode a shot haha. Make sure your game is updated when you do, at the start normal mode hadn’t been tested at all (hence why I noted hard as the “intended” difficulty) and I later got told that normal was also more difficult than it should’ve been.
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I really like your thoughts on the hack. Thanks for sharing them with us
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Ah! Hadn’t even noticed you’ve been finished for this long! I expected Sacred Stones to be next following an off-hand comment you made on the Eckesachs thread. While I can’t say I quite like the Sacred Stones cast as much as the Binding Bozos™ I’m still looking forward to seeing how this goes!
Sure, it probably doesn’t have Narcian in it…but a fellow can dream…
Plus, having no one escape unscathed such as characters like Saul, Raigh, Fir, etc. is always a fun time.
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Was there a special end scene of 18 if Zabba talks with Salah or does she just need to talk with Gerik? There was no way for her to survive a round with Salah in my game.
Also was the master seal supposed to be droppable with Amelia? I thought it was but it didnt drop
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She only needs to fight against Gerik for the scene at the end of the chapter.
Amelia is being stingy and refuses to drop Master Seal. You need to steal it with a certain Rogue.
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Ah thanks for the answers! I was going to as Bazba but decided to go for the killing blow imstead. Dumb mistake lol
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need help with postgame
How do you kill tick
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Surely Valter will make for a fine replacement.
Help here
His caps are far lower than his base stats. After a roundd of combat, they will be adjusted to still powerful, yet beatable levels