Fire Emblem: Divine Inheritance (Demo Released - First 9 Chapters)

[LeifOClaude]

Welcome to Divine Inheritance, an FE8 hack the ICFE Team has been working on for about a few years now. We’re finally ready to show off some of the work we’ve done, we hope you enjoy it, and of course, be sure to post any feedback you have.

FEE3 Trailer

Nov 2021

Features:

• Unique Cast, Portraits, Palettes, Story, and Maps

• Each Unit Gets Their Own Personal Skill

• Base Conversations like the Tellius Games (Accessed Through the Supports Menu in Battle Prep)

• Personal Weapons

• New Items Known as Stat Runes that Alter your Stats when Held

Download Link

Act 1 Demo

Screenshots:

Credits

ICFE Team

• Project Lead - Leif

• Writers - Splat, Elise, Sung, Emblan, Leif, Stitch

• Maps - Bones, Leif

• Sprites and Animations - Stitch

• Playtesters - Despy, Bers, Rikki, Splat, Elise, Sung, Emblan, Leif, Stitch, Bones, Forte

• Special Thanks to Deliwood

PATCHES
7743, Argo, Brendor, Leonarth, aera, Zeta, circleseverywhere, Stan, Kaito, Kenpuku, Tequila, Hextator, HyperGammaSpaces, Snakey1, Midori, ZaneAvernathy, ipatix, Sme, Scraiza, Alusq

SKILLSYSTEMS
Circleseverywhere
Monkeybard & Black Mage for most of the skill icons; Blaze for Stances skill icons
Tequila, Rossendale, StanH, Leonarth, Teraspark, sd9k, Kao, blademaster, Snakey1 for skills
Primefusion for the test map

MUSIC
ZoramineFae, SurfingKyogre, Mycahel, Sme, A_Reliable_Chair, MrGreen3339, RandomWizard

SPLICING CREDITS
NickT, Blueey, Frigid, Glaceo, BatimaTheBat, Der, Blaze, Card, Lenh, Obsidian, Atey, SomeDenseGuy, Feier, BuskHusker, Sqrtpi

ICON CREDITS
L95, Jeorge_Reds, MeatOfJustice

ANIMATION CREDITS
MK404

SPECIAL THANKS
Snek
7743
Pikmin1211
Leo_Link

If you believe we may have used your work without crediting you, please contact me immediately and I will add you to the credits.

Credits

About

Origins

The game originally started as a passion project a whole server of friends contributed to, the idea being that each one of us would create a character for the game. This is why some characters bear the same name as some of our team members.

Plot
Our story begins in the island kingdom of Mahina. While awaiting her Father’s return from his pilgrimage, the Princess Naomi finds herself in danger when the castle itself suddenly comes under attack. Fearing for her father’s safety, she leaves the castle with a group of trusted knights to find his whereabouts and perhaps bring an end to the revolt now occurring in Mahina.

Current Progress

Divine Inheritance is planned to be comprised of 4 arcs, the first of which comprises this playable build.

Arc 1 Status: Complete!

Arc 2 Status: All maps finished, currently fixing bugs and adjusting some story details.

Arc 3 Status: Nothing

Arc 4 Status: Nada

Known Bugs

• There is sometimes a bug where units counter foes they do not have the range to counter.
• Skipping a talk conversation may cause the screen to go black until a button is pressed.
• Units may not display atk, hit, and other stats in menus until they go into combat.
• Base convos display even if you do not have the required units.
• Rylor’s personal skill does not immediately update the combat window to reflect it’s activation.
• Fighting the Chapter 3 Boss may glitch out the screen.

[Gultykappa]

The trailer and screenshots definitely make the game look really freaking epic. I’m definitely downloading the game on day 1 of it dropping.

[Pikmin1211]

Look at me getting specially thanked… no idea what for but I’ll take it

[ElPinguinot]

I didn’t knew about the project before the showcase at the FEE3, but The trailer was very promising ! Can’t wait to try the game

[LeifOClaude]

The demo of Arc 1, the first 9 chapters of the game, is now officially up! The link is in the post above.

[Stitch]

Happy to finally be able to share something of our work! Hope you enjoy Arc 1 and look forward to Arc 2 as a lot of it was showcased in the FEE3 trailer.

[knabepicer]

Hey, I played the first few chapters.

Thoughts

Prologue:
Starting with just Naomi and having Gaige/Stitch show up a turn later is kinda odd pacing, since you basically doo nothing on the first turn of the game. Shrinking the map and changing the turn timing to cutt out some of the dead turns would be a good idea.
Chapter 1:
This map also seemed weird pacing-wise with where the playable archer appears (wish he had an iron bow for accuracy, I forgot to buy one later too), and the reinforcements you kinda hang behind for. At the end, you have a couple turns of just moving forward to reach the boss. Again I think reducing size here would help.
Chapter 2:
This was probably my favorite one so far. Although the map is large, there’s enough enemies to be doing stuff, and the anti-tutrtle isn’t negligible like the thieves in the first two chapters. My gripe is with the boss; 55 avoid is pretty ridiculous for this early in the game, and only the merc and mage knight do okay against him.
Chapter 3:
This map is just too large and sparse. Much of it is just moving forward (Rudra is too dang good at killing), although you at least have to respect the pirate going for the village. I’m not sure whhat the far right pirate reinforcements are supposed to accomplish, I killed the boss before they made landfall and I wasn’t particularly hurrying. It’s also where the lack of convoy access got a bit annoying.

General gameplay stuff:
Game mostly plays okay, not too difficult, I just think the experience could be a lot tighter with some smaller maps. Rudra is extremely powerful (especially with being the best archer counter), but most everyone else seems appropriate for the enemies. The knight’s prf is pretty cool, I was a little skeptical of an armor who started with 7 base defense, but he hit his growths well. F!myrm seemed pretty bleh, but unbreakable killing edge is fun. Really hoping for convoy/preps soon

Story:
I’ve only just started it, but it seems alright. Naomi being noticeably younger than how FE lords usually are is an interesting dynamic, most characters (Rudra in particular) have fun dialogue. Overall plot seems straightforward, I was confused why the pegasus knight thought it’d be a bad thing to “spread panic” by telling her squad that the castle was under attack; isn’t it their job as soldiers to deal with that kind of thing?

Bugs:
-The pegasus’s skill seems to only rarely work, when it’s supposed to.
-I have no idea how the pirate’s skill is supposed to work. I gave him a red gem and couldn’t find what changed.
-A lot of the time it’s not possible to see battle stats for units, instead just – is shown:

-Screen glitched out after fighting the chapter 3 boss:

[Sphealnuke]

Hey, played through the demo. Put some assorted thoughts down here.

GAMEPLAY

-I played on Normal since there was no recommendation in the main post. Enemy stats did feel pretty low for how strong some of the skills were.

-Loads of maps felt bigger than they needed to be. Once the initial guys and reinforcements died I was often spending several turns just walking everyone to the boss. In some cases the anti-turtle incentives were solved before the halfway point. If you want the space to be used for more, you should make the player plan out moves further.

-Not having a convoy for so long sucked. It could be planned around but it was really obnoxious. The worst was with the prison break, where Maui picks up more items than he can carry at the start. Discarding a vulnerary really made it harder than it should have been.

-Bosses are mostly jokes with some of your units (Rudra in particular, since he can outrange just about all of them). Most of them don’t even move or have the ability to contest his range. The prison break boss was the worst, barely covering any of his hallways and just waiting for you to wail on him.

-There was hardly anything good to buy. No steels even, just replenishing your base stuff and grabbing Torch staves. You do you, but it feels awkward.

-The stat changers are a big thing for your hack, but you can’t get one before Ballter and there’s hardly any time to mess around with it.

UNITS

-Naomi: Healer lord with not much else. Using her defensive skill was usually not needed but did help sometimes. I guess it’s weird working with a lord that can’t attack, but whatever.

-Gaige: His Veteran’s Lance is absolutely busted but beyond that he doesn’t have much. 4 move means he lags behind on the massive maps, he often faces crit and isn’t that much more durable than your other units. Easy bench in my eyes.

-Stitch: Kills things pretty good. Mine grew a lot of defense for some reason. Figuring out the bonuses he gets from gems is a bit awkward. If there’s nothing about it in the guide, adding something there might help. The Blue Gem’s effect is good, but only +10 hit from the Red Gem is not worth it.

-Rudra: No offense, but how did this unit design ever get off the ground? He’s more durable than everyone else, farts out damage like it’s nothing, has Canto+, outranges all enemies with his move and tome range and can even heal on top of that. He doesn’t even have bad growths, so giving him a little time in the arena will keep him way above par. You have ridersbanes specifically for him, but they do nothing to curb him when he can kill them from across the country.
In maps where you’re meant to split, he often just took one side all by himself with little issue. Sure he eats EXP, but he doesn’t need it. My immediate thoughts are to either drop his defenses or take away Tome Range +1. He does not need both at least.

-Rylor: Rylor’s skill will basically always be active, and the Energy Ring + a strength level or two will let her demolish anything that isn’t an armor knight. She capped speed before reaching level 10, even. Sure she is extremely frail, but she’s unironically the best combat unit after Rudra.

-Rikki: He’s an okay chipbot, but makes a terrible first impression since he loses so much AS from the Steel Bow. Without some speed increases he won’t have much better offenses than your regular dudes.

-Saffron: Meh footie. His skill doesn’t give him more crit than Mimi, and he doesn’t have early proc skills to take advantage of. I feel like he could use a different skill to do something initially.

-Mimi: Unbreakable sword. Yes. Her being built to enemy phase is awkward though, especially when her level 10 skill wants her to be used on player phase to activate it. Her dodge rates are still a bit shaky against non-axe dudes even with her skills. Definitely way better than Saffron.

-Maui: Dude’s a beast with massive stats all around. Needs them for the prison chapter though. It’s a shame I had to use up almost all of his personal tome before I got a Flux tome. Probably the best footie.

-Aeri: A thief with great combat growths. Almost never hit the strength growth though. 55% my ass.

-Roberto: He was there. His skill was useful during the prison break but I struggled to see why you would use him over Stitch.

No real complaints about the art.

STORY/WRITING

It was okay. It’s a small conflict against a throwaway villain for the first part, and I guess it will get more interesting for Act 2. I just don’t personally gel with a smol girl lord struggling with seeing war. It’s not my thing.

Are there supports? I wasn’t able to get any really. Most were okay. Rylor was boring, Rikki/Saffron tread the same ground a bit with their introductions and Aeri’s joke isn’t my thing. The advisor was also just a really bland evil, but that seemed intentional. Anyone I didn’t mention was fine.

There were a fair amount of typos throughout the script. The only one I immediately recall though was the advisor misspelling “execution” in the 1-E intro cutscene.

Bugs

-Enemies often don’t display their hit/crit/damage stats in their stat windows. No idea what would cause this. Never seen anything like it before.

-Rylor’s skill sometimes doesn’t work. Backing out of the damage window and reselecting the weapon fixes this.

-When Maui attacks, his cape freezes during the cast. You can definitely set proper loop sections in the animation.

-Maui’s Fury skill says it increases the mentioned stats by +2, but it actually increases them by +3.

-The fog looked fairly glitched in the castle interiors.

-Some bosses did not have death quotes.

-Sometimes the 1-E boss’s music would cut out when Rudra attacked her.

Hope this helps the team out.

[LeifOClaude]

Thank you for the feedback! We will definitely look into making adjustments to the pace and size of the initial chapters. We meant to add info on Stitch’s personal in the guide but I forgot to do so, so thank you for bringing attention to that as well as the bug in chapter 3, which we have not seen before.

[LeifOClaude]

Thanks for playing through the demo and giving us your detailed feedback!

Currently there are no differences in difficulty so Normal is the same as Hard right now. We’ll definitely consider granting earlier access to the convoy for the sake of player convenience and tightening up the initial maps. There are supports, but we haven’t implemented the dialogue for them within the game itself yet. However, there should have been base convos available in the last two chapters prep screens under the support menu. The Arc 1 plot is supposed to be rather simple as you deduced, and things will pick up in Arc 2. We’ll make sure to look into the bugs and issues you identified as well.

[Sung]

If we can reproduce that bug, we could use it as “surprise difficulty mechanics” for the final map :^)

[idgietgoode]

Just beat the demo, it was great! The varied objectives kept things engaging and fun, and even though the Act 1 story isn’t anything particularly outlandish it’s plenty enough to catch your attention and hold it. It feels like a vanilla FE, in all the good ways and none of the bad.

I ran into one bug only: the game hangs after the conversation in the house next to the eastern village in the chapter outside the prison, the last one before Maui’s escape (I forgot the chapter number, sorry). I don’t know if it matters who enters it, but it was Mimi for me; resetting and resuming lets you skip the conversation and the bug, so it’s not a huge issue.

I also noticed a few typos scattered throughout, if you’re okay with it I’d like to help proofread the script!

[Sphealnuke]

Not to badger you guys or anything, but how is progress looking on the 2nd act? I know it was close to completion when this thread was first posted but I’m just curious to see how it’s going.

[LeifOClaude]

Progress has sadly been slower than anticipated lately and we would also like to tweak Act 1 in accordance with some of the feedback we received. I do not think we will be able to get the Act 2 demo out in spring; it will probably release within the summer when we have more time to work on the project.

[ElPinguinot]

Take all the time you need, I’m sure the result will be much than worth the wait !