It’s likely nomad trooper animations are not properly scripted at 1 range.
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Aye, that’s what I’m thinking too. From what the guide suggests, Mieu gets access to a Recurve Bow as well, so I imagine the Sniper class is better equipped to wielding it.
Plus, there IS that little arrow-sprite that travels from the attacker to the target. It could be that them being so close causes that to mess up to some degree.
…
Either that, or I did something I wasn’t supposed to, and I’m the only person experiencing this.
Anyway!
Narcian’s position of Wyvern General has been overtaken by Galle.
But don’t you worry, Nar-Nar! I got your back! : D
…Huh…and that’s…
…Masochist is Griss, and I think Tactician is Excellus. I don’t know who the “Owl” is, nor the “Councilman.” Is the latter one of the Tellius senators like Oliver or Lekain? … …It’s not Hetzel, is it? I mean, Marla of all people is in this game – I wouldn’t be surprised if it was someone commonly forgotten. She’s talking about mages, so that narrows it down somewhat. Shoot, I haven’t been keeping up with my “cannon fodder bosses” studies.
(Oh, wait, I forgot Pablo existed. I guess he COULD be “councilman.” Guess that’s what I get for almost never playing Eirika route…)
…Actually, what’s Trimier from? She mentions being from somewhere forgotten, so is it really as simple as her being an original character? As far as “forgotten” FE games go, my mind jumps to BS FE, or TearRing / Berwick. Google comes up with nothing, thanks to Timerra existing and having a similar name
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They weren’t but I thought I fixed it. Except… I forgot to set animations for missing. It threw me off because I thought the issue was only for the female nomad and neither class has them set - but if both classes have the problem, then yeah, that’s got to be it.
Fairly certain sniper hasn’t the issue, but I’d appreciate some confirmation. Will see about fixing the nomads in the meantime.
Owl is the nickname of Aion, the guy who gets trolled by Kishuna in that one FE7 gaiden. And yeah, Councilman is Pablo.
Spot on, actually. She is a really minor, enigmatic boss from Berwick Saga.
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Ah, sorry for the delay. I tested Mieu’s Recurve Bow in Chapter 21, and that seems to work just fine in close-range. Seems to mostly be an issue with the Nomad Troopers.
Either way, I’m almost done the hack, and I wanna give my full thoughts when that happens, but I’ve really been enjoying it so far!
Summary
I want to imagine Wolt and Bors looking for Roy as though he were a lost cat.
Wolt: “Here, Roy! Heeeeeere, Roy! Pspspspspspsps! You want a biscuit? You want a biscuit?! Pspsps! …Hey, Bors, you got a biscuit?”
Bors: “… …Wolt, every second we spend out here, more people are being slaughtered like cattle. Everyone I know and love is dead, and we are very likely next. No, I don’t have a biscuit.”
Wolt: “…Sheesh, maybe after we find Roy I’ll give you a biscuit too. You sound like you really need one.”
Ah, and you mentioned before that Klein and Wade–uh…“Ward,” were fought and killed in the other Western Isles route. I was curious, what happens in Illia? Is Allen fought instead of Lance? I only really know the characters that appear in the “conversations” tab of the guide like Niime, Zealot, and Juno. I kinda wanna make headcanons for what happened to every playable character who didn’t so much as get a mention as to their fate.
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Glad to hear that! On the spoilers, that’s a really fun image to get from such a bleak point of the hack lol
Haha, Wade/Ward throws me off too. Even more so in my case because Ward is the name of Berwick Saga’s deuteragonist and jeigan, so it feels weird that this random axeman from FE6 also has the name. And, frankly, I prefer Wade for him, but that’s subjective.
Anyway,
In Ilia you fight
Allen first, then Niime, Juno and Zealot. On the Gaiden chapter is Wallace (mirroring Sacae gaiden’s own FE7 returnee), who is really old and deaf, but still as ready to fight as ever.
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v1.20 released!
- Fixed an issue where nomad trooper bosses wielding the recurve bow softlocked the game if they missed.
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And, here’s my final team!
Villains of Elibe, and also Oates for some reason
The King of Bern, Zephiel
Keeper of the Elder Revelation, Idunn
Protector of the Saint’s Staff, Oates
Kingkiller with Tempest’s Bow, Mieu
Wielder of Maltet, Erik (Wishing he were Brave Hector)
The only half-decent Aureola user I had, Pheros
My HEAVILY RNG-screwed, Forblaze-wielding Brunnya
Jahn…he’s uh…he’s here for moral support
Legance, the guy who got left halfway through the final chapter, because he’s an armored unit…with Armads!
And of course…my MVP, the person who I lauded favoritism over for the entire second half of the game. The bearer of the Blazing Blade, Durandal! The Wyvern General, Nar–!
I–…Ah… …Unngh…okay, should’ve seen that coming to be honest…Well, he landed the final blow on Roy, so who’s laughing now, Zeph? …Mieu, because you’re dead, I guess.
As for stats…
Come on.
There’s only one unit whose stats actually mattered here.
Godspeed, Nar-Nar!
And of course…in memory of the fallen…
(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RnVvCmYrGF4)
Mitan - Didn’t like her recruitment conversation, and I decided she was more useful as EXP for Erik…
Mary - Decided I didn’t need two Snipers, and killed her with Mieu because I thought it would be funny. (It was…)
Ruben - Death by Arran-Samson Disease, and also because I was disappointed he wasn’t a multi-colored King Garon sprite…
Lamia - Only recruited her for the Brave Sword – threw her into Ruben’s range to see their boss-conversation, causing her to mysteriously die…from an axe in the face…
Daniella - With a face like that, I’m half-certain she was dead long before I killed her for the EXP…
Zinque - shrug …
Carlyle - Stripped of his Runesword and Warped right next to Yoder, because I thought it would be funny… (It also was…)
Catalena - Died in the ensuing rampage that was me feeding copious amounts of kills to a freshly-recruited Narcian…
Batta - Death by Arran-Samson disease… (It’s very contagious…)
Galle - Killed by Melady in a scene of pure dramatic irony, due to the actions of a mysterious, unnamed, yet likely very-handsome and charming Narcian fan…
…
Gone…but usually very quickly-forgotten…
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Congrats on finishing the game! You’re probably the only person I’ve ever seen actually use Narcian. He got benched immediately when I got him.
Jahn was a lot stronger than I thought he’d be; and capping speed helped him a lot in my run.
Too bad about Mitan, she was one of my better units. Not amazing, but consistently good all the way to the end of the game.
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That was your mistake. You gave him the Blazing Blade, not knowing I dislike FE7 and made it so anyone who wields its titular sword dies at the end.
Anyway, I can only respect your dedication to the good wyvern general (only one that actually has anything to do with wyverns too). Too bad it didn’t save his life, but hey, he had a good run! The best run, even.
Ayy, Live a Live. Good choice.
I like how petty some of those deaths are. I think my favorite is Zinque not even getting an explanation. He just died somehow. Reverse Palpatine in RoS. And of course, the Galle one is iconic.
Congrats on the finish!
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Yes, very i c o n i c
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Would that explain why you gave Durandal to Gwendolyn – who couldn’t even use it – instead of someone like Astolfo?
He did his best, proved his worth…not to Zephiel though, that’s for sure. Honestly, I’m just glad to finally play through an FE6 hack where Narcian was playable. :>
Hell yeah, Live A Live’s the best. Oersted’s one of my favorite characters in all fiction; I kinda HAD to squeeze Broken Wings in somewhere
Truth be told, it was mostly since I was worried about what would happen when I got to the 52-character limit. By the time I finally got to the chapter that explained it wasn’t really a big deal unless I reset the emulator, I just thought “Oh well, in for a penny.” And then Warped Carlyle in to eat a crit from Yoder out of spite.
But anyway, I forgot most of what I was going to say in regards to my experience with the hack. I think most of it was minor suggestions and whatnot: such as replacing some of the early-game Vulneraries with (possibly stealable) Elixirs to compensate for the lack of healers, or either swapping Legance’s Steel Axe for a Steel Lance to better suit his weapon-ranks or a Hammer to help with the Ostian Armor-Knights, which would actually fit his character quite well, especially since Ward isn’t around to give the player the early-game Hammer they’d normally have.
As for the writing, which is what’s most important, I quite liked it. Some things did feel a little odd, like other bosses from elsewhere in the series appearing even in spite of the cast-size already being larger than vanilla (As fun as Heddwyn being Debias’ brother was, and the slight amusement I found from Pheros becoming fanatic to Zephiel – who is the complete ideological opposite to Walhart.), as well as Narcian being a noble which (arguably) contradicts his FEH dialogue regarding his desperate clawing to the top or his conversation with Clarine, but none to such a degree that it actively detracted from the experience. Really, the writing mostly was positive and it’s clear a lot of effort went into both remaining faithful to the original, explaining why some circumstances are different than in the base game, and adding enough of note to keep it from feeling as though it were JUST Binding Blade from Bern’s perspective.
Of course, this helps better characterize the villains as well, since Zephiel in vanilla is…not the best. Even Blazing Blade’s look into his childhood doesn’t really give a full enough explanation as to his Darth-Vader esque transformation from a bright-eyed young teenager to a man whose goals revolve around the complete and utter genocide of his own race. In a way, the hack makes this goal seem even MORE irrational somehow, but…in a good way. With Jahn being more of a cocky blowhard, this immediately puts the whole draconic superiority thing into question, and then of course there’s the scene in Arcadia which stuck with me…
"Demise of the Prince"
Mainly since that scene demonstrated just how set in his ways Zephiel was. When faced with irrefutable proof that dragons are not wholly, emotionally-blank compared to humans, Zephiel could have chosen to reflect on whether his path was just, and whether this war would actually achieve the goals he wanted. Instead, he doubled-down, even going as far as to personally execute Fae – the last Divine Dragon besides Idunn herself.
Now, I get it. Zephiel’s a bad dude, and this was a bad dude doing a bad thing…but when you compare this to how Guinevere still thinks of him, how Brunnya thinks she can save him from himself, and the fox-bearing Prince you see in Blazing Blade, this really goes to show just how desperate he is. He doesn’t so much as question his own actions here, even as characters like Jahn and Idunn do. It’s as though Zephiel is attempting to project his own hatred and misguided beliefs on dragonkind onto them – destroying any who don’t fit this worldview.
Zephiel may have been killed by Mieu in the epilogue, but personally, I think it was Arcadia where Zephiel the man, rather than the Liberator, had died.
Though, don’t get me wrong. We’re playing as the villains – we all knew this from the very beginning. As early as Chapter 3, one of your soldiers ruthlessly murders two children and the guy people like to headcanon as Lucius. Even still, after going through all of Elibe with this ragtag band of bandits, cutthroats, ne’erdowells, Guerrero, and weirdos, you do start to get a little attached…even to the point of forgetting that you’re…kind of a jerk. Every familiar face becomes a statistic after a while – another reunion followed by an abrupt, bloody end, yet that’s exactly what you expect to happen.
Which just goes to make the ending, where everyone you’ve grown close to f*cking dies all the more conflicting. Maybe this is just me and my love for fictional jerks and villains, but it made me kinda sad for the bad guys to lose. Or maybe that’s just because most of the units I liked died, while benchwarmers like Morgan, Raith, Sommie, or Scott get to walk away to live their lives
That said, I do wish the events of the epilogue got a bit more…well…build-up? Maybe I missed a few conversations, (Which is probably my fault for tossing so many units into the meat-grinder for my own amusement) but Jahn and Mieu’s friendship kinda moved a little too quick for me to follow. He saves her life and gets her conscripted, they get a conversation later with him saying he’ll kill anyone who hurts her, and then he’s sacrificing his life for her after the story’s concluded. It just confused me a little bit…I get that Arcadia hit just about everyone hard, even to the point of traumatizing Idunn of all people, but I kinda wish that stuff got a little more focus, since the spotlight seemed to mostly be on Melady, leading to her belated defection.
Same applies to Roy. I was digging his fall at first, since trauma is always going to be super relatable and interesting to watch, and it seemed sorta like how Eirika was back in your original hack. It did lose me by the end, when he turned into the JOKAH, BABYYYY~!! …Ahem…That is to say…I kinda wish we got to see more of Roy’s growing desperation to keep what few friends he DOES have alive. Growing obsessive to the point of self-destruction, becoming furious when he’s forced to sit back and watch as Allen and Lance ride off to Illia / Sacae, where everyone knows damn-well what’s going to happen to them. Snapping and yelling at Guinevere, yet speaking to Marcus and Wolt with an ominous gentility. Of course, not everyone takes trauma the same way, but seeing what was happening to Roy, it…made me interested to see more of what was going on with him…even if the manic laughter and bug-eyed expression in the Final Chapter was a bit much for me, to the point the unsettling tone it provided was quickly overtaken by mild, morbid amusement. (Which is unfortunate, since the earlier Berserk-scene with Mordred WAS legitimately unsettling in an uncanny, visceral way, and was a big highlight of the game’s storytelling for me.)
…I uh…I’m probably just rambling at this point. The point is, the hack gives a good view into the mental states of its characters, the ideologies of the villains, and does a good job at making you like the villains. While it was by no means perfect and didn’t quite live up to the full potential of some of its themes and situations, I still think this is a really damn good retelling of Binding Blade, and I’d give it an 8/10. (Would’ve been 100/10 if Narcian survived, so…y’know…food for thought… … ;D)
Jokes aside, it is really good, and I’m eagerly looking forward to what you make next, cap’n!
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Believe me, having someone care enough about something I’ve made to ramble on like this is super flattering.
Thank you very much for your thoughts, positive and not so positive both! Truth be told, yeah, lategame Roy was probably too much. Oh well. A lesson learned for next time. Glad you enjoyed it overall, and I hope you’ll find the time to check out the next thing I do.
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Adding my two cents, having finished this game as well.
Summary
Regarding Roy, I feel like it’s more of a case of ‘to each their own’ as I didn’t feel like it was ‘too much.’ The kid is absolutely broken inside by that point. Chapter 24 is one of the most tedious chapters in vanilla FE6, and the reworked Eckesachs version (the whole ‘ghost bosses’) was a much-appreciated change. As for Roy himself… maybe the bug-eyed portrait was a bit much, but I’m no artist and definitely wouldn’t do any better. I feel like the state of his mind by the end of the game was pretty unavoidable though.
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For anyone wondering where to find Sommie in chapter 14 the Sand Storm Level the Pictures below will tell you where she is.
If you like to waste your time looking for her in the sand storm don’t look below:
Just putting this here to help people get a better feel for the sand map!
Cutest beast I have ever seen
I am not the only one who think so:
Also where did you get this character from @SaintRubenio ?
Can I make the Somm Power unbreakable like Jahn’s Dragon Stone?
Done
Forgive me God For my impure thought. But God I want this Man to die:
Of all the characters in this hack I Hate Zephiel The Most
It’s a NPC in Engage.
I’m afraid not, unless you modify the ROM yourself.
Well… You are playing as the villains, haha.
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That so? I suppose that’s a fair point.
Human Will Unbreaking
Of course, I know the whole broken nature of his was supposed to be the point, but I just feel like it could’ve been handled a little differently. Potentially…better? If that doesn’t sound rude, that is. And don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying the ghost-bosses are a bad thing by any means…actually, they serve as very good build-up for the final battle…
Which is why if I had to write that scene, it’d be a little…different.
Part of Zephiel’s entire existence in the base FE6 story is to act as an ideological foil to Roy. While Zephiel has been broken by hardship and betrayal to the point of condemning all of humanity and attempting to usher in destruction, Roy is only strengthened in his resolve to protect it. While Roy is emboldened by the sight of Arcadia that humans and dragons can live in harmony, Zephiel would see them slaughtered to the last.
Therefore, if I had full reign over the writing of the final chapter, I would keep Chapter 24 almost entirely the same…you still get all the ghost-bosses, still get Roy’s ghostly monologue, and still get this dramatic build-up that seems to be going toward seeing what all this hardship has done to him. But when you finally arrive to the Epilogue…I’d have him look more-or-less completely normal…better than the tired-looking and jaded teenager you’ve seen various times before. Maybe even just with his default portrait with a slight grin. Much like Hannibal Lecter in Silence of the Lambs, all that buildup will immediately set a precedent, and have the player be naturally unsettled, even if nothing actively looks wrong.
Just as Idunn sees visions of her past, Roy too is shown by the Binding Blade what humanity is capable of…and rather than breaking or snapping, that same resolve from the base-game comes back full-force. He welcomes Zephiel, remarking how he knows even if he does manage to win, his life will never be the same. That it doesn’t matter whether he lives or dies, but that here, where it matters the most, his resolve will not break again; because even if he doesn’t have his friends or family with him anymore, Humanity in of itself will always rise back up to challenge Zephiel. Even if Roy loses, Zephiel will too, since he IS wrong. He has been from the moment he first found Idunn. Something which will be proven right in the epilogue when humans rise back up and destroy Zephiel and everything he stood for once and for all.
In the end, the final battle isn’t against a broken, psychopathic killer backed into a corner…it’s a clash of will, one that even if you win…you still lose. Roy isn’t trying to kill, or even stop you – this is all just to prove a point. That no matter how many friends he loses, how many lives must be lost, lands must be trampled, or fathers are slain by their vengeful sons, humanity will preservere.
That would certainly make Idunn and Jahn’s regret over Roy’s death feel more…I dunno, bittersweet? Hell, his battle-convo with Mieu could even be rewritten to fit this, with Mieu understanding what Zephiel still refuses to.
So in the end, what Roy became was unavoidable, and it was unavoidable with what was one of – if not his most important character-trait.
Of course, this all might just be me projecting my love for Oersted, and the similar struggle between a world-ending, humanity-despising force of nature against those who still cling to hope that happens in Live A Live, but I DO think that would actually work really well here.
…Shoot, I’m rambling again. Ahh…where was I…? Yeah, Joker-Roy was kinda silly. Made me laugh. His mini-portrait is hilarious-looking. Roy’s our boy. The end.
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Thanks for explaining your thoughts! It didn’t sound rude at all; I enjoyed getting to hear your perspective.
Human Will Broken
More on my own thoughts, and I hope they don’t come across as overly negative…
Even after hearing your explanation, I still prefer the direction SaintRubenio went. I like Roy, but I can’t see him enduring all that up to the end just to come out with his resolve/willpower fortified against Zephiel. He’s a kid (and this is commented on by multiple characters depending on who you take to the final chapter) who’s lost everyone and everything he cared about in life. There’s nothing left for him at this point.
If anything, I feel like the Binding Blade showing him what humanity is capable of would only hurt him more, as it would show him to his face how he failed to save a single one of his friends and loved ones.
Again, I don’t want to sound overly negative, but I feel like you’re treating Roy as being stronger than he is. Roy IS a valiant, courageous person whose resolve is strengthened by the trials he goes through in canon, but… this isn’t that Roy. Feel free to disagree with me on this, but in vanilla FE6, it showcases Roy’s growing resolve by how he succeeds in each battle with the help of his comrades.
Conversely in Eckesachs, that resolve is crushed at every turn as his allies are slain one-by-one. He never has the chance to grow into the strong-but-humble leader of the Etrurian army. Instead he’s forced to more or less remain the child who was thrust into a war he didn’t want a part in.
That’s it for my thoughts. Shoot, I said I didn’t want to come across as overly negative, but… my bad. Writing that was a downer. Roy’s our boy, sure. But this is an iteration of him that never got the chance to go through the character/personal development necessary for him to reach that point.
I also don’t know what Live a Live is, so maybe some of that was lost on me.
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Damm man you make some really good point about the story. You have to become a story advisor for Saint Rubenio next story rewrite hack. That is how good your story sense is man.
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For what it’s worth, this I definitely did on purpose. I enjoy making exaggerated faces like these - maybe it’s too much to end the game on, though. Perhaps in the next hack I should make the obligatory mad face more of an easter egg haha.
I would extend a recommendation as well. Traditional JRPGs is a genre I tend not to jive with too much, but Live a Live stands as one of my all-time faves of the genre. And it just recently(ish) got an absolutely amazing remake, which is the way I’d recommend playing it nowadays.
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