Okay. Thank you good sir
What’s the deal with Roberts? He doesn’t seem to have a death quote, is that intentional?
1 Like
It is. If I remember correctly, he joined without saying anything too
1 Like
Roberts in the base game is a total mystery. He’s a miniboss only on hard mode and only on A route that has absolutely zero dialogue. As this is the most noteworthy thing about him, I decided to make it his thing in Eckesachs.
2 Likes
He does technically appear in chapter 11b but not in the actual chapter. His portrait is used for a single line of dailogue (seeing as in A route Robarts is ordered by Arcardo as a reinforcement for Orlo this could be him) where he alerts Arcardo that all of the guards have been drugged and are unconscious-
Thus the only guess is he got demolished by Batre in B route off screen or he ran away-
Where is Trimier from?
Berwick Saga. One particularly memorable bosswoman for having a totally unique portrait and being a very rare female boss, and also having zero lines or context to explain he existence. Hence the whole meta stuff I gave her in Eckesachs.
Where is the event data for the epilogue stored? I can find text that appears to correspond to it, but the location just says “TextID System reservation”.
1 Like
Good luck finding that. From what I can remember, I myself could never find the epilogue events, so I just edited the text and thanked my lucky stars that the eventing was mostly usable.
The only problem was Guinivere is a sage, so I had to swap the femsage and femshaman class IDs - with everything that entails - so the NPC in the epilogue would look like Idunn.
Anyway, if they’ll suffice for your purposes, the epilogue text entries are entries 25F-261.
3 Likes
I feel greedy asking but are you considering a Eckesachs archive too?
Those appear to be for the ending where Mieu is alive (which I assume takes the place of the “Idunn lives” branch of the original text). Is there a different ending if Mieu is dead? Or does Mieu have plot armor? Her death quote sure sounds like she actually dies…
Also, is there a video of the true ending somewhere so I can make sure I don’t miss anything? The only playthrough I can find didn’t make it to the true ending.
1 Like
iirc the ending is the same.
ending details?
It is probably a Jugdral replacement unit sorta deal, but does seem like a compelling story for Jahn getting saved from his depression (since his one friend just died in this scenario) by another young girl and managing to keep her safe this time at the cost of his own life.
1 Like
There’s no different ending if Mieu is dead. That’s why they never mention her by name lmao.
There’s also no true ending. Either you get the “missed a legendary” ending, or the “got all legendaries” ending - the vanilla events where you spare Idunn go unused here.
Alrighty then. Here’s the archive: Eckesachs Text Archive As per usual, tell me if anything’s borked.
Story thoughts
I generally don’t like FE6’s story – I find stories that vilify abuse victims extremely distasteful, and this one give us a double feature with that oh-so-common trope, “genocide victims need to stop whining and let bygones be bygones”, which is also very distasteful.
In this particular instance, Zephiel also just isn’t a very interesting villain because his motivations make absolutely no sense; unlike with Lyon, there just isn’t much to engage with with him. He’s only slightly more interesting a villain than Fomortiis, for the same reason: There’s only ever one answer to any question you can ask about his motivations, and it’s “He’s a misanthropic idiot.” You even bring up the fact that his “Multiple humans saved me from one evil human, therefore all humans are evil” reasoning is nonsense, but you don’t go anywhere with it and your attempt to patch the illogic still didn’t make sense, sorry. What the hell was Zephiel smoking to make him think Murdock betraying his current emotionally unstable and murderous king was a purely pragmatic choice?
The one interesting thing about Zephiel is his dragon fetishism, but by including Jahn from the start that becomes nonsense too. Everything he fetishizes about dragons (mainly their emotionlessness) seems to be unique to Idunn specifically, not dragons in general; Jahn does not behave any differently from the humans in his army, and Zephiel treats him with open contempt for it. So… why exactly does he think dragons are the superior race? If Idunn were the only dragon he had ever interacted with, it would make sense (and it would be delicious irony that the only person he believes superior to him is a lobotomized zombie who can’t say no), but Jahn constantly yapping in his ear breaks that. You also tease the question of what he would do if Idunn defies him, which I think is the only genuinely interesting question to ask about his character, but end the game right before we get the answer, which is disappointing.
Speaking of Jahn, I really, really hate the “persecuted minority learns reverse racism is wrong” trope and you played it disappointingly straight here. Jahn acts like an edgy teenager who has never seen a child before, not a thousand-year-old genocide victim. Expecting us to believe that this thousand-year-old being has never once encountered a human child before or considered that people other than him have feelings is just too hard to swallow. Contrast this with, say, Lehran, who genuinely loved his morality pet but wasn’t willing to abandon his thousand-year-old plans for one person because he has willpower and convictions stronger than seafoam.
As in Dark Stone, I also found it hard to believe that Zephiel commanded such absolute loyalty, especially after the Arcadia massacre. As you pointed out with Fomortiis in Dark Stone, loyalty doesn’t just require power, it requires charisma, and Zephiel has the charisma of a tapeworm. He might not have explicitly told anyone he plans to murder them when the war is done, but after the dozenth time he openly rants about all humans being scum I think people would see the writing on the wall. And in particular, I simply cannot believe Jahn would continue following Zephiel after the Arcadia massacre. You offered the same excuse that people are falling in line out of fear, but when half the army is openly talking sedition, including the top generals and the dragon who forms the bulk of the army’s power, I think people would realize their chances are pretty good if they run (as indeed they do in the ending, but I really don’t think it should have taken them that long).
I was also confused by the ending cards. They seem to imply that Zephiel retained control of the war dragons, but even in the false ending Idunn has gained self-awareness and is pushing back against Zephiel’s cruelty. Her long and short ending cards also contradict each other (long says she abandoned Zephiel, short says she died at his side). Did you originally plan to give her different ending cards? In general, I also didn’t like how wildly the epilogues varied in tone, and how many characters died stupid deaths. With how powerful FE characters can become, I struggle to believe that so many of them could die to simple brigands.
All that said, I will say I didn’t think your depiction of Roy was unreasonable. I think people forget that he’s 16. A teenager loses his entire family in the span of a few days and then sees his girlfriend’s head on a pike, of course he’s gonna lose it. It’s a little over-the-top, but in all honesty it barely registers compared to some of the cheese in mainline FE.
The moment-to-moment writing was still good and I liked how you wrote characters who weren’t Zephiel or Jahn (in particular, I loved Lyn’s reaction to Batta and Glass), but ultimately I don’t think it was possible to save FE6’s deeply flawed plot and villains. Basically everything it tried to do I think Radiant Dawn did better, honestly, but then I feel that way about pretty much every FE plot.
3 Likes
Huh, interesting assessment. Most people generally have inverse opinions with regards to Roy and Jahn.
Don’t get me wrong though, I totally get where you’re coming from. Quite frankly, Jahn is such a nothing character in the original that I had absolutely no clue what to do with him. So for the first half of the game I made him into a joke, and for the second I gave him a dynamic with the toddler. It was all very improvised and scattered.
All in all, you can tell Hag was actually my fourth project haha. I had to make a lot of mistakes along the way, and learn from them, to get to that point. Three years later, I probably would’ve written much of Eckesachs differently - but then, hindsight is 20/20. And at this point I probably wouldn’t make Eckesachs, anyway.
Well, now all that’s left is for you to play The Princess’s Lament so you can see me write even worse
EDIT: Added the compilation to the OP, as well as Dark Stone’s because I forgot to do it when you first made it.
4 Likes
Ha, well, it probably helps that I’m not a fan of Roy in the first place, so I didn’t mind the character assassination. In general I dislike bland goody-two-shoes lords, so it was entertaining to see you give him some more spice.
Haha, sorry, I don’t think so. There are hacks by other authors I want to try out.
1 Like
Honestly, that’s the right call. TPL was an experiment, and at the time I had a blast making it, but right now I consider it a relic. A relic that occasionally haunts my nightmares whenever someone jumpscares me with my crappy edit of Eirika. Sheesh…
1 Like
Oh, is that where Sadrika comes from?
1 Like
Every so often someone pulls her up again. She haunts me. Like a very sad ghost with a shrunken face.
4 Likes
Would honestly make a good reaction image
2 Likes