Fire Emblem: Illuminated (30 Mainline Chapters Planned, 26 Finished)

Hey dude! Thought I’d take a crack at critiquing the map. First of all, it’s big. Very big, and features a lot of narrow paths. It’s hard to say how it’ll flow for certain without seeing player/enemy placement, but at glance it looks like it might get tedious for the player to play. There’s essentially only one direction to go at any given time, and that limits the player’s options. I would suggest opening it up slightly, or making multiple mini-paths that converge to the same objective. It reminds me in some ways of the Bridge chapter from FE6, structurally:


Not quite as big, but I can see it playing somewhat similarly. As far as aesthetics, it’s seems pretty solid to me, although I don’t have the best eye for that kind of thing. Overall, it’s a nice-looking map that might be just a bit too linear to play well, as the paths look lend themselves to bait and switch tactics. I’d open some passes through the mountains to give more options/apply more pressure to the player. Hope this helps, keep at it!

EDIT: Forgot to add this in my wall of text above, but make certain you include some type of anti-turtle incentive for the player (e.g. A village or green units in danger, running thief with goodies, etc.) This would help penalize the player for employing low-risk bait and switch tactics, and encourage them to move quicker and be more aggressive

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@WarPath I appreciate the feedback!

Those were my thoughts exactly actually. I’ve tried to stray from terribly linear maps when possible, yet wanted to try my hand at making one that worked. Having objectives that push the player are vitally important to the success of a map like this, you’re completely right.

The way I had envisioned the map, capturing both forts to the right would clear the chapter. However, both forts have reinforcements every couple of turns that will attack the middle path to the smaller village. There is a small contingent of neutral npcs that defend the village as a chokepoint, but eventually, they will lose out to the reinforcements. The only way the reinforcements stop is to seize the fort, but to discourage exp farming, these units will eventually stop rewarding EXP.

Lot of work to do in the chapter to see that through, but that’s the plan. If it doesn’t work, I’ll probably open up some of those mountains and allow some more freedom.

Thanks!

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Hey! I decided to give your hack a try, I have to say it was the name and screenshots that caught my attention. I completed your current release, and I have some things to report and some to recommend:

Bugs/Glitches

Right before Jay class changes, the screen has jumbled pixels.

His thief sprite has a stray black pixel at the bottom left whenever he is selected.

If you move off of the red carpet in the first chapter, toward the warrior, then move back onto the red carpet path, the message that is supposed to play when he defeats the shaman pops up.

Once Jay promotes, it says STR on the statsheet instead of MAG.

Axe Wyvern riders have the Paladin sound effect when they are moving.

3 character select cursors show up after the boss in chapter 3 decides to bring in the last reinforcements.

What is this cool effect on everyone’s heath bars in chapter 4?

The Helmetless Pegasus Knight has Wyvern Rider sound effect when they move.

For chapter 7, when Sam joins the map as a green unit, he just starts attacking after the enemy phase is over. No NPC Phase animation pops up before he moves.

Weird glitch at the beginning of the 10th chapter. Syd and Frederick’s portraits stay on the screen, and the cursor shows on Syd’s face if you press B.

Weird glitch for the map sprite anim of Freddie. His standing/idle anim. When he heals with an elixir or due to skill same thing happens.

Weird glitch with Gerry in the Supply Stocking Chapter. Once Finch speaks to him, and his map sprite disappears, you can still visit the village and another Gerry map sprite will exit. Finch cannot speak to him again however. None of the villages in this chapter close their gates after being visited.

In the last playable chapter, Syd can still visit the village with the Guiding Ring after she has retrieved it. Other units cannot however.

Script/Writing Errors

This conversation could use some cleaning up. I think one or two Ughs separates by periods would be enough after the cough.

For this conversation, I think you meant to say, ‘This was a two man job, our village would not have been defended without your help,’ or something around those lines.

I think you mean to say, “Effective vs. Dark Magic Users.”

I think if you said a reason behind it or a reason for it would for the scene better here.

Ophelia’s recruit convo has ‘you’ written twice. It should be there once.


Jay’s death quote should say, ‘This is what I deserve.’ Not ‘deserved.’

‘Appeared’ should be here instead of ‘appear.’

A full stop is missing after Axes here.

In the Intro text for chapter 8, it should be when you served the Erske military not served for the military.

‘Is that’ should be removed here. It isn’t needed since Sam and Jay are literally in front of each other.

‘We found ourselves here’ not ‘find ourselves.’

There should be a space between Light and Brand here.

‘We’ve got your back, remember that.’ instead. I don’t have a screenshot, but it occurs in one of the later chapters, after Jay exempts himself from the battle. Finch tells him that.

It should be ‘meet’ not ‘meat.’

Things to Consider

Instead of ‘Seize’ being the command at the end of the first chapter, I think it should be changed to ‘Escape.’

For your Chapter names, I think it would be better if you formatted them like vanilla FE8. e.g. Ch. 4: Ancient Horrors

Objective for Chapter 5 should be changed from Seize to Escape.

I think the objective of Chapter 7 should be changed to Defeat Boss, or have a switching objective where at first its Rescue Ophelia then it switches to Defeat Boss.

I think Dire/bad news would fit better here.

I think this description can be worded better, maybe something along the lines of ‘Extended attack range.’

I think you should switch the animations for the knights from Tellius knights to Team Salvaged Knights. It was recently released, and they are a marked improvement.

Link SALVAGED Knight Released!

I also think you should consider making Syd’s animation the Helmetless Female Wyvern Rider.
Axe
Handaxe

Instead of, ‘a better hand axe,’ why not name it, ‘a stronger hand axe’?

In the last playable Chapter, I recommend you remove the Village at the far bottom right, as it has no need to be there, as no unit can get down there in one turn.

Now onto my personal thoughts.

You have a very nice project in the works here. The story is quite captivating, and I like the extra difficulty you added into each level, encouraging the player to progress faster. I also like the cast of characters, as they are all well balanced characters. You really had to utilize everyone to progress in the game. The hardest chapters for me were Chapters 7 and 10 but nothing has to be changed, I just had to adapt to the faster chapter completing mindset. The rest of the chapters were manageable. I also like the flow of the game and each chapter. You ought to be really proud to have done so much work and released such a great patch. :+1:

Here are the growths my team had at the end of the current run (excluding Gerry, whom I hope to train next release.)

End Game Team

I love the maps as well, and the somewhat custom music adds a nice touch and coincides well with the original tracks. I think this game improved my FE gaming skills, as I was usually one of the players who took my own time to finish a map, but doing that in this game, I am slowly getting out of that mindset. I also did not see that ending coming at all, and it really has me excited for the next release.

All the best in terms of further development, hopefully you can showcase another build of the game at FEE3. :+1: Regardless, I am looking forward to playing the next build with the next arc of the game.

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Softlock or gameover?.
Illuminated-1 Illuminated-2

Fight the shaman and game soft lock or escape into the starting point and get ******? Your call.

@Bartz, I can’t thank you enough for all of the constructive feedback (and for playing my hack!) I have full plans to respond to all of your points… I’ve been on the road for work the past few days and haven’t had full access to my computer. Once again, when I get home, the least I can do is fully respond to such great feedback. Be on the lookout.

@StreetHero Hey there, I’m sorry that the game soft locked on you. I’m not totally sure why that happened… I’ve never had the game crash on me there. My first two questions would be: Which emulator are you playing on, and if it’s VBA, would you mind sending me your save file on my discord so I can take a look?

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It’s not emulator fault because I’ve tested on 3 emulator (2 on pc, 1 on Android) and it’s still same problem. It’s literally after the necromancer killed the sleeping warrior.

Alright, got some time to comb through this. Here we go @Bartz.

Bugs/Glitches:

  • I’m aware of the screen with Jay’s class change. Haven’t figured out a fix for it yet… But as of now, it is a very minor bug not affecting the game (as far as I can tell).

  • I’m aware of the the sprite issues with both Jay’s original class (Wanderer) and the Pegasus Fencer.
    The problems with the Wanderer sprite seem to come and go and replicate every time I try and change the sprite animation. The original sword pegasus knight sprite that I used from @Sephie has had that issue since I imported it… I’m not sure if that was on my end or if there was a possible issue with the sprite. I’m guessing it was on mine.

  • Noted about Jay’s STR instead of MAG stat. I’ll look into it.

  • I’m aware of some class movement sound errors. You’re right to point them out. For whatever reason, those seem to come back when I update FeBuilder… And other times when I make general changes. Not sure why. It is something I plan on fixing last so that it doesn’t keep getting overwritten.

  • The cursors in chapter 3 are to indicate that the AI for those general units has changed, and that they will begin rushing. Maybe I should make that more clear.

  • For the life of me I couldn’t figure out the Health Bars in Chapter 4. I have a small workaround through the options menu but that’s all I’ve come up with at the moment. Fortunately it is only in that chapter.

  • I looked into the issue with Chapter 7… I couldn’t reproduce the issue with Sam. As far as I can tell, it’s supposed to be set such that he appears on the player turn, so he shouldn’t be attacking anyone right off the bat. Regardless, I’ll keep a look out for that.

  • There were several issues with some of the houses that were visit-able… The one with Gerry was one of them. The one in Chapter 10 was another. As far as I know, I have fixed them for the next patch. Thanks for the heads up.

Script/Writing Errors:

  • The ughughghgh… Yeah that’s a fair point. I’ll clean it up.

  • Looking back to the Chapter 1 end text, I’m okay with how it is written.
    “But make no mistake here,
    this was a two man job. Our[A]
    village doesn’t get defended
    without your help.[A]”

  • I’ll change the Candescent text.

  • I’ll change the chapter 3 end text to say “Please tell me there was a reason behind it.”

  • Fixed the text issue with Cordelia/Ophelia.

  • Fixed the issue with Jay’s death quote.

  • I’m okay with “appear” in that scenario. I meant it more in the habitual sense and not specifically.
    Maybe my grammar is wrong there, but I’m okay with it.

  • There were several inconsistencies with class descriptions. I’ve cleaned them up. They all end in a full stop.

  • Fixed the “Erske military” writing.

  • The talk with Sam/Jay… I wrote the confusion in identifying him because it was supposed to be foggy.
    That was why Sam was accidentally attacking Jay.

  • I’m okay with “find” in that context. To me, Finch is saying that in the present talking about his current situation. However, I changed it to say “we now find ourselves on the run from Luxin.”

  • We’ve got your back is now the line.

  • Would you like some steak with your meat? Fixed.

Things to Consider:

  • I need to change several “Seizes” to escape. I’m sure there is a proper way to do it in FeBuilder. Haven’t spent the time to figure it out just yet, but I’ll add it to my list of things to fix up.

  • I’ll add colons to the chapter names. I agree, it looks cleaner.

  • I know there is a patch that was recently created to change the objective mid chapter, and I agree: It would work perfectly for Chapter 7. It is something I will also add to my list of things to get to, because
    I agree: it’s not totally clear what to do after saving Ophelia.

  • I like “dire” better too. Changed.

  • I wrote “carried” because it was a “wing” javelin… Ha Ha Ha. At the least, I think having “extended range” in the description points the player to see it can go up to 3. I’ll likely leave this one as is… Personal preference.

  • Team Salvaged Knights/Cavaliers are beautiful. I’ll add that to the list of things I will implement. Can’t promise it will be immediate, but it will be done.

  • Good call on Syd’s animation. I’ll change it.

  • I’m gonna leave the village at the bottom right. For one, it is a bandit group… And I wanted to signify that they were there for themselves. Small thing, I know. But the secondary motive is it slows down that Rogue to make it more manageable.

Love seeing the end game teams… That was always my favorite thing about seeing someone else’s save file. For the most part, your characters grew like I wanted them to. Ophelia is one I’m working with right now… Her magic is low, especially for a Shaman, but I did my best to offset this with her personal skill “Opportunist”, which I know doesn’t currently work right now.

Thanks for all of the input. Like, seriously thanks. It’s awesome to know someone enjoyed something I put so much time in… It’s partially why I set out to make it. I understand that this project is slow moving, as it’s only me working on it (and that’s how I prefer it, so I don’t have any deadlines to meet with anyone else), but it is a hobby of mine and I do plan on finishing it. I’ll likely release demos every time I complete 2-3 chapters to make sure everything is up to snuff. Keep a lookout!

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@StreetHero Hey there.

I went back and took a look at the save file you sent me. I also went back and patched the UPS file from the first post on a clean rom of Sacred Stones, and in both cases, I couldn’t reproduce the problem you are having.

Sorry I can’t be more help. My only recommendations at this point would be to make sure you have a clean rom… and to also use NUPS, which is what I use to test it. I don’t mean this to sound demeaning, or anything like that… I just can’t think of anything else. Sorry!

Glad to know that the bugs/glitches will be fixed.

I really do hope you manage to find a fix for the health bars in Chapter 4, but as you said, it does not really affect the gameplay, as its just one chapter.

As for the script errors, looking over the ones you decided to keep for personal preference, they can be left as is, especially the one with ‘find.’ And thanks for fixing the class descriptions by adding the full stops. Its a minor thing, but I am glad it will be addressed.

Ah, I see, yes that was one of the Fog of War chapters, so now that line makes sense.

Glad that the chapter names will be reformatted, it will the names look cleaner for sure. That changing objective patch sounds just perfect for your project. You could use it in the first chapter as well, make it Loot then Escape. As for the Winged Javelin, the description currently there is okay.

I agree, Team Salvaged’s Knights/Cavaliers are awesome. They will add a niece piece of polish to your hack. Looking forward to seeing that in the next release (Since i made Gerry a Knight). Syd will look even better with that helmetless animation.

Hmm, when you put it that way, the village at the bottom right does make sense. As for the end - game team, I really did love how everyone turned out at the end of the first arc.

No worries, it was no problem at all. I enjoyed playing your hack, and don’t worry about the speed of progress. Work on it at your own pace, to ensure its as polished as possible. Trust me, I will keep a lookout for the next release. All the best progress wise until the next release. :+1:

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Never mind, found a way to bypass it. Just turn off battle animations solve that bug. Based on my 5 years playing fe games, some of the battle animations is broken or so it seems.
Edit: i think i know where it is.
Jay’s vagabond battle animations is broken: Unless it’s a scripts battles, Jay’s animations won’t work. If you can, please recheck it.Illuminated-1

I decided to start playing this hack, and I have to say, I’m having a lot of fun with it!.
Except chapter 2 and 3, that I think are a little bit rng based, I’m really liking the map design and the story too.
Right now I’m on chapter 10, and it looks hard, liking it already.
I really hope this hack will be finished soon, I think it has great potential.

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Hey @StreetHero, I’m sorry, but I just can’t seem to reproduce those issues. The animation looks okay on my end and everything looks okay in FeBuilder, so I don’t really know what to do from here. The best I can do right now is hope that the next patch (which should include two new chapters!) fixes whatever is causing your issue. If anyone else is having the same issue, please don’t hesitate to send me a save file.

@Pietroloz, Thanks so much for trying out my hack (and welcome to FeUniverse! I’m new myself). I’m glad you are enjoying the hack as well as the story. Hopefully I can keep pushing out good chapters and content that you’ll enjoy!

Been a bit since an update. Been busy with work and other stuff.

Just finishing up work on Chapter 12. It’s been a doozy… Between balancing, timing, making a linear map that functionally works and is fun to play (I hope), it’s been difficult. Tag that with some more labor intensive objectives that were a pain in the butt to implement properly… It took quite a while. And that’s not even touching on the dialogue (of which there is a lot).

Now that I’m giving out a few master seals, it was also high time that I go back and start balancing/reworking/retooling promoted classes. This included, at least for me, adding palettes in for player characters (I’m pretty happy with how Syd’s turned out). Between promotion gains, new weapons, skills, etc… It has been a fair deal of work (and it’s still a rough draft).

I plan on releasing another patch coming up soon with some fixes pointed out from @Bartz as well as the two new playable chapters that I’ve finished.

In the meantime, I’ve been working on the map sprite for the promoted version of Jay. Nothing groundbreaking, just some recoloring here and there. If anyone has an opinion, I’d be curious to know which you prefer.

Jay%20Promoted%20Blue%20Palette Peer%20(M)%20Moving%20%7BIS%7D

New patch soon. Thanks!

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I like the one on the right better because the yellow in his jacket/coat pops more. It’s more appealing to the eye.

I agree with ArcaneEli, the one on the right is more appealing to the eye.

IAlrighty thanks for the input. The only reason I had changed the color was because it more closely matched his character sprite. In the end though, I think you’re both right.

In other news, hoping to have the new patch out sometime this week. Lots of work went into it, even if it is only two chapters. Promotions and skill allocating take a long time.

Next post should be the patch!

EDIT: Decided to add an interlude (a la @Primefusion’s Road to Ruin) before releasing a patch. I’m wrapped up in some story bits and figured I would work on it when it’s fresh on my mind. Also added a play tester (thank you @Bartz) to help me with some quality control.

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Ahoy! Been a while since an update.

Real life stuff has kept me pretty busy lately, but I have been making some progress on the hack. I haven’t released the patch with the two new chapters yet… And this is in large part due to some story restructuring as well as some overall balancing. For many chapters I had been manipulating stats more by a general character ID rather than a class ID. That came back to bite me as I started to introduce promoted units. I am happy to say that, for the most part, all enemy classes have been updated and balanced from level 1-20 (including promotions) so that I can stop spending so much time retracing my steps with that. I’m currently doing a play-through to tinker stats back to where they were, and then I’m back on track.

In the meantime, I have nearly finished another map that will likely be the chapter 13 map, and here it is (thanks @ZoramineFae for the help!) .
Zoramine

Lastly, I’m on the fence about entering something into FEE3. While I’d certainly like to present my project and all the work that’s gone into it, I just don’t know if I have the time to put something together. Will revisit as my schedule allows.

Thanks for reading!

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Good shit my man. Good to see that you have a project that the map was for!

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Hey everyone. Been a while since I updated… Everyone else seems to be putting out end of year stuff. Figured that I’d join in the fun.

Had a busy (but good!) year, and progress on the hack was limited for a lot of it. However, towards the tail end of 2019, I found a little more time to work on this and was able to get some serious stuff accomplished.

I’ve updated the OP with the newest iteration of FE: Illuminated. A lot of new things come with this update, more so than the actual amount of chapters. Lots of under the hood stuff that won’t really get noticed.

  • Updated SkillSystems to the most current version. This was something that was a long process, but I fortunately had some great help from @7743, the wizard himself. Now skills that previously were not working look to be functioning correctly, making certain characters a little more viable (Ophelia got a nice buff because of this).
  • 4 New playable chapters, 3/4 new story chapters with the update.
  • All promotions have been implemented and balanced, as much as I could. More promotion items are also introduced in this update.
  • Cleaned up dialogue and minor graphical issues. There are still some present, but nothing that seriously detracts from the game.

Here are some screenshots!

Demo%20Photo%201 Demo%20Photo%202 Demo%20Photo%205 Demo%20Photo%204 Demo%20Photo%206 Demo%20Photo%208 Demo%20Picture%208 Demo%20Picture%209

Also worth noting… There is a good chance that this patch breaks previous saves. I think this will be the last time that happens. If anyone cares to continue the hack but runs into this problem, shoot me a DM and I’ll send you a save file. Thanks to anyone willing to give it a whirl. I absolutely plan on finishing this hack as time allows as it means a lot to me. Input is always appreciated!

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I thought the project was dead, incredibly happy to see it isn’t.
Can’t wait to try out the new chapters