Uawesome hack. Playing it now and enjoying it so far. The latest patch is the one in the op right?
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Yes it is, and thanks for playing! If I can answer anything for you as you play, please don’t hesitate to ask
Only thing i find out of place is the hair color of the character battle sprites is different from the mugs eg. Sam. Will let you know if I find any bugs or got questions. Story and dialogue are really good.
You’ll find that battle sprite palettes aren’t good all around. That is lower on my fix list at the moment because the hack is still playable with poor palettes, but when I complete the actual gameplay portion I will revisit it.
And thanks!
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Gotcha! Looking forward to those future updates 
Weekly update:
Currently revisiting a lot of the early game for music insertion, meaning I’m having a fresh sweep at things. I’ve decided to make the early game a bit more accessible in regards to 1-2 range physical weapons. Specifically, to magic swords, hand axes, and short bows.
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Due to a helpful patch from @Sme , changed magic swords to use the unit’s strength at melee range and the unit’s magic at 2 range (was previously using MAG for both 1-2 range). Should have been this way from the start but I missed this feature. This seems like a change you might say “Well duh, it should have been like that from the beginning”, and well, you’re right, but because I missed it, I gave early game enemies a weapon known as LightBrand+ to compensate for low Attack values. They have since been removed from the early game and are introduced at a more reasonable time (as they are pretty powerful).
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I removed the “Hand Axe +” from many of the early chapters due to it being pretty dang powerful (and accurate). Changed many axe wielding enemies to holding a 1 range axe instead, and for those still with range, I left them with a hand axe. After starting some of @Pandan’s Vision Quest, I was reminded that Hand Axes really aren’t supposed to be all that accurate… At least not in the beginning. I want my hack to challenge the player, but I also don’t want to make it too hard, so I’m rolling things back for accessibility.
- This change has the added benefit of opening up some more utility for the only bow user in the early game (Clinton).
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Short Bows in FE: Illuminated have the added benefit of being able to strike at 1-2 range. Anywhere you look in the forums or in the discord, 1-2 Range bows are seemingly talked about every day. For both good and bad. Bows to me are useful behind allies who are supposed to be a bit better at taking a hit. This probably isn’t rocket science level thinking, and I feel most could agree with me. So let’s say their primary function should fall right in here.
- With this being said, I’ll throw it out there: I like 1-2 range bows… in moderation. I like the idea of giving classes a less powerful means to perform outside of the primary function of their class. It’s why sword, lance, and axe users have access to ranged weapons that are usually less accurate and less powerful, but give them a different look at combat. I understand there is an argument to be made that longbows fill this role for bow users with 3 range, but whichever way you slice it, I like bow users to have some added flexibility.
- I bring all of this up because as I was going back through the current content in FE: Illuminated, I realized how many enemy archers/nomads had short bows. When I realized that I had lost the “moderation” aspect of the concept, and that more enemies were holding a short bow than those that weren’t… I realized I had to make a change. This is a long winded way to say that I’ve removed a lot of enemy short bows (at least in the early game), and instead, have added a few new types of bows that start to pop up about halfway through the current hack. These generally include bows that have added effectiveness… Be it on cavalry (Breaker Bow), armor (Piercing Bow), or magic (Lead Bow).
With all that being said, I’ve updated the OP with the most recent patch. It includes these balance changes as well as some others. I’ve also inserted a slew of music that can be heard in actual chapters (and not just the sound room). I also changed the Title Screen Music to actually make it feel a bit more like a custom hack. Lastly, I made it very clear where the patch finishes. If you’re playing, please don’t play past this point.
Thanks for reading!
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did the convoy getting destroyed but no game over glitch get fixed yet?
wow nice processes over there
As far as I’m aware, I haven’t had any issues with that problem every time I’ve tried it. I’m not totally sure why you did when you mentioned it some time ago, but as far as I’m aware, it should be working properly. If you happen to play through and it happens again, lemme know and I’ll DM you for a save file so I can look into it.
Thanks.
Oooh an update! Thanks for this one. Im really enjoying the hack! Currently on chap 6. Keep up the great job!
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(Sorta) Weekly update.
Been tossing around some ideas about how I want to continue/end the story, and while procrastinating about it, I decided to continue working on the early game a bit. The early game is more manageable now and less RNG based, and I think the hack actually has a bit of a difficulty curve now. I’m happy about where things stand with it at the moment, but I’ll certainly need to do some more playtesting with it as well, because one of the bigger changes is with the introduction of new characters to the party.
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Upon joining, most characters now have a Prf weapon. None of them are overly powerful and some of them (especially in the early chapters) can run out pretty quickly. This is okay. I wanted to make hit rates a bit more reliable in the early game when there are less skills to be had, and rather than overhaul any of the current systems in place, I decided it would be more fun to give each character a unique weapon to offset this… As well as to add some flexibility to playstyles. I’m not going to act like I was the first one to really put this idea into a hack… Rather, I thought it was a brilliant idea from @KrashBoomBang to give characters their own bit of uniqueness. So I sort of… borrowed the concept (and added a credit for the idea). Not all characters get a PRF, however.
- Lana now comes with a Rescue staff (known as Bata).
- Cordelia now comes with a water Tome, Torrent (credit to @Alusq for Donbettyr).
- Sam comes with a brave axe, Old Reliable.
- Lana now comes with a Rescue staff (known as Bata).
I’ve also removed some critical bonuses to a few weapons in the early game (Thunder, reduced crit bonuses on light tomes) to try and get rid of some RNG wackiness. I’ve also added an item to Chapter 3 which, if you can get it, adds +3 luck as a passive. Between this (and a helpful skill that Jay learns at Level 8), I’m hoping a lot of enemy criticals are toned down. Will upload a newer patch at some point in the next day or so (and edit this post to let you know when I have).
Working on Chapter 17. It’s gone through a couple different iterations, but I’ve mostly settled into making it into three parts (with a massive map broken into three parts). Will post a photo when I’ve gotten a bit closer to finishing it. Big credit to @ZoramineFae, @N426, and @HyperGammaSpaces for the Desert Bastion tileset for this one.
Thanks for reading.
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Bug reports:Finch engage battle against the sniper boss will have Ephraim quote
And George will have half great knight map sprite desite being a cleric someyimes
And Halbetdier doesnt give a lot of exp
Falconmancer only have 7mov btw
Btw I somehow spent nearly all my moeny on ‘crappy’ weapons cuz I run very low money at early chaps so I cant buy anything from secret shops bruh
Steel lance is the only weapon thats +3 damage from iron idk if its a mistake cuz sword and axes has +4 from iron to steel
Wait it said theres phy mag split so… I had to play the whole hack again?
I think im using old patch
Hey Ribombee, thanks for the reports.
You are indeed playing an old version. The STR/MAG split was put in four or five months ago, and the biggest telltale was the Falcomancer. I changed the name to Splendor Knight when I added a few classes. I apologize about breaking your save because of it. If you’d like, I can send you over a save file I have so that you can continue on.
The Finch battle quote, the map sprites being buggy, and the Halberdier issues have all been previously fixed. Thanks for the report, though.
Good catch on the steel lance strength… I totally missed it. I have moved some numbers around and made Iron to Steel differences uniform across the board. Thanks for that.
The secret shops I’m looking to overhaul a bit. I may move them around, but my idea was actually to have two secret shops in the game and to keep their inventories uniform. I understand the player may feel slighted in the fact that they just spent all of their money in the previous chapter buying gear, only to realize that they could have saved it for some secret shop stuff. The reality, however, is that the stuff in the shop is expensive. I wanted to use it as a way for the player to start planning for the next one they find, which they should be cued off as to where it is based on the “Appreciation” card description. There are arguments to be made for poor design choice here, but until the hack is finished, the secret shop is still a bit up in the air for me.
Once again, thanks for the feedback.
Edit: Still working on Chapter 17.1-17.3 map! Here’s a more final draft.
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Weekly update has turned into a bi monthly update… Been plenty of work behind the scenes though. Still working when I can (this is a hobby, anyway), but I made a fairly large decision in the past week about the hack.
Been playing some hacks around the community that have been released recently. I’ve seen things that work, things that don’t work, things I liked, and things I didn’t like, but one thing I came to the conclusion on was that I did not like how enemies were turning out in later chapters in Fire Emblem: Illuminated. Due to high DEF/RES growths on player units, enemies started to pack less and less of a punch. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from going through @Pandan’s stellar hack, Vision Quest, is that every enemy should be capable of at least leaving a dent in your units. So the slightly bad news for those that follow Fire Emblem: Illuminated is that I’ll putting off further development of later chapters until I can find a balance that makes more sense. This DOES NOT mean that the project is on hold. It means that I’m allocating my resources elsewhere in the hack in the effort to improve it.
To start, these changes include giving enemy HP, Power, Skill, and Speed buffs while nerfing defenses. I’ve also gone back and reincorporated the leadership star system to add some benefits to enemy hit rates. On the flip side of things, player unit DEF/RES bases and growths have been nerfed.
As I started making these changed, I began to realize how arbitrary some of my original enemy placements were. I saw that many enemies were put down not for a purpose, but to fill up the map.
So with the changes in the balance between players and enemies, I’ve been going back and reassessing enemy placement and chapter structure. This is where the majority of my work is going right now, and it has also brought on something new for me to think about:
- Through the first five chapters, the player only has a maximum of five units to use. While I am still very committed to making this hack with a low roster, I am very aware that this very same low roster (along with the aforementioned changes) can cause these early chapters to sometimes play more like puzzles. It’s become apparent to me that “correct” decisions in a chapter become magnified when you have so few units work with. It’s something that I’d really like some feedback on once I start releasing patches again (which should be sometime soon), because I know this isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I’ve done my best to make sense of it.
On the point of future patches, I’m going to be releasing them as I “remaster” earlier chapters. The first patch, which should be released this week, will have the redone prologue and chapters 1-4.
On a brighter note, I’ve gone back and at least attempted to make some palettes better. I’ve also gone in and added some newer/more updated animations, and as I’ve said in previous posts, there is a lot of new music in the hack that is really growing on me.
Thanks for reading!
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Checking in.
Sorry for the lack of updates for those who keep up with the project. Still working away when I can, but I decided to release the remaster of the first 8 chapters together rather than just 4. I’m really happy with how balancing is coming along and feel things are much more fair. I also feel like it now leaves more room open for different difficulty levels down the road, which is always a plus.
Hoping to have this remaster out within a week or so. Between the extensive changes to enemy placement, armament, AI, and stats, it’s taking a fair amount of time and a lot of trial and error on my end. Fortunately, I have a good playtester in @Bartz who is willing to give me some great feedback. If anyone else would be interested in playtesting, feel free to shoot me a PM and I’m sure we can get something set up.
Have a screenshot in the meantime!
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Is this finished?
Hope full version will release soon ~ i can wait (^o^)/
Hey Sample, this hack is not finished. There are currently 22 or so chapters completed (16 of which are gameplay chapters, the rest are story chapters). However, I’m in the process of redoing all of the gameplay. Currently just about finished with the first eight chapters, and as usual, I’m a little behind on releasing it on time.
Will be finished one day, that’s for sure. I’m personally aiming to have it finished by the end of 2021, but life obligations could always change that timeline.
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Hey all, quick update.
Know I haven’t met a whole lot of my time commitments recently with Illuminated. Been super busy on my end and haven’t had much time to work on it. Still plugging away when I get time.
Will update periodically as I finish things or to just stay in the loop. Thanks!
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Monthly update!
Everything up to Chapter 10 has been tested pretty thoroughly and I feel play much better. Things that are different:
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Units get hit much harder and player placement is now really important. Most player units cannot take more than 2-3 hits without dying because of it. I may end up going back and buffing defenses a bit down the line.
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Text has been cleaned up a lot. Sentences now don’t continue for more than two lines in the vast majority of cases and it reads much better.
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There is a lot of custom music in the hack now. Nothing that I personally made and all of it was ripped from another source (with credits, of course).
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Many of the chapters have seen changes to enemy placements and armament. This was a direct result in the change to how hard enemies hit.
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Classes have been changed around a fair amount, including growths.
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Bows now have a small weapon advantage against all types of magic. Bows receive a +10 Hit, +1 Damage against magic.
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And to sum it all up, all of the changes from base vanilla have been added to the guide once starting Chapter 1.
From here, I still have 6 playable chapters and some story chapters to fix up before I get back to making new content. Might need to add a chapter in due to the crazy amount of exposition there is in the interlude after Chapter 12. Will try and do what makes sense.
On the point of fixing chapters up, some of these fixes include fairly big overhauls to the chapter design. Here is how these fixes have affected Chapter 11 (the before image is first).
I felt the playable section in the original chapter was way too small and I didn’t care for how the chapter played. This opens up the chapter quite a bit and allows for some branching towards the boss.
Lastly, for now, I’m gonna hold off on any public releases. I’m still changing things around a fair amount and would hate for anyone to have to start a save file over because of an overhaul. But by all means, if you like the project or are interested in trying it, feel free to drop me a line and I’ll send you over a patch.
FEE3 has been awesome and there’s been some great projects. Congrats to everyone involved for both a great showcase and a serious display of talent.
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Update!
Progress is still coming along on Chapter 11 (the boat map above). I think by the time it’s all said and done, the chapter is gonna play pretty well. But I figured that with a chapter name like “Mercy of the Tides”, I should mess with the water levels in the chapter. So that’s in the works as well.
The bigger chunk of my work in the past two weeks, however, has been in terms of difficulty. No, I haven’t been nerfing or buffing what I have. Rather, and I’m excited to announce this, Fire Emblem: Illuminated now has difficulty levels!
Chapter 11 Heavy Cavalier on Hard:
Chapter 11 Heavy Cavalier on Normal:
Chapter 11 Heavy Cavalier on Easy:
I am still designing the game around Hard mode, and for the most part, the original version of the game will play at the same difficulty. This means that Normal and Easy are both easier than what was previously in the game. I’ve made a couple balance passes with the new difficulty systems, and I may go back and make easy even easier.
*Side note, and I mentioned this on Discord, but that autoleveling enemies has a bug with the MAG growth if using skillsystems. Any mode that has a penalty (if Easy is -3, for example) will cause the MAG growth of the enemy to be irrationally large, usually even larger than hard mode. This means that I had to go back and rebalance everything with Easy as the base of 0, with normal and hard enemies receiving bonuses (*Thanks for @7743 and Shuusake for the patch in FeBuilder).
Also with the difficulty system is the ability to change the difficulty! I took some inspiration from @Vivider’s FE: Inheritance and implemented a system that allows difficulty changing at the beginning of each chapter (thanks to @Brendor and 7743 for the Febuilder Patch). I figured if I was going to aim for accessibility, I might as well go the full mile. Like FE: Inheritance, holding the select button when the chapter is starting will give the player the option to change difficulty.
Which brings me to the last part of the update… A casual/classic split (thanks to @circleseverywhere and 7743 for the patch). This one you cannot change after starting a file, but it has been fully implemented. This was done for one major reason:
- Classic Mode actually causes a game over for more than just the “lord” characters. The way it is structured, most new characters will cause a game over upon death… Until their personal stories somewhat conclude. For example, in Chapter 2, you recruit Clinton, the mounted brigand who uses bows. His death on any chapter, up until Chapter 11, will cause a game over. This originally was implemented to stop players from playing themselves into a corner by losing units, and I plan on keeping it this way for classic mode. Casual mode will obviously bypass this and give you your characters back at the beginning of each new chapter.
Lastly, have some screenshots of Chapter 11!
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