Actually the builder patch preventing you from installing with Skillsys is kind of Builder being overcautious. If you edit the patch text file/forcibly install it, it should work anyways. See this post:
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Also worth asking here… Were you looking for fixed growths on the player side or the enemy side?
Thanks for the help Knabepicer!
On the player side.
I tested out this solution and it works, for anyone else reading this in the future.
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As soon as I started doing the first chapter, when I saw the colorful maps, battle backgrounds, the instant turn of events happening on the screen, I realized that so much soul and work was put into this hack that I have to play it. (January 2025)
A very lively start, the first few chapters were interesting, you just fantasize about who all these heroes are, and you wanted to see a continuation. However, gradually the intensity decreases, and such a deep, almost bookish narrative begins, which can take 10-20 minutes. I understand that this is due to the memory limitation of the hack, the developer wanted to fit everything in detail into one ROM. In this case, everything that you want to fit into the game in the form of full-fledged chapters has to be written in text. Because of some of these moments it became boring, sometimes I forced myself to move on. I might be wrong here, and that was the idea, I don’t know. In addition, my language barrier played a role, and I was definitely missing out on something.
I like that the plot does not revolve around the demon king and the story is self-sufficient without him. By the end, I saw the game not as fantasy, but as science fiction. This is very unusual.
When I saw the portraits in the game, I suddenly had some kind of extraordinary desire to redraw them, and without having any experience in pixel art. I think one of the most important aspects in games is the characters - bright, memorable, unique. This can be compared to films, where we evaluate the appearance, acting and then share emotions, and sometimes say that this or that actor “carried” the whole film. I caught the trigger from the fact that one half of the images came across to me in other previously completed romhacks, and I could not perceive them as something unique, and the second half looked like a “plug” - as long as there was a picture. And for this, in the end, I am grateful, I enjoyed drawing. And the guys from the Discord channel were very polite and tactful, always helping and rejoicing at my successes, even when my work was bad. This support touched me. Now I know that I will not stop there and want to continue to improve my skills. Thanks to @Ilmoro, @Sokaballa and other guys.
Although the portraits are not unique and memorable in my opinion, they approached some combat sprites with creativity and used non-standard ones, such as the “Hero” class using a spear, the Tarin sprite (an amateur version of Caellach). It’s a pity that I have not met anyone else with such a sprite, especially in my ranks. Various variations of the “general” and paladin class with the addition of magic, dancers who can use a staff, giving a choice to either heal, give someone the opportunity to go again during the course, or strengthen, and many new or modified classes.
I consider music to be another of the most important aspects in romhacks. Sometimes it’s not only pleasant to play, but also to simply listen to outside the game. I want to highlight the ones I liked: Chrono Trigger battle theme (such a very cheerful theme that would suit some agile, cunning and smart main villain), Powell (it just really caught my attention and sometimes inspired me), Nier Automata - Sound of the End. Some tracks were inappropriate for my taste, unsuitable, which quickly became boring if I had to play more than 30 minutes in a chapter. Pure taste. Surely someone will like it or experience a feeling of nostalgia.
It was unusual for me to see a small squad in a FE game. I’m used to the fact that if I don’t like a hero, I just don’t take him into my team and replace him with someone else. Or, for example, I don’t like flying classes, I replace them with infantry, and here they force me to play without an alternative. I know that the idea was for the player to become friends with only one group of characters, but it’s difficult. How can you “get attached” to the heroes when there is no support between them, and what is there according to the plot is clearly not enough, not all the characters are revealed, but only the most important ones. Unfortunately, I didn’t like anyone I had to play for.
Unusual chapter 17-2, a kind of mini-game. It looks like a platformer, where until you learn one way to complete the game, you will die. This is not what I would like to see in FE, where usually due to chance, several possible options for achieving the goal appear. The first time I didn’t read the warning before the start, and it was in vain. I would have wasted a huge number of minutes, or even hours, if I was playing on a console and without quicksave keys.
The unique mechanics of additional damage or, on the contrary, decreased damage also resembles a mini-game in itself, where you need to press the action button at a certain moment to get an insignificant bonus that does not particularly affect the result. I spent time studying many timings of abilities that deal damage, but then I decided to save time and not use this feature. Most likely, I will not classify this as either a plus or a minus, it simply is. Someone will find it interesting.
I like the presence of skills for characters in FE. Although this can add complexity to balancing, for an ordinary player it adds variety to the game, as well as uniqueness of heroes or classes. There are many skills in Illuminated, and they work properly.
On the highest difficulty, it seemed like there was no such thing as enemy misses; it didn’t matter if they were 40%, 60%, or 80%, they always hit. I would not recommend playing this mode to those who want to save more heroes, and of course to those who are only interested in the plot. In addition, as I understand it, the difficulty does not add any secrets or differences to the game from the normal or casual level.
My personal score for this hack is 6/10. And I mentioned the main points that influenced the assessment. Is it worth playing? - Definitely. This game will find its fan.
Thanks to @Sokaballa for the work you have done over the years, as well as to those who participated in the development. I wish you success in the future. I hope you will not stop at what you have achieved in creating romhacks and will participate in some new project.
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@Sokaballa Thank you for this romhack, it was great!!
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Hey Fomortiis, thanks for taking the time to write an in-depth review. Means a lot!
I think some of the criticisms you bring up are totally fair. The game probably does have too much text, and having a small cast isn’t what all players might look for in a fire emblem experience. Though there are a fair number of talk conversations between the characters, effectively having no supports in the game could seem like an oversight. I won’t argue that, but at this point I’m not sure more text in the game is the answer haha. In the future, I definitely would aim to do a better job of cutting some of the bloat in the text because it is indeed long, but for now, I’m happy enough with where things landed.
I’m glad you were able to find some enjoyment in the game and take some positives out of it. I’m also happy that you were able to find some positive community with us in the discord and it’s been a pleasure having you around.
Thanks for the review and for all of your help!
@JrpgAddict Glad you enjoyed the game! Thanks for playing!
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I was just wondering, does the NG+ change the story a bit compared to the original?
There are new features in NG+ but there is no additional story in it. I may still write some more conversations down the line but they would be included in the vanilla version of the game.
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Man that Dragon lord class and wyvern knight completely color white mess. It hurt my eyes. My option wyvern knight should lance mastery. Seeing it weilding axe feel weird. And please remove the Dragoon on Dragon lord back, it is totally disater 
Small update today to version 1.0.2. Fixed some grammatical errors, adjusted a few more palettes, took a crack at solving the Chapter 24x gaiden requirements unlocking unintentionally, and changed a chapter objective so as to not allow for an unintended exploit. Also added an animation or two for Danielle based on a weapon she can get later in the game that didn’t have animations go with it.
Thanks to all those who have played or who are playing! Huge thanks to all those continuing to provide bug reports and feedback!
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Does this mean starting the whole game again? Quite frankly, I bit more than I could chew playing Hard mode in this hack and I havent had fun at all because of bad luck in my character stats. Now I come across the bane of this whole thing, the stealth desert chapter, and quite frankly, I’ve stopped playing the game entirely out of pure frustration. I am stubborn until Im not, so if I lower the difficulty, I will still feel like I failed. But man, I dunno, this one out of the whole game felt very unnecessary and took the whole immersion out of it for me having to sit for over an hour of just trial and error since Im not the biggest fan of having to fully use my entire brain for a game, not when I wanna play to relieve stress from work, not to get equally stressed strategizing like Im battling my spreadsheets and coworkers back at the office hahahaha. Everything else aside from some minor grammatical errors and some overexplanations in some sections, have been really good about this game! THAT ANIMATION FOR JAY’S CRITICALS WHEN PROMOTED?! LOVED IT! Keep up the good work!
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Hi Duskmourn, firstly thanks for playing!
No, you will not need to start over again with current patches, everything will be totally fine to patch and update. In fact, there is an extra feature for the desert chapter in question. I’m currently doing another playthrough right now to clean up some early game grammar stuff.
That desert chapter in particular can be a headache, I certainly get it. There are a lot of times in Illuminated I tried to do new things to keep chapters interesting, and that chapter’s mechanic is certainly wildly different from the rest of the game. Certainly not everyone’s cup of tea from the feedback I’ve gotten for sure, which is why I ended up implementing a skip to the stealth part of that chapter since patch 1.0.1.
Thanks for the other compliments though! If I can answer anything else I’m certainly happy to.
Right since this is done I really should continue
since I loved playing it previously.
I wonder should i continue my current file (just finished chapter 4)
or would you recommend to start anew?
In chapter 5 when that one guy appears and he kills that sleeping guard
is he supposed to just dissapear ? I probably think not and it happened because
before he appeared i killed that guy with the mage lady.
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Good call and it’s been reported that I can make those two units a bit more un-killable in Chapter 5. But to answer your question your previous save should be compatible with current patches. Good luck!
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i think giving the sleepyhead resistance would help.
if the one didn’t dissapear would he have chased me or something?
well my question was more so if there is new things to get in previous chapters that id miss on if i don’t restart.
Nope nothing that you should have missed in the early chapters that wasn’t previously available. You should be good!
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Hey, I’ve been playing your hack and I think it’s wonderful so far. The difficulty is just right for a less hardcore player like me and all the dialogue and writing has been very good. But I’ve been wondering, how many people am I supposed to have on my team? I’m on chapter 18 and have about 15 people on my army including the chapter 18 recruit. But I keep getting the weird impression that I’m missing a few people, for some weird reason.
Also, is there any sort of map or guide to tell me where all the hidden items are? Between the time limit and the FOW gimmick, I’d rather just make sure I can find everything without having to restart to double check spots just to make sure I don’t miss anything.
Hey @CaptainEXE , glad you’re enjoying the game and thanks for playing!
I do have a guide available in the discord under the #guides channel. Feel free to come on over and join if you’re worried about missing stuff in Chapter 18. I think it’s fun to find stuff organically which is why I don’t make a guide publicly available here, but also understand some folks still like to have a reference!
Also, with the Chapter 18 recruit, you actually have all the recruitable characters up to that point with 15. There are 16 total in the game and the 16th comes in a later chapter.
Thanks!
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I just want to say that I’m happy this game actually has a low unit count. It makes it easier to plan out a team and now what everyone’s strengths and weaknesses are or what to promote into for coverage. It minimizes the frustration of putting time and effort into a unit just for RNG to decide they need to underperform and have consistently bad growths and then I don’t know who else to use as a replacement. And I say this as a guy who promoted Danielle into Dragoon, hoping she’d get a decent speed boost and she’s stuck at 13 speed as a level 5 Dragoon lol I should’ve gone with General for her and just used her as a moving wall.
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When I play Fire Emblem games I typically use the same characters throughout the run and don’t rotate characters (I am a resetter on unit death too haha), so the design philosophy was certainly inspired by that. Definitely made it a bit easier to plan challenges for the player as well. Glad you have enjoyed it!
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