Hey I have seen some people commenting about this game. Dear author I would really love if you post some screenshots of your project cause at least for me, visual is very important to catch a better attention of public, at least more than a single text information.
I hope you find well this reply
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Just played it for the first time, had a lot of fun. Getting 2 dancers was so funny. Telling everyone I know about it, haha. Keep it up gamer.
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Just a couple of screenshots I took from one of my test runs. Additionally includes some spoilers of upcoming features lol.
5 Likes
Really liked what you’ve made so far, rogue likes and Fire Emblem go together really well. I love that it’s a low growths hack, and not having to worry about skillsys complicating things is a nice change of pace from other hacks. My run I had repeated 3 of the maps twice which was kind of a bummer, maybe its possible to make it so we get a choice of level kind of like how we can choose which units we recruit? Could incentivize choosing a harder level by having better item drops in those levels maybe? Either way, looking forward to running through the mid-game and end-game maps later
2 Likes
Litte Development Update
The little FEE3 trailer thing I had posted for a little while said the full hack would be finished by end of August, but some design/balancing problems have delayed that a little, as well as college lol.
All that said, however, the hack is just about in its final form. I just need to tweak around and balance some maps and mechanics, but it is playable start to finish. Overall, it’s about 90% done.
And trust me, it’s definitely worth the wait. The average run time is waaaay higher than for the beta version, and it’s a lot more fun to play, I feel. Meriette’s promotions are also both very fun to use, since they’re both wild in their own separate ways.
But I’ve been able to get a lot of good work done this weekend, and I should slowly be able to chip away and get to the point where all I have to do is play the game a ton and tweak balances, so look forward to the full, actual hack coming soon. 
12 Likes
Yeesh I really waited until the last minute with this one lol. But you know, classes and all. It’s far from perfect and there’s still a bunch I wanna do with it, but I’ve finally gotten to a point where I can be proud of what I’ve got so far. This is a massive change to what the hack previously was, but it’s definitely for the better. So without further Ado…
FE: ID v1.0 Release Changes
Changes
- Replaced Rangers with Nomad Troopers. They are exactly the same but look better
- Replaced FE8 Manaketes with FE6 Manaketes and re-made the Dragonstone System
- Look forward to Ice, Fire, Divine, and Dark Dragons with wildly different stats
- Nerfed staff EXP
- Still better on the whole, but healers got a lil too crazy\
- Reworked Clerics
- Now specializing in raw magical power, and female Bishops have been changed to Nuns
- Took away light for sages and anima for druids
And what you’ve probably been waiting for…
The Full Hack
- Three Acts split up into 5 maps and 1 boss map, with a final boss at the very end of it
- Recruitable units grow in power with each act
- Many, many new maps, some with very interesting gimmicks
- The Secret Seal
- Use at your own risk…
- Using it on your unpromoted units will grant them special
promotions with wildly different stats
- Meriette Promotions
- Choose the incredibly powerful Assassin, or the incredibly agile Rogue
- Starting and Ending events telling the story of how Meriette challenged the Illusory Dungeon
- Brand new clothes for Meriette thanks to UnbalanCedric (shinader on Discord)
I know that this list looks a lot smaller than my previous update list, but I really didn’t change much of how the hack plays, just the amount of content in it. There is still more balancing and polishing to come, and I’m definitely forgetting some of the tweaks I made or features I added. But as always, I really hope you enjoy playing this hack, and please give any feedback you have, I’d love to hear what you think
11 Likes
Also, figured I’d make a post detailing specific mechanics unique to this hack that aren’t explicitly stated.
- Stairs will warp any unit that ends their turn on them to its connecting set of stairs
- Visiting yellow houses will recover HP
Will update as I notice more unexplained mechanics lol.
5 Likes
Hello, I encountered an issue in a boat map in act II.
I triggered the reinforcements to appear, and one of the reinforcements spawned under this pegasus knight phantom.
The hack is fun overall. The one complaint I had is that this map had a turn limit that wasn’t stated anywhere. It would have been useful to know that there was a strict turn limit ahead of time.
1 Like
I encountered another issue in act 2.
In this map, one of the bosses didn’t spawn correctly and teleported to the location of the previous boss.
This sage in the Act II finale has a lightning tome it can’t use.
Also, so far it seems like none of my units can use Secret Seals. Is this intentional? The description implies that anyone should be able to use them.
Edit: This map in Act 3 has shops which can’t be interacted with.
Edit 2: Finished a run.
Spoilers Maybe
Here are my units.
The Sage and Sniper definitely were the MVPs of this run. The Wyvern Knight was pretty useful too, even with his terrible speed.
Yes, I deployed an unpromoted priest to the final map. I didn’t have any better filler. :v
Is there a purpose to the item that the final boss drops?
Edit 3: I also noticed that weapons like the Wyrmslayer don’t do effective damage to Manaketes. Not sure if this is intentional, but it seems unintuitive to me.
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Hey, im kinda new to this emulator thing, but i downloaded it and tried to open it with visual Boy advance and it wouldnt work, saying its not a valid ROM. How do i fix this?
What you’ve downloaded was a UPS patch, and not a ROM. You need to find a Fire Emblem - Sacred Stones ROM and use a patcher like NUPS to patch the ROM. While I cannot link a ROM, due to community guidelines, I can link NUPS for convienience.
NUPS Patcher: Romhacking.net - Utilities - NUPS
Credit to Nintenlord for this. btw.
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Mind if I ask what the Membership Card does in the romhack? I snagged one from a treasure chest and I don’t want to pull my (remaining) hair out searching random spots in randomized maps. [EDIT: Okay, anyone who has the same question, wait until the rest map at the end of act 3. Not sure if there are any others]
Also 4 bugs to report:
- Some stationary enemy units also won’t attack even if they’re in range of a unit they can attack (this happened on the first boss in my recent playthrough. Some archers on pillars just weren’t interested in fighting)
- I bought a Knight unit after a fight and then it was a Cavalier when I loaded into the next map. It had all its original Knight stats (including an inability to use swords), but it had Cavalier movement. Once I upgraded it to a Paladin, it got S-tier sword skill instantly.
- Found a map with a Vendor and Armory that I couldn’t visit (I even tried with the membership card!) in Act 3
- The epilogue just had me fight the final boss again (same dialogue and all). The second time I killed it, it gave me the FIN ending.
Spoilers
(She doesn’t know that she is indeed alone)
Hey Floux,
Love the idea and the execution of this hack.
Just a quick one, I seem to be in a never ending loop, I have had ‘Ayo, the pizza is here’ trigger 4 or 5 times in a row after completing maps and occasionally the save will change from act 1 encounter to dungeon encounter and then back but I reckon I’ve fought 9 or 10 maps and haven’t gotten to the boss yet. A bug I’m guessing, not sure what I do to undo it? Maybe just start again but I’ve got units that got some good levels so want to keep going.
Appreciate your work!
Edit: Started a new run and couldn’t recruit any new units, still got the Ayo, the pizza is here message.
1 Like
Today, I’m experiencing this same bug. I finished an entire run already and started a new one. After about 3-4 chapters in, I thought it was an Easter egg of a phrase. Then, I realize I didn’t receive my unit after Selection. Now, I’m in loop of “Ayo, there’s pizza here.” For the past 2hrs. I thought it’ll eventually STOP finding pizza but boy was I wrong. She kept eating pizza and more pizza. I hate pizza right now because of this. Please help.
Ok so maybe this is a random event but what is pizza time? it happened 3 times which made me not recruit a reward unit. (Don’t have pictures currently but if it happens again I will take a picture of it.)
1 Like
Congrats on getting out a completed project!
It was grwat seeing your own start screen, but, on my first run, I got so excited to have a manakete with 2 dark stones offered to me! Then it turned into a brigand with 2 dark stones he couldn’t use at the beginning of the map.
Hello!
First and foremost, amazing hack! I’ve been thinking of an FE rogue-like and how it would work for a long time, but I’m no hacker so it would never have gone past the idea stage. You’ve done an even better job of it than I could have in my daydreams - the overall quality of the game is excellent! Even as-is in these earlier stages, the game is already fully playable with little else needed to be an enjoyable experience, though I’m excited to see the heights this hack can reach. It has incredible potential. So much so that I’ve literally created an account for the first time on this website just to respond to you, lol.
As someone with a ton of experience with Fire Emblem and rogue-like games (especially Slay the Spire) along with having played many mods/hacks for both, I’d like to give my feedback on mostly internal mechanics. In particular, most of my advice will revolve around my understanding of what makes Slay the Spire “tick”, it’s gameplay loops, what causes it to be so addicting and enjoyable, and avoiding some pitfalls in porting these qualities over to the gameplay style of Fire Emblem and what players enjoy or dislike here. You seem to have a good grasp of these already, and maybe your ideas are better than mine, so by no means should you take my word as law. Really I’m just trying to say that I’m doing my best to give good advice and not just fanboying over potential feature inclusions If your vision for what you want the hack to be differs from mine, then do your thing, man!
To note, I have only played one run up to the early stages of Act III so far, on normal difficulty before moving on to hard. I would normally wait to finish a few runs before I give my feedback, but knowing myself, if I leave this for later I will never get to it. Just know where I’m at when reading, and I’ll add more later after completing some runs if I feel inclined to.
NOTABLE POSITIVE FEEDBACK:
The maps are excellent!
Giving the starting thief a magic ranged weapon is SUCH a great idea!
Having tiny houses heal you a little bit is a PHENOMENAL idea for counteracting losing healers or not having enough of them. Great job!!
Wonderful balancing on unpromoted cavaliers, especially early on. In GBAFE, cavalier is arguably the best class due to its multiple weapon types, high move, and canto, while still retaining the ability to gain terrain bonuses. The correct balancing choice is to have them have middling speed, so they do not double or get doubled by most classes.
Great balancing on shamans too! Having very low speed but high HP allows them to survive getting doubled. I really liked this.
Having a fighter be your guaranteed early game tank is a GREAT balance choice, since this allows you to promote him for bow access if you didn’t get a bow user later on.
Getting easy access to Light Brands is an excellent design choice. This allows Myrmidons and similar sword-locked classes to attack from range and even deal magic damage, balancing them against the lance and axe users which are strictly better classes in vanilla GBAFE with their access to Javalins and Hand Axes. It’s still balanced well too, as those sword-locked classes now have added utility, but are not bulky enough to act as main tanks.
I like the growth rates. They are not high enough to make training early units and keeping them alive necessary for a good late game team, but not so low that early units won’t keep up with those stronger later-game pickups. Excellent work!
I considered advising you to start the player with one of every iron-tier weapon in the convoy to be able to equip anyone you get, but upon further thinking about it, I like how the hack currently works. Being stuck with the weapons you are given and having to make do with what you have helped Act I be a lot more interesting.
I LOVED the “arcane ruins” map gimmick where you basically need a flier rescue drop to get a white gem off of a brigand to the right before he dies to map hazards. Adding these kinds of gimmicks is a great idea, especially if they could have multiple solutions (like in the one I mentioned, maybe make it so you could alternatively barely rush through the map with a paladin or using a dancer cleverly - the brigand I had only spawned with 40 hp, so 4 turns isn’t enough time. But with 51 or 61 this could become doable if your flier died and you haven’t found a replacement)
MUST HAVES:
Do NOT ambush spawn, especially in a game like this in which keeping characters alive is everything. Allow players that one turn to react to reinforcement spawns before they move and attack.
Having a marker on the map to show where reinforcements will come from later, so the player can plan ahead. This can be implemented easily using a different tile which will clearly stand out to the player, like stairs often do.
UNIT SELECTION SCREEN & GENERATING UNITS:
Idk how unit generation works, but off the top of my head, and if you haven’t done this already, you could have separate “pools” of units based on “types”. The base game doesn’t have equal numbers of sword/lance/axe/bow/magic/staff units, or tanks/speedy/magic/healers/mounted/fliers for instance. Having the generator first pick some sort of type and then generate a class from that list could better balance the availability of key units, especially in the early game. In particular, the first few unit rewards could have a slightly increased chance of seeing lance users, mounted units, fliers, and maybe replacement healers, as you lack a starting lance user, mounted units / fliers are key in getting many optional pickups, and you’ll struggle without a healer if you happen to lose yours. Slay the spire generates [card rarity] first and then generates a card from that pool, so applying that here (and taking from some of my later tips) you could figure out in what order to generate based on rarity, weapon type, role, and then pick randomly from classes within that final pool, then do the same for equipment.
Starting the party off with a pegasus as a 5th unit fills all the key missing roles (lance, mounted/canto, flying) (bow is less immediately necessary and is covered by fighter promo). It also ensures that the player will never be completely locked out of flier-necessary optional rewards (given good play), is not (nearly) forced to take a pegasus/wyvern if available to fill the flyer role at risk of not having another offered, and can allow maps (especially early ones) to be built with the knowledge that it’s (probably) the player’s fault if they DON’T have a flier. Missing out on rewards only because you didn’t have access to the unit type needed feels bad, and so is being pidgenholed into a choice at no fault of your own. I understand this might take some early rebalancing, but I think it’ll give a better average play experience. And actually, I don’t know if a ton of rebalancing is necessary for a few reasons. First, a pegasus is hardly a primary combat unit with their low defenses, lack of terrain bonuses, and how they’re zoned out by archers, ballistas, & axe users. And second, from personal experience, my second map was the beach map with ballista boats & 3 groups of 3 units (soldiers, myrmidons, & fighters) (I had a peg w/ iron, steel, & jav I think) and it was a struggle to get through the middle portion unscathed on just normal difficulty - I’d say I’m a very experienced and extremely methodical FE player, so I have no idea how less experienced or methodical players would get through this second map without losses. As I say later on in another tip, this could actually allow for EASIER balancing of Act I maps, as now you know the player will have upwards of 6-8 characters quite quickly (as opposed to having to balance the early Act I maps around ~5 characters and later ones around ~7)
Add a relatively small chance (15%? Should be enough to see 0-2 per unit selection screen) of generating an extra weapon that is not of the correct class, for variety and deeper choices. I.E. “Do I take that great character which has synergy with my party makeup? Or do I take that decent one which also comes with a halberd for my fighter to take on cavaliers?”
In unit rewards, deploy ALL available units to the side, so you can check your party during character selection.
Knights and generals seem way too risky to take later in the game, because their speed and res is SO low that they’ll be destroyed by virtually any mage, even unpromoted ones at times. Groups of enemies seem to include magic units pretty often later on. I may take this back as this can be counteracted using Pure Water - I haven’t tried this yet.
I would also consider making Knights Mov 5 (but keeping generals Mov 5 as well). Many hacks do this and it helps their viability.
Have a VERY small chance of generating a trainee unit (with a built-in trainee seal to promote at level 10) in Act I. Just like in the base game, these should have terrible base stats and OK growth rates, but with those 10 extra levels to grow and high EXP rates. Hard and risky to use, but highly rewarding if pulled off. Many FE players LOVE using trainee units, including myself. Just don’t make them COMPLETELY broken in late-game if trained, they should become solidly above average. Split promotions are not necessary, as each of the “canon” promotions add lots of value: Journeyman->Warrior for a tank with bow access, Recruit->Paladin for a frontline unit with high move & canto, Pupil->Sage for staffs and magic.
I think adding split promotions for every unit would be a mistake, as many of the split promotion paths have clearly “better” choices. However, TONS of variety can be added by giving EVERY class a different promotion class (I.E. mages sometimes promote into sages, and sometimes into mage knights). The promotion class can be displayed in the class tooltip (I.E. Myrmidon - “Talented swordsmen…” replace “Equip: Swords” with “P: Swordmaster”). This adds more of those “deeper choices” during character selection. I don’t know much about hacking, but I believe this would also be super easy to implement, as you can add different amounts of the same class to the pool. For instance, if you want Knights to usually promote into Generals, but have a chance of getting that better Great Knight promotion, just add 3 “Knight” classes in the pool - two regular ones and one “Knight (R)” (R for Rare) which will promote into Great Knight. You can play with the amounts here to make the (R) class 33%, 25%, etc chance to spawn depending on the class and value of the promotion path. You can even add MORE variety and hype by adding Super Rare (S) classes, like a Myrmidon which promotes into Ranger, Fighter into Berserker, or even just increased base stats or growths - similar to uncommon cards and golden Rare cards being offered in Slay the Spire.
Lord Classes! Each of the lord classes (except maybe Roy - perhaps he could act as a trainee which turns into an Eliwood?) provides something through promotion that few other classes do. Hector could be a General-like with no lance access but enough speed to usually not be doubled. Lyn is a myrmidon-like with later access to bows. Eliwood, Ephriam, and Erika all get promoted into mounted units with high move and canto. You could even give these classes exclusive access to their Prf weapons (with less uses than the regular ~40 for balance purposes) - Wolf Beil, Rapier, etc
Lord classes could be an alternate way to add those “Super Rare” offers during character selection. Perhaps lords are offered VERY rarely but have excellent stats or growths, and come with that valuable weapon that is effective against multiple unit types. This can add more to that “deeper choices” thing I talked about, since perhaps you get offered a rare Hector, but don’t have any healers and the correct choice is to forgo the “Super Rare” in favor of a healer - similar to how - in higher Ascension in slay the spire - you could get offered a Rare with a lot of potential but in actuality the “correct” choice is to take some other reliable damage card, despite it only being common.
I don’t know how it would work out in practice, but consider adding a small chance of spawning a promoted class in Act II, with lower base stats (perhaps -1 or -2 to most stats on average). This could be a “get me through midgame” unit for desperate runs, but these characters would steal EXP, not gain many levels, and will only come out “decent at best” in late game. Careful when allowing this for magic / staff units as these will be strong in late game regardless of their stats. You can continue to use rarity here to allow for very powerful but very rare options.
You could add red houses on some maps which give you a random character with almost random equipment (perhaps from smaller, more specialized pools) - this can be hype as hell. I would even add one of these to the end of the first chapter, to further provide variety to every run as early as map two and allow for easier balancing of Act I maps, as now you know the player will have upwards of 6-8 characters quite quickly (as opposed to having to balance the early Act I maps around ~5 characters and later ones around ~7). Perhaps in ACT II these could also sometimes reward an Earth Seal, and you can even add “choice” houses next to each other like the ones that allow you to pick the A/B path in FE6 around Ch11, but both close once you pick one. Not sure how hard this is to implement. “Extra” characters also turn doomed runs (where you only have, say, 6 units left available for 8 unit slots) into “get by with what you have available” runs - which are MUCH more fun and have potential for hype comeback moments.
Do NOT add summoners, or if you do, make their summons a 1/map ability (if possible). Experienced players can nearly completely break the game balance using summons. Considering what a great job you’ve done with the hack you probably already know this, but it’s worth restating anyway.
MAP GENERATION:
Idk if this is already the case, but larger variety is most important among Act I maps, then Act II, and Act III is least important - runs can and will die, so the majority of play time for any player will be in Act I.
Either more maps, or a guarantee that you will never see the same 2 in a row - this happened to me on my first run. It’s not terrible if this happens, but minimizing this chance would be best.
You can double up on the same maps in the pool but have different unit placements, or even just different reinforcement spawn locations (this can easily 2x or 4x the variety of maps without actually making new maps)
Enemies seem to have a high chance of spawning with Killer weapons in Act III (although maybe I just got unlucky?). I don’t like this, as losing strong units to ~20% crits which you can do little about doesn’t feel good. It also ruins Knights further, as consistently getting doubled and potentially eating a single or double crit makes them very unsafe, less so on Generals due to higher Def, but still. Maybe it’s fine, I’ll have to keep playing and see if it matters.
QUALITY OF LIFE:
Give characters random portraits and names from a list. Don’t underestimate the increased enjoyment of the game from players becoming attached to their characters, both within a single run and across multiple runs seeing the same portrait and name but with a different class. It also allows players to tell the difference between two units of the same class and remember which one has which equipment without having to check just in case you mixed them up - another benefit not to underestimate the importance of. It doesn’t have to be complicated, especially in early releases. I know theres a repo of TONS of character portraits available for free use by hackers, as Mangs used it for his “chat creates my units” runs.
Ability to see growth rates would be nice. There are already add-ons which provide this feature since I’ve seen it in many other hacks (I assume)
Some way of understanding what triggers the pull of certain groups? Many times I put a character in the line of fire only to have the enemies stay in place.
Name the maps. “Beach Ia”, “Ruins IIa”, “Castle Ia”, “Plains IIb” etc. This can also reward skilled players who familiarize themselves with the map pool.
EXTRAS / MISC:
Consider creating a separate “save scum” difficulty that makes the game harder but is intended to play with save scumming? A lot of people like playing this way, especially those that don’t like losing characters/resources. Perhaps not the purpose of the hack, but why not give different types of players the tools to experience the game the way they want to? If so, low priority. Maybe something to add later like an expansion once the hack is complete.
More than 8 character slots, especially on later Act II or Act III maps. This rewards players for keeping characters alive. I would make map balance around “# of character slots minus 1” as I expect to lose a lot more characters in hard mode - though you’ve done a great job already, so do your thing
Hard mode could actually make the game MORE difficult by giving you more character slots (ironically) since the map can be balanced around higher character slots (forces you to play better and keep units alive)
I got the member card, but couldn’t (easily) figure out where the secret shop(s) were at a glance. (Granted, I didn’t try very hard - that’s why I added “easily”). Do with this what you will. Consider that secret shops are one of those features where “once you figure it out, you always know it,” so better “hiding” secret shops from the player only punishes inexperienced players while rewarding those which already know on later runs. Added unit variety, hype “rarity” moments, maps, and deeper choices will already add more than enough replayability to the hack (I can already see myself playing this on/off for years, especially when updated) so consider making the/most/some secret shop locations obvious (with a specific tile?) with the tradeoff that they require sacrifices or challenges to get to them.
2 Likes
Great game, but got the pizza message and was wondering how to move past it, or if I need to start a new run. What causes this anyway, or is this an easter egg of some sort that may be broken?