Welcome, Fire Emblem Universe, to my second romhack:
(Download Link for Version 4) (Mediafire)
And also the comment_.txt that I used to keep track of things and make witty comments. If you wanna do some datamining and get some insight on how this hack was developed, feel free to insert this into the folder and take a look.
Story Synopsis:
30 years after a terrible calamity shook Eudaimonia, seven long-dead nations return from the grave to continue the war they waged centuries ago. The already decimated continent risks being caught in the crossfire. To prevent this, a mysterious force gathers 20 seemingly random people from around the continent and gives them a task: to fight and defeat these ghostly kingdoms before Eudaimonia is reduced to ashes by savage warfare. Follow Kolton and Raewyn as they lead their new group on the quest given to them.
At long last, Kingdom of Ghosts is finally completed. It’s taken me a long time, but I’ve finally completed my passion project for the last little while, and what may be one of the best stories I’ve ever written thus far.
Latest update was the support update, adding all of the support conversations. It makes adjustments to text, making sure characters are consistent, adds more talk conversations and support conditionals, etcetera. It also adds hard mode, which consists of not only upgraded enemy levels, but also other things like some enemies having better weapons, as well as various hard mode exclusive gimmicks… It’s still got a somewhat lower skill ceiling, even on hard mode, but it’s not as pathetically easy as my previous hack was. I’ve never been a fan of high-difficulty hacks, personally.
From here on out, any updates will probably be fixing any errors I missed, correcting typos, maybe a few balance changes, but nothing major. To those who’ve been holding back on playing it due to it being incomplete, the go-ahead has been given.
Well, that’s about all. The rest of the post has everything else you need to know about this hack.
Previous Versions + Messages:
Version 1:
(Download Link for Version 1) (Mediafire)
Well, here I am. Finally releasing Version 1 of a hack that I’ve been working on since Summer 2023. A story that has tested my mettle as a storywriter, a romhacker, and a Fire Emblem player. A hack that’s more difficult than Treasure Hunters was, much longer, far more ambitious, and much better crafted overall. Now this is the type of romhack I wanted to make when I was making Treasure Hunters.
This hack currently is incomplete, but it has quite a lot done already; the beginning chapters and Route A are done, most-- if not all-- of the portraits have been made, the story’s been planned out in full, (even if you can’t see all of it yet) man oh man I’ve already done a lot. I figured releasing an in-progress version before finishing the hack was a good move. Let’s see how well this is received.
Behold: Kingdom of Ghosts.
Version 2:
Download Link for Version 2 (Mediafire)
And now I release Version 2, which adds the endgame chapters with the Route A script. Version 3 is set to add the Route B chapters and the Route B script for the endgame.
I’m quite proud of this hack so far; I’m mostly proud of the gameplay, even more proud of the characters, and I’m really liking what this is shaping up to be. Boy, I can’t wait for Route B, but I’m still gonna take a short break before I get back to work anyways.
By the way, question for any more experienced romhackers here: does anyone know how to get rid of the CG images in the credits? I still want to keep the original credits in, but I want to remove the FE8 pictures, since the FE8 cast isn’t in this hack, heh. I’d like to know that for future versions.
Version 3:
(Download Link for Version 3) (Mediafire)
Version 3 is finally released, featuring Route B in it’s entirety and the endgame with the Route B script, touch-ups to Route A, easy mode is sorted out, and the hack is slowly getting closer and closer to completion.
Regarding the statement in the previous version, I figured out how to remove the CG images. I just don’t know what to put there yet, but Version 4 will probably sort that out. Version 4 is meant to be the final and fully completed version, so I’d better sort it out by then.
All in all the hack isn’t as unfinished anymore as it would be in previous versions. A handful of things will probably change for Version 4, but all the chapters are completed. The supports will be the biggest thing coming to the next update, and maybe a playtested/balanced hard mode, but only maybe. You still won’t have context to A-support only interactions in the plot itself until then.
But also until then, I hope you all enjoy!
For Future Updates:
- Potentially some balance changes
- Bug fixes if any major bugs are discovered
- Maybe correct some typos along with stuff above
Features:
- A cast of 20 playable characters, all of which are obtained in the first chapter, plus full deployment for almost every chapter in the game.
- 26 Chapters with a route split and 4 gaidens, three with multiple versions: totalling up to 45 chapters. (Excluding the Interludes)
- Completed supports, with 48 support chains in total.
- Easy, Normal and Hard modes are all available.
- Several things return from my previous hack, Treasure Hunters. These include brave tomes, Achlys, common magic swords, Halberdier/Sniper crit bonuses, the Wraith class, and hidden ground items.
- Between Raewyn and Dillon, only Raewyn can be a Summoner and Dillon can be a Wraith. Both can be Druids.
- Support points are gained at 3-range.
- The Angel class is added, a pegasus-based class with lances and bows, replacing Wyvern Knight as a promotion option for Pegasus Knight.
- Nomads return, promoting into either Rangers or Angels.
- Aircalibur returns, and a new version of the Seraphim tome has been added as a B-rank light tome.
- QoL additions: Battle animations can be sped up using the R button, you can display global enemy range with Select on the map, use Select to view growth rates on character status screens, and press the L button on the chapter status menu to access the support viewer.
- You can counterattack siege weaponry with other siege weaponry.
- The stat-buffing rings return, and are counted in-game as staves. When you use a ring on a unit, their turn will be refreshed too.
- Health of both playable characters and enemies has been increased. Promoted player units can reach up to 80 health.
- Vulnerary health restoration increased to 15 points.
- Knights have 5 movement, but don’t gain any upon promotion to a General.
- You can reach multiple weapon S-ranks.
- The items in the preparations shop get better as the chapters go on.
- Thieves can steal with full inventories. While Assassins still can’t steal, your thieves can continue to steal even when promoting to it, but anyone else who promotes to Assassin can’t. All Assassins can still use lockpicks regardless, though.
- A codex filled with bits of extra lore, descriptions of characters, and information refreshers if you forget some things. All from one of the main characters’ perspectives.
- More features that you’ll learn as you play!
Gameplay Notes:
- Please be careful when force resetting. This hack uses a checkpoint system that allows you to save at certain parts of most maps. If you game over, you can simply resume the chapter and start at the last save. But forcefully resetting the game will also take you back to the last save. And if you haven’t reached a save point, well… You’ll have to restart the chapter.
- Brief tutorials for these in-game mechanics will be provided as you go along.
- This is said in the game, but I might as well just say it here too: this hack is not built for ironman runs. But it’s hell of a challenge if you want to try it.
- The game distributes its promotion items in a way that encourages you to go for full-levelling. Actually, it’s balanced around this.
- This hack’s intended difficulty is in Normal mode.
- Average playtime: ~40-44 hours per playthrough. It’s a long hack, I know.
- Gaiden requirements: Keep all playable characters alive up until the first Gaiden, excluding Kolton, Raewyn, and Aloysius. (On Route A, this is the end of Chapter 13. On Route B, the end of Chapter 12.) From then on, the rest of the Gaidens are unlocked automatically even if someone dies, with one exception: Mirren must be alive every time.
- Casual mode is enabled temporarily on specific chapters: 1, 15, 12A (Title: “Not Without Respect”), all of the interludes, and all of the Gaiden chapters. Units who fall here will return next chapter.
Known Glitches:
- The battle-speed up function mostly works but can cause issues. The most common issue is audio glitches (Seems to occur with magic most frequently when this happens) in which case, I recommend switching off your emulator sound and listening to your favourite music; at least, until you reach the next checkpoint and are able to restart your emulator, which fixes the glitch. And in the rarest cases, it can cause the game to freeze. ***Use this function at your own risk.
- Sometimes the game will freeze before switching chapters. I’ve only encountered this glitch twice, but it’s possible. This can also happen when viewing a map in the preparation screen, which is a bit more common, but still rare.
- Graphical glitches occasionally occur, but nothing gamebreaking.
Credits:
- Nintendo and Intelligent Systems for the creation of Fire Emblem.
- FEBuilder made by 7743.
- Portraits made by me using TheFlyingMinotaur’s portrait maker and paint dot net.
- Special thanks to Lehn and Obsidian Daddy for the FE6 Blinking frames, used for reference to create blinking frames for my own portraits.
- Maps made with BwdYeti’s map creator.
- Everyone who made the patches that come with FEBuilder.
- Stat colours/growth display made by Tequila.
- Many custom graphics taken from Klokinator’s FE-Repo.
- Bard magic made by Black Mage, Temp, and Wan. Refresh by Orihara_Saki.
- Bard class card by MeatOfJustice.
- Dancer class card by Orihara_Saki.
- Female Mercenary, Phantom, and Halberdier battle animations made by The Blind Archer.
- Female Assassin sprites by Russell Clark (Mapped into proper format by me)
- Female Mercenary map sprites by Flasuban.
- Female Rogue and Hoodless Shaman animations by Temp.
- Female Monk: battle sprites by Eldritch, map sprites by Teraspark.
- Female Summoner map sprites by VelvetKitsune.
- Angel class: battle animations taken from Falcoknight animations by Flasuban, Knabepicer, and Nuramon. Map sprites taken from Seraph Knight sprites made by CamusZekeSirius and Flasuban.
- “Prominence” (FE6 Forblaze alteration, used for tome Scorch) by DerTheVaporeon
- “Hellfire” animation (Used for tome Destruct) by Seal.
- Gespenst and Luce imports by SHYUTERz.
- Armored Berserker animations by a3d3.
- Dulam animation by Arch.
- Lowered-arm variant Druid animations by JeyTheCount.
- Everelos weapon icon made by Celice.
- Unrestrainer weapon icon made by George Reds.
- Eviscerator weapon icon made by Ereshkigal
- Spectral Axe weapon icon made by Zane.
- Monster map sprite resizes by Pikmin.
- Phantom map sprite resize by Pushwall.
- Gold Temple tileset palette by Dark, with inspiration from RandomWizard.
- Flasuban, N426, ZoramineFae, and Venno made the Village Remake (Sunset palette) tileset.
- Music:
- Sky Peak Final Pass and Steam Cave by RandomWizard
- Voyage 1969 and Fusion Dragon by MrGreen3339
- Shaman in the Dark by Raulster
- Anything not listed here was either uncredited from where I obtained them (Usually the FE-Repo) or made by me. I also made a handful of minor edits to some of these things, but that’s not too important.
- Special thanks to my older brother for being an outside eye playtester.
Content Warnings:
- Epilepsy warning: there’s a handful of flashing lights, but this is already done in base Fire Emblem games, so hopefully you’re already aware.
- A few instances of discrimination; but not many, and not meant to target real-world groups. I apologize in advance if you find anything offensive.
- A few things might be mildly uncomfortable? I’m not affected by most things, but it’s possible some players might be. Apologies in advance again.
- Some people say “Hell” but I don’t believe there’s any actual swearing.
- Aside from other stuff you might typically see in a Fire Emblem game, not too much worth noting.
I hope all goes well with this hack, especially now that it’s completed. I hope you enjoy!
-Wilhem
