Fire Emblem: Storge [COMPLETE]

[knabepicer]

Cruithne you just talk to normally to recruit (well as normal as talking to her can be).
Roy will only show up on NG+, Gladys only if you do all this shit: finishing first playthrough, finishing a playthrough where you hired Yudhi, finishing with at least 40K gold, finishing in 25 turns, defeating Wild Sam.
There are no promotion items (besides an NG+ thing for Becker) so the only people who can promote are Malachi and Gretchen.

[knabepicer]

Update post! With this, I think I’ll call Storge totally done, barring further discovered glitches. Download link remains the one in OP.
Changelog:
-Fixed several bugs, including money not resetting on NG+, Gretchen not being able to promote in NG+, and a thing with Wild Sam no one probably ran into
-3 new recruitables were added (Cheyenne, Buchanan, and Saloninus)
-A bunch of new boss convos
-New achievement check feature in NG+
-Erebus’s stat boosts were nerfed

As always, hope you all enjoy!

[Pandan]

Just started today - really cool take on FE and I’m enjoying Becker and Gretchen’s dynamic. The game so far has a lot of charm and despite only getting a conversation or two, the characters manage to have a super distinct voice and feeling. The resource management element is fun as well.

Feels like a fun format and I look forward to seeing copycats down the line.

Few quick bugs I want to report before I forget

• End of chapter 1: Becker’s dialogue has an error with one of the lines where it is indented where it shouldn’t be.

• Segal’s fleet state can be rescued by a unit, but can’t be dropped off unless it’s a tile that the unit can walk on. A little misleading since she can turn into a fleet on land, but if you try to pick her up and drop her, you need water. This is a problem in ch2 specifically because I’m now stuck holding her lol.

That’s all for now, will report anything else as I play through. Difficulty so far feels fair and it’s incredible how well-balanced this feels despite having so many potential options and permutations of the team that exist. Great work, will share more as I go.

[Pandan]

I beat the game. Overall this is an excellent little hack and I’m keen to replay with different units. Think this would be a fun game to tier as well since availability and price would come into play. I played normal and felt it was fair as a blind player. The difficulty was at a good spot for me - it was engaging, punished me for getting lazy about checking ranges and enemy weapons, and never felt unfair. Sometimes the game was a bit lenient on reinforcements, which lead them to spawn on top of me, but it was never in such high amount or frequency that it was annoying.

I shared my feedback more in depth on discord, but for those of you looking at the thread, here are my thoughts.

• Relatable story - I think anyone who has been pushed by a family member to pursue a “safe” path that they themselves don’t want can relate to the well-presented narrative. Super different compared to the norm without feeling at all out of place in the context of FE.
• Fun units - Lots of neat gimmicks and fun combinations. The format lends itself to wacky units and trying out different types. I can see this hack being a touchstone for hack creators looking to make gimmicky units in their own work that have real use.
• Maps - Your mileage may vary depending on who you choose, but I found that the game does a nice job of emphasizing matchups, and everyone usually had something they excelled in.
• Characterization: For only a single recruitment convo, I’m impressed at how well everyone was characterized. Gretchen and Becker get the lion’s share of dialogue post preps, but the rest of the units had a lot of personality. Really shows that less is more - I was left wanting to see more of each unit.

Here’s my team going into the chapter 5 endgame.

Team

Pretty easy to feed and give kills to. Despite his weak weapon rank, he was doing big damage with an iron sword by the end. Fun villager and a good bargain even if you don’t use him. 500 gold steel blade!!

Gretchen was solid. Good build for a main character and can fit well with any party I’m sure. Faeblade makes her waaaay better, and the promo gains at the end were welcome.

Really streaky unit. Probably died the most of any unit I had, but was a myrm who I could use a shamshir/killing edge on for an entire run, so it was fun. I love her expression >:|

Fun gimmick turning into a fleet. She was useful as my sole axe user against lance units, and for clearing out a few fliers especially in chapter 2.

Funny RES bow armor was great. There are a lot of fliers in this hack and Gage was able to do big damage. Also great against mages. Fun unit.

Essential.

Roscoe’s gimmick is a big lol and I barely used him for anything besides healing. Decent option if you’re like me and want a 2nd healer on a budget. I could’ve probably used him for chip more.

Super solid. 8 move and a bow with good defenses. All around terrific. Probably #2 of the run behind Barb. Could send her off out in front with little fear.

Admittedly, I forgot Cheyenne could steal for most of the run, but her combat was useful. Cool build and the Simoom was fun when it cooperated.

Barb is the meta. Easily the most useful and versatile unit. The free 2nd spear in ch3 was icing. Was able to go most of the game just with the iron lance. Lots of fun.

Strongly recommend this one! Nice work, epicer.

[DrGreen3339]

https://tiermaker.com/create/storge-144813
@Knight_Moris made a tier maker for Storge

[knabepicer]

Minor update to fix a couple bugs (such as Fauchard being way too strong in easy mode) and add the ability to check mercs’ prices from their inventories.

[Rivian]

After multiple aborted runs I’ve finally finished a full run on regular normal mode, and in short, I think Storge is absolutely fantastic. There is just so much to like:

• The writing focuses only the two protagonists (since everyone else is optional) and it really delivers on a story premise that I think many can relate to, strained relationship between parent and child. Some of it hits especially close to home.

• The one recruitment conversation between each recruitable feels like it gives them more characterisation that characters in FE with supports, and in a sense I am almost disappointed they are not part of a full length hack.

• One of the selling points of the hack is unit diversity and Storge shows how skills are absolutely not needed to make each unit feel and play incredibly differently. I’ve used almost every unit once, and always felt like trying again with a different set up to see if it works better.

• Diversity of tools would be meaningless if the map doesn’t accommodate for this, but this not the case. Across 5 maps, each of them are sufficiently difficult to reward the player for good team set ups, each map with different challenges that encourage flexible strategies over specialisation.

• Replayability is through the roof. The new game+ gives some hefty bonuses encouraging another run, the maps are fun enough that I want to play them again, and getting a better high score is always a driving force.

I’m also interested in hearing discussion of how to optimally pick units to maximise high score and ranking them.
TLDR: I recommend Storge is everyone. I think it is that good.

My team: The super six

Gretchen is probably the most normal unit. Decent strength, speed and bulk, just decent all around.

Barbaricia is a contender for what I think may be one of the best picks. High defence and speed allowing him to invalidate every lightweight unit, maps that benefit fliers, and A lances to let him make up for his low strength. His only ‘drawback’ is that he does not have mounted aid.

Chadoghast is more specialised, with his dragonstones allowing massive burst damage and even higher defence. His flying was also vital for taking out boat ballistas and blocking strong fliers. A incredibly fun unit to use.

Cruithne was a surprise pick, and I think she may be the most cost-effective healer despite not having staff rank. 27 uses gets you through the hack in combination with all the free vulneraries, but she also comes with enough based speed to double most enemies, ability to hit both def and res and good bulk.

Cheyenne was my pick over Perseus for thief utility, since she comes with good killing power for the extra cost.

Malachi is objectively the best pick in the hack. And that’s not even a joke on ‘haha growth unit bad’, but because his starting inventory can be sold for more than his hiring cost. With a small amount of effort, 7 move and massive promo gains is no joke either. (Granted this hack is 5 chapters so I’d be a bit disappointed if he doesn’t have gains this big.)

[JrpgAddict]

Thanks for this hack, short but nice.

@knabepicer

[LPFinale]

Overall really solid stuff here. I’ve yet to do anything but my first run, but things seem well put-together. I could see niches for basically everyone, even if I’ll just have to go and try a couple of units to understand what it is they’re meant to do.

Ended with about 50k in 71 Turns.

I’d recommend this to basically anyone. It’s short enough that it’s both fun and informative without being too much of a time sink, and there’s a lot of replayability here for people who want to stick with it.

Team

• Gretchen turned out well, as expected. Very solid all-around stats with enough Defense to make having her rush forward in the final chapter not a huge issue.

• Perseus did his job. He stole things (when others weren’t instagibbing the Red Gem holders on accident), he tanked a few hits with his amazing Defense but made sure he wasn’t encroaching on actual tanks due to his 19 HP. He’s a good guy.

• Sievert did his best. The armor came in handy a lot in all but the final chapter, where I left him exposed to a mage and couldn’t be bothered to restart (I was still getting used to mGBA and was unable to get rewinds to work properly). Still, it’s impressive that the gimmick was able to let him be the main healer with only D Rank Staves. Also, he procced his 15% Def growth 3 times while his 55% Res growth procced once. He’s committed to the bit so much he defies probability.

• Sweyn was alright. He could hold his own against anyone except the final boss, who I accidentally left Sweyn in range of without checking whether or not he moved (not the hack’s fault, the thing that shows whether units move or not is fully implemented and working wonders). Not too insane, and has his niche of deleting those Generals and some Cavaliers with Lucerne, as well as being a good frontliner in general.

• Vidali and Dwight are a dream team. Dwight stays forward to take damage or flanks off to the side with mobility that works on Cliffs and Peaks, and Vidali pokes with hard-hitting magic from a distance. Her Skill growth is good enough that she can make amazing use of her Hel tome, and I even bought a Decay tome for her with alright results. Dwight is also a very good boy.

• Gage was AMAZING. By the end, he could tank basically anything except the biggest threats, and if his opponent was poking in his range, they were either dead or at critical health. His massive Power stat made his Short Bow a terror in Chapters 3, 4, and 5. All he lacked was Speed, and he didn’t need that when he was doing so much with a single shot.

• Jamakaya is your classic “Please get Power I beg of you” Myrmidon, but she’s still perfectly capable of killing the regular enemies with a Killing Edge or Shamshir. Hoping she’ll turn out better on a later run.

• Dawkins was statistically one of my Top 3 units and I wish I had bought a stronger axe for him so he could take on the bulkier enemies. He’s amazing, and can easily handle all of your Axe needs on his own.

• “Look out, world, here comes Malachi!” Best unit in the game. He becomes a 7-Movement Merc or Myrm without the need for too much training. Set him against the Priest in Chapter 1 and you’ll get a level and a half from that alone, and he gets plenty of levels from finishing blows on the way there. Probably not a unit you’d grab for the 25-Turn-Clear achievement other than for his Steel Blade and Vulnerary, but hey! He’s got merits in all situations because of that.

[Chaz]

I dont see this reported but this on Hard mode of River’s Edge.

[knabepicer]

Wow that’s embarrassing. Fixed.

[Chaz]

not so wild now is he?
I cant believe you gave us an easy way to cheese this guy.

[kingd353]

A question. What emulator is this game ment to be played on? i assumed this was an gameboy advanced rom but it isn’t working with visual boy claiming it’s an unsupported file type.

Kinda dissapointed too this game looked reallly interesting I really wanna get a shot at it.

[acerbatus]

I’m using mGBA with default settings, works fine except for some graphical errors changing maps (they aren’t present when actually playing).

[knabepicer]

VBA should work. To be clear, you patched the ups file to an FE8U rom, right?

[kingd353]

no I assumed it was a rom hack I wasn’t aware I had to patch an 8 rom with it.

now to find out how to patch an 8 rom I guess lol thanks.

[knabepicer]

Yes it is a romhack, which is why you have to patch it to an FE8 rom. That is how romhacks are released.

[kingd353]

not nessesarily. some you can simply download and play. I’ve downloaded many romhacks that are basically jsut altered and fully funcitonal games like pokemon glazed. Although that was years ago so maybe how people do things just changed.

[knabepicer]

It’s not legal to release as pre-patched roms but yeah I guess you can find some if you look.

[Artemas]

Quick question, I’m still deciding who to pick for first walkthrough and must ask, does Cheyenne really mage with steal ability or it is a lore thing?