Fire Emblem: The Lonely Mirror (Concept for FE8 ROM Hack)

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Hey, I’ve made it to chapter 23! I felt it was as good a time as any to comment a few things I’ve been meaning to say about your hack.

First, it’s been a really fun time! I’ve been playing on maddening, and so far, for the most part I felt it was a fair difficulty.
If I had to make any criticisms, some enemy classes are a bit too tanky for my tastes, and I think you should probably use crit boosted classes less often on the enemy side, because crit isn’t fun to deal with when there are no hoplon guards in sight.
Lastly, in chapter 15, the wyvern knights that appear after seizing attack immediately, which can be a nasty surprise if the player has left any units behind. Making them wait a turn before moving or moving the player army to the area near the keep after seizing (like in chapter 20) would fix this. Other than that, I have no complaints. Tight and creative map design overall, really nice.

EDIT: Oh, I almost forgot! I wanted to comment on the number of deployment slots. I’m not saying it’s a flaw, but it’s been a bit awkward to manage the amount of units I wanted to use with the highly limited slots I was given. So many cool looking characters, and yet so little room… Decisions, decisions.

I also wanted to take a moment to appreciate the playable cast. Almost everyone is a fun character, I can’t wait for complete supports. And then there’s the units. Really like the units too. Parvati is an amazing concept, for example.
Some of the promotions are wild. The best example in my opinion was Ariel. When I first saw her, I was expecting to bench Ariel as soon as I got Kathryn back, but when I saw the option to promote her into a lance healer of all things, I just couldn’t resist. She’s been surprisingly useful, too! I half expected it to be a waste, but she’s been quite good, and I’ve been thankful for the ability to fight while silenced more than a couple of times.

I like the portraits as well. A bit rough around the edges at times, but I like how… distinctive they are. I don’t know, I can’t quite put my finger on it, but they have a little something to them that makes them feel unique compared to most other GBAFE portraits you see out there. I quite like them! I think my favorite is Kurtis. I won’t lie, beard pegasus knight was the main thing that seduced me to play this hack in the first place, haha. That puffy beard just looks wonderful.
There’s a couple of really obvious splices, but most of them are on minor enemies, anyway. The most jarring of them is Devante and his Narcian face. It suits him, but given how important he is, the blatant splice rubs me the wrong way. Still, nothing too big.

So yeah. Loving the hack so far. Now, I’ll leave here a bunch of typos and other minor issues I’ve found, for you to fix if you want. It’s going to get long, so please bear with me. I try to be as thorough as possible with these kinds of typo reports, haha.

Minor issues



Enemy Silvan, unpromoted Roxie and generic myrmidons have this weird green outline in some places that looks ugly.


This may’ve been intentional, as a sort of incentive to hurry up and kill him quickly, but the thieves in Prelude III will attempt to steal the boss’s dracoshield.


Myles has his post-timeskip portrait if he dies pre-timeskip.



In the chapter 9 ending cutscene, Wyatt and Kurtis both attack the same enemy. Wyatt kills it, it fades away, and then Kurtis just sort of… summons it back to existence so he can deal no damage to it. Weird. Doesn’t softlock or anything, but it looks funny.



Enemy templars have a different palette when they’re healing and when they’re attacking.


Neilson has no palette.



Aura’s description claims it grants +3 defense, but it only seems to grant +2.


Despite being a swordlocked unit, Leah doesn’t suffer effective damage from swordslayers.



This thief, in spite of having no displayed movement, moves to steal items. I’m guessing it’s just a quirk with the thief AI. Wouldn’t be the first time it’s caused glitches, even in the official GBAFE games…



Queenie appears to be standing outside the map in this cutscene. She’s dead in my run, I imagine that’s most likely the cause. The scene doesn’t softlock, fortunately, it just looks a bit weird.

This is a bit subjective, I suppose, but I think the GBAfied version of Shackled Wolves used in the hack sounds horrible. I don’t mind the use of regular GBAFE music too much, and I certainly prefer it to bad ports like this one.

Typos


is not within my memory.


take in the ambience



This one pops up a couple of times. It should be “have a bone to pick against us”, right?


at all costs


fliers like Pegasus


I will see to it


then request negotiation


at its lowest





“Aid” is consistently misspelled as aide throughout the hack. While “aide” does exist, it means something completely different - It’s a person who acts as an assistant.


a change of contracts is in order


Unnecessary “a”


they always do


Auntie Winifred always gets what she wants
…Also, is that the greatest line in the history of ever or what?
Well, no, not really. Amanda has the greatest lines, no contest.
Anyway.


who controls the area


the Hero of Justice


under the protection of the royal family


Skilled messenger


No one comes in


just getting acquainted


it is high time


the White Lions look a lot younger


You’ll be meeting yours soon


who turned corrupt


Unnecessary “a”


to the Cursed Song


requests an audience


So that’s it


It’s probably better not to ask


is harder than I expected


about the situation


Many a time, or just many times


Take the river to Fort Kansa


sworn to protect


The big blue class name for the oracle class on top of the promotion screen is missing an O.


I am here


I offer you redemption


with whom do I speak?


please excuse me


they threw me in here


All things considered


I suppose it should


What happened here? There’s four typos in this one conversation lol
In any case, you’re certainly a sight.
I’m guessing “sore legs” instead of “eyes” is not a typo, but rather a joke on the fact that he’s a slow armor and he’s “the fastest messenger in Celyste”.


Prince Josheph


wait till you hear this


Unnecessary “am”



Both of these are the same typo - it should be “messenger”, not “messanger”


Ametona versus Celyste


I apologize of my people’s behalf


It’s a shame


to you lot?


preparing to battle


It’s still not too late


Devante’s success


the evil that destroyed


endure another catastrophe


I’ve instructed


due to our association


Our economies


many times


What a pity.


the world is at stake



Same typo in both of these. It should be “stabilize”, not “stablize.”


In the chambers beneath


Double “the”


The daughter


for these kinds of surprises


Hmm…reinforcements from the port?

Well, that’s it for now. Perhaps I’ll come back after I finish the day to drop a few more typos and some final impressions. Till then!

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Character Spotlight: Winifred

Winifred has this month’s spotlight. She scores very well in the popularity poll and many people have told me Winifred is their favorite character. Congrats to Winifred!

FireEmblemLonelyMirror_Winifred
FireEmblemLonelyMirror_Winifred4093×2894 1.03 MB

Background:

Winifred and her younger brother Caspian were orphaned at a young age but were soon adopted by Lionel of the White Lions around the time Boone was taken in by Lionel. As the older sibling, Winifred needed to be strong and care for her brother. However, Caspian ended up forming an inseparable friendship with Boone, which caused Winifred to feel more and more alone. Winifred eventually learns to become more independent by being her own best friend, but in order to fill the void in her heart, her personality shifted to be her personality shifted to be more flirtatious and trying to seek attention.

Winifred is first introduced when Princess Leah is trying to get to Municro, and she along with the other White Lions engage in combat to stop her. It is realized that the contract was false, and Winifred joins the group to take back Castle Ceyste and end the war.

After the war, Winifred volunteers for the mission to track down the Proclaimers and Lionel’s whereabouts in Burga. Even though the mission was risky, Winifred was driven to bring her family back together. Her plan was to get in with one of the four noble houses in Burga to obtain information about the Sacred Instruments or any word of Lionel.

The mission proved too easy after Lord Wise of House Ashmonte was swept away by Winifred’s beauty. Wise gave Winifred the attention that she always wanted, but it soon felt empty to her, because everything she was doing was for a lie. The guilt she felt made it difficult for her to face Wise every day, and she eventually just found his presence annoying.

Eventually, Winifred hears words of the new Queen’s coronation and how a Sacred Instrument would likely be used during the ceremony, and she believes this to be a potential target for the Proclaimers. She sends a message to the White Lions and joins up with them to stop the coronation when they arrive into Burga. Even though, she feels guilty about her time with Wise, he wants to believe in her and joins with the White Lions. It’s then when Winifred decides to make an effort to be more real with people and not try to force meaningful relationships.

Appearance:

During the Celyste-Ametona War, Winifred appears as a girl with pink hair tied by two red ribbons into short pigtails and brown-red eyes. Winifred returns during the Burga arc, and her pigtails are much longer. She also wears a hat having two roses attached. Winifred’s light armor uses orange, red, and browns.

Growth Rates:

HP Pow Skl Spe Lck Def Res
55% 60% 40% 50% 55% 20% 25%

Unit Analysis:

Winifred’s stat growth is focused on Power, and she will prove to be the strongest out of all the primary bow users. Winifred also has strong growths in Speed and Luck, and if she levels well in Speed, she will be dealing massive damage when double attacking allowing her to one-round a lot of enemies. Winifred’s HP, Defense, and Resistance are weaker stats for her, but because she is an archer, she should not be seeing direct combat too often. Winifred also has the worst Skill growth out of any archer in the game.

Winifred’s promotion options are Sniper and Ranger. The Ranger class offers Winifred better mobility, swords, as well as the Sure Strike skill, which can help with her lower hit rate compared to other Archers. Sniper is still an exceptional class for Winifred as it offers improved critical hit rate and access to the available 2-3 ranged bows in the game. Winifred’s critical hits also usually take out an enemy in one hit.

Winifred’s main weakness is the random number generator as she is going to rely on good speed levels early in the game in order to carry her forward. While Winifred Speed growth is solid at 50%, she needs to hit these to stay useful. If Winifred does not level well in Speed, any of the other archers should be better options.

Overall, Winifred should be considered for any team that needs a bow user, and archers are not a waste of time in The Lonely Mirror. Winifred is the most “Player Phase” oriented archer compared to the others, and she is likely to take out her target on the player’s turn, but will need protection on the enemy’s. If Winifred gets strong growths in Speed, expect her snowball into one of the most reliable units on a Player Phase to eliminate a threat. Thanks to longbows and great bows, Winifred will have many more offensive options than other units.

Support Options:

Winifred’s affinity is Dark, which actually does help her needs as a unit. Even though the Dark affinity does not provide the ever-helpful power bonus, Winifred should not have a problem dealing damage. Winifred enjoys the improved hit rate, critical hit rate, and avoid that the Dark affinity provides. Her support options include:

  • Caspian - Light
  • Myles - Fire
  • Silvan - Anima
  • Wise - Fire
  • Lael - Anima

Winifred’s brother, Caspian, is going to be the best available option to benefit Winifred. The Light affinity provides helpful boosts to offense and defense and also contributes to hit rate and critical hit rate, which work amazingly with Winifred’s role on the team. Caspian will also appreciate all the bonuses that the Dark affinity provides.

Myles and Wise are also great support options for Winifred to improve her offense even further and also boost her hit and critical hit rates. Both Myles and Wise will appreciate the Dark affinity bonuses too; however, between Myles and Wise, Myles is more mutually beneficial. This is because Wise has the flier movement and values affinities that provide power more than Myles. Regardless, Winifred is a helpful support option for both Myles and Wise.

Silvan and Lael are the least useful support options for Winifred, but the Anima affinity is still useful and provides boosts to offense and defense. Silvan in particular enjoys the boosts to crit avoid, avoid, and critical hit that Winifred’s Dark affinity provides. Lael’s main problem is her late rejoin time, but she can be a solid support pairing for Winifred.

Popularity Poll:

I intend to continue doing character spotlights each month at least for the remainder of 2021. I will also factor characters that are discussed in posts often in addition to the poll. Vote for your favorite characters and tell me why you like them.

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I must say, you are really, really, really good at finding all the spelling issues. I also want to thank you so much for taking the time to point all of these out to me. :grin: will be sure to address them in my next patch. I might have to look a little deeper into the “Oracle” spelling one as I do not think that is text based. Thank you so much for this again, @SaintRubenio :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes:

I will also look into updating some of the palettes you mentioned too. Though, regarding the Shackled Wolves song, I don’t have a plan in changing it. Muting the game or turning off the volume can be a workaround though.

I am happy that you’ve enjoy your experience with The Lonely Mirror so far, and I am happy that you like a lot of the cast. Love that Kurtis is one of your favorites. Need more love for Kurtis and his big puffy beard.

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Ah yeah, Winifred. I liked her post-timeskip design well enough, but her stats were garbage and I liked Caden’s receding hairline too much, so I used him instead. Oh well, perhaps in another run.

Haha, thank you! I do try. I noticed a few other minor things here and there, like commas that should be periods, stuff like that, but I thought I’d give you and myself a break. Those things are really small, anyway.

I’m actually two chapters away from the end now, so I’ll probably come back soon with a few more.

I was almost tempted to cry “false advertisement” when I used him for the first time and he didn’t have his big puffy beard in his combat sprite. Then I checked his promotions.

Sure, axes would probably have been better for him, but… Beard pegasus knight. How could I possibly refuse that? That’s almost too good to be true. I need to find myself some bots to push Kurtis up in the poll so you’ll draw artwork of him…

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All right, so I have finished the Lonely Mirror. Overall, I quite liked it! Super cool and unique unit and character designs, a great story, and fun gameplay. Unfortunately I found that I missed both gaiden chapters, so I didn’t get to play around with the bow cav. Ah, well, too bad.

The lategame was quite difficult, but fair… for the most part. I do feel that chapter 29 could use some tweaks. Too many promoted enemies with capped stats charging from all directions. Particularly annoying were the gorgons with their 3-5 range, extremely powerful magic. Also, the promoted gargoyles one-round the Cygnus. I honestly have no idea how you could possibly protect it without warping it to land. Personally, I think you could lower the stats of the enemies in that map just a tad. They work okay in the following maps because you can use terrain to outmaneuver them, but not here.

Beyond that and what I said in my last post, however, I have no real complaints. The final battle was nice. Having to chase the boss around was a bit tedious, but you didn’t get carried away with the difficulty on the final boss like a lot of hack creators tend to do. So yeah, overall, I had great fun with this hack. Would play again!

As for the story… well, I’m not one to play FE for the story, but I was quite pleasantly surprised by it.

Spoilers ahead

I love how, in the end, there’s basically no villains in the story. Even Devante eventually came around and controlled the darkness in him long enough to sacrifice himself for the sake of everyone else. For a story that started with the usual FE setup of “conquered kingdom, bad empire and dark cult pulling the strings”, it went in a completely unique direction. I really dig it.

Without further ado, here are the issues and typos I found in the final stretch of the game.

Issues




I noticed several inconsistencies with monster classes and effective weaponry. Maelduins aren’t weak to the longsword, gargoyles aren’t weak to dragonslayers and this one skeleton class is immune to legendary weapons for some reason.



While on the topic of effective weaponry, the angel wing fails to protect fliers from the sonic sword and the hunter’s bow. The item’s description does specify it protects from “arrows”, so I guess the sonic sword is excusable, but the bow is a nasty surprise.



There is a random gargoyle in the south-eastern side of chapter 31 with a stealable door key. There are no more doors in this game, so it’s weird to see an enemy with a key at this point. It’s no biggie, but it might fool some players into thinking they need to deploy a thief when there’s virtually no need to get this key.

Typos


Not sure why I didn’t report this one before, but I’m pretty sure that should go “the princess of Ametona.”


Surely


Is there no way that you would make an exception

My attention


you could be deceiving us too


Unnecessary “you”


Feisty are we.


An interpretative dance


I have overestimated your ability


my excitement


The Jacotta republic


I’m fascinated


your boredom


with their essence


we fear the worst has happened


Dracbolla has awakened


to reach the Cygnus


in the distance


Malice is misspelled as malise, both here and in the final chapter tiles that Dracbolla stands on.


remain unaffected


The waves of monsters have calmed for the moment


all loose ends are accounted for


The monstrous form


Are we heading in the right direction


veer off course.


during my absence


come a long way


But why won’t I stand?


we still battle


“the phoenixes’ auras”, or “the phoenixes’ aura is”


I’m not surprised.


earlier than I imagined

(Also, can I just say that I wish Neilson had been playable? What a shame for that glorious beard to remain a NPC…)


the continent is most malleable.


our gratitude


expectations for me have been too much to bear


the stories connect us all


Wise rose as a leader in Aurumasse’s restoration

Lastly, since everyone loves to look at stats, here’s my final team!

Final team


Let’s start with the big man himself, shall we? Boone was… honestly one of my worst units. He could dish out some mean damage, but he had no speed, so he often got doubled. Pretty good wall against physical attackers, but magic destroyed him, and he wasn’t the best option to deal damage.


Leah reminds me a bit of Reese from Berwick Saga. Starts bad, then gains a prf that basically carries her for half the game, until she promotes and gains the stats to get stuff done without it, though it remains her strongest tool forever. I wasn’t expecting the Eirika lord to be much of anything, but she pleasantly surprised me. It took her a little while, but she eventually became quite the powerhouse. Boone wishes he was half as awesome.


Kathryn was just great. She was a bit on the slower side after promotion, but she quickly worked that out. At the end she was one-rounding all kinds of monsters with seraphim. I hardly even used her as a staffbot anymore. Wonderful unit.


This guy was just ridiculous. When he joined he had by far the best offensive stats in the team, and he only got better. Best unit by far, I’d say, to the point where I’m tempted to say he probably needs a nerf of some kind to allow the other axe scrubs to keep up. He just destroys everything, has great defense and his huge HP pool nullifies his comparatively weak resistance. He’s absurd!


Okay, look. She’s worse than Silvan in every stat other than resistance, which is like, whatever. Berserker isn’t like healer, cavalier or flier, where you can’t have too many of them. Pepper was completely redundant no matter which way you put it.
But c’mon. You can’t just give me viking pirate woman and expect me NOT to use her. I simply could not resist. She spoke to me. I booted Edith and her fortify in the final chapter for her. She did next to nothing. But I wanted her to be there. Is that so wrong?


Ahahahahah… this one also spoke to me, but in a different way. I love joke units. Derrick from Berwick Saga, Maerchen from TearRing Saga, Wendy, Matthis, Candace, you name it. Nothing pleases me more than taking a joke of a character and giving them the chance that nobody with any sense would. As such, when I saw this woman, in all of her 2 speed glory… Well, it was love at first sight.


I gave her Dracbolla. I regret absolutely nothing.


This guy. I love this guy too. I love how the sad-looking fellow who’s balding is presented as some sort of Prince Charming. He’s just wonderful. No offense to him, he’s unironically one of my favorites. Balding characters aren’t common, it’s usually either completely bald or no bald.
Also helps that he’s an excellent archer. This is what all archers should be, goddamnit. He arrives a bit late in both parts, but he is nonetheless an offensive powerhouse that more than makes up for his lack of EP with range and stats. Really, really fun unit to use, reminiscent of some of my favorite archer units, such as Sylvis from Berwick Saga and Raquel from TearRing Saga. Winifred and Benji never stood a chance.


Lael was an unfortunate case. I hardly did much with her in part 1, and then when she returned in part 2, extremely underlevelled as she was, I instantly benched her. You hardly gave me deployment slots, and there were units I far prefered! It was quite the unpleasant surprise when she became force-deployed… though I must thank you for letting her have A staves immediately after promoting. That allowed her to do some things, even if she was useless for combat.


Fast armor knights are the best.
Rob was a bit weird. For the longest time I wanted to call him an awful unit. He had some speed, but not really enough to make that much of a difference, and in every other stat he kinda sucked. And yet, he remained relevant the entire game, and by the end he was throwing Dorado around. Mostly because no one else could, but hey. He did his job. I’m proud of ya, Rob.


My man Beard Pegasus Knight! The reason I even played this hack in the first place! This man is beard/10. He could’ve had 0 bases and 0 growths and I’d still use him for that glorious beard of his. Thankfully for me, he was also pretty great. Decent con on a pegasus? Good defense and HP? Some of the highest speed in the team? Hoho! He suffered a little bit in the lategame due to his lack of S rank, but still. I love this guy.


Dancer/10. Few hacks (or official FEs, for that matter) bother to make the dancer even remotely interesting. It’s just that kind of unit that one takes for granted. You can’t go wrong with a regular ol’ dancer.
I like her design. That’s about the most I can think to say about her. Next.


Ariel was the biggest surprise for me. I’m usually not that fond of troubadours, and I was already attached to Kathryn from part 1, so I fully expected to bench her as soon as possible.
Then I saw she could promote to lance healer, and there was no going back. I was a bit afraid that it’d end up being a waste of a promotional item, but… honestly? Beyond her bad defenses? She was great. Her damage was quite good, and the ability to fight while silenced was much appreciated. Plus, she got to show Saoirse what’s what.
Speaking of whom…


Saoirse, whose name I am still unsure how to pronounce (I think it’s “Sersha”? Something like that? I don’t know, I’m not a native English speaker, Irish names always throw me off), was pretty awesome. Florete alone made her really useful for half the game, and by the time it broke, her stats had grown great enough that she more than justified her place on the team. Female heroes are a given in any hack, and this one does not disappoint.

That was everyone who came to the endgame. However, I’d like to give some shoutouts to…


Parvati. She had to sit the endgame out because of lack of deployment slots, but I used her the entire game. She was… okay. I loved her gimmick, but her incredibly low power is her downfall. I had to give her an energy ring, and still she was one of the weakest members of the team. By the lategame I was mostly using her as a backup staffbot. Shame.


Edith is a playable old woman. She’s basically Niime. Niime is great, so you’ll hear no complaints from me about Granny. She’s still got game!


Lionel is Gotoh. He shot down a few fliers in chapter 31 and then got benched because I didn’t have the room for him. He’s okay.

Finally, I’d like to take a moment to pay respects to Caspian, Travis, Roxie, Queenie and Brett, who died because I couldn’t be bothered to reset. Roxie in particular hurt, I wanted to use her, but her stats just weren’t ideal.
Oh, also Ozias. As you’ve seen, I only had five guys on the main team. Recruiting Amanda took top priority, and with my extremely weak all-male squad and my horrible Joseph as my only, physicless healer, Ozias could not be saved. Oh, well. He was ugly anyway, and not in a fun way like Amanda. If there’s anyone that desperately needs an updated portrait, I’d say it’s this mook, personally.

Nothing else from me. Thanks for all your hard word, and I hope to see completed supports at some point down the line!

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@SaintRubenio
Great to hear about your experience and your team! Man, I think your Boone must’ve been screwed. My Boone had HP, Str, Skl, Def capped, with Spd at 24, Lck at 22 and Res at 13. Agreed about Silvan though, he’s a beast. And wow, you really got Kurtis to manly stats :grinning:

@caladrius
I got a new small bug report, again with that infamously complex chapter 17x:
I brought Riley, but not Wanda and saved Shilo and Danika. When the two other cells got crushed Tanya didn’t dissappear nor die and some mages attacked here and got distracted.
And I sacrificed Travis this time, nice dialogue with the mourning afterwards.

Also in the prologue chapters I noticed that Shining Bow still doesn’t give weapon exp, at least certainly not at range. But that bug isn’t very relevant anyway, just thought I’d let you know.

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Oof… Well, sucks to be me, I suppose.

He only required one energy ring. Everything else was his own growth. I knew such a magnificent beard couldn’t possibly let me down.

That sounds really cool… Unfortunately, I missed the gaidens in my run. Oh, well. Something to look forward to in a potential replay. May I ask what you have to do to unlock those maps? I was playing on maddening, so I must’ve failed a different sort of requirement.

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The newest version of the recruitment guide pdf has the requirements detailed:

17x
On Maddening, enter one of the ruined houses with Caspian on
Chapter 11. This will trigger an event on Chapter 15 after seizing
the gate. Use Caspian, Travis, or Winifred to speak with Tynan.
This will lead to another encounter with Tynan on Chapter 17.
Again, speak to Tynan with Caspian, Travis, or Winifred. After the
map, see the scene and choose to trigger Chapter 17x.

18x
On Maddening, visit the southern house with Boone, Caspian,
Travis, or Winifred on Chapter 9. Either buy or refuse the secret
item. If item purchased on Chapter 9, vist the rightmost red house
on Chapter 15 with Boone, Ariel, Myles, Capsian, Winifred,
Travis, or Saoirse, and refuse the item. Mercer will be encounterd
in Chapter 18x where he can be hired for 3000 gold by Boone.

I used Kurtis one playthrough and wasn’t very happy with his stats, especially strength. But as a Falcoknight with Wing Spear he still worked great against monsters. I can’t see the appeal of Griffon Lord though.

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As the person who edited most the portraits, I fully agree. ‘Fixing’ Ozias was like polishing a turd, the angle of his face compared to his skull was all messed up and the shading on the hair/skin overlap was a mess. My least favorite of all the edits.
Luckily a few if not most of the character edits did turn out as an improvement, and I’m pretty happy with how the new characters turned out. :slight_smile:

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Once again, thank you so much for your effort in showing me all these typos, @SaintRubenio. You really have an eye for this, and you didn’t have to provide such a detailed guide to correcting them. Thank you so much! :smile:

I will confirm that I have resolved the typos, your problem with colors in the battle sprites you mentioned, and some of other concerns you had such as removing the door key, updating some of the weapon effectiveness, and buffing Cygnus’s defense even more.

I will say that I never intended Maelduins to be weak to horse slaying weapons or Gargoyles to dragonslayer weapons, so I left that out. I am also uncertain why the Hunter’s Bow is not included as part of the angel wing protection, and I am uncertain where this data lives or how to change it.

In any case, these corrections and fixes are available in this patch: FE_LonelyMirror_FullGame_v2_09.ups

Also, thank you for sharing your final team. Aside from Silvan, Leah, Noelle, Ariel, Parvati, and Saoirse, I appreciate that you used a lot of party choices that I don’t usually hear about. Very cool! Yes, Kathryn is quite good. Your Boone is a little underwhelming from the usual in speed. Did you give him any speedwings?

All right guys, let’s be kind. I am already aware that I am not the best artist, and I know my portraits are rough around the edges and not Triple-A game caliber. The fact is that I put in the effort to do everything that I could to get The Lonely Mirror into a fully playable game. It was fun for me, but also a lot of work. I also do not think most people would be happy with my portrait corrections. I am not professional here, but I try.

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Thanks for bringing up this issue, @Tycho. I tried to reproduce this scenario a couple times with no luck. I am wondering if you did something even more specific to have caused this to happen. Sigh… Chapter 17x is basically held together by paper clips, right? :sweat_smile: Through in trying to reproduce your issue, I did encounter a different one, which I corrected and is in the newest patch.

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Apologies if I sounded overly harsh. I didn’t mean to. To be perfectly honest, Ozias and Devante’s obvious Narcian face are the only portraits I have a problem with in the entire game. Everyone else is fine - heck, I really love some of them, like Kurtis, Pepper, Adelaide, Neilson, Edith and Caden, for a few examples. I’d say just a couple of duds in the whole game is pretty good outcome!

You’re welcome! It was the least I could do.

Thanks! I try to avoid the “meta” when I play FE. I find it more fun to use underappreciated units, see what they have to offer. Though in this case, I wasn’t aware of what the meta was, so I just followed my heart. Guess my heart is kind of a contrarian, haha.

I would’ve used Joseph too, but he turned out so horrible that I ended up having to bench him. Also held on to Wanda for a little while, but lack of room was her undoing. Honorable mention to Vergil, who was the MVP during most of part 1, but then I had no room for him in part 2. And then, of course, there’s Roxie, who kicked the bucket. Too bad. Maybe next time, they’ll get their chances.

I don’t think so. His speed was so horrendous that I didn’t feel he’d benefit as much from it. I believe I gave Kathryn a speedwings. I can’t really remember.

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Sorry buddy, I was trying to make a joke but I guess it didn’t come out right. :sweat_smile:
You did a great job for most of the portraits and didn’t need to do that much editing anyway, getting one wrong out of that many is pretty impressive to be honest. :slight_smile:

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I actually had a chuckle. Just wanted to make sure it was in good fun. :grin: I will say that Caspian’s portrait took me like 4 major iterations to do. The oldest Caspian portrait would have been by far the worst in the game. Of course, Caspian name changes with each iteration, because his portraits were so different. I did get better from where I started at least.

Joseph is usually a pretty good units. He was probably the best in the game in one of the first iterations, but I nerfed his power a lot. His support with Wise helps a lot though. You can certain check out Wanda, Vergil, and Roxie more on a next run. All are fun units. Vergil is always hard to find a place for when he returns, but he can still be quite formidable.

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Alright, congrats on getting a version 2.0 out!
I’ll definitely be playing this now that I have time to myself at last!

And because I’m a completionist/complete madman, I’ll be doing both routes on Maddening for my first run!

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On Prelude Pt. II now.

Thoughts So Far:

This is… interesting. The game seems to be balanced around Maddening Mode, but there are a few problems I have with it.

Namely:

Enemy Dark Mages are way, way, way too physically tanky; there’s no real safe way to deal with them a lot of the time when they have other enemies supporting them.

They hit hard on a magical level too, and while they are slow, I feel like they’re overall more of an annoyance than they need to be. Even the Pegasus Knight can’t take more than a hit or two from them before being in danger of getting killed. (And they don’t exactly have a bad hit rate either).

Personally, i’d like for there to be a light mage who joins early on to help out with that problem, or something; the Majestra only does so much (and even then, it’s not always certain to one-round as I recall.)

Especially the enemy Dark Mage with Nosferatu in Chapter 6- that guy is a huge pain in the ass because it’s entirely possible that if he hits (which is fairly likely) he’ll likely be healing off whatever damage you do (and he hits fairly hard too).

Also, in Chapter 4, the enemy Wind Mage at the start of the level; his HP or Res needs to be reduced by one- otherwise, Brett can’t OHKO him (though that could be intentional; I’m not sure since he seems to be able to deal with all the other wind mages once the dust settles).

That’s all on that end. In other news…

Parvati is… interesting. I have to plan around her only having so many spells. Thank god for the rune guide…

I also spared Silvans in Prelude I. Hope that pays off later…

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Not sure if this is your first time playing, but I usually suggest checking out Normal or Hard the first time, because there are some extra challenges.

They are pretty tanky physically, but you should have access to a Ward staff, a fire mage, a dark mage, a runeseeker, and Leah’s sword that are helpful tools to get you through Chapter 6.

Brett cannot KO the wind mages on Ch4 when on Maddening difficulty. He should be able to on Normal or Hard difficulty. This is just an added challenge for choosing the hardest difficulty.

You miss out on a Speedwing, but you will get a new unit a little later. A reward worth getting is one worth waiting for.

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I am releasing a small patch with a couple changes: FE_LonelyMirror_FullGame_v2_10. Three new support conversations are available:

  • Myles x Travis
  • Wise x Eamon
  • Saoirse x Wanda

Additionally, Caspian received a small buff to his base stats. Specifically in speed, defense, and luck, which might be a game changer for him.

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490

Alright, I’ll have to update then.
Anyways, I want to talk about some more of what I’ve played through (currently on Chapter 9).

Mainly:

Thoughts

Gameplay wise, I did not like Chapter 8.
Why?
Well…
The cracked tile on the left wall of where you start strikes me as supremely pointless on Maddening; if anything, breaking it does more harm to you than anything. (Because it lets in enemy fliers).

Maybe it’s just me, but it never really gets broken anyways because (I think) the enemies just kind of wander up the top way towards me.

Maybe on Normal or Hard, I could have this be a shortcut for the flier to reach the switch turn 1, but on Maddening, where enemies are a lot stronger at base (thanks Maddening Mode Bonuses), where throwing a lone unit into the midst of enemy territory of the sort the switch is located in tends to end badly (doubly so with Faith’s squishiness) is a poor idea.

This, in turn, leads to the long way being taken… which means whatever three units that get trapped are going to be there for at least, what, five or so turns?

This wouldn’t be a problem if it weren’t for three things:

1.) How damn fragile Boone is in the situation, especially since he can’t reliably dodge, all it potentially takes is the Mogall, and to do him in. Which leads me to the second thing…

2.) Poison, which, if the Mogall and something like, say, a spider hits Boone and doesn’t kill him on, the poison likely will.

3.) The fact that you don’t get an antitoxin immediately (and really, Boone doesn’t have time to drink it if he wants to get rid of the Mogall ASAP), and the freaking Restore staff is put in a position where a healer with it can’t get to him in time means that he also has to live with the poison (which can and likely will kill him if things go south at some point).

Put them all together, and Boone’s survival becomes a matter of RNG- something I really don’t like.

In other words, to (more or less) quote Boone: “I never want to go through that again.”

If I were to fix it, I’d personally nix the Mogall that starts off in there. Replace it with another damn spider or something.

Regarding Chapter 9, I have issues personally with the fact that the story encourages splitting up when in gameplay you don’t want to (at least on Maddening), but I’m just putting that one down to ‘Maddening gameplay does not reflect what the story says’.

Also, Gavin and Vergil MVP.

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I freaking LOVE this hack T.T the story!!! ahhh!!! the support the conversations ( at least the finished ones) 10/10 :DD although this is the first hack I have ever played this certainly brings out the best the game could offer! >.<

So like let’s start with the good things! the way a character like Leah grows with the time skip and how we can see her and the characters around her mature mentally throughout the entirety of this hack is simply 10/10!! the way the map is designed feels so believable especially the chapters within the towns! :smiley: The way the story progresses and how relevant each character is to the story feel so believable though Noelle… feels kinda whoops everyone else is so good!

||Ok ok so like, the final boss I feel should be considered a demon… especially with the amount of “banishes demon” weapons we are given! Oh oh and being able to cheese Dracobolla with 3 range tomes…feels kinda bad? tho in my playthrough at normal Difficulty I used Roxie,Joseph,Winifred to cheese it in the end… don’t know how it plays out in other difficulties…||

BUT BUT I so loveee the support convos :smiley: hope you are doing more of them! so far in 1st playthrough I got JosephxQueenie and BoonexAriel :heart_eyes: . Plan on finishing Ariel x Saoirse since their B rank is so interesting hope they have an ending too!

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