Tier list need portrait and character update, in a few days I will finish the game and post a full and personal review
Would love to update the tier list with the new portraits, but there doesn’t seem to be a way to delete pictures on the site. . . or I have not figured out how to do it. I’ll probably have to make an entirely new one after I am done with all the portrait updates.
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Speaking of, how many more portraits do you guys have left to do? Just curious. I’m waiting on a second play through with all the portraits and stuff redone. Thanks for coming back and updating this gem!
i dont really comment on hacks very much but wanted to say im very glad this game is continuing to be updated because it’s definitely one of my favorites for a plethora of reasons
2 Likes
Hey @Tangrow, it’s cool to hear that you enjoyed reading the character spotlights. A lot went into each of them. I would of course take the time to think about and write each of the character spotlights, but I was also personally paying out of pocket for the character artwork. I worked with maotorata on Fiverr; she is fantastic if anyone is looking for a character artist. Highly recommend.
In any case, I receive a number of backlash messages about The Lonely Mirror – either making fun of the game or being a little needlessly harsh. I understand that this “Fire Emblem game” isn’t going to be everyone’s favorite (or even anyone’s) FE hack, and that’s perfectly fine. It just felt like a downer on all the time I put into the hack, and I questioned whether I could even respect myself for making Lonely Mirror. That feeling was what inevitably made me stop the character spotlights. No sense putting in more time and money.
I am of course grateful to the people that truly love The Lonely Mirror, and I like to tell myself that it is a “sleeper hit,” and maybe one day more people will give it a go.
For today, I will treat to an Atticus spotlight as you requested.
9 Likes
Atticus is a recently requested character spotlight, so I figured “why not” for old time’s sake. I cannot say whether these spotlights will continue in any capacity though as mentioned in my previous post. Hope you enjoy the spotlight on main The Lonely Mirror thief, Atticus.
Background:
Atticus is a reformed thief employed as an intelligence gatherer for Ametona and working under Count Brett. In his early years, Atticus was home to the streets of Ametona and made a name for himself by petty thievery and conning nobles. . . until he was caught. Brett ultimately saw something in Atticus and offered a full pardon in exchange for his services. While Atticus is forever grateful to Brett for introducing a life outside of thievery, it is in Atticus’s nature to live by his own rules. He does what he wants; though, it is for good. Usually.
Atticus was stationed to gather intelligence on King Corwin’s confrontation with Celyste at Granrei, and there he witnessed the chaos caused by Vetti’s Harp as Ametonan and Celyste soldiers were driven mad and made to attack friends and foes alike. After Corwin’s death, Atticus recovered Majestra – the king’s sword – and continued to survey the state of Granrei. After Princess Leah and Brett arrived, Atticus was able to provide the sad news of Corwin’s death and information on the current state of the war with Celyste. This ultimately drove Leah to want to meet with Prince Joseph regarding the war.
Atticus was part of the group responsible for ending the Ametona-Celyste War and helped in driving away the Proclaimers from Celyste.
The fear the Atticus experienced while in Granrei, drove Atticus to continue tracking the Proclaimers while hoping to get strong enough to take them down. This brought Atticus to Burga where he secretly may encounter the White Lions during their confrontation with Shane in the noble district where he gifts them a Dragonspear during a house visit event. Regardless, Atticus is made aware that the White Lions surrendered to Burga and were detained, and he decides to take matters into his own hands by breaking them out of prison and joining their cause.
Appearance:
Atticus is a young man with short, purple, tousled hair. During the Ametona-Celyste War arc, his hair is longer and more freeform, while after the time skip Atticus’s hair is shorter and more controlled. Atticus wears earthy tones. His cloak is a faded green and his tunic is brown. He also has a scar on his cheek after the time skip.
Growth Rates:
| HP | Pow | Skl | Spe | Lck | Def | Res |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 75% | 45% | 50% | 70% | 40% | 20% | 20% |
Unit Analysis:
Atticus growth rates are aligned to what one would expect of the thief class. Atticus has an incredible Speed growth (the highest in the game), and also has respectable growths in HP, Power, and Skill. Atticus’s Luck is also decent enough where he won’t suffer from critical hit chance against non-killer weapon enemies. Atticus does have weak growths in Defense and Resistance and on average will likely not see too much high than 10 in either stat at max level.
Atticus is the player’s ONLY guaranteed thief in Lonely Mirror with Liang possibly being missed and with inconsistent availability and Eliza being available late in the game only if the player allies with Judge Amanda. Thus, Atticus is the most consistent option for thief utility – able to provide increased vision in fog of war, steal items, and open chests through much of the game.
Assassin and Whisper are the two promotion options available to Atticus, and both options are great choices. Assassin provides the Lethality ability and access to Bows to allow Atticus to have more flexible offensive options. Atticus is the only character in the game with access to Whisper, and it provides increased movement and unlimited lockpicking ability.
Thief utility is not the only thing that Atticus offers. His solid Power and Speed growths and the ranged flexibility of knives make Atticus a very strong combat unit if trained. Nevermore, the S-ranked knife, while difficult to procure, is the best endgame weapon thanks to the 1-3 range, high crit rate, and monster slaying capability, and Atticus will double everything – easily one rounding the most difficult enemies in the game without fear of retaliation.
Atticus’s main weakness is his support options and affinity. While Atticus does appreciate the avoid from the Ice affinity, it does not improve his offense. This means if Atticus gets subpar Power growth, there is no easy way to improve his damage, resulting in him being difficult to train. Secondly, Atticus could find deployment competition from Liang or even Myles; however, there is no clear winner between the three guys as each offer their own pros and cons.
Overall, Atticus is practically too good not to use in some capacity. His thief utility will make a lot of chapters much, much easier such as Chapter 17B or Chapter 18x. Outside of his utility in the early game, Atticus can be one of the strongest combat units at the end of the game if wielding Nevermore, which is arguably the best weapon in the game and with limited users – Atticus being one of them. Furthermore, Atticus could be considered the best wielder of Nevermore due to having sole access to the Whisper class as he will always have better movement and attack option compared to any other user (assuming no Boots). Make it a priority to give Atticus some levels in the early game before meeting the White Lions, and he will not disappoint.
Support Options:
Atticus’s affinity is Ice, which provides boosts to Defense, Hit, Avoid, and Crit Avoid. The avoid and crit avoid are very nice for Atticus; however, the other bonuses are less important to Atticus. Atticus would prefer bonuses to Attack or Critical Hit. Atticus’s support options may be a little awkward in terms of the bonuses they provide; however, a bonus is better than no bonus at all:
- Brett - Fire
- Liang - Anima
- Roxie - Thunder
- Parvati - Ice
- Sterling - Light
- Mercer - Thunder
Brett is arguably Atticus’s best support partner as the Fire affinity adds offense bonuses that Atticus desires most while also providing a max avoid bonus. Atticus also happens to be one of Brett’s best options as Brett is locked to Dark and Ice support options.
Roxie may be one of the few characters looking at Atticus’s Ice affinity as her preferred choice. The added Hit, max Defense, and max avoid bonuses that Thunder-Ice provides really helps her tanking ability as well as giving Roxie a little more hit rate to dish out strong magic attacks. Atticus also does not mind the max avoid bonus that Thunder provides him. Mercer, who is also Thunder, has better support options to boost his critical hit and would rather look elsewhere. Mercer is probably Atticus’s worst support option.
Supporting Parvati and getting double Ice affinity bonus is probably Atticus’s most convenient option due to Parvati rejoining around the same time as him. The bonus does provide both units with max defense, avoid, crit avoid, and hit rate, which are great for an Atticus that does not have power issues.
The Light affinity bonus that Sterling provides is honestly among Atticus’s better options, because Light boosts his offensives with attack and critical hit bonuses; however, Sterling has a more convenient support option in Lael available and would likely look to Atticus as a B rank support option in most cases.
Liang’s Anima affinity is probably the most awkward for Atticus. Liang is often a unit competing with Atticus for a deployment slot early in the game as both provide the thief utility. While both units can be used together, Liang has stronger early game options that are better for him, and Atticus may be the same. All that mentioned, Anima-Ice bonuses work quite nicely together and provide max defense and avoid bonuses. Consider this pairing if wanting to use all the “thief” characters in a run.
New 2023 Polls:
I created a new character poll that has been entirely refreshed. There are character that were not previously in the old poll or late joiners to the poll, so I am curious to see how different this one ends up. I also started a chapter poll for those that want to partake. I am curious which chapters are the most enjoyed. There are a ton of them in this game.
Favorite Character Poll (New 2023 Poll):
Favorite Chapter Poll:
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Thank you so much for coming on and telling me that you enjoy Lonely Mirror. It’s awesome to hear the appreciate for the game I made and all the hours spent in FEBuilder mode can be attributed to something. It made my day. 
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No problem man. I was pretty surprised that there were more comments not liking the game because to me it has everything that a great rom hack has and it was much more memorable compared to most of the other hacks I’ve played. Keep up the great work and remember that there are surely a lot of people who are waiting for more updates or content
3 Likes
I will say this, i never actually knew people disliked this hack. I certainly enjoyed myself regardless of my gripes with some of the mechanics.
I liked the story, thought the first few alt maps were a bit rough (this was like two years ago), and still wasn’t sure of my feelings on route splits and mutually exclusive characters (I have since discovered I dislike them on both a gameplay and somewhat of a narrative level), I still enjoyed myself.
Hell, this was one of the first 10 hacks I ever played, and considering I only ever clean out hacks I didn’t like or don’t plan to play again off my 3ds so the fact I left this one on it should mean something.
2 Likes
My only gripe is having two characters locked to the higher difficulties i would like to have the entire cast avalible with out having to always have a difficult time.I would love a patch with them avalible on all difficulties.Radiant dawn had this same problem with Pellas only being in a second playthrough.
@caladrius With the new update I decided to play Lonely Mirror again on Maddening to see the gaiden chapters and the new characters. I wanted to do a Amanda and her gentlemen suitors run. I am happy to say that I’m very glad I did - Lonely Mirror really holds up and is an all around great product.
I played on Maddening, which was definitely difficult at times, but never felt unfair. I feel like the only time I truly got frustrated and resorted to save states (I try not to use them except for right before a boss because I don’t want to replay a whole chapter if there’s a random crit chance), was Chapter 30. But it’s also pretty much the final chapter and I don’t think I properly strategized near the start and didn’t want to have to replay it. I feel like maybe there could be fewer reinforcements on that map, but I don’t want to nitpick.
The chapters I found frustrating the first time I played, Prelude 3, Chapter 23 and Chapter 26, I think have been toned down or altered in a way where they were still difficult, but no longer felt punishingly difficult.
I have some (hopefully) constructive criticism/bug notes on a couple of chapters/portions of the game.
Spoilers on Specific Chapters
- I would love to see Thracia-style trading put into the game. I find inventory management sections of Fire Emblem games kind of annoying and on that note I feel like it just reduces some tedium from trading items or what have you mid map. I don’t think it fundamentally alters gameplay heavily enough to cause you have to rebalance any portion of the game and is just a nice bonus to have.
- On a similar note, I would love if the convoy could be increased to 200. I only ran out of space near the end of the game, but I mainly like it because I find it easier to organize all my items and do inventory management when they’re all in the convoy so you can hand it out to characters as you see fit. Once again, just saves on some of the tedium of inventory managment.
- If you could change Support and Talk to be green text to show players that it doesn’t end the turn that would be A+
- On Chapter 17x, if you skip the cutscene after you have released two of the characters, the other two who are supposed to die stay alive.
- On Chapter 26x, I think having a couple more chest keys thrown in the mix would be nice. Chances are most players only thief is Atticus, and the way that everyone is sectioned off and the chests are so far apart makes the map kind of annoyingly long for any completionist who wants to get everything unless they’ve loaded up on chest keys somehow.
- From Chapter 24A - 28, you have five-six chapters without access to any kind of shop other than the basic one in the inventory menu. A lot of these chapters are pretty enemy heavy, and I found that I ran out of 1-2 range axes and lances near the end. Perhaps just me, and I realize that some of these maps it doesn’t really make sense to have stores in, but I could see some people having real difficulty near chapter 27-28 if they didn’t properly prepare 3-4 chapters ago.
Once again, thanks for the great game! I had a lot of fun playing it this time around.
I gave this hack a go today and am enjoying it so far. Made it to Chapter 6. Vulneraries x5 is how it should always be :).
I do wish that it had the enhanced minimug patch that shows you basic stats and inventory when you hover over a unit; it’s a small thing that feels like a big thing when you don’t have to click on a unit to see what it’s wielding and do mental math to calculate Atk value. Also wish the game would preview how much healing you’re about to do with a staff.
So far the maps are fun and I like the generous growth rates on units!
1 Like
Jezus Christ, the new portraits look amazing damn!!
Great time for me to do a new playthrough of this romhack now!!
YOO. I finally finished playing a full game in maddering mode (version 4.1) and I here to share my thoughts about this incredible game, Caladrius what a great work you made, I really enjoyed every moment of your hack room, seriously my favorite FE hack so far.
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I played this game 3 times but only now managed to finish, so on my tier list bellow consider my experience with my previous 2 gameplays. Obs: I really tried to promote every unit with level 20 until chapter 27 or 28.
Some units will not appear on this tier list bc they dont have portrait 
, but I’ll write about them bellow the image anyway:
S Tier: their stats are very good, they will carry and save your team
➛ Boone: after promoting he turns OP. Nice character in general.
➛ Myles: best sworsdman ever, a dodge-machine. I like him, much fun to use.
➛ Rob: speedy general, will crit everyone and have a good defense, with palladium sword he turns OP, even Dracbolla trembles with fear.
➛ Silvan: best unit and best character in the game, I wish i could read all his support conversations.
➛ Benji: powerfull crit-machine, he is amazing and handsome too. 
➛ Riley: another underrated unit, he as a berserker are a mage killer, speedy, strong and always crit. With Lorgmor axe he will swept all monsters, I wished him a new portrait design tho.
➛ Shiloh: best bishop ever, amazing stats and good design.
➛ Winifred: I love her dialogues and sprite in battle, trully a speedy crit-machine as a sniper.
➛ Eamon: amazing unit, he is strong and crit-machine as a halberdier.
➛ Atticus: both classes you choose he will be OP and dodgy, love his character.
➛ Brett: ok, I will admit, I only played with him through the end because he is my crush, and I discover that he are a underrated unit with amazing stats. 
➛ Caden: just an OP ranger unit.
➛ Lael: the late game would be insanely hard without her, but possible…
➛ Amanda: I recruit her but never used, but she deserve this tier obviously, and her dialogues are very funny.
➛ Pepper: strong berserker with high crit, great unit in general.
A Tier: all of them can be “S” tier if you put some effort
➛ Liang: great unit and mage-killer, I made him adventurer but I think ranger class would be really OP.
➛ Saoirse: she can be one of your main hero characters if you need, I only used her once and she is really cool.
➛ Joseph: I made him wind sage and I absolutely don’t regret it but I think that wind tome deal less damage than fire tome. Forseti rules.
➛ Helga: great unit, whatever classes you choose she’ll be good.
➛ Wise: aka best character in the game, as wyvern rider he would pierce all your enemies.
➛ Kurtis: big, big potential. I’ll try play with him as a griffon lord next time.
➛ Grant: general or great knight both are amazing and only depends on your effort.
➛ Sterling: he is very good indeed, as a druid with ruin tome on hands he will crit everyone, cant wait to try prophet class next time.
➛ Eliza: cmon, she is an assasssin, can’t go wrong with that.
➛ Ozias: halberdier and silver knights both classes are good and will surely help your team.
➛ Tarin: late join promoted unit, his stats are great.
➛ Edith: late join promoted unit, thunder sage with high ranks and best equipments, great character.
➛ Mercer: he can be good as Myles if you want so.
➛ Lionel: very last recruitable character, will help your team build if you dont have a warrior.
B Tier: they can be good… if you put a lot of work and get lucky on level ups
➛ Caspian: he can be really good as a warrior but not as good as Silvan.
➛ Roxie: I played with her as witch and oracle, I think oracle class are better, her low hp in the beginning can be very tricky.
➛ Queenie: she can be good but I didn’t have proprer time to train her.
➛ Thanya: lacks defense but I regret promoting her to scholar, I think she can be better as a thunder sage.
➛ Leah: speedy but her defense stats are sad, depending on your luck she can be S tier I guess.
➛ Vergil: I made him gold knight but he lacks luck although his offense are good.
➛ Faith: stats are fine but later in game you will recruit others flying units better than her.
➛ Shane: late join promoted unit that requires much work to be good.
➛ Kathryn: can be a good bishop but not equal to Shiloh.
C Tier: troublesome to level up or “weak” unit
➛ Ariel: her stats aren’t a big deal I guess.
➛ Parvati: oh my, it is very difficult to level her up to 20 and promote, I swear on my next save I’ll try to made her scholar.
D Tier: not fulfill my expectations
➛ Travis: poor Travis, he reminds me of Forde lmao, thats sad.
➛ Wanda: yes she can be a bulk unit but I didn’t get lucky with her stats growth.
Never used / few uses:
➛ Wyatt: classic promoted unit in early game, can save your team but occupies a precious slot in your team.
➛ Irina: late join unit that I only use if I didnt have any black mage unit alive.
➛ Danika: I know she can be good but on chapter 17x I didnt choose to save her.
➛ Noelle: particularly I dont like playing with dancers on my team.
➛ Yvette: for a big reason that I’ll talk about later I didn’t choose her path.
➛ Knox: very sad backstory and strong unit, I recruit him and used only once, if my team had more slots…
➛ Alouette: good class but I didn’t use her bc I was busy trainning my other units.
➛ Fletcher: same reason as Danika.
➛ Cobalt: sadly same reason as Yvette…
that quote
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Bugs (ver 4.1)
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When I promoted Joseph on level 20 to wind sage he turns B anima rank even if I already had A rank (downgrade).
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I think my Shiloh cant up his light rank to S, because that I cannot use Eiriksmal tome
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On chapter 27 I used banshee tome on a scholar enemy reinforcement (bottom left), he got silenced but still managed to attack my units and then the game freezes on battle screen, don’t know if this happens on others chapters, but i will write down this here anyways
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About Gaiden chapters (yeah I played them all)
17x: Amazing chapter, give the player a tough choice between 4 characters. I choose let Travis and Danika go. I think I just didn’t have a chance to see Fletcher in this chapter, dont remember…
18x: If you don’t have any promoted units here this map can be hard, dividing your team in 3 parts and bring the green unit a bit more to the bottom (center) of the map, this can be one of solutions if you are in trouble.
21x: WTF, I almost got soft - locked in this map on the very 1st turn, that Maelduin… on top right of the map, very close to 2 slot of your team, he have a Minos axe and ALWAYS crit me on 1st turn , I was only able to survive and kill him after various attempts in RNG manipulation 
… So, bring more promote units here than 18x guys and recrut Knox.
26x: I really love chapter 26, can be hard keep Amanda alive, but with only two units you can attract Amanda to the very bottom of the map, outside the castle. I remember using Boone and an flying/mounted unit, basically I bait her, she will walk left and right forever .But 26x can be really hard if you don’t bring staves users and bulk units.
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@caladrius Final Questions:
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Do you plan any major update, like ver.5.0 or an post-game (like FE Last Promise)? Or any update at all?
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Where is the secret shop on chapter 24B? That secret shop have the same itens as 24A? (I worry about dreamcatch, just bc that I didn’t choose this path)
5 Likes
Talking to Loretta with Kathryn in Chapter 3 triggered the support conversation tutorial from FE8 involving Colm and Neimi. I have no idea how that happened, but I think it’s replicable if you just go to that chapter and trigger the convo. I was playing on Normal Mode, which I assume might be a reason this occurred.
On the same map, Roscoe spoke after dying (he essentially said he would start moving, after he was dead).
1 Like
Cool tier list, @ruiva! I got to admit, I feel like my personal tier list for The Lonely Mirror is frequently changing with each run. While I am in agreement with a lot of your characters placements, I also feel different about some of your other placements too. I think that’s super cool, because you may have found uses for characters that I haven’t discovered. Perhaps certain characters work better with your playstyle too, or you put higher weight on certain attributes.
All characters in The Lonely Mirror can work well in many team dynamics, so I think it’s important to use who you like. Cool final team!
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Yes, my plan is to come out with a 5.0 at some point this year. 5.0 will have more supports, portrait updates (Riley included), probably a surprise or two, and a couple other smaller things. The game is pretty packed right now though.
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It is on the same tile as the green unit, armor knight who is holding a Member Card. It should be at the top of one of the stairs on the left side.
Side note: I wanted The Lonely Mirror to be a game where you might keep discovering more and more things (even if it’s small things) on future runs. There may be content that you haven’t experienced yet. For instance, did you play 14C or 15B yet? This is the route you get Fletcher instead of Shiloh or Riley.
5 Likes
I’m excited to hear that you’re working on a new version of this game. I finished it a while ago (the Friendly version. The Classic one was way too tough, and even with the Friendly game, I barely beat the survive map where you start with Joseph and Myles), and I was thinking about replaying it again. I’ll keep an eye on this thread.
2 Likes
Yes! During my entire playthrough I was ranking characters in tier list site and changing them everytime.
My playstyle heavily affects my tier list decisions, because I prefer to play with mages and non-mounted units.
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- Glad to hear you are planning future updates, I love and enjoyed your work here, even the times where I spent hours stuck in some maps are fun moments
And I really want to play again and choose other paths and characters instead, I haven’t played 14C because I choose get Shiloh early in 14A, and I really don’t remember the existence of 15B path, ch 15 are Drums of war right?
Hi, i’ve tried this hack years ago and had a great time. And now with all the new portraits and progress, I decided to finally come back and I must say I’m having a lot of fun. The new portraits look great and the gameplay is still such a nice refreshing change from other hacks, for example the prison escape or the preludes. So yeah, amazing job, definitely one of the top hacks like “Vision Quest” and “Dark Lord and the Maiden of Light” for me.
I wanted to wait with this comment until I finish my first run (classic hard, looking forward to a second run on friendly difficult already). But I’m currently on chapter 22 and can’t seem to recruit Roxie. I tried out all the sand tiles in the top left and right. Does Liang have to be alive to recruit her? They were both alive at the end of part 1.