Fire Emblem: The Lonely Mirror (Full Game - FE8 ROM Hack)

Yesterday I completed the December version and let me tell you congratulations on having made such a well-made and entertaining game, it took 48 hours to complete it and it was worth it.
Now I will tell my experience and opinion about the game: I must clarify that I have only played the Hard version in both versions (beta and full) so I still do not know if it is different in other difficulties so I will only say my opinion regarding that mode.
It was very difficult to play a defensive game when I am an offensive person so it was interesting to change my strategy to try to keep all the units alive that I could.
Chapter 14B was quite complicated by the mage with bolting, not even Liang with pure water could bear a critic, I had to repeat the chapter several times not to lose anyone until I had no choice but to sacrifice Riley to pass the level, I would recommend lowering a few points of attack so that it cannot kill with a critical the whole life of a unit with pure water because no matter how many times it was repeated it always get a critical.
Chapter 16 was very innovative and it was quite entertaining to save the units one by one and you get good weapons.
Chapter 17B: The first time I played it I restart about 10 times by the enemy that came out in the boss room that was much stronger than the boss so if I didn’t use Myles with his lancebreaker, I lost a unit, but this time It was easier although it is possibly because i already passed it, so my only recommendation is to reduce his speed so that he does not double almost any unit, preparing a strategy against him always takes away the opportunity to open the chests of that chapter.
Chapter 19: This chapter was much more difficult for me than the first time being quite ironic since I had better trained the characters that appear in that chapter to make it easier but it was not enough so I had to restart several times until it was a matter of luck pass it, raising the statistics a little to the green units so that they do not die so easy would be a factor that would help a lot or at least give an elixir to the green unit that it only so that it resists the spider because it cannot against it and is very hard to get to him to protect him.
Chapter 23: I have seen that several have comments regarding this chapter saying that its difficulty is high and I would have agreed with them in the beta version but in this version it took me around 8 or 7 turns to reach Edith being the fastest chapter I have finished, what happened is that it was very difficult the first time because I divided my units into 3 groups so that they could defeat all the strong monsters but this time I wanted to finish that chapter as quickly as possible so I made all my units go in the middle creating a shield for Lael and Fate, I also made my weaker units cover the houses so that no monsters come out and by the time I realized I had Boone, Queenie and Lael at the end of the map so the rest was easy. It was the only map where an offensive strategy worked the first time
Chapter 26: The first time I could not recruit Amanda because I would never have thought of her only method to recruit her xD, so this time I wanted to do it despite the complexity of the chapter but it was curious that even with fewer characters than the first time, it was much more easy, I think what had made it difficult were the enemies that used runes but this time Myles could against them. (A curious fact is that the first time I faced Amanda, I saw that no one could harm her and I was beginning to worry because if he approached a unit I would kill him, until by ACCIDENT I made Boone use the Onouris against her, I thought I was going to die until I saw Boone beat her with a critic, I felt a real relief XD)
Chapter 27: In this chapter it is just as complicated as in the previous version by the mage with the meteorite and the 3 well-placed champions, I do not say it for my characters, I say it for Shane, he literally comes to die, if the magician does not kill him, he dies by the archers that he himself goes to, it is a matter of luck to be able to recruit him or not, for the rest of the chapter it was satisfactorily difficult for me that is perfect.
Chapter 29: It was quite complicated by the evolved enemies besides that I did not put any flying units (not even wise), which made it even more difficult for me to take care of the ship, a recommendation would be to increase the defense of the ship to worry more about saving my characters or that the Queen can heal the ship instead of my units, I repeated the map several times and at no time did she heal the ship which would have helped a lot.
Chapter 30: The first map of the full version and it did not disappoint, I had to do an offensive-defensive combination plus Amanda in order to survive although what I did not like was the excessive amount of enemies because I ran out of enough weapons and I knew that I was not finished yet.
Chapter 31: The most difficult chapter in the whole game, reinforcements everywhere and each stronger and with tired units and few weapons, plus the only ones who can get close to Devante are the strongest so they are busy protecting others, I lost The count of how many times I restarted this chapter, it is good that the game looks for a high level of difficulty using defensive strategies but in this chapter you cannot go on the defensive because enemies come from all sides and you cannot go on the offensive for so many units with high statistics, what could help at that level is to reduce the amount or the statistics of the enemies because the previous 2 chapters end up many weapons and in this one you depend on doing a lot of damage to make way for Devante, regarding Devante , He is an opponent worthy of being a boss besides that I agree with what the characters say, he had to be the villain to save the world, he is the greatest hero in history that by his actions he will never be recognized as a hero, but I made sure that he died a dignified death at the hands of Joseph and saw his loved ones one last time. (in addition to giving Joseph the revenge that he deserves xD).
Final Chapter: That chapter was easy, the enemies were arranged to be defeated one by one and there were few reinforcements and if my units ended up wounded I used the staff that healed everything or Edith with Fortify, regarding Dracbolla, worthy of being the final boss, I liked the bestial defense that he possessed, even that the sacred weapons made him less than 10 points, not like in other games that “The God the supreme darkness that no army could defeat” …
He was defeated by 2 blows, in addition to the fact that the desire to defeat him with he was healed, in how many his reinforcements it was better to directly kill them for the units that could heal him, removing them, you prevented him from healing a lot, in the end it was Joseph who gave him the final blow in addition to being the only one that did double attack, it was the only one that did more than 20 points of damage and after a commemorative final scene, I finished the game.
PD: I got the end of Leah and Caden, I am very sad because they could not end together, they sincerely loved each other, they should be together but I understand the reasons why they separated, although I just do not accept it, their conversations were very nice how to end it like this, If they loved each other this strong, they had to fight for their love and with their example make both kingdoms reach an era of peace although we all know that it would not be done overnight, of course saying it is easier than doing it, still so that ending hurts, but it was something that had to happen.
I will give other opinions at other times so this message is not so long xd
I wanted to give feedback on the chapters first.
And again, congratulations for making a game of this caliber on your own, people like you are the motivation for others to dare to make their own games and make others enjoy them (even I want to do a hackroom after play this game)

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Something weird happened on Chapter 27.

Joseph has 20 Pow

Joseph Stats

The monk has 20 resistance

Monk Stats

I use Wind which has 4 power and this happens

Battle Info

The maths don’t add up

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After a quick look in FEBuilder, there looks to be a terrain type called Floor[Heal] in the game that gives 10 res. Maybe those pink tiles are that terrain?

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That makes sense.

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Interesting… I have to say, that wasn’t intended for that chapter. I will have to fix that for a patch. Thank you for discovering this, @FE74ever and for the analysis @Lurker245.

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Happy you finished the game, @keito and I am glad you enjoyed it. I appreciate your detailed comments too. :smile:

14B: Did you keep getting critical hit by the bolting mage or were you not able to survive one hit? This mage can be quite cumbersome to deal with. I will lower his attack a little just to be safe. Poor Riley though.

Ch16: I love chapter 16 and happy you like it too. It’s kind of like a puzzle, but it has a lot of story involvement. This one is actually one of my personal favorite chapters.

Ch17B: This one can certainly be a difficult chapter. I see your recommendation and will lower the boss’s speed by a point or two, so that he does not consistently double units.

Ch19: This chapter can be either very difficult or quite challenging depending on who you deploy. Having fliers or mounted units are the way to go here for the most part. You can let one of the green units die. The top right one can be tough to save.

Ch23: I will be reducing some of the reinforcements on this chapter as well as weakening some of the enemies that start near Edith to prevent her from rng dying early in the chapter.

Ch26: Haha! Onouris is the bane to Amanda’s existence. A hammer works wonders too. That being said, I will be looking at the enemy placements and reinforcements on this chapter, because I think it could flow a little bit better. I find it gets a little too bottlenecked because I lot moves at once.

Ch27: I personally think Ch27 is the hardest in the game. I will usually lose someone on this chapter. Shane does get himself killed really quickly if you aren’t prepared for his arrival. Wise is the best candidate to recruit him. I might tone down the enemies near Shane’s spawn point, but I do like the challenge of the map. It feels epic as the last battle over the sacred instruments.

Ch29: I will see about increasing the ship’s defense a little more. I didn’t think about a situation where the player deployed zero flying units. You would at least have one flier in Lael, but she can only do so much to defend the ship.

Ch30: I agree with you on the reinforcements and will be reducing them. Otherwise, I think this map is pretty fun and does force you to be offensive and defensive at the same time like you said.

Ch31: I still have more trouble with Crossroads for some reason, but I agree this one is difficult. I have already toned down some of the reinforcements on this chapter, so that will help make it less arduous. Nice that you let Joseph do the deed of ending Devante. I would think Joseph could have a tough time fighting Devante, but then again, Joseph is quite capable.

Final: Yes, the final chapter is not too difficult. You can wreck the boss when he appears near a cluster of your units. Having a Wyvern Rider with pierce certainly helps make it easier, or Joseph in your case.

Leah and Caden: I would have loved for Leah and Caden to end up together in their support. They have really great chemistry, but they are bound to lead their own countries. Ametona and Celyste also never had the best history too, so I imagined Leah and Caden would not want to complicate things. Perhaps later on in their lives, things could be different.

Thank you!! That means a lot, because I have seen some really awesome and polished FE rom hacks on here. I did invest crazy amount of time into this game, but it was fun for me. Hope to inspire.

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Almost finished the game but my tier list is unlikely to change except for maybe Sterling (I played Hard Mode) , Liang, Caden and Queenie who might move up.

Boone is a juggernaut if he gets good speed and if you give him Boots, he becomes even greater. Give him A support with Silvan and they become the tag team of terror.

Joseph is just awesome, I made him a wind sage and gave him Boots and coupled with Foresti made him so much fun.

Silvan is the best axe user, full stop.

Atticus is more useful that I initially taught. His crazy speed means he rarely gets hit and if you evolve him to a whisper, his movement increases by +2. His strength and skill are good enough and he uses those weapons that are locked to thieves/rogues quite well. Silver Knife is a personal favorite.

Leah is a powerhouse and is good all round. If she gets good Str level ups, then she is almost the best offensive unit. When she evolves she can use magic which compensates for her low strength and she can take on magic or normal units with ease. Pair her with Kathyrn and she becomes even better.

Caspian is great because he can double as an axe user and bow user if you make him a warrior. His growths make him a very viable option for either.

Myles is your typical myrmidon and is very useful. Myles x Lael is the ideal tag team. If Lael didn’t show up so late in the game, I might have used him more.

Wise is the best flyer without a doubt. Just make sure to avoid thunder users and archers. Ideal pair is with Joseph.

Winifred is a good user but seems not as good as Caden but she comes way earlier in the game. Her growths are good all round. Pair with Caspian for a deadly duo from range.

Kathyrn of the best light users but is fragile so she has to be pair with a physical unit to protect her. She is excellent for the chapters with the monsters. One of the best two units to tank magical enemies due to her high resistance.

Edith is great but comes way to late.

Lael is the best healer since she can attack with light and when she evolves, she becomes the ideal unit for the later chapters. Give her any secret books you get, it is worth it. The other best unit to tank magical enemies due to her high resistance.

Roxie is your only dark user if you don’t play Maddening Mode. She is basically a tank against physical enemies but struggles against magic ones. Her skill and speed make her hard to use unless you give her a speedwing and secret book. She is great candidate for the Dreamcatch.

Pavarti is quirky and the runes make her very versatile. An angelic robe is needed since her health is not the best. Other than that, she is quite useful due to the many different runes and both her promotions are very good.

Pepper’s stats are great when you get her but unless you didn’t use Silvan or Caspian, she is basically becomes the reserve axe user.

Tanya, Faith and Ariel can be good but need the right level ups or the Dreamcatch for them to be actually worth the time.

Queenie, Liang, Caden and Sterling look very good and I plan to use atleast two to three of them on my next playthrough.

I am on Chapter 30, the game so far has been quite fun. I liked some of the supports that have been written. My personal fav is Atticus x Pavarti.

Congratulations on finishing this game, it has alot of replay value. :slight_smile:

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Glad you liked Atticus x Parvati! They’re like my two favorite characters, so I tried especially hard to make their flirting natural.

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I made a tier list!

Da Boys: Joseph is an absolute beast as a dark griffon, Boone, Myles and Silvan are all able to essentially be placed in harms way without having to worry too much. Atticus requires a little investment to become a combat unit, but is invaluable as a thief. Ariel is a solid healer with great availability, plus mount, on promotion she can actually be a great combat unit in the last couple chapters versus monsters.

Alright, alright: Wise is instantly useable and has a great support with Joseph. I didn’t use Noelle, but she’s a dancer, so she’s auto-good. Wyatt definitely falls off in the latter portion of the game, pretty much the last 3-4 chapters but he’s still useable and is amazing in the first portion of the time skip. Leah could be S but she’s gone for a good chunk of the middle and she starts off pretty shaky in the first part. Helga starts off alright, but she can be promoted into a wyvern pretty soon after join which fixes her con problems and gives her pierce. Kurtis is also pretty much instantly useable, has flying utility, struggles a little bit with power though, but does wonders with a light brand which you get automatically for Leah. Caden would be higher if he had better availability, but he comes with the royal bow, can promote pretty much right away, and there’s enough flying enemies that having an archer is definitely helpful. Also for some reason, the enemies love to berserk him so it makes fighting against Devante and berserk mages easier. Lael rejoins v shaky but can fly, good staff rank, the use of both fire and light makes her good at killing enemies in the last couple chapters with a tiny bit of investment. Edith is instantly useful from the get-go. Great staff rank, joins with fortify and thoron, if it wasn’t for her availability she’d be up a tier.

Believable: I love Amanda! But her recruitment is definitely difficult and she doesn’t have the best availability. But she’s a tank that hits hard but will be doubled by pretty much everything. Also great staff utility. I didn’t really use Pepper, but she’s great in the chapter she joins in and her growths look decent. If you don’t have Silvan, I feel like she’s a good replacement for him. Parvati is a really unique character and with bright runes can definitely be amazing at taking out certain monsters. Her combat definitely fell off near the end and she struggled with survivability, but as a trickster she has some good staff utility and can hold her own for a good portion of the game. Tarin is pretty solid from the get go but is just outclassed enough by the units that you’ve trained that he makes a good b squad member, but not necessarily the first 11. Kathryn, Brett and Virgil all join a little late but are good in the first part. Brett struggled with speed for me; I also think fire is the worst of the magic trio, there’s a lot more wyverns and pegasi than there are griffons and certain monsters. I was using Saorise, but found that she was pretty much instantly outclassed by Leah who has majestra. I could see her definitely being useable.

C: I feel like all these units have essentially better options above them. Caspian and Winifred didn’t exactly shine in the first part, and I barely used em. Silvan joined stronger than Caspian. Benji was stronger than Winifred upon her rejoin, and both struggled to keep up, and Caden frankly just seems to be a better archer. The other two are armor knights, so good in early maps but just cant keep up. Faith was alright in act 1, but has a lot of survivability issues, and she joins late enough in part 2 that you’ve likely already got fliers who are better than her. I feel like Tanya could be good, but Edith is already good and she requires no investment.

D: I took the route where Roxie joins super late and yeah, even in part 1 she wasn’t doing wonders for me. I also have a feeling recruiting her over Liang would make the early portion of part 2 much more difficult. Travis and Eamon just struggle with speed and damage output in my run.

Rough take! I mean I’ve only played through the one time and I didn’t really analyze growths or anything.

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I knew you really liked Atticus, @meta4, but didn’t know that Parvati was also one for your favorite characters. Cool!

You did write a lot of really great supports for this game. Happy that people are noticing. I like Silvan x Ozias support dynamic a lot. It does require to use Ozias to see that one though…

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Great tier lists @FE74ever and @Minnnt! I really enjoy reading the perceptions people have on the characters. There are certainly some trend that I am noticing.

Boone, Joseph, Silvan, Atticus, Ariel, Myles and Wise are consistently voted really high. To be honest, I was caught off guard that Atticus has been ranked near the top, but I found out that he rapidly becomes a very strong unit without too much effort. It’s cool to realize things about my own hack from the community. :smile:

I am also noticing a lot is Joseph x Wise support pairing. I agree. That one does rock! They are both strong units too. I am happy you enjoyed Atticus x Parvati, @FE74ever. They are a nice pair.

I am planning on using Boone as one of Silvan’s preferred support options for when Silvan wins/if a character spotlight. That is, if you don’t mind Boone having a bit of a washed up hero ending. I figure Silvan would be in the top 10 characters based on the poll.

Yeah, Roxie is not very usable if you get her on Ch22 - especially considering Irina joins two chapters later. Liang also is the better choice early on if you want an easier experience. Though, Roxie can be quite formidable if she joins early as she will get a lot of exp early in the game.

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to reply to various comments you made on my comments:
14B: i keep getting critical hit, the second o third bolting always was critical, until Ridley’s sacrifice <\3
17B: The Tarvos boss is not the problem, is the wight that appears next to the boss who always double any unit
27: I also liked the difficulty of that level, if it was a real battle worthy of the reward : D
29: i dont have any flying units because I’m not one of pegasus and wise he didn’t convince me because he never dodged what made him always die and Lael was busy slaughtering the enemies above the castle, away from the ship :3
31: Joseph had no problem facing Devante, he was the only one who double him and because of the amulet you get in the Amanda chapter, Devante cant use critical hits, that was pretty simple.

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A washed up hero ending is fine by me and it would fit perfectly especially with his beard.

The character spotlights I really want to see are Myles and Atticus so hopeful one of them wins :crossed_fingers:t2: :crossed_fingers:t2:

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I thought Wise was awesome when I played. He was the champion on my team. I agree with you on Joseph, Boone, Myles, and Silvan. I think my Lael got speed and skill screwed, but I know she is good.

Good list though. :smiley: Most characters feel viable to me. This game has good replay value.

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I realized that everyone loves Wise for his personality and statistics and I do like him as a character but I don’t know if it was just my case but he had many opportunities but it was very difficult to train and the enemy did not give me the opportunity to train him
Fun fact about Lael:
After Leah promoted, I realized that Lael was a very special character but her stats were bad and i noticed i was near the end and it didn’t make much sense to me that such a relevant character in the story had terrible stats , so I made her heal like a crazy and defeat promoted enemies and by chance of fate, she reached level 20 in the same chapter that evolves, so she was my most Op unit, not only because of her high stats, because of all his magic they were strong against monsters.

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Nice tier list, @keito! It truly is cool to see these. I love how people are giving Amanda her own tier. Her character would probably want it that way.

You are absolutely correct that Lael can become an OP unit at the end of the game if one levels her up. Lael posesses really great stats all alround except for abysmal defense and skill, but the monster slayer ability makes her a force near end game and a solid support unit.

Happy that you liked Wise as a character even though he disappointed you. There are always a couple characters that seem to disappoint me when I play too. Seems to be the nature of Fire Emblem games.

Thank you for clarifying. I will reduce his attack speed by a little and see how that feels.

I will raise the defense of Cygnus by a little. Hopefully that will give it a little buffer if the ship gets hit when you don’t have fliers deployed.

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Yes, I thought it could fit if Boone bonded with Silvan enough. Boone is shown to be a bit overwhelmed by being a commander during the course of the game. I figured this would magnify after saving the world too, and he would inherit some of Silvan’s vices if Silvan was his main confidant and best mate at that point in his life. It’s a silly little epilogue though.

You should be getting your wish for Myles at least. He seems to be a favorite; however, it looks like he stop getting many votes recently. Silvan and Amanda have both been getting a lot of votes. Wise and Boone are also taking in votes fairly consistently. Lael is doing well too, and Caden had a big jump this week even though he still behind. Not sure if that trend will continue.

Atticus is on the borderline of being one of the more popular characters, so he has a chance. He is technically in the top 10 right now.

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Amanda definitely deserves her own list xD.
It is a pleasure to help you by giving these types of details, if you like, I can give you my opinion regarding all the units that I use to give you feedback, although it may be long.
I will be waiting with pleasure for the final version to continue playing and I will even give a chance to the other units that I have not used.

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Yes, of course! :smiley: I am happy to hear any thoughts or feedback you might have about the characters or them as units.

I am not planning on adding any more playable units or chapters at this time, but I will be refining the game, rebalancing, adding more supports, and maybe adding some quality of life improvements.

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