Happy New Year, FEU!
I am known as CedAodh, a rather quiet member of the community for about 5 years now. My credentials are having been a small-time developer for FE6 Project Ember more toward the end of its hype, as well as the lead playtester for FE5 Lil’ Manster!
Today I come with an FE5 mod that I’ve been working on and off alongside many talented people. It is known as FE5 Forseti’s Cut. What started off as me wanting to make myself an FE5 numbers patch (you know, do things like make fire magic not blatantly worse than other magic) and Advent wanting to make a mod which would insert more moments of dialogue for this game’s beloved but rather mute cast has now collided together—and after being joined by more collaborators, we just can’t stop getting more and more trivial ideas for every little way the game itself and its presentation could be improved. You’re going to see a lot of extra dialogue, to put things lightly.
It’s been about a year and a half since we’ve been provided with the optimal FE5 hacking tools, and we had yet to come out with an “official” release, but I kept letting my perfectionist view get the better of me. I’m ending that now.
Some changes in Forseti’s Cut that we’re particularly fond of:
- Brighton is now a prepromote.
- Fire, Heal, and Door Keys can be bought from the preparations screen shop.
- 3 additional units that have been restored from the original game’s data: Gunnar (Asbel’s presumed grandfather), as well as letting you choose Daisy and Asaello as an alternative to Lifis and Safy.
- Most unused bosses have been restored, with 2 new ones being added.
- A 2-3 range bow locked to bowlocked units has been created, called the Recurve Bow (the name Longbow is already used in FE5).
- B-Route has gotten plenty of perks and bonuses to make it just as favorable as A-Route.
- Chapters 12 and 12x are no longer a staff-induced nightmare if you play without warpskipping.
- The feature from modern FE games where a unit has their whole inventory sent to the convoy/supply upon getting killed (and only killed, not if you get captured).
- Many units have had their portraits revamped and/or their battle sprite colors moved around to look more like their official art. In this same vein, the more major bosses in FE5 now have unique color palettes in battle.
- Accost had its double-edged sword property removed: it will activate only if the unit with the skill can actually attack in that combat, in addition to having higher HP and attack speed at the start of the combat (Selphina will no longer get ORKOed by ballisticians).
Other important things…
The patch uses Lil’ Manster’s translation/localization and QOL additions as a base. I pan through this script from time to time to find things that I want to rewrite. Things like Ronan speaking like a bandit when his dialogue in FEH is not at all like that. I also personally prefer a more polite way of speaking for him.
As I mentioned before, I’m pushing away my perfectionism for the sake of us just releasing something. Even though we’re working with a complete game, enough stuff has been added that it can easily lead some parts to feel unfinished. Nothing unplayable, but it may feel off all the same, namely with game balance in some maps and with some conversations that have received less revisions than others.
Forseti’s Cut has its own channel within the Lil’ Manster Discord, known as FE5 Hacking Hel. You can join it to interact with us, as well as provide any feedback you feel is necessary. Whether the difficulty could be altered at certain points, providing feedback on edited graphics (lots of palette and portrait changes), or making suggestions about the dialogue. I like FE11 and 15’s localization very much, and I take great strides to make our new dialogue on par with those two games. But it’s a lot of writing, however, and sometimes the creative juices of my brain just dry up a bit.
Server link:
Patch (and general changelog) link:
(Hint: this patch gets applied to the same ROM as Lil’ Manster)
Just like with Project Ember and FE6, please don’t see this as a replacement for FE5. Lots of people have tried to come up with brief descriptions for FC. My favorite two, personally, are “love letter to FE5” and “Thracia but different.” At the end of the day, all we ask is that you approach FC with an open mind. Do that, and we’ll expect you to have a good time.
Credits:
CedAodh - Dialogue Writing, Coding, Graphics Editing, Game Design
Advent - Dialogue Writing, Coding, Social Media Promoting
Lord Louie - Graphics Editing, Game Design, Portrait Creation
PobbleBobble - Graphics Editing
MiacisJaune, Zane Avernathy, Kalieum, Ultimage, ai - Coding Assistance
Jeorge Reds, Cyn, 316◆316gGitpsw氏 - Portrait Creation
Psychout - Game Design
Special thanks to all of our playtesters from the FE5 Hacking Hel server
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