DOWNLOAD: (Mediafire)
Here we go.
After a year in the making, learning how to use FEBuilder, trying to make decent portraits, and everything that comes with romhacking, it’s finally time to post the finished product. Let’s hope no major problems arise. Man, I’m a worrywart.
Way back during quarantine, I made a bunch of Minecraft maps to play with friends on, all of which were centered around exploration of the world, raiding dungeons, and combat. Out of the four (five, but 1 was a prototype) maps I made, Treasure Hunters 4 was the most story-based. So when I decided to try out romhacking for the first time, I couldn’t think of a story, until I went “Hey I could just make a more detailed version of TH4 in a Fire Emblem medium” and now here we are.
Welcome to Treasure Hunters, Fire Emblem edition. It’s my very first hack, and I’ve experienced lots of ups and downs while making it. But I’m glad I made it. Hope you enjoy.
Synopsis
"A crew of thrill-seeking treasure hunters arrive on the shores of Caligo, a mystical and magical continent housing Earth’s oldest legends. With the intention of raiding five particular spots tied to the most famous legend on the planet, our heroes set out to explore the ancient wonders and learn forgotten histories. But during their adventures, danger arises as they are roped into a hellish quest and must fight for a greater purpose: to defeat a dark shadow of the past that looms over the continent, threatening to plunge the sunlit world into darkness forever.”
Features
- An original story/cast/setting (Although the continent geography is based off Magvel since I once intended to use the world map— but it was scrapped.)
- 24 main chapters that balance story and gameplay, 4 gameplay-focused postgame maps, and an alternate Hard mode version of one map. (Total playtime: ~25-30 hours)
- 26 playable characters with diverse classes, and full deployment. (Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. Note for my future self.)
- Easy, Normal, and Hard modes available.
- Commonplace magic swords.
- New weapons, such as weapons that are effective against mages, a new mid-level tome for Dark and Anima, and brave tomes for each magic type.
- Buffed promoted enemies compared to base FE8.
- A lot of hidden items. But not desert treasure. I think 1/9 chance to pick up desert treasure is stupid. You just gotta explore, look in the right spots, and you might get something good…
- The Wraith class, used by one protagonist and occasionally used by enemies: essentially a flying dark mage that repurposes Lyon’s sprites.
- Speaking of classes, Halberdiers are in this too!
- Snipers and Halberdiers get Swordmaster/Berserker crit bonus, now there’s one for each weapon type.
- A few QoL features such as global range, (Select) the ability to speed up battle animations, (B button) all of the main characters can seize, and thieves can steal with full inventories.
- Slight alterations to promotion gains and caps to some classes, most notably Rogues and Assassins.
- Some more stuff that I’ll leave you to find out yourself!
Credits
- Everyone who created the patches that come with FEBuilder.
- My older brother, who helped me playtest and gave me suggestions to improve the quality.
- Female assassin sprites made by Russell Clark
- Shaman staff animation by Temp.
- Phantom and Halberdier animations by The Blind Archer.
- 7743 for the amazing engine that is FEBuilderGBA.
- TheFlyingMinotaur for the Portrait Creator that I used to make all of the portraits.
- BwdYeti for the Map Creator that I used to make the maps.
- Nintendo and Intelligent Systems, who made the franchise and especially Sacred Stones.
Bugs
- If an unnamed Sage appears in the support conversation room, don’t click it. It will probably crash your game. You won’t lose save file data, but you might lose suspended mid-chapter data.
- There’s a few minor visual bugs, but they’re not so messed-up that they can’t be excused.
- Sometimes you can softlock on a black screen when viewing a map in preparation screen. This can easily be solved by restarting your emulator.
- Speeding up battle animations sometimes causes audio glitches. These can be fixed by suspending game and returning to the title screen. If that doesn’t work, restarting your emulator will certainly do it. It can also freeze the game sometimes, but restarting your emulator should also work. Just try to let the saved action play without speedup as assurance once you resume chapter.
- There are two items in the postgame called Power and Shield Braces, which are stat boosters. Don’t use one brace on a character if the other brace is also in their inventory, or both will disappear and you’ll only benefit from one.
As per FEU’s guidelines, I will also add this, just in case. Most of these don’t really affect me, but I know they might affect some.
Content Warnings
- Some graphic descriptions; not excessive or described with too much detail, but still present
- A few naughty or sexual implications; same as above
- Other potentially uncomfortable moments; like one instance of torture, for example. Once again: nothing too excessive. I try not to have too many.
- There’s a couple instances of people mentioning cultural discrimination between fictional nations.
Recruitment Guide
Lambton: Talk with anyone or automatically at end of chapter if he survives.
Victor: Talk with Hailey or automatically at the end of chapter.
Kederath: Automatically at the end of chapter if he survives.
Sparrow: Talk with Hailey or Kingsley.
Ken: Talk with Kingsley or Yuna.
Lucien: Talk with any one of Kingsley’s friend circle or with Yuna/Pegato/Kora. If not, automatically at the end of chapter.
Everyone else is automatic. Some people listed here are also automatic, but can be recruited early with these methods.
Overall, with how much time it took to make this, I’m not sure how many updates will come out. I might fix a few bugs, but in the end, I’m really not up for anyone major gameplay revisions, even if some gameplay elements are questionable. If anything, this hack is mostly just a learning experience for if I make another hack. No one gets perfection on the first try, even if I’m a bit of a perfectionist. So whether you enjoy it or not, if you play this hack, I greatly appreciate it.
-Wilhem