Fire Emblem: War of Lovers (6/30 Chapters)

GachaJam-0

Story

Five years have passed since the War of Heroes concluded. Marth, the Hero King, defeated the Dark Dragon Mediuth, finally putting a decade of warfare to rest. The Seven Kingdoms of Akaneia were unified, and Marth became Emperor of them all. He also married his wife, Sheeda, making her Empress.

However, Marth has been missing for two years, and his united empire is crumbling at the seams. Akaneia is in a civil war, with the sage Marich and the hero Kris struggling for control at every turn. More distant regions dream of freedom, and rebel for independence. All claim loyalty to the absentee Emperor, but ambitious figures are more than willing to prosper from the chaos.

While Akaneia burned, Marth had gotten engaged with Alear, from the far-off Lythos. His former loyalties had been replaced with loyalty to Alear. But engagement wasn’t sufficient: marriage was on the table. Marth and Alear’s wedding day will prove to be fateful…

War of Lovers evolved from my attempted Hack Jam 2 entry. Though the story outline and basic idea of the gameplay was decided, they were completely unplayable and I chose not to enter. The only feature working was the unit randomisation: at certain points, a random unit will join the party. The fact that I failed to finish didn’t sit well with me, as I usually enter hacking contests. With International Hack Release Day rolling around, I decided to take what work I had put in and try to release something. It’s not 100% complete, but there’s enough to have something worth playing.

Features

  • Six playable chapters
  • Voice clips
  • Unit randomisation
  • Akaneian maps reimagined
  • Dismount
  • Unit variety
  • A close-to-FE1 Falchion
  • The Wing Spear
  • The FE3 soundtrack
  • Marth and Chiki animations

Known Issues

  • Mage knights, valkyries, and horsemen cannot dismount currently.
    The one map with mount restictions temporarily restricts instead of blocking cavalry.
    Other dismount issues include lacking animations and retaining mounted ranks.
  • Jigglypuff’s name is too long for certain menus.

Screenshots

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Download

Click Here to Download
Credits are within the download.

Changelog

v0.21: 16/11/2023

  • Fixed the Marth animation crash (thanks to Wan and Abzel)
  • Fixed the Chiki animation errors (thanks to Huichelaar’s animation tool)
  • Added proper world-map narration in the vein of FE7 (Sme helped)
  • Fixed several Jam Mode oversights and placeholder text, including a Ch3 crash
  • Character endings play in Jam Mode’s ending.

v0.2 - Akaneia I: 18/10/2023

  • Finished the first story arc in Akaneia.
  • Chapters 5 and 6 added, and writing for Chapter 4 completed.
  • Replaced the battle frame with one inspired by FE3.
  • All random characters now have full-screen CGs when recruited.
  • Voice acting added for Super Smash Bros. characters.
  • Added “Jam Mode”, which alters the story to follow the plot planned for the
    game jam the idea for this hack was first designed for.
    Jam Mode ends on Chapter 5: playing on normal mode is recommended.

v0.1: 01/04/2023

  • Initial release.
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This is without a doubt one of the games of all time :+1:

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Randomized units are awesome. I wanna see more with that

I’m happy to inform you that I have submitted War of Lovers for this year’s FEE3. My video this year is actually properly edited, as opposed to reading off a powerpoint.
Over the past few weeks, most work has gone into making the trailer. Have a few screenshots.
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I’d at least like to get the first act (or a “fully realised Hack Jam 2” variant thereof) finished by FEE3, but I make no promises or guarantees.

8 Likes

Today War of Lovers appeared in FEE3.

That means it’s update time.

Download War of Lovers v0.2

This version goes up to Chapter 6, which covers the first story arc, set in Akaneia. Let me know if there are any bugs aside from the known issues, and have fun.

3 Likes

Your Tiki transformation issue seems like a very easy fix. It’s because Myrrh’s sprites for transformation and reverting are still in the game. I didn’t create either of the Tiki sprites you’re using, but I did mash together a transformation sequence between the two. It’s on the repository, feel free to use it. You just have replace the battle animations located at C5 and C6.

I did try to install that animation (your name’s already in the credits), but for whatever reason the buildfile Animation Assembler wouldn’t properly read them.

“ValueError: 23 is not in list” is the error message, but I don’t see any 23s in the scripts.

Really? Huh, that’s odd. I’ve just tried it myself by importing the animations I used in Fall of Thabes and it works absolutely fine. Maybe something went wrong with the upload to the repository. Though the FE1 Demake project used the same animations with no issue from the repository.

If you send me your most up to date version of the game by pm I can import the Tiki animations and send it right back. It’d only take a few minutes. Though I can’t do it literally this second as I don’t have wifi access on my laptop until tonight.

Also, is this a reference to my project Pyrath 609, or just a coincidence? Either way, I love it.

For what it’s worth importing it with FEBuilder works perfectly fine. It’s just the buildfile animation insertion tool is complaining, and since this is a buildfile hack, AA.exe is what I need to use.

There was a fair chance I was thinking of it. I do like my Akaneia, so I might play it one of these days.

Can you not import it via FeBuilderGba, save the rom, and then use a build file assembler from there on our?

Running the build script assembles the rom from scratch every time, meaning any change made in FEBuilder would end up being overwritten. I could in theory use a base rom with the transformation animation already installed instead of a clean rom, but that would be a very messy workaround and one I wouldn’t be willing to use.

I’ll figure something out, I’m sure.

How awkward. Well you could make the UPS file from FeBuilderGba for each release with the fixed animation implemented each time, but that would be a tedious process of uploading the file a lot. I wonder why it isn’t working, wether it’s an issue with the transformation mechanic in general or rather there is something specific missing from these specific animation files.

Update.

v0.21: 16/11/2023

  • Fixed the Marth animation crash (thanks to Wan and Abzel)
  • Fixed the Chiki animation errors (thanks to Huichelaar’s animation tool)
  • Added proper world-map narration in the vein of FE7 (Sme helped)
  • Fixed several Jam Mode oversights and placeholder text, including a Ch3 crash
  • Character endings play in Jam Mode’s ending.

Download War of Lovers v0.21

In the end, the problem was Circles’ animation assembler being unable to handle 32-colour animations. Huichelaar made one that can handle 32-colour animations, including your transformation animation. So that problem has been solved, thankfully.

I also decided to record the Chapter 1 opening as a bigger teaser. Here you go.

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Happy New Year! It’s been a bit since I updated this thread, so I’ve made another short teaser.

It might be a while before Act 2 is finished - I do intend to rebalance things to align with the intent to make this a full hack. Things to do include writing and eventing the chapters, reducing the level curve so it starts at level 1, and maybe removing the fixed supports. But sooner or later, Marth is going to have an adventure in Elibe. What’s going to happen?

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I couldn’t find an FE11 screenshot LP and the one for FE1 didn’t screenshot this line so I did it myself.

It’s Valentine’s Day today. What with this hack being called War of Lovers, I think it’s an appropriate day to make a progress report.

Work on the second story arc is well underway. Story writing has reached Chapter 10, and maps for chapters up to Chapter 12 have been picked out. Events are complete up to Chapter 8.

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New characters are going to enter the pool in the next update as well. Here’s some CG previews:
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In other art news, I currently have everything using their FE3 item icons - I have FE12 ones programmed in too, and the final icon set will likely be a mixture of the two. Cavalry and armours have been split as well.
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That’s about everything. I’d say I’m still some way from a release, but the release will be up to the end of the second story arc: that’s planned to be at Chapter 12. Until then, happy Valentine’s Day and enjoy.

4 Likes