After the idea has been cooking in my head for around 3 years, I’ve dedicated the last 1.5 months to making the first chapter as presentable as possible.
So here it is, my Deltarune x Fire Emblem crossover hack
FIRE RUNE
(I know Delta Emblem sounds better, but I’m committed to it now)
You can get the first chapter here.
While this project is obviously intended for Fire Emblem fans who also love Deltarune (hi!), I can’t rule out the possibility that Deltarune fans who aren’t that familiar with Fire Emblem could also stumble upon this.
So just in case, if you’re just new to the ROM hacking scene, here’s what you have to do with the patch file: How to Patch a ROM
You can skip a bunch of hacking jargon leading all the way to the first image and also ignore the IPS section, NUPS is pretty self-explanatory, so you hopefully don’t even need a tutorial.
Of course, nobody can help you on how to get your hands on a legal copy of the game, but it does have to be the US version of Fire Emblem 8.
Regardless, basic knowledge on Fire Emblem is expected, regardless of which mainline entry you’re familiar with.
This is not going to be the introduction you’d want if you’re new to Fire Emblem entirely.
I’d recommend FE 7 as your first entry, they went as far as giving you ten chapters of tutorial.
NOW, to get to the meat of this, what EXACTLY is Fire Rune?
It’s going to be a fully custom campaign with ̶̣̬̰̅̾̅̈́͠4̷̪̱̬̗͗̍͌̒̉̈ ̴̨̠̠̙̠̅͗̕c̴͍̯̝̟̐͂̀̑̅͊͐h̶͖̲͉̻̓a̷͍͈̠̽̄p̴̻̘̠̼̗̘͉̾̓̇ț̴̢̦͖̟͉̭̪̄̀̇̋͜ȩ̵̞̝̈̽̚r̵̺̮̣̱̠̗̔̐̍͒̑́š̴̝͔̰̣̮́, which includes beloved Deltarune music, Deltarune sprites, and some of my own material as well.
I intend to ease people in with fairly regular GBA gameplay, with addition of your average QOL and the Skill System, but appropriately with a ton of unique dialogue based on what character interacts with things in this world and how they do it.
That’s right, no generic responses and quotes here!
Still, I don’t intend to leave it at that, since it’s a Deltarune fangame at its core, which is why I’m very excited to put some unique spins on things and use the FE 8 engine and its quirks in ways that hopefully haven’t been done before.
I don’t want to hype it up too much, though.
In the end, it’s mainly just a fun little hack I’m working on after I had a certain idea for an ending… huh, and I’m doing a ROM hack now.
I swear, I wasn’t trying to imitate Toby Fox, this just fell into place.
Story
Fire Rune is basically an AU of chapter 3 before chapter 3 comes out (well, that’s gonna change very soon).
Taking place in a timeline where Susie decided to tell Noelle and Berdly the truth about dark worlds and that their adventures weren’t a dream, it resulted in them all hanging out in the Dreemurr household to do the group project together, bringing some of their Dark World friends with them (mainly because they wanted to play cards and actually needed a laptop).
Eventually, they decided on a sleepover, but things turned sour after Berdly experienced a catastrophically shameful defeat at chess, and to rectify it… well, let’s just say Kris isn’t the one who opened the dark fountain this time.
The game begins here.
Difficulty
Let’s get the most important thing out of the way first, this game does not have permadeath.
I actually do not like Casual Mode, but I had no other choice with the limited amount of units you will receive (and also because I can’t kill any of the Deltarune characters, that’s the job of Toby Fox).
Now, it’s hard to say how difficult this hack is going to be with that in mind, and how much will change by the end of it, but I certainly intend it to be as accessible as possible.
The Easy difficulty should absolutely be avoided by every person who already frequents this site, it’s solely intended to be for people who are very new to Fire Emblem.
Aka, people who come across this hack for the Deltarune part, rather than the Fire Emblem one.
Normal, despite its name, is as a result more akin to an easy difficulty, and should be selected if you just care about what the story will offer, or just want an easier time for replaying… the same applies to Easy too, in that sense.
Difficult is what you want if you feel you’d be too bored by any other option, here the game will definitely push back.
I want to use the fact that this hack is short to my advantage, and try my best to increase difficulty in other ways than just stat inflation (also because I don’t have that much choice, since I don’t want bad level ups to softlock anyone if enemies are buffed to hell).
I’m also going to try my best to not let Casual Mode take any strategy out of the hardest difficulty, we’ll see how I’ll solve this in future chapters.
No matter what though, if you expect peak gameplay, I’d love to deliver, but it likely won’t happen here because of the compromises I’m forced to make.
Don’t think this means I won’t try to bring some unique concepts to the table, the question on if it’s going to be fun or not is something we’ll find out together, and maybe even solve together.
Credits
This is a solo project, so everything that wasn’t made by Intelligent Systems, nor is credited anywhere here, was made by me, TheQueenOfNowhere/The Queen Of Nowhere.
… unless I forgot… please tell me if I forgot something.
Original MIDIs used
Lantern, Susie (excerpt of ‘VS Susie’), Field of Hopes and Dreams,
Rude Buster, Smart Race, Thrash Machine, Man
by ShinkoNetCavy
https://old.netcavy.net/
https://www.youtube.com/@Netcavy
https://www.youtube.com/@ShinkoNet
ANOTHER HIM, The Chase, Empty Town, Quiet Autumn, Darkness Falls
by TheFuriousNightFury
Profile for TheFuriousNightFury - Online Sequencer
Faint Glow and Girl Next Door
by KarmaticKiwi
Profile for KarmaticKiwi - Online Sequencer
Berdly
by legofan98
Profile for legofan98 - Online Sequencer
All of these creators gave me explicit permission for usage in my hack.
Patches
- Skill Systems - by circleseverywhere, Tequila, Rossendale, StanH, Leonarth, Teraspark, sd9k, Kao, blademaster, Snakey1 Monkeybard and Black Mage
- CasualMode - by circleseverywhere and Vesly
- Convert Chapter Titles to Text - by circleseverywhere, 7743 and HyperGammaSpaces
- CSA Creator - by circleseverywhere
- Drum Fix - by circleseverywhere
- HPBars_simple - by circleseverywhere and Zane
- HPBars_with_warnings - circleseverywhere and Tequila
- Map Danger Zone - by circleseverywhere
- Attack and capture enemies - by Tequila
- Battle Stats with Anims Off - by Tequila
- FE 8 Text Engine Rework - by Tequila, Zahlman, Stan, Black Mage and Eliwan
- fix_lz77decompress - by Tequila
- Rogue Robbery - by Tequila
- 01command_hack - by Hextator and 7743
- 48command_hack - by Hextator and 7743
- Anti-Huffman - by Hextator and 7743
- ExModularSave - by Stan
- UnitActionRework - by Stan
- Fix dodge to front glitch - by Snakey1
- Stairs - by Snakey1
- AoE Area of Effect - by Vesly
- Draw attack effect on map animation when battle animation off - by Vesly and Viktor Hahn
- 16 Tracks/12 Sounds Fix - by Agro/Brendor
- 256 Color Title Background - by Leonarth
- AnimNumbers - by Huichelaar
- CritCap - by Contro
- m4a hq mixer - by ipatix
- Magic Sword Rework - by Sme
- Melee/Ranged Different - by kao
- Narrow Font - by Scraiza
- Native Instrument Map - by Alusq
- Remove Enemy Control Glitch - by Brendor and 7743
- Allows to record 255 sound room - by 7743
- AutoGenLeftOAM - by 7743
- Continue Battle BGM Between Map and Combat - by 7743
- Display Escape menu - by 7743
- FillAIDangerMap Efficiency Fix - by 7743 and HyperGammaSpaces
- Fix CG Fade Glitch - by 7743
- Switch the death Quote for each unit who is killer - by 7743
- Use HandAxe motion as generic motion for throwing axes - by 7743
- AddEvent: Compare the names of Tactician - by 7743
- AddEvent: Set Name of Tactician by copy from Text - by 7743
- Add Event: SilentGiveItem - by 7743
Of course, thank you to 7743 overall for making hacking so easy with FEBuilder.
Special thanks to SaltySoul for helping me a bit with Intelligent Systems’ spaghetti code
and to Vesly for helping me with inserting one bit of ASM that I was too dumb for.
And the biggest of thanks to
Toby Fox for his wonderful game, the music, character sprites and presumably sound effects,
as well as Temmie Chang for her amazing battle sprites that I frankensteined together to create more fluid animations.
Screenshots:
Trailer:
Oh yeah, made one of those for this project, a modified version of which I’ll likely submit to this year’s FEE3 as well.
If you didn’t arrive here through it already, you might want to check it out:
I’m also uploading a bunch of the music used in the hack on my channel, in case that interests you.
You can also enjoy it in the Sound Room, even if it’s less convenient and you have to unlock everything in the future first (but I think unlocking things is fun).
Final words:
Well, okay, not “final” final, since this project is far from finished.
I just wanted to say that I will certainly appreciate feedback and ideas, but I also have already written most of the script for future chapters (for years now).
So story changes will most likely only happen as a result of new Deltarune chapters confirming/denying lore, I would rather want writing feedback.
On the gameplay and maps though, go wild.
Although this will mainly apply to future chapters, as chapter 1 is supposed to be simple.
I’m receptive, but it’s important to be that this is something that can appeal to FE newcomers, which is why some things are always going to be out of the question.
First and foremost, this is a Deltarune-based story taking place in FE 8, bringing its Deltarune-isms along for the ride, everything else comes second.
Anyway, thank you for playing my hack!