Romhackers of FEU, what is your best “It seemed like a good idea at the time…” moment when it comes to romhacking?
For extra challenge: No duplicate answers (you can’t answer with what another person already answered).
11 Likes
romhacking itself
13 Likes
using febuilder when I wanted custom skills (i thought custom build would work)
2 Likes
All those planned supports…
3 Likes
Learning buildfiles. It’s still a struggle despite the flexibility afforded by the format. I’d say that FEBuilder is better for “simpler” hacks while buildfiles are better for things that require more complexity.
1 Like
My entire project. I thought It wouldn’t get to complex. Next thing I knew I had made over Battle 60 animations for it… What am I doing…
In hindsight, if you try and make early chapters difficult by increasing the number of enemies… well, those chapters might be difficult, sure, but you’ll feed the player with so much exp that their roster will be overleveled and overpowered for the chapters after those early ones! 
Unless you want to start messing with the exp formula, the simplest way to improve chapter difficulty in the early game is to improve enemy bases. Quality over quantity means exp gain stays at a reasonable level.
9 Likes
I had all sorts of those in Treasure Hunters, but many of them didn’t make it into the release. Chapter 3 was the most prominent example. It was way too big and way too confusing for the point in the game it was on. It was toned down a lot for the release after my brother playtested it and told me “Yeah, this is terrible” and boy I’m glad he did because I would probably have regretted it myself later.
Treasure Hunters in general I just sorta cringe at because it was way too easy and needed better execution. My second hack, Kingdom of Ghosts, just beats it out in almost everything. Though that happens when you make a hack from scratch after you’ve already figured out FEBuilder by making your first one.
Way back in 2016 or so…
Silly me, thinking that a remake of a pre-existing game would be easy. 2016 me clearly didn’t do his dead remake homework. It was not easy, and I never did finish it by 2020!
2019 me (and FEU at large): “Ooh, 3H dropped! So many fancy new things. Let’s make a hack about it!”
The Tale of Tale of Ternon is a long saga, which I’ve written an essay about already. But the main lesson I’ve taken from it is be wary of doing most of the work in big community projects without actually calling the shots. Void’s Blitzarre Adventure 2 was similar. The original, however, was much… I’m not sure if “smoother” is the right term, but I’ve no regrets working on that.
After that, I’ve mostly made one-chapter hacks, but the allure of an honest-to-goodness finished 20+ chapter hack keeps dragging me back in. My attention span is useless, but one of these days I’ll prevail, surely. I’ll never learn, unless or until I actually do it. Since I’m procrastinating from making my FEE3 submission with two weeks until the deadline, my failure to learn continues.
I suppose I’ll end this post by looking at my hack catalogue, and wonder “what was I thinking to have come up with this hack idea” - 3am hack ideas are the best? Perhaps. It all started with “finish the notoriously bad hack” - I’d rather forget that one. After that comes “let’s set Barhara right”, my first one-shot, for MAFC2, and actually fairly reasonable.
Then “homage to that one FE1 LP”, done in FE1 as is only appropriate as my MAFC3 entry… April Fools is a tradition for me: 2017 was probably the first time I indulged in my fondness for silly crossovers, based on someone’s RPG Maker game of “Alm tries to take over the world”.
Ragefest 5: “Barhara Revisited sequel, but you play as the bad guys”. That chapter sucked, I made it in a week. No wonder it got panned.
2018’s April Fools was “friends get dumped into FE3 Ch3 due to FEU vs. CT nonsense”. I hoped for two chapters, but only finished one. FEE3 was English FE4 Binary - translation justification is always “I want to see this in English. I’ll share because it’s useful”.
2019: Arch of Coups - “love letter to SNES RPGs”. I threw some stuff together for April Fools. Then I got a whiff of “Darr, make a complete hack!” Then I got struck by decision paralysis as I couldn’t pick characters. Box MAFC gave me a box, and then I came up with “door maze”. It was pretty rubbish and was full of backtracking. FEE3 was “FE1 in SRPG Studio” for educational purposes.
2020: Old Mystery: “Get Kris out and make FE12 more loyal to FE3”. Then came MAFC4: “Marth and company play a game of mafia”. I liked how Akaneian Mafia turned out, even if the dialogue was full of ghosts. This is where my writing style shifted from VBA-style “who needs a plot” to writing up big long cutscenes, though jokey R descriptions persisted. I ported Barhara Revisited to FE8 as part of “create a hack compilation” - I never did make Julius’s Revenge not awful, and nor did I finish “Jugdral version of Verdant Wind Final”, part 3 and 1H Blitz entry. I ended the year with “characters missing Cipher cards demand explanations” - it really wouldn’t be hard for me to actually finish that, but I released it with an invincible final boss and no ending.
FEE3 was a treble feature of Arch of Coups, English BSFE, and Old Mystery - a factor in shifting FEE3 to self-service.
2021: MAFC5, “Sigurd takes part in an election”. All text, no gameplay, wrecked by time crunch, ended up getting disqualified. Not my finest hour. The first of April provided “Sigurd plays card games”, which was a decent chapter. FEE3 that year was me building a website to organise things. Finally, I dusted off FE1 for “Marth has a bad holiday” for 2H Blitz.
2022: I really phoned it in for “International Hack Release Day”. Idea: “Keith vs. Kempf fighting over In America”. It had to be an FE5 hack, and I left learning it too late. I edited one chapter of text. Then came the Hack Jam: “Mario gets caught in a train crash”. 3H Blitz? “Sequel to Evening Train Crash, featuring a prison break”. FEE3 was “Yugioh and FE Cipher crossover” - I never did get beyond the proof of concept. I failed to enter Hack Jam 2, with the idea of “Marth vs. Alear”…
2023: …which evolved into War of Lovers, the April release. I hosted MARTH, and the voice in my head saying “Darr, finish a hack!” yelled at me again. Scope extended, FEE3 entry. 4H Blitz was “Zelda in Fire Emblem” - it doubled as “make War of Lovers assets”.
2024: We start with “escort using only mounts”: a real phoned in jam entry. Then came CELICA, and “Roy vs. Al” for the obligatory 1st of April. A prompt so strongly tied to FE6 was naturally in FE6. And Champion’s Revolt is where we stand in terms of my romhacking portfolio.
This was a nice excuse to look back at my hack catalogue. And it let me procrastinate from making my FEE3 trailer. Two weeks remain, I have the script outline, I just need to sit down and do it.
6 Likes
Wait you’re making a second hack?
I agree. If you’re okay with all the vanilla constraints, then you will complete your project faster and more easily in febuilder.
Re: the thread - I should’ve tried learning asm properly sooner, rather than trying to get by with just febuilder patches. And I should’ve migrated to C sooner, too, as it’s easier than asm, especially now that we have a nearly complete decomp.
Kingdom of Ghosts is my second; it’s still in progress, I still have to finish Route B, then the supports after that, but after Treasure Hunters I did feel like making a second hack. Romhacking is shockingly fun.
you know, back when arch asked me if I could help him out running a new website, it sounded like a good idea at the time
15 Likes
In 2017 I had the idea to branch out from FE8 hacking and tried to put together an entry for the Make a Fun Chapter competition in FE5. When I missed the deadline for that I pivoted toward making a menu translation for the game after a few friends expressed interest.
Not long after that, people were asking if they could use the menu translation for other projects.
I don’t think I’ve really handled anything that came after very well.
1 Like