I made a FE8 hack with the ideas and concepts of the Proto Version

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Hi, it’s me and long ago I found out that there was a prototype version of fe8. Most of it it’s complete up to chapter 8 (the one where you fight Tirado). I noticed the many changes it had with the current vanilla version everyone knows. This made me question how different the game could be played with these changes. So, after about two days, I edited another vanilla fe8 rom to implement these changes.
This is really a small thing, nothing exceptional, but the prototype version had some changes especially in certain chapters, wich I’ll list below. If you wanna play it, just for fun, leave a comment below so that you explain what you liked or not. This is NOT a rebalance patch, I wanted to be as close to the original rom as possible, wich means that some units in the prototype version, will suck.

Changes-

-Chapters-

-Chapter5-x has been removed, I never liked it, and it wasn’t in the prototype, Ephraim, Forde and Kyle will join on chapter 8
-Chapter 5’s map has been over hauled. You start at the middle, the Joshua replacement is in the top, the arena is in the bottom and Saar is in the middle right
-Chapter 6 has been completely reworked. The citizens that were going to get eaten by spiders? They get killed by Novala’s man (that’s why I put 17 and up) the map becomes defend for 7 turns. The chest contains an antitoxin, (closer one) and an orion’s bolt (furthest one)
at the end of the chapter a cutscene plays where Saleh kills Novala with a divine crit.
-Chapter 9A’s map has changed.
-Chapter 14A’s map hac changes, I hope for the better, I liked it how did it played.
-Chapter 15’s map was slightly changed
-Chapter 16’s map was changed drastically, it’s more straight and it has two more chests with a guiding ring and a barrier staff
-Chapter 20’s map has changed with two villages they give you a berserk staff (upper right) and a warp staff (lower left) so there’s a reason to not warp skip to the seize point

-Character changes-
-New Characters-
-Mac the brigand can be recruited by Eirika on chapter 5
-Klimt the bishop joins after chapter 10A or on chapter 15B
-Dara the female druid joins after chapter 12A or on chapter 15B
-Denrei the pegasus joins on chapter 13 or on chapter 15B

-Reworked character-
-Arachel has Tana’s portrait and a new palette
-Cormag is now a mercenary and replaces Joshua on chapter 5
-Joshua is now a swordmaster who joins on chapter 15
-Tana is now a female general with new portrait and palette who joins on chapter 19
-Glen joins on chapter 19, he was supposed to be recruited later on
-Mary now replaces Neimi, with new portrait and palette, but functionally and story-wise, is the same character
-Rennac is now a lvl 10 thief
-Forde is a lvl 1 ranger
-Amelia is the princess of Frelia and replaces Tana as a probation flier, wich is a trainee class wich promotes to either pegasus rider or wyvern rider. The recruit class was thus replaced by this.
-New portrait for Tethys
-Innes get a crit boost cuz why not, bows sucks here.
-Nate replaces Cormag by name, portrait and palette, but functionally is the same character
-Duessel has B sword rank instead of A
-Some units have new portraits

-Minor changes-
-Eirika def ans res bases are slightly weaker
-Seth has less growths/bases in def/res/spd
-Ross has 80% growth in strenght 50% in skill and speed
-Lute has -10% growth in magic but +25% growth in speed
-Forde +20% growth in strenght but -5% growth in speed
-Ashley (Artur) +10% magic growth
-Saleh +6/7 base skill +4 base magic
-Ewan +10% growth in magic/luck
-Dozla bases and growth sucks.
-Duessel +5 base strenght and defense
-Noru (Knoll) +7 base luck, +5% luck growth
-Syrene starts as lvl 10 with +4 speed/skill +2 strength
-Some units have different names

Credits to Intelligent System for the prototype and the klok repository for the portraits.
Credits to Lenh for Mary and Nate’s portraits.
Credits to Alusq for Tana’s portrait.

Screenshots
Chapter 5
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Chapter 6
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Chapter 9A
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Chapter 14A

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Chapter 16
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Link:

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It’s crazy to see the things we were close to seeing and not seeing in the final game. Would a Pegasus Trainee be the best of the trainees? Having access to pierce when promoted would be huge.

We were so close of not having to deal with phantom ship… Now it makes a lot of sense why both chapter 11s are so low in the map list, and why they skip the world map cutscenes after you beat them

A few things worth pointing out:

  • Please credit the actual authors for the portraits. There’s now a new rule about it.
  • Did you base it of from your experience playing the prototype? Because the Serenes Forest post mentions a few things you didn’t include (and skips some other changes you did). Could it mean that the Serenes post has wrong information?
  • I’ve heard about Nate the 0x0E missing character, but it’s the first time I heard about that those other characters were going to be playable. The units are technically in the vanilla ROM, but they’re in positions way below the space where playable units are meant to be, at 0xC9 - 0xCC and 0x66. Did they appear in the prototype, or…?

Anyways, thanks for showing this! I didn’t know this existed, and it’s cool to see the behind the scenes stuff

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I based the hack around my experience while playing the prototype altough I had to imagine many things since I couldn’t play after chapter 8 (Tirado’s chapter). For example, Tana and Glen were supposed to be playable at some point (I didn’t change Glen’s death tought, I forgot) but I couldn’t figure out how, so I put them into chapter 19. The only thing I know about Nate is that he was supposed to be a wyvern knight, but apart from that I don’t know anything else. There was a rumor about a recruitable brigand in chapter 5, altough it was only a rumor, I put him anyway since I tought it would be nice to have a playable brigand.

On a second tought I forgot to make some changes. Garcia was supposed to be called Borbo, Ephraim->Irzark. Funny thing is that Innes was supposed to be a monk using bows, but since in the vanilla game you cannot wield phisical and magical weaponry I decided to leave him as he is. In the prototype that I played, Innes was still a sniper. I could still add to the tower of Valni two extra floors but I dunno if it will resort in bugs. I left the chapter 11s as they are since I have no idea where the player could recruit Arachel and Dozla.

There’s still one thing that bothers me. Many prepromotes had different stats and growths. I wanted to be as close to the original as possible, but Dozla, ma boy, he got the short end of the stick. He’s even worse than he did in vanilla, should I change him?

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You can find some additional early development in these older magazine scans.

For example, a first chapter even earlier than the prototype leak?
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A Shaman and female Myrimidon so early!
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I’ve never heard of this magazine