Hey there! I go by the very uncreative name of ‘Horrific17’, and have loved fire emblem for about 3-4 years now (currently in my first playthrough of fe4 and 9 though). I started working on a romhack of Fire Emblem 7 on the 27th of August last year, based on a roleplay I did with a friend back in 2017. Currently i’ve completed 20 chapters (though admittedly very, VERY poorly playtested by anyone outside of myself) and am working on the 21st right now, with the first of a 3-part story (utilising FE7’s “Lyn/Eliwood/Hector” modes) being finished (aside from some polishing) and roughly half of the second part being finished. I plan for a total of about 38 chapters in total, though boasting a relatively small playable cast of characters I put my heart into writing (Part 1 only has 8 playable characters, and part 2 has 20. Part 3 is TBD). I can’t do art to save my life so portraits are a big struggle, currently just recolours of base portraits. I hope to fit in and find help here!
Welcome to FEU! Once you have a first release, I’d be willing to help playtest and provide live feedback as I have for other projects in the past.
But enough about that, Here’s to feeling at home in the community!
Welcome to the community! Always nice to see new folks working on projects.
20 chapters is a great start. I’d definitely recommend you post some screenshots and share a bit more info about your hack so that you can generate some interest + get help playtesting/balancing.
Good luck!
Welcome! I also often have trouble with making portraits, so basically what I do is that I use this tool. https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/7l6wuk/i_love_gba_fire_emblem_spritesportraits_so_i_made/
(Wait this doesn’t count as spam right? XD.)
What it does is that it takes a lot of parts from portraits so you can splice them together. If you do it right, then all that’s left is to apply the FE8 palette by editing with external programs. The results can be pretty good :D.
Aside from that, your hack idea sounds pretty cool. 20 chapters since August is pretty impressive, well done XD. Hope I get to play it some day.
Sounds like a great offer! I’ll definitely start considering when the first release part of my hack more publicly, as I have shared it with friends once part 1 was finished and got… less than helpful criticism (basically just a minor nitpick someone had based on what they want that I couldn’t change without drastically redesigning the units, figured it wasn’t worth looking into).
Here’s to feeling at home!
I’ll be perfectly honest, compared to a lot of hacks i’ve seen around here, at face value it’s not that interesting. Unique maps, units, characters, stories and some weapons is all it has going for it. It’s not like, a simple rebalance or anything, but it’s not really got any fancy mechanics other than gameplay that utilizes the support system much more than original FE. I’d definitely be willing to venture outside my comfort zone of the basics once I get more into romhacking, though. What kind of stuff should I screenshot?
And thanks for the good luck wishes ^^
I’ve seen that tool before, actually. The main thing I worried about was eye and mouth frames, get nervous about not knowing what to do about it and gave up. What kind of external programs could be used, and how would eye and mouth frames work?
Thanks for the compliments. I hope to share more about it at some point. It’s fairly basic, and right now the stuff near the start of part 1 needs revisiting as my eventing and overall skills with romhacking has improved a decent bit.
The results can be pretty good
No. No, they can’t. That program is a common trap for beginners, but the results are worse than normal splices made by hand, at best. The colors are nothing like vanilla GBA, the images are generated in an unusable format (increased size, no mouth/eye frames), and there are loads of little glitchy border areas where stuff doesn’t work right.
Even if making spliced portraits yourself is too hard (which it shouldn’t be - this tutorial is a great place to get started), there are eight Mugging Blitzes full of decent-quality portraits that are free for anyone to use. There’s no shame in taking from the community to cover stuff you can’t or don’t want to do yourself; those mugs were made free for a reason. Just… don’t use that program. Ever.
That in itself is quite interesting! I think you’re not giving yourself enough credit.
No harm in showing off a bit of what you’ve worked on. I think that’ll help build interest and help you get feedback as you continue balancing the game.
Welcome to FEUniverse!