Chapter 5’s probably the first really painful one (although there’s more to follow). If you’re really having trouble, stay north where it’s easier to chokepoint foes and forget about the houses until you clean things up. You can also reposition Hunter into a more active or passive position (depending on your needs) and he’ll either be safe so you can turtle without worrying or contribute some ranged chip.
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Spoiler
When Lennart Promotes, his stat caps go down. Can you change that?
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lmao good catch, fixed for 1.2.6
Also, what were you thinking when you made the Heartseeker? It’s literally the best weapon I’ve seen, especially when given to Lennart.
Okay, not the best. But really damn good.
Probably something like “lol I’m gonna drop this fat nuke super early in the game with 8 uses and see what happens”
Just making sure I get this right, but if I patch an old save of this with a 1.2.6 version, will that fix the trueblade caps?
Edit: It didn’t work.
You would have to patch before the promotion. If that still doesn’t work, let me know
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I just started over. May as well. Missed out on some other things in my original playthrough.
Honestly, I feel like I may just be bad, but I don’t understand what chapter 11 wants me to do. None of my units are tanky enough to stop the mercs, and if I do manage to stop them, the mages escape. It feels like the difficulty was just cranked up with no tools on my part to help with that.
Could someone kindly suggest me a strategy to overcome the ch.15 (Bowl of Soul)?
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I can’t defeat the guardian to reach the 2 protagonists, because the strongest units do little damage and suffer too much, and are immediately attacked from behind by the enemy army.
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If I wait, when the enemy general moves he comes straight at us, since the way to the guardian is clogged with soldiers, and he is truly invincible.
After several attempts, I’m tempted to throw in the towel. I would like to point out that, for those who play on real hardware (gba, ds phat/lite) via flashcards, there are no save states available and therefore any error is irreversible.
Really absurdly difficult hack and only beatable by irrationally abusing save states and continuing to reset furiously.
No real skill or tactics are required, just luck, unreasonable repetitions, and colossal patience.
This is a real shame.
Hoo, if you can’t smash through Uahd, you might actually just be toast. There’s no chapter that’s intended to require savestates (everything was checked to be beatable in a contiguous run using only regular resets), but depending on the resources you have/don’t have, the run might be dead or at least extremely scuffed.
- Accept a huge sacrifice of your main forces and try to just beat the trial with the two earthers while running around in circles on the bottom half. I’m assuming they’re not strong enough but, if they are, this is one way to go.
- Use the Heartseeker. If you have any uses at this point, now’s the time to crack one out. A normal person would just fight Uahd with it, but apparently someone beat the enemy general with it which is wild.
- AI manip a choke. This one’s filthy and I would feel bad if someone had to do this but the segment of fort on the left has two one-tile chokepoints that are good for holding people off while you stabilize. You can then escape your army out of whichever end the boss is not at.
- The most degenerate option, have the enemy general fight the gate guardian, who turns green during enemy phase. This is a joke option hinted at in the dialogue, but using the horse units + very careful baiting, it is actually possible to get them to fight. You would have to sacrifice a handful of units to make sure the general does not then proceed to kill the main lords as you circle your army around to reinforce.
For me this was the hardest chapter while testing so don’t feel too bad if you get cooked. If you’ve already lost too many units to be able to sac any, it might actually be over here.
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I finally got through that chapter. I had to sacrifice the female mage against the guardian and then managed to land two physical hits with only 45% success. Then I had Taki block the entrance with the weakest weapon, so as not to kill too many enemies and clear the way for that damned demon with the helmet.
Anyway very original and engaging story, but excessive and unnerving difficulty level. 
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You might find that this is a theme with BigMood’s games. Insane nail-biting shenanigans lol
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So I totally forgot to ever mention this in this thread at any point, but I’ve actually been working on a sequel to Isekai Emblem (and thus a third entry in the ‘continuity’, if you can even call it that at this point): Server 72, which will be having a release up to chapter 40 after its FEE3 video in 14 hours from this post. It does contain massive spoilers for the ending of Isekai Emblem (kind of), but is so far removed from Dragon Herald that it contains no spoilers whatsoever for that.
Note: the age rating for Server 72 is 17 and up. However, the age rating for Isekai Emblem when it released in June of 2021 was 15 and up, so as long as none of you have gone through a time rift at any point, early enjoyers should all be of sufficient age lol
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Whoa, that’s very nice news
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This might be a weird question but I noticed in febuilder that this game uses the casualmode flag patch. Does it actually use that flag for anything? The game doesn’t have an actual casual mode right?
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Took me a while to remember but yes there is a reason.
Literal Last Chapter Spoilers
All of the characters in the final map other than the people from Luna’s timeline are spirits, which means their actual bodies in their timeline won’t die if they die in this map. I therefore set casual mode on for the final map to reflect this and allow people to see endings even if they sac units in the Endgame (which, coincidentally, people often do in fire emblem).
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Ah, good to know! I wonder if swapping that out for the casual mode menu patch would break anything 
Just finished the last map, I have a lot of thoughts but I did thoroughly enjoy the game. I completed it while trying to keep everyone alive and completing as many side objectives as possible without unreliable strats. The difficulty was very frontloaded, which while I don’t mind, later maps felt exponentially easier than certain early maps. This is likely due to a lack of tools and options at that point in the game, but I feel it’s worth mentioning. I tried to keep save states to a minimum, only using them twice overall.
Chapter 5
I posted previously about my struggles with this chapter, but I realized that my problem was that I was not using haruna enough. Placing her on the southern forest tile with a handaxe, and the angelic robe allowed me to clear most enemies and get the houses pretty reliably.
Chapter 7
I was not a fan of this one personally. When the fog lifts and all the enemies charge at you you are basically forced to restart if you did not ignore the objective and begin clearing out as many enemies as possible during the period of fog. This would be fine if the game did not lead you into thinking you should consolidate most of your forces to the cave. It just feels like it’s a “got you! now restart the chapter and remember where everyone was!” After knowing to clear out enemies before the snow comes in, the chapter doesn’t become very hard, but I feel like a player with a below average haruna or taki would not have a fun time with this one.
Chapter 9
In another post you mentioned this chapter being particularly ballbusting. I think it was one of the farier challenges though. Wise use of reposition and Hunter can ensure that the door doesn’t get opened, and after that the map becomes much more controllable. I think this one was quite well designed, it rewards you for using the tools at your disposal and teaches you how important hunter is. My one gripe is that in my experience grace would suicidally charge into enemies if not recruited immediately, though its not too much trouble to recruit her.
Chapter 11
This chapter sure is one of the chapters of all time. This chapter more so than others made the game feel somewhat puzzle emblem-ish. Losing both hunter and michael means your options are extremely limited, and while lara does suffice, I wonder how much worse the chapter would be if you missed her. The chapter felt like it had one intended solution, even with all the tools possibly provided at that point (lara, taking the brave axe before michael leaves with it, etc). The lose condition became a bit frustrating, especially when you couldn’t see an enemy move onto the grass. I think the chapter would become a lot better if graces base bulk was raised a slight amount, I think two cavs being able to take hits would give a lot more freedom with the chapter. Maybe my experience was skewed by taki being royally strength screwed and not securing kills consistently.
Chapter 13
I think this chapter is an early example of one issue i had with many maps in the game, and that being heavy incentive for letting taki take care of everything on enemy phase. Akin to late game dragon herald, where the enemy density and quality is so high that it is simply more consistent to let the one busted unit you have (you in dragon herald, taki in this game) take the brunt of the attacks while the rest of the units work together to kill 1 enemy at a time. Maybe my growths were overall poor, but taki and angelic robe haruna were the only units that could see more than 1 attack on enemy phase without kicking the bucket. The left side of the map has nearly no enemies that could threaten a promoted taki carrying a shield for significant damage. Combined with the leadership stars making hit rates very inconsistent, I found this chapter to be generally weak, and a bit of a slog.
Chapter 15
Another chapter where taki with the help of a pure water enemy phases most things. The leadership stars also make the hammer inaccurate even with wta. The most consistent strategy i found for this chapter is letting the generals suicide on the spirit, then cleaning up and hiding in the temple as taki plugs the hole. The text suggests letting Takeuchi go for the spirit, but in my multiple attempts of the chapter he will always ignore the spirit no matter what. Is that dialogue not meant to be actual advice for the player?
Chapter 18
While I may seemingly have a lot of complaints, every map I have listed off so far I enjoyed in some way, despite any gripes I may have. This is the sole exception. I do not enjoy this map even on a conceptual level. This was one of the two times I used a save state. (The other time being in chapter 16 when directed to do so.) The first 7 turns are slow, as you have your bow units pick off the enemies as you make your way to the 5 leadership star general i swore was a girl until they started using he/him for the guy. The leadership stars make it so that missing is common if your name isn’t Hunter (thanks sharon) and when that happens the fog lifts and the general begins to flee early. It made it so that bad luck would force a reset if you weren’t ready to miss that 80. And I happened to miss a lot of 80% hits (SHARON). Even when things do go as planned, I found the most consistent strat for the chapter (in order to get every chest) was pick off the magic weapon users, and have taki carry literally every shield in the game, and block martieya (forgot how to spell his name) on his throne, as everyone else works together to not get eviscerated by the enemies with killer weapons (bad luck scores again). Due to my extremely unlucky time with this map, the only suggestion I can come up with is deleting the map entirely. But I recognize that im just butthurt about it.
Chapter 19
This chapter was just, oddly really easy. Maybe its the shield cav striking once again but nothing here threatened him and he lured most enemies allowing the rest of the group to pick off the kills he failed to secure for easy xp. Any magic enemies were demolished with bows or a pure water luna with ballista. (I trained luna quite extensively, she ended up below average on magic but her speed is so good that it hardly matters.)
Chapter 21
Another very easy one, Takeuchi was dropped with a heartseeker crit (held onto that sword for dear life) (just like lara i guess), I will admit I was hasty, didn’t read, and got the bad ending on my first go around. 2 turns and the map would be over. Sharon can pretty comfortably stop Takeuchi from fleeing without getting killed in return. She has her upsides.
Chapter 22
Losing hunter really and truly sucked this chapter. The berserk staff was also annoyingly accurate. I thank the heavens I kept a chapter 21 save so I could buy a restore staff before going at 22 again. (I know the druid drops one but it was easier to buy my own and ignore those enemies. The green unit worried me and made me play very rashly this chapter, only for them to sort out everything before I could even reach them. The set of 4 monster dogs (forgot the name) and 4 gargoyles was another taki stomp. Harunas low defense at this point really begins to bite her in the ass, she can take 2 hits which is more you can say about anyone else, but it really hammers in the point that taki is the only bulky unit you have. (Cassie can also take hits but I like seeing the xp bar go up.) The mogalls with the uncounterable tome mixed with the skeletons charging was another pretty annoying one, since player phase would leave a fair number of them alive, tried as I might to abuse the monster effective sword. The chapter was overall fine, but oddly enough Ballor was the easiest part of it. I guess its fitting that he seems scarier than he truly is.
Story
I loved the story to death, I love dragon heralds story as well, I admit I kicked my feet and giggled whenever I saw a cameo from that game. (I also thoroughly enjoyed putting shouko in the dirt, by far the most annoying recruit of that game all for a unit that cannot handle any combat in any chapter after his join time.) I really enjoyed cassie coming back as well, I wish she was slightly better in dragon herald, but for her sake I’ll try to actually train her when i go back to replay that one for a third time. Other than the cameos, I love luna and lennarts dynamic (girls who say bruh). I wish Mika came back a bit sooner, because she is quite an enjoyable character, by the time shes up and at it the story is basically over. The supports were pretty enjoyable, I made a point to get all the ones I could for units I was actively training. Osen Grace and Haruna are my personal favs. Some of the lore dumps near the end did confuse me a bit, not that they dont make sense, but they were worded a bit confusingly. I think I understood it generally though. I am eager to see what server 72 will be like after the plots of these two games. I think Takeuchi and Ballor are fine villains, I like Takeuchi seemingly being aware of how insane he is. My personal favorite moment in the game is near the end where taki meets the rest and says “party individuals”. It was sweet.
Unit Balance
Better than dragon heralds, which was admittedly a low bar. In dragon herald, The earlygame was carried by byrd and her bonkers defense, and the lategame was carried by yous avoid. Most of the other units could not contribute in a meaningful way (Kris is a particular favorite of mine that cannot do more than 2 damage at a time past the earlygame). In this game, taki is leaps and bounds the best unit in the game, Haruna is crucial earlygame, but taki is the only consistently bulky unit you consistently have access to. I think the cast overall is better balanced, but many of them are quite frail. Curtis has decent bulk for his time, but his poor def growth means he becomes just as squishy as anyone else lategame. Luna (especially with the metis’ tome) actually is deceptively bulky, with a defense growth more than double the average units. Her good speed also means that even the faster enemies dont tend to double her. I feel like some units ought to have more base hp, but it is entirely possible that many of my units were def or hp screwed.
I apologize for how rambly and whiny this all is (as well as the inconsistent grammar and such), but I did thoroughly enjoy the game. I think the game doesn’t need to change, as much as I’d like for some things to. It is quite a hard game, but I enjoyed the challenge. At no point did the game seem unbeatable, even if the odds were stacked way against the player. The variety in game over conditions and objectives made the maps feel unique. I feel some of the maps are very puzzle like, but as a conquest lunatic enjoyer, I don’t see it as a bad thing. Thank you for making this game (as well as the dragon herald), I think they may just be some of my favorite hacks.
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I’m glad you made it to the end. While I didn’t really do this myself during testing, I think stacking shields onto Taki is a standard strategy lmao.
Ch 15 Spoilers
I did actually get Takeuchi to fight the spirit during testing, but overall it’s more trouble than it’s worth to do that strat.
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