Isekai Emblem: The Tales Two [Complete, v1.2.4]

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I’ve yet to get this new patch, sorry couldn’t test it, I wasn’t planning on using him also, but I’ll download it later I test it.

end game Spoilers

I was able to pretty much warp and envy skip the defeat Takeushi chapter, but I still haven’t managed the time and fortitude to attempt it “normally”, and I’m wondering, how the player will be able to manage to defeat the boss in time without the envy sword, cause even Luna doesn’t hurt him enough to safeguard against lethal retaliation on the following turn. I’m on the next chapter (haven’t attempted to beat it yet) and I absolutely love You coming back, I was wondering if she was going to show up, that was pretty cool, I hope she’s playable for the final chapter.

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Well, despite the lack of racism promised being the biggest betrayal of the century, we did indeed get our promised nationalism

10/10 hack thus far would get killed and sent to another world only to get killed again by a big scary armored dude again

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Spoilers

If you manage to attack him once (even if you don’t deal damage), he’ll stay and fight, so assuming you’re fast enough to clear nearby foes, you can tag him with someone who’s able to tank a hit while he’s in sword mode and move everyone in after that. However, this is a fight where you may lose units if you don’t have enough resources going into it.

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Spoilers

I didn’t get the envy sword, but what I did was have Luna bonk him with Luna for the convo, then rescue staffed her out of there so she didn’t face retaliation. Taki with the S rank lance was able to tank Takeuchi and all his buddies and then get the kill on turn 2 with a heal and a dance.

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Just beat the game. It was fun, thanks for making it. Figued I would share some thoughts here.

The story was really solid, especially given the cliched premise.

Spoilers for the whole story

I loved the small references to Dragon Herald, especially seeing how Cassandra has grown up from a weak little girl I couldn’t be bothered to train into a powerhouse who practically solo’d the last two chapters. Several of the story’s twists also caught me completely by surprise, but made sense in retrospect (which is the best way for a twist to work), like the fact that Lennart and Mika had been to Orsia before, or that the “other world” was actually just the future of ours.

The characters were also fun and distinctive feeling. My favorites were Michael the Tsundere nationalist old guy, Dion the librarian with a pegasus who hates him, and the generic soldier buddies who just wanna stay alive and take care of their families.

Relatedly, I liked the way that you made supports triggered by talk conversations that were actually relevant to the chapter they were happening in. This both removes the tediousness of building GBA supports (I couldn’t be bothered to get most of the DH supports, even though the few that I got were good), and also address how out of place a lot of support conversations can feel, by nature of the fact that they have to be able to trigger anywhere, anytime.

I also enjoyed the little interlude chapters where you could walk around and talk to people. Adding a small element of interactivity helped the story flow better than just having a massive wall of dialogue and cutscenes. The weapon gaiden chapters were also simple enough to be almost cutscene, but they were quick to play, and I felt like they added a cool element of integration between the gameplay and the story (without the tediousness of the “gameplay story integration” in something like FE4).

Overall, I though the gameplay was solid. There was a mix of challenging chapters and lighter ones. There were a few frustrating chapters, but overall it was quite fun. The FoW defend map was definitely the one that annoyed me the most (I basically had to redo it until I knew where all the enemies were gonna spawn, b/c I kept having my forces out of position to both keep everyone alive and keep anyone from touching grass).

I liked how the remix of the “two lords face a trial to get a macguffin” map from DH let you use your whole army this time (Ch10 was my least favorite map in DH). I also appreciated that there were less spammy reinforcements than in DH. I enjoyed that there were quite a few maps that had split deployment or otherwise encouraged you to send people in multiple directions to accomplish multiple things. This meant that even when my Taki had grown to the point of barely taking damage from most things, I still had to think about how to complete chapters.

I appreciated that the maps generally encouraged playing at a good pace. The flooding chapter was particularly cool and a much much better implementation of the concept than the flooding maps in FE6/7. It was nice that the defend maps could always be ended early by killing the boss (even if it meant that I didn’t even realize Grace was recruitable b/c I murdered the boss before she showed up T_T)

I also enjoyed playing around with some of the new weapons. Banners in particular were a cool idea, and after I could buy them I had fun setting up strategies where I’d use both captains to give someone +6 spd or str. I liked the way that you limited the power of certain weapons by locking them to specific classes so that everyone could have a niche (you might want to find a better way to explain it in-game, though. I was very confused by the (S) until I went and watched the FEE3 trailer).

I also enjoyed how the sparingly used personal skills gave certain units a unique and fun gameplay feel. Michael’s capture felt super good to have when he joined, since money was tight and there were enemies with cool weapons. Sharon’s canto+ was also fun to play around with in a game where no one else had it. And Osen’s powerstaff made her feel very fast for a four move armor, and led to some fun strategies of leaving someone missing 1 HP in just the right spot to let Osen get an extra move to a useful location.

Aesthetics are probably the weakest part of the hack. Most of the portraits are free to use, the tilesets are mostly vanilla and some of the tiling is rather rough looking. Fortunately, the quality of F2U assests is pretty high these days, and for me, aestetics are significantly less important than gameplay and story.

Overall, Isekai Emblem is a solid hack that I would recommend.

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Thanks for taking the time to play, and especially thanks for helping to face-tank a bunch of bugs! I’m glad you enjoyed the general flow, and I did consciously try to incorporate feedback received from Dragon Herald to put this one together.

EDIT Spoilers

Fun fact: Cassandra’s stats are derived from her 10/20/20 average from DH, so it’s just barely possible to have her be that powerful by the end of DH if you desperately wanted to.

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So I thought I’d give my review of the first 8 chapters i’ve done so far

lmao

So the first few chapters, I don’t have much to say about since they were all p decent, but nothing too special.
And then we get into chapter 5.
Chapter 5 i honestly had a lot of fun with, just experimenting with how to get everything in one go w/o dying. I had to abuse savestates a bunch (I’m bad, I know), but overall I think the general design of the chapter was nice.
Same goes w/ Chapter 6, albeit i felt like the chapter required some amount of RNG to get through. I still had fun getting through it and strategizing an effective strat, but I think the gargoyles could use a nerf (just my opinion, idk what other people’s experiences are), either that or maybe a 1-2 turn extend on the turn limit
Chapter 7 is a fog of war chapter and I hate fog of war so it’s bad
jk, but honestly, the fog of war wasn’t the part that felt bad, it was the reinforcements coming from that cave, i feel like there were way too many, maybe cut them down to around 3 enemies only?
Chapter 8 was really fun, nothing much more to say.

Now for character feel or something idfk

All the characters feel nice to use, they each have nice defined niches and each have something cool to bring to the table, so good job fam

Writing

comedy

Overall good job thus far and i look forward to trying more

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Thanks for playing! It may surprise you to learn that gargoyles have, in fact, been nerfed since I first started this hack. Hunter also did not always have Hawkeye+. (If you let Hunter die in chapter 5, chapter 6 is probably impossible without going the eastern route.)

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really? gargoyles just too stronk ig lol

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We don’t have a once per season Isekai policy.

Now a once-per-season FE6/7/8 rebalance policy on the other hand…

Jokes aside, might take a look at this one.

Also you have my eternal respect for making an anim that uses a gun.

(On another note, I’m amazed nobody’s edited the Rogue anims to use a gun… the spin and then shoot for the crit would be awesome.)

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It’ll happen when someone makes a MGS demake and needs a revolver ocelot anim.

(So probably never, but one can dream)

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Okay so i’m a few chapters in, and here’s my thoughts so far:

Prologue to Chapter 8

Might have to split this into two posts.
Wall of text ahead.

Premise is okay, but in terms of gameplay…

The gameplay is, well… the earlygame is honestly a turn-off.

Here’s the main general offenders:

The main lord, Luna, is… she’s got a really rough start. Low HP, her spells don’t do much damage… she needs at least one extra point of magic to be able to kill reliably and gain exp; otherwise she has to chip. (It doesn’t help either that she has no leadership star or skill, and her tome’s effect of reposition is… not the best given her build).

Her Reposition tome is cool and all, but I barely use the reposition since most of the time it puts her in a bad situation.

I get that she’s not exactly a natural combatant, but this is just… irritating to deal with.

Chapter 1 is a good example of how her inability to kill screws her over- she can’t reliably kill the fighter without a crit, when said Fighter seemingly must die.

Which brings me to the next point- the solution itself to the problem is… not exactly the easiest to figure out (you have to Rescue with the Swordmaster and pray to god you don’t get bodied).

Also I was fine with the mages having Thunder because the Swordmaster had the Artifact Sword that was anti-mage, but without it, the boss of Chapter 7 becomes really risky to fight- even with a pure water, all it takes is one bad roll to do you in.

But that’s only a small part of the issue.

The two biggest issues I have with Isekai Emblem’s gameplay are:

1.) The fact that pretty much every map so far seems to be designed to make you take the long way around to get everything.

2.) The enemy design choices.

For the former, Chapter 2 is a good example- to get both villages, you pretty much have to drag the boss around and pray that the enemy civilians don’t get in the way in the meantime… and the fact that they have one-tile per turn move is both a blessing and a curse in this regard.

They basically serve as irritating roadblocks that slow your progress.

The boss is also placed awkwardly as hell- if you try to go for the house close to him, or visit the vendor, you have to (as stated previously) pretty much bait and rag him around, which… isn’t fun at all.

Another good example is Chapter 7 where you have 6 turns to make it to a cave that takes about five turns at best to reach… and at which point it turns into an utter slugfest of irritating proportions.

As for Point 2…

Isekai Emblem’s enemies are… really badly designed. There is a lot of emphasis on dodging because nobody can really take a lot of hits- the only problem is, in the earlygame, getting hit is really common and all it tkaes is a few bad rolls and you’re screwed.

Also, at times, the stats on the enemies can make the dangerous ones, depending on how the RNG treated you, either difficult or impossible to outright kill immediately when you need to.

A good example of point 2 is in Chapter 7- the latter part of the chapter honeslty boils down to ‘get as many people as you can onto the terrain and pray you don’t get hit’. That’s it. It’s not fun at all- it’s just at best a tedious slog and at worst a nerve-wracking slog.

It doesn’t help either that your unit variety in the earlygame is really low- you have a small army and that means that even a single person dying means you lose something essential.

Chapter 5’s starting mercenaries also are both dangerous and not easy to kill- and if you don’t handle them right away, bad things happen.

Also, I hate the fact that enemies get brave-effect weapons, and that a lot of the time, the 1-2 range weapon they carry is less dangerous than the weapon that automatically lets them double. Seriously. Not. Fun.

All in all, this has the potential to be something- but the gameplay needs to be remedied a lot in order for it to really shine.

TL;DR:

Map design needs to be more straightforward- a little bit of going the long way is fine, but if I’m constantly going the long way and it’s painful to do so because I have no other choice, that’s not fun. Chapter 6 in particular is really cruel because the choices basically boil down to a rock and a hard place- do you want to suffer through a grinder that, should you make it through, let you make it to the objective in time? Or do you want to take a path that promises to be yet another tedious slog in a game full of them?

Luna needs a buff to her magic stat so that she can actually start to kill and get exp. As it stands, she’s like Lyn with Leif’s stats, but with none of Leif’s utility.

The enemy should not get to play with toys (slims, the utter nonsense that is the thunder tome) that the player does not yet have good answers to other than to bait and let the enemy switch out- especially in maps where you’re pessed for time.

I could go into more specifics, but I’ll leave it at here for now.

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I think you missed the “intended solution” here, Luna doesn’t have to do any combat in this map, nor is rescuing her necessary. You have Lennart kill the fighter then have Luna reposition him, so he blocks the soldiers from attacking her, and allows him to kill them on enemy phase. He can then move to kill the soldier from ahead, and be repositioned again to be put out of danger, to one-shot the mage to clear the map.

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… you know, that seems so obvious in hindsight, but like… it’s not exactly the most conventional thing either…

Beyond that though, Luna does have problems killing which does hurt her exp gain a lot- and she’s arguably the one who needs it most at the start.

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Well, in any case, thanks for playing! There’s definitely a lot more puzzle emblem in the early game than is to most people’s tastes. The design is also pretty punishing if you let early-game units die too. I would definitely not say this is something iron-man friendly. That being said, regarding the specific chapters you mentioned:

Chapter spoilers

As epicer says, chapter 1 is actually a puzzle for Luna’s Reposition. The prologue and chapter 1 are “in bad taste” by community standards, but I figured it was one way to show people what they were getting into.

I have been told that “given the opportunity, people will find the least fun way to play for themselves”, and Chapter 3 is a good illustration of that. I might just move the vendor up and remove the leftmost visitable house entirely to cut off the option of self-inflicted torment.

Chapter 6 is meant to be cruel. I don’t really have any excuses for this one, this map did a fair number on my reset total and my only thought was “I bet there’s other masochists out there”.

Chapter 7 is fairly easy if Hunter remains alive (and otherwise generally doable if you bought Lennart a slim sword earlier), but I’ve seen a good number of people just get him killed off so that’s something I should account for. Most likely I’ll just give that mage a fire tome he starts out with, prompting him to switch to the thunder tome if the player isn’t able to get him in one go. What I should’ve done was somehow make Hunter (or more specifically, any 2-3 archer) a mandatory unit but for various reasons that’s impossible at this point.

You’ve brought up good points for where I caused more suffering than intended (and I do always intend suffering), so I’ll be sure to fix those soon. I should mention that Chapter 9 is suffering as well. If you’re not having fun, you shouldn’t feel compelled to press on. I wouldn’t even blame you if you just left a review on how far you got that was like “yeah this felt super bad” or didn’t review. The hack ocean is vast and you should catch fish you’ll enjoy eating, or something.

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Duly noted… and I’m on Chapter 9 now.

Speaking of some other things that I forgot to mention:

Chapter 8 needs droppable chest keys so that if the thief dies after taking something from one of the chests, you’re not locked out of the other chests.

Also you may want to make a recruitment guide. I have a distinct feeling that I’m going to want as many units as possible- and that not all of them have immediately obvious recruitment conditions…

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Chapter 8

You can capture the thief without too too much trouble using Michael.

And yeah, idk how I forgot about the recruitment guide considering I did it for my last game, gonna get to work on that.

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Chapter 11 and one other chapter (cant remember which; only that it might have been chapter 4) have a bug that makes it where the chapter’s title doesn’t appear during the intro.

And I’m looking forward to that recruitment guide. Also, regarding chapter 8- I think it’s a good idea to have droppable chest keys regardless as a failsafe- hopefully nothing really important was in those chests…

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I’ll list the title screen thing as a known bug. I’m not really sure why it happens, but it’s not really impactful enough for me to look at it hard.

The chests aren’t that important for chapter 8, and chest keys are very intentionally omitted for that chapter.

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May I ask why? (The chest keys being omitted that is).

Heck, if they’re not that important, why are the chests there to begin with?

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