One thing do5 does consistently that annoys me is it switches around your party without warning, putting you in potential softlock situations.
Love party switches in general, but moving units in and out of the party and not getting preps without notice is a poor player experience.
thats more so the musair route honestly, the onduris route seems to love putting the player under tighter time restraints more then anything. the only actual softlock i remeber on the onduris route itself was the final chapter when i didnt bring a thief with me and there were no door keys around so i couldnt unlock the door to the last boss on that route.
That map design on 7A is sooo baaad, lmao. It’s a long, linear path that feels like an endgame or Archanea map but with much more enemy density due to DoF’s design philosophy, so it takes longer to clear than it has any right to. Not to mention it’s treated as some big fight but nothing happens so ???
8A is better but only because it’s short, the lack of having a solid mage counter is rather bleh, I agree.
Digging into FEBuilder tells me the Partisan (or Gungnir in the build I have) is effective against Myrms and Mercs.
archanea map design tends to look longer then it actually is, since its mov averages tend to be higher then other fe games (1-2 more mov in most instances). The linearity of a lot of its indoor maps is definitely there mind, though honestly thats a problem for most indoor fe map design, just that calling archanea maps ‘long’ isn’t quite accurate.
fe6 maps though, those are long.
Dream of Five feels so… slow? Like all enemies are still lv1-2, only irons sold in stores. Maps are small, levels are few. Also what the hell does Dream of Five mean? We probably won’t find out the hack is dead.
I remember seeing a promotional banner by someone on the dev team at one point that featured the mugs of the five “lords” (Renair, Garath, Arcus, Enjolras, Seymour - yes, Garath counts as a lord I guess since his death causes a game over). So that’s probably what the “five” means at least.
You handled this chapter way better than I did. When I played 8Ax, Crowe and Driscoll didn’t have any weapons and Gabriel broke his Flux super early. The chapter would be so much better if they just gave access to preps beforehand.
As unfair as of a chapter as it is, I love the concept, the map music (what even is that song?), and found it incredibly satisfying to win.
Essentially from my memory, it refers to the five of them trying to achieve some goal. Each one having a different one. However, because well… You can’t get Arcus and Seymour on the same file and the fact that the jeigan is include makes this concept very odd. But it’s at least a clear connection with the title (if you can figure out the five that is).
Freaking soft lock! Like why set up your chapters in such a way this can EASILY happen? I’m well aware giving feedback at this point is worthless as the project is dead, but… man.
Also hell yeah that chapter music is a slammer
the next chapter though… >_>
That’s only in the release though. The last FEE3 video of Dream of Five showcases the chapter where the two routes converge, using a Musain save, and on turn 2 Seymour arrives with a bunch of his friends.
…unless he wasn’t going to stick around?
Yeah, it’s poor design and easily fixable. The game likes to sucker punch you.
At least the game looks gorgeous and has poignant dialogue. Garath going crazy in 8Ax is excellent. Do it for Hudson!!!
oh really
i feel like it doesn’t have any impact at that point because we have no idea who this seymour is at this point and vice versa in the orundus route
yeah the
dialogue really knows how to [A]
break itself up in
ways that keep the [A]
player interested in
continuing on.
i’m not even a little bit mad
I think FE7 tends to lend itself to shorter, choppier looking dialogue boxes, but maybe that is just me.
I’m fine with short boxes, i’m just very over the dialogue deciding to
cut off in the middle of a
sentence when there’s clearly space
for the rest of the statement.
Like readability is an important thing, but whatever, that’s nitpicky I admit.
I get that. I’m guilty of it, too.
Probably the most tedious thing to try and get right when making a project.
https://puu.sh/FbfZ5/f5e2c1b9eb.jpg
https://puu.sh/FbfYH/64cd87e260.png
M A H B O I D R I S C O L L
(this thumbnail is fire)
It was the style at the time - the team wanted to tell a sweeping epic with lots of fighting, so they heavily focused on having quantity with quality for unit composition and EXP. gains were stymied all around, so that you didn’t have Lv. 15 T1’s or so by Ch. 6.
There wasn’t a cleaner way to reduce EXP. gains back then(Agro mentioned this earlier in the thread; FE7 ROM hacking was still in its growing pains at this time, so no forcing Hector Hard Mode values for some time, for example, and good map design philosophy was unheard of - you merely designed a map and hoped it stuck the landing), so they opted to ensure most enemies were Lv. 1-2 for the majority of the early game and instead pump their character bases higher to achieve a similar effect.
As such, this is why DoF ended up with having thick enemy density with long maps and little reward as you played - they really wanted a long game, but it ended up feeling massively bloated near the end of its life span instead.
I think this piece is so easy to forget about now. We all used to think FE4 was the holy grail of FE back in the day, and when romhacking was new, there was so much emphasis on making big, sweeping epics. 0% growths and LTC was not popular either, and so designing with efficiency in mind was unheard of, too.
Additionally, I think there was an expectation you’d take advantage of the emulator to create savestates, which is frowned upon quite a bit more today.
That’s interesting to hear that Garath was perhaps intended to be part of “The Five.” He gets a lot of dialogue, for certain, but he’s not as central to the plot as the other four.
(And poor Kolbane, gets pretty much as much dialogue as Garath, but is left out of the party)
Seen it. Liked it and all that I’m sorry that you are enduring this while I’m just enjoying my snacks.