[Lex Talionis] Fire Emblem Echoes: Blades of Elibe Part 1 [22/65 Chapters]

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!HOTFIX POSTED!
I have posted a hot fix to hopefully fix the crash in chapter two. The drive link and itch.io link now point to the new files. I changed one line of script, so your saves should be fine

Hello, FEU, I’m windwardbound, and I’ve been cooking up a project for ten months that I’m finally ready to share. Like many of you, I have a soft spot for Elibe, so I sat down to think what an Elibe duology would look like by modern standards. This, isn’t that, not exactly.

The big thing this is: The game I wanted to play, with a mashup of my favorite mechanics in every Fire Emblem game I’ve ever played.

But windwardbound, Why should I play this game?: I mean, you do you. I’m not your parent, and I’m not a cop. If you want to play a reimagining of the Elibe games with mildly unhinged supports, be my guest. If you don’t, go play something that some of the talented folks on here have made.

Anyway, I’ve blathered on enough. Here’s the features:

Major Features
New Characters

Several new characters have joined the cast, including:

  • Anna, the Mysterious Merchant: The woman herself joins Lyn on her journey to claim her title as Marquess Caelin. She can’t use a weapon, but her skill with items allows her to use Item Surge, using the items in unique ways.

  • Adelaide, the Red Devil: A Lycian mercenary hailing from Ostia, She’s got a contract to take out Lyn, but she’s been misled. She can make use of a powerful weapon, the Ladyblade.

  • Leila, The Unseen: The Ostian spy takes to the field alongside Lyndis’s Legion, taking over Matthew’s role in Lyn’s Tale. She’s magically inclined, and with a magic knife, she eliminates enemies while barely lifting a finger.

  • Beyard, Son of Eubans: You remember Beyard, right? No? That’s fine. Beyard was hired into the service of the Black Fang after they kidnapped Ninian. He was the boss of Chapter 7x. Here he is now, reclassed as a Soldier, and ready to fight for Lyn. He’ll join you once he’s been reduced to half HP and talks to Lyn.

  • Lydia, The Blackwing: Legend has it that Black Pegasi take wing in Ilia still, even though they’ve been hunted to near-extinction. One such pegasus is bonded to Lydia, a mercenary who went to the Ilian Pegasus Knight Academy alongside Florina. They were lovers once, but they’ve been separated for over a year. Now that they’re back together, who knows what will happen…

  • Jake, the Master Ballistician: What’s an Anna without her Jake? Jake, and the Ballistician class, appear and are a powerful addition to your arsenal. While his projectiles can shoot great distances, he can’t carry very many, so take the shot wisely.

  • Ananzi, Brimming With Potential: Ananzi is the son of one of Caelin’s minor lords, and is rife with potential. He takes a bit of extra training, but he could be anything he wants to be, and that extends to his promotion options.

  • Fang, The Goodest Boy: Fang is the palace hound of Caelin, and he’s been forced onto the battlefield against Lyndis’s Legion. He’s a fierce hound if you can win his allegiance. A wide-eyed child may be up to the task.

  • The Tactician: No longer content to be a silent figure behind the screen, the tactician is a fully written character, complete with customization options. Choose the tactician’s appearance, name, pronouns, birth month, a stat boon, and a stat bane. You’ll find that the tactician’s presentation changes the script a fair bit, as well as the tactician’s support options.

Expanded Weapon System

The weapon system has been expanded on in a few new ways.

  • Weapons you may recognize from Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn.

  • Weapons range from Bronze to Brave, with heavy weapons for each of the physical weapon types.

  • The Wind Edge line of swords has been included. Sword units rejoice at a physical 1-2 range sword!

  • Anima Magic has been split into Fire, Wind, and Thunder magic, with their own weapon triangle among them.

  • Knives are the preferred weapons of thieves, rogues, and assassins. They’re weak, but more easily land critical hits.

  • Weapon ranks range from E to SS, with some familiar SS rank weapons scattered around.

  • The Levin Sword has been added, just to give the Tactician class a familiar feel.

  • Magic Weapons make their return, including the new Dark Knife: Athame!

  • Revival Stones are now treasures you’ll find in the hands of chapter bosses. Rumor has it there are special ones your army can use.

  • Accessories can alter your army’s abilities. Each unit can equip one accessory. You’ll find Rings, Shields, and Bands throughout your adventure.

Support System Overhaul

A robust Support System has been included that’s a blend between Tellius and Awakening style.

  • Support Ranks range from C to S, and a unit may have any number of support partners

  • Each unit can have a single S rank support partner

  • Units earn supports by interacting on the map, being in range of the same enemy when one of them attacks, surviving a chapter where they’re deployed together, or by doing tasks together on the base camp screen.

  • The eight affinities of Tellius have been applied, with an additional bonus for S rank.

  • Support conversations have been completely rewritten from the ground up with all-new dialogue and new support pairing options.

Skill System

A robust system of skills allows for further customization for your army!

  • Units have a personal skill, and can have six additional skills equipped at a time.
  • Each class learns skills at certain levels.
  • Units learn new skills as they gain weapon ranks in different weapons
  • Skill Scrolls offer skills that units otherwise couldn’t learn
  • Equip skills from a unit’s learned skill pool in the base camp screen.
Class Overhaul
  • Classes have been split based on weapon proficiency. Tired of Kent and Sain having the exact same utility? Now Kent uses axes, Sain uses swords, Lowen uses bows, and Isadora uses lances.
  • Oswin now uses axes, and gains lance proficiency on promotion.
  • Wallace gains sword proficiency on promotion.
  • The Soldier class now promotes into Halberdier, and has had its growths buffed to make for a better player experience.
  • A third tier of classes exists beyond the first promotion.
  • Units can now promote when reaching their class’s maximum level, with a few exceptions.
  • The Tactician gets their own special class that uses swords and dark magic.
New Chapters

Lyn’s Tale is a tutorial no longer! It’s now its own 18 chapter story, with an additional three paralogues centered on Nils, and his new quest to find a missing person.

  • New chapters centered around a new insurgency plot line where Lyn has to take Caelin back from Lundgren by destabilizing the region.
Base Camp

The Lex Talionis engine offers a Tellius-style Base Camp screen. You can manage items, skills, bonus experience, support, and more from Base Camp.

  • Supports no longer take place on the map, and take place at base instead.
  • A new tasks system allows units to receive bonuses such as support points and additional weapon experience.
  • Base conversations shed more light on the plot of the story, and can offer items, or even new units, so don’t skip them.
  • A codex of Lore, a gameplay guide, and a record of your progress can be found in the Codex menu.
Miscellaneous
  • Player units and bosses have had their map sprites redone in full color. Thanks to Beccarte for the inspiration.
  • All new dialogue for nearly every conversation in the game. Some characters may be a bit different than you remember.
  • The game’s a LOT queerer. I’m not sorry, but it just seeps off me and gets all over everything I touch…
  • Dialogue is more mature, in keeping with the game’s 17+ rating. There is a content warning posted here. Read it. If you read Fanfiction, then you know what “Dead Dove: Do Not Eat” means…

But wait, there are three big disclosures I need to make!

Content Warning. Do Not Skip.

  • Discussions of sexual assault and sexual abuse.

  • Discussions of abortion.

  • Discussions of Nonconsensual drug use

  • Consensual drug use

  • Consensual alcohol use

  • Mentions of Human Trafficking

  • Discussions of forced breeding

  • Child abuse by a parent

  • Leila severs a man’s scrotum offscreen one time

  • DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT

AI Warning. Feel Free To Skip.

This project was developed using the Lex Talionis engine, which is developed with AI assistance. As far as I understand, all AI generated code is thoroughly reviewed by a human person before being integrated into the code base, but AI still poisons the water supply, burns up all that power, and emits a constant humming sound that’s audible for miles, so if you don’t want to associate with it, I won’t fault you.

Credit Warning. Please Do Not Skip.

Special thanks are in order! While the credits will roll when you reach the end of the story, there is one credit set I couldn’t put into the game:

  • giuseppers_new on Discord for building the Windows build of the project for me. I couldn’t add him to the credits because the game was already built…

  • fortuneswitch on Discord for playtesting

  • commanderfeep on Discord for playtesting

  • pkLucky who built many a playtest build.

  • lord_nutritious on Discord, who has put up with my shenanigans for too long.

  • A certain playtester who wishes to remain anonymous, for demanding more of me than I was able to demand of myself. This project wouldn’t exist in its current form without you, and while it’s heartbreaking that I can’t name you, just know your contributions have made this project what it is today. Thank you.

  • TheSmithPlays and the Legacy team who inspired several of the map changes and stat changes in this project. Thanks, y’all.

  • All the FE Fans who contributed art assets through the Asset Repo. All of you are named in the credits of the game. If you see one of your assets and don’t see your name in the credits, please send me hate mail and that error will be swiftly corrected.

So, you’ve come this far, have you? Well, I guess I have to actually post the links now…

If you’re using a Windows machine, you can find the most recent build here:

I hope you enjoy it. It’s been ten months of my life so far, with no signs of stopping.

-windwardbound

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This looks like absolute cinema (on the surface, at least), I can’t wait to see where this goes! Hopefully you continue to improve as it comes along.

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why are mark and lyn flirting with each other like horndogs every time they speak to each other? this is not lyn’s personality

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The game crashes after adelaide walks off after talking to lyn

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That’s weird. I’ll look into it.

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I just finished the first five chapters and I’m already questioning the writing.

Im curious about your thinking about why Florina’s opening needed to begin a rewrite with her almost getting raped by a brigand.

Or how Lyn will talk about the rape and genocide of Sacae, to then immediately talk about finding a skill scroll after.

The game’s writing needs to be reworked because I don’t see how this enhances FE7’s story

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I will concur with Evil Ru here, as someone whose going through it myself, as is, if these new additions for the heavier content are going to be here. Most of it comes off incredibly tasteless as of now.

These things sort of just spring up in the writing in what’s otherwise settling itself within the same energy as FE7, and so far that just means these come of jarring. With making two different bandit bosses back to back audibly express their intent to rape the women, rather than being a recognition of atrocities that exist. It instead reads like an attempt to come off more mature that instead just leaves it coming off like a very heavy subject, like rape, was just thrown in.

If something as heavy as rape is going to be, bluntly, lazily flung around like this, you need to really re-consider most of the things in your content warning even being in the game at all.

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Just watched a friend play the beginning of this.

To preface, don’t take this as censorship. I’m not telling you what you can and can’t write about; people can write about anything. Everything in this world is important to someone and that importance can always be conveyed through skilled writing. I’m not saying you are never allowed to write about rape. I’m saying you don’t need to, and in this case, you shouldn’t.

The way you insert rape into your story shows that you think of it like a seasoning. You want to create a certain mood, or provoke a certain reaction, so you drop in rape or genocide or whatever sounds really bad. You’re making aesthetic stew. You want the stew to taste a certain way, so you’re putting in stuff that tastes like that.

The problem is that writing isn’t stew. In a story, events happen in a particular order, and form some kind of experience that maps onto how things go in real life. For example, you might write a story where someone goes through a really tough challenge, but perseveres, and everything turns out okay. And then the reader goes “Wow! That was tough, and for a second I thought it might not work out, but thankfully it did.”

What YOU want to do is make a bandit feel scary. You want the player to feel scared of the bandit, but then glad when he’s gone. There are a billion different bandit-related experiences someone could have that would make them feel this way. For example, the bandit could threaten to cut someone’s finger off, which is already quite a scary thing for people to imagine. If you construct your little emotional rollercoaster well, you can end up with a memorable scene regardless of the actual content in it.

Rape is not just a little scary. Rape is one of the most horrifying things you can do to another human. It’s a life-altering experience, and often life-ruining. For some people, it’s life-ending, because that’s the only way to escape from a world where this happened to them.

Again, I can’t tell you what to write about and what not to write about. What I can say is that when you use rape like a stew ingredient labeled “mature”, it’s easy for people to assume that stew is all you know about cooking.

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I agree wholeheartedly. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve experienced rape throughout my entire life. Each assault irrevocably altered my life, from the time I was a toddler. I do not have a theoretical knowledge of those horrors, they were my reality for the vast majority of my time on this planet.

I myself have survived a great many horrors, friend. I won’t dump here in this thread, but suffice it to say that you’re right about a lot of things here

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I don’t think Leila would do that

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