I will preface this by saying I have not seriously sat down to learn FEBuilder or the hacking process and limitations thereof, but I have played through most hacks and seen the wacky stuff the community has been able to add to the roms. I am not intending to create a LOTR hack myself.
What follows is just a rambling muse intended to spark some thought of inspiration/creativity among those who know what they’re doing.
I recently got a hold of the Battle for Middle Earth games, which are a shelved RTS from way back when, but they’re arguably some of if not the greatest games made for Tolkien’s world.
The point being, I dislike the fast paced action and quick thinking with the RTS genre, and prefer the more methodical turn based. Didn’t take much to get me thinking of how LOTR could appear in Fire Emblem, given they’re both fantasy and share similar concepts (I am aware the GBA did have the Third Age, but well, let’s ignore that).
So how could you realistically bring such a world to life?
It would heavily depend on the creator’s vision for the hack, big or small, but the main focus would have to be the story it wants to tell.
And there’s honestly a variety of ways to go about it: from canonical stories, to the bold and ambitious complete retelling of the Fellowship’s journey (though I don’t know how well that could translate to FE gameplay, given you won’t have a lot of scrubs to choose from and work with), to a custom cast of characters loosely linked to an event.
For instance, the hack follows some ragtag ruffians among the Easterlings as they laid siege to Dale and Erebor. The event happened (unless I am somehow misremembering), but never explained in great detail so it gives a lot of creative freedom.
Or you follow a group of adventurers hoping to strike it big by finding relics of an earlier age far up north beyond the mountains, where the lands are quite perilous.
Or even further, just a 1/2 chapter hack where you follow Balin and his attempt to retake Moria; halfway through the tides have turned, Balin was killed and now it becomes a challenge of holding out as long as possible.
So the story can leave a lot to the imagination with the vastness of the lore, but what about the gameplay?
While you could set it up with the standard everyone has a face to a name, you could also set it up to be more strategy/class oriented. The hack escapes me but each map you had a set amount of gold to buy the units you wanted, others like Iron Emblem and Crowns and Thrones do something similar.
So the story places you in, say, Osgiliath. You’re tasked with defending a key structure/area, but you only have a group of archers, some swordsmen and perhaps a few spearmen. Depending on the mechanics you want, you could remove the silly luck-based level ups to focus on guaranteed stats with a focus on how to use the equipment/surroundings, or take a page out of Famicon Wars and have the generics rank up on every kill (which I imagine would use 100% or nothing for each stat).
So the core gameplay, whether a group of characters or map based generics, still fit in well. And with all the talented artists creating custom tilesets/unit sprites and suchlike over the years, you really could make something marvellous.
- Myrmidons? Change a few things and now you have Elven blades or Haradrim?
- Soldiers? Slap them into a greenish suit and funny helmet and promote them to Easterling, or Gondor’s Tower Guard
- Calvary in general? Rohan or warg riders
- Snipers? Ithilien rangers or goblin archers
- Pirates/Fighters? Umbar is right there, and Dwarves are perfect for cracking skulls
- FE8 Monsters? The barrow wights and Mirkwood spiders are your friend, though perhaps ignore the Mogalls.
- Armoured knights? You could go Gondor’s soldiers and Uruk-Hai here, but an interesting choice could be Ents/Trolls.
- Balrog? Demon King is already halfway there, though I’d be curious how you could get the oliphaunts to work, especially with them having archers (perhaps if they’re rescuing, they get a boost to stats, or just switch it to them being able to use ballistae/longbows).
A weakpoint here is that Middle Earth doesn’t really focus on fliers, yes you have eagles/fellbeasts, but they rarely do anything so it would have to be map dependent as a special treat. But plenty of hacks have ignored or outright punished fliers, and Middle Earth is kind of designed to be difficult to traverse.
The same goes for Magic, given that’s more reserved for the wizards but a core part of FE. Though from what I remember, the Elves are able to use some sort of magic, and Sauron did have sorcerers with him.
The cleric/priest classes may also need some work, given they’re inspired by the RPG trope drawing inspiration largely from the Catholic church with their saints and associated miracles. Here, even the Elves don’t really have a group worshipping Eru and that side of things. So maybe you’d just have to swap it to medics with field kits/athelas.
Just wanted to toss these thoughts out there in the hopes someone might pick them up. Again, I’m not trying to make a hack myself or recruit anyone, I just thought this could help the community.
