Okay, yeah, didn’t realize how many achievements, modes & secrets there were! I’ll have to replay this one day, but for now I’ll just write down a few thoughts after beating it once-

Uh, this ended up being a bit long, sorry! Feel free to skim some (or all) of it.
Gameplay
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I love short hacks & deflated stats, so this was right up my alley. A highlight here was the hit/crit formula changes, which actually made skill/luck feel impactful. By the end though, it did feel like enemy shamans/fighters were much more dangerous than anyone else due to having very high hp/def and thus being difficult to ORKO – most other enemies barely posed a threat after chapters 1 & 2 or so.
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The random level ups combined with such low stats led to some extreme stat blessed/screwed moments. I didn’t initially care much for Raelin, but after some amazing level ups she quickly became my MVP and soloed large sections of the game. And Shayla felt very underwhelming, mostly due to never getting speed and only one point of strength throughout the entire game. It wasn’t a huge issue due to the amount of player units & so many of them having amazing skills, though.
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The Angel’s Feathers were great – they were good enough to always justify pursuing, but not to the point where missing one was a disaster or anything. I still got all of them anyway since I love growth-boosting. But yeah, really enjoyed their design!
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The player units here were all very fun to use with some really cool skills. My favourite was probably Shayla’s, the combination of the drawback and the healing effect led to an interesting playstyle, even if it wasn’t actually that good past chapter 2. Quinley’s was super fun and extremely powerful. Carlin’s looked awesome (although I’m biased since I did something very similar for MAPPY), but I didn’t get to use it much due to him dying in chapter 2. And Elspeth & Corridon were insane support units who completely wrapped (literally) the game upon joining.
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It did make the difficulty a bit all over the place, with the chapters getting progressively easier as you got access to more and more ridiculous skills & items. I think chapter 2 was the hardest one for me – it was the only one where I had any casualties and I got a Game Over there once (although that might’ve been a bug, more details in the Chapter-by-Chapter section). Still, the endgame was challenging and really required all these tools so it was fine by the end – it’s just chapters 3 & 4 which felt a tad too easy.
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I do have a question about the different difficulties: do they only affect the convoy, or is there also a gameplay effect? The codex entry wasn’t very clear.
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And finally, speaking of the additional modes – I feel that unlocking them only after beating the game twice (one normal, one hard) is a bit much. Since this means you essentially have to replay the game three times to experience them fully, which is uh. I’d like to play reverse recruitment for example, as I didn’t use most of the lategame recruits, but the same thing again slightly harder sounds less appealing, even if there are some things I missed. Might still do that in the future anyway though.
Story
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The story here was awesome! Which makes sense considering who wrote it, but still. The intro was the highlight for me – it was a great introduction to almost every single character in the game and the town itself, which definitely made it feel “alive” and made me immediately care for these characters (even knowing from the beginning most would probably die). I also enjoyed seeing the entire village map in the cutscene, and then going through that same map during the game.
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I also loved all the flashbacks inside every village event. Again, really made me care for these characters, and it was cool seeing (a part of) their history. Some highlights for me were Carlin’s house with Carlin, Alpin’s house with Alpin, Leod(?)’s house with Lamonte and Ailsa’s house with Elspeth (btw, I think it’s mislabeled in-game?).
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As for the plot itself, while the outcome was pretty much predetermined, it still worked. I enjoyed how there wasn’t a real main character (except for maybe Elspeth) and how you slowly joined forces with everyone from the intro. Elwynn & Elspeth and Laisren & Alpin also had some cool interactions. It did get a tad repetitive by the end though, with each chapter being variations of everyone panicking & fleeing, but that’s unavoidable given the premise.
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The ending was about as miserable as expected. I didn’t expect killing Cawthorne to lead to the worse ending, though – that was a cool twist.
Presentation
- Don’t have much to say here, but wanted to mention that everything looks and sounds amazing. It’s extremely polished all around. I especially liked the overhauled character pages & using affinities for the portrait backgrounds.
Chapter-by-Chapter
This is a pretty “raw” section of what I thought & wrote down after each chapter, with minimal editing. Feel free to skip it as it’s a bit long, but maybe there’s something useful here.
Chapter 1:
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Really fun chapter! I especially enjoyed how exact many interactions were (ex. Alpin dealing exactly enough damage to the boss to kill him in three hits), and how everyone (except for Elwynn, which made sense) had something to do and specific enemies to take care of.
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I managed to rout ~3 turns before the end, so I had some empty turns to just heal units with Elwynn. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just though I’d mention it.
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There is no explanation of what Backdash does anywhere.
Chapter 2:
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This one took two attempts - I initially attempted to iron-man the game and let two units die here, which caused a delayed Game Over, contrary to the loss condition (I assume it’s because I let Leod live and thus “killed” Garvey as well). I’m not a fan of Game Overs in general, but the delayed nature here was especially bad, since I finished the map & saw the ending before getting it, which felt terrible. I’d recommend either changing the loss condition to let two units die, or allow people to continue if they let “three” (aka two + Garvey) die. EDIT: I realized this is probably just a bug. Anyway, about the chapter itself:
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Attempt 1:
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Rescuing the mayor was fun! Quinley was definitely the highlight here - using her thralls to scout was very useful due to the FoW, and they could also bait non-bloodthirsty enemies while delaying bloodthirsty ones. Speaking of which - I truly appreciated the bloodthirsty indicator, amazing qol which really improved the chapter. It was pretty tight by the end, with some enemies breaking the box on the right, so I broke the one on the left & Rescued Leod to save him. And when he revealed Garvey’s betrayal in the ending cutscene it was all worth it (I’m curious if recruiting him has long-term (probably bad) consequences?). EDIT: For some reason, I thought Garvey was an agent of the empire when I saw the cutscene for the first time. I’m now 99% certain that’s not the case and he just hated Leod (which makes sense).
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The objective was a bit awkward, since I wanted to kill the boss, but avoiding a rout was tough (especially when everyone started charging). I did it by accident after the boss charged me - not that it mattered since I got a Game Over soon after anyway. That’s probably intentional though.
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The boss changing AI after attacking her, however logical, was not fun. I attacked her with Raelin, intending to hit & run, but then she could just reach her anyway. And my 4 HP Alpin who already moved was also in range… I lost a unit here, which in turn led to a Game Over, due to essentially a “boss ambush spawn”. It would be nice if there was some tutorial/info box about it, or at the very least a clearer hint something like that would happen in her dialogue. If there was one and I missed it though, that’s on me.
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Attempt 2:
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This time, I knew how supports work here (EDIT: The tutorial prompt only shows up after activating a Support, so I messed them up in attempt 1), so I supported Shayla with Carlin for the crit boost. Unfortunately, he died to the boss because I forgot to account for Devilry’s life drain when attacking… I avenged him shortly afterwards at least (after surrounding an archer to prevent an early rout).
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Also, just realized that Garvey/Lamonte are probably merely the Samson/Arran you mentioned in the OP (I read it thoroughly for the first time after attempt 1), and keeping the mayor alive has no real long-term consequences.
Chapter 3:
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This one felt a bit easy, which was good after last chapter. By this point, you have so many tools that no enemy feels like a real threat - Lamonte is borderline broken imo, what with taking almost zero damage from everyone and recovering 6 HP after each attack. I had an extra turn after opening both chests without any enemies by the end. Still, defeating the boss and recovering all treasure was pretty satisfying.
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I did use the Exchange exploit mentioned in the thread & used a thief thrall to open one chest. It wasn’t even necessary though, just a bit funny. And hey, it gave me an achievement!
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Leod died. Oh well.
Chapter 4:
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Orla & Ailsa seem insane, but I grew too attached to the trainees so I didn’t use them. I do appreciate their existence though.
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The beginning was pretty relaxed for an escape map, but then Cawthorne arrived. My plan was to use The Reclaimer with Raelin, but she didn’t have the necessary weapon rank yet - so it turned into a mad rush to grind her weapon rank before Cawthorne caught up. Fortunately, I managed to do that in time, and immediately turned the tables - dealing 20 damage in a single round! He escaped unfortunately, but I guess letting him die here would’ve messed up the plot. It was still very fun!
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There wasn’t much left to do after he left, though - just taking care of the remaining enemies with Raelin one-by-one, who by this point was nigh-invincible (even with 0 defence). I wanted to grind her in case something very dangerous came up next chapter (addendum: something dangerous came up indeed). Still, it wasn’t too bad considering it’s the end of the penultimate map.
Chapter 5:
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Raelin got her first point of defence here, upon reaching level 10. Was funny.
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This one was intense, with the constant reinforcements from all sides + Shallcross essentially dividing the map in half. Most turns were pretty tough & I had to use almost everybody each turn (after a chapter of Raelin sweep), which was great! Still, I did manage to defeat all three bosses (Raelin soloed all of them), visit both houses with Elspeth, and rout the map in the very final turn’s Enemy Phase - a very satisfying ending shortly before everybody died. I think this was my favourite map, a very cool finale.
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…This did mean that I got the ending bug, but hey, at least I got murder the achievements! I then saw the actual ending (The Darkest Timeline) using debug mode - couldn’t figure out how to hide it during the cutscenes, but it wasn’t a huge issue. Will see the other ending once I replay this eventually.
Endgame Team

Supported with Alpin, used Feathers. The 0/1 defence MVP – 7 Mov, Canto+, Acrobat & The Reclaimer let her ORKO everything except for the final bosses (which she 2RKOed instead) and go her merry way afterwards. Combined with Elspeth & Corridon, she could be everywhere at once and act twice. With 90/100 avoid and The Reclaimer’s healing her low defence didn’t even matter. Carried the latter half of the game.

Supported with Corridon. Infinite super wrap as a free action is insane, and Inspire helped. Very fun unit.

Supported with Elspeth. Super Dancer with infinite free Hammerne is insane. His Bolster also saved Elspeth once.

Supported with Raelin, used Feathers. He was a bit underwhelming at first, but Parting Gift with Corridon’s Repair made him great. And then he got Lionheart, and became my only unit who could rival Raelin’s damage.

Supported with Saraid, used Feathers. As my only mage, she was very useful against most enemies. The Thralls were awesome, but kind of fell off after chapter 2.

Supported with Shayla, used Feathers. The only unit capable of reliably enemy-phasing, he carried chapter 3 for me, and helped in some sticky situations during chapter 5. Unfortunately for him, this is an extremely player-phase oriented game, so he wasn’t as useful as the glass cannons (aka pretty much everyone else).

Supported with Quinly. Had an annoying tendency to be unable to kill anything on player-phase by the end, and her skill was a bit niche. But I like archers, so.

Supported with Lamonte, used Feathers. Felt outclassed by both Lamonte & Orla, but I used Feathers on her early on and grew attached. Also her skill is cool.

This one was funny and survived to the end.
Lastly, some achievements I’m proud of:


Bugs/Issues
Found a few very minor text issues:




And there is one Pegasus Knight reinforcement in chapter 4 which can’t use their Axereaver:

Overall, again, I really enjoyed this! One of the better FE games I’ve played, everything here feels amazing. Thank you for making and sharing this, and hope there was something useful for you here!