Seas of Novis is a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden - well, specifically Fire Emblem Gaiden’s second chapter, “Celica’s Departure”. This game is a total reimagining of the chapter, with entirely new maps, new mechanics, and a modified story that expands on Gaiden as an alternative interpretation of the NES game. Eschewing Gaiden’s mostly straightforward structure, Seas of Novis embraces its RPG side more, with quests and nonlinear progression at its core. Basically: “What if FE2’s second chapter was an entire game?”
This is the first public release of the game, v0.1, which covers a slice of what will be the final game’s content, featuring 2 of the game’s islands.
Why this exists (personal stuff)
Last summer, my then-current SRPG project had been sitting at a very long standstill for months; I was out of ideas and energy, I wasn’t happy with the state of the project that actually existed, and various attempts at juicing up my enthusiasm failed. That project is vaguely faithful to “standard” Fire Emblem mechanics, and what I found I wanted was something that just really broke the mold, and had lots of opportunities for programming challenges I could overcome.
Well, whenever I’m feeling creatively bankrupt, I always seem to come back to Gaiden. I made a short remake of Chapter 1 back in 2019, AGR, which was mostly faithful (besides a new postgame), and now here I am with a very decidedly unfaithful remake of Chapter 2. (Maybe by 2030 I’ll have accidentally remade each chapter as individual games?)
In any case, this turned out to be exactly what I needed to get the creative juices flowing. From mechanic design to massive UI overhauls, the project I had in mind had no shortage of things to keep me busy, so last August, I put my prior project on the backburner (if it hadn’t been there for months already) and dedicated myself to planning out and designing a workable demo for my Chapter 2 remake, titled Seas of Novis.
In December, when I realized this upcoming March would be Fire Emblem Gaiden’s 30th anniversary, I decided there would be no better time to release a public demo of my FE2 love letter. So, I reined in the scope, estimated features, learned how Trello works, and put my nose to the grind. I really, really do think it’s paid off; I’ve 100% completed v0.1 several times in the past week and am very, very happy with the state of the game. I hope you enjoy it even a fraction as much as I enjoyed making it - and will continue to enjoy working on it in the future.
What's in v0.1?
- 10 unique battle maps, all almost completely original
- 11 unique encounters (some repeatable)
- 7 quests, 4 able to be completed
- A brand-new island, with a new town and a new dungeon
- A boatload of Gaiden mechanics: single-item inventories, world map, exploration maps, lion statues, group EXP, so on, so forth
- Combat Arts that cost HP, most of them new or heavily tweaked
- Spells that cost HP, including some new ones, each with unique roles
- Learning arts and magic spells by leveling up
- No permadeath
- No promotions
- A slew of QoL and UI enhancements, many of them unique to Seas of Novis
- Solo-keyboard, -mouse, and -controller playstyles all fully supported and playtested
- And some new stuff you might not have seen before in a game like this, such as…
This might sound crazy, but there aren’t any ship-to-ship boarding action battles in this demo. There’s so much content on the islands that I must’ve forgotten Chapter 2’s most infamous trait! Silly me. Well, I assure you there will be PLENTY in future versions to make up for it.
Playtimes will vary, but my runs trended between 3-4 hours. When speedrunning, it was more like one hour.
Screenshots
Download
Latest version: v0.1.1
To play, open “Seas of Novis.exe”. If Windows doesn’t wanna run it, click “More Info” and then “Run Anyway”. I pinky-swear it’s safe. F4 to fullscreen, ESC to close the game, controls are editable in game.ini.
v0.1.1 (current version of the game proper): https://drive.google.com/file/d/10GSmU-Uu_XNPKxTElsCIINxxk_29SeYQ/view?usp=sharing
For the v0.2b demo, same as above, except the file is just “game.exe”.
v0.2b (small preview of content coming in the next major update, v0.2): Seas of Novis (2023 Game Jam Edition) by TheRepeat
Credits
See also credits.txt in the download. Be sure to check out the readme and the known bugs files as well!
>>Art
- Mapchips by flasuban, Time Fantasy, McMagister
- Charchips by JAPANweb, Fluffy
- Press Start 2P font by CodeMan38
>>Music
- Intelligent Systems
- Creatures Inc./HAL Laboratory
- Loeder: Loeder - YouTube
- Overproc: Boss Tunes - YouTube
- TrojanHorse711: TrojanHorse711 - YouTube
- Bulby: Bulby - YouTube
>>Plugins
- Automatic Enemy Stats by Goinza
- The original Mark Single Enemy Range, HP Costs, Weapons and Items as Original Data, and Combat Arts by Goinza
- Movement arrows by Cube and McMagister
- Various QoL plugins by Cube and namae kakkokari
- Walking Maps by namae kakkokari
- EXP Bar by wiz
- The original Hit Flash by RogueClaris
- Enhancement Pack and Targeting Lines by MarkyJoe1990
- The original Dumb Counter and Single Menu by piketrchechillas
>>Special thanks
- Eclogia, for the mountain guide.
- Flasuban, for the forest advice (not to mention the awesome recolor of the McMagister tileset!).
- Goinza, without whose advice I’d never have been able to realize my plugin ideas (and extra thanks for being customer support for his plugins).
- The SRPG Studio University discord for all the help and support, especially the individuals who encouraged me in public or private whenever I’d gush about my progress on this game. You know who you are, and it really means the world.
- My family, for being shockingly supportive considering how hard it is for me to explain the concept & appeal of this game to them LMAO
- Intelligent Systems, for making such a fascinating game thirty years ago to the day.
Changelog
- v0.1 (14 March 2022):
– Initial release - v0.1.1 (21 March 2022):
– An oversight that skipped the necrodragon’s first phase has been removed
– Novis Cemetery’s objective now properly displays the remaining enemy units
– Cavern Hive now properly shows the objective window
Short of any game-ruining bugs in need of fixing, I’ll be taking a rest after this release, so the next significant content update won’t be any time soon (i.e. probably not this year). If you’re the type to worry about starting a WIP project in fear of a new version coming out in the middle of your playthrough (like me), I wouldn’t fret.
Thanks for playing!