The Sacred Scrubs/The Fire Emblem 8 Trash(iron)man Challenge (v1.1)

Projects
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1
Changes in the latest version

-Gerik’s growths reduced by 10% in all areas
-Kyle’s class changed from Mercenary to Sword Cavalier (promotes to Ranger and Hero)
-Forde’s class changed from Ranger to Bow Cavalier (promotes to Ranger and Sniper)
-The shop price of hand axes and javelins has been doubled.
-An additional blue gem was added to a thief in chapter 8, and an additional red gem was added to a great knight in chapter 16
-A bug was fixed which allowed Joshua to use Eirika’s Rapier, and to gain sword rank from it
-Eirika’s route has now been redone, with the main change being deployment locks to accommodate for her easier maps
Banned units:
Ch9: Garcia
Ch10: Kyle, Forde
Ch11: Moulder, Colm, Artur
Ch12: Vanessa, Tana
Ch14: Gilliam, Franz, Seth, Cormag
-Pablo’s group in chapter 13 Eirika now arrives much sooner

Tldr, I just want to play the game: Fire emblem 8 but I made it harder by making all the players options worse

From the Dev behind Oops, All Archers

The hack and readme

The Story behind the hack

So, I recently played through a bit of Fire Embad by Alguien. Good hack, you should check it out after this one. It replaces all the units of Fire Emblem 6 with bad units from other games. But while playing it, I felt something was missing.

Around two weeks later, PokemonChallenges started his playthrough of Pokémon Garbage Green, a Rom Hack he made to challenge himself. He removed all the good Pokémon from the game, replaced and moved around a lot of items, and added specific challenges to certain fights, all without changing any of the enemies.

That’s when I realized that the thing missing from Embad was that none of the units were bad. They all were viable against the enemies, and though some had flaws, it made for an easier playing experience than vanilla FE6. Some people just want to use a full team of Amelias and Marisas and watch the world burn around them, and that’s not what Embad or base FE8 are really made for (not that they should be made for it lol)

So, I took to creating a version of FE8 (my favorite gba fe game) that severely nerfed every playable character to make the game incredibly challenging, while still keeping that thrill of using really, really bad units

Features

  • Almost every character’s kit has been tweaked to make the game much harder

  • Several characters now have new classes, such as Myrmidon Eirika, Armor Knight Ephraim, and Soldier Franz

  • All legendary weapons have been replaced with interesting niche weapons from past FE games, such as the Guard Naginata and the Thani

  • 20 Con Marisa

  • Seth is now a growth unit

  • Neimi is now a top tier unit

The difficulty of the hack is greater, but only due to your units being worse. The enemies are unchanged. Hard mode is recommended, Ironman is fun if you like that kind of stuff.

Anyway, I don’t want to clog up the intro post any more than I already have. The changelog is absurdly long, and it is available in full in the readme (With exclusive Dev Commentary!)

This is still technically work-in-progress (as I want to tweak the balance with your feedback), but the game is perfectly playable in its current state.

Also, if you beat the game, whether normally or ironmanning, send me your team and a screenshot and I’ll add you to a Hall of Fame on the intro post

Enjoy!

Hall of Fame

Angery Roshea: Hard Mode Ironman, World First!
Team: Swordmaster Eirika, Valkyrie Natasha, General Ephraim, Falcoknight Tana, Hero Ross, Ranger Neimi, Rogue Colm, Rennac
GenericSoldier: Hard Mode Ironman, Second Finish!
Team: Swordmaster Eirika, Bishop Moulder, Myrrh, General Ephraim, Bishop Artur, Innes, Duessel, Paladin Gerik, Rennac, Summoner Knoll

6 Likes
2

This slight against Sylene Sigulyne Sigurde Sexene Syryny Syrene is an abomination of mankind

My only legit complaint is the lack of promotion for Seth and other characters (if you did them) but even if it is just limited to Seth, I’m still against it. At least make him a pre promote somethin’. I think a prepromote Hero could be interesting. Give him stats indicating he’s permanently wounded as in lore, like;

Low hp, str, speed, def but high skill, luck, resistance.

Or alternatively give him paragon and substantive stats but negative growths.

3

Okay, so Seth, Innes, and Duessel (the three characters I did this with) are, for all intents and purposes, still prepromotes (they gain promoted exp, they can get to S rank, etc.) it’s just that they have the base stats of their unpromoted class (Cav and the two lords).

The negative growths thing was an idea I played with a bit, but turning on negative growths for just Seth turned out to be more hassle than it was worth, and I really didn’t want to involve any skill-systems stuff

4

Yeah, that’s legit, and an ironic twist on the characters (being the games prepromotes). I’m just a fan of the gba games for their visual aspect and promoted units are just cool.

5

Absolutely based.

Also:

Marisa is now b i g and need no one to rescue her (even if they could lol)

6

So Marisa can use better weapons with out getting penalized.

7

Correct. She just can’t be rescued anymore

8

Those stat increasing items that Artur comes with are broken AF. It’s hard to imagine this as being challenging when these can be slapped onto any unit that needs handrails in their bathroom and they become a top tier unit instantly.

9

You’re supposed to keep it in Arthur’s inventory for the intended experience or just in the convoy if you want to make it harder

10

Artur’s unit detail screen and the readme ask you not to remove them lol. If I was any smarter, I would have locked them to Artur (I tried making them all Artur personal items, but apparently people can still get the buffs from prf items they can’t use)

Edit: Making Artur unable to be traded with also doesn’t work

Also, as a note, there might be parts late game where Artur would rather have a staff or something than the third ring. If so, feel free to convoy them and take them out depending on the map

11

Congratulations to Angery Roshea for being the first person to complete the hack, and while ironmanning on hard mode, no less! His final team was Swordmaster Eirika, Valkyrie Natasha, General Ephraim, Falcoknight Tana, Hero Ross, Ranger Neimi, Rogue Colm, and Paladin Rennac.

12

For those of you who have played the hack, I need some help with something. I don’t really like how Kyle and Forde currently are. Forde is good when you get him, but the game sorta already has enough “this character is good until they aren’t” prepromotes. Kyle, on the other hand, is just completely unremarkable. He feels a bit like base game Joshua but less strong and less defensive.

The proposed change is making both of them cavs again, but limiting them each to one weapon type (Swords for Kyle, Bows for Forde, so neither has good 1-2 range).
Should I replace the current patch, or make it like a side patch?

Second thing, I’m considering seriously changing the availability of hand axes, javelins, and their upgraded variants. This would come with increasing prices for 1-2 range weapons across the board (I might double them, that seems like a good testing point), and moving some droppable ones on enemies.

Third thing, I want to add more money to the game. In my test playthrough, I ran out of money constantly, but I’m not sure if that’s a me issue or a game issue. Do you guys think they amount of money you get is fine, or should it be increased?

Thanks for any help you can offer

13

Maybe change Forde to archer or something like a nomad? So he won’t be a prepromote

14

So I’ve playing and I’m really enjoying it so far. I just found out about something that maybe is a bug or wasn’t intentional.

spoiler I guess? Don't open if you want to have the intended experience

So in the doc says that there’s a way to train Joshua without the danger of him critting himself to death. I looked at the list of weapons and found out that he can use both Seth’s Practice Blade and the Rapier. When I tried using the Rapier, it had no animation and he gained sword rank (which I think he isn’t supposed to before promotion). You probably made the Rapier (and the Devil Sword too, it seems. Eirika can use it) Myrm-locked but I still have to see if Marisa can use it just to make sure.

15

The first one is 100% intentional. The second isn’t, but I’ll probably add it in once I get around to the next patch, because that is hilarious to me. They are myrm locked, but I don’t mind it because Eirika devil sword is just a straight debuff to her, if you want to use it

16

I did it, how do i send the screenshot?

17

DM the op or just post here I guess

18

You’ve been added!

19

New update, guys and gals and everything in between or past either extreme

Eirika route was obviously easier than Ephraim’s, so I added some deployment challenges to each of the chapters to compensate, such as you not being able to deploy lance users to deal with Carlyle, or not being able to deploy Colm and possible bishops in the fog of war monster chapter.

Also, remember that group with Pablo that punishes you if you take too long defeating Aias in chapter 13? Yeah, they are on to you, and they’ll show up much faster now.

Also, in other news, Forde and Kyle are back to being cavaliers, Bow and Sword cavaliers, to be exact! This should make both of them actually fun to use, and they’ll have more of a niche than they did before.

Also, slightly more money and slightly less hand axes and javs

As always, feedback is greatly appreciated! Happy gaming!

1 Like
20

I found a weird bug in the new version: I can’t move Kyle at all. When I press A with the cursor placed on him, it opens the menu instead.