Midnight Sun: Good enough to go Pro! Just a great package of characters, story, art and gameplay that left you wanting more… and now we will finally be getting that! Alfred put a lot of love and thought into every decision for this and it shows.
Bloodlines: The art, the worldbuilding, the story are all great. Everything is pretty unique and iconic. This was the hack that made me want to make my own animations because they just look so damn cool! Hell of a lot of style, I eagerly await the next release in Ghast’s Discord.
FE7x: Polished, shiny, skilled. yeti has a marvelous package here. Once again a fangame I eagerly look forward to the next rendition of. Also inspired my own battlesprite passion.
Road to Ruin: Just well done, and initially one of the very few hacks that could claim completed status. Primefusion maps are solid maps too and something I aspire to.
Elibean Nights: If you haven’t played it, you should. Classic hack with great individual storylines.
…but I should probably play some more newer hacks.
Vision Quest
Not just my favourite fangame but my favourite fire emblem, great writing, characters and design as well as solid polish and art direction. Part 1 and 3 in particular are brilliantly crafted. The flaws it does have are quite franky small compared to what this hack gets right
Order of the Crimson Arm
Probably my most played hack and the first one I played after the ‘introduction’ of TLP, FE7x and SoA. Just love the worldbuilding, character writing and fun roster of units. Plus I have a soft spot for mercenaries tale type stories.
Souls of the Forest
This hack just has such a distinct identity in terms of visual aesthetic and its design is expertly crafted by Scraiza. Writing is certainly enjoyable even if its not the hacks strongest point, the hack gets so much right. Hard as hell though.
Sun Gods Wrath
This game is weird as anything, the plot is incoherent and confusing as all hell and the design is questionable, but god is it fun. The 3 tiered promotions and skill combinations just make for a very compelling game that i really enjoyed.
Alethiea (lord knows if i spelt that correctly)
I just love how it handles stats and skills, and though a WIP its got brilliant potential, the premise is clever as is the design, and there are some very enjoyable units for sure. Big fan.
I could go on forever about each one tbh but tried to keep it short lmao
Corrupt Theocracy - None of you will ever reach the genius of Corrupt Theocracy in your lifetimes.
Sun God’s Wrath - Blademaster put together a bunch of random mechanics and concepts and made them into a very fun to play and interesting hack. All the references to other series and fun ways to break stuff are also very enjoyable.
The Last Promise - Incredibly flawed in terms of design but it’s iconic, can give you some pretty fun moments, and has a banger soundtrack
Souls of The Forest - Beeg number go brrrr
Justice and Pride - Can’t say it’s anything much new but it sure as hell is enjoyable to play
Vision Quest - Visually appealing, a cast I actually care about, and does a great job of writing a more down-to-earth story without getting too dark with it. It’s a great way to show someone just how far Fire Emblem ROM hacking has come since the days of TLP.
The Last Promise - The classic. Only at #2 because of the late-game difficulty spike and the fact that it is fairly difficult to take seriously at points. Besides that, there’s not much to say about it that hasn’t already been said, solid gameplay, very visually polished, it’s nice.
Queen’s Sword - An FE8JP hack, the gameplay is bizarre and the cast don’t look the greatest, but I love how gimmicky everyone is. A trainee with 70% Defense and Resistance growth and almost no HP, a mediocre thief you can literally trade in for a better thief later, you can throw rocks at people, it’s chaos, but it’s fun chaos.
Void’s Blitzarre Adventure - Just here for the gameplay. It’s a testament to what a community can do if they just come together and don’t mess it up. Plus it’s occasionally funny.
Justice & Pride - I’m casual as hell, so I tend to gravitate toward hacks that are on the easier side. Sure, J&P is on the easier side, but you don’t need to be insanely difficult to be fun to play. Also praise Luigi.
The Last Promise
I found it while looking for a One Piece X Fire Emblem romhack, was not disappointed
Midnight Sun
After playing The Last Promise I wondered if there were anymore cool hacks, this one looked pretty interesting to me so I decided to try it.
The Heroes We Deserve
It’s the best joke hack I’ve ever played, and also has many custom songs in it.
Here’s my personal list of favorite completed FE hacks:
1.) Justice n Pride- JP fueled my addiction of FE hacks. Very fun game, and the casual difficulty made a good introduction for me. If you don’t use Luigi in your playthrough, don’t even play this hack. Hail, Luigi cult!
2.) Vision Quest- This hack is on a lot of lists and who can complain, really. The graphics, maps, palettes, story, UI, it’s all just… mwah… chef’s kiss
3.) Road to Ruin- Despite the flack I’ve seen towards RtR, I was captivated with the story and gameplay. I’m a bit of lazy typer so forgive me for my lack of explanations or ‘in-depthness’ but this hack is a must play, hand-in-hand with TLP. With the promotion discovery with Aaron, discovered by @Pushwall, my excitement for this hack has been revitalized.
4.) Storge- I enjoyed this game for its short playthrough but awesome replayability. The variety of unique characters was awesome and made the game all the more enticing to play again.
5.) SGW- This one caught me by surprise! Initially, some of the “new” mechanics introduced in the hack threw me for a loop, but it eventually grew on me. The reintroduction of capturing was very unique and I definitely enjoyed the T3 class promotions, as well.
four kings, really liked how it played, maps were large and felt grand and epic, plus every unit feels incredibly distinct because prfs go brrr, which is something i personally value really highly wrt unit balancing.
legend of john lingering blood, genuinely the funniest hack i’ve ever played, gameplay is easy but also very funny.
last heavenly throne, the best feeling romhack imo since it has such nice palettes and amazing soundtrack. it + cool story really elevated the overall package ngl, also warp/rescue cards.
journeys, probably the hack i’d want to go back to the most since it’s so smooth to just blitz through - not very long; fun, challenging but not overbearing maps; also has the iconic duo, don & ron.
storge, it’s such a cool premise and honestly i’d like to see more short hacks like it. every unit feel unique and fun to use, and finally a way to make funds rank matter :^)
Dark Lord and the Maiden of Light: Really had a blast while playing it, the gameplay and level design of the romhack are topnotch (one of the lategame map with a big gameplay twist in it really blew my mind) and the scenario and characters feels like a legit Fire Emblem games that could have been released back in the days on the GBA.
The Four King: A very good romhack when it’s come to gameplay. The idea of giving to every character of your roster (at least) one personal weapon is a very clever and simple way to make all members of your army unique, everyone have it’s speciality and can shine in it’s own way. And the split of your army give you a lot of time to try everyone and to see what they can do.
Sun God’s Wrath: it’s a completely mad hack: lot of skills, lot of unique classes, lot of characters and concept to remember, etc. It can be hard to get into it at first due to how many things there is in it but when you do, it’s a very fun and unique hack (but quite hard).
Iron Emblem: Simple and effective, that’s a good way to summarize this hack. The concept is to focus on the idea of Ironman playthrough: all your characters are unnamed units, with very low growth, and when your commander die, it’s the end of the Game. It can be quite challenging, but the level design is good and the general concept makes you accept failures and live with it. In some ways, it feels like a story generator fire emblem, it’s up to you to give a soul to those faceless soldiers that are fighting for you.
The Last Promise: The first romhack I played, like many, so it’s probably more the nostalgia talking. On many aspects it feels old compared to a lot of newer romhacks, and some things in the scenario are hard to take seriously, and the difficulty spike in the later part of the game is very brutal, but it’s still a quite solid game in itself. The character of Anakin (lol that name) is in my opinion one of the well handled aspect of the game, when you see it for the first time this weird monk feels like it will get benched… And then you realize he can do bard job, and let just say that the game give him a lot of time to grow both ingame and in the story.
Sadly I still haven’t played Vision Quest, so I can’t say much about it
1: project ember: Makes FE6 unique in an interesting and legitimately challenging way, I’m just saying it now, Project Ember is the most deliberate and well thought out hack I’ve ever played, it feels like every possibility was accounted for when remaking these boring ass maps into actually fun and challenging ones!
2: vision quest: admittedly I haven’t played much of vision quest but from what I did play it was a very fun hack with an actually good story.
3: sword of heaven and earth: again like vision quest, I haven’t played much of this one but the maps I did play were amazingly well designed, with a story that I honestly kinda tapped out on if I’m being honest… But the gameplay really makes up for my indifference towards the story!
and that’s it! Yeah I don’t really play many hacks, not because I don’t want to, I just can’t really find the right time to sit down and play them and the times I do want to play fire emblem I usually just go to the vanilla games because I’m used to them…
1 - Dark Lord and the Maiden of Light
Everything about this hack is amazing. From the story, the writing, to the characters, to supports, to gameplay, it’s everything I could’ve ever wanted in a FE fangame. I don’t have the words to fully describe how much I love this one. I recommend it to everyone I can.
2 - Fire Emblem: Black Fang
A fun little fan-sequel of sorts for FE7. The main crew is just so much fun to follow, and the game offers both laughs and a moving story. Plus there’s plenty of challenges and gimmicks I haven’t seen any other fangames use which makes for some pretty fun maps. Highly, HIGHLY recommended.
3 - Order of the Crimson Arm
Another fangame with a fantastic original story and fun characters, two of my favorite aspects. It does everything right and is an absolute blast to play. I only wish it had supports implemented. Other than that, it’s a gem.
4 - Fire Emblem: Requiem
This is probably the first fangame/hack of FE I played that had an original story and characters and for that it has a special place in my heart. It’s the fangame that helped me dip my toes into other FE hacks back in the day like Last Promise, Road to Ruin, Midnight Sun, etc. I still replay it every so often. Still fun. To me, Requiem is the baseline for what a good FE fangame/hack should be.
5 - Fire Emblem: Sword of Heaven and Earth
The most recent fangame I played, but I enjoyed it so immensely that I had to put it in my Top 5. So thankful to the translators. Allowed me to enjoy a very fun story with maps that were refreshing and challenging without making me want to beat my head against a wall. It has a good balance and while it has its flaws, it hits the bullseye most of the time.
