Jump to content

The Road to Ruin [Complete] [v3.0.3 Released!]


Primefusion
 Share

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 522
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Hey Prime, I made an account so I could give you my thoughts about Road to Ruin.

I thought that the pacing of the game was great throughout. Characters were introduced with appropriate stats and every character has his or her use (as evidenced by the growth rates of each character). The overall story was very well put together and it seemed every moment or conversation had a purpose. Obviously the main characters (Vance, Ava, Torie, Buck) were developed more, but I thought you and your team did a great job fleshing out not only Ava's and Vance's stories/motivations but that of the major antagonists as well. The use of interludes were a great way to add some story depth as well, and I appreciated these chapters. Item allocation was good throughout, and I thought there was an appropriate amount of funds to make each purchase carry weight to it. The overall challenge of the game was moderate, though I found the game to taper off in difficulty into the later chapters as my characters developed. Overall, I really can't say much negative about the hack. I thoroughly enjoyed it and thought it had a extremely high degree of polish and character to it. This game could easily stand alone as its own title.

A few extra thoughts:

  • I felt as though the game needed just one more master seal, possibly two. I stuck with the main core of characters throughout, though if I had decided to run a different direction with a character or two, there would have been no promotion unless I went back three or four chapters.
  • I used both Sylvia and Lanora, and as some others have noted, having two healers early on definitely mitigates some of the difficulty. Having said that though, there is a trade off. Using both healers delayed their eventual growth to level 20, which had its own implications. By the time I got either in a position to promote, it was fairly late in the game. My personal thought is that Lanora could have easily been a shaman when you recruit her, but it is not a gripe of mine. Just a thought really.
  • Having a character with Luna for the final boss is very effective.
  • The passive bonuses due to holdable items was a nice touch.
  • Buck seemed to kind of be cloudy in his usefulness. Archers have always had their niche in Fire Emblem games, but especially in Road to Ruin, you have to baby him a lot. Even then, his growths don't end up being great enough to really warrant babying him when you eventually get magic users who can hit at 1-2 range. I think a shortbow that can strike at 1-2 range, and even be a Buck specific weapon, would help his usefulness early on.

Lastly, figured I'd show you my end game characters (because who doesn't like to see those?):

Spoiler

5a315fb6d6b30_FireEmblem(U)!Vance.PNG.8d45a06f2e917ad98cdf4b3bd14dca0c.PNG

5a315fa553127_FireEmblem(U)!Ava.PNG.0c2ec5746218faeb91e76f91912ffe42.PNG

5a315fa8905fa_FireEmblem(U)!Buck.PNG.cb10fc8daad00ff19e0a0e47aadb667e.PNG

5a315fb59c9b8_FireEmblem(U)!Torie.PNG.be10d1bafe8614290f37a46c6fd95f76.PNG

5a315fa706d57_FireEmblem(U)!Braxton.PNG.ea814f508de095d75edaea9ba7078965.PNG

5a315fab79d34_FireEmblem(U)!Hugo.PNG.da03360f35c977730757504433e45834.PNG

5a315fad07876_FireEmblem(U)!Jorin.PNG.cdcd521e24215b3c7248e277a8e12f25.PNG

5a315faeeaa05_FireEmblem(U)!Lanora.PNG.9097f22c9757ed3a2ba88bcb45b21de3.PNG

5a315fb1cbe13_FireEmblem(U)!Melusine.PNG.3616410f02a59ffa0914ba81d36ebd10.PNG

5a315fb3081b5_FireEmblem(U)!Samuel.PNG.c17961f3c60e70380e2cae271a70c998.PNG

5a315fb483237_FireEmblem(U)!Sylvia.PNG.1432003894e3bd20c34b6098633e7010.PNG

5a315fb07e91f_FireEmblem(U)!Marris.PNG.cd5508f11e5731b06b0868ca7aeac022.PNG

Once again, thanks to you and your team for making a great hack. You guys did an outstanding job!

 

Edited by Sokaballa
Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 hours ago, Mangs said:

I decided to put my issues with chapter 1 into a video. I hope this won't be taken the wrong way, but I felt like saying something.

I commented on your video, but here's the copy/paste in case you can't find it.

Spoiler

Thanks for the feedback, Mangs. Some folks might find your words a little on the sharp side, but I was pretty okay with it.
Though I wouldn't blame folks for being upset, seeing as this is a video that straight up calls out a project.

Most of the feedback I've gotten so far (which hasn't been a whole lot) has been pretty vague.
"I liked it but it ended up being easy".
That doesn't really help me.
It's nice to get some specifics that I can actually tackle.
A lot of this development, especially the earlier chapters, were done by the seat of my pants.

You could say that's terrible and say I should go back and fix it.
And you'd be right. But that day isn't today. Or even next week.
I started working on this project all the way back in 2009.
By myself.
With the exception of portraits, I'm a one man crew. So, you could say I'm burnt out on it 8 years later.
Whenever I do decide to take another look at it, I'll reference this video for sure.

Critique is a fine line to walk. A lot of people abandon constructive commentary in favor of mud slinging, which is pretty disappointing.
I'm glad you don't really want to do that.

I think the only thing that rubs me the wrong way is that you made a public video calling out the project.
It's kind of like you're putting it on the hobbling wheel in the town square.
It just feels...uncomfortable. Especially when a simple post on the forums would have sufficed.

 

9 hours ago, Sokaballa said:

Once again, thanks to you and your team for making a great hack. You guys did an outstanding job!

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you liked it.
Just to make a clarification: With the exception of portraits, I'm actually a one-man team.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I finished your latest upload.
Giving ava the Training sword really made it feel too easy to feed other units kills.
I notice mangs comments on how he did the prologue but it much differently then most. I ignore the house at the top right and traded vance a vulenary so he could solo the right while ava, buck and torie went south.
chapter 1 felt the same as it did in the previous versions.
chapter 2 changes felt way easier due to the fact the brigrands show up near you instead of near one of houses, making it super easy to recruit hugo. I do like how you changed it from fighting to get to the village to fighting in the village. Felt more realistic to me that way.
chapter 3. This chapter looked hard on its remake at first but when you added Lonora to this chapter it really killed the need to use vulenaries. From this point on I didn't have to use vulenaries at all. I personally Feel Lonora should be a hard mode character only considering how good her growths and base stats are besides her speed.
Thanks to having a 2nd Healer for chapter 4 when you except from Aksum, I was able to fight way more agressively then I would of.
Chapters 5-10 felt way easy due to having a 2nd healer so early, letting the player divide and conquer much easily then normal. I noticed no changes on those chapter from previous versions.

Chapter 11. With all the generic units you gave us, it was pretty easy to divide the units way to easily to collect all the goodies and defeat the 2 enemy bosses. I dragged it out for exp purposes but I could of easily cleared it in half the time if i was not such an EXP min/maxer.
Chapter 12.  This chapter is actually hard if you let it drag out and reinforcements show up, it is doable to clear the 3-4 rounds of super strong reinforcements and i think its a nice challenge for those who want to fight really tough units. Getting to the 3 supplies quickly is not tsoo hard to do. But if the player lets it drag out to long they will see a very difficult challenge. I enjoyed trying to beat the challenge.
Chapter 13. again with the controllable generic units it felt way to easy to clear this chapter
Chapter 14. Ok this is the chapter i dont remember clearly now that i think about and relooked at my saves. iirc you recruit 2 ladies and siege 3 forts. if this is the chapter I think it is, It needs more and stronger reinforcements.
Chapter 15. This chapter was neither to hard or to easy due to the few units you can bring and the fog of war. the only problem I noticed is one of the Sages does not move when he spawns in the stairways at the middle of the map, Making it annoying to hunt for him. I did the usual divide and conquer method I been doing the entire hack.
chapter 16. Bringing Marris to this chapter is a pain in the ass. that was a mistake on my end since you gave the player plenty of door and chest keys in the earlier chapters. This is where Marris becomes a major liability to the amount of reinforcements that show up and only having 8-9 units to use on this chapter. Bring Marris making this chapter extremely difficult due to having to protect Marris from almost everything. Bringing anyone else with door and chest keys The chapter has your normal difficulty, not to hard and not to easy. As for Ava being forced in this Chapter, She does a good job of being a special promoted unit. if it was not for the promotion that Vance forces on her this chapter would of been much harder to do.
Chapter 17 Vance is finally back. First i am gonna make notes about Vance's promotion(Commander). Not only does it give me tons of stats on promotion, the animations for Commander normal attack and Critical attack are flashy but not too flashy making him feel like a cool unit. Now then his Balcroft Blade. This weapon is overkill. Vance does not need x2 exp to catch up. 1.5 modifier would of easily been enough for the 3 chapters he missed. +3 speed and strong against mounted and armor units make him very useful on his return since the chapter has a large amount of both.s
now for the chapter itself. I feel it needs more reinforcements since you have easily enough generic and NPC units to help you out. It felt like there was too few and I was able to push to quickly to Yorlu and easily surround him.
Chapter 18. This was the only chapter that gave me major problems the 1st time around. the amount of units that rushes you at the beginning is overwhelming but after that intial rush of enemies the chapter is easily trivialized, I feel it should have a slightly less rush at the start and more reinforcements during the chapter to balance this.
Chapter 19 Inside aksum castle. For such a large castle, there was way too little enemy units left over. even with the reinforcements, this chapter felt way to easy to push on both maps. I noticed the magic user with the silence staff never used it on my magic users. The only part of the chapter that felt Challenging was Aier himself. I also feel there should be more units protecting the 2 chest rooms on the map themselves
                               
Chapter 20, Endgame. Ill say it again Morevech is way too easy of a final boss. most of my units easily doubled him and with the supports for the 2nd Run, I didn't have to fear him doing a critical hit. even with the reinforcements fixed, I easily pushed through them. Maybe giving the 4 units surrounding him elite stuff or more units surrounding him or make it where he summons more units when you get close to him every turn. Luna also makes Morevech way to easy. Push his hp to 120 to 200 range and up his speed a little maybe? As for his battle animations, His battle animations really make him feel like a armored battle mage. Disappointed you didn't give us 3 spells special animations as well.
The custom weapons sprites when looked at in inventory looked pretty cool as well, wished the had special battle animations.

As for the ost you used, I felt it matched the setting you set for the plot you were using on the story. 10/10 there from me on ost. I did like how everything was peachy with everyone and everyone did resolved their difference on the allies side. I do feel that alot of the other units besides vance and Ava needed more story time. You really don't know much about the rest of the units besides why they joined you. Even the 1 set of supports don't give enough info(maybe ill feel differently after there multiple supports for everyone).

other notes: i do like how you made it where the controllable units

Now for the units I used in 3.0 and 3.03 play though.

 


VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-44-09.png.d37de6b0c702256ca68d2d361cf94780.png
Vance does a good job after his first few levels.Pretty much 2hko everything after enough levels and at end game.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-44-26.png.2e695a1d99de0cb36fcc7aadd74aca51.png

Ava the Only thing that needs improving on ava is her terrible str. otherwise a really good unit early game but terrible late game.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-44-40.png.9ef4de13f36bcba08989a022900daae9.png
Buck didn't become as overpowered as he normally does Still a pretty solid unit early to late game

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-44-52.png.078c9c9969d532aff673d86eb79f7055.png
Ok this surprised me. A peagues knight who can tank and give her the Wing Shield and she is pretty much unstoable late game. Early game she has some problems but thats easily fixed with some levels.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-45-38.png.20e60baf95cfbb47455f80631079bfdf.png

solid healer from start to finish and a solid light user at the end

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-46-02.png.ff46a977e0c604515acd7258d413ea6d.png

for a lancer knight he is pretty solid, high move, high defense, high speed and str, good res and luck.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-46-18.png.719b7714322de84d624cbe2fa4059730.png

A solid soldier from start to finish

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-46-30.png.a3cf5638b04f1784caff9319fda9400d.png

best axe user. Makes hugo and O'Riley feel weak in compression.
High move, high defense, high str, high speed decent luck and res

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-46-38.png.cab961285d37aec6a547e0926d3a40e7.png

for a healer she okish. for a promoted unit she sucks due to her really bad magic. maybe i got rng screwed there.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-47-01.png.f875f83905bfb76f6b74ba4983d2923a.png

best mage. high all stats mounted.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-07-20.png.df3cf3074f973920be3b2fa1825d7536.png

solid dark mage. I regret not feeding her enough levels. does a good job healing too.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-47-45.png.c9028c8bba5b77b31e8a56cd59680970.png

I keep benching this poor guy. Ill never see what his promotion is like. 4 move hurts him the most. rest of his stats are solid for when i used him.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-47-53.png.fb09e3add00944d9a9329ae267139387.png

I know i got rng screwed on defense this playthrough but otherwise a solid unit. also benched

 

 

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-48-02.png.0e9a8a14c9cda5eb97bb7a687d749900.png
pretty solid light user and good sage. benched due to not raising her more 1st playthrough. Solid stats all around.


VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_02-48-13.png.779b9896a8d93f2cf9cfcb8e97e4f9ae.png

I know i keep getting rng screwed on him. for whatever ever reason he refuses to get good level ups. benched

Marris is useful for getting chests but she fell off combat wise for me.
no comments on Marveda, Raizen, and Russel as i didnt use them much in the final chapters.
also benched bethany , Gerdalt, Thraben after using them on their chapters.



3.03 playthrough

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-10-03.png.5c1ed9f663e375dd9567123383300363.png
vance same story as previous run through

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-10-20.png.55d23779c90524d172d51ee4f6b1eb85.png
She really needs a str boost on growths to be useful lategame.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-10-32.png.920654cddfaa8fb5c965d4bf277da6e8.png
str screwd this time but his support with vance saved him.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-10-46.png.bef04aa38080cf3dfcb02f0f9199438f.png
str screwd this time but suppoort saved that and super tanky flier.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-11-02.png.2e75f7aadd429d1a83ec408821ec66f0.png

IMO she is overpowered way too good base stats and growths. Makes early game way too easy. Had to feed her 2 speed wings to fix her bad speed growths but other then that she is overpowered.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-11-11.png.ce875807bd07a2c597c41d1169336486.png
gave him a good hard try this time since he supports torie. Either i keep getting rng screwed or his speed growth is terrible. he was usable due to having a support with torie

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-11-27.png.2213320897fe40015bc7c89ecef3512c.png
with his support he became even stronger then before. solid mounted mage

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-11-33.png.d9db0554219df00c194ea30fb3a441db.png

solid light mage and sage. 

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-11-43.png.6fcaa6b98aa578a8cce70951e59bb7ec.png
Solid Duke Knight.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-11-51.png.2c0f9eab833ef2b3e55c5e6c9818eb9b.png
supported him with sylvia and since he didnt get defensive screwed this time, he became a solid sword user.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-11-59.png.500cebd5f78204f397e28885f2574082.png
paired with aaron makes him better then usual.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-12-09.png.19cbd79db8320b4ac2d844ae0b348d9b.png

good early game but terrible late game. Only kept her around for healing and supporting Jorin. needs a magic growth buff.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-15-46.png.e7091830539f0e44d2c864b6a4e6e366.png
bench warmer. that 4 move just hurts him too much.

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-15-52.png.f8ee826d7574e6f5ff73afdc43c2eaaf.png

he was useful on the chapters i used him but since i was using hugo and larona he got benched with braxon

VisualBoyAdvance_2017-12-14_03-15-57.png.ce1d679a4dfe0feb8f25f13ee8c47d20.png
Same story as Kristoph

no comments again on Marveda, Raizen, and Russel as i didnt use them much in the final chapters.
also benched bethany , Gerdalt, Thraben, Gracia(due to having Lanora) and Calista  after using them on their chapters.

 

 

Edited by Chaz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Heyo. I don't really know much about how growth rates work. Are there any other growth rates that affect player characters besides the ones listed? I sadly didn't get a screenshot of it, but Ava is supposed to have 0 Strength growth according to the chart and she got strength in her level up. However, she only got it

after she had been promoted to Lyndis Commander.

So I wasn't sure if that was an intentional possibility or just a convenient (for me) bug.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

14 hours ago, Primefusion said:

I commented on your video, but here's the copy/paste in case you can't find it.

  Reveal hidden contents

Thanks for the feedback, Mangs. Some folks might find your words a little on the sharp side, but I was pretty okay with it.
Though I wouldn't blame folks for being upset, seeing as this is a video that straight up calls out a project.

Most of the feedback I've gotten so far (which hasn't been a whole lot) has been pretty vague.
"I liked it but it ended up being easy".
That doesn't really help me.
It's nice to get some specifics that I can actually tackle.
A lot of this development, especially the earlier chapters, were done by the seat of my pants.

You could say that's terrible and say I should go back and fix it.
And you'd be right. But that day isn't today. Or even next week.
I started working on this project all the way back in 2009.
By myself.
With the exception of portraits, I'm a one man crew. So, you could say I'm burnt out on it 8 years later.
Whenever I do decide to take another look at it, I'll reference this video for sure.

Critique is a fine line to walk. A lot of people abandon constructive commentary in favor of mud slinging, which is pretty disappointing.
I'm glad you don't really want to do that.

I think the only thing that rubs me the wrong way is that you made a public video calling out the project.
It's kind of like you're putting it on the hobbling wheel in the town square.
It just feels...uncomfortable. Especially when a simple post on the forums would have sufficed.

 

Thanks for the feedback! I'm glad you liked it.
Just to make a clarification: With the exception of portraits, I'm actually a one-man team.

I wasn't aware you made this hack all on your own. That is actually really impressive.

A bunch of guys got really mad at me for making the video, but I am glad that you found some use in it.

While some people think I just enjoy being an asshole online, I actually made that video because I wanted to help.

Edited by Mangs
Link to comment
Share on other sites

50 minutes ago, Mangs said:

A bunch of guys got really mad at me for making the video, but I am glad that you found some use in it.

While some people think I just enjoy being an asshole online, I actually made that video because I wanted to help.

I think the backlash comes from the fact that it's a video rather than a post.
But you focused on specifics and suggestions for improvement. That made it obvious to me what your intent was, which is why I'm not bothered much. Things be chill.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think i mixed up a few chapter orders. now that i remember somewhat I think chapter 12 is the supply chapter. Ill edit my post to fix that feedback.
15 is the on the sewers and chapter 16 is the one with forced ava for escaping. which means I forgot chapter 14 and messed up the order of the chapters

Fixed my comments in a previous post of the feedback. chapter 12,14,15,16 chapters feedback adjusted. rest is still unchanged.

Edited by Chaz
Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Primefusion Ah, I hadn't thought to look that far down the list. Thank you, both for your help and for making an excellent game. I'll try to give some more detailed feedback once I beat the last few chapters.

 

Edit: It wasn't letting me edit before, but I'm now 95% certain that the reason it wasn't happy with me editing has something to do with the length. So here's the part about the characters. Some other time I will add my other comments.

So, all in all, a solid and enjoyable game.

End game characters as of the start of the final chapter: (I did use the stat boost items. If I remember on who, I'll mention them. Also, Ch9 I think, I spent a really long time on boss abuse to level my healers, with Ana taking and dealing hits. Thus, the healers and Ana kinda got a ton of levels there and made the middle of the game rather easy.)

 

5a34d3a718f81_Vancefinal.png.a85be5b6d04a58e06845596b1b8c04a2.png

Pretty good overall. I might have just been unlucky, but he was in serious need of more strength when he returned in Ch17. The Balmung Blade's x2 EXP was convenient, but not necessary. I used it mostly for the extra might. I think I gave him the Seraph Robe.

5a34d3a785d60_Avafinal.png.251de8d43c919a9ed54845af216dd538.png

I remember wanting to like her in the last version I played (2.1 or something), but I really couldn't given how poorly she was turning out. She's much better now. The Training Sword gives her a way to be actually useful for only dealing minor damage, since she can't crit and doesn't have a use limit. I ended up giving both Energy Rings and a Dracoshield that I got to her when I got them, which helped her stay more useful as she went along.

Also, maybe me being dumb with growth rates and stuff again, but even after promotion, her HP growth should only be 80%, right? She would often get 2 points in HP after her promotion, though, which I thought should only be possible with a growth rate over 100%. And after a couple more levels in the final chapter, she hit 61 HP, which in the original games wasn't possible for an allied unit. Don't know if that was intentionally removed, but if not, then now you know.

5a34d3a845642_Buckfinal.png.bb42b988b77f9e5c0c65764c4b04e1f7.png

I'm not normally a big archer user, but he was incredibly useful throughout the game. Early on, he was nice for having someone to attack from range, and late game he was always there when someone just needed to die.

5a34d3a69910a_Toriefinal.png.8b2b32a192623cc4b25c17c5a04ae6b6.png

A fun character and a truly powerful unit. Once she got the Wing Shield, she was basically just someone I could send out and not worry about. Even before that, I just had to make sure there weren't any archers around.

5a34d3ac92bf4_Jorinfinal.png.9934e24d8ff33c9740ee0cbc90703d11.png

He wasn't too bad, but I'd have liked his defenses or his speed to be a bit better. I mostly kept him around for his support with Sylvia and because he had been part of my team for so long.

5a34d3a50f687_Sylviafinal.png.ea21687c135dff977eb8e14e9b072d6b.png

Other than her healing being a bit lower than I'd have liked early on, she was a fine unit. She would have enjoyed some more Magic for damage late game too, but that didn't really stop her.

5a34d3ac0e3e2_Hugofinal.png.f77d53099561075b602e3cc1994a0ecd.png

Not normally a big fan of axe users, still not sure about him. He did have some well-timed crits as a berserker and gave Torie her support though. And he was my main way of dealing with knights (armors) until my other units got better. Other than that, though, pretty meh. Maybe he could have been better and he just had karma for his pillaging bad luck in levels. I'm 80% sure I gave him a Speedwing.

5a34d3a323cf8_Lanorafinal.png.534df958ba8edf004982ea7858ebd0fa.png

Lanora, the devourer of souls. Did my boss abuse probably contribute to this monstrosity? Yeah. But god, was she broken. She soloed the bottom/left half of Ch18 (against Valamar) without any healing and only Flux. There was plenty of other mass murders, but that was the most memorable. Obviously, she received the Boots, Body Ring, and Topaz thing, but that was only for the final chapter. Even before that, she still ate everything with just Flux. Luna is for n00b enemies who can't hurt her otherwise.

5a34d3a8ab3a2_Corvanfinal.png.d39496465ff9cbddffad42fcd50326a4.png

I wanted him to be better, but sadly, he turned out pretty mediocre. In most of the official FE games, the redeeming features of generals are their huge defense and solid strength and HP. His defense definitely helped sometimes, but it wasn't enough to redeem him. His HP is pretty average for the units I actually used, as is his Strength. Plus, this game had a pretty high amount of magic damage, between all the mages and the imbued weapons, so the defense was less useful than I think it would have been in other games. And his Speed is terrible (as expected of a general), but in this game of fairly balanced units and enemies, he suffered for it. He received one of the Speedwings.

5a34d3a38e716_Lucillefinal.png.a189f03f98f7ec06dde2d855655104a4.png

Solid unit, 10/10, was with me for every battle since recruitment. Thank you for not pulling that cruelty of spawning reinforcements near her while she's in tent form.

5a34d3a416594_Marrisfinal.png.6f331411dd5186b6f0eed0d7272b5766.png

Pretty mediocre, especially considering that you already have two rather fast sword units that are required for plot. But she still could hold her own in emergencies, and she was handy for castles and that FoW sewer mission.

5a34d3ab91b6a_Graciafinal.png.cd682e5bfa09f6eb741db14cfcfa989f.png

An average unit. I'm fond of using mages and healers and the like, so I put her on even though I already had Lanora and Sylvia. She was never as good as them, sadly. She also didn't get much of the boss abuse, since that mostly went to Sylvia and then to Lanora. Relatively mediocre in all of her stats plus her inability to build magic ranks until after promotion meant she was ok, but really just stuck on healer duty most of the time. She was also one of the units I swapped out sometimes when I needed space for Marris or just didn't have enough slots.

5a34d3a59f1ce_Thrabenfinal.png.04b6694a840c606332dfeaaa04585a09.png

Your average late-game pre-promote. I used him a bit because, as I mentioned, I like healers and mages, he had a support with Marris (who I used pretty often), and because although I had one more Master Seal to use, I didn't think I would be able to effectively train up anyone I had left behind.

5a34d3a9a69d8_Geraldtfinal.png.a0824e1de661b4742e3c5fd5ab7566d0.png

I liked that he could use magic to defend himself and that he was a dancer unit, but I already had a basically full team and I didn't really need a dancer. I only brought him for the final chapter because dancing doesn't require you to have good stats.

5a34d3a4a4320_Marvedafinal.png.6b8b02f1be75c39d120971e00014d9ef.png

Because having another healer never hurt anyone. She did, admittedly, come at a higher level than Gracie was, but it was kind of sad that (except for her luck stat) she was equal to or better than Gracie in every way. I did like her character though, and I'll probably try using Melusine more so that they can support if I play it again.

Raizen and Russel would have been useful for the final chapter if my team was underleveled, but they didn't get much use.

Everyone else obviously got benched. They just didn't come soon enough or weren't notable enough to be added to the main team.

 

Edited by alatartheblue42
Link to comment
Share on other sites

For those of you who have gotten to chapter 16, I have a quick question. The armor knight who spots us at the beginning runs off presumably to gather more soldiers. The goal being to activate the switch in order to let our allies in. Is it possible to kill the armor knight before he gathers reinforcements before time runs up so that we can stop the clock to gather all the goodies or is it better to activate the switch and proceed with the chapter trying to outpace the knight?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hey there, having a blast with this hack!

Also, I came to report a "bug". In chapter 16 if you kill the boss before activating the switch, he will have the same warning quote as if he were still alive.

A minor gripe I have is with Lenora, I think someone mention this also. I feel having two healers join so close to each other is a bit redundant, they fill the same niche at least early on. Maybe making Lenora a shaman or having her join later with better bases like Saul does could help.

6 hours ago, Tempo said:

For those of you who have gotten to chapter 16, I have a quick question. The armor knight who spots us at the beginning runs off presumably to gather more soldiers. The goal being to activate the switch in order to let our allies in. Is it possible to kill the armor knight before he gathers reinforcements before time runs up so that we can stop the clock to gather all the goodies or is it better to activate the switch and proceed with the chapter trying to outpace the knight?

I don´t know about the armour knight because I forgot about him, ups. But what I do know is that if you kill the boss, a wall will open above so you can go for the switch after and have more time with the chest looting. Although it´s probably not the most efficient way of doing it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In Chapter 16, it doesn't end when you hit the switch. After you do so, the gate opens and greens swarm in. You're supposed to then escape at a point about halfway down the left side of the map. But since the Greens are really powerful, they kinda just kill all the enemies anyway except for a couple who go up through a new top corridor. So really, if you can survive those enemies (which include the boss), then you can take as long as you want. The level doesn't end until you wait on the escape tile.

 

This is more comments about the game that I wasn't able to get in my last post.

Bugs I noticed (none of these caused problems, but I just wanted to point them out):

5a397d758c96e_Funkycursor.png.dd2767ef7c7cf38346c9660683f5d4b3.png

I assume that's not supposed to have a scrolling mini pic to its right. This happens for everything on this menu, but I didn't see it anywhere else.

5a397d798b6fc_Glitchedtextbubble.png.a74b20f8b0d3b7f6c2377ee1aec89be2.png

Just the text bubble getting a bit messed up in their A rank support conversation. And speaking of supports with Thraben...

5a397d787f0e5_Geraldtsupportq.png.86d0d6e2d14714affc4f190900e87086.png5a397d769c55f_Geraldtsupport2.png.c19a377411e0c353c3b7b7922903f0ff.png5a397d7ac458d_Thrabensupportwgeraldt.png.cb4ecf1f9ebccfaac8570a5bd0b702fd.png

No support dialogue, and Thraben was unable to initiate the support.

General comments:

Is there a Hard mode in this game? If there is, I'd be interested in trying it out or I could just not boss abuse that one time to add difficulty. The game wasn't too hard for the most part. I think I would have been fine even without the boss abuse.

It would be nice if after completing the credits, it took you back to the menu rather than offering you the chance to save and then making you watch the credits again.

I enjoyed the new music. It really helped with the overall more somber mood of the game. That being said, not that major wars are really anything to be cheerful about, but having a bit more lightheartedness from time to time wouldn't really hurt. Some of the side characters do their best in their supports, but there are only a small number of supports (which is understandable).

Nice shoutout to Elibian Nights. Also nice touch in calling it Elder magic, not Dark magic. Its the little things that count.

The enemy teams were well balanced. Normally, FE games have 2/3 - 3/4 (rough guesses) of their enemies as physical and a relatively small portion as magic units. But you managed to basically even that out through the use of more magic types and Imbued weapons. And while I do approve of that as a goal, as I mentioned with Corvan, it means that generals and their kin that specialize in physical combat suffer. Your allied mages might deal a bit less, since there are more enemies with resistance, but allied mages also can make better use of their resistance and all of their weapons are 1-2 range. Whereas Corvan is stuck lagging behind the rest of his friends thanks to his low movement, not being as effective at tanking given the higher magic density, and unable to make much offensive headway thanks to his average strength and low speed. So while I respect the intent of making the enemy team more balanced, the General line did pay the price.

On the note of classes, it could have used some more variety. I realize that part of this stems from the usual "different countries specializing in different unit types" and the size of the project being smaller than a normal FE game, but it made it kind of lackluster. There were rather few swordmasters, berserkers, and snipers (thanks for not pulling random crits on us, but I still missed them). Wyverns only ever appeared as allies, and there was exactly one Nomad unit in the entire game IIRC.  Other than (presumably) some differences in enemy stats that I didn't really look into, there's no real reason for using both Valkyries and Mage Knights when both are Anima/Staff users (it worked better in SS, where Valkyries used light so there wasn't two essentially identical classes) other than having different sprites.

That being said, I do appreciate all the work that must have gone into making or transferring those sprites into FE7's engine. Well done on that part. Vance's promoted class was also pretty nice. It reminded me a bit of Ike, which helped Vance fit even more into the idea of an FE mercenary (Heroes are cool and all, but I like how this made him more unique too). I wasn't that fond of Merovech's battle sprite, it felt a bit bland to me.

As Chaz said, Merovech was too easy. Were his defensive stats absurd? Yeah. Did he hit hard? Kinda. Did he last long? Nope. I easily killed him in one turn (without Luna). It was at the point where I wasn't even trying. Half of the units I sent against him were just using generic crystal weapons and the like. Lanora, proving her OPness again, was doing like 10 damage per hit, doubling him, and taking only like 1/3 of her health in return with just Flux. No one (except maybe Corvan, who didn't challenge him) was anywhere near in danger of getting ORKOed by him, and you were nice enough to give us a Fortify staff that level too. I decided to finish him off not because I was in danger, but because I had used every unit I thought might have a conversation with him and only had 1 spot left that was in range of him, so Torie murdered him with the Cruicible. When faced with weapons that have such high base Might in addition to the respectable offense stats of the characters themselves, that defense isn't really all that much. Also, the walls around his room could be thicker. I Lanora baited the 3 ranged units along one of the small walls while the big walls were still closed, so all that was in there was a single swordmaster that gave Corvan a chance to be useful and Merovech, who doesn't even move. Giving him more HP, some reinforcements, maybe a way to attack people in his room that aren't in normal combat range, etc would make him more of a challenge. Or a second stage if you like. With how easy the first part was and his dialogue, I was almost expecting a "this isn't even my final form", but I suppose that also makes it a bit ironic too, something about how he really is still just another human.

As mentioned numerous times, I should really try this game again and not boss abuse this time around, but overall it was not that hard of a game. I don't really have any good suggestions on how to increase the difficulty, though, except maybe increasing enemy/reinforcement density/difficulty or somehow reducing the amount of EXP gained so that your units don't get as strong as quickly.

I appreciate the variety of levels you created. The supply level having the super reinforcements was a nice touch. I read Vance's line about them coming and basically said "Hah. Let them come." Then they did arrive and I flipped out to see that even Lanora could only take on the mages, definitely not the physicals. So I rushed the last supply(ies) before I lost anyone.

The FoW level was nice to have. Too many people bash FoW levels, but I enjoy them. Plus, the narrow pathways were fun too. But sadly, by then my team was pretty broken, so Torie got the wing shield and she and Lanora proceeded to murder everything as usual (with a bit of help from their friends too).

The escape from Castle Minar was well done. I remember that I did struggle a bit with it on the older version, since I couldn't hit hard enough and keep my units healthy while still running. With Lanora (and a slightly better team or weaker enemies maybe), I didn't have too much trouble winning. But the reinforcements forcing you forward still gave that nice sensation of panic.

I think that if I play this again, I'm going to try and take longer on the chapter after the sewers before I use the switch. I did as I was told and used the switch to open the gate some time before the knight reached the boss, but the level was ridiculously easy. The green units coming in butchered everything on the bottom and the few enemies that attacked you through the top weren't very much when put up against Lanora my team.

The Gaiden chapters were a nice touch. The first one forced an unusual (for me) playstyle on you, where you were forced to rush forward to get units but then strategically pull back in order to not die yourself. The only thing I can think to improve that one would be either give another turn or two at the start to recruit, move some of the farther locations closer, or give another unit or two at the beginning to help gather people, since I doubt that I would really ever be able to reliably make it to the farthest villages (the units you have are just too flimsy). The second one was more like a typical defense mission, except you controlled the green units rather them being useless idiots. I think that a nice (but unnecessary) touch would be at the end of the first one to show the units that survived your part of the battle as survivors of the whole battle and then either add them to or use them to replace some of the Moran defenders. It would probably be more work than effective, but I think it would be cute to do.

As Chaz mentioned, some of the levels with generic/allied units were too easy. Like the one against Yorlu, between the powerful green units and the few generic units lending their assistance, I actually needed to rush more than normal to get to the village and kill Yorlu myself to get that Iron Rune.

The Interludes were a good way to add to the story without there being supermassive cutscenes before/after levels.

Give us a way to save Aiur.

Its more of a problem with the amount of effort you are able to put in given your own time/budget limitations and all that, but the characters and rest of the world could use more elaboration too. Our main characters only ever were in Sybaris, Mora, or Aksum during the present, but there were at least another 4 or 5 nations, and I think one of those only got mentioned by name and didn't even get a memory scene there. There's also this interesting emotion magic thing going on, but all we ever really learn about it is that Ava's parents worked on it and that Aiur and Merovech use it. Admittedly, normal magic doesn't receive much discussion in the other games either, but it would be interesting to know more about this, especially since Merovech seems to use basic magic for combat and not the emotion magic. Plus, all the other characters are (likely) wanting for more screentime outside of their supports.

And, that was a lot of stuff. Sorry. But I really did enjoy the game, and I'm looking forward to playing it again sometime soon to try out some different strategies and whatnot. So thank you again for this game, and good luck in your life/other stuff.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

KIIIIIIIIIII the damn formatting always gets messed up. Sorry.

5a3b025410635_Funkycursor.png.22cb2917ef8642eba1d2cdd4bceee6c6.png 

I assume that's not supposed to have a scrolling mini pic to its right. This happens for everything on this menu, but I didn't see it anywhere else.

5a3b02679c753_Glitchedtextbubble.png.0599a43e777f958a91dde626f9643a98.png 

Just the text bubble getting a bit messed up in their A rank support conversation. And speaking of supports with Thraben...

5a3b0266ae6fe_Geraldtsupportq.png.aa847fc52981e0849f0748a722d726fb.png5a3b0265df134_Geraldtsupport2.png.59cff90cbab8d633103acc84cd26c038.png5a3b026848d04_Thrabensupportwgeraldt.png.b052b351fe9efa3c806d52bf7d9bbe53.png

No support dialogue, and Thraben was unable to initiate the support.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have finally beaten your game. It was one hell of a ride! I'll go over a few topics in detail now. I'll be complaining about some things, so please bear in mind, I loved the hack, and when I criticize something, I'm only doing it with the best of intentions.

Also, for those who haven't played the game yet, expect spoilers in this "review" of sorts.

Spoiler

The story is, in my opinion, the strongest point of the game.

The main characters all grew and developed well (the main character making mistakes and being casted out was a great deviation from the usual "protagonist is great at everything, every time") and the villains were good and so were their motivations and behavior (I particularly liked how Merovech is established to be good king to his people. Far too commonly we get tyrants that are hated by absolutely everyone. It was interesting to go into houses and villages and get insulted). The plot was interesting and kept me curious, even if it was a tad predictable at times. Aaron, O'Riley and the Captain's little arc was one I especially liked. The most memorable generic I've ever seen in a FE game. And Marveda was just a great character.

One theme I noticed were the subversions. Many characters, in a way, feel like opposites of typical FE stereotypes. The protagonist's father is alive and is an important character, but is in bad terms with his son; the edgy brother of the swordmaster protagonist isn't a psychotic murdered, but actually a good guy who made some grave mistakes and paid dearly for them; the head of the church is a corrupt bastard and her subordinate does not blindly follow her to the bitter end; the protagonist is no genius, and he makes a lot of mistakes, even being casted out and replaced for a few chapters; Russel, the most blatant subversion in the game, in my humble opinion; Thraben is a rude Renault and I love him for it; the fact that the big, powerful, warmonger country with wyvern riders as its main force is an ally, while the church is the enemy. It was all quite interesting to see.

And on top of them all stands Valamar, the Langest Lang of all Langs, being Lang down to a T. All he needs is 20 more years and cancer and he's set. For crying out loud, his portrait is a minor asshole boss from FE6 (Zinque) with his hair dyed! I'm not trying to say he's an awful character (I actually quite liked him just because of how absurdly terrible he was) but he definitely stood out to me. With Merovech being a somewhat sympathetic villain who ultimately seems to mean well (even if his methods are far too extreme) and is beloved by his people, I find it somewhat baffling that he would pick a man like Valamar for such a high position. Aier I can understand, but Valamar?

There is one thing I didn't like, though, and that is the supports. I completely understand that writing supports is not easy (in fact, I find it quite admirable that you actually got around to writing one for each character), but that still doesn't change the fact that, in my humble opinion, they're simply not very good. The ones I read felt rushed, and for the most part, very lackluster. Often, they just went over things that had already been established in the main story (like Thraben's supports with Marris. Yes, he's a former hitman turned priest. That's all their support is really about, and it's something that was already told in his introduction. Same goes for Marveda's first conversation with Melusine, which is just Marveda revealing to Melusine things that had already been shown to us), or simply didn't have much substance to them (Corvan and Lucille's romance was... forced, to say the least, and Bethany and Ava was boring and didn't give any sort of development to either of the characters).

It didn't help that of the eight supports I got in this first playthrough, three of them were glitched: in Corvan - Lucille 3, Corvan's last line is spoken by Lucille, and then her sprite fades away instead of Corvan's when Corvan was supposed to leave; Thraben - Marris 3, I'm sorry, I forgot what the glitch was (EDIT well, looks like somebody else reported this one as well. Although, I hadn't encountered Geraldt's thing) and Marveda - Melusine 3, although this one was very minor, Marveda just stopped moving her lips to speak in the middle of the conversation.

Now for the gameplay. I'm more fond of big casts with different alternatives for the same class and role, but this is subjective, and the smaller cast didn't take away from its quality. We have a brigand, a soldier, a healer that learns dark magic, a prepromote who promotes, a protagonists who leaves, a bard capable of using magic, a Paladin Athos and a Swordmaster Jeigan (the exact opposite of FE6! Was this intentional?)... quite the unique cast, this game's. I just wish you'd added a playable Wyvern Rider. It shouldn't have been too hard. Maybe Ulrigar could've sent one of his subordinates to keep Vance and his troupe in check?

Nobody really felt bad, everybody had a use when they joined, and could be trained (with a little bit of luck, but that is true for every unit ever). Thraben felt a little too weak for potentially joining right before Marveda, and the choice between Russel and Marveda feels like a no-brainer to me, but other than that, I didn't notice any other major balancing issues.

Marveda's problem is that she's a statistical beast, and her class is just a better Mage Knight, with one more point of movement, and anima magic. Wouldn't it make more sense for Valkyries to use light magic as they do in FE8, seeing how most of them come from Orontes, the holy country (they even have a High Valkyrie!)? Giving her 7 move like Samuel and light magic, and maybe lower her stats a little to compensate for the fact that she's got double A ranks and high move, should make the Russel/Marveda choice be worth thinking about for longer than 5 seconds, at least.

On the other hand, I like that you made the broken Paladin class almost enemy exclusive (the only playable Paladin being Raizen, who joins in the last chapter) and instead added a bunch of specific mounted classes for each weapon type. It's certainly better balance than "LET'S GIVE THE GUYS WITH 8 MOV EVERY WEAPON IN THE TRIANGLE! THAT'S FAIR!", so props for that.

The maps, for the most part, were great, and one thing I really liked about the hack is how enemy magic units are quite prominent, as opposed to most official FEs where casters aren't very commonly found between the enemy lines. The difficulty was all right. Not too hard, not too easy. Middling difficulty, I'd say (as you'll soon see, my team was far from the juggernauts everyone else posted. Either I got RNG screwed, or everyone else got RNG blessed). I found Merovech to be okay, I killed him in one turn, but I had to employ every one of my units to do it. The problem, I believe, is that his HP is low. You'd think that amazing battle mech would have 120 HP!

One map I don't remember too fondly is the second gaiden chapter. It felt far too easy. Not only do you get Kravan, who is insanely good, and the Captain who's not very far behind, but the castle has some very easily exploited bottlenecks. Honestly, the chapter felt like a glorified cutscene. All I had to do was park Knights at first, and then Aaron and the Captain (I even forgot about Kravan) on a 2-tiled doorway and use vulneraries for 8 turns. That was it. Compared to the first Gaiden, which is fun to play, it feels underwhelming.

I never found myself in too much of a shortage of money. I bought what I needed, and not much else. One thing I would've liked to see, though, is a free restore staff. In Valamar and Aier's chapters, some enemies were toting status staves. I was careful and bought a few restore staves, but I could've just as well not done so, and then chapter 19 would've been much more annoying.

Graphically, it's good. The sprites are all good looking. Sometimes you can tell the splicing (Thraben's robe, in particular, is just Renault's body with a cape thrown on top of it, right?), and I've said enough about Valamar, but for the most part, they were good. 

The custom animations were good. No new spells (as far as I know), sadly, but making spells is hard, so I can give it a pass. The only one I didn't like was Merovech's battle mech. The sprite itself is great, and the dodging animation is the best thing ever for something the average player might not ever see, but the attack animation... he just lifts his arm. Then a little magical jingle plays (you could've thrown in the Sage's glyph here for some visual variety) and that's pretty much it. It's rather boring, in contrast to Vance's flashy promoted animations.

The custom music seems rather hit-or-miss to me. I loved the first boss theme, I liked the second, but the third felt rather mediocre to me. Merovech's theme was great, though. As of the map themes, the early theme was not very good, but the late theme was nice. Both the attack and defend themes were good enough. Of course, this is all subjective. The usage of music, though, is excellent. You used your tunes well throughout every cutscene.

A few minor nitpicks: During the latter half of the game, the amount of typos increases. Or at least I think so. I'm not a native english speaker, so it could be my mistake. Please bear with me. A few I thought to write down: during Callista and Bethany's recruit conversation, Bethany says "you like desert? Because we've go that"; I'm pretty sure freewill is an adjective and shouldn't be used as a noun like Aier did in his battle quote (wouldn't "free will" be more appropriate here?); Merovech mistakes Aaron for one of his "soliders"; Torie's ending nickname is "well-payed mercenary". I noticed quite a few more, but I didn't think to write them down. It's mostly in the last few chapters of the game, though, after Vance's return I'd say, but don't take my word for it.

I may've missed it, but I'm pretty sure Raizen does not have an ending.

And Ava didn't have special battle dialogue with Merovech. Quite the strange oversight, considering how the game goes on and on about how Merovech ruined her life and she utterly despises him. Maybe it's just glitched?

There are also these two minor glitches that I found rather funny.

vhBARDx.png This Valkyrie WILL heal Thraben, whether he needs it or not!

mXxTEqM.png Also, this minor graphical glitch. It only showed up in the final chapter. It was weird. EDIT: I see this one has also been reported. Well, at least we know it's not a one-off issue.

Lastly, here are the units I used (at the beginning of the final chapter and after defeating Merovech):

Spoiler

5NQTWgK.pngXLF5qtB.png

Vance was okay. He always had a problem with strength, but he was tanky, and the Balcroft blade definitely bumped up his usability in the final chapters.

3ONxg3Q.png1pfJhSM.png

Ava was interesting. In the early game, she was a great Jeigan thanks to the training sword. In the mid game, she was really weak, and I benched her for a few chapters prior to her promotion. Then she got 3 strength and 5 defense and res and became great again in time for her support partner and the late game.

zf2x4ps.pngny32cX5.png

Hugo was... meh. He was always really strong and tanky, but his speed did him no favours, and having a resistance stat this low in a game with so much magic on the enemy side is incredibly bad. Although, he did become more useful once I gave him the jade amulet.

2shMDm5.png6JgQXdf.png

I was expecting great things of Lanora, after seeing how incredibly overpowered everyone said she was. Well, as you can see... I did promote her early, which might be the problem, but it was the only way she could've kept up with the team, and even that wasn't enough, as I couldn't get her to S dark in time. A great healer, but as a combat Druid, her speed and skill did her no favours, which in turn, meant nosferatu was out of the question, and she had to deal with her puny defenses on her own.

I have a question, why did you give both Lanora and Callista just enough con so that they would be weighed down by their most basic means of combat (flux)? I've never understood why both official FEs and hacks insist in doing that to Shamen and Druids.

pFrf7eK.pngfaBVL40.png

The great Samuel! I have no idea why you decided to give him a mount, but I'm glad you did. Despite being early promoted at level 17 (I did this to a few characters because, since the game was short, I thought the enemy would start to power up earlier than usual), he still had the honour of being the only unit who got to cap a stat. Other than his low defense and his slightly below average speed, he didn't have any major flaws.

dJwNTcW.pngoD37bNo.png

Looking back at the thread, I find it weird how it seems not many have used Aaron. The guy has his own chapters, one'd think people would feel attached enough to his character to try and give him a chance.

There's also the fact that he's amazing . He beat Corvan out in defense, he had extremely good offensive stats throughout the entire game... whenever I had a village that needed saving and didn't require flying to be reached, Aaron was my go-to man. And he didn't even need those 3 extra levels he lost from the early-ish promotion to be great.

uXUMFR1.pngEPMc7D7.png

Melusine was in fierce competition with Samuel for the strongest mage in my army, and I think she came out on top thanks to her higher defenses and speed. I actually made her solo the upper part of the sewer level with an elixir, and she came out victorious. I used her so much, for the longest time she was beating everyone by a few levels. Great unit with pretty much no big flaws aside from having no staves (and that was okay, it just meant she could focus on the carnage. I had enough healers anyway).

gBQnCQp.pngKmad3sk.png

Like I said earlier, Marveda was great when she arrived, and remained great straight to the end. A great healer, and a good combat unit. Honestly, I think she definitely should've gotten light magic. And lower stats, c'mon, give old Thraben a chance!

B6YcVXE.png4hTN8SW.png

Just when I was starting to think Buck might not work after all, this chick comes out of nowhere. She was great offensively, good defensively, and the fact that bows in this game are way better than in the official GBA games only worked in her favour. I also like her appearance.

bhiVBuz.png35myvl0.png

I wanted to use Thraben because I liked him, and his palette even more (green is my favourite colour). I'm glad he didn't disappoint me. He might not be as broken as Marveda, but he was still very useful. The more healers, the better, am I right?

PypoY97.pnghKs99S7.png

She was a surprisingly good combat unit for a Thief, and her extreme EXP gain was a great thing to behold. Sadly, she was the last unit to promote, and by then, she didn't stand a chance at combat. Still useful, though, because Thief.

nUieYrE.pngTMRyR4d.png

Torie could've been great, but much like with Marris, her potential was ruined by the fact that I kept on holding back her promotion to the point I almost thought I wouldn't be given one more Master Seal for her. She ended up taking Ulrigar's gift to his son, which of course meant she was horribly underleveled and couldn't do much more than give Hugo stat bonuses. Prior to that, she was always decent, but her horrible HP and defenses meant I couldn't just throw her anywhere.

IeUFEI0.png

I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that Raizen exists, and he is young and daring. I don't know what it is about his description, but it cracks me up. Probably the fact that this YOUNG AND DARING general charged into the enemy lines, never caring for his own well-being, and ended up getting killed in the first two chapters in which he appeared as a NPC. I found it funny how he was the only one to die in those. You might want to tell him he has an elixir, because I'm pretty sure he attacked instead of saving himself that one time he was down to 10 HP.

As a playable character, he was Gotoh. And a good one, at that, this guy even beat Aaron in a few areas.

That's it for my main team. And now... the others.

GttJQoO.png

I tried. I really did. But he eventually started to get doubled, and to do no damage, and to be an overall hindrance, and had to bench him. But he was good for a few chapters. It's just, I think he got one good level for every ten awful ones.

75cXL61.png

Backuphealer.jpg. I liked her pallete. That's pretty much it.

JhnIGUW.png

Ah, buck. He could've been great, but I think I got heavily RNG screwed with him. Useful in the early game, fell off eventually and was replaced by Bethany.

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

@Rubenio Thanks for the feedback! You've got a lot of fair points in here that I will be considering.
Ava is definitely supposed to have battle dialogue with Merovech so that's a bug.

Merovech thinking Aaron was one of his soldiers is intentional. After all, Aaron used to be one of his soldiers.

And NPCs healing units at full heal is a problem with the AI code itself. It's out of my hands.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 hours ago, Primefusion said:

@Rubenio Thanks for the feedback! You've got a lot of fair points in here that I will be considering.

Thanks for the kind words. Count me in for the next version, whenever it is released!
Ava is definitely supposed to have battle dialogue with Merovech so that's a bug.

Yeah, I figured as much. She's probably the one who hates him the most in the entire cast!

Merovech thinking Aaron was one of his soldiers is intentional. After all, Aaron used to be one of his soldiers.

Of course, but the problem is that he didn't call him "soldier". He called him "solider". It is but a minor typo, but I felt I might as well report it.

And NPCs healing units at full heal is a problem with the AI code itself. It's out of my hands.

Of course, it's not an important issue. I just found it funny.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Alright so I just finished my run of TRTR and overall it was really enjoyable. I felt that many of the characters were both good and interesting and I believe that I do not have any more words to say that have not already been said before. That being said there are a few concerns that trouble me. When all of my units hit level 20 or near the cap it would just periodically skip the level up sequence and I would be screwed over a level. I feel as though Lanora did not really have enough time to get s rank in dark tome and the other dark magic user should be massively inferior to lanora if you decided to use her. I think there should be an arms scroll item in the game just to help that out a bit, or a dark tome that increases weapon experience maybe at the cost of exp experience or have a devil effect or severe stat reduction penalties for a few ideas to balance it. That being said pretty much every unit was usable and I will be going in depth on all the units I used I apologize in advance at how large the pictures are going to be but it was the only way for me to screen cap it and I couldn't figure out how to shrink it here.

Vance for me was a overall meh unit. He wasn't really strong good unit that I would expect out of the main protagonist. He was good just not amazing.

5a3da1a9945d3_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_01_38PM.thumb.png.a427a8bbc20513e52f359ab9a85a1933.png

Ava should be an amazing unit in the later versions. But I played on 3.0.2 so I had to deal with bad/unusable growths. Best idea for a jaegan character and should have save both of the energy rings for her to try and make her a little bit more viable. 

5a3da28c755aa_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_25_36PM.thumb.png.ba1a1ac36117f02ae70799129b4dd5a1.png

Buck was absolutely amazing. He can do it all, chip or kill and attack at 3-range. In the later parts of the game, the dude felt as though he was critting as much as a swordmaster.

5a3da2dab33b7_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_02_19PM.png.d9cc1a6ffc3fe071f5e071c9a0f20c23.png

Torie was a flying tank once she got her wing shield. There would be times where I would send her to frontline some enemies into the unknown get badly beaten but never die.

5a3da33658d88_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_02_36PM.thumb.png.5d427ef2993bff46e133198a664ed600.png

Lanora was the dark goddess of my run. I don't think there were that many enemies who could live after 2 lunas from her. Luna tome just being absolutely stupid broken in the game.

5a3da37eaf865_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_03_06PM.png.84b45a8822cd7af3833294a42d4132da.png

Here comes speedy gonazales over here. Honestly I am surprised at how much he was able to double enemies. I think that many of the pegasus knights must have horrible con cause I just sent Corvan with an axe and destroyed anything that approaches. Best ax unit in the game imo even though I don't think you intended him to be that way.

5a3da411bb8b2_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_03_29PM.thumb.png.88b0ee4897adce11acb5ced36fab8fcf.png

I ended up dropping sylvia for melusine since I thought that she would get staff magic and just outclass sylvia in everyway. To my surprise she got anima magic so that she can hit foes even harder. It just made me realize even more how bad light magic is. Sure it is more accurate and a little bit of a crit chance but I feel like light magic could be buffed slightly.

5a3da4cf1566e_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_03_41PM.thumb.png.bfc2e771a5b7a3e7471f29f0144d28db.png

Here comes the mobile emergency healer, Samuel. Honestly he was amazing as a mage and now with staff utility he filled in the role for a healer that was desperately needed. He was amazing all around too.

5a3da52c4b672_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_04_00PM.thumb.png.a3eccbea481d96526f790e31756a80c9.png

Here comes the Jorin was an overall good unit being fast and strong. Being sword locked kinda hurt but with the light brand he was really useful in the last few chapters. He managed to catch up really quick when I had to bench 1 person as well.5a3da5cc0a7fb_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_05_18PM.png.363b29bd364a47d5a119e890fa8373b1.png

Aaron was an amazing tank and great user for the S-tier lance. He managed to soak up lots of damage and dish it out just as easily.

5a3da666d59f4_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_04_30PM.png.946a26cd262713af8c9e0ac69987ab47.png

Marveda was a great staff bot for the last few chapters that she was in. Kinda wished for some better growths but its as good as can be expected for a late game join unit.

5a3da6b9d0931_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_05_34PM.thumb.png.fb52db2661cf8fbbfb2336c18d3edf8b.png

A dancer that can attack was an amazing idea. The only thing I wished was that he could promote. I had an extra master seal just waiting with his name on it. 

5a3da72ece41a_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_05_43PM.thumb.png.d0efbf441b471822c82af933414d7873.png

For a thief she did her job just fine. There just simply wasn't enough room on the team to field her so that she could grow properly.

5a3da7ad8bf56_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_06_05PM.thumb.png.d807cbcd2d76bc5b8abf0d8440f00eb0.png

Hello staff bot #2. She can be good if you decide to use her... I didn't so she got used for maybe all of 2-3 chapters and then promoted at the endgame just so that I can have an extra healer.

5a3da80f87ec1_ScreenShot2017-12-22at4_06_14PM.thumb.png.39879d987b81bb40de5e2fe783c55d59.png

 

Edited by Tempo
spoilers not edited properly
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just finished the hack. I'm gonna give you my thoughts, but I tend to not articulate very well. Regardless, here we go.

To preface this, I skipped the story, so I don't have anything to say on that. However, I will comment on the fact that you did a good job integrating story and gameplay in a lot of maps. The world was very immersive.

Overall, I found the hack too easy and too simple. You often did a good job of forcing the player to engage the enemy, but the strategies that I used to fight the enemy were not very interesting. But I understand that that is not very constructive, so I will elaborate.

The early game was mostly good. None of my units were too overpowered, and, while there was quite a bit of bait and switch, every chapter had at least one or two tricky enemy positionings that forced me outside my comfort zone. If the goal was to have a bunch of not-too-hard chapters to focus-train units, it succeeded. In particular, I liked the escape mission in... chapter 4, I think? However, I did not like the gaiden chapter; it was too easy and I wasn't using my own units so the experience was worthless (this goes for the second gaiden chapter as well; I easily triviliazed it by simply putting two units at the western chokepoint and unequipping them, because there was no incentive to actually fight the enemies).

I think Chapter 8 is when the quality started to drop. Chapter 8 itself is not a very good chapter. It seems the most viable strategy was to let the green units kill themselves off, and then bait and switch your way to victory. In addition, Chapter 8 is the first time you can get a Master Seal in the game, which I immediately used on Torie, along with whatever statboosters I had (and I think most players would). Now, I need to talk about Torie for a minute. Obviously, she is the best unit in the game by a landslide. However, I actually like that she is so good. Her existence takes otherwise sluggish maps and makes them bearable. The problem is that with a unit this busted, a lot of maps just get their asses plowed by her and a lot of the design consequently goes to waste. The best maps were the ones where I had to split Torie from my party, like the one where Orontes attacks from top and bottom. That map was one of my favorites because it forced me to split Torie and it gave me an incentive to rush, which a lot of your maps fail to do (and that is one of the other issues with the hack).

So, I felt that the mid-game was not so great, which was about Chapter 8 to Chapter 15. Incidentally a lot of these maps suffered from the other problem, which was not having an incentive to rush anything. I don't even remember a lot of these chapters despite just beating it today. Off the top of my head there was the "destroy supplies" chapter and the "seize three forts" chapter... neither of which I thought were all that great.

The late game was more of the same, the only difference being that the enemies finally got tougher, so I couldn't spam Torie as much. There was a very interesting setup on chapter 18 (?), when you go north and the Captain attacks you on two chokepoints. However, I did not like the final two chapters. The super weapons you get near the end really allow a lot of the enemies to be non-issues. On Chapter 19, I literally just equipped Torie with the Crucible, made her move 10 spaces every turn (boots), and got to Aier pretty much unscathed. Aier himself was a pushover for Torie w/Crucible, and none of the enemies around him could even touch her. The final chapter was probably one of my least favorites. The most optimal strategy is clearly just to carefully bait and switch your way around a winding corridor, which was very tedious, and the final boss was incredibly anticlimactic.

I think you have a good grasp on enemy placement, after playing this hack, which is why I said what I did at the beginning. It's just unfortunate that that is brought down by the poor strength of enemies relative to the player, as well as the lack of anti-turtling incentives.

One of my personal complaints about this hack is how anti-LTC-friendly it is. I tried on a few occasions to cheese maps with some Torie Resuce drop strategies, but it never really worked out because of very meticulously-placed enemies. And on top of the game just working against me, you never really give the player any cheesing tools, like Warp/Rescue staves or even another flying unit besides Torie. Was this intentional? Being able to do some more creative strategies on these maps would really bump up my opinion of the hack, to be honest. Even though it would be "easier" that way, it would also make maps a lot less tedious. If there is a warp staff in the game, I might have missed it, since I did skip a few chests on my playthrough.

Another little nitpick I had was the controllable generic units. A lot of times they were just unnecessary and I didn't feel like moving them all. But I understand the point of them, which was a feeling of controlling an actual army.

Overall, it's good. The major problems of this hack are juggernaut syndrome, somewhat tedious map design, and too-large maps. I have played two other completed hacks so far, which are Requiem and Sword of Heaven and Earth. I enjoyed this hack more than Requiem but less than Sword of Heaven and Earth. If I were to give it a rating out of 10, I would give it a 7.

I appreciate all the hard work you've done on this project. I understand it has taken you a very long time to make, and as a hacker myself I can definitely tell the ridiculous amount of work put into this hack.

For the record, I think Mangs's analysis is too critical, and kind of shortsighted for judging the entire hack based on a single chapter.

Here was my ending team. Best units were prolly Torie, Melusine, and Samuel.

Favorite Chapters: Chapter 4, Chapter 10, Chapter 18

Least Favorite Chapters: Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 15, Chapter 19, Chapter 20, and the 2 gaiden chapters

Edited by Pwntagonist
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 3 weeks later...

Another great hack! I loved all the custom maps and custom characters, some mugs were a bit rough but most were well done, good job on this, the story was pretty good too, few typos but still easy to understand. :) So here are my thoughts:

The only chapter i really didn't enjoy, was that recruit and defend chapter, that was annoying, but it was an interesting concept, just needed more work. Was slightly annoyed at Vance's father, in a few chapters he claimed he could do the siege alone with "the might of Tiryins!" Or however you spell it.... HE JUST STOOD THERE!!! lol all that talk for nothing. What a jerk!

Needed maybe just 2 more master seals, would have been perfect, and i found the game only had 1 of each stat boosting items? Could use a few more of those, and if not, perhaps a secret shop to buy them? Not sure if you plan to work on this more or if you are finished, either way lol. Also noticed there was no Colosseum, which was surprising! 

I liked how you played around with the character icons, and added the halberdier, one of my favorite classes, though the growths for Kristopher were..... low, end game at level 16 he still could barely 2 hit kill, and really couldn't take a hit, let alone 2. >.>  I spent the first half of the game thinking Ava was promoted so i didn't level her much... yeeeahh oops! lol. xD Cant remember the bards name, but his support conversations are missing.   

BRING BACK THE WYVERN RIDERS!

Anyhow, thanks again for the time spent making this, was entertaining, and goes onto my "recommended FE hacks" list. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just finished this hack, and wanted to give my opinions, most of which will focus on gameplay. I did quite enjoy it for the most part.

So, the story is more-or-less fine, though we don't really get to see much of that merchant country or the country ruled by warlords. That last part is pretty disappointing since a lot of Ava's backstory (and the game's backstory) is tied to it. There are also some typos throughout, and the prose is a little...beige?...for my liking. Vance's issues with his father are also a little too dramatic for my liking and repeated for too long. I was kind of on dad's side just because of how over-the-top Vance was.

The gameplay, was, honestly, a little more of a mixed bag, though there were some interesting ideas. First, while the two Gaiden chapters that you play as generic units (with a couple of characters you can recruit later) were interesting in theory, the gameplay was not in practice. The characters that are actually recruitable in those chapters don't gain exp (at least they didn't for me, even after going into combat), meaning anything they do in those chapters is pointless. In addition, their inventories don't seem to carry over to when they're actually recruited, so there is no point to actually trying to explore the map or go into combat. Having the generic unit deaths count against your survival ranking is also annoying, though that is understandably a technical issue. But because nothing that happens in gameplay in these chapters matters, there really doesn't feel like there's a point in playing them. The chapter with Kraval and Yorlu is especially egregious, since all you have to do is form a two-tile chokepoint with an unarmed Kraval and that Duke Knight captain and mash End Turn (while healing occasionally.) Maybe include a secondary objective that gets you something nifty later on (though you'd have to buff the generics, since otherwise, they can't contribute meaningfully.)

That ties into the second comment, which is that the chapters in which you also get some generic blue units feels...unnecessary (the generic units that is.) They die way too easily and tank your survival ranking, and your units are generally more than good enough. If you got some more cavaliers or fliers, that would be at least interesting for rescue shenanigans. My biggest complaint would have to be the chapters in which you used generics.

Third, enemies really do give WAY too much exp and way too many of them spawn. This is made worse by the fact that most of them are not offensively threatening (except for the ones you're not supposed to fight) but are way too bulky. I played through the hack a second time, this time rigging level ups. Even with capped ATK/SPD, you're not typically one-rounding without some limited use weaponry. But there are a ton of enemies, and they're not really very strong offensively, so it just becomes a slog (and with a bunch of rout chapters, your units get a ton of exp.)

Fourth, there aren't many tactically fun tools to use. You get like one sleep/silence staff, and some physics/fortifies. Unless I missed them, I don't think you get any warps/rescues, and you get like one/two siege tomes. I do like that we got buyable longbows for a good portion of the game, but some more warps/rescues/siege tomes would have be nice (and since most maps are rout, they don't completely trivialize them.)

Finally, there should probably be a few more master seals. There are like two-to-three units you can't promote, and there aren't even secret shops.

So, yes, I definitely enjoyed the hack and can definitely see the work that was put in. I really enjoyed the passive boost items you could hold, but they do come a bit late. A few chapters could also be improved by not making them rout.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...