Screenshot The ROLLING REQUEST THREAD(Currently doing: A Hiatus)

[TheMoniker]

NOTE: This thread is currently on a hiatus and is no longer being updated. It might return someday, however! And everything that it contains should still be there, if anyone wants to read it.

Hello everyone! So, you might be wondering how this is supposed to work. Basically, I got tired of going to all the effort of choosing what hack I want to do next, so I'm gonna let you do the whole "picking" thing for me!

You see that vote up there? Basically, people suggest stuff, I add it to the poll, and you can guys can vote for stuff you're interested in. I've added three choices up there to start us off, and you're probably only going to recognize one of them. All you have to do is vote. However, if you want to suggest something, it's a bit more complicated:

SUGGESTION RULES SUGGESTIONS:

1: You don't have to be anyone or anything special. Just say you want a hack added to the poll, and I'll probably add it. BUT...

2: It would be VERY helpful if you were to provide a link. Some of the really old hacks can be kinda hard to find, even with google.

3: On that note, I, personally, would prefer to have some old or obscure hacks that most people don't know about in the poll. I'll do LPs of stuff people might not have seen before!

4: I reserve the right to deny hacks being allowed into the poll for pretty much any reason, like "too mainstream"(ex: Midnight Sun, everyone would vote for it because it's amazing and then we'd have 8 chapters of stuff we've already seen, just with my semi-witty comments).

5: I MIGHT have to make a new thread for a hack if it's too long. Typically, 8-10 chapters if where I'm gonna give it it's own thread, though it does depend on the length of individual chapters. That's kinda generous though, so don't expect this thread to move super-fast. I'll keep the updates coming out at a moderate pace, but hacks can remain in the list for a long time.

6: I will play hacks in pretty much ANY state of completion; complete, beta, alpha, "only one chapter complete V.00000001"... I'll play stuff that wasn't/isn't released to the public too, but I'll need you to PM me a link.

Anyways! Enough rules. It'll probably be a few days before I get the first update out here. Until then, just vote and suggest.

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

Vaati's Revenge(Page 1, completed)

Rage Emblem(Page 2, more-or-less completed)

Tacthack(Page 3, completed for now)

Different Dimensions Ostian Princess(Page 7, completed)

Yet Another Ragefest Hack(Page 9, completed)

Le Chien Est Adorable(Page 11, completed)

One-Day Hack(Page 12, completed)

Maiden Quest(Page 13, completed more-or-less)

Mr. Night's Ragefest Defense Mission(Page 22, completed more-or-less)

The Sacred Contention(Page 23, left uncompleted)

Enderslicer's Escape(Page 27, completed)

Athos Mode(Page 28, completed)

Awful Emblem(Page 28, completed for now)

Bloodlines(Page 34, completed for now)

Edited November 30, 2015 by TheMoniker

[momogeek2141]

Fire emblem Different Dimensions Ostian Princess!

And/or FE4Binary.

[TheMoniker]

Okay guys, it's official, we;re doing Vaati's revenge first! I have to record some stuff before I start releasing updates, so just wait patiently for a bit and we'll begin.

EDIT:

Fire emblem Different Dimensions Ostian Princess!

And/or FE4Binary.

For DDOP, I was desperately hoping for the dowload not to work...but, it did. So I have to add it to the poll now. I'm gonna deny FE4 binary though, because it's a reskin that would take forever to play and there's already a good LP of it out there. (Not to mention, I never played FE4, so we'd be in train-wreck city)

Edited April 3, 2015 by TheMoniker

[TheMoniker]

Alright, time for this thread to really start! For those of you who don't know what Vaati's Revenge IS, it's a disqualified ragefest submission, for ragefest 3 specifically. Now, what this means is, it sucked too much to be considered "rage-tastic", so Markyjoe, the owner of ragefest, quit halfway through because it just sucked that bad. And now, we're going to experience it! Hope you're all ready for...

Vaati's Revenge: Prelude: This is a bad idea, isn't it

No custom title screens are the norm, not the exception, it seems.

So, in order to play this, I had to use a save file included with the patch, for some reason.

WELL, THIS IS A MODE SELECT SCREEN

We're SUPPOSED to play this "Eliwood" mode. If you didn't know what the hack's story was about, now would be the time to jump out the window before it's terribleness hurts you.

Oh man...so clever...

New tactician? Okay!

Oh, what? It started! So yeah, while all the "yes/no"s have been changed to yes/yes, the second yes is still a no. So it's pretty much pointless.

Anyways, IT'S NOT-THAT-EXCITING EXPOSITION TIME!

Basically, the text box design is terrible. Seriously, it uses like half of the room available, and it's always stopping mid-sentence. I know it's a nitpick, but I DESIRE ORDER.

N: called the Four Sword. Vaati escaped from the Four Sword and started

There are so many *better* ways you could have gone with that joke...

N: the Four Sword again.

The worst fate ever.

Wait, this takes place in the modern day? More or less?

N: a chain reaction that eventually broke the seal on Vaati and made a small crack in the fourth wall. Vaati escaped through the crack and obtained Nightmare, boosting his stats and changing the legendary Four Sword’s datapointer to being an ordinary Brave Sword.

But...but...HOW?

Are these fictional characters, friends of the maker, or self-inserts?

N: the crack in the fourth wall and sent Vaati back to Hyrule, but the damage had been done. Gold and Silence sent several warriors to aid Link and the Princess Zelda in their fight against Vaati.

WHATEVER THEY DID, THEY FAILED.

"grueling" is right, but I think I'll be suffering more than Link.

A bunch of glitched world map events occur...

AND THEN LINK!

Lack of a proper fade-in blackscreen. Always a good way to judge a hack's quality at a glance. There's only one time I've seen this used PROPERLY.

Zelda: to help us defeat Vaati. Is this acceptable?

Uh...I know Link can't "talk" like a normal person, but I don't think that's QUITE how it worked in the games.

Link: HYAH!

Zelda: No, you may not have Lon Lonk Milk.

Link: Hya?

Zelda: Not after we beat Vaati either. You remember what happened LAST time you had fermented Lon Lon milk.

Link: …

Oh, so now we have game mechanics acknowledging. Hyahhh...

Link: …

Link's reaction is totally appropriate.

And then berserkers come out of the castle, walking VERY SLOWLY.

And then generals. I wish I had .gifs for this, but what happens is that general walks around and sucks up a bunch of other generals.

Soldiers and more soldiers. The second group just kind of appears out of nothingness.

This is the longest enemy placement event I've ever seen! Offscreen spam-deployment exists for a reason!

Game. Game. You can stop now.

Vaati: life force from Princess Zelda! I shall rule the world! Bow before your new master!

There's Vaati himself! But this he sort of looks like a she. Was that true in the original zelda games?

END DIALOGUE

WHAT, WHY

Okay, let me see if I can do my screenshot-map thing...

Okay. Not perfect. Not even close. I missed a lot of room on the top. But I think you get the point; this map is FREAKING HUGE.

Let's look at our stats!

Link is our lord, and he's pretty powerful, though he could be way MORE powerful. Not much to say about him, except "PREPARE TO BECOME RELIANT ON THIS GUY"

The four sword isn't that powerful, but it can hit FOUR times(brave effect), and the Boots are Boots. The red potion is just a renamed vulnerary(Except it heals 11 HP instead of 10. FOR SOME REASON.). Link is pretty much the only one who has one. This hack is VERY stingy with the healing.

Neku. Judging by his stats, he SEEMS useless, but he actually ISN'T, because he can double and that Player Pin hits RES instead of DEF. He'll be useful against that starting general wave. Of course, his weapon only has 19 uses, and I'm not sure more exist...

Zelda herself! She looks good, but that Divine weighs her down so badly she isn't doubling anything. At all. Still, she can do good chip damage.

Vincent is only useful against enemies with low defense, pretty much. He's crazy dodgy, though.

The Cerberus is a bowsword with a brave effect. Pretty cool.

Yes, these are our ONLY FOUR units. We will *probably* get more soon, so let's look at the enemies:

First, the generals. We don't have much offense on our team, with two thief-types, a sword-user, and a light-magic user who can't double, so they are VERY hard to take down. Oh, and some of them have brave lances, and can one-round our units! JOY!

See the soldiers? EVERY SINGLE ONE has these stats. They literally exist JUST to be annoying!

Guarding this castle is Murdock for whatever reason. With that defense plus throne boosts, he would be hard to kill, if it weren't for a lack of a 2-range option.

The generic berserkers are PATHETIC, but they still have their innate +20 crit boost, so they can murder your dudes if you don't, well, not get lucky.

Soren is here too, for some reason! Not sure how we'll handle him when he makes it to us...he seems like he has LUDICROUS offense...

Vaati is guarding this castle, with INSANE stats. We'll have a hard time beating her/him! But, again, hopefully by the time we get to him/her we'll be powerful enough to win.

Also, you might have noticed that it was raining earlier. But surely, in a map as huge as this, no self-respecting hacker would-

FUUUUUUUUU----

NEXT TIME: References! AWFUL character balance! More rain! A wooden salesman! You can see why Markyjoe disqualified this thing!

[MrNight48]

vaati is a dude.

and wow it seems they put all their effort in the sprites.

[momogeek2141]

I have to agree, they're pretty good. Especially Soren, he's almost an exact copy.

[Ansem]

do DoF

and im sure the sprites arent the creators, perhaps he borrowed them. That is flyinace's vincent, and i'm sure i've seen that link around.

Edited April 4, 2015 by franku

[TheMoniker]

vaati is a dude.

and wow it seems they put all their effort in the sprites.

Yeah, I didn't comment on them, but they do actually seem pretty cool. Though, I don't know whether or not they're borrowed.

do DoF

I'll add it to the poll.

Hope you're all ready for...

Vaati's Revenge: Part 1: Rain Pain and Fun Drain

(You are not entitled to a sensible title)

The first turn is me moving forward. All the enemies move forward too. ALL of them, not just these generals. And it's still raining, so it's pretty much just watching these guys sloooowly crawl towards me.

This goes on for another turn or two...

Whoa, what? Dudes!

Oh, uh...it's another random insert-from-another-series-the-author-liked, that I don't recognize at all! And the other thing is, well...

I have no idea: I wish I was as popular as Link. Capcom doesn’t even careabout me.

SUCH RICH, DEEP, MOVING CHARACTERS

IHNI: All right, let’s do this!

GREAT NEWS! The rain stopped, and was replaced with fog! Still annoying, but BY FAR the lesser of the two evils! Now, let's look at our new recruits!

Awesomeface, despite being awesome, is, in gameplay, ABSOLUTE GUTTER TRASH. Seriously, we'll be carting him around, and he'll never do more than chip. Ever.

Just a renamed Shine, basically. Pay it no mind.

The other guy sucks horribly(but has an axe rank for some reason, I'm not even sure you can GET axes in this hack). Seriously, do not treat him like he's Link or even Vincent, because he is only barely better than Awesomeface.

The generic Hyrule's are FAR better than the two actual CHARACTERS, and they'll be helpful against the general wave with those armorslayers!

Anyways, on the third turn, COMBAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS!

Go, Zelda!

As I said, Neky is only good because his weapon hits Res.

Not gonna wait on using this thing, Link is the only one who even SORT OF deserves it.

SUCH A USEFUL CHARACTER

SUCH GOOD CHARACTER BALANCE

As I said, these guys are WAY better.

At least, until they start screwing up too!

OH NO, I'M QUAKING IN MY BOOTS

And then Mr. Hyrule goes up there to help me hold them off! How kind of him.

Welp.

Hah! Caught the animation! That's actually a pretty cool spear.

SMILE!

Just in case you thought he had Est growths...

Whoa, Link himself has an altered animation! It's looks good at first, but his "sword swing" is really klunky, and I wish I had a .gif for it.

Oh, I just noticed this.

Oh no, we can't kill this guy! There will be death... UNLESS...

No RNG abuse happened. At all.

Hmmm...

Some reinforcements come out of the castle, but I can't see them because of the fog...

But some extra dudes for us come out too!

They're just lame generics(2 Laus, one Ostia), but I'm sure they were worth whatever came out of that castle...probably.

Combat isn't their strength, but... I guess they could block chokepoints?

Ow, ow, ow.

Hyrule is still going, folks!

NO, JUST NO

THINK OF YOUR OWN JOKES, DON'T JUST STEAL THEM FROM ACTUAL GOOD SUBMISSIONS

I'm seeing more and more of why this hack was disqualified from Ragefest.

And then the fog comes back. It presumably cleared JUST so we could see those snipers.

Vincent weakens...

And Volnutt still sucks. No wonder Capcom dropped him!

Link levels! And... it's not that great!

Cool.

More levels! They're okay, but honestly, NOBODY has good growths in this hack.

Hyrule is super-separated from us now, and he reveals what our vision would be without the two thieves: ONE TILE. Yeah.

Still going...

GEE, I WONDER IF AIs CHEAT IN FOG

This guy... The soldier massacre isn't over yet!

Wait wait WHAT?

So yeah, this RANDOM TREE is the source of the ONLY consistent healing in the game, 11-HP red potions. This is all you get. No staves. No elixirs(at least, up to the point that I've played to). This random tree holds the only hope for bringing units back from critical HP. That, and just sitting on a fort and doing nothing, but this isn't a hack where you want to be doing that. Slow down, and this hack will take EVEN LONGER to beat.

He's down, and...

Oh, wow! LINK CRIT! That one is actually pretty cool!

I don't care if you die.

Or you.

The Cerberus's 2-range animation is completely broken. It's just Vincent sheathing and unsheathing his dagger 4 times, and then the berserker dies once the combat is over. It's really, really, weird.

You need all the stats you can get, Link! You're the sole competent and capable combatant in this mess!

Oh, what? I went to this fort first in the hopes it could be seized, but I GUESS NOT. Time to reverse direction!

OH NO, THE RAIN'S STARTING AGAIN

So... things happened while the fog obscured everything.

These are the merry men. They wouldn't be good if it weren't for their silver bows.

Soren's been going all the way around the map, just to murder us.

(That minimug... THE EYES...)

So... these bishops?

Not sure if these could be counted as STOLEN, but the author was a big fan of Matthew's Nightmare!

(These were the units that came out when we got the generals at the house, btw)

WHAT'S IN THE VILLAGE? Find out...

NEXT TIME!

[momogeek2141]

Are you going to do elibian nights sometime?

[RandomSwordmaster]

Are you going to do elibian nights sometime?

When things are finally fixed.

[NobodiePichu]

i remember trying to play this, couldn't do it though.

[TheMoniker]

Are you going to do elibian nights sometime?

As RS said, I'll do it when we get a release that's fully working. I want to show the hack off when it's in it's full glory!

Also everyone, I've finished the recording for Vaati's Revenge, so, since there was a tie between DDOP and Tacthack, I did a random calculation and it seems we're doing Tacthack next.

Also, when I delete options from the poll, the poll will probably move some numbers around because Serenes Forest poll system is really glitchy. The alternative is to reset the votes to 0 every time we play a new hack, and I don't think you guys want that, but you might have to re-vote regardless.

Anyways...

Vaati's Revenge: Part 2: Stuff Just Keeps Happening

So, I had some image problems with this update, things might look a bit weird but I'll try to keep them comprehensible.

Now, if you remember correctly, last time we had visited a village...

Glass: You havin’ trouble? Finally! Eh, guys! It’s our time to shine!

General: Who’s messing with everyting here!?!?

So...these guys just showed up...

Glass isn't QUITE as bad as Volnutt, but he's still pretty sucky.

Yogi is good step up from the generic generals, but still not exactly amazing.

Cameron is ABSOLUTELY AWESOME. Good offense, defense, and speed. He's almost equal to Link himself in terms of usefulness. Finally, a character that can do more than chip!

Hey! What are those paladins doing?

Uh...making a squad to march straight for me, I guess.

Their stats aren't threatening, but their weapon selection IS. And there's six of them, who are going to hit us at roughly the same time.

I'll take 'em!

Dangit, Link!

They're all moving towards us...VERY SLOWLY...

Laus is gonna sit up here and guard the castle.

Magic?

Oh hey, nice dodge animation.

Gee, I wonder what's in here?

Oh, of course.

*loads savestate*

Ow ow ow!

DOUBLING

Link, uh...your mouth is a bit...

And then we DON'T get a game over! What?

Neku helps lure out some snipers.

And then I realize something.

WHY DID I NOT DO THIS EARLIER

The Player Pin is an "E" rank 1-2 range sword, which Link can use WAY better than Neku EVER could.

Neku is weaponless, but it's okay!

Volnutt worst sniper.

Oh crap, that's Soren! Looks like the poor Laus generic is doomed.

He gets one last soldier kill before going out...

Link gets a good level to dampen my pain...

And then it turns out that Soren can't double Laus, so he actually survives.

Link decides not to get good levels anymore.

So, we have a problem. Let me explain.

No one, I repeat, NO ONE can survive two hits from Soren. Our only hope is to hit him with physical attacks from full-health units(remember, no healing except for the red potion shop) until he goes down. And the rain makes it so we can't bring our units in to attack, or retreat them fast enough, but HE can hit us.

So, we're gonna have to sacrifice the Laus. We wait in the trees, knowing that Soren will take the Laus down...

WAIT NO, YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO ATTACK-

Well, the Laus will live another day, and we can move our units in to hit Soren now!

Just keep chugging along, Link.

Oh wow! See, I told you guys Cameron was amazing!

Screw you, you didn't even have a reason to be here!

Annnnnnd now we have the paladin brigade to deal with.

I gave the Laus's killer lance to Glass(I thought he was gonna die!), so this guy has no available weapons. So I've decided to make him the wandering potion dealer. He bought himself a bunch of potions, and he'll give them to whoever needs them whenever they need them.

These guys start wrecking us, entirely due to their reaver weapons!

Worse yet, Link the Crutch isn't nearby to help!

Chipping!

I have a barricade set up, so...let's play "spot the mistake"!

While you're waiting for me to realize, enjoy this meh level!

OH CRAP THERE ARE TWO BRIDGES

(that was the mistake)

You can hit him, edge-equipped Neku!

You missed twice! Come on!

I somehow think we'll manage to survive without him.

We don't need you either!

And Vincent?

...That's too many, resetting.

Now, CAMERON will barricade the other bridge and keep things safe!

He MISSED, and I was so surprised I couldn't screenshot it in time.

I think I made the right decision with Cameron.

She gets doubled, but it doesn't matter!

Heh heh...heh...

The other shoe drops on my luck.

Serra down!

Of course, it's not like there aren't three more.

She just REFUSES to get speed!

WELP

HE'S DEAD

Revenge!

They're all killed!

Enemies come out from up there!

Uh... LOTS of enemies...

The fog replaced itself with AGGRAVATING rain, so let's see what spawned...

WHAT

WHY

NEXT TIME: Things get a little bit... boring.

[RandomSwordmaster]

Clearly the generic army exists to wear down your weapons and annoy you.

[TheMoniker]

Special announcement guys. MrNight, a friend of mine, PM'd me and gave me a patch for a Ragefest submission. It's special because it was never released to the public, so, vote for it if you want EXCLUSIVE CONTENT! If not though, feel free to keep piling on votes for DDOP, which seems to be what's gonna happen after Tacthack.

[RandomSwordmaster]

YES! LETS SEE IT!

[TheMoniker]

So, after the large show of support for Rage Emblem, I've decided to move it up on the schedule! We'll be doing it before Tacthack now. Good thing too, because I totally want to play it. But first, we have to finish Vaati's Revenge, which is what we'll be focusing on today.

Clearly the generic army exists to wear down your weapons and annoy you.

Yeah, that's pretty much it. When every character comes carrying 1 weapon, and there are NO ways to get more except by recruiting more characters... The good news is, we still have the infinite-use four sword. If that thing wasn't as amazing, we'd be doomed to run out of weapons.

Hope you're all ready for...

Vaati's Revenge: Part 3: This isn't fun

The soldiers are all moving towards us, and every single turn, we have to watch them crawl forward at an agonizing pace in this STUPID RAIN. Grrr!

One of the paladins earlier retreated here.

*FAST FORWARD LIKE SEVEN TURNS OF PRETTY MUCH JUST MOVING*

Defense! Always appreciated!

Oh, what? These guys don't move! I'll have to deal with their Light Brands up close.

The Player Pin is still awesome. I should have just given it to Link at the start!

Oh, what? The Light Brands POISON!

Surely, nothing but good can come from visiting this house.

Author(?): I’m gonna randomly tell you the location of something useful.

Not really, we already discovered that by accident! And I'd like to point out that depriving units of good consistent healing sources just makes things drag on more!

DEAD!

The purple power grants him UBER STRENGTH!

And the Player Pin is all gone. Dangit!

I DO NOT WANT TO WATCH THIS FOR 10 TURNS

*turns off animations*

(Oh, and if you're wondering, Link gets like 3 XP apiece from these guys)

OH YES GAME, THANKS. THAT WAS REALLY WHAT I WANTED RIGHT NOW

Link's a bit occupied.

So CAMERON handles them soundly, and gains an okay level!

Bye, loser!

Nice! He has the highest speed of anyone on the team, and it just got better!

Finally...it took SO LONG, but they're all almost gone!

Looks like we need someone else to handle this! Wish I'd kept that Player Pin around a bit longer...

And then, as I'm preparing to kill the boss...

Wait...

No...

No!

NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!

SCREW. THIS. HACK.

NOT HELPING MY MOOD.

Okay, Link's going to go visit the village, in the HOPES that we can stop those reinforcements!

At the very least, Zelda should be able to slowly kill this guy.

But I get impatient, and Cameron helps(lance vs swordslayer)

Okay, HOPEFULLY this will stop the soldiers! Please, please, please let that be the case...

YES PLEASE

Author(?): So, I’ll help you. Give this to Zelda.

Uh... That's a cool sprite, but...

Hooray! A tome for Zelda that weighs her down slightly less, and gives her slightly more attack power! THIS ENTIRE THING SURE WAS WORTH IT, HUH?

He dead.

No words. This conversation speaks for itself. And it's not funny at all.

She ACTUALLY GOT SPEED!

Pretty much all the enemies on the map save Vaati's guard are dead, so everything else(LIKE THESE SOLDIERS) are going to be reinforcements.

Eventually, the rain turns back to fog, and SOMETHING comes out down here.

Lucky us, we still have our heroic generic guarding the castle! I'm sure he'll be fine!

Oh, what? Link CAN sieze this thing?

Uh... I haven't been spamming savestates the entire time or anything... nope...

Oh, cool! Three new myrms!

Here we have Guy, who sucks.

Here we have Rath, who sucks.

Here we have Karel, who is AWESOME.

Really, this trio pretty much sums up the character balance of this hack.

KILL KILL KILL

Meh. Link is still better.

Oh, apparently, sages spawned, and the Laus didn't use his gate bonuses well enough.

The last remaining generic ran out of potions, so he'll be guarding THIS castle now.

The last soldier is dead, and Link charges ahead(say it aloud!).

More reinforcements come from here...

And Link is DEEP in Vaati's territory now... The guards will show up any minute... Annnnyyyyy minute...

(turns out they don't move)

WE HAVE A SLIGHT TEXT BOX PROBLEM

Could you stop SUCKING for just one moment?

MAYBE. He's referring to Markyjoe, btw. Kinda ironic.

Vaati: My bad. Okay, back to my evil villain monologue. I WILL RULE THE WORLD! BOW BEFORE ME! MWAHAHAHAHA!

He misses.

Visiting the village and house could probably get us some cool last-minute stuff! Let's do it!

Wah?

So, uh, I guess this guy is going against us now...

NEXT TIME: What is in the last visitables? What is the true power level of the mysterious sages, who exactly is this newcomer? CAN MONIKER ACTUALLY WIN THE HACK? Find out in the last episode of Vaati's Revenge!

[TheMoniker]

Hope you're all ready for...

Vaati's Revenge: Part 4: End of the Slog

Let's visit this thing! WHO KNOWS WHAT COULD BE IN STORE?

Info dude: Been stayin’ in the village for a few days now. I know, you’re thinking it’s just another good-for-nothing courtier lookin’ for a handout. But there’s somethin’ more to this one… Those eyes. They miss nothing. Got a mission, that one has.

I have no idea what that was about, but we got an item!

Whiff!

Time to go see that "courtier"...

Uh...

Oh dang! This is it, the ultimate superweapon that could give us the strength to actually BEAT the final boss! ...Or so we hope.

Okay, now that Vincent's up here we actually SEE.

It's GANDALF, wielding what is Most Definitely a Staff and Not a Anima Tome^tm. So, to put it simply...he's pretty much impossible to beat. He has crazy offense, the ability to double, and plenty of defenses... He pretty much exists just to make your life harder.

Well, I guess those sages finally caught up with us! Dangit!

Gyah indeed.

So, anyways, I have to spend that turn fleeing instead of visiting the village. And this is what a combat engagement with Gandalf looks like. Remember, Link is our BEST fighter!

Cameron doesn't fare any better!

Luckily, ALL the water is river tiles, so we can cross it!

Oh great, they're approaching from the other side too! And now all the generics are gone!

I FINALLY get a good luck at the sages. Remember those guys that came out of a house earlier when I tried to visit it? These are the same ones, Looking back, maybe I could have prevented their spawning if I had just killed them when I had the chance...

Murder!

Wow guys, Zelda is a REALLY GOOD character...

Volnutt the worthless sniper misses a ~70 hit chance. Again.

Not going back for him.

More POWER!

Eventually the sages are taken care of, and Link can head back across the river for the superweapon.

Oh no!

SO SCARED!

WOW GUYS

THIS LOOKS LIKE A REALLY TOUGH BOSS

Standard tactics for when you have people who 2-round each other-let the other guy go first.

Their animations aren't the greatest, so their attacks look amusingly halfhearted.

On his turn, Link WINS! WE DID IT GUYS!

And dead! Naturally, Link fails to gain a good level, but that shouldn't matter... I mean, SURELY there couldn't be ANOTHER boss, right?

Yup.

Dark link: I’m not here because I’m free, I’m here because I’m NOT free. There’s no escaping reason or denying purpose. Purpose*text skip*

What sort of a justification is that?

...What?

And then Dark Link, after "shesh"ing, moves to attack us!

You say it as if there's a need to.

Oh hey, we can sieze this thing!

And then the event plays again. I reset, because there's probably 2 of them now or some glitchy BS.

Anyways, here's how this is going to work:

Link and Vincent, the only two left who can cross rivers, will beeline straight for Dark Link.

The trash is going to guard the castle as best as they can.

And Cameron is going to carry Zelda around while hoping he doesn't run into trouble.

But two of those movements don't matter, because THERE HE IS!

Link's stats are posted for comparison, and... well, let's just say I think we can win this.

Link grabs a forest, and starts thing off on the right foot!

He DOUBLED Dark Link, who has even less CON than normal Link does(and Link has pathetic CON, he's weighed down by the Four Sword).

Okay, TIME FOR THE FINISHER!

Dark Link misses again. What a great final boss, not even landing a hit on my units.

Please let that be the end of it.

Once again, meh.

GW: I’d like to say thanks for playing this hack.

You're not welcome.

Wait... were YOU the one responsible for the soldier armies? It was YOU, wasn't it! I DUB THEE JERK!

Jerk: And those haxxed light brands? That was me. Wait… You cheated, didn’t you? You used savestates!

A: The Light Brands weren't that special, and B: Yeah, I totally cheated on this crazy hack. Deal with it.

I MAY have used slightly more.

Jerk: Grr…

GW: the people who made it possible.

Jerk: Admittedly, Intelligent Systems did most of the work… But there was a lot of effort put into this hack. The mugs for Vincent was made by FlyingAce 24. Vaati was made by KingKirby and Link and Zelda were made by BlindArcher. Soren was made by Aeoris Kirru. All the other mugs were the result of hard, back-breaking work by yours truly. Or I borrowed them from other Fire Emblem games. Gold did the hacking-event-stuff. Most of it anyway. Maps too. Palettes?

I'll sum up my opinions on these guys by saying that everyone who did anything other than make a portrait or animation did a terrible job. And some of those people did a terrible job too.

GW: Well, we both did the palettes.

Jerk: The sprite stuff was Blazer and…Um…Blazer. The plot was written by Ralyx, Silver Shadow. Hey Ralyx, get out here.

Jerk: Come on! You worked on this thing!

Jerk: Fine. Be emo.

That's... not quite emo.

GW: The main concept and event design was mostly Silence, but I did some too.

Kinda ironic.

GW: Fine. I’ll give you a cookie. What type?

Jerk: I don’t care.

GW: Fine, but… Later.

Jerk: Okay…

GW: Well Moniker(was a text skip), thanks for playing. I hope you

I really didn't. I'm going to refrain from tearing into this hack fully until the final thoughts, though...

Jerk: Just wait… We’ll have a harder one next time!

YOU JUST BETTER NOT.

Again. I HOPE NOT.

Oh, hey.

This is just the normal text, but with lots of replacements.

Ha, ha, ha.

Anyways, yeah. We lost most of our dudes, and even if we hadn't...

It's totally unedited, and there's no way we can stand up to these stats. Okay. I'm out.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

Okay, so, for those who want the TL;DR version: I can see why this hack was disqualified.

It was riddled with problems and carelessness on the part of the authors. I get that it's a ragefest submission and isn't meant to be serious, but it's clear that this was just slapped together in the hopes of the authors being able to gain recognition. There are so many problems, I don't know where to start, so I'll begin with what I felt was the most serious one:

The weather. This is a MASSIVE map, and you put RAIN on it? WHY? And even when it's NOT raining, 1-tile fog is crazy bad and annoying! But, just... the rain. This sort of ties into the enemy spam problem too, but this hack's makers seemed to get a SERIOUS flaw in their thinking, and I'll just say it right here:

There is a fine line between tedium and rage-inducing hardness.

Rain is tedium. Spam of MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SOLDIERS that can't do anything to you but break your weapons is TEDIUM! Forced RNG abuse(which this hack actually didn't have, but still an example) is TEDIUM! Rain isn't going to make me rage! It's just going to make me get bored and want to play the hack less! Rain isn't a challenge! It's not SATISFYING to overcome! It's just STUPID!

And Ragfest hacks want RAGE, NOT tedium.

And that isn't the only problem. The next main problem is the bad character balance. Again, I KNOW this is a ragefest submission, but when 90% of your team is cannon fodder, and the lord(and possibly a super-helpful paladin) has to do most of the work, you have a problem. Most of the characters in this hack are just dead weight, and most of those that aren't are good for little but chip damage(and even then, only against the weaker enemies).

There are also lots of other little things that contribute to making this hack boring. An excuse plot for a story(it doesn't even get a conclusion!), references replacing original concepts... the list could go on a bit longer, but I'm sure you all get the point.

I normally don't tear into hacks this hard, but this one makes me extra-mad for some reason. I mean, I'd say Corrupt Theocracy was more enjoyable than this-the portraits weren't pretty, but the gameplay was at least cathartic in a way!

[RandomSwordmaster]

I concur, CT was bad, but in a good way, this hack was just bad, period.

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

god damn this was awful.

[SB.]

I thought it didn't seem too bad other then the fog range and healing. Y'all are babies :V

[MrNight48]

hehehe...funny you should mention rain >_>

(the hype for RageEmblem is real, hope it lives up to it)

but yeah, That was just painful. So much work went in to it to go nowhere. Not much to say after that but congratz? maybe for putting up with it,

[momogeek2141]

Difference between good-bad and bad-bad:

1. The plot makes sense, although it may be bad. This plot seemed just random.

2. The commentary is engaging, especially with a good commentator. I died of laughter during the first few CT updates. I didn't laugh at all at these. Don't get me wrong, Moniker is awesome, it's just that the hack drained his commentary. (When I stated this, it kinda made me regret suggesting DDOP.)

Just my opinion. Thanks for continuing to suffer for us.

[TheMoniker]

I thought it didn't seem too bad other then the fog range and healing. Y'all are babies :V

Well, I did skip most of the REALLY boring parts... And of course, you have plenty of experience with crappy stuff...

Difference between good-bad and bad-bad:

1. The plot makes sense, although it may be bad. This plot seemed just random.

2. The commentary is engaging, especially with a good commentator. I died of laughter during the first few CT updates. I didn't laugh at all at these. Don't get me wrong, Moniker is awesome, it's just that the hack drained his commentary. (When I stated this, it kinda made me regret suggesting DDOP.)

Just my opinion. Thanks for continuing to suffer for us.

Yeah, a random plot isn't funny. Almost always, a mark of good-bad is that the plot has some semblance of coherence, so you can mock all the inconsistencies and senselessness.

Also, looking back at my CT LP, my commentary was WAY better. What happened? I'm not making enough jokes... MUST MAKE MORE JOKES... Although, it's hard to make good jokes when a hack is just romping through boringness. Hopefully this one will be better.

Well everyone, today we're starting RAGE EMBLEM! It was a project made by Mr. Night, but it has no working download link or public release at the moment (the thread is here, if you're curious). So, I got this extra-special bonus beta to help test things out, and reveal to the world either his shame or his success! Or, from what I've played so far... both! Let's get to it!

Rage Emblem: Episode 1: Prologue: Part 1: It gets better

This isn't a fitting title at all. It doesn't make sense. Maybe it's meant to be ironic, but...

(If you're wondering, this hack has NO Jaigen)

Only time will tell if this gets used...

We start in this unremarkable village on a map that is more-or-less nice, but also unremarkable.

And here, we have our main villain, plotting to use the Bandit Nuke to destroy all of the world's bandits, even if it means taking out all the villages in the process...

No. This is our main character, and he actually has a pretty sweet portrait. Most of the stuff in this hack is both a splice and a recolor, but Mr. Night did a pretty good job with this one.

Cool bro: We will defend this village while the town fortifications against the roaming bandits are being completed.

Oh, we're defending a village so they can defend themselves? That's kind of an interesting, but if no one in the village can actually fight, how would it work out?

Cool bro: Do not concern yourself about the price. Just let us do the hard work.

Great. We're the generous mercenaries, aka, impoverished forever!

Villady: Ah, Thank You! I will go check our progress, excuse me.

Oh, hey there, other splice! This one isn't as good, but still better than Corrupt Theocracy!

(Look at those eyes...I think he's a vampire...)

Cool bro: Yeah, seems to be a pretty simple job this time. Just a guard mission.

Splice: Unless random bandits DO show up.

Zel. DO YOU REALIZE WHAT YOU JUST DID.

YOU TEMPTED FATE.

THE 1% CHANCE THAT SOMETHING ELSE WOULD HAPPEN IS NOW GONE.

Splice: I for one wouldn’t mind a bit of a workout. To make this low paid job you talked us into seem worth it.

Really, a lot of this hack's dialogue could use a serious proofread. I have reached my "constructive criticism quota" on the matter and will now begin mocking it if it happens again.

Wait what? No! YOU CAN'T DO THAT! That's NOT what FE characters DO!

Whoa, who are YOU? You have Heath's awesome hair(and it apparently extends to your mustache and beard), and...some other parts.

...Oh, right! He predicted bandits! Why am I not surprised?

Heath hair: I have spotted bandits coming from the south of here by my comrades.

Splice: Finally! TO THE FRAY!

No need to get so excited!

Nope.

Heath hair: We wouldn’t be in our professions if the world didn’t have it’s problems. Now let us catch up before he leaves us nothing to do once again.

Actually, he's right? Why is Mr. Merc wishing for peace? He would be quite simply out of a job!

There's just a boss? Did Rye just ASSUME that he had a full army with him?

He used Zagan? There are MANY better bandits for a job like this...

ShouldhavebeenGheb: Give us all your gold and ale’ then maybe, just maybe, you won’t all die!

Well, at least he gets straight to the point!

Uh... BURN!

SHBG: … Grr… Fine! Have your deathwish!

OH MAN, HE'S GOING AGAINST HIS ESTABLISHED CHARACTERIZATION

And then all the bandits appear everywhere. At least they do it AT ONCE, instead of one-at-a-time.

Yeah, there's a TON of them.

Cool bro: It will be a good idea not to draw this fight out in case one gets past our defenses and destroys the town.

So yeah, we have to protect the town. Bandits destroying it = game over.

Heath hair: Obviously kill the boss and they shall scatter no?

Cool bro: Agreed.

Splice: Then let’s go already!

END DIALOGUE

This is it. The map is one screen. And we have TONS of bandits attacking, FROM ALL DIRECTIONS. This chapter isn't terrible, but it has a few problems, which I'll get into soon.

But first, our heroes!

Zel has really standard mercenary stats, a good weapon selection, and a misspelled description. I can't comment on him when I don't have his growths, so we'll see how he turns out!

(That is some crazy good speed though)

It's been buffed, wow.

It's a brave weapon with a ton of uses, but it is HEAVY.

Oh, awesome! We get this totally cool sword to counter with when the game throws BS at us! I'm going to try to refrain from using it unless I ABSOLUTELY have to.

You'd think Miguel would be the crutch character, but no, he's really lame. He has serious accuracy problems, and he doesn't have quite enough of anything else to make up for it at the moment.

I kind of thought Rye would be a bard when I first saw him, but I guess not. Rye should be fine as long as he stays in forests and sticks to knifing enemies. In fact, if you compare his stats to Zel's, you'll see he's better in every way except for defenses.

Also, the description reveals an entirely new facet of his personality. He has yet to have his establishing character moment.

(Also, the weapon ranks at the start are crazy high. C's and B's where we'd normally have D's and E's.)

Apparently, Caelin still exists! And this guy sucks! I'm sure we can beat him.

The brigands on their own are no threat...

BUT SOME OF THEM HAVE THESE. Remember, we have two sword-users and one axe user, so we have no real way to counter them. There are like 6-7 around the map, all around so Miguel can't just go and beat them up, so we WILL be forced to use our sword users against them. And they kill our sword users in two hits. Yeah.

Oh, AND we have no healing items but Rye's elixir. Fun!

As I said, MAJOR accuracy problems. He'll be trying to handle the bandits over there.

Rye's gonna hang out down here, and knife anyone who attacks him.

Hey, I know the goal was to defend the village, but we can work around that!

*GASP* WHAT HAVE I DONE? WHAT HAVE I DOOOONNNEEEE!!!????!?

And so we have this ENTIRELY DESERVED game over.

After sending Zel somewhere else, we see what combat engagements against these guys look like. I'll save my comments for the very end, but I'll say a little bit now: Luck-based.

Rye, you're not helping. I think he missed twice, even.

Zel fares MUCH better, but that's only because he fought iron axe guys.

Great, now we're EVEN MORE surrounded!

(Note the 11-turn time limit. You'd think time would be on our side, but nope. It's way more than you could ever need, honestly.)

I just equipped it to see what the combat stats were, and something doesn't look right...

WOAH.

Miguel and the screenshot screws up. This is the WEIRDEST POSE.

Rye sits on the village, so nobody destroys it!

Some of the bandits have glitched AI, they'll try to sit on the fort even when they're at full health and ignore me. It's actually rather helpful.

Ow! He got a level! OW!

Apparently, yes!

NEXT TIME; We actually win! And I give more criticisms and explanations!

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

i'd say it would be nice to have one more unit to make it less "luck based" as i dunno if it is such or not yet.

[Zan Partizanne]

Prologs usually tend to be "sword-friendly" (if the lord is a sword user), but this one definitely does not belong to them...

Edited April 8, 2015 by Mister IceTeaPeach