[FE10] Radiant Dawn Reverse Recruitment [Complete]

[Vicious Sal]

[Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn - Reverse Recruitment]

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn has always been my favorite game from a gameplay perspective. And since I didn't really mind the faults/inconsistencies with the story, it is a game I keep coming back to. However, the balancing of the game is quite strange, and at some point I'll want to start a balancing patch. RD is not the most hacked game and since there's not as much in the form of resources compared to FE7 etc, I thought I'd start this by learning the hex editting one step at a time. So that's where this patch comes in. The premise of the Reverse Recruitment is rather simple, and also fun for the drafting community, since there probably hasn't been one of those yet. It's also a great way for me to learn the inner workings of RD one step at a time, since you have to apply the same basic action to pretty much every character; swapping them with another. However, script dialogue, base convo's that recruit people, talk conversations te get people to join and other events all pop up sooner or later and complicate the process of inserting a new character. It's always one thing at a time though, which gives me a great way of easing myself into the depths of the game's code. And thus we arrive at this topic, where I'll be posting updates sporadically since I have a job and busy life (and the weather is just too good to stay inside atm). I would really appreciate it if people would give me feedback on what can be done better, point out bugs and tell if characters need buffs or nerfs. I hope you all enjoy, and thank you for playing!

[Patches]

Patch 1.3 for the entirety of Part 3 is here! You can download the patch file here: Patches - Google Drive

Just go into the folder labeled "Patches" and download the patch file, xdelta is very easy to use.

*IMPORTANT: There are still some bugs here and there, which are being worked on. the game is altered up to 3-E, though you can continue playing beyond that. be sure to check the "Known issues" file to see what is known to be wrong and please do notify me in the appropriate discord channel of in this topic of any new issues.

 

[How to patch]

The patch is made through xdelta, and patches can be applied to ISO files with it's patche program, which can easily be found through a quick google search or in the drive. The only thing you'll need besides the patch file is a RFEP file, which is the European Radiant Dawn ISO. I cannot provide it here

[Discord]

If you want to discuss the game on other platforms, a Discord link can be clicked here: https://discord.gg/EyPv9py The Discord also has channels for suggestions, bug reports etc so please do come on over!

[Excel character swap sheet]

You can find the link with the character excel sheet below, you can also find some notes about the excel sheet below, which go into the thought process of making the sheet.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18dYBbU1PJIsWkgLBgw23kt9oQxH52wTM/view?usp=sharing

 

*Small Note, the game has had some minor tweaks compared to the Excel sheet. So not everything is 100% accurate.

[Notes]

1] Ok, so there are some things that had to happen to make this a workable Reverse Recruitment. Mostly because there are three herons in this game and if you at some point get two in the same army, the game turns into a one-turn curbstomp. To work around this you'll notice that sometimes units that join at the same time are in a different order than the "recruitment page" on the main site. For example, Nasir and Gareth join at the same time, so you could swap Leonardo with Gareth and Edward with Nasir or vice versa. 

2] The Black Knight is not a unit that is allied for the entire game, so he also does not partake in the list and is regarded as a free unit as long as he is part of your army. He is however sporting a new set of armor.

3] When you remove the herons and the Black Knight from the list, you are left with 69 playable characters. So unit number 35 does not switch places since that unit is smack dab in the middle. The units who is exactly in the middle is, in this case, Ike! Having Ike stay as the main character makes it a lot easier since this does not require me to alter seizing ability and things like godslaying skills.

4] Regarding the herons, they swap with each other. Leanne takes Rafiel's Place. Rafiel takes Reyson's place and Reyson takes Leanne's place. Good luck with new positioning and vigor strategies!

5] The Light mage and Light Sage classes now promote into Chancellor, since Micaiah arrives in Tier 3. They all keep the chancellor model and as seen in the excel sheet Lehran has altered growths and promotion gains. The same goes for Sanaki. Sanaki starts as a Thundersage, almost ready to promote. She turns into her regular Empress class.

5] The worst unit in the game swaps with the best one, Lyre swaps with Haar. Which is rather amusing. Fiona swaps with Tibarn, both have saviour which is nice. There are some fun things to find out.

6] Elincia arrives later, so she has altered growths and bases, since she does not have a Tier two model and all falcoknights are already in use so I can't immediately throw her model over them.

 

 

[FAQ]

 

Q: "How exactly do I play this?"

 

A: You'll need a working emulator (dolphin is recommended), a fresh FE10 (EU) ISO, and a program used to patch the file (to the ISO) I have provided. xDelta works fine. Patch the ISO file using that program.* 

 

Q: "What are you trying to accomplish with this hack?"

 

A: Mostly this Hack is a challenge to myself. I have thought about impproving Radiant dawn for years and now I'm finally taking the steps to learn how to do that. Besides this, a Reverse Recruitment hack would be a nice new way to play the game for casual gamers, but also for drafters. This is possible with most Fire Emlem games at the moment, but not with the GC/Wii games.

 

 

Q: "The game offers almost the exact same items as before, why do I get a Brave Sword when i need laguz items?!"

 

A: Adjusting items to suit your new units is something that has been added. Currently units get some items that will benefit them directly, like laguz stones, but also some more indirect advantages. Expect the Cards to be valuable in the early stages of the game when you need to be able to attack without taking a counterattack. I welcome any and all feedback regarding items. I do not want to bombard the player with laguz stones, so things like shine barriers and pure waters are items i would like to play around with.

 

 

Q: "What difficulty should I play?"

 

A: Normal mode. 

 

 

Q: "Why are the cutscenes so weird?"

 

A: The game wants to load the normal characters, but can't so a lot of weird movements happen and it's like ghosts are talking. It has no gameplay impact and cannot be changed. 

 

 

Q: "Any general tips?"

 

A: You will be getting only a few Olivi Grasses and Stones in the beginning of the game at the moment, but you will also be getting two blood tides, night tide and white tide, so positioning is key!

 

 

Q: "I will be getting Royals in part one, this game will be a cakewalk!"

 

A: I would not count on it, most laguz are balanced in such a way that while they may be strong and have high Hp, their defenses are lowered quite a bit. This also means growths are adjusted, which means BEXP might be more useful for them now, instead of just giving HP, Skill and Luck. High level early laguz hardly gain exp however, so be sure to not overly rely on them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 24 by Vicious Sal

[BlueHairedBaby]

Wow, it's awesome someone is working on this! I can't wait for the full hack to be released, Radiant Dawn still doesn't have much in the way of a hacking scene. I will play some of the early chapters soon and let you know what I think. 

[Popers1328]

A Radiant Dawn RR run sounds like a lot of fun. I'll definitely try this out.
I'll probably use a modded Wii U to play the game because my computer doesn't run dolphin very well.
I'll give some feedback later.

[Vicious Sal]

I've updated the OP with a new patch that adds Bastian to the playable roster, he replaces Volug. I was unaware of the fact that PPF studio needs a manual .ppf extension added. So the previous patch did not work. I believe this one does work, please send a Pm or post here if you're having troubles.

[flare9]

Great fun playing part 1 with a Dragon team 

[Jonahtron]

Lyre swaps with Haar, huh? How is that gonna work with the sky map? Is she just gonna not show up that chapter and just be in the battle preps for 2-E? I doubt non-Flying units have movement data for the sky.

 

Also, Elincia is replacing Sigrun. Sigrun’s a level 19 2nd tier unit, while Elincia’s a level 1 third tier unit. That’s such a marginal difference in level that you might as well keep her the same.

Edited May 28, 2019 by Jonahtron

[Vicious Sal]

Wow, didn't expect this topic to still be around. 

 

Anyway, long time no see! I've got an actual update! 

In 2018 I ran into a wall called 1-6, the game treated it as two maps, but they are counted as 1 in the game folders. This meant that when entering 1-6, the cursor would start out in 1-6-2, where no units would be spawned. You couldn't get to your army that was fielded in 1-6-1. 

Now however, with more knowledge and a very helpful tool made by HeartlessSeph, editing Radiant Dawn is a lot easier. So expect more updates to come. The hack has been restarted, and I even have a screenshot to show my progress. 

 

https://imgur.com/a/gQLePt1[/IMG]

 

What a lovely sight, I just cleared 1-6-1 and now the maps line up just fine. This means part 1 will be ready quite soon.

Edited May 18, 2020 by Vicious Sal

[Vicious Sal]

Okay, big update! I hope this one will work for everyone, but I'm not expecting it to. Reason behind it is that the ISO I use probably was expanded a bit compared to the ones found on google. So the patch might not line up. If people are having trouble. I will try to get a fix out As soon as possible with different instructions. Sadly that will mean some manual installation will be required. But lets hope it just works.

Patch 1.0 for the entirety of Part 1 is here! You can download the patch file here: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1BIVVhXL-v8p-orRJt8BRU-NWvMBkooJu?usp=sharing

Patch 1.0 is here, and brings almost the entirety of Part 1 with it. Only 1-9 is currently bugged. No allies spawn in base so items, shop and more will cause a crash. Just start the battle and sweep the map with the Black Knight to continue to 1-E.Please read the first post for more information.

Another thing of note, because units change, the in game events all look very silly, with ghosts talking or strange movement. this is unavoidable, but does not impact the game.

And here we have a showcase!

 

 

 

 

[Kruggov]

One thing I noticed in the video.

Why is BK using Zelguis' model? Bug or stylistic choice?

[CultivatedFinch]

Trying to apply the patch following the instructions, but xdelta gives me checksum mismatches, and a patched game with PPF-o-matic either crashes or doesn't start up at all.  I've tried multiple versions of the game and none of them work.  Any suggestions?

[Vicious Sal]

On 5/24/2020 at 6:14 AM, CultivatedFinch said:

Trying to apply the patch following the instructions, but xdelta gives me checksum mismatches, and a patched game with PPF-o-matic either crashes or doesn't start up at all.  I've tried multiple versions of the game and none of them work.  Any suggestions?

I've updated the patch in the drive, and included some tools that should help. The patch now includes only modified pieces of the rom that are in equal length compared to the base rom. The rest has to be done manually since Ppf o Matic does not allow patches where the modified rom has been expanded. So those parts of the patch you will have to install yourself thorugh wiiscrubber.
It's not hard luckily, just a bit tedious. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

On 5/23/2020 at 7:31 AM, Kruggov said:

One thing I noticed in the video.

Why is BK using Zelguis' model? Bug or stylistic choice?

 

Just a quick model change. Seems only fair to swap Bk with Zelgius if everyone else is being reversed.

Edited May 25, 2020 by Vicious Sal

[CultivatedFinch]

Alright, it seems to have worked, but is this supposed to happen?

Spoiler

 

 

Again, following instructions exactly, and this is how things turned out.

Edited May 25, 2020 by CultivatedFinch

[Vicious Sal]

8 hours ago, CultivatedFinch said:

Alright, it seems to have worked, but is this supposed to happen?

  Hide contents

 

 

Again, following instructions exactly, and this is how things turned out.

I think I forgot one file for manual insertion. It’ll be in the drive in an hout or two. 

[Vicious Sal]

14 hours ago, CultivatedFinch said:

Alright, it seems to have worked, but is this supposed to happen?

  Hide contents

 

 

Again, following instructions exactly, and this is how things turned out.

Update: 

The last file is in the drive and the instructions have been updated. If there is anything not working, please let me know. I look forward to hearing any bugs/ mistakes and I also want to know if units are viable or not. Units like Giffca might be slightly too weak to get started, so please let me know. 

 

 

On other updates: I've started on part two, and I'm also working on cleaning up the files of part one. By repointing everything i can make some more space and maybe reduce the amount of manual patching that needs to be done.

[CultivatedFinch]

Everything seems to be in working order now. Although this doesn't make the game unplayable, on escape maps, some units that aren't Micaiah's replacement end the map when they escape anyway. Nasir also counts as Laura on the third map, and characters will sometimes talk through other characters (Micaiah has a boss conversation on Chapter 2 despite Kurthnaga initiating combat).

[Vicious Sal]

21 hours ago, CultivatedFinch said:

Everything seems to be in working order now. Although this doesn't make the game unplayable, on escape maps, some units that aren't Micaiah's replacement end the map when they escape anyway. Nasir also counts as Laura on the third map, and characters will sometimes talk through other characters (Micaiah has a boss conversation on Chapter 2 despite Kurthnaga initiating combat).

All of these have been noted, some of them, like boss convo's, won't be changed, but the escape will be attempted to be fixed. I'll upload an editable file into the drive soon where people can list problems/bugs/noteworthy stuff per chapter.

 

On another note: Started on 2-P, and Since Haar gets replaced by Lyre, cats learned to fly. 

[CultivatedFinch]

Another bizarre thing is that while on the map where Tauroneo joins, his replacement squad starts as playable units (which I technically don't have a problem with since babysitting dumb green units isn't fun times), and three of yours are force deployed in return. Lehran, for some reason, is able to be removed from deployment.

[Vicious Sal]

Big update announcement!

 

Part 2 is finished! A Patch will be coming up soon, all feedback is welcomed! Expect a list of changes to follow suit and please do drop by in the discord channel. =]

For now, here are some pictures to show what has been happening so far:

 

I hope you'll all enjoy once the patch rolls out. It features many improvements and bugfixes since the last patch, so look forward to that!

 

[Vicious Sal]

A new patch has been uploaded to the drive! The current patch goes up all the way to 3-E, though there are some hiccups here and there.

 

What's new:

- The game works a lot more smoothly, cutscenes are less buggy.

- Bargains have been adjusted to your party's needs.

- Some base stats and growths have been slightly altered

- Lire can move on clouds

- Chests and some hidden items have been adjusted

- Units that normally arrive/escape etc now do this correctly

- And much much more!

 

There is also a known issues file now where bugs can be added. Be sure to also mention them in the bug report channel! You can play the game all the way to the end probably, though from 4-P onward characters are in weird classes. Some other characters during part 3 have some bugs, like Marcia and Nephenee being able to shift. Besure not to click this because it causes a crash. Other than that, everyone else up to 3-E is reversed, with stats altered. Let me know what you think!

 

 

 

[14:40]

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1-r6itdSrozOrV71HNZv54OS3KjqBM3Dy

[CultivatedFinch]

Unfortunately, opening the ROM in WiiScrubber gives me an "out of memory" error after doing the PPF patch.

[Vicious Sal]

3 hours ago, CultivatedFinch said:

Unfortunately, opening the ROM in WiiScrubber gives me an "out of memory" error after doing the PPF patch.

Did you still have the patcher tool open whilst opening Wiiscrubber? 

[CultivatedFinch]

No. I simply open WiiScrubber after the fact, load the ISO and it just eats up RAM for a few minutes until I get the error.  And it only happens after patching the ROM, never before.

[SN_ivan]

Does anybody know how this is progressing? I am very interested on it.

[Vicious Sal]

It's time for an update and with the update, an entire new patch!

Patch 3.1 is the best one yet since xdelta is now operational and has made the patching process incredibly easy! Just one file, one patch and one program. No more need for wiiscrubber etc.

So what does the latest patch do? First off, for the changes to take effect you'll need to start a new game.

- Lots of bugfixes, that's almost literally it. No new maps have been fixed. 3-E is still the furthest point that has active changes. 

- Caineghis is no longer a villager

- Sigrun should now recieve a Spear instead of Amiti

- The herons might work as intended, though this has not been tested.

- Bastian and Tanith should work as normal beorc, though the scenes outside of battle sometimes area bit wonky because they expect Laguz.

- A few classes that show up before part 4 have been changed ahead of time. (Tormod for example)

- Muarim should end up with the correct stats in 3-E, he might still kill the Bk in 3-4

- Fiona no longer jumps to level 20

- Aran is no longer a Black dragon in 3-E

- Ilyana is no longer a red dragon in 3-E

- Rhys no longer turns into short hair Lucia

- Micaiah stays as lehran after promoting Other than that, there are some slight changes.

 

- Marado Knights have slightly higher bases to make them a bit more durable

- Giffca is slightly stronger, though not tankier

- Ena and Gareth are broken in this patch, they have an additional +10 to every stat. (this is purely for quicker playtesting and will be reversted later)

- Volke is slightly stronger

- Stefan is slightly stronger and a bit more durable

- Tibarn has slightly better offenses

- Mist has not been buffed, sorry guys, no Florete yet

-*Nephenee and Marcia still crash the game when shifting, this issue is one I am actively hunting down. Use at your own risk.

 

 The known issues file in the drive has been updated.
 

 

So with that I hope you all enjoy!

[Vicious Sal]

Since editting the OP is apparently a cardinal sin and not allowed:

 

 [Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn - Reverse Recruitment]

Fire Emblem Radiant Dawn has always been my favorite game from a gameplay perspective. And since I didn't really mind the faults/inconsistencies with the story, it is a game I keep coming back to. However, the balancing of the game is quite strange, and at some point I'll want to start a balancing patch. RD is not the most hacked game and since there's not as much in the form of resources compared to FE7 etc, I thought I'd start this by learning the hex editting one step at a time. So that's where this patch comes in. The premise of the Reverse Recruitment is rather simple, and also fun for the drafting community, since there probably hasn't been one of those yet. It's also a great way for me to learn the inner workings of RD one step at a time, since you have to apply the same basic action to pretty much every character; swapping them with another. However, script dialogue, base convo's that recruit people, talk conversations te get people to join and other events all pop up sooner or later and complicate the process of inserting a new character. It's always one thing at a time though, which gives me a great way of easing myself into the depths of the game's code. And thus we arrive at this topic, where I'll be posting updates sporadically since I have a job and busy life (and the weather is just too good to stay inside atm). I would really appreciate it if people would give me feedback on what can be done better, point out bugs and tell if characters need buffs or nerfs. I hope you all enjoy, and thank you for playing!

[Patches]

Patch 4.0 for the entire gameis here! You can download the patch file here: Patches - Google Drive

Just go into the folder labeled "Patches" and download the patch file, xdelta is very easy to use.

*IMPORTANT: There might be some bugs here and there, which are being worked on. Please let me know in the discord channel "bug reports" if you encounter any! There is also a "known issues" document that has listed some current minor problems.

 

[How to patch]

The patch is made through xdelta, and patches can be applied to ISO files with it's patcher program, which can easily be found through a quick google search or in the drive. The only thing you'll need besides the patch file is a RFEP file, which is the European Radiant Dawn ISO. I cannot provide it here

[Discord]

If you want to discuss the game on other platforms, a Discord link can be clicked here: https://discord.gg/EyPv9py The Discord also has channels for suggestions, bug reports etc so please do come on over!

[Excel character swap sheet]

You can find the link with the character excel sheet below, you can also find some notes about the excel sheet below, which go into the thought process of making the sheet.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/18dYBbU1PJIsWkgLBgw23kt9oQxH52wTM/view?usp=sharing

 

*Small Note, the game has had some minor tweaks compared to the Excel sheet. So not everything is 100% accurate.

[Notes]

1] Ok, so there are some things that had to happen to make this a workable Reverse Recruitment. Mostly because there are three herons in this game and if you at some point get two in the same army, the game turns into a one-turn curbstomp. To work around this you'll notice that sometimes units that join at the same time are in a different order than the "recruitment page" on the main site. For example, Nasir and Gareth join at the same time, so you could swap Leonardo with Gareth and Edward with Nasir or vice versa. 

2] The Black Knight is not a unit that is allied for the entire game, so he also does not partake in the list and is regarded as a free unit as long as he is part of your army. He is however sporting a new set of armor.

3] When you remove the herons and the Black Knight from the list, you are left with 69 playable characters. So unit number 35 does not switch places since that unit is smack dab in the middle. The units who is exactly in the middle is, in this case, Ike! Having Ike stay as the main character makes it a lot easier since this does not require me to alter seizing ability and things like godslaying skills.

4] Regarding the herons, they swap with each other. Leanne takes Rafiel's Place. Rafiel takes Reyson's place and Reyson takes Leanne's place. Good luck with new positioning and vigor strategies!

5] The Light mage and Light Sage classes now promote into Chancellor, since Micaiah arrives in Tier 3. They all keep the chancellor model and as seen in the excel sheet Lehran has altered growths and promotion gains. The same goes for Sanaki. Sanaki starts as a Thundersage, almost ready to promote. She turns into her regular Empress class.

5] The worst unit in the game swaps with the best one, Lyre swaps with Haar. Which is rather amusing. Fiona swaps with Tibarn, both have saviour which is nice. There are some fun things to find out.

6] Elincia arrives later, so she has altered growths and bases, since she does not have a Tier two model and all falcoknights are already in use so I can't immediately throw her model over them.

 

 

[FAQ]

 

Q: "How exactly do I play this?"

 

A: You'll need a working emulator (dolphin is recommended), a fresh FE10 (EU) ISO, and a program used to patch the file (to the ISO) I have provided. xDelta works fine. Patch the ISO file using that program.* 

 

Q: "What are you trying to accomplish with this hack?"

 

A: Mostly this Hack is a challenge to myself. I have thought about impproving Radiant dawn for years and now I'm finally taking the steps to learn how to do that. Besides this, a Reverse Recruitment hack would be a nice new way to play the game for casual gamers, but also for drafters. This is possible with most Fire Emlem games at the moment, but not with the GC/Wii games.

 

 

Q: "The game offers almost the exact same items as before, why do I get a Brave Sword when i need laguz items?!"

 

A: Adjusting items to suit your new units is something that has been added. Currently units get some items that will benefit them directly, like laguz stones, but also some more indirect advantages. Expect the Cards to be valuable in the early stages of the game when you need to be able to attack without taking a counterattack. I welcome any and all feedback regarding items. I do not want to bombard the player with laguz stones, so things like shine barriers and pure waters are items i would like to play around with.

Do note that as of part 4, shops and stores more or less have no significant changes. As your army is large enough to not warrant any further changes. The items listed often are sufficient for what you need.

 

 

Q: "What difficulty should I play?"

 

A: Normal mode. 

 

 

Q: "Why are the cutscenes so weird?"

 

A: The game wants to load the normal characters, but can't so a lot of weird movements happen and it's like ghosts are talking. It has no gameplay impact and cannot be changed. 

 

 

Q: "Any general tips?"

 

A: You will be getting only a few Olivi Grasses and Stones in the beginning of the game at the moment, but you will also be getting two blood tides, night tide and white tide, so positioning is key!

 

 

Q: "I will be getting Royals in part one, this game will be a cakewalk!"

 

A: I would not count on it, most laguz are balanced in such a way that while they may be strong and have high Hp, their defenses are lowered quite a bit. This also means growths are adjusted, which means BEXP might be more useful for them now, instead of just giving HP, Skill and Luck. High level early laguz hardly gain exp however, so be sure to not overly rely on them. 

[Credits]

 

- LordMewtwo73 for his invaluable help when I was stuck. His fresh eyes have seen errors that I had missed multiple times. His knowledge was of great value!

- The contributors to the FE10 hacking notes topic. The combined knowledge is key to gettng started.

- HeartlessSeph, for creating an FE10DATA.cms editor, which greatly reduced the amount of work that had to be done!