TheNiddo

Hrm, looks like that little issue got missed maybe. I know there's another map where that used to be an issue (if MUCH more difficult to pull off), its now impossible because... well I'll explain why once you get to that map and point out the difference. Though this map did do a good job of showing why we have pre-promotes around. Your units just don't cut it for when the mobs get really thick without the pre-promotes. Its all about figuring out when you need to use them, and when you can carefully kite enemies away to feed your other units.

Assuming I can figure out how to do that on my Mac and do those two extra battles, will do. I've had to extract saves before to move them to a different emulator, but those were DS games not GBA games. Probably just have to look up the instructions for OpenEmu again. ...Though on that note I don't even know if my save files would work for you. OpenEmu is Mac exclusive. Due to how its programmed in order to run about a dozen different emulators it can't work on PCs.

Taking Josie over to take out the boss ASAP is a perfectly valid option, but then you lose out on all of those levels you gained. And the village. And the droppable items.

Its great to see another person giving this hack an LP. Its quite an enjoyable game. Fun fact: Andrei used to have less Con, and his personal sword wasn't what it is now. It used to weigh more, not have bonus damage, and only deal I think 1 point more than a Trained Sword? (Been several versions back, don't remember the exact numbers). So in using it he would lose like 3 or 4 AS, in exchange for +1 attack and +15 crit. Still, I have a soft spot for him. One of my favourite characters in the whole game.

Forgot I never showed you my characters

Its only my number 1 mecha anime. >_> <_< I just love its 90s cheese. Just... don't watch Tekkaman Blade 2. Ever. (Truth be told, I don't know if D-Boy would be the easiest character in the world to RP. Gotta have that typical 90s edginess without going overboard and still keeping him humanized.)

Alright, so I finished the current version of the hack. A lot of good things. I like the music a lot in the game first of all. I'm rather music focused when it comes to video games, and I like the selections. Art work is pretty good for the most part. Hellios' hood top seems off to me, but that general style just... always seems off to me. -shrugs-. Lots of nice custom weapon sprites. Good amounts of creativity. A few times the creativity lead to frustration in the map design (didn't know in the stealth mission to visit the houses at first because the enemy range included the houses. First fog of war map... those stationary monsters. The fact I couldn't see them meant I kept screwing up my positioning and getting slaughtered.) but overall it was a nice change to the standard FE design. Weapon variety was very nice, stat boost items were creative if oddly common. A few of the character recruitments could have used slightly better clearing up (My previous misunderstanding with Rya and Cristopher, I completely missed recruiting Cattelya because I didn't even consider the possibility of her being recruitable.) In the end they were mostly on me, but some of the wording or lack of communication I think could have been cleared up. The plot itself, while basic in some ways, has some good twists to it. I accidentally spoiled the big one when trying to look up the stealth mission stuff, and like somebody else pointed out there's a bit of an interface spoiler that can't really be avoided, but the pacing of the plot is overall well done. I just really only had one major grip... the dialogue. I read in another post that you didn't feel you could do older english sounding dialogue. I think it would serve your hack as a whole if you gave it a shot. You don't have to go that far with it, FE itself doesn't really, but as it stands right now the dialogue is... distractingly modern. To the point where it hurts the enjoyment of the hack, which is a shame because otherwise its really well done. But there were so many moments where I was rolling my eyes, wincing, or taken out of the moment because of the wording of things. "Brainwashing" was a big one for me, but general flow of dialogue in some parts had problems as well. Schwarz, he was a big offender. The moment he opened his mouth I hated him. Benched him ASAP. Didn't get a single EXP point. He was beyond modern, he was annoying internet troll. Its just... not funny. Its just annoying and distracting. Like I said you don't have to go far with trying to make it sound "Middle Ages" like. Its really less that and more de-modernizing. Take out modern phrases, references, and words. Even just getting somebody to read over your script and make the minor edits for you would go a long ways. Probably less all caps when Fa is angry as well. I get the purpose its trying to serve, but it just ends up being distracting again. Overall I really enjoyed this hack. Its creative. The story is serviceable. The maps are really well done and the gameplay is balanced out well. It just has one really jarring flaw in it.

Are you going to use Tekkaman Blade's sprite as well? Favourite unit in J along with the Shining/God Gundam.

I have the avatar for this dang it, I should be auto-included

They did. Even briefly showed up on the next map, but were sent away with a "You need to rest, you're still badly injured from the last fight" Its the "still" part that made me think that maybe it was just a one map penalty for not keeping them alive, since their "death" quotes were rather lacking in death.

Bah. I stopped in the middle of the map, probably missed one recruitment combination attempt. And they had the worst luck RNG wise. Welp, restart time it is.

Playing through this hack for the first time. I'll leave full feedback once I finished what is available, but I have a question. The archer and the warrior duo, who are NPCs in the first map they appear in. If they die on that map are you supposed to get them later on (like the wording on the next map kinda suggests), or do you miss them for good outside of story cutscenes? Because I'm at the first monster chapter now and things are getting hairy. Don't have those two.

@ above: Mac's don't have other patching options. Its Multipatch or nothing when it comes to GBA games. So if it ends up being due to the patcher he's kinda out of luck as far as this site is concerned. No posting ROMs and all. I'm assuming you aren't trying to apply multiple patches to the same copy of FE7: Multipatch doesn't allow for that. Its a one and done. Trying to apply a patch on top of a patch will fail with an error every time. Like I said before, sometimes OpenEmu has problems playing certain ROMs with patches. Every DS game I had problems with, were ones with translation patches. Try a different emulator. Either VBA (if you can find a version that works with Mac, I know a few years ago the newest VBA and the then newest Mac OS wouldn't play nicely together), or No$GBA. Also check to make sure the GBA emulator within OpenEmu is up to date.

Maybe try another copy of the FE7 ROM? You have the right programs (Multipatch is your only option as far as I know). Occasionally individual copies of ROMs can be finicky. EDIT: Also try multiple emulators. Some can be finicky for random reasons. For example, I have several DS games that won't work with OpenEmu but will with No$GBA. No rhyme or reason to it, just how it is.

Another completely nitpicky thing I just noticed when watching a cutscene. Not particularly important, but hey, details.

Clare doesn't have great magic no, but that's kinda all the more reason why maybe she should be off of anima arguably. Alicia is crushing her in magic, Rayden is edging her out, and Layla is going to have a higher anima ranking. Her only real advantage is that she's on horseback. I don't think anybody is going to be expecting her to be killing with magic, better to let her at least have a less common role in the magic area imo. Of course, I don't have that support so I have no clue if they talk about anima magic or something there, lol. I thought about Burst and the Wyverns as well. It certainly cuts into the Ice Cage's suggested niche. And of course, the problem with raising the base damage to make it 1SK pegasus knights with the bonus damage is that you're starting to make it too strong overall early on in Ash Mode. I mean in its suggested form it would be certainly nice up to chapter 13, but afterwards ya it starts to lose its appeal. I thought about maybe 4 MT + Brave effect alongside anti-Flier bonus, but Brave effects are stupid strong and probably makes the tome too good again unless you make it weigh like a brick. That would have to be like, 4/70/10/12/Fliers + Brave. Doable, but really difficult to balance out well in all stages of Ash Mode. Would be trying to find that point where with average magic Alicia can 1RK Pegasus Knights before they could attack her back, but not dominating everything else she attacked with that tome. I'm not even sure if that balance really exists due to how strong the Brave effect is. Is it possible to make it only deal bonus damage to Pegasus Knights instead of both Pegasus Knights and Wyvrens? If that's possible, might be able to bump up its damage a tad to say 7 from the original suggestion I had last post. Still less damage than Burst against regular units/Burst is still the go to option against Wyverns, still an important niche early game and still not necessarily horrible mid game at least. Ideally it would be useful enough that you've used it up by about the time you're promoting her. The "super crazy I'm not sure this is possible" option is make it Pegasus Knights and Cavaliers instead of Pegasus Knights and Wyverns or Cavaliers and Knights, along with the said 7 base damage and lower weight.

Double post, but got to the second new map. Thoughts: 1) A bit frantic if you only have one healer, but certainly flows more quickly than the last version. Felt pretty well balanced enemy wise, liked that the thieves take the long route out so your other group has a chance to cut them off. 2) Liked the touch of the stealable items. --- Other random thoughts that others may or may not have said at one point or another: 1) Clare should get light magic instead of anima magic upon promotion. We already have Alicia, Rayden, and Layla for that magic class. Don't really need a fourth, and moving her over to light magic makes a nice balance. Dark has Ash and Alicia. Light has Katarina, Rayden and Clare. Anima has Alicia, Rayden and Layla. Instead of a 2/2/4 split we have a 2/3/3 split. 2) Alicia's Ice Cage tome needs some help. In all of my playthroughs I've never ran out of the first one or really come close. The problem is that cavaliers and knights already have crap res, so the bonus damage to them doesn't mean much. Early on it can be nice, but then the tome's weight kicks in and Alicia can't double the cavaliers and can't quite 1SK them. Later on, she still sometimes can't double the cavaliers and its overkill on the knights. It most situations, using a Fire or Thunder tome is superior. It also really doesn't stack up well against the Thunder tome. Same damage, -5 Hit, +5 Crit, +4 Weight (and against 7 con that means -3 AS). Ash's Sink tome is worthwhile because even if it has lower damage than Flux, it nukes mages while having very low weight. Mages of course have high resistance and thus the bonus damage against them is extremely helpful and Ash has a chance to double them. It can also serve as an emergency "I really need to double in order to kill" tome. Have you considered lowering its damage, its weight, and then making it effective against fliers? It makes sense for multiple reasons. Ice is pretty deadly to flying things (see: ice on airplane wings), pegasus knights can be a threat earlier on due to higher res + high speed vs squishy sword users like Nala, and wyvern riders are always "must kill ASAP". So instead of 8/70/10/10/Infantry, make it say, 5/80/10/7/Fliers. Compared to the Fire tome it trades 10 hit for 10 crit + bonus damage to Fliers. Seems like a reasonable personal tome, and would certainly be very usable. Maaaaybe bump its damage up to 6 but in return bump its weight up to 8 so there is an AS loss of 1 in return without a Body Ring/Promotion. 3) My 18/1 Layla has 10 magic. 10! She has that much defence! The game mocks me so! 18/2 Andrei has 13 Strength, 18/1 Jace has 12. Until recently, Ash and Alicia were also magic screwed, lol.

Be aware with multipatch, that it can't repatch a file that's already patched. No patching software on Mac can as far as I know. So if the game updates, you're going to have to make a fresh copy and start over.

Took me much longer than expected, but I finally beat the first new map in my playthrough (the one in Val Mode). Some notes I took and then expanded upon once completed: -Cavalier in the upper left corner of the map on a probably needs larger movement trigger. Was left alone up there for a very long time: not until I was in line with the stairs leading to the grass before the throne did he move. Maybe tie him into freed prisoners rush of reinforcements? -Was basically pinned into the bottom left corner of the map due to reinforcements/flow of the map. I had originally split up into left and right paths, very quickly saw that I need more help on the left so Keiran was sent to solo the right side while everyone worked together on the left. Which basically ended up being Kane, Isaac, and the axe guy holding the choke point right before the chests/Layla's prison on the left side, while everyone else with ranged weapons chipped in from over the wall. (Val and Andrei didn't have the defence to hold the line so they were kinda stuck just standing there for 90% of the map, only got to attack at the beginning and the end of the map.) Then opened Layla's prison, more troops poured out, just kinda held my ground there. Keiran roped a few dudes into taking the long way around the right side but he couldn't take them on due to the mages. Instead brought them to the main cluster of allies once they were done with the other reinforcements. Split paths idea works in theory, but I think more troops need to be on the right side to begin with/move to the right to enforce this idea. Feels very left heavy, kinda bogs down the map because its too many troops at once to advance though safely. Maybe have more than just one mage pop up to attack the generic prisoners once freed as well on the right side. -Harder to train Layla due to initial rush of troops/configuration of reinforcements. Felt like on the old map, more troops were still alive by the time you freed her and many behind walls.

I do know he doesn't have all up the sprites updated yet, though he has a lot of them there. And he's going through some of the maps and updating them (2 so far going through more significant changes). Occasional bug fix/character tweak/situation tweak. Been 100% playable with full amount of maps/supports and the like since release. If you're looking for a "final final" version I'd guess maybe wait until the last of the portrait updates are added?

Keep the Dracoshield if you talk to him as well as the Strength Ring could be an interesting compromise. Instead of "1 stat boost + boss EXP" vs "different stat boost" its "2 stat boosts" vs "1 stat boost and boss EXP" right before a part of the game where that extra level could be pretty useful considering the boss you're facing next.

Silly thing I've only just noticed this playthrough. The chapter where you fight Kane. You have the option to avoid defeating him by having Val talk to him. But not only do you miss out on the boss EXP, you also miss out on the Dracoshield he's holding onto. Considering it arguably more difficult to get Val to a point where she can talk to him without him dying along the way, any thoughts about perhaps getting a different stat booster for not defeating him in the convo that starts in the next map when he's giving you the gold? Something like the strength boosting one maybe? Make it less of a losing out completely option and more of a "which item do you want more" option?

He could move that far in 2 turns I think. But not in 1 no. She was just on the edge of his side to try and draw out one of his buddies so my guy at the bridge wouldn't get hit by a ranged attack as well. And then the boss just kinda charged, and then ended the phase by speaking.

I wasn't in attack range when he moved. I just landed on his side of the river, but outside of his range.

Something I'm not 100% sure on but I think the event flags or w/e are in the wrong order: In chapter 2 or w/e the one with Clive is: he'll move without anyone in range at the start of a turn, and then at the end of the turn when its switching to player phase he'll say his "they're still alive? Time to get serious" line. I did have Josie land on his section of the map past the river that turn.