MarkyJoe1990

What's with the strange image format? You should use the built in screenshot feature of Visual Boy Advance.

And finally, Decay of the Fangs chapter 10 is up.

I'm attempting to re-render the video, since one of the jokes got mucked by VirtualDub rendering my avisynth clip improperly. It's... taking forever, honestly. I keep running into issues. Yes. Firstly. At the beginning of every playthrough, I am mentally prepared to like the hacks I've played unless it's my own, in which my opinion will vary. Secondly, I can and have pointed out good things about the hacks I've played, numerous times in my videos. For example: If you watch my re-do playthrough of Dream of Five, I point out that the story - while not emotionally compelling - is competently written, some of the cutscenes amazed me with their presentation (Chapter 3 especially). Most of the art is very nice, and even when I complained that it's map design was horribly tedious and bloated, I made a big deal out of Chapter 3's well thought out archer placements. I liked the first fog of war chapter. Every now and then, the hack challenged me to be creative, and those were it's best moments. I took great satisfaction in the chapter where you are given a route split choice. Ferrying Amelia to fight the boss and using Renair to clean up the enemies solo was a fun strategy to pull off. The main reason why I don't like the hack is mostly because it feels the need to make us trudge across large, relatively empty maps, and while it's one flaw, it's a HUGE one. Unlike FE4, you can't save during chapters, and you aren't given many high-movement units, and some chapters such as chapter 2 are clustered with tree tiles that make the process all the more tedious. Add this to the strangely durable enemies, inconsistent hit rates (Amelia Chapter 1 has a 52 hit rate on the FIRST ENEMY), and a general lack of creative ideas that help make certain maps memorable, and you have something that is nauseating to play. When I work on Chronicles of Lussaria, I make it a point to make sure the map design is something I actually like, and I have a team of highly skeptical, opinionated friends to help me achieve that. I've made a lot of hacks in the past (The two previous Fire Mumblems, Tactician Hell, The Corruption of Roy, Super Hard Lyn Mode, Help Me Help You Project), so I've gained a feel for what I like and don't like. For some of those hacks, I've sought after public criticism in hopes that I can improve. The single chapter of Help Me Help You was improved greatly thanks to the help of people who told me "This can be broken", or "This is a bit tedious, remove it". If you can find fault in Chronicles of Lussaria, tell me and I will fix it. While I'm far from humble when it comes to criticizing other people's work, any criticism I get for my own work is something I look forward to, because to me, it means further progress in making something I will be able to play over and over again without getting tired of it. I very rarely ignore or fight against criticism of my own work. EDIT: Another thing I want to point out is that I've redesigned a single chapter in CoL 9 times because it wasn't to my liking. In total, I had over 30 different maps that I scrapped for the first five chapters. Some of them are deleted, but if you want proof as to how serious I take my level design, I have a whole folder dedicated to the remaining twenty something maps that I either scrapped, or have no intention of using in the future.

During these past few days of reflection, I asked myself similar questions. I don't even remember why/how I deluded myself into thinking I could do this reviewing stuff. I think it started with a comment I made on the original Fire Mumblem: Revised Edition thread back on Sanctuary of Strategy. I think after I finish Decay of the Fangs, the only FE hack reviews I'll do from there are my older hacks. After that, I might do the actual Fire Emblem games, then find something else to do for my channel. I feel like only doing FE hack reviews has kind of reduced me to a one-trick pony anyway.

In other, less controversial news. New Decay of the Fangs, and this time, I'm in a much perkier mood! http://youtu.be/EInVOl_tk2I EDIT: Updated the link, but the video is still rendering at the time of this writing.

After yesterday's events, I decided to sit down and seriously think about what the hell I am doing, and I came to some conclusions. EDIT: ... AND THEN I CHANGED MY MIND. After playing a bit of Dream of Five and Elibian Nights, I am fully reminded of why I dislike these hacks. They are a god damn chore to play. The pacing is abysmally bad. I've edited this post immensely to reflect this. My standards are achievable. I suppose the reason people think otherwise is that I don't talk often enough about the things I do like. Not that any of them are FE hacks. My favorite video game is Castlevania: Rondo of Blood and I think it is nearly flawless. I can't even think of anything off the top of my head that could count as a criticism of the game. It's just really damn good and I love it and aaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh <3 The two good hacks I've made are too short/unfinished to really call them better than Do5. However, I'll gladly compare Chronicles of Lussaria's currently finished chapters side by side with Do5's. Okay. When people accused me of saying I could do better, I didn't know if I actually said that or not, but ran with it because I figured asking if I did would make me look stupid. Still, that counts as me making the claim. ... Yes. I believe I can do better. I might even go and improve Raven's Tale Part 2 since it's awful to play. However, even if I don't, I don't think I care enough to prove myself by way of improving someone else's work, especially when I could just work on my own damn hack and prove it THAT way, which I am. Thinking about all this made me question why I even care about proving myself to you all anyway. To get the respect of the community? I barely know any of you. To gain influence so future hacks are better? Maybe I cared before, but I'm not sure I do anymore. I have the actual Fire Emblem games to play. Stuff that's made by actual professionals. Not to mention I could just make hacks myself, and shape them into something I enjoy. Much easier than hoping some random Joe pulls a miracle out of his rear and somehow makes a good hack. I am very proud of my current hack, Fire Mumblem: Chronicles of Lussaria from a gameplay standpoint, and I think the first few chapters alone show that I am capable of making something that's much better paced and enjoyable than the current hacks out there. The humor needs some refinement, but I'll fix up those kinks as I go along. Now... with all that said... if there is one thing I do agree with, it's that I'm not a very good critic. I pick out flaws, but I rarely give suggestions on how to improve them. I could also afford to be less harsh in general. So lemme point out a few things. I can't force myself to enjoy Elibian Nights's gameplay, but I will say that if it just improved it's gameplay, I would like it. It has a lot of really interesting ideas that I think will be influential to newer hacks. Stuff like Merlinus's chapter really inspire new ideas, and even if Raven's Tale Part 2 isn't very fun to play in my opinion, I like the whole slave gimmick. There's a lot of other neat ideas the game has that I probably would not have thought of, and it follows the lore of FE7 pretty well. Good portraits, well written dialogue, and uh... well okay, some of the stories are terrible, but they're at least well presented. To improve the gameplay, it needs to do the following: 1) Make the maps smaller, or pace the large maps better so they keep the player consistently interested throughout. Pacing is the main problem, but they also just feel really long-drawn out most of the time. 2) Make player phase more meaningful. Currently, the enemies are weak but numerous, and that generally means that getting a good unit with 1-2 is enough to wipe them out without much strategy (Read: Hector's Tale for the most part). If they were lowered in number, but had an upped skill stat to compensate, it would be more effective. The player would have to try to safely kill as many enemies as possible so that they face as few counter attacks and enemy phase facings as possible. This also makes archers more useful, by the way. 3) Because of how the hack is structured, there is no long-term consequences to plan for. This means that I have no reason to, say, open chests unless they give me stuff that contributes to playing efficiently, or lowers my turn count in the chapters they are available in. Most of the chests don't actually do that however. If the enemies were dangerous enough, and the map designs were made in such a way that whatever items these chests provide would be meaningful to the battles, I'd think twice about skipping them. For example, I remember there being legendary weapons in the chests of Eliwood's map, but I saw no reason to care that they were getting stolen because Harken and his brave sword were all I needed to wipe out enemies fast and furious. Currently, the achievement system is the only motivation to doing a lot of this busy work, but that assumes you care more about a superfluous 100% completion than actually having fun. 4) Fix the more minor problems that hinder enjoyment: Stop making everything a dang route mission. Use it when enemies won't dawdle around like morons waiting for me to approach and murder them. Eliwood's tale feels like it should be a boss kill mission. When I played Zealot's chapter, no one had a torch, and it's a fog of war route mission. That means I have to walk around the map searching for these stray enemies. I turned the game off once that happened. Thankfully, Arch updated the map so Zealot has a torch. I'd list more specifics, but I haven't played many of the new chapters, and I'm kind of sick of playing the damn game. I don't enjoy it with what it is right now. Anyway, I think that's all I have to say.

I went and played the newest version of Raven's chapter. For some context, the only version of this chapter I knew was the one where you fight that bolting sage dude as the boss. I had a level design idea for that chapter that I wanted to put into play. But this is completely different. Instead, you fight this assassin dude with Raven and try to survive with the other units. It took me off guard. Firstly, I actually think this is the best chapter in the game, and without "But that's not saying much" attached to that sentence. It's difficult, but doable. It has an interesting idea (Raven fighting the assassin one on one) that bolsters the challenge instead of turning it into a chore, and it's clear the creator put a lot of thought into making it not easy to break. Also good positioning. If I were to find any fault in it, it's that there are houses in it that you can visit for prizes, but since this hack has no long-term benefits due to it's structure, it's kinda pointless. So yeah. Not remaking that one. The chapter that follows on the other hand... I might try that one, since so far, I find it very boring to play.

Alright. I downloaded Elibian Nights again. I want to fix Raven's chapter. I presume beating Hector's tale will bring me to it after completion?

... I need to think about that one. I'm unsure of whether I think you're right or not. I find it to be a cop-out to shirk criticism and challenge someone to do your work for you instead of considering whether what they have to say is valid or not. Additionally, I really don't want to design a chapter for your project because of the potential risk of time wasted, but if it's good, and there IS justice in this world, that won't be a problem, and more people will take me seriously. So. Let me think about this a bit more. I'm starting to think I am copping out, but maybe I'm just irrationally intimidated that people will think I'm some coward barking in the dark corner.

Then why would you base the value of any level I make on majority vote? Popularity can play a huge influence on how that plays out. =\

It's hard for me to say. Most hacks have some severely crippling flaws. While Project Z is the closest thing that I want out of the community conceptually (Varied, creative level design ideas, amusing colorful cast of goofballs, etc.), it's done extremely poorly. I kind of liked Dondon's project (I played an earlier version, mind you), but it's marred by lots of trial and error difficulty that don't add challenge, and instead pad out the time you spend playing it. When you know what to do though, it's very satisfying to conquer the challenges tossed at you, and it's clearly VERY carefully thought out. Dream of Five (Again, earlier version)... I give it a lot of flack, but if it tried to make the characters a bit more likable and compressed the level design a bit, and fixed some of the other, more minor flaws, I'd call it the definitive commercial-styled fire emblem hack. It does a lot of things well, but... it's just an extreme chore to play, especially when you get to the maps that make FE6's maps look god damn microscopic. Nintenlord Saga is... well it's kind of a similar boat to Project Z, but more diluted. Fairly creative designs, but kind of meh in execution, and some levels have outright offensive designs. So uh... yeah. While I give Dream of Five a lot of flack, I don't hate it nearly as much as I let on. I consider it the best Fire Emblem hack out there, but it's... just kinda meh. EDIT: Most critics don't make what they criticize. That said, I've made a bunch of bad-mediocre quality hacks, and two that I consider good, but aren't finished (Fire Mumblem: Revised Edition and Fire Mumblem: Chronicles of Lussaria). So yes. I do have something to back this up. Of course, you could play Fire Mumblem: Revised Edition or Fire Mumblem: Chronicles of Lussaria and see for yourself. Maybe you won't like them. Good! Tell me why so I can improve it (Preferably the latter game, since the former isn't being worked on anymore). I crave perfection, and anything you say will help.

Yes. I did back down. For a few reasons. Beyond working on my own rom hack, Fire Mumblem, and making videos, music, working at my real life job, among other things that I haven't listed off the top of my head, I don't think it's worth my time trying to fix your game's design, especially since: 1) You are clearly competent enough to do it yourself. 2) You are way more favored by the community than I. That alone could make you win the majority vote against me. 3) People may be fond of the currently existing chapters, good design be damned. Nostalgia could win out. 4) Your vision for some of the chapters is rather limiting. I get the whole "Working under limits is a good thing" idea, but when I tried to work around it, I just got frustrated and questioned why the hell I am bothering to do it. 5) If I fail to get the majority vote, the hours I spent working on newer, better designs would be for naught. You could easily decide to make new designs for your chapters, take a lot of whiplash, and say "Screw all of you", and that would be the end of it. You have done that in the past. But with me, you're weighing my efforts against those same people. How is that fair? My hope is that my criticisms and insights will reach enough people to result in better hacks in the future, and I understand I could be doing that by directly involving myself in improving the work of those whom I have criticized, but let's be honest here. That's the best case scenario. With how you have your system set up, it's decked way out of my favor, and I'm cynical enough to believe people will dislike my designs even if they are objectively better designed.

What I want is a brighter future for the FE hacking community. The more I see bad or mediocre hacks get popular, the more I fear that people will use these as the... er... "standard" for which they should aspire to imitate. Just imagine a world where multiple hacks try to imitate Dream of Five's hideously large maps. THAT is something I don't want to happen. Now with all that said and done however... I am admittedly over the top in my videos. One reason why is because I'm very passionate about FE hacking, and the other is that... well... I'm kind of a stoic guy in real life, with a couple of problems, so acting crazy in my videos is kind of a way for me to expel whatever bottled up feelings I have. Eeeeeeeehhhhh. Not a big fan of FPSes. Based on the popularity of Dream of Five and Elibean Nights, I feel the path we are heading down is one of mediocre story telling and design. Though, Elibean Nights at least tries to break the mold, gameplay wise, even if it doesn't work like it should. And I'll at least give Dream of Five credit for being competently written enough to be taken seriously, even if the story isn't very compelling.

Every time I LP a hack made by this community, it's my time of the month. I wish people would make hacks that kept the story simple and basic and focused primarily on creative, well balanced level design. Most of these hacks are just trying to be the equivalent of a new "commercial quality" Fire Emblem game and keep falling on their arses. Never played it. What kinda game is it?

I just like to use Reisen for post-commentary tidbits and transitions. It used to be a running gag for me to do "Sexy Reisen Transitions", which started with my first playthrough of Dream of Five, but I've sort of stopped doing those.

... Oh. Well I feel stupid now. Sorry for my rude remark.

That's Reisen from the Touhou Project series. She's a fictional crush of mine.

This should answer your question. This is perhaps the happiest I've ever been doing a video game commentary...

I'm thinking of resuming my playthrough of Old Fire Mumblem.

You are correct. I want this miserable hack to burn in a fire so I can move on to something more interesting.

Hey! Parrhesia! Remember how you accused me of having a melt down in a video where I didn't actually have a meltdown? DIRECT THAT COMMENT TO THIS VIDEO I thought the writing in this game couldn't get any worse, but it did, and it did HARD.

We're almost done with this...

Hey guys, DO YOU LIKE LONG WINDING PATHS? Cause guess what? JACKPOT!

New Decay of the Fangs episode! Exclusive chapter secret revealed!

Newest patch released. Chapter added: Berserker Hills.