SullyMcGully

Alright, so here's my opinion. It could be long. First off, I think we can assume it will be different from Fates in a lot of ways. True, Fates was technically a success, but I think IS knows better than to try to repeat it. Fates is so large that you can't top it without making some serious changes. But the 3DS has done all it can for the series at this point. So, I think the next Fire Emblem game will be on a different system, like the Wii U but probably the Switch. We're probably looking at a different head artist/art style, and a game that focuses on being the opposite of Fates, or at least Birthright: Serious and story-focused with more emphasis on playing through the main missions then spending time maxing stats and browsing around your castle. I don't think that infinite grinding should be done away with completely, but it should be made so that every level remains challenging regardless of your levels. It should also have a "Conquest mode" where you are forced to do without infinite grinding and focus on the main plot.

OK, I read it. Pretty neat. I liked the way you gave every boss a distinct personality and backstory, WITHOUT filling the script with meaningless dialogue detailing characters you will kill momentarily. Each playable unit has a lot of personality as well, which works when you just have four of them. However, I'm interested in seeing how this will work out when you have many more units in play and many more personalities to juggle. A few critiques: 1) If Ezekiel is going to be a main character, you might want to tone him down a bit. Over-the-top units work great in the background, but they can be annoying when they are plot-relevant. 2) In the same vein, you might want to move his interactions with Nyoman into a support/base conversation. 3) Succubuses (I don't know what the plural is there) and a few of the other plot elements here are new ground for Fire Emblem, from a mythological standpoint. I'm not saying that there's anything particularly wrong with that, just be aware that the more outside influences you add, the less it will feel like a Fire Emblem fangame and the more it will appear to be a work of its own, which is a good or bad thing, depending on your intent. In the meantime, keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to seeing some more progress.

Nice writing... kinda. OK, I actually couldn't read anything because Google said I needed your permission. Three parts, though. You've been busy...

The weather outside is frightful! Stay safe everyone!

PoR doesn't have the best actual storyline in the series. From the moment you meet Elincea, you can pretty much tell that you are going to spend the rest of the game fighting Daein. The villain is bland and generic. I wish you could have fought the Black Knight gone berserk instead. However, Ike has the best character development of any character in the series. He is one of the few characters in Fire Emblem who actually changes over the course of the story, going from fledgling rookie, to competent warrior, to bold commander. The best story moments in PoR are defined by his personality. His no-nonsense demeanor stands in stark contrast to more mushy-gushy characters like Eliwood and Roy, and the fact that much of what he does is driven by a more mature desire for revenge makes him stand out from every other hero we've seen so far. It also helps that you are directly involved in several of Ike's decisions, which is a feature I think the series should implement more often.

I would definitely start by writing a synopsis. Before adding onto it though, I would ask a friend to look it over and point out anything that feels like it was stolen from a different story. A lot of what we think are our best ideas are actually never our ideas to begin with, and it takes someone else to point that out. And it's always better to know that before you get into writing the actual manuscript. Oh yeah, and be sure to pick someone who will be honest with you to look over your drafts. Your mom will probably think everything you write is God-breathed, but a friend will know that he won't hurt your feelings by criticizing your work.

Try to avoid over-grinding. Awakening is a strategy game, and while you do need to grind a certain amount to win the game, every level you gain that you don't need makes the game easier and thus, less strategic. A good limit would be to only level your units to 150% of the chapter number, promoting your units at level 20. The way I prefer to grind is by using Spotpass teams. I don't really like EXPonential growth because, while you gain levels quickly, you gain WEXP and supports at a slower rate.

Yeah, kinda. However, while RD felt kinda drawn out, I want this to be a little more punctual. I'm not trying to extend the actual amount of time it takes to win by a whole lot, and I want every map to feel like it could stand on its own. For example, imagine a mission where you attack a castle, requiring you to split into four parties. The first party launches a diversion to draw away the bulk of the enemy and must survive an enemy onslaught until the other groups have finished their missions. For this group, you would want to have your armored units and healers. The second group must travel through the castle's dungeon to find a rare item before thieves do. You'd want high-movement characters and thieves for this map. The third group has to assassinate a heavily-guarded enemy boss, requiring your best offensive characters. And your final group is securing an escape route for the other parties by defeating all the enemies in the castle courtyard. Once all four goals are completed, you beat the chapter. Or, alternatively, you could win after accomplishing one goal, with the ending changing depending on which goal you chose to complete.

Okay, so in most Fire Emblem games, you get 30-60 units over the course of the game. However, the most units you can take into one level is usually 18-20, and that's only for the toughest chapters. So here's my idea for fitting all of your units into one chapter without creating a huge map that's a drag to play through. In Final Fantasy VI, there is a feature at some parts of the plot where you divide your characters into four different groups to accomplish a single task. This allows you to use all of your characters at once instead of just the four that you can usually fit in a party. You toggle between the groups with the select button. I'm thinking of combining this mechanic with one from Advance Wars: Dual Strike, where your army battles on two fronts simultaneously with different commanders at each end giving different bonuses. How would this work with Fire Emblem? You could have up to four different battles going on simultaneously, each on a map of its own. For every map, you would choose a different commanding character at the preparations menu, with each commander giving certain perks to the units he/she commands. Each map would have a maximum allotment of about twelve units or so and be relatively small in size, so that that particular map's gimmick doesn't get old too quickly. As well, the maps would have different layouts, enemies, and goals, requiring that you think strategically about which units to send to each one. I know from a mapmaking point of view this sounds like a lot of work, and also that it might almost be impossible to hack in or program some other way, but these are just my thoughts on something that would make a Fire Emblem game funner and allow you to use all of your units in a meaningful way. I would love to hear any thoughts, opinions, or criticisms you may have.

I like characters who are a lot of trouble to train, because it gives me some challenge in what can be a very weak endgame. Also, Ests like Nino tend to have really interesting backstories and personalities.

I bet this will get a lot of political attention pretty soon. I just hope that our leaders are able to respect those affected by this attack as victims of a great tragedy and not as meaningless political props. My prayers are with everyone in Berlin today (but I guess it's probably night there right now).

I prefer Canas. Sure, he may not compare to other shamans statistically, but within the context of FE7, he's a worthwhile unit. At the point where you get him, you only have two other magic-users. I don't use Erk, because, well, Erk! Lucius is cool, but he's more of a speed-oriented unit than a heavy-hitter, and he can't use Luna.

I gave Eliwood an A-Support with Marcus. When I realized my mistake halfway through, I decided to kill Marcus to get those supports back.

You didn't miss any characters in 18x, just some extra EXP and storyline that doesn't make sense outside of Hector mode anyway. It's a very unique level, though. I strongly recommend you play it sometime due to a very interesting mechanic it features.

So, Magic has been a weapon in Fire Emblem games ever since the series began. Since its first appearance, it has undergone several different changes. I've only played the US games, but I've noticed a few distinct systems and found problems with each. First off, the GBA "Trinity of Magic" is simple and easy to understand, however, there just aren't as many tomes as I would like. Each category will usually only have about six different weapons, which doesn't compare to the variety other weapon types allow. Then you have Path of Radiance, which uses an anima triangle with light being neutral. The problem: low tome variety, even worse than in the GBA games. For the most part, you just have wind, then elwind, then maybe a few other spells but nothing particularly unique. There's also a lack of variety classes as well (the only starting class that can use magic is the mage). Also, though mages can use all three types of anima magic, each magic type has a different WEXP counter, encouraging you to only use one magic type per unit instead of dealing with the pain of raising multiple weapon levels at once. Then there's Awakening. Awakening's magic system is very simple, providing wind, fire, and thunder, as well as dark magic for some classes, under the same weapon category. However, it lacks much real differentiation between spells. For instance, fire spells are almost completely overlooked because they lack the superior strength and crit bonus of thunder or the flyer effectiveness of wind. So, here's my ideal magic system. I'm for doing away with the magic trinity, since magic-using units are a bit of a minority in most games and they don't often have the chance to engage each other. My system would resemble Awakening's, except with a few added effects to balance things a little bit more. Here's what it would look like: Wind: weak but accurate, effective against flyers (i.e. pegasi and wyverns) Fire: mid-range damage and accuracy, effective against beasts (i.e. horses and pegasi) Thunder: most damaging but least accurate, effective against dragons (i.e. wyverns and manakete) Light: only usable by certain classes. Has weapon triangle advantages against every other magic type, so basically magic that is effective against magic. Weaker and more precise than even wind, with higher crit rate. Dark: only usable by certain classes. Incredibly powerful, however every use drains the user of his/her HP. More advanced versions have special effects like extremely high crit rates, Nosferatu, stat-reducing, etc. So what do you guys think? Any foreseeable problems with this system? Was there an older system you liked better? I welcome your input.

Looks pretty cool. So are there any particular gameplay changes you want to make? I'm particularly interested in Rin. From what you've said so far, it seems she's like Nils or Elphin as a musician, but she also uses earth magic, which has never been featured in an FE game before (to my knowledge). Also, some info on things like classes and skills would be interesting. The storyline seems good enough, but there isn't a whole lot of gameplay information to catch people's attention. In the meantime, you've picked my interest, so I'll be keeping an eye on this project to see where it goes. I wish you the best, but in the end, it all comes down to how determined you are to see this through. The forums are full of abandoned/half-baked/cancelled hacks, but every great hack was a tiny, fledgling effort at some point or another.

I love the freedom you have when choosing who to use. Sure, you could focus only on each character's stats, growths, skills, and class options, and aim to make the game as easy as possible. Or you can just do what you want (though that may not always work in hard mode). Do you like Marcus's personality? Then who cares that he's a horrible unit, go ahead and use him! Wanna do an all-girls run, or a cavalier-only playthrough? Go ahead! What I love most about Fire Emblem is the fact that most of the games in this series let you choose either way, so if you want to experience an immersive RPG with deep character development, or face the ultimate strategic challenge, you can! You can even do both at once! No wonder FE games are famous for their replayability.

Pay attention to Hannah. I'm pretty sure in Chapter 16 she would have said "bring that red haired lass" or something to suggest that Priscilla was needed to recruit Raven. While it might seem unprofessional or expensive, Hannah's augeries are the way you know how to recruit a lot of characters in this game. Of course, there's plenty of information around here at the Forest that could help you with recruitment, but I can't guarantee that it's spoiler free.

I can empathize with the desire to create a better storyline. However, you need to remember, Awakening and Fates had entire teams of paid professionals write their stories, and they still didn't turn out that great. I'm not saying that you can't write a good story, but I do believe that by working together with other writers, you can make a good story into a great one.

Interesting... I'd like to hear more about the storyline, from what you've shown it seems a little bit more innovative than most other FE hacks. I'm afraid I'm not much of a programmer or CG artist, but I'm decent with scripts (as in, plot and dialogue) so if you need some help with supports or other writing projects, I might be helpful.

Not necessarily - depending on how you play the game, you might not even meet that other unit. However, that is too bad about Dart. In my opinion, he's second only to Hector as an axe-user. Recruitment can be cryptic - I killed Dart on my first playthrough too. Just avoid killing non-boss enemies with names, and pay attention to Hannah's augeries, and you shouldn't miss any more potential recruits. Here's a tip to help you out on the Dread Isle:

On my last playthrough, I promoted everyone (even Serra) at 20. But then I only got a few chapters to enjoy my characters newfound awesomeness! So next time, I'm going to do it earlier. The problem is the Lords, though. Despite being some of the best characters in the game, their late promotions cause them fall behind.

Chapter 16x is challenging, but in a fun and unique way. There's actually an easy way of doing it that the game kinda hints at, but I usually take the enemies head on. How you do it depends on how well leveled your men are. These aren't exactly story spoilers but I'll enclose them anyway The Wolf Beil, Manni Katti, and Rapier will all be replaced by stronger, cooler weapons before the final battle. Plus, in Eliwood mode, you can get another Rapier later.

Don't worry about Merlinus. While it is true that he can be a little hard to guard sometimes, all you really need to do is make sure you always keep a strong unit (like Hector or Oswin) within a few tiles. The enemies that come after him are actually a really good source of EXP, so you don't have to worry about your guard unit(s) missing out on the battle. Yeah, but you'll probably want to bring him to every map you can. You need him for item management, and he gains a level in each chapter where he is deployed, so he can become (somewhat) sturdy compared to his FE6 counterpart.

Thanks. This helps a lot. Any idea on whether or not now would be a good time to start preparing for an FEXNA project? I understand that nobody (or at least nobody outside of the project development) knows when this is coming out but I don't want to start publicizing my project too early. I've seen several other projects that began a few years ago when FEXNA was first announced but a lot of them have kinda... fizzled out.