Wayward Winds

Hmm, two different types of Valkyrie. Priscilla's a classic FE7 anima user, but Natalie's the FE8 light caster... Anyway, onto issues... One more thing that doesn't work at present is the Sound Room. Attempt to play any track, and the game freezes. Also, like SwiftStrike, I can't get Legault's tale to end. A few more details: Wait on the village with any character; you'll get the little speech about how they survive to fight another day or whatnot... and then, nothing. The character stays there, allowing you to move them again on the next turn. Seeing every escape speech doesn't let things continue either. This happens regardless of whether Dieter is still standing or not. One last thing; should I be playing this on a save file transferred from v. 5? Raven and Legault's tales were unlocked from the get go from doing this, and Kent's tale is present but greyed out (because I haven't yet gone to unlock it), but would it be better just to start a new file for replaying tales? ...And now it's back to figuring out how to unlock Zealot and Karel's tales. I know I saw them in a pre-v. 5 version, even if Zealot's didn't work...

As my Mag entered that chapter at level 6, I didn't actually promote her until nearly the end anyway. So, my options would have been to lure him to a space that could be hit by a range two weapon, then off him with, say, Rileh. As I left that a little too late, the nuisance holed up behind the chokepoint above the shop, and left me dodging electricity while tried to pick Katarena up. Oh well, next time I'll know what to do...

If you check back at the response to my monster feedback post, apparently we're supposed to get a venin sword during chapter 2. I'm assuming it's buried in the desert somewhere, because I never saw it - and I only picked up a vulnerary from those sands. Granted, I didn't actually go searching... Renee needs more Res, or another point or two of health when she joins. Because otherwise, unless you've managed to lure and kill off a certain Bolt equipped Mage, she's not even going to survive Ch. 6 without being held way back from any combat. And, Kitty of Time, I'd suggest asking anyone who's shown interest (NICKT, Shugey, Warg and me, at least going on who actually posts in this thread) to beta, at least until more people start popping up and you can pick and choose. We'll all be playing in slightly different ways, we'll all spot different issues. ...Out of curiosity, what does ASDF stand for? (As I go to rename the patched ROM/attached .sav's 'League of Champions')

Okey dokey, done! Time to drown you in screenshots! (You're going to hate me by the time you get to the bottom of this lot). ...Note I haven’t played any of the previous versions, so I have no idea what was carried over and what’s new. In general... Imported non-FE music I spotted; >Lamakan Desert from Golden Sun (used for player phases in the Prologue and Ch. 5) >Ship Graveyard from Final Fantasy 5 (pops up for part of Ch. 4’s opening cutscene) >Fuchin Falls cave/Crossbone Isle cave, also from Golden Sun (plays during enemy phase for Ch. 5) Note: I’m only going to point out spelling or grammar errors if NICKT hasn’t, and I’m fairly certain it is an error. I’m also not repeating NICKT’s general comments. Prologue – A Desert Dream Chapter 1 – Shifting Ties Chapter 2 – Liquid Gold Chapter 3 – Howl of the Moon Chapter 4 – Challenge for Truth Chapter 5 – Sandy Visions Chapter 6 – Sisterly Love Chapter 7 – Barriers and Borders Mini-Mugs! (Don’t expect seriousness in here!) ...Aaannnd post Ch. 6 character stats (Just in case you want to use them for balancing purposes) ...And that’s it. Hope I haven’t sent you completely to sleep!

I think the short of it is; if you don't have a sense of humour, you probably shouldn't bother playing it. I do have a sense of humour (albeit a weird one), I'm not dissecting it as I would a university/college assignment (aka, trying to resort to logic), and thus I'm laughing my way through. Every sneaky little trick (especially if it catches me off guard) is another tick in my book and another snigger in my throat.

Uh, I was just experimenting with Chaos Mode, and... you may want to address this Blazer: ...Because the 'R' button is busy scuppering your carefully laid plans to confuse the heck out of us!

...I'll have the mass feedback ready sometime tomorrow. I'm busy sorting out the 150 odd screenshots into a somewhat smaller number of MS Paint merged images, and organising it under successive layers of spoiler tabs so you can just jump to the required section instead of trawling right down the list. Fun fun fun! (Sarcasm mode off)

Okay, nearly through Ch. 6 and I plan to get as far through the 'unwinnable' Ch. 7 as I can. Do you want me to post up any typos I've seen when I'm done? There's also a couple of other curio's I've spotted so far. For example, the status screen doesn't react to Kalath being shoved back to lv. 1 until Ch. 4; for Ch. 1, Ch. 2 and Ch. 3 it continues to insist she's lv. 10 with 24hp. Another one (I'll post screenshots of this later to help you locate it); one of the knights in Ch. 6 looks fine... until you check the status screen. Then, if you look down at the bottom left corner at its map sprite, you'll notice it's apparently been promoted to a General! (In the status screen only). Might be something to do with that Arms Scroll... Anyway, I'll post other such curios, glitches and comments in general later. Plus the typos if that's okay (under spoiler tags). ...Or my Android's Memo. I'm using Gameboid, not VBA. That way I don't have to sit at a computer to play it.

'FE6!' ...Ah. No wonder I didn't recognise it. I'm slowly slogging my way through that monster, but with all the fan hacks distracting me..! (Not that I mind. Until these updated FE6 translation patches start popping up, I doubt I'll pass Durandal's cave anytime soon). ...Short Spear doesn't have 1-2 range anymore? Oops, sorry Mag! (I'm going to store up my comments like NICKT does now, I think you'd rather a mass influx of them than the dribble approach.)

Yep. Fire Emblem, Golden Sun and Advance Wars; the three reasons I still look upon the GBA fondly. Well anyway, that was the first track that plays during the prologue player phase. Next time I'll do more than test that the hack works before commenting, because I have no idea where the replacement one comes from (while Kalath is... under the influence). Uh, Kitty of Time? I have no idea why, but 'SmartScreen Filter' seems to think the download is dangerous. I had to turn it off to be able to download this. I haven't had to do that for any other hack... It's not a serious problem seeing as the hack seems to work fine on VBA and Gameboid (the latter being my preferred emulator, once I hex edit the .sav files so they actually work properly), but if you can't (or don't want to) fix it, then you may want to drop a note in the OP just to warn people in advance. Otherwise they may think you're trying to drop a virus on them and not actually bother temporarily disabling SS F. ...Wait? A Pirate? In a desert? I've heard of 'oceans of sand' before, but... ... No doubt 'ships of the desert' camels are lurking just round the corner too... ...Interesting how Auster gets unique dialogue on visiting the village, but Magnolia doesn't. Either she's the only one who doesn't know of Auster's presumed illustrious past, or his being mute has drawn attention. And I can't help but be amused at Mag's mini-mug. I like it! The angry chibi!

I recognise it! That's Golden Sun music, from the Lamakan Desert! (And possibly the Suhalla desert as well; can't remember for certain, but I think they used the same music).

...I realised that when I went back to this chapter and spotted a few Silver weapon wielding enemies (not to mention visited the local armoury). But by then I had no internet access to correct the mistake. Still, at least now I know why a Might 15 weapon was losing out to a Might 10 one. Thanks! And on that note, it's back to crawling through Galagar's horde of Imperial juggernauts, one painful square at a time...

Two questions: 1) Is it possible to transfer mid-game save files from v.2 to v.2.1, or is that going to glitch things up? 2) Do Adamant weapons target Res by any chance? Because this is just odd otherwise... I've never seen a steel weapon out-damage a silver before... (This seems to happen with all magic user enemies, whereas physical combatants appear to be subject to the expected damage ratios)

Okay, finally got a look at the FEE3 video... but not the whole thing. So, a few comments: I like Bellona’s new look. Even if I can’t see how those horns stay there; it must be some weird helmet design that only protects the back of the head. Either that or... no... they aren’t attached to her hair are they? Hmm, another name drop. Sylphie. So, on top of Aloysius Farrell (I assume that was his first name?), Sarka (who’s probably loyal to Farrell), “King” Galden (who’s probably a mere unwitting pawn), we’ve got another villain? Well, no one can’t say you aren’t aiming high! Varkade... (For some reason, spoiler tags have just stopped working for me, so I've coloured the next bit white instead. Highlight between the stars to reveal.) * ...I just don’t get Varkade. One moment he’s anti-Farrell and insisting the whole group runs away, this being after he helps Renair dismantle Farrell’s secret servants (I still cling to the idea he knew of Farrell’s involvement already), and now he’s against the anti-Farrell resistance? Make up your mind, Varkade! ...Unless he thought dismantling the Darkwrights was relatively safe, didn’t realise that Renair’s group was going to attract Farrell’s attention, and ever since has just been trying to save his own skin. Well, whatever, something just doesn’t add up with this man. (Doesn’t mean I want to kill him like some people though...)* Oh, and Eclipse? I like what I’ve seen of the script so far – although I haven’t got further than Kanus’ recruitment yet. No typos or anything, and the different talking styles in many-a-character’s speech seems to be working to differentiate them. (Hmm... Bellona shares the well spoken manner of the high born characters (Renair, Arcus, Enjolras, Karen etc.), that’s curious. But then, Garath’s surprisingly well spoken as well. I’m probably reading too much in the little things again.) ... Renair: All right, on the condition that you stop staring at me like a piece of meat. Kanus: Anything you ask of me, gorgeous. MK404: Oh, I think these two are going to get along swimmingly. ...No, I think it’s going to be another Roger and Shiida/Caeda situation and he hasn’t got a chance in Hel. They don’t even have any Supports! (In v. 4...) And lastly... what is all this fuss about Katrina and her wagon? Is her starting level going up or something? Because as far as I know, she’s currently set to be at most lv. 17 for Ch. 15 post Musain (counting her inclusion in Ch. 8Ax for the next patch) and just reaching lv. 20 for Ch. 15 post Onduris (and that’s if you got her to survive Ch. 9B, which I didn’t). So by my calculations the wagon shouldn’t be popping up until at least Ch. 16. Unless you’re either raising the starting level or skipping the tent altogether. ...Seeing as her promotion time is dependent on how often she actually survives a battle anyway, I don’t see how this is such an issue. Don’t you just use Merlinus’ old promotion programming of ‘first battle after reaching lv. 20’ and change the promotion quote to better fit Katrina’s character?

The problem with that is that Path of Radiance is pretty rare these days. On Ebay it typically sells for £70 (that's 105 American Dollars or 81 Euros). Not many have that much loose change to chuck around in the current economic climate (or I'd have snapped it up long ago). And unlike Radiant Dawn it never shows up in second hand shops. I suppose there's always the emulator option, but I for one prefer to get official games legitimately.Then again, maybe it's easier to get in the USA, what do I know?

Oh dear, my Super Seren's doomed to be consigned to the void anyway? Pity. (I figured out why she was such a war winner for me; at Lv. 20+3 she was RNG blessed to the point of being 2/3 points above every average - except Res. She's two points behind for that.) Oh well, I was planning to play through with the Eclipse's revised script/Astra's revised gameplay anyway.Stolypin and his weird EXP gains; how about handwaving it in the story? Maybe, for all his enthusiasm, he's a bit reckless and secretly a little arrogant as well. He defeats an enemy, but he doesn't learn from the experience, doesn't bother commiting to memory how he defeated them (other than it involved chucking bl**dy big fireballs, which he does anyway). ... *Snigger*. Who's up for a great big Garath dressing down session? As Stolypin listens and tries to stifle a few yawns? (But granted, that might be completely against his character. I've only got a couple of paragraphs in Ch. 14A and a face to work from, that's rarely enough to properly discern a personality). Anyway, just suggesting alternatives to the obvious text box, no need to actually act on my bad ideas. I can't give more FEE3 feedback for at least another twenty odd hours (seeing as my main data allowance chose an oh-so-convenient-time to run out and I can't access Youtube), but then after that last monster you probably need a break from me cluttering the thread up. I'd almost be surprised if you weren't just skipping over them by now...

Agreed on the Eclipse writing business – everything currently in the public patch is Furetchen’s script (as far as I know). But I'm not getting involved in this... feedback dispute, it's none of my business how Eclipse and Astra deal with it. (Just remember, you can never please everyone.) I do however have my own observations about the plot presentation style. Astra, Eclipse and everyone else who actually works on this hack, this is not a diatribe on how I think it should be done, at least, it isn't intended to be. I'm trying to be supportive here. Do5's story is done in a fashion that means you need at least two playthroughs per route to pick up every detail, or rather, to grasp the true significance of these references/events. This does, when you think about it, make sense. The impression I get, particularly now I'm running through the hack again, is that different viewpoints are in play. The story, at least as far as the framing device goes, is being related by the bard. As Astra pointed out, he (or she) narrates the world map events. But, unless we want to end up reading a book that breaks off every other paragraph to describe environmental occurences such as 'The wind shifted, a fell breeze from the north bringing promises of winter's famine and ice', we can't keep listening to the bard all day. And I'm sure that while the bard would be embellishing the narrative, it isn't feasible to follow his/her words the whole way through; e.g... (Intro to Ch. 6Ax) ...Whew, got a bit carried away there! Clearly though, we can't listen to the bard all the way through, we need other viewpoints. And so, the adoption of the standard FE viewpoint once we're actually in the chapter proper, which is where further complications arise. Namely, that everything we hear is in the form of character dialogue. And there are few situations where characters can talk about the setting, local politics or cultures without it coming across as saying it for our benefit. About the only one I can think of is when Renair meets a local (Seymour, Enjolras or Arcus) and is told about the local situation. This assuming she cares, which I don't think she does when it comes to Onduris - although that could be because she knows Seymour isn't going to give a straight, unbiased, un-overly florid answer. Even here, it would be alarmingly easy to misjudge how much exposition to give; too much is just going to bore people and again make it clear that the whole thing is being staged for our benefit. Now, you could argue that such details could be slotted in elsewhere, but the most that could probably be justified would be passing references. For example, the Darkwrights of Ch. 2 make extensive references to Farrel, but they don't explain things. And why should they? Everyone present was well aware of the situation, they have no need to spout it to each other. And short of introducing a contrived scene such as a new Darkwright recruit - which would seem just a little jarring story wise - there's little that could be done about it. As for Renair and company, they can't discuss it unless they know it and are trying to puzzle out the details. That's dangerously close to outright speculation, and hardly a method to convey actual facts - it would however be good for getting the player thinking. For another example; Ch. 6Ax opens with... There is a method to get round this, one that many people seem to forget, but I'll cover that last. Back to providing depth of setting. This runs into the same issues as politics; how to insert them into dialogue? Perhaps the bard could pop up from time to time with specialist text boxes... (Ch. 4 and Hope Village) ...Notice how the plot came to a screeching halt there? If the Bard starts trying that one, we can forget about Do5 having a nice, well flowing script. (That's pretty much my only gripe about A Sacred Dawn DX - it breaks from the conversation to give you the player a summary of each new character.) So, how do you flesh out the background if you can't plonk it into the main narrative? Simple, houses and Support conversations. It's often used in Fire Emblem, but tends to be a little overlooked. Houses; perfectly placed to provide little snippets of information on local politics or culture. Flavour text, always worth checking. There's actually a fair bit of it throughout Do5 already, but LTC players are likely to just pass it by. Ch. 4, for example, has houses dedicated to every country but 'Svanhild'. Support conversations on the other hand are possible breeding grounds for flavour text on culture; say if Juan, Arcus or Bellona discuss their home of Vishara. For examples, people from a desert could talk about landscape (eg, gripe about all the sand and the difficulty of finding water - perhaps they follow circling birds to find still damp water holes, or watch where circling vultures descend to find fresh dead carrion for salting purposes), they could discuss strange rituals or superstitions, or give details on the barter system and how you can't trust traders unless you have them at spearpoint for the whole bargaining process. Seeing as most of the Supports are unfinished at the moment, whether they'll try this or not is unclear, but it's always an option to add some depth - for those that go through the effort of actually unlocking them. Lastly, the possibility of 'bonus scenes', non Support related 'talk' conversations that pop up in the relevant chapters and dispense a little more situational information. For example, Renair being able to talk to Melissa in Ch. 12A to learn some further details about Uther, Fleur and Musain nobility in general (doesn't happen, but I'm offering it as an example of other ways of giving background information). If memory serves, Decay of the Fangs tried this one quite a bit to flesh out its characters. Anyway, enough faux-intellectual drivel from me. To recap; changing the main script to make it easier for first runthrough players to pick up everything is likely to do nothing but break the flow of the script and have characters talk out of... character. Houses, Supports and optional 'Talk' events are the only options I can see, and even then they shouldn't reveal every little plot device. We are (supposedly) intelligent beings after all! (Plus I like only realising the whole picture on later playthroughs!)

"The third annual FEE3 is here!" Nice... except it's now 11pm over here in Europe, so that intro's as far as I'm getting tonight (gah, blasted time zone lag!). As for everyone else, enjoy. ... ...Time for a sleepless night...

Heh. Spare a thought for us souls in Europe - 7pm here, which probably means we'll have to wait 'till tomorrow morning. So Blazer, you're lucky compared to us! As for the where, MageKnight404's Youtube channel is here: http://www.youtube.com/user/MageKnight404?nomobile=1

...Good luck answering that 'little' lot, Astra (says the nuisance who gave a chapter by chapter feedback post monster). But... weren't there only two chests on 13A? Top and bottom left, directly above and below Katrina? But as a rule, rushing for the boss and trying to pick up all of the chests/villages/whatever rarely ends well in Fire Emblem, at least, not on first runs. Later runs, when you know what's coming on the other hand... Another general rule is to always leave some form of guard on the merchant tent, because FE (official and hacked alike) love popping reinforcements up there. In this case, said guard could have easily saved Chester and Adrian's butts (but maybe you did that anyway?). In short, it's always a good idea to expect these things. In my case I ferry Chester around with Flyer escort, two of them if I'm particularly concerned about possible reinforcements. The only other thing I'm going to respond to (because I'm well aware this isn't my job, and I'm walking on thin ice as it is) is the short length of Musain/Onduris. That's actually normal for FE. FE1/Shadow Dragon has Marth conquer whole countries in two or three battles (I'm in no way exaggerating), FE6 takes about 6 or 7 chapters per country or less, and as for FE8... how much did Eirika do in chapters 9 to 14 again? Not to mention Ephraim dismantling most of Grado's military in the same period. So FE in general does this, not just Do5. Although I'll admit that Musain had a heck of a lot going on for those 9/10 chapters. ...Lastly, apparently Eclipse has heavily adjusted the script (but not the plot), so we'll see what happens there. Right, now I'm off to cherrytap the bosses of Ch. 13A to see what happens. (And wait for Astra/Thor/Eclipse/someone else to shout at me...) EDIT: ...And Eclipse beats me in updating speed again...

!!! Oh, that's a pity... On the other hand, anyone who knew it was coming could quickly go on a mass shopping spree... and watch the game tear itself to pieces as it tried to take 3000F from 150F, got a negative and proceeded to dive head first into a mental breakdown. ...Isn't/wasn't Do5 on the Emblem Brigade site as well? Could it be 'Svanhild' hails from a different site (not that the credits list mentions anyone with a name even remotely approaching that).FINAL edit: Whirlpool? ... ...I need to stop making these observations/speculating. Otherwise I'll end up really peeving people off about all these future plot devices that keep bubbling up.

Yes, well, I'm sure FEE3 will give plenty of reasons to make this thread buzz. ...Ungrateful sods. Keep all of Juan's fellow wyvern riders alive and they still flap off leaving nothing for your troubles. How's that for gratitude? ... ...Here's an idea. The next time we have a batch of green units to protect, rather than giving a reward for keeping them all alive, give a penalty for losing them all/a certain percentage (if such a thing is possible). Say, remove 3000 florins/dubloons/rupees/whatever it was, justified by the green team having to recruit new troops or something. Just another idea from the dustbin of my mind. It would be amusing to see people's reactions if such a thing did happen though! ...And why do I get the impression this "Sanghild" place (top left) is going to be important? I don't remember it listed back in Ch. 4's infodump houses, yet it has a name. The only name we haven't heard a peep about yet. Hmm... (Never mind the fact that the map gives the impression there's a stinking great whirlpool in the way. Or a perpetual hurricane/typhoon/cyclone/insert your own synonym. Maybe it just isn't common knowledge, or maybe it's just a nightmare to get to...)

Ah, I clearly missed that one. It's just that running through a second time, you pick up things that passed you by the first time round. Told you I was in the wrong forest! (But I still maintain the opinion that we haven't seen the last of Fergal...). ...And if you're wondering, my interest in Seren is that she outperformed everyone on my playthrough (not that I'm posting screenshots. I know when I'm pushing the annoyance factor too far). So naturally I'd like to see her pop up on leaving Onduris.

So, call me thick as Gonzales but... what does '1 rn' mean?Also, I can't help but notice that Seymour seems to have different eye directions now - here he's staring forward as normal, in one of the other FEE3 screenshot batches ("Die villain!") he's looking shiftily to the side. Or maybe that was just an awkward moment to screenshot or something... A couple of thoughts; 1) Annelise. Way, way, way back in post #2270502, you (Astra) said this: "Annelise has way more backstory, and that becomes more apparent after you finish chapter 17 and its gaiden." ...Is Annelise actually going to be needed for this gaiden, or will you just get an alternate script if you, uh, lost her? (I haven't, but not everyone resets on losing someone). That's assuming she joins in Ch. 15 if you were on route B. ...If Kanus pops up in Ch. 15 after Musain, then Seren has no excuse in Ch. 15 after Onduris... oh, wait, the whole recruitment kinda hinged on Renair being present... 2) I suspect I might have an inkling who your mystery knight is. EDIT: 3) Kris is overpowered as *BEEP*, Kolbane is as overpowered as *BEEP*. And if he's got an 'A' support with anyone, then Discan's doomed to be dog meat. 4) Also, I wouldn't be surprised if Asher's little natter with Discan ends up triggering something. Maybe Discan is recruitable if you get enough of the right characters to talk to him. (Now I'm barking up the wrong tree on the wrong continent!).