1 year hiatus for Job Corps

So FEPS will be on a temporary 6 month to one year hiatus because as the lead project manager, if I can't work on the game, development just stops. I can't bring my laptop with me to Job Corps, sadly, so it'll stay behind while I get much-needed training for a career path.

Also, Markyjoe LP'd my Ragefest submission! Check it out!

Hey guys, long awaited update!

So here's the deal. I no longer am going to the RRR forums, because they aren't fun anymore. My game has never been, or ever will, be updated on any Fire Emblem site, simply because the fandom in general sucks. (No, not joking, but I am referring mostly to those that take it way too seriously.)

This being said, I have three places you can go to if you're a FEPS fan.
1. Official Dev Forums. This forum is for people who want to help me with my game.
2. Project Zelda Engine forums. This is the place to go for the big updates, like a full new chapter, cool screenshots, etc. (As of this post, we're at 4.0 with the old engine, now working up to 0.1 in the new engine!)
3. Facebook Page (Throw a like our way!) which isn't updated terribly often, but occasionally it is :D

Right now, my game is NOT being worked on seriously. The FEXP engine is incomplete, so for now since it lacks so many important features I am just making demo maps for fun and amusement. If all you wanna do is play some fun maps, enjoy my rescored music mix for FE (I'm very proud of that) or perhaps just chat about the game a little, I strongly recommend joining the LOZ forum.

I should tell you, this blog gets over 10,000 hits a month, might be worth it for me to promote it a little bit more! Uh let's see. Right now, the game is called Phoenix Saga. This is a broad term for the three full games, Broken Phoenix, Wrathful Phoenix, and Decayed Phoenix. It is intended to be a 3-game series, though realistically that may never happen.

This reminds me, I should rename my blog :V

FEPS Released!

For anyone who wishes to play my game, here is the link! Thanks for being a loyal follower!

Hidden Item Found!

Do you remember playing FE6/7 and going to the Nabata Desert map, and how there were hidden items in the sand that thieves and such could find by standing in certain spots? Wouldn't it be nice if there was a broader version of that system in a game? Well, I'm planning to do so.


Basically, on every chapter, there will be a few secret tiles that have a 9% chance of any unit who steps on that tile finding an item. I'll hide them cleverly, but they won't be out of the way of the normal path. Thieves will NOT have a 100% chance to find said items, more like a 30% chance.  In this way, you might accidentally obtain a steel axe, or maybe a silver bow or other such item earlier in the game than you would normally expect. In addition, a tile might have more than one potential item you could obtain, but you could only obtain one of the items in any given playthrough, assuming you obtained any at all!

So you might step on the action tile on three different playthroughs, and get nothing, but on your fourth playthrough you might get a steel bow, or even a mend staff or other interesting item.

I think it will increase replay value, and as always, the options at your disposal as you play. Will you hunt down every tile on the map, trying to find the precious hidden items, or just hope you stumble across them by chance?

Update

I wanted my loyal followers (Wait, where are they?!) to know that my blog is not being abandoned or forgotten. Right now I am focused on the storyline, which will not be made public, except for the first part, and the in-game artwork. As in mugs, and other such things.

Will keep updating whenever possible, but since most of the vital mechanics are already thought out, there isn' a lot more to add, unless I have a flash of brilliance.

Alignment System; How will your game turn out?

Being a good guy is boring. Haven't you ever played a game as a good guy before and said "I wish I knew the whole story behind the bad guys"? Well, my game will feature the Alignment System, most famously featured in games like Fable and Ultima; Quest of the Avatar. Well, it won't be an exact recreation, but that should immediately give you an idea on how big I hope to make the scope of it. Keep in mind this is such a huge system to elaborate on that it will likely be separated into multiple posts.


The Alignment System will likely be the most integrated and important part of my game. Seriously, THE most important! If it screws up the game is sunk. If it has a nasty glitch the fun is ruined. If it messes up and sets an alignment bar in the wrong direction, well, that's not so bad but it would still mean going in reverse of where the player wants to go.


So, out of all the posts on my blog, which ones will the Alignment System affect and be affected by?
The lords and lord weapon choices
Whether you kill off or spare an enemy (To be elaborated on in a future post!)
The miniquest system (Refusing a NPC's cry for help would affect the Alignment System, one way or another!)
What units you can recruit and what their personalities are like...
What items you can get...
What chapters you play...
How the story progresses...
How hard certain chapters would be...
What miniquests/regular quests you might get...
And other things of that nature.


The technical way it would work is very simple. You do evil things, your alignment goes "backwards" AKA makes you more evil. You do good things, and your alignment goes "forwards" AKA makes you more pure of heart. 

This mechanic is a WIP and will REALLY not have a whole lot to do with being "good" or evil, but it will have to do with altering the game as you play, and is the fundamental mechanic of the game. Basically, for every action you do in the game that would have some sort of an effect, like listening and helping an NPC, or ignoring them and letting them die, your "alignment" bar would go either to the left or the right. It would have three zones;

"Evil" (Or negative) -15 to -5
"Neutral" (Or middle) -4 to +4
"Good" (Or Positive) +5 to +15


There will be three versions of every chapter, three versions of every enemy you might encounter on that chapter, and etc etc. The first couple of chapters in the game would be a bit more linear than other chapters in the game, but that's just for storyline purposes. When you walk up to a typical village, you would have three possible choices, in general;


Pillage the village. (Considered a negative modifier)
Enter the village (Considered a neutral modifier)
Bless the village (Considered a positive modifier)


Destroying the village might make nearby enemies say "hey, that guy is kind of cool! Let's join him!" and you might gain a unit that was an enemy unit. Other things of that random nature might happen too. It would make your alignment modifier go down one point. So if you were at 0 alignment, you would go down to -1.


If you Enter the village, this is a much more random effect. You might get an item, some gold, a new unit, nothing at all, a hint, a cheat code, etc etc. It would not affect your alignment modifier at all. So if you were at 0 alignment modifier, you would stay at 0 alignment modifier.


Blessing the village is another interesting mechanic. You pay any amount of gold you wish, and based on the amount you pay, you can get a good item, or a new unit, or just about anything else you might get from the other options. This makes your alignment modifier go up by +1, so if you had 0 you'll have +1 now.




Let's say you arrive at the chapter 3 map. In a normal FE game, you have an objective you must complete, like seizing the throne. Let's say that based on the alignment system, you are classified as "evil" or negative. If you were good, you would arrive with your troops and raid the castel. But since you're evil, the troops arrive and try to kill YOU, turning that same chapter into a survival chapter instead of a sieze the throne chapter! And if you're neutral, it might be an "escape" (FE5) style chapter instead, where you try to escape the castle!


You can see how the Alignment system would play a big part in the game.

Now, a brief mention about the randomness element. This game will have a lot of randomness to it (I don't mean random potty humor, I mean in actual gameplay) like rewards you might get from a quest, for example. The characters who join you will also be somewhat random, to an extant. Their classes? Not likely, but possibly. The enemies you face on certain chapters will also be varied, and not static like they are now. 


For now, this is a good post. I hope it makes people thirst for my game even more :) Catch you all on my next post!

Miniquests and Arenas! Is this even a FE game anymore?

There's an interesting idea I heard of from somewhere else (RRR) about a miniquest system, and it would go very good with my implementation of FE2 towns. The idea was never clearly elaborated on, and most of it is made up by me, so I guess you could just call it my idea too, but that's your choice.

Let's say you're in the middle of a chapter, getting towards the end of it, and you're within like 3-5 turns of killing the boss. Suddenly an NPC appears, saying "Please help! My children are trapped in a house to the south!"


Obviously, you could send a unit down there to the house and save the children, but then again you might choose not to. If you do, you get a random reward, based on the strength of the unit you send. If you send your most powerful unit for example (thus leaving a potential hole in your defenses), you'd get a really good item, like a silver weapon, but if you send a weak mostly worthless unit, like a soldier or a fighter, you'd get a terrible weapon, like an iron or slim weapon.

Alternatively, an NPC might come up to you and say "Help, there's bandits attacking the village!" and then a question box would appear and say "Help the villagers? Y/N?"

Selecting yes would make bandits spawn near the villagers in question, then you'd have to rush down there and kill them off. Obviously sending a weak unit wouldn't really be an option as there would be enough bandits to overwhelm such a wimpy unit. In the end, after killing them off, you get a reward. (Random reward? Maybe.)

Selecting NO, on the other hand, just makes the bandits not spawn and you miss out on exp and potential rewards. Bad choice IMO.

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Now I'm going to focus on arenas. People just LOOOOOOVE to arena abuse. Oh yeah sure, you deny it, but it's like masturbating. Everyone does it, so don't lie to me!

I already made this post on Immortal Sword, but for you FEU'ers and other FE lovers who haven't seen it, here's my idea for overhauling arena abuse without actually truly preventing it.

Imagine that the guy who runs the arena doesn't actually have an unlimited amount of money he can give to you. Imagine that he only has a very finite amount, like 20,000 gold. (Very reasonable considering it's still plenty of leeway and still a tidy profit for people, yet isn't the infinity it's always been.) Every time you enter the arena, you pay him a random amount of money (like you do currently) like 750 gold for example. If you lose the fight, that 750 is ADDED to his 20,000 gold, but if you win the fight, you get the 750 of your gold back, plus his 750 as well, leaving him with 19,250 gold.

Once he reaches 0 gold he refuses to let you enter the arena anymore. (AFTER ALL, YOU CLEANED HIM OUT!) This means the end of the players arena abuse. However, an obvious go-around that I would leave in, would be for the player to just exit a bunch of matches, one after the other, and thereby give the arena guy a bunch of money again. Then, they can replay the arena, thereby continuing the abuse.

Still, with a 20,000 limit, you won't be filthy rich for the rest of eternity, and you'll still have to buy heal staves to heal your characters with (or replace them with Mend staves heh heh, OR make the heal staves more expensive on arena chapters! Haha I'm a douchebag XD)

As suggested by Sploder, there's also the thought of having more powerful enemies appear in the arena. I've thought of three easy ways to make this happen.

1. Turns. After so many turns spent on an arena chapter (whether abusing or not), enemies in the arena become stronger. I dislike this idea, as it's not very flexible, but at least it's there.

2. Gold Spent. After spending so much gold in the arena (regardless of winning or losing) like every 20,000 gold or so, enemies automatically become tougher. Again, this is very inflexible and I don't like it, but it's still an option.

3. Current Character Level. When your current character reaches a certain level in the arena, like 10 or 15, enemies become harder. IMO this is the best way to enforce limited cheating. It prevents them from over-powerleveling, but yet it's a soft limit, meaning they can still try and attempt it if they want to.

In any case, there would always be an accompanying warning before boosting the difficulty. The sort of warning depends on the circumstances, but the arena guy might say "You're so good at arena battling _____ (Insert current character name here), you've attracted the attention of our more renowned arena battlers! Good luck!" This way the player is not caught off guard completely.

Well, I hope this post was helpful and gave people ideas to improve their games. :D Next post; Something cool! I just don't know what yet!

The Gate Troll; New Class, New Objective!

So obviously most people will already know this post is coming, but it still needs to be officially posted and shown how it will work. The Gate Troll was one of my first ideas for this game, but also one of the trickiest. It started out as being called the "Defender" unit, but that was sort of lame, plus it didn't make a whole lot of sense. Then, I realized I wanted it to be like a LOTR creature that smashes down gates and such.

Basically, it will be a part of "Rush" chapters, a new kind of chapter I've invented. These are pseudo Defend the Throne/Kill the Enemies chapters, that would not appear very often, but like my survival chapters, would be significantly hard. Let's take a look at yet another one of my amazing paint drawings to demonstrate what I'm talking about!

So here we have a bunch of stars and diamonds and other colorful things. What does it all mean?

The blue diamonds at the bottom are the players units. Note the arrows pointing north.
The red stars are enemies, which you will have to fight to get through.
The red circles with blue outlines are the goals of the Gate Trolls.
The green arrows show the directions the Gate Trolls com from to get to the gate of the castle.
The big black square with the other yellow squares and long green rectangle is the castle you have to defend.
The blue squares with green outlines are just houses and scenery. Ignore them, they are not important.

So what ARE Gate Trolls? In LOTR The Two Towers, they are giant Trolls that appear during the battle of Minas Tirith, and their sole purpose is to destroy the gates of that mighty city, allowing the orcs to overrun the humans and elves. They are not combat oriented, but instead are giant powerful creatures that can take a TON of damage. They pushed the massive battering ram as seen in The Two Towers, and eventually smashed down the gates and did indeed overrun the city.

In my game, however, they will be somewhat different. Instead, they will hold giant tree trunks in their arms and be incapable of attacking a small unit like infantry. They require protection by their fellow units, like knights, mercenaries, soldiers, etc etc. They come with MASSIVE defenses, usually their defense ratings will be far above the average one of your units (unless you arena abused heehee you little cheater) and their HP will always be a solidly high number, well above anything in the normal range of 60 max HP. I was thinking that in the early game, they would have around 100 HP, and towards the later game they would have 300 or maybe even more.

Of course, my game is going to be a long one. It won't be 10 or 20 chapters, but maybe as long or longer than FE7, depending on how well I can work with Bwd's kit. If I find it somewhat easy to use, you can bet that there will be third tiered units in my game and some stats will be raised as well. In this case, the Gate Trolls would be much harder than ever before!

BUT WAIT! Just because you'll have to fight your way through waves of enemies AND get to the Gate Trolls AND kill them before they smash down the gates, doesn't mean you won't have some advantages on your side! I am going to make sure no chapter is impossible to beat (except possibly on god mode, but that's a different story) so the Gate Trolls would have weaknesses.

Certain classes of units would deal different ranges of damage multipliers to them. I'm not referring to the standard FE fare of X2 and X3 damage, but maybe 0.5 for really powerful units (like druids) and X2.7 for weaker and underused units like Snipers and Prepromotes. There would always be a logical reason for this, and it wouldn't be just randomosity of guessing which unit deals more or less damage. Oh, and Bishops would have the slayer skill. Meaning monsters will die. And Trolls are monsters. :D

Trolls would be unable to attack the player, the reason behind this being that their massive wooden clubs would be suited only for attacking inanimate objects and would not be suited for the precision of combat. Therefore they would have approximately zero offensive capabilities. I considered a special move called "thrash" where they automatically deal out a set 20 damage to any player units surrounding them, but I'm not sure if I should do that or not.

So, they would charge at the gate, and start attacking it. The player would have about 3-5 turns to kill them off before they break the gates down, otherwise the enemy swarms the castle and kills off the people inside, causing the player to lose. You would have to stop the Gate Trolls, AND the enemy units surrounding the Trolls before they destroy the gates and you as well. Tricky? HELLS TO THE YEAH. And freaking hard too! (Though obviously it wouldn't be TOO challenging on easy mode, with a generous turn allowance for the newer players. But on harder modes the game would be very unforgiving, especially on god mode.

I can't particularly remember any other important details I need to include, but if I do, I'll include them here in this post! Keep reading guys, you're giving me the desire to go on!

Survival Chapters; Wrath of the RNG Gods!

I was debating which aspect of my game I'd like to talk about first. Storyline? Characters? More mechanics? So I went with MOAR MEKANIKS.

Survival chapters will have their own factors governing them and making them 10 times harder than even their FE7 counterparts. For example, there's always that off chance that you might activate Death, Swarm, or Blitz mode, and that would just make it harder than it was before! But let's see what this survival idea is based on.

In FE7, the first "survival" chapter you play isn't hard at all. Most of the time I kill off all the enemies before turn 8 of 11. That's not even ridiculous, that's sad. Survival chapters are SUPPOSED to be levels where you're fighting for your very life, right? Where you just barely make it through, and even then you have to be more cunning and outwit and outmaneuver the enemy.

So the first thing that makes Survival Chapters more deadly than other chapters, will be the more frequent spawning of enemies. You will literally be overrun by enemies on a ridiculous scale of 3-1 or even 6-1. (The lower number is for easy mode, the higher is for hard mode) Enemies will not spawn statically, they will be somewhat randomized in their class, weapons they have, their stats, and other things of that number. In addition, if the computer detects that you are slaying enemy after enemy with reckless abandon, their levels and stats will increase and MORE will spawn than even before!

Here's my idea for the very first survival chapter.




Remember earlier on in my blog when I was discussing the storyline of my game? I never did get around to much more of that. So after James and Jessica grow up, one day they are with their father out in the village, when bandits attack. (Whoa whoa whoa, bandits in an FE game? Never saw that one coming!) They fight those bandits, and on the way back to the castle, they find out the bandits were just hired thugs, and there is an ambush waiting for them in the castle! OH SHIT!



^This would be sort of the basic layout of the map. (Again, I demonstrate my AMAZING paint skillz!11!!one!) That blue circle/oval in the center of the map, that's where your units would start. (Whoever you have at that point in the game.) The dots on the right side of the map would be NPC's you NEED to protect! (NOT Civilians, think more along the lines of Engineers, Architects, something logical etc.) If even one of them dies, you lose the chapter. The green diamonds would be enemy spawn points. Depending on how hard you're kicking ass, enemies would spawn from more or less areas. This would be a F.O.W. chapter, so you'd never be able to tell what enemies spawned where, or anything of the sort, until they were right on top of you, adding to the difficulty. (DISCLAIMER, THERE WOULD BE CHEATS TO REMOVE F.O.W. AT ANY TIME)

The pink diamonds indicate enemies guarding treasure chests. They would be the only "static" enemies on the map, meaning the only ones that always have the same classes and items and such. The difficulty level you select at the start of the game DRASTICALLY affects what enemies spawn, how random their stats and items are, what their AI does, etc etc. Let's look at their items first.

They might start with iron and steel weapons on easy mode, and there would only be a couple enemies spawning at a time. Expect "Blade" weapons on medium mode, and things like horseslayers and reaver weapons, and then on hard mode you might encounter silver weapons as well! (The god difficulty might have brave weapons and legendary "S" ranked weapons as well! Be warned!)

Instead of just a bunch of wimpy soldiers and cavaliers spawning like on easy mode, you might face off against knights and mages in medium mode, or even shamans and stronger on hard mode. (Hehe, this isn't even thinking about the god mode you unlock after the first playthrough) Again, these classes are completely randomized and unpredictable. (Linear playthroughs are sooooooo boring)

Hell if I could do just the randomized classes with a GBA ROM I would! But alas, RMXP is my only hope...

How about stats? NOT counting bonuses like Blitz/Death/Swarm Mode, the enemies would be a little weaker than you on easy mode. They would be at your current strength on medium mode, and a bit stronger than you, by default, on hard mode. (And WAY tougher on the god difficulty)

Enemy AI is very important as well. On easy mode, the enemies would only have two possible AI's.
1. Attack viciously ignoring any damage to themselves (allowing you to tank with a meatshield)
2. Defend and don't attack unless attacked first. This doesn't mean they wouldn't move around, but they wouldn't attack unless attacked first, then they revert to AI 1.

On medium mode, you might face off against clerics and priests and mages as well. The AI might include more advanced possibilities.
3. Heal. They would heal any ally who is damaged. Pretty self explanatory.
4. Concentrated attack. Two or more enemies gang up on one unit and try to kill it off. This shouldn't even be a problem as tanks might be included.

On hard mode, things get nasty. In addition to all of the above AI, you would have other worries as well.
5. Attack weakest unit. The AI attacks your weakest unit, based on possible amount of damage they could cause and/or how much HP% they have lost. This would also be easily combinable with AI 4.
6. Snipe. This is for long range units like Ballistae, Mages with bolting, longbows, etc. Combinable with AI 4 and 5.

God mode would be... heeheehee....

And now, you can easily see how touch TRUE survival chapters would be! One last thing, the above map was NOT based on that FE5 map. It's actually just coincidence it appears similar to it. Hope this post was enjoyable and/or informative.

Okay, so right now I'm trying to update the Nightmare Modules for the Fire Emblem roms and I'll be taking a hiatus from the blog posts. (Not like anybody actually reads them anyways so w/e) Plus I got stuff to do this week and other things of that sort.

Bringing back FE2 towns! Walk around, check out the scenery!

In most FE games made nowadays, there is only one method of getting around in the typical game. You play a chapter, move your units around strategically and attack an enemy, and all buying of weapons and recruiting new characters/gaining of items and such take place on the battlefield, in the form of shops, houses, and chests.

However, it was not always this way. Remember FE2 Gaiden? No? I don't blame you. Few Americans have actually played this game. But it was a huge hit over in Japan when it came out for the NES (many) years ago. The game wasn't yet the FE of today, and one of the biggest differences I noticed was the ability to walk around in towns. As in, like the old Ultima/Final Fantasy NES games. You could either recruit, or NOT recruit characters in those towns and it gave the game a little bit of a different fun factor than is present nowadays.

That's what I am thinking of bringing back, but in a different form. Firstly, something new will be introduced to the FE series, but something that many RPG's have had called an "Alignment System". My original thought for this was for it to be based off of "evil" "neutral" and "good" actions you perform in the game, but I think it should be a bit more flexible than that. HOWEVER, this shall be discussed in a future post, not this one.

Let's get back to the towns. What could happen in a town?

Well first off, you'd be able to recruit characters in towns. (Though not EXCLUSIVELY in towns. You would still be able to recruit characters on the battlefield as well.)

You would be able to find and/or buy weapons and magic tomes in towns. Towns would be both on a typical map (Only if your main Lord enters them will you be able to walk around in them. Any other unit would simply get a list of options, but that'll be elaborated on in future posts.) and would be in between certain chapters as well.

In addition, though I don't plan to incorporate support conversations in my game (A big portion of GBA FE games) I might still do it if there were a reason/incentive to doing it. I would also change how the support system works just a tad, but that'll be elaborated on later.

Towns could really change some of the core meanings of what an FE game is, but before someone goes dissing me, remember that FE2 (Fire Emblem Gaiden) had towns in it and it was one of the great classic NES games of its time. (But only in Japan.)

I might revise this post, but for now this is good enough. I'm doing a small side hack right now so my posts might be a bit more sparsed out, but they'll keep on coming as long as people keep reading. :D

Swarm Mode, Death Mode, and Blitz mode; The Terrible Trio!

I really am excited for this idea. It's something that I've wanted to see in a Fire Emblem game for YEARS now.

DISCLAIMER; THERE WOULD BE CHEAT CODES THAT COULD DISABLE ANY AND ALL OF THESE MODES AT ANY TIME.
You know how you play Fire Emblem 7 sometimes, and then you just Arena Abuse your characters to godlike levels and the rest of the game is ridiculously easy? Why didn't the designers think of that? Why didn't they realize that after a player AA's then the rest of the game is going to be ridiculously easy? I like to think they made it so easy on purpose, but that might be giving them too much credit.

Well don't think I'm going to give you such a lucky break BECAUSE I WON'T. No sir, except on the lowest difficulty my game is going to be tough as nails! And don't even think you'll be able to beat the unlockable god difficulty on your second playthrough, because you won't!

I have considered different ways of increasing the difficulty though. One way would be Death Mode, where enemies are just a lot stronger than normal. Swarm Mode could just be a way for them to start spawning like crazy. And then another mode called Blitz Mode could be where they have better weapons and smarter AI. Of course, it would also be possible to activate one, two, or ALL of these modes at once, which could insanely boost the difficulty.

How will they be activated? Well, for starters, it will be impossible to activate any of them before your first arena chapter. If you ignore that arena, they still can't be activated. If, however, you enter an arena just ONE time, that would allow them to be activated. Each one would have its own unique triggers.

For example, Swarm Mode would be activated only if you were OHKO'ing a bunch of enemies one after the other. So if a wave of soldiers is slaughtered in a single turn, that would/could/might activate Swarm Mode. This would make a SHIT TON of enemies start blasting at you from all sides. Scary thought huh?

Death Mode, which is where the enemies have stronger stats, is based on the number of turns elapsed in the game. For example, let's say I set the game up so it would take you about 100 turns to complete 10 chapters, but you were actually at 400 turns. This infers that you were either Boss Abusing or Arena Abusing, which activates Death Mode. Unlike Swarm Mode, which can and is activated in the middle of a chapter, Death Mode is activated at the start of a chapter. When you are checking the enemy field and see WAY overpowered enemies, you might actually cry too. THAT'LL TEACH YOU TO AA.

And then there's Blitz Mode. This one can also be activated in the middle of a chapter, however it is based on whether the game detects that you are much stronger than you should be at that point in the game (again inferring arena abuse) and it makes a mid-chapter cutscene ensue, which has the enemy leader giving stronger weapons to his troops. Because it's not based on turns, but more on relative power of your strongest units, this means if you were giving all the EXP to one unit (Like, oh say a powerful Lord with a badass weapon) then Blitz Mode would activate. Keep your army somewhat balanced though, and this wouldn't be a problem.

Keep in mind though, that none of these modes would ever activate on the lowest difficulty, and on the medium difficulty they would have a 50% chance of being activated, and on the hardest they would be merciless in their activation. MWAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! ARENA ABUSERS CAN SUCK IT!

In conclusion, that is another way I plan to revamp the gameplay of FE. I hope people think it's a good idea, because I certainly do :)

Next blog post, I will discuss how very hazardous to your health Survival Chapters will become.

The unique and powerful Quantum Stave! Jessica's final option!

The Quantum Stave... oooohhh it sounds so AWESOME! Without having any idea of what it does, you're already assuming it's going to be ridiculously powerful, aren't you?! WELL IT IS!!!!

Okay, so obviously I'll be keeping it balanced, but that still doesn't make it less awesome than the other weapons you can get. So what does it do? Basically it's a warp staff with unlimited uses, except not as simple as that.

It will have a base Warp function, much like the Minerva Staff has a base heal function that can be used regardless of how much LP is in the LPM. You will be able to warp one ally at any time a certain number of spaces away. The formula is like this...

MAG/2 = # of tiles you can warp someone away. So if your magic is at 10 points, divide by two and round down to the nearest number. So that makes 5 tiles if you have 10 MAG.
If it's at 13 MAG that makes 6 tiles.
If 17 then 8 Tiles.
If 30 then 15 tiles. (30 is obviously the max.)
*BONUS; THERE MIGHT BE ITEMS IN THE GAME THAT GIVE A MAGIC BONUS IF EQUIPPED. THIS WILL INCREASE YOUR RANGE EVEN MORE*

Sounds cool huh? Well there's more.

The LPM is, of course, going to play a part in this stave's capabilities. The LPM meter will be static, and not based on variables like the other Lord Artifact Items. It will have 100 LP, and everytime you cast the base warp move, that makes 10 points of LPM. Therefore, every ten casts fills it up allowing you to use the special abilities. BUT WAIT! When it's not full you can still have powerful super abilities still! Let's take a look at how this works.

First off is the Mass Warp technique. Now, this is still a WIP but I think I have a good idea of what I want it to be. The normal warp ability requires you to be right next to a person to warp them to a different space. However, based on how full the LPM currently is, if you use the Mass Warp technique you'll be able to teleport someone somewhere from a greater distance away. For example;
If you have 10/100 LPM you can cast the warp move on someone up to two spaces away from Jessica.
If you have 20/100 LPM, then up to three spaces away.
30/100 is four spaces away...
90/100 is 10 spaces away...
And a max LPM is a range of TOTAL. If you achieve 100 LPM then you can grab any of your allies anywhere on the board, and teleport them a number of spaces away from their current spot according to the formula I outlined earlier, MAG/2 rounded down.

In addition, and this is a big "iffy" depending on how I'll try to code this, for every 50 points of LPM you'll be able to teleport one additional unit somewhere on the board. Sooooo.....
0-49 LPM = One unit, up to 5 tiles away.
50-99 LPM = Two units, up to ten tiles away.
100 LPM = Three units, anywhere on the map.

Again, this is iffy and may just be reduced to 1 unit. I hope I don't have to though :)

Last Mega-Technique of the Quantum Stave? The Mass Rescue. This is a very simple move, but it could be extremely satisfying to cast. When, and only when your LPM reaches 100%, then you may activate this move. It has a range of TOTAL and all it does is rescues all allied and NPC units on the board and teleports them within the area of Jessica. They'll all be grouped together, as closely together as possible, and if you do it at the beginning of a new turn, that means you'll have all of your units in one area ready to mass swarm the enemy.

I think this post is detailed enough about the Quantum Stave. This is the end of the beginning game Lord Artifact Items. I'm not sure what my next posts will be about, but I think a description of the all new Swarm Mode, a powerful mode that keeps the game balanced based on how good of a player you are. Keep reading!

Jessica shows her power! The Minerva Staff!

So far up to this point, James is looking like a total enemy destroying BADASS. One thing I've noticed from many of my fellow Fire Emblem lovers though, is the general desire to have a mage lord of some sort. To date, all canon Fire Emblem games have had main characters that were only physical fighters and not magic users.

That's bull. After all, if I were a rich and powerful daughter/son of a king and there were mages in this fictional universe, why would I not take it upon myself to learn the ability to hurl fireballs and bolts of lightning from my fingertips? Yeah, sounds pretty stupid doesn't it?

Well, James is looking to be a very pwnage unit. Potentially the best Lord in any Fire Emblem game to date. (Then again, this is a fangame, not canon.) But Jessica will certainly hold her uniqueness against her brothers raw power. She will be focused on aiding her allies through staves and other types of passive magic. Well... mostly staves. :P

The first stave up for grabs is the almighty super powerful Minerva Staff. This staff is much like the Latona of FE8 lore, albeit a bit weaker and a little bit more limited. Let's examine the details of each of them.

Latona heals 100% HP to all allied units on the map, anywhere on the map, and cures all status ailments.
Any unit with an S rank in staves can wield it.
It only has 3 uses and then it breaks.
It has a range of TOTAL, meaning all allies anywhere on the map are affected by it and healed 100%.
It's only available in the final chapters of the game.
You can use this staff at any point you wish, the only conditions needed to use it are the S rank in staves.


All right, now let's compare those stats with the stats of the Minerva Staff.
Minerva will not heal a guaranteed 100% HP to all units; the amount will be extremely variable, with 5 HP being the absolute minimum. (Details about the exact amounts in a minute)
Only Jessica will be able to wield it, as it has a Prf. rank.
It will have unlimited uses. As in, it will never break.
This stave will also have a range of TOTAL, however it will heal less HP the farther away a unit is, like the fortify staff. Again, details in a minute.
It will be available to use at the start of the game.
It will be regulated by the LP bar. The only way to build up LP for the LPM bar will be to heal with this staff, therefore it will have a "normal" heal mode.

In any FE game, your first healer has a staff called "Heal" that heals 10HP + MAG stat. Therefore if your MAG stat is at 5 and you heal someone, you'll heal 15 HP. Pretty simple, right? Well the Minerva staff will always have a base heal function that can be performed at any time, whether the LPM is at 0% or 100%. It will heal 5 HP+MAG stat to one unit that is directly next to Jessica.

So why only 5HP+MAG? Why not 10? Well because everytime you heal someone you're adding on to your LPM, and that only gets added to if you use the Minerva Staff. Using a normal heal staff, for example, will not increase your LPM. Therefore it's a (quite tiny actually) trade off. However, her minimum will increase to 10 after she promotes.

That being said, lets describe the super abilities of the Minerva Staff now, the Minerva Wave, and the Minerva Blast.

The formula for the staff is 5HP+MAG stat = Full healing ability. Therefore if she has 17 MAG, add 5 to that (10 after promotion) and she will heal 22 HP, and that is considered her maximum healing capability. Obviously, this goes up as she increases in level and gains in the MAG stat.

The Minerva Wave heals up to 100% of Jessica's current healing capability within two tiles. Every tile after that for 3 tiles is reduced 5% each time. After that, it gets reduced 10% for the next three, and an additional 20% thereafter, culminating in the minimum 5 HP healing. NOTE: AFTER PROMOTING HER MINIMUM INCREASES TO 10 HP. Therefore:
Tiles 1 and 2. 100% capacity.
Tile 3. 95%
Tile 4. 90%
Tile 5. 85%
Tile 6. 75%
Tile 7. 65%
Tile 8. 55%
Tile 9. 35%
Tile 10. 15%
Tiles 11+. Minimum 5 HP. (10 after promotion)

She can use her Minerva Wave at any point, and the exact formula above will be followed no matter how low her LPM is, as long as it's at 10% or above. Every 10% = 1 additional tile she can reach, which means at 90% LPM she will be able to heal up to 9 tiles away. Only at 100% does her range become TOTAL.

You can see how this is basically a Fortify staff with extra range. However, this is just the Minerva Wave. What about the Minerva Blast?

I had a bit of a dilemma with the Minerva Blast. On one hand, I wanted it to be another TOTAL range technique, that randomly healed 100% HP to approximately 60% of your ally units on the map, but I decided that wouldn't work right, instead, the Minerva Blast is aimed like a cone.

Like so. It blasts a ray of 100% healing energy starting small but expanding as it gets further from her. Any ally unit caught in the "blast" is instantly healed to 100% HP. (Obviously enemies are not or that would defeat the purpose.) To use this technique, however, you must be at 100% LPM. That is the only requirement.

The formula for the cone is simple.
First tile is one space wide.
Then three spaces wide.
Then five.
Seven.
Etc etc.


And that about concludes it for the list of Jessica's legendary Minerva Staff's abilities. One last thing though... after using either of the super abilities at any point, there is no cooldown and on the next chapter you may immediately start gaining LPM again. This again differentiates Jessica from James. I'm also going to adjust his cool down time to 1 turn.

Stay tuned, next up is Jessica's other legendary staff, the Quantum Stave. Oooooh, wicked awesome....

Revision: The Maelstrom Sword.

Someone mentioned to me that the Maelstrom Sword was WAY overpowered, so this is a "quick" post about a revision to it. (Please read the original post before reading this one as I will not quote anything from it.)

I mentioned originally it would deal out 70% damage to all enemies within a 3 tile radius. That is much too strong. Instead, 70% will be the max damage. For every point of defense that the enemy has, you subtract 2% damage. For every point of STR that James has, you add 1%. There is a minimum of 10% damage no matter what. (RES plays no part in the equation. Mages will just be slaughtered by his Sword Wave)

In this way, if James were to have 0 STR and the enemy had 30 DEF (The theoretical lowest amount of damage you could inflict) then you would take 70%, and subtract 30X2=60%. 70% - 60% = 10%. Therefore James would inflict 10% damage.

If James has 30 STR and the enemy has 0 DEF, he still will not OHKO them, it will only be 70% damage.

What if James with 30 STR goes up against a general with 30 DEF? 70 - 30X2 + 30X1 = 40% damage. You would inflict 40% damage.

A revision might be made to the Thunder Bow as well later. Keep coming back :D

Brother and Sister Combo Technique: The Phoenix Attack

All right, so this post will be focused on the new ability that requires both James and Jessica to execute; The Phoenix Attack. You might want to first review a brief history of the Triangle Attack however, if you're new to Fire Emblem.

Well, the Triangle Attack and the Phoenix Attack will be similiar in a couple ways. While the Triangle Attack requires three units (Generally either Pegasi units, or Knights as in the case of FE6) to form a sort of cone around an enemy before the attack will work, the Phoenix Attack will only require two units, James and Jessica in a straight line.

Instead of doing triple damage, as the Triangle Attack does, the Phoenix Attack will only do double damage against an enemy unit. Both attacks are similiar in the fact that they are guaranteed to hit.

However, since the Phoenix Attack will only require two units to perform, and you get both of those units at the start of the game, it will have to have limitations on how to perform it, otherwise it will be ridiculously easy to abuse. Again, this calls for use of the LPM bar. But first, let's see how the attack will have to be lined up, and how it will be activated.



In this (terribly crude) diagram, we will pretend the green square is an enemy, the blue oval is James, and the red triangle is Jessica.

If you start the game out as James, then you must line up James and Jessica in front of the enemy like that. Jessica in the back, and James in the front. (This may be duplicated in reverse if above the unit, or the corresponding pattern if on the sides.) Because James is your main Lord, he must make the initiating attack that activates the Phoenix Attack. This means you would position Jessica one tile away from the enemy, then bring James up in front of her and attack normally, and if all the conditions were met this would activate the Phoenix Attack automatically. (Just like if this were the Triangle Attack.) More on those conditions in a minute.

Now, if you chose Jessica as your main lord, then she would be the initiator. You would line them up in the exact same way, with James in the front and Jessica right behind him, then assuming all the conditions were met, Jessica would attack which would automatically activate the Phoenix Attack.

Here is the biggest difference between the two of them. Jessica is a magic user, while James is a physical attacker. This means on Jessica's playthrough, you'd be dealing magic damage on this attack, while on James' mode, you'd be dealing physical damage.

While this is all fine and dandy, it does not take into account the LPM bar. The LPM bar will be very important in regulating abuse of this move. As stated in one of my previous blog posts, James and Jessica will both have two ways of adding to their LPM bars. Jessica will add onto her LPM by healing allies with her healing staves, while James will gain LPM by attacking enemies and dealing out damage. Jessica's LPM threshold will be almost 50% lower than James, but healing is much more time consuming, so I'd say they're both equally balanced.

No matter which mode you're playing on, whether James or Jessica's mode, you must have a full 100% LPM bar to activate the attack. You must use the correct initiator. James and Jessica must be in the correct position. Only then will you be able to use this awesome technique.

However, unlike the Lord weapons, you may use any weapon or stave to accrue the necessary LPM points. If you were to use the Thunder Bow's special ability for example, you must attack with the Thunder Bow to gain LPM points. And vice versa for the Maelstrom Sword. Since the Phoenix Attack is not a weapon however, its LPM can be increased by using any weapon/stave. In addition, there is no turn cooldown time after activating the Phoenix Attack, and if James or Jessica has a direct combat weapon/magic equipped, that means they both can instantly start accruing more LPM! Woot!

Of course, I haven't even started describing the special Lord weapons that Jessica will have. Those will be particularly interesting, and will be detailed in my next post. Keep reading!

Another powerful weapon for James; The Maelstrom Sword.

THIS POST HAS BEEN REVISED. PLEASE SEE THE LATER TOPIC FOR MORE INFORMATION.


In my last post I went into great detail about how the Thunder Bow will work, and be based especially on randomness and raw power. (For example; Killing anything a bolt strikes in one hit.) While the Thunder Bow will focus on range and randomness, the Maelstrom Sword will be more about power and close range annihilation.

The tricky thing is keeping it balanced, so firstly will come the base weapon stats. Eat your heart out.

Maelstrom Sword:
7 MGT
65 HIT
5 Crit
9 WT
1 RNG
Unlimited Durability
Can't be sold
Effective against knights
10% Chance to inflict anima magic damage instead of physical damage. (Again, not sure how I'll code this.)
Prf. Rank - James only


Now, while the Lightning Bombard technique will be able to hit anywhere on a map 20 times at a full 100% LPM, the Maelstrom Sword will be a far more focused attack called the Sword Wave. It will strike all tiles within three squares of the caster (James), and instead of being an OHKO move, it will only deal out 70% damage at its peak 100% meter. The reason this is not an OHKO move should be apparent; It would be ridiculously easy to abuse. Just throw James with a full 100% LPM into the middle of a wave of enemies and activate the Sword Wave. You'd slay an army of enemies ridiculously fast.

The emptier the meter is, however, the less damage it will deal out, though it will always deal the same amount of percentage to every enemy unit. So to elaborate, here are (potential) damage-to-LPM ratios...

If the meter is at 90% full, it will only deal 65% damage to all the enemies within range.
If it's 80% full, it will only deal out 60% damage.
70% full will be 50% damage.
60% full will be 40% damage.
50% full will be 30% damage.
Between 30% and 50% full will also be 30% damage.
Every reduced 1% after that = 1% less damage.

Therefore if a bunch of 100HP enemies are surrounding James and he's only 1% full, he will only deal out 1 damage to them all. If he's at 23% full it will be 23 damage. If it's at 65% full it will be 45 damage. And so on and so forth. Keep in mind, that if they have lost more than 40% HP and you attack with this move and deal out 60% or more, then the enemy will die. (Or any other combination which leads to dealing more damage then they can take.) This means that sending your units ahead and weakening the enemy would allow James to zoom in and mop up. Or better yet, the other way around.

If by chance he kills any enemies nearby with this move, you will lose any items they may have dropped. So sad, but true. Thank god there's an alternative called the Bladestorm.

The Thunder Bow's Focus Bombard technique can target one enemy anywhere on the map and OHKO it, at the same time giving James that enemy's weapon. The Maelstrom Sword, however, will have an equally useful technique. Instead of OHKO'ing one enemy anywhere on the map, it will OHKO two enemies within six tiles. You lose out on range, but double in power. If the enemies drop an item, James will get it. If they drop two items, James will only keep the most valuable one, however. (Or maybe a box will appear asking which item you want to keep. I haven't decided yet. Whichever is more balanced.)

So while you could attack an enemy thief that just raided the last chest and is getting away with the Focus Bombard, the Bladestorm technique would be more useful for if two enemy generals/knights/other heavy armor unit were charging you. You could destroy both of them without batting an eye. The LPM meter must be at 100% to use the Bladestorm technique.

What if you use the Sword Wave or Bladestorm on a boss/Miniboss?

In the case of the Sword Wave, you will deal out 40% damage to the Boss or Miniboss. In the case of the Bladestorm, if you target both attacks on the Boss/Miniboss, James will deal out 80% damage to that unit.

That should just about do it for the Maelstrom Sword. On my next blog post I will be detailing the Brother-Sister combo attack technique, which will be somewhat similiar to the Triangle attack. Please keep reading!

A powerful weapon for James; The Thunder Bow

THIS POST IS CURRENTLY UNDER REVISION

Today I'll be detailing a powerful weapon James will be able to obtain at the very beginning of the game, called the Thunder Bow. When you start playing the game, you must choose James as your main Lord to obtain this mighty weapon.

Here are the regular weapon stats for this bow.

Thunder Bow:

6 MT (Attack power)
70 HIT (Percentage of hitrate)
10 CRIT (Chance to do a critical, dealing triple damage.)
8 WT (How heavy a weapon is determines if it slows down a unit or not.)
2-3 RNG (Number of tiles away that this weapon attacks.)
Unlimited Durability (Will never break.)
Can't be sold (Self explanatory)
Effective against Fliers (Does double or triple damage against Wyverns, Pegasi, and Dragons.)
10% Chance to inflict anima magic damage instead of physical damage. (I wonder how this will be coded?)
Prf. Rank - James Only (Only James can wield this)

Now, how this weapon will affect the Lord Power Meter (Henceforth referred to as LPM) has been a matter of careful thought. The bow will have a special move called Lightning Bombard which calls down lightning on the battlefield. The number of strikes will vary depending on how full the LPM is. At a full 100% bar, you will cast twenty strikes of lightning on randomized tiles anywhere on the battlefield. If your bar is only 5% full though, you will only cast one random bolt. For every 5% add another random bolt. You cannot direct the flow of the strikes, and they may either miss all of the enemy units entirely, or will hit all of them at once, or just one or two. What happens if they strike a unit though? (Whether enemy, player, or NPC?)

Any enemy unit EXCEPT a boss/miniboss that is struck by a bolt of lightning is instantly killed. Bosses and minibosses lose 50% of their HP if struck however. Some units will have an innate resistance to the bolts, and will "only" recieve 70% damage. (If their HP has already been reduced by 30% or more, then they will just die.) If a bolt strikes an enemy carrying a droppable weapon/item, that item is lost for good.

If a bolt strikes an NPC, they lose 30% of their HP. It will never kill them, however, it will reduce them to 1HP at worst.

If a bolt strikes a player unit, that unit loses 20% HP. Again, they can never go below 1 HP.

Well, this might sound pretty cool, but on a really really large map, 20 strikes wouldn't even hit 3% of the map. It would be very very easy to miss the enemy entirely. This means it would be nearly worthless on such a large map, which made me realize it would need another form of attack. I decided to call this the Focus Bombard. The Focus Bombard casts only a single, powerful bolt of lightning that deals out 70% to Bosses and Minibosses, and when it hits a regular enemy unit it instantly OHKO's them. (Regardless of whether they would resist a normal bolt or not.) If they are carrying a weapon/item that is droppable, James will obtain that item. (Make sure he has a free inventory slot though!)

However, the Focus Bombard will only be able to activate if the LPM is at 100%. It completely drains the bar, leaving no more juice for even a single random strike. It should also be noted that activating the regular Lightning Bombard move at any time, whether 5% or 100%, casts the maximum possible number of bolts and completely drains the LPM as well.

In addition, there will be a turn cooldown time. In this way a player won't just activate the move, then the enemy attacks and you instantly re-accrue a large portion of the LPM. I'm thinking 4-6 turns should be a good number. It will make for more strategic use of the LPM, in my opinion.

Well, that should just about be it for the Thunder Bow. My next blog post will detail another possible weapon James could wield, called the Maelstrom Sword. Keep reading!

UPDATE: This weapon will not require 250 HP damage to fill the LPM bar like the Maelstrom Sword does. Instead the bar will be set at 150 HP. This is because this is an indirect combat weapon and would not cause damage nearly as often as the Maelstrom Sword does. In addition, I will be rethinking accuracy issues with this weapon, such as a way to redirect the Lightning Bombard attack into a (somewhat) generalized area instead of the whole board. Also, it will not cause damage to Ally or NPC units if they are struck. In fact they will not be struck period.

There may be more revisions as well. But for now, I will keep posting like I've been doing.


I WILL POST REVISIONS TO THIS WEAPON IN A LATER UPDATED POST.

How I plan to revitalize Lords.

In my last post, I detailed why Lords suck, and why they need to be changed. This post will be about the "How" instead of the "Why" today. How I plan to change them. How I plan to stay balanced as well. How I will still keep the general feel of Fire Emblem while I do so.

Intelligent Systems, the creators of Fire Emblem, have made a few errors in what they think a lord should be. They always attempt to "balance" the Lord alongside the other units in the game. The Lord always promotes later than the rest, always holds up the general flow of the game, etc etc, and never has any great redeeming qualities. (Except some sort of special Lord Only weapon, but that gets used up fast and then you're stuck with a crappy unit again.)


Today I'll be detailing my future Lord in my game named James.  James and Jessica each have their own special attributes and abilities.
James will be a physical unit. He will use Swords and Bows. All his attacks will deal physical damage. (With just a couple exceptions, but those details will be for later.)
Jessica will be a magic unit. She will utilise Light Magic and Staves. (Staffs of healing, curing, and other miscellaneous effects.)

James will be a very strong lord, focused especially on dealing out actual HP damage to the enemy in various ways.
Jessica will be a more passive unit, focused on aiding her allies in various ways with her staves and long range Light Magic.

Let's focus on what makes the two similiar. Both of them will have something new to the Fire Emblem series called the Lord Power Meter. I don't think I've worked out all the kinks in it, but it goes a little something like this:

In the case of James, he gains points by attacking enemies and dealing out HP damage to them. So his meter might be set at 250 HP. In other words, for every 1 point of damage he deals to an enemy, that's 1/250 points added to his meter. For every 2.5 HP damage he deals out, that's 1% of his LP meter. Every 25 Damage is 10%, etc etc.

Jessica's LP meter will be different. Her meter will be based on how much HP she heals to an ally, not damage to an enemy. Her threshold will also be significantly lower (As healing is slower than hurting.). I am thinking her LP meter should be at 150 HP, instead of 250. Therefore for every 1.5 points of damage she heals, that's 1% of her meter being filled. For every 15, that makes 10%, etc etc etc.

Now, based on which lord you choose at the start of the game, that lord will be your main lord for the rest of the game. However, even though both lords will always be playable throughout the game, only one of the two will at any given point be able to use a special ability, and that ability is chosen at the beginning of the game with the list of answers you can give to your father, Leonard.

My next blog post will detail one of those weapons/abilities that James can acquire.

Why Lords inherently suck to Fire Emblem.

The biggest problem with many Fire Emblem games, is the lack of impact that a Lord (Your main characters' typical class) has on actual gameplay. Oftentimes, the Lord drags you down, slows down the general progression of other characters, is a burden, and is usually the weakest character by the end game. (Unless, as in the case of Roy from FE6, you are given a "broken" uber powerful weapon towards the end of the game, but that's just cheap.)

Let's take FE7, for example. In this game there is a character named Eliwood, (I call him Eliwuss) who is your main Lord for most of the game. He is potentially the worst Lord in any Fire Emblem game to date. Why? There are four main reasons why.

1. He doesn't promote (Level up to his full potential) until about 5 chapters till the end of the game. (There are 25 chapters after you acquire him) This means while you have powerful fully leveled characters of many other classes, he's still waiting to be promoted!
2. Even after promoting, his "legendary" weapon is so huge that it slows him down a lot and makes him cannon fodder for the enemy. The chances of him being involved against the final boss, Nergal, are slim to none.
3. He is overshadowed by the other two lords, Lyndis and Hector, who are actually considered to be two of the best lords in FE history. They promote long before he does, and they have far better stats than he does.
4. Think all that wasn't bad enough? He's required on every chapter in the game as well. Nothing is more annoying than always being forced to bring a crappy worthless unit onto a chapter when a different unit would be better used in place of him.


The reason I'm mentioning all of this is to point out the inherent flaws and restrictions Lords have always had on Fire Emblem gameplay. But that's just not right. Shouldn't Lords, being the main characters, be the most powerful units you can acquire? I think so, which is why the next few posts on my blog will be especially focusing on making the Lords have much more utility then they ever had before.

More in a future post.

Potential ideas for a storyline.

The first thing I like to think of for a game, is either game mechanics that will make it unique and separate it from the rest of the ideas floating around out there, or a good storyline. A storyline is one of the most (If not the most, period) important parts of any game. Unless this is an NES game we're talking about. Lol.

An idea I came up with some time back starts out like this:

There is a king named Leonard. He is a loved king, very kind and gentle. His people know him as a compassionate ruler who frequently makes trips to the surrounding villages to spread his wealth to the townspeople. He has only two twin children, a brother and a sister named James and Jessica.

James

Jessica

Leonard




His wife died many years earlier around the time they were born, which has always been a bit of a sadness he has carried around with him. Leonard loves his children very much, but one day he learns that one of the kings in a distant land has set his sights on Leonards' realm and wants to take it over. (Your typical bad guy douchebag.)

Leonard decides the time of peace will come to an end eventually, so he decides to start training his children to take over the throne, in case the worst should happen. This is where the gameplay will come in. This is considered the official "start" of the game.

You are given a choice upon starting the game; Play as either James or Jessica. In your typical Fire Emblem game, such a choice would be meaningless, but I have resolved that my game should have important decisions to make as soon as it starts. For too long have FE games had the first chapters always be the same thing, every time you play. Choosing to play as either James or Jessica will be a very important strategic choice in itself, which I hope to delve into in later posts.

For now, all you need to know is that choosing Jamesor Jessicais the first of many important choices you would make in this game.

After you have chosen, the king has a little talk with both of his children telling them that in a few years time a great evil will befall the land, and they may need to rise up and take the throne if he falls. He tells them to always be compassionate in their rule, always give mercy when it is due, and never to become fear mongers like the kings and queens of other lands.

At this point, based on what character you've chosen to play as, a dialog will ensue.

If you choose James...

"James, my firstborn son, someday you will need to protect the kingdom. I can help you do so, please allow me to train you in some useful art of fighting."

1. Father, I need to learn how to protect my sister.

2. A good warrior uses his muscle, please teach me to be powerful.

3. Father, I wish to be able to decimate the enemy before they get close.

4. I feel I am a man, and I require no training.

If you choose Jessica...

"Jessica my darling, (Insert dialogue here about taking over the throne someday) to be prepared for the throne, what should I train you in?"

Up comes a dialog box, or some sort of choice menu, use your imagination.

1. I wish to fight alongside my brother, father.

2. Show me how to aid my allies, father.

3. I wish to protect those closest to me, father.

4. Father, I feel I need no training at all.

What will become of choosing these options? The choices will be made clear in a future blog post. Please keep coming back if you want to know.

Update: I have recieved criticism of my wording for the choices James and Jessica can say. Some people say they have issues with it sounding WAY too formal. I will address these concerns.
1. This game will take places in the middle ages, of a sort. People didn't call their parents "daddy" and "mommy" back then, they were much more formal.
2. The above rule is TEN TIMES more influencing when we are referring to royalty, as James and Jessica are both Lords/future rulers of the land. It is important that they refer to each other in the proper pronouns.
3. This is a game. My characters can talk how they want. :P And if you don't like it then call the waaaaambulance!