The Sun God's Wrath

 

                  I recently played the romhack called The Sun God's Wrath and wanted to do a quick write-up. If you want the tl;dr rating, it's A tier. A fun game whose pros outweigh its cons that's held back by one major weakness. 

Quick Summary: For those of you who haven't played or even heard of The Sun God's Wrath, the game has a lengthy list of all the following mechanics:

• FE 5 Capture
• Fatigue
• Third Tiers
• Dragon Veins
• Lots of skills 
• Pursuit Critical Coefficient
• Crusader scrolls from FE 5
• Universal promotion items
• 1 RN Boo

      Basically, it has a bunch of mechanics from Thracia 776. For me, that was the main appeal of the hack going in. So, what are the pros and cons of its gameplay?

Pros

                Skills, skills, skills!: This game has a wide variety of skills from all over the franchise. Examples of the skills that it has are:

• Proc skills like Aether, Sol, Luna. 

• It has Rally skills, the Breaker skills, and the Awakening skill that buffs the activation rates of your proc skills.

•  Nihil.

• Skills like Night Tide from Radiant Dawn which give major stat buffs to adjacent allies.       

• Wary Fighter, Poison Strike and Trample from the Fates games.

               You name it, this game probably has that skill. It made playing the game fun because it gave the cast a wide variety of additional abilities. It also made enemies more powerful. I liked how this game required me to check enemy weapons and skills before having to fight them. 

                  One skill I was particularly impressed by was the skill where enemies took no damage from range. This made it so that I would have to get my units over to that enemy and attack them from a range where that enemy could counterattack from. It made those bosses tough, but fair. 

                 The only skill I didn't appreciate was the skill Haweye, which a few enemies had. Wasn't a fan of how some enemies had automatic accuracy regardless of my unit's avoid. Early on in the game, there was a unit named Dexithea who joined with the Bowbreaker skill in the same map where a bow wielding boss had Hawkeye. I find that design decision odd as it felt like the designer had unintentionally undermined that character when it would have been an opportunity to get the player to use Dexithea in a fun matchup situation.

  # 2-  Tough, but fair difficulty

          I played this game on Normal Mode instead of Hard, since I saw in a reddit thread that it's better to start a romhack blind on the easier difficulty. I still thought that Normal Mode of this hack was significantly more challenging than most of the official games in the Fire Emblem franchise. Enemies had powerful stats, powerful weapons, and a nice variety of threatening skills. It makes me want to go back and beat it on Hard Mode to see how the designer increased the difficulty. Whenever one of my units died, I felt like it was because I made a bad choice instead of being screwed over by the game. Another reason why the game felt fair was because this game had.....

NO AMBUSH SPAWNS!!!

# 3 - Telegraphed fast clear rewards

                 Early on, this game will tell you that if you beat X chapter in Y turns, you get Z reward. It was a great way to incentivize me to play faster. Sometimes you also got penalties for beating the chapter too slowly. All of this information is easily accessible to the player too. 

# 4 - Dragon Veins are Awesome

                  This game has a well executed version of Dragon Veins. Anytime the player activates Dragon Veins, all enemies on the map cannot move for one turn. It was easy to understand, incredibly useful, and didn't feel gimmicky. I ended up using them whenever they were available and they felt helpful.

# 5 - Good units and good weapons

                    This game gives you access to the FE 4 Regalia. Tyrfing, Balmung, Mysteltainn, Helswath, Gungnir, Gae Bolg, Forseti, etc. They were 20 might and gave + 10s and + 5 stat boosts. They were super fun to use. This game also gave the player Thani and Urvan. Urvan was like a Brave Axe, and it made the brigand who used it fun to use.

                This game also provides a wide variety of useful units to use, and they were generally fun to use. I had a ton of fun using an archer named Lex who got Galeforce AND Double Lion. Every attack of his was a Brave Weapon combined with being able to attack twice each turn. It was awesome witnessing an archer that powerful. Astraea, the main character of the game, was fun to use once she promoted. She made excellent use of the game's magic swords, and with a few Crusader Scrolls stacked on her she became one of my best units. 

               This game also had fun manakete units that could wreck face with a dragonstone or they could heal / use a Thani tome. It made for a good time having a variety of useful units to use.

 Cons: Bland Map Design

The only major criticism that I had was that the map design felt bland and uninspired. The game defaulted to wide maps with heavy enemy unit density, which meant that in many cases it felt like the correct move to make was to play slowly and make sure none of my units were in range of too many enemies.

The early maps frequently use the Survive objective, which felt repetitive and underwhelming after a while. I wonder if the designer figured that the turn rewards were sufficient enough to get the player to play faster. I would have appreciated more turtle disincentives. Also, I wish that the villages and treasure chests got actually threatened by the enemy. Most of the maps felt bland with the exception of one map that I made me react like "No...you didn't."

Thracia Chapter 24x Revival  

                  Of all the chapters from Thracia 776 to take inspiration from, The Sun God's Wrath decided to make its own version of Chapter 24x from Thracia 776. 

• Invisible warp tiles? Check. 
• Said warp tiles warp the player's character to a spot on the map that they can't normally get out of? Check.
•  Fog of War? Check. 

            Also, that map has a hallway full of status staff users that will bombard you with status staves. I normally don't like using warp staves, but that map was so unfun that I didn't care and just wanted that map to end already.


One Nitpick: Capture isn't as fun.

One minor nitpick is that this romhack loves to give enemy bosses, and powerful enemies the "Watchful" skill. This skill prevents enemies from being captured.

I get the logic behind not wanting the player to acquire powerful enemy weapons and have that break the game, but the end result was that capturing enemies felt less satisfying than in Thracia 776 because the kind of stuff that I could capture seemed less impressive. 

The only exception to that rule was the extra Warp staff that an enemy had in the infamous map that I talked about above.

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Final Thoughts

When I saw that this game had all these mechanics from Thracia 776, I expected that this game was going to be S tier. It wasn't, but I did enjoy it overall and I do want to go back and replay it again. Any game that makes me want to replay it right after beating it is clearly doing something right. 

I recommend this game to any Fire Emblem fan that:

• Likes Thracia 776
• Likes challenging gameplay
• Likes being able to use different units and mix / match growth boosting items and scrolls.

Overall Rating: A tier. A fun time overall.

Project Update # 2: A Major Story Hint

Happy New Year's everybody! Life's been busy for me, so I haven't had much time to work on my project. I have been working on the story recently. I recently came across a story that's really inspired me. 

"What's the story?" you might ask. I could just tell you, but that's no fun. Instead, I thought of creating a riddle for you to figure out. Here's the riddle of the story that's inspiring the story of my game:

Who Am I?

I am referenced by the following works

• Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

• Chaucer: (Once in the Canterbury Tales, and referenced again in a lesser known work of his)

• Shakespeare (one of the characters in my story is referenced in one of his more famous works)

• Nietzsche

• My story is a brutal satire of the clergy, nobility, and the feudal system.

• Walt Disney tried to adapt my work, but gave up because I would be too dark a main character for children. Furthermore, my story was also too violent for children. Instead, they made an animated film that’s partially based on my story.

• The Nazis tried and failed to use me for their propaganda.

• The Catholic Church did use my story as propaganda against a proto-Protestant movement.

• My tale was so famous that my name eventually became the standard term for my species, replacing the Latin word for it.

• There’s an animated movie of me that’s eight months older than Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs film. It is the sixth oldest animation film to have ever been created.

• One author of one of my many stories went by the name "Heinrich der Glïchezäre", a name that translates to “Henry the Hypocrite”.

P.S: For those of you who've figured out the riddle - This character would make for a fantastic villain, wouldn't you agree? ;)

My SRPG Studio Project

 Hey everyone! It's been a while since I last posted. Just wanted to let everyone know that I'm currently working on creating a game of my own in SRPG Studio. I wanted to not only let you guys know that this exists, but also show a little bit about what I've made so far. So far, I've been working on the gameplay. The sprites that you see below are the default sprites of SRPG Studio. Yes, I know they're bad, and I will replace them with new ones and import better sprites when the time comes.

So here are a few mechanics that I'm implementing: 

1. Berwick Saga style Counterattacking

During battle, if the defender takes damage, they cannot counterattack. The only way to counterattack an enemy is by either 

a. Dodging the hit (while also having a weapon with the same range)

b. The swing landed, but it dealt 0 damage.

c. The defender has a skill that lets them counterattack.

Like Berwick Saga, only one character in this game has the skill that gives them a traditional Fire Emblem style enemy phase. In this game, your Armor Knight Loshnor is the only character that can do that. This should go a long way toward incentivizing Player Phase oriented gameplay. 

2. Changes to the Formula

2a. Double Attacking

In order to double attack, the formula is now this: Speed - Skill. If the attacker's Speed is 4 points higher than the Enemy's Skill, the attack double attacks that enemy. Speed only causes double attacking, but it's the Skill stat that prevents a unit from being double attacked. Let's use an example.

Here are the stats of the player's starting mage, Nathanael:

Here are the stats of an enemy Light Mage.

In a traditional Fire Emblem game, Nathanael wouldn't be able to double attack the enemy Light Mage. However...

Since Nathanael's speed was 5 points higher than the enemy Light Mage's, he can double attack. This should hopefully make the Skill stat more valuable.

2b. The Con (Bld) stat now deals damage

Here's how the formula works: [(Attacker Con - Defender Con) / 2]. Using the above example, Nathanael's Build stat is 12, while the Enemy Light Mage has a Build stat of 8. So, to use our formula:

                             12 - 8 = 4 / 2 = 2.

Nathanael gets to deal 2 extra points of damage, while the Light Mage deals 2 fewer points of damage. 

2c. Luck determines Avoid, not Speed

The Avoid Formula is (Luck x 2). The Speed stat only does one thing in this game: It determines double attacking. Skill prevents double attacking, and Luck determines whether a unit can dodge or not.

2d. Thracia 776 Style Critical Hit Formula

Skill Stat + Weapon Critical Hit Rate

Critical Avoid: Luck / 2.

You can get bonuses from skills and supports, but this is basically it. This essentially means that it'll be easier to increase critical hit rates in this game. Hopefully that should make the Luck stat more valuable.

Other Fun Mechanics in this Game

a. Thracia 776 style Capturing

b. Thracia 776 style Fatigue

Just like Thracia 776, every character that participates in a round of combat, heals, and steals increases their Fatigue by a certain amount. When that fatigue becomes greater than or equal to the character's max HP, they have to sit out the next round.

One major change that this game makes is that every character has a unique rate of fatigue. For example, Nathanael has a fatigue rate of 2. That means that whenever he participates in a round of combat, his fatigue increases by 2 instead of 1. 

Will there be Stamina Drinks?

Not in Lunatic Mode. Hard Mode will only have a small handful of them. I can't decide if I just want to turn off fatigue for Normal Mode or make it so easy to get Stamina Drinks that it's not much of a thing. Hmmm....

c. FE 12 Style Lunatic Mode Bonuses

So here's something that Fire Emblem 12 did for its Lunatic Mode that I really liked:

Giving enemies an extra + 10 Accuracy made dodge tanking more difficult and helped make enemies more threatening. I took notes from that design and decided to emulate it, but with an extra twist...

I boosted the damage they'd deal by 5! This should help to make enemies more threatening.

On that note, I'm trying to take notes from Fire Emblem 12 and make enemy offenses so powerful that they should be able to 2 - 3 Hit KO the cast with relatively good accuracy.  

Other Mechanics

• No Ambush Spawns: Enemy reinforcements happen at the end of the enemy turn! You won't have to worry about any BS here.

• 2 RN system: Accurate hits will be even more accurate! With enemies having good hit rates, this system should make it more likely for them to hit the player's units. Here's a sample of some of the enemy hit rates in just the first chapter, alone:
  

Fun fact: Both of those enemies had Weapon Triangle disadvantage. Here are the Weapon Triangle Bonuses in this game:

+ 4 Damage, + 20 Hit. 

Nathanael versus an Archer Boss.

The First Three Characters of the Game

Let's take a look at the first three characters of the game that the player starts out with:

Valayan - The Main Character

Note: Valayan is not a noble, nor does he have a special lineage. He's essentially a "nobody" who rose through the ranks of the military. 

He uses Swords, Dark Magic, and can equip shields. He also starts with 7 Movement, the highest Movement a Tier 1 unit can have. Here are his skills:

I tried to get Renewal to be a percent of a unit's max HP. So far, I haven't been able to do that. As a result, Renewal's really powerful in the early game but will lose value further into the game.

Unlike Savage Blow or Poison Strike from Fates, this skill can land kills. However, he won't gain any experience from those kills.

These stat buffs activate any time he's on the map. He doesn't even need to be within a certain distance from any allies. 

Nathanael - The Game's Squishy Mage

Here's a list of his skills:

This version of Wrath is modeled after the FE 5 style of Wrath that always activated when a unit's HP was half or less. I'm hoping this should make him one of the most powerful units in the game.

So did I make him worth using?

Loshnor: The Armor Knight

I realize that Armor Knights are traditionally seen as bad units, so I've come up with a few ways to hopefully make Loshnor a good unit. 

# 1: He's the only character in the game with a traditional Fire Emblem style Enemy Phase

I already brought this up earlier, but he's the only character in the game that can counterattack an enemy even if he takes damage. Sherpa, the only character in Berwick Saga with a traditional Enemy Phase, was considered a top tier character and this was a big reason why. I'm hoping that logic works for Loshnor.

Me: Is he good yet?

LTC Players: No.

# 2: He should be able to reach consistent One Round KO Thresholds

I gave him access to a really strong Prf rank lance that can automatically double attack enemies. 

I'm planning to make a lance that automatically double attacks that only Armor Knights can use too. 

Me: Is he good yet?

LTC Players: No.

# 3: He has Good Movement

His Base Movement is 6, the same as any other infantry unit in the game, and he gets exclusive access to this:

Yes, he gets access to an item only he can use that increases his Movement by 1. This means that he'll have 7 Movement, just like mounted units and fliers. 

Me: Is he good yet?

LTC Players: No.

He also has access to Paragon:

Only one other unit in this game gets Paragon, and that's the game's Est. Increasing experience gains should play a big role in making him good.

IS HE GOOD YET?!

And here's the map objective of the first map of the game:

There's not going to be any Casual or Classic mode in this game. The player will be forced to keep everyone alive. Have fun with that additional pressure.

These are not the only mechanics and stuff that I've got in the game, but I hope that's enough to whet your appetite. I'm really excited to make this project! I'll post updates on my progress from time to time.

The Most Busted Mechanic in Fire Emblem: Infinite Range Warp

 

Out of curiosity, is anyone surprised that warp is # 1 on this list? Yeah, me neither. If you've been reading this list, you'll notice that one theme of busted mechanics boils down to: "This mechanic makes it easier to get from Point A to Point B". In that regard, nothing makes it easier to get from Point A to Point B than the Warp Staff. 

Any run that uses the warp staff is usually called a "warp skip" run. That tells you everything you need to know about how stupidly powerful the warp staff is: It lets you skip entire chapters because you can bring someone straight to the boss, or the throne. All those enemies on the map between the player and the boss / throne are pointless since warp lets the player effortlessly beat the map without needing to deal with them.

Like Awakening's Pair Up, the warp staff instantly dominates the game's design. Any character who can use warp is high tier at least, and the best unit in the game under other circumstances. In order to make warp not broken, the game has to be designed in such a way that getting from Point A to Point B isn't the main objective. Most of the time, a given map objective in Fire Emblem will require that, which means that warp will break it in half. 

 I'll finish this post with something that a Fire Emblem reddit user said 6 years ago:

"The only way warp can "work" is if you deliberately design maps that force the player to use warp in certain spots and take the warp staff out of the player's hands in other areas that would otherwise break the game. 

Can warp be designed well? Yes, but it requires a shitton of playtesting and being aware that any oversight whatsoever can break your game in half. Or, you nerf warp to the ground to the point where it's a stupid gimmick. And what benefit does it bring you? Warp in its inherent nature basically lets you skip vast swathes of a given chapter, which basically goes against the entire point of designing chapters, terrain, enemy layouts, etc. to begin with."

(Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/fireemblem/comments/9c099v/comment/e57lqbm/) 

Top 10 Most Busted Mechanics in Fire Emblem # 2: Ferrying Mechanics (Awakening Pair-Up & The Rescue Mechanic)

 

Awakening Pair-Up

      If there's one mechanic that's absurdly overpowered, it's Pair Up from Awakening. Pair Up's power comes from how massive and gargantuan the stat boosts are. If that wasn't enough, Pair-Up also provides two additional bonuses that are both really powerful: The first is Dual Strike wherein the backup character can also attack, making it significantly easier to kill enemies. The second is Dual Guard, where the backup unit has the ability to completely block an attack, thereby negating enemy damage.

      So why is Awakening's Pair Up mechanic this high on the list? Well....

It makes juggernauting extremely easy: Pair-Up grants massive stat bonuses to the point where a character can become powerful enough to steamroll the game by themselves. This is what leads to the Robin solos. 

In addition to that, being able to attack again or potentially block all damage from an enemy attack makes Pair-Up that much more powerful as a mechanic. It can help your lead unit kill faster, and it can keep them alive longer. It can do pretty much everything.

It Dominates the Game's Design

Pair Up is so powerful that the entire game has to be designed around it. If the game isn't, then there's no challenge. However, by designing the entire game around it, the player is essentially forced to use it. Though to be fair, Pair Up is so beneficial that there's no reason not to use it so the game designers might as well assume that it will be used. After all, there's no drawback to using Pair Up, which reinforces just how dominant the mechanic is.

But what about Fates? 

That game did Pair Up right, didn't it? Not really. Even if the Fates version of Pair Up is more balanced and better designed than Awakening's, it's still way too powerful. Dual Guard still makes juggernauting relatively easy since the stat boosts that can come from that can still be huge. Slow characters can become fast, characters that deal low damage can kill things, and thanks to the shields becoming consistent, a character with Dual Guard has better survivability. 

Recap: Even when it's better balanced, Pair Up makes juggernauting far too easy. It's a mechanic that's so powerful that it always dominates the game's design. There's no drawback to using it, and because the game designs itself with the use of this mechanic in mind, not using it can put the player at a disadvantage.

The Rescue Mechanic

And here we have the more balanced, but still broken, older sibling of Pair Up: Rescue. The rescue mechanic could be best defined as: 

"Rescuing allows playable units to pick up allied units – using the Rescue command – who are smaller than them, in order to protect them from harm or to carry them around the battlefield."

(Source: https://fireemblemwiki.org/wiki/Rescue_%28command%29)

Why is the mechanic this high up the list? In the hands of the right player, the rescue mechanic can do a lot! It allows players to move longer distances in shorter periods of time. Remember the # 5 spot on this list?  The spot about fliers and mounted units? This mechanic gives them an even bigger advantage over infantry units because this is valuable utility they can use, and take advantage of, that infantry units can't. Fliers can even rescue infantry units across terrain like water tiles and mountains, making fliers even better than before.

Scylla did a great job pointing out another reason why rescue is busted: "Rescue also allows you to be far more aggressive with your positioning because you can just pull a unit out of a bad spot;"

What makes the mechanic even more powerful is when players start implementing rescue chains, where multiple mounted and flying units take a rescued character and ferry them across the map. It's pretty common among faster playthroughs, and this ultimately results in the player being able to beat entire maps in quicker periods of time. It also results in the player being incentivized to use mostly mounted and flying units, which is bad for the purpose of balancing.

Quick Recap: Rescuing is busted because it allows the player to move from A to B in far faster periods of time, erases the negatives of bad positioning, and makes mounted and flying units even better by giving them additional, powerful utility. 

Moral of the Story: Ferrying mechanics are super busted, and Fire Emblem as a franchise would do well to remove them from future titles.

Top 10 Most Busted Mechanics: Movement Refreshing Shenanigans (# 3)

 

# 3 - Movement Refreshing Shenanigans

Want to make your game easier to beat? Create a way for the player to make one or more units be able to move again. Dancers first debuted in Fire Emblem 3 Book 2, and ever since then they've made a huge impact on their respective games. If you want to beat the game quickly, you're going to make effective use of them. 

Then Holy War came around and gave dancers the ability to refresh the movement of up to four different units at once. The amount of strategies that opens up is insane! 

That being said, dancers aren't really enough to make it this high up the list. That's why this entry is titled "Movement Refreshing Shenanigans". This entry encompasses all the other additional ways in which one or more units can move again. This includes stuff like:

Galeforce - A skill where a Dark Flier in Awakening will be able to move again after killing an enemy. Keep in mind, Dark Fliers are an eight movement flier class that have access to tomes. They can easily kill enemies, which means that they can move a very long distance and kill two enemies per turn. Keep in mind that this skill exists in a game where dancers also exist. 

Dance of the Goddess / Goddess Dance: A gambit / emblem where you can refresh 4 adjacent units. Keep in mind that this exists in a game where there's also a dancer. Scylla pointed out that one unit can "move 4 times in one turn". Super busted.

Raging Storm (Three Houses): "Effective against Dragon foes; If attack lands, user can move again." 

Unlike Galeforce, Edelgard doesn't even have to land a kill and she'll still get to move again. Make Edelgard a Wyvern and she'll be able to break the game efficiently. It's also possible to use this up to 5 times. It's true that this reduces the use out of Amyr, but weapons can be repaired in Three Houses, so the reduction in uses doesn't really hold Edelgard back.

The Anew Staff (Fire Emblem 3 Book 2): This version of the Anew staff refreshes the movement of all allies on the battlefield. You read that right: ALL ALLIES ON THE MAP! Sure, it has 3 uses and can't be repaired by the Hammerene, but.....there's still a lot of crazy stuff you can do when you're capable of refreshing everybody on the map, including the dancer. That's more units getting refreshed than all the other options!  There's a reason why FE 12 and Echoes had to nerf this. 

In conclusion, there are a lot of broken tools and abilities to refresh movement in this series! In the hands of the right player, they can utterly trivialize entire chapters.

Top 10 Most Busted Mechanics in Fire Emblem # 4 - Time Rewind Mechanics

 

# 4 - Time Rewind Mechanics

The next major busted mechanic on this list are "time rewind mechanics". Like bonus experience in Path of Radiance, time rewind mechanics like Mila's Turnwheel are supposed to be there to act as a safety net for the player. We've all had stories where the enemy had a super low chance to land a critical hit, or a super low chance to hit our character, and for some reason the RNG gives us a middle finger and the next thing we know, our character dies. Insert Mila's Turnwheel, a convenient way for the player to go back in time and redo the level without having to completely start from the beginning.

It's easy to see the appeal of a mechanic like this: It makes restarting less painful and time-consuming. If you're like me, you probably use this mechanic for this purpose. However, like bonus experience in Path of Radiance, there is a way for a more experienced player to use this in a way that completely breaks the game. 

Scylla pointed out the problem with time rewind mechanics like these: "this is also ridiculous for a similar reason to Rescue; you can take crazy risks and get away with it, because you can just undo undesirable outcomes. The three games that have had this mechanic have been undeniably shaped by them, not as a tool to provide a safety to beginners but instead a 'probability enhancer' to the more experienced." 

So yeah. This game essentially lets you fish for critical hits, and makes it easy to accomplish. Another issue is that Maddening mode of Three Houses seemed explicitly designed with this mechanic in mind. This led to the game implementing same turn ambush spawns, which is bad design. The next point about time rewinding is that it makes games easier, since resetting is less punitive and that so far the games where it's implemented have been really generous with how many charges the player gets. The obvious solution would be to give the player fewer rewinds on higher difficulties, but so far that hasn't happened.

Just to recap, the problems with this mechanic are:

a) Players can rush forward without any consequences.

b) This mechanic works as a way to force the probability to do what the player wants it to do.  

c) It can be used to justify bad map design. 

This is a mechanic so powerful that it will inevitably shape how the game plays, which is why it deserves to be so high up on this list.