I Really Want to Like Sacred Echoes...But I Don't|| Romhack Recommendations/Reviews

[@BigGnome]

For a second I didn't realize the title cards were going for a "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly" theme so I just thought Clint Eastwood appearing on the first slide was a joke on both him and Valentia being as misogynistic as humanly possible

[@nepko6565]

Lmaooooo

[@thomasquwack9503]

layers upon layers

[@DaniDoyle]

It's got layers to it

[@TheGuzeinbuick]

29:24 "Single player game. Let the people play how they want." This is a simple line but it resonated with me. I'm a romhacker myself and although I've never made anything as impressive as Sacred Echoes, I can still understand the feeling of letting other players "cheat" if they want to. I make simple Pokemon hacks. I've seen tons of streamers hack the game to give their party infinite rare candies so they level up to level 100 and then steamroll every gym leader they come across. So what? Sure it's not how I intended the game to be played but at the same time it's not my place to try and prevent it from happening. I think it's probably best to give the gamer the benefit of the doubt and allow them to hack/save scum/cheese the game if that's how they want to enjoy it. All that said this hack looks awesome (despite your criticism) and I'll be downloading it immediately lol

[@goldenson4566]

It’s really odd how seemingly half the problems with the hack are just because of active choices made by the devs to remove QoL features from the game. Skill menus have existed in FE8 for ages, the guide button exists in multiple hacks, and the altering of how RNs work just seems kinda pointless when really any exploit that doesn’t harm casual playthroughs shouldn’t really be a problem. Hopefully the devs prove receptive to feedback, and the game can take another big step forward in quality.

[@Kyrads]

To be fair wrt the skill menu that's a result of using the skillsystem which is a big thing to incorporare into your hack and has a lot of incompatabilities. It'd be a silly amount of effort to try and incorporate it at this point you really have to build around it from the very beginning.

[@theghostcreator776]

... But don't they already have the skill system!?​ Regardless the guide still exists. @@Kyrads

[@emmetth3726]

It is very very vindicating to hear someone articulate the death by 1000 cuts Sacred Echoes feels like to me. It’s good that something so high effort is popular but… god I wish I liked it more.

[@dyrr836]

I gotta admit I respect the fact that they made Luthier's weird Photoshop gradient hair look so good, that's no easy task.

[@goldengear1000]

After watching through, I think a big difference between our experiences is that I played on normal and not hard, on 2RN, so a lot of your problems with enemy stats and such just didn’t apply to me. And otherwise, I think your issues just don’t bother me as much (except for the Lost Treescape, that map was absolute hell). But I am also a huge SoV fan so we’re coming at the game from two completely different points.

[@thomasquwack9503]

I know I’m spamming comments (for the algorithm right?) but making the lords have locktouch is awesome. I love thieflords, it aligns so well with my thoughts on royalty! In totally unrelated news, I’m rooting for Charles’ cancer

[@ko6zap1]

Hope you get some serious help someday, holding hate in your heart will rot your insides someday :)

[@DaniDoyle]

Hoping you get some serious help someday, licking those boots will rot your insides someday :)

[@kladenstein7849]

@@DaniDoyle wishing for cancer on someone is pretty harsh. What did he do?

[@fujonazuna]

@@kladenstein7849 hes literally british royalty

[@kladenstein7849]

@@fujonazuna that makes sense

[@FiboSai]

Sacred Echoes is about as good as a Valentia game can be. But it is still a Valentia game. The core gameplay issues can't be fixed, as doing so would make it no longer be a Valentia game.

[@iagoagogo]

I'm interested in checking out this hack, but I'm glad to see this first to help temper my expectations. I'm a big SoV fan, but not a blind one. While I would prefer something of an SoV+ kind of hack, this definitely seems like a fun experiment with taking it a step further. While the rn seed problem seems like a bizarre inclusion, it's something I can work with. What I can't really fathom, is after adding so much in terms of QoL that a dev would make such stringent and grindy system for exp. I think the average player doesn't mind grinding a unit or two a little for favouritism/memes, this makes it seem like more work than anything else.

[@JoeShmoe102]

The only major issue I had with it is that there aren't too many resources on each of the games secrets and other hidden things. I feel like I missed out on so many things in my playthrough, from hidden items, the gaiden chapter, and even recruitable characters (I don't remember getting the thief on Celica's side). I might actually wait until there's a comprehensive fan wiki of the hack before I give it another go.

[@gothphoebe]

Completely unrelated to the review, why is Berkut's portrait permanently angry? It looks so goofy.

[@DaniDoyle]

He's an angry goober

[@swinelias]

He gets more angrier after being beaten twice.

[@landervedua4738]

he has an even angrier portrait

[@AzureGreatheart]

@@landervedua4738 Sacred Echoes but everytime anything happens, Berkut gets angrier

[@Meepersa]

Truly in awe at the number of people who seemingly possess no ability to understand the words that were said in the video or typed in your myriad responses to the exact same point of "Calling it player hostile is overly harsh and this isn't a real problem and your criticism is bad." Like no, the decision to remove arrow wiggling in this way is straight up player hostile no matter how you slice it, it is directly negative for the experience of at least some players and offers no improvement in gameplay to anyone else. This would be true even if you're just looking at LTC players or save staters. but it also makes the game worse for anyone who dies to the rng and decides to try again, only to have it keep happening. Like does no one comprehend the idea of a player who is going for a no death run, gets screwed by the rng, resets the level, and then has the same thing happen because the rng didn't change? Review overall is solid and this particular section is too, removal of arrow wiggling feels like either devs not being aware of scrambler, devs trying to see if they even can do it for the challenge, but it feels quite likely it's a bad case of "someone had an idea and no one told them it was bad."

[@dragonarrow5525]

I played this hack over a year ago on normal (hard mode had yet to be finished and based on this video I'm glad for that or I might have picked it) and it was fun enough to be the only FE romhack I've ever finished but I think I would just rather play Echoes. Like you mentioned its changes don't really solve the core problems of the original. I personally don't think this game is a love letter to echoes and is an attempt to "fix" it more than anything which will rub me the wrong way regardless of quality because I really love echoes and its unique identity within the FE franchise. Also, I don't think you need to apologize so much for being critical. Random people on the internet will be mad at you for having an opinion different from theirs no matter how you frame it.

[@ravistimphil3535]

I am liking Sacred Echoes so far. At first I was suffering through cause it Alm's route I made the villagers random classes, while Celica's reinforced my opinion that mages are OP. But then I saw that I come make villagers have infinite exp if I go mercenecy, so I reseted my run and made all the villagers into their resetable classes, and... funnel all exp into Genny and use a map that had a summoner for infiinite exp for her. Now Alm's route is pass the Levin sword between the boys and Celica is sending out the immortal bookworm. For the lack of exp, for Alm's route, because I kept my army really small (Ram villagers, silque, Lukas, Clair), the exp nerf from hard mode hasn't hit too hard (... Minus the fact my Alm is under leveled). Celica's side has an easier time catching up because there are some terrors that one round most units but give buckets worth of exp when killed.

[@joshuaclarke5422]

I dont agree with some takes about ''feeling like I have to grind'' but this was a good video🙂

[@petrie911]

If you want to get rid of arrow waggling, I'd think you should just change it so the RNG is called every frame.

[@DaniDoyle]

Yeah, thats what the scrambler does, its so weird they didn't use it

[@darrolsimmons4746]

im having trouble finding the rom hack for fire emblem scared echos!! can someone help me! it isnt loading with the link provided.

[@MitoRequiem]

I want someone to do something like this but for Shadow Dragon but im thay game's strongest soldier so mighr as well lesrn how to hack

[@DaniDoyle]

There actually already is one believe it or not. Its on my lost

[@Jotari]

Not quite the same as a remake, but there's Pyrathi War Lords, which takes a lot of the DS's mechanics and faithfully adapts many of its features (even reclassing)...but I'm biased because I made it.

[@mortemincarnatam2836]

​@@Jotari can you tell me where to find it? The only thing google give me when I look it up is one piece.

[@Jotari]

@@mortemincarnatam2836 Fire Emblem Universe.

[@LunarBoo]

Excitement!!! I loved this little hack quite a lot tbh. I'm really curious what you will have to say about it.

[@Bongyes]

did somebody mentioned Shackled Power? Oooooh cant wait or that one, my favourite fanmade fire emblem so far!

[@AzureGreatheart]

As someone who prefers RNG to be incredibly volatile, and is not a fan of how predictable the GBA Fire Emblem game's RNG is, the fact that the solution to a complete non-problem was to make the RNG _more_ predictable bugs the hell out of me.

[@GaretStrife]

I've played a lot of Fire Emblem hacks over the years, some demakes, some simple QoL updates, and some completely new stories. Sacred Echoes was one of those I playtested. Everyone has their opinion. For me, I grew up with the GBA. Most of the hacks I've played are on the GBA, because I prefer that system. So Sacred Echoes ticked many boxes for me, like it crossed out those boxes for you. At least you gave it a good stab, so kudos on that. If you want to try a neat hack, I'd recommend Iron Emblem. Been enjoying it quite a bit lately.

[@Hebleh]

Honestly really dislike this hack so Im glad someone can put into words why it just doesnt work

[@cowabungasheeit]

Are you interested in playing/reviewing Souls of the Forest? That's my personal favorite romhack by a wide margin and it's got some pretty interesting/wacky stuff.

[@DaniDoyle]

Its on my list, but admittedly the list is quite long

[@goldengear1000]

I’m playing through it right now and I have to say I really love it. Excited to hear your thoughts though

[@goldengear1000]

That being said, SoV is already my favorite FE game so I’m a bit biased

[@azurastellav6564]

Glad I found your channel. Nice to meet another queer Fire Emblem fan.

[@TuskyBaby]

The only issue I have is the exp gain and how unit levels line up with when you get shrine access. Otherwise its exactly what I wanted, Echos stuff in the Sacred Stones engine. It may take awhile to beat due to needing to "grind" some characters an extra level to get that promotion (usually mages and Pegs with their ridiculous level requirements), but I love the music in this hack, so I don't care that much lol.

[@neongrey333]

hi, first time watcher, first time caller! (came here via share from a friend too, not algo-powered, yay!) i'm not super embedded in like the community or anything so I think some of my thoughts on what you had to say come from that. For example, i dont mind information that only exists in the readme; imo that's what manuals are *for*, especially for something like the gba FE engine which imo gets uglier the more info you're trying to convey, but i also acknowledge that common standards exist that are not being adhered to, and theres stuff not documented that should be that you mentioned. *However*, I do have some thoughts related to the removal of arrow dancing, which just from your description and a bit of info about the hack, I mossstly disagree with on the premise level. Full disclosure: I don't like arrow dancing. For me, I find that it turns the game into more of a problem of fishing for the correct RN string rather than a problem of tactics. but I think having knowledge of arrow dancing is just as much an outside resource as the other tools like saves and scripts you describe. I think that knowledge is really fundamental because as soon as you know about it, *you know how to easily manipulate the game's RNG*, even if it's just a little bit, so it completely changes the experience of how to interact with the game and huge swathes of the series. I don't think it's per se a *problem* inherently especially for casual play; as you say, it's functionally random because casually you're probably only occasionally taking the same series of inputs when retrying moves. If you find yourself needing to retackle maps or you're casually savestating it's definitely intuitable that moving in different ways can bump the RNG like that, or learn that doing the exact same things will produce the exact same results, but imo actually picking up what is going on is a bit of a leap beyond that. It was for me anyway, way back in the distant past of *mumble*ty years ago. So, imo the casual response is to just naturally try different actions in different orders. For a less casual player it changes the shape of the problem-- it turns it from one of sifting through the RN sequence into figuring out *where to place the RNs you're given*. Maybe that garbage RN you can't get a kill with can be allocated elsewhere, maybe you want to actually cede the turn, maybe you just have to figure out how to use it so that it hurts you the least, etc. It's also something that dovetails really nicely into undo mechanics as in the modern releases-- bad RN placement is no longer a lose condition, it's an undo condition. this does mean in the GBA engine, which lacks native undo, you're really sensitive to enemy stat inflation, which just from what you describe isnt super taken into consideration here especially in hard mode. I'm not sure that's a winnable fight though lmao, i'll just sit here in my little 'it's ok to not play on max difficulty' car in the parking lot with the windows up, i have snacks, the air conditioner is on, and my favourite music is playing, hahaha. There is another problem this presents as well, but I'll come back to that because... Why I Don't Think Removing Arrow Dancing Is Bad For LTC, Actually: (and I am mostly talking from raw theory, someone who actually enjoys LTC can absolutely tell me to shut up and really should if i'm off base here) keeping the deterministic RNG while removing arrow dancing is okay for LTC because at the end of the day, LTC is a game of finding the correct sequence of actions in the correct order. Some of those actions are gonna be arcane and unintuitive but buddy, that's what you signed up for. Sometimes you gotta sacrifice turns now to make them up later. It's still the same *type* of problem, even if you have to approach it differently. Scramble RNG turns it into another beast entirely. So with why I don't like scramble rng as a solution to the issue, the problem I see here is that for casual play you just don't have an out if you get a really bad run of numbers. Sometimes all of your answers to 'how do i beat this' are just *bad*. There's an intuitive answer: just reset. You can leave! But you can't, actually, because your RN state is preserved across maps and loads. so as far as i'm concerned, the design problem here is now: we want to preserve deterministic RNG for LTC and speed strats so a level playing field exists for competitive purposes, but we also want players to be able to exchange a set of bad RNs for new ones. Solution: New games start with a set RNG seed, per normal. Loading a saved game randomizes the seed. ahahahaha wow this is a giant wall of text, i'm sorry. Anyway I really liked the video and I'm really intrigued with by the romhack as you describe it-- I don't think you came off harsh at all, you clearly have a lot of respect for the team and what they're aiming for here even where it sounds like it does fall short. I'm probably going to give the hack a try because of your video; some of the Just Valentia Things you mention i agree are issues but i'm just not bothered as much by, like the (lack of) map design or the awful slog Celica's team has to do. So I'm excited to see how our experiences differ! (it's a definite 'how', not 'if', if only because i ain't touching that hard mode with a ten-foot pole lmao) Thanks so much for the video!!!

[@DaniDoyle]

While I appreciate your comment, I think you're misunderstanding what I'm talking about when I say "the removal of arrows burning RNs". As i stated in the video, this doesn't just impact people who are intentionally rigging things by arrow dancing, but actually has more of an impact on people doing casual playthroughs then on those trying to exploit the RNS RNG being locked in doesn't inherently promote better strategy and in fact often promotes unintuitive strategy or worse. If you miss a 95% hit and get killed by a 19% in retaliation, I don't think most peoples first thought is " welp, my strategy was bad i should try something else" but rather "I got incredibly unlucky... Surely this will work on my second attempt". The RNG being locked in encourages bizarre lines of play since any reset will lead to you knowing specific attacks will succeed or fail. This isn't hypothetical either. as I mentioned in the video they were multiple points in my playthrough where I knew my 80-90% hits would miss on turn one, so I attacked with weaker units instead of strong ones, or simply didn't attack since I knew the enemy would then miss their 80s on their first turn. This isn't a case of me using better strategy, it's me using a worse strategy that I only know works based on meta knowledge, that being the fixed RNGs. Arrows burning rns was put into the GBA in order to simulate randomness, specifically to avoid these situations. While it is sometimes associated with those who are intentionally trying to manipulate the RNG it's something that basically every player does in their playthroughs without noticing it, as you will often naturally accidentally move the arrow in ways that burn RNs.

[@neongrey333]

@@DaniDoyle yeah that's plenty fair and i follow better what you're getting at there now even if i still kinda think that based on my own playstyle that a fairly natural approach is to take that crit as a sign to just try something else (which is also why i think going full deterministic like this just works better with native undo as it gives you more play to try see your options) definitely wanna check the hack more now and see if my bloviating holds up under real conditions because it sure could fall apart the minute it's poked at. Not having a native undo with the play conditions as they are can make for a real nasty combo, and it's not like i've actually played the hack yet so yeah, ton of room to be just completely operating on moon logic here

[@DaniDoyle]

Im excited to hear what you think after you try it!

[@neongrey333]

@@DaniDoyle yeah! i'll make sure to let you know! but first, ive got a lot of minute hairs to split at a pal over some bad character lists

[@Keon994]

I honestly never had an issue with the boring layouts of the maps where you fight on open fields.

[@DaniDoyle]

Completely valid! Personally I hate them, but different things work for different people!

[@Keon994]

@@DaniDoyle I thought the placement of forests and mountains and bridges provided enough room for strategy. I loved shooting at enemies from afar on mountains and the enemies trying to climb up to get me.

[@JulianneStingray]

@@Keon994 honestly based it’s kind of nice seeing someone else who appreciates the old maps. Totally get why people don’t like them though.

[@LP-zn8sc]

I started this hack because I really liked valentia. I had a similar experience though. The grinding, promotion system, and such just sort turned me off of finishing it. It seems cool but overall i just wasnt really having fun playing unfortunately.

[@FuriousHaunter]

Having recently started a challenge run where I only use Optional recruits I think one major issues is actually vulneraries I already think they are slightly too expensive in vanilla GBA as they have 3 uses and only heal 10 HP and take up unit actions while healing staves are much more efficient, in essence they are early game or emergency tools used when you need to heal more units than you have staves, and are completely replaced by elixirs late game unless you're trying to save cash. [I think a system of 5 uses and 10 gold for each HP healed is good so 150 for 5 uses and 15 HP is my preferred balance, I mean I'd also gut the effectiveness of staff healing but whatever] Regardless in Sacred Echoes vulneraries heal 10HP and still cost 150 gold which is ridiculous in the game's economy it's HALF the cost of iron swords, this completely outweighs their value there is almost no reason to ever buy them and makes challenge runs such as women[or men] only or X weapon only needlessly difficult to do as your main healing source will be vulneraries until you can promote, It's a very poor design decision outside of this as if you play Iron man and lose Silque and Faye [or just promote her to non magic class] you lose out on Heal spells until Luthear/Delthea [or mage Faye] promote or you get Tatiana, which is very bad since you are then required to grind to get either promos or money to buy heal items, which if you are doing a challenge or badly in an Iron man you may well not be able to. This could easily be fixed by making vulneraries cost 50 gold or heal 15-20 HP instead as this would make the price value worth it as you would either be able to use the larger HP recovery more efficiently or they would be much more reasonably renewable since, in the challenge run I mentioned I ran out of Vunleraries with close to optimal use on Ch4, and I even purchased one, it was miserable. It would have been less of a problem with real rng as I could more reliably gamble low hit rates by trading the iron sword in the mountains for WTA against the brigands but this wasn't viable as such the map became smashing my head into the wall until I could get good enough rng to kill the enemies. Edit: I actually like the hack, Echoes is in my top 3 FE games, I just think this is a big flaw along with the Rng changes. While I'm here I do think overall this hack is the best version of Echoes' story, mostly for the Celica rewrite near the end, and Faye is actually a character, which made me very happy.

[@forgototherpassword]

So quick question: Does SE have SOV's thing where the lowest damage that can be dealt is one, or does it allow you to get defenses so high you don't take damage?

[@isuckatgaming1873]

Minimum damage of 1

[@21powah]

I haven't played Sacred Echoes yet but I was curious to see what its pros and cons are. I have a grinding tolerance and I'm a sucker for pretty pixel art so I will be giving this game a try! I'm taking your difficulty recommendation to heart. After my time with Andaron Saga the desire for challenge has been burnt out for now. (AS is an interesting mixed experience, wish I could like it more than I do!)

[@DaniDoyle]

Just a heads up in case are not aware, the creator of andron saga is a rapist and a white supremacist, and both of these issues heavily influenced the writing of the hack.

[@21powah]

@@DaniDoyle Oh... I knew there was some issues with the creator but I didn't know they were that severe. Thanks for the heads up. (And yeah suddenly the writing in that hack makes a lot more sense, yikes)

[@asui393]

Oh boy the Sacred Echoes video! As much I love this rom hack I agree with pretty much every critique here. Exp gain was so bad I had to lower the difficulty in my run

[@sinisterdesign]

Hm. I'm usually with you, Dani, but I think your biggest criticism here is misplaced. When I hear that removing an RNG manipulation exploit can make certain maps nearly unwinnable on Hard mode, to me, that sounds like a design and balancing issue rather than an argument in favor of leaving in the arrow wiggling. (But then again, I despise low-hit-rate SRPG fights, so maybe that's just me.)

[@DaniDoyle]

The thing is, arrow wiggling isn't just for rng rigging, its what makes the GBA games feel random at all. Without it or the scrambler, the game doesn't even do a good job mocking randomness, and all for the (in my opinion misguided) goal of making grinding for low % drops harder.

[@sinisterdesign]

​@@DaniDoyleI hear what you're saying! I think I might just not be the right audience for that argument. I don't want an SRPG experience based around randomness--I want one where I can reliably win with sound tactics. If my ability to win with optimal play comes down to chance, to me, that feels like the developer wasting my time.

[@DaniDoyle]

I definitely would play a SRPG where the RNG is removed (and have they're quite run), but sacred echoes pretty clearly not aiming to do that, as it still has misses and crits (which are aspects outside of the players control). Therefore I think not having actual RNG is an issue, because if you get killed by a 6% crit its not a tactical error, its the hidden string of numbers lining up against your favor

[@sinisterdesign]

@@DaniDoyle Those numbers are hidden even if you've got true RNG, though, yeah? It's not like that changes whether getting 6% critted is a tactical failure. I think you actually hit the nail on the head earlier in the vid when you focused on whether the player has adequate tools to navigate the scenarios they're put into: if the player has the means to avoid crits and then they get critted anyway, that's a tactical failure; but if they aren't given the tools to sidestep that situation, it's a design failure. I think the devs have the right to decide that arrow wiggling shouldn't be a tool in the player's kit--but IMO they do have to give you something (ideally something less arcane and abusable).

[@DaniDoyle]

This is not about arrow wiggling as a "tool", though. Most casual playthroughs do not intentionally burn RNs. This is about how the removal of RNG while including imperfect hit rates and low% crits leads to unintuitive play, and how that's bad. In most games, if on turn 1 you missed 3 high hit (90%+) attacks resulting in a game over, you'd say "damn I got unlucky" and try again, but in SE because of a lack of RNG, you now know those 3 attacks will miss, amd instead just allow the enemy to attack first. It leads to feel bad situations, exacerbated by the generally lower hit and higher crit present in the game.

[@vincentthelego7967]

I mean, that's completely fair. I absolutely loved my trek of the game, and that's probably because of how much I really enjoyed the Gaiden lore. Gaiden is just not for a lot of people in the first place.

[@PlaguevonKarma]

"One token gay is not enough and I agree with this" bless u dani

[@Sandstorm_150]

To be fair to the desert items, a kid in the house near your starting position mentions finding something in the sand while around bones/fossils. And it just so happens that the three desert items are all near the map's "Bones" tiles. Saying that this information should've been included in a readme while the game hints at it seems to run counter to your gripe about skills being locked behind a readme (which I agree is a bad design choice) I'm a sucker for SoV and enjoyed Sacred Echoes. Even still, I understand/agree with a good chunk of your grievances with the game's design (particularly how Hard Mode functions). I just thought the issues you had with the desert items felt a bit forced.

[@rynomclaughlin1595]

16:58 Berkut joins your army? Don't you mean Fernand?

[@DaniDoyle]

Whoops, I misspoke and swapped them with each other, yes Fernand is the new Orson archetype

[@rynomclaughlin1595]

@@DaniDoyle hey thanks for getting the desert items mapped out, did you ever figure out where the secret shop is for the Member Card?

[@DaniDoyle]

Actually the person who made the desert map is Akira Sou (you should check out his KZbin channel if you haven't already)

[@swinelias]

​@@rynomclaughlin1595the secret shop is in Dolth's fortress. Should be easy enough to find if you check a certain spot with a breakable wall.

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

I haven't played Sacred Echoes (which is why I am watching this review), and despite having a higher appreciation/tolerance for Gaiden/SoV, I felt your points were pretty fair, and ended up agreeing with the issues you brought. It seems if I want to enjoy it, I'll need to go Normal/Easy Mode.

[@niccarooo]

Honestly, I think Sacred Echoes is in this weird spot where I genuinely think it's a better experience than SoV, but the amount of GBA "isms" in it can very much make or break the experience for a lot of people. Your section on the map design in particular illustrates that well, and I genuinely think it fails to even address SoV's core issues despite changing a lot of the maps (for the better, imo). But still, trading wide open field #753 for a fog of war map full of forest feels so wack

[@rhodey_37]

Wild how many people in this comment section just turned their brains off for the RNG/arrow dancing part. The fixed RNs are pretty wack and it was definitely my least favorite part of SE. Player antagonistic indeed

[@blahmaster6k]

Honestly, I like this hack. I can understand some of the criticisms, but removing arrow wiggling doesn't really hurt anyone except people who want to intentionally cheat the way the developer intends the game to be played, so I can understand the developer's philosophy. If someone were playing the game on an actual cartridge it would affect no one because there are no savestates and no lua scripts. The player wouldn't notice at all, because the player would be physically incapable of resetting to reroll the RN. I can also understand wanting regalia drops to not be cheese-able if the intent is for them to be a legitimate "you won the lottery" moment, though personally I think better design would be to either guarantee the drops for them or just remove them from the game entirely if they're going to be so rare that you're realistically never going to see them without rigging.

[@DaniDoyle]

I mean I went very in-depth in the knock on effects that fixed RNG have, and why it is significantly more impactful for casual playthroughs than it is for people using save states. But I also don't see why people care if others use save states in a single player game. Not sure what you mean by "if you played on cartridge you wouldn't be able to reset the RNG", because the issue is there isnt any RNG, all combats are fixed. If your first 80% accurate attack misses, your first 80% accurate attack will always miss, no matter how many attempts at a map you make. This is absolutely something people notice. "Arrow wiggling" isnt something done by save staters, it's something that every player unintentionally does naturally simply by playing the game.

[@blahmaster6k]

​@@DaniDoyleI thought I remembered that the RNG (or pseudo-RNG as it were) resets/advances to a different place every time a map gets loaded, but I could have been mistaken about that. As for me, I don't personally care if people save state, I use them all the time myself. I'm just trying to put myself in the mindset of the hack creator. But yeah, sometimes devs are stubborn with how they want their games to be played. I know from other games that some devs just hate on principle the idea of players getting around the limitations the dev tried to place on the player, and feel personally insulted when people do that. Sometimes they see it as the player not wanting to engage fully with the project they spent so much time and effort creating, like the player is insulting their work and the effort they put in to curate the experience. I don't agree with that take, but I can respect it I guess.

[@cwazeenadventures1897]

I really loved this game, I think the big issue this game has is just that hard mode has never been good in any Valentia game, I played on normal my first time and I think that may be a part of the reason I had a better experience

[@SARGON439]

Do you have a link to the desert treasure map?

[@DaniDoyle]

no, but its on screen at 16:36

[@SARGON439]

@@DaniDoyle derp, I listened to this while I was at work, sorry about that 🤣

[@andrewcasias2676]

I haven’t finished Shadows of Valentia either, I’m about halfway through Act 3, but I definitely agree on all the back tracking stuff and map design. It’s very tedious and just really blah!

[@thegreatnothing3201]

Almost done with the game. Celica route is the best valentia gameplay ever. Alm route is significantly weaker, with underpowered player units forcing me to rely on mage!Faye, Forsyth, Lukas, and Merc!Kliff. The cavs in particular are barely useable

[@nikolayrodriguez272]

WHAT!? WAS I SUPPOSED TO LEVEL UP BERKUT FOR A GAIDEN!? f#ck it i'm going 100% growths and easiest mode to see that thing

[@just-mees]

I'm sorry, wait, forsyth gets a weapon called forscythe? Is that a forge or an actual weapon name.. I can't take that seriously. Only Odin dark would do that, not him

[@silentpartner9957]

Hmm, as somebody who actively dislikes SoV and would consider it one of the weakest FE games, I adored this hack. I thought the changes made were heavily in the game's favor, I thought it looked great, played great, and I really enjoyed the story in a way I felt I was not able to in SoV because I found the gameplay so unbearable. Granted, I'm the kind of player who always picks normal mode, so perhaps a lot of the issues were just not as present there. But I thought its difficulty curve was nearly perfect for my style of play. I never had an issue with the EXP curves, and anytime I utilized any of the grinding maps it was less out of a feeling that I needed to grind and more because several of my units were *so* close to promoting and I just wanted to top them all off. I also would never have known about the RNG stuff unless I was told. I will agree that I find it strange the motivations behind stuff like the removal of skill explanations and the arrow RNG system, but they definitely didn't impact my experience at all. Again, maybe this comes down to a normal vs. hard mode experience. It's a shame that all this impacted your time with the game so much.

[@shadowsavant0969]

As a person who has never played gaiden/SOV. What are the misogynistic elements in the story?

[@dyrr836]

Every named female character has the barest minimum of agency if even that. It's impossible to elaborate without some serious spoilers but it's not said lightly.

[@shadowsavant0969]

@@dyrr836 historically accurate maybe haha. But yeah that's pretty wack

[@Noire-]

@@dyrr836 could you please elaborate? Cuz yeah some of the female units falls into this easy to do trope of anime girls, where the writers don’t bother too much in details and they make them just to serve a purpose. Like minor male units characters that they just fight because they want to save their village and they are pretty much selfless and generic. But anyway that’s because echoes were written by Japanese writers. We have our own tropes and characterisation as westerns and yeahyeah, but to say that it has misogynistic ideas is wild it’s like hate crime or something it’s too free of an acuse, and maybe that’s the idea of Dani Doyle so we comment on shit that nobody cares. He got me so here’s my like, comment and subscribe. xD

[@jdmimikyu]

Girls in echoes history: I need help, Can some one rescue me? Girls in echoes gameplay: You have only 5 seconds before I kill you and 3 have already passed.

[@thagomizer4711]

This just seems like the worst way possible to handle hit rates

[@DangitronepasVI9]

Really great video, it comes off as a measured and well intentioned critique of a rom hack, though I do disagree with your use of the phrase “player hostility”. I know you say you’re trying not to make a moral judgement, but the fact you call this design decision “hostile” inherently gives any criticism you make seem as if you are calling the devs out on some moral failing. I get the criticism that changing the RN only negativity effects people and hardly effects the people it’s supposed simulate randomness for, but the devs are not required to have that type of RN if they don’t like it. They don’t need to nor have to please every player, and making a design decision that doesn’t cater to a very specific kind of player doesn’t make the design decision “player hostile” It’s an artistic/design decision made by the devs because that’s how they want the game to be played. I actually agree with you that the original RN system was better, but I feel calling a design decision “hostile” is going too far just because we personally disagree with it. Anyway apart from that minor semantic issue I have really great review! Can’t wait to see more.

[@DaniDoyle]

I don't think "player hostile" is a moral critique (and I went out of my way to express that it is not a moral judgment). I think it's very possible for developers to make decisions that are hostile to their play base, without that being a reflection of their own ethics. I think that both the publicly stated motivation and the results of this decision are things that can and shoulbe taken into account to come to the decision that this element of design came from and antagonistic relationship with the playerbase, but as I stated the way someone designs a game is not a moral failure (aside from predatory things like microtransactions which do not apply in this instance obviously). I think it is a mischaracterization of my argument to claim that I am making moral judgements, or that I'm demanding things cater to me, as I explicitly go out of the way to say that I do not feel that player hostility is a moral failure (in fact many genres/games are explicitly about player hostility).

[@aclashoffireandice4084]

I watched Mekkah play through the first couple of maps, but I was majorly turned off by it being GBAFE. Because I like Echoes so much, everything about this hack just felt wrong, and doubly so because it's built on my least favourite FE era. Weird how I dislike it for pretty much the opposite reason to you, lol.

[@poompoom3495]

nah but the rn thing is kinda bs. Im glad I watch this b4 i play the hack

[@Crouton-]

The only way to prevent ass level ups lol

[@samuelline9573]

Honestly im really Happy you poswted this review. I spent hours trying to get the mod to work and never could but this is making me not mind never getting it to work.

[@theghostcreator776]

You didn't by chance try to play the .ups file as if it were a rom right? Surely not

[@samuelline9573]

@@theghostcreator776 i tried like 5 different things and none of them worked

[@hemlatachouhan2852]

Funnily enough i made grey and tobin mercenary and archer opposite to you

[@DaniDoyle]

Damn, Am I your evil twin or are you my evil twin?

[@thomasquwack9503]

Dani, you’re only gonna only like this hack on 0% growths huh

[@andersonweir11]

One weapon.magic cost.then games had exp problem

[@stampylongnoah]

As somebody who VERY RECENTLY played and beat Shadows of Valentia for the first time, my biggest complaint was its overall difficulty. The number of times I saw the Game Over screen numbered somewhere in the 70s. This would be mildly understandable if it were my first Fire Emblem Game, but considering it was my THIRD, technically FOURTH, and I was playing on NORMAL MODE, the extreme difficulty was very confusing. My first Fire Emblem game was Three Houses back in 2021. In well over 6-700 Hours of play time, I've never seen the Game Over screen more than maybe 4-5 times. My second FE game was Three Hopes, but considering the gameplay differences, the point is rather moot. In 2023, I played Blazing Sword on NSO and absolutely loved it. I think I got around 10-20 Game Overs in total after a Full Lyn + Eliwood Mode playthrough, AND a Hard Lyn + Hector Mode playthrough. Needless to say, Echoes' extremely high death count has left me quite flabbergasted. I still overall greatly enjoyed my experience, but the immense challenge combined with nonstop backhanded comments from my FE associates has made Shadows of Valentia leave a rather sour taste in my mouth. I think my experience can best be summed up with me looking up a few things after beating the game, only to discover that the characters I considered to be my "Best Units" were widely known as being some of the worst characters in the whole game. (Silque, Mathilda, Jesse & Est) Oh yeah, and since I purchased the entire Special Edition physically for the sake of playing it, the DLC was entirely out of my reach, so no help there. After finishing Echoes, I've now been trying to get through Binding Blade, but to say things have been going better is... Questionable.

[@DaniDoyle]

Have you played The Sacred Stones? It's similar to Blazing Balze, but IMO its easier than Binding Blade and Blazing Blade, but obviously difficulty is subjective and will change from person to person (for example I actually think SoV is TOO easy, finding it easier than both Blazing Sword and 3 houses, though I haven't played enough hopes to judge that). I'd recommend Sacred Stones if you're frustrated with Binding Blade since sacred stones can be a more chill game

[@stampylongnoah]

@@DaniDoyle I was planning on playing Sacred Stones after finishing Binding Blade, but maybe a more relaxed FE experience is what I need right now... Oh yeah great videos btw, your Est vid was a treat.

[@stampylongnoah]

@@DaniDoyle Reevaluating my SOV playthrough, I think the most realistic answer to why I found it so brutally difficult is that I was just unlucky with growths for most of my units. I know that statement seems absolutely ridiculous considering we're talking about Shadows of Valentia, but I swear it's the truth! My best example of this happening would be Clive, who while very useful for some time as my only Cavalry Unit, recruiting Mathilda put into perspective how bad my Clive really was. Every single stat of Mathilda's as a Level 1 Paladin was higher than that of my Level 6-7 Paladin Clive, save for HP. What really sealed his fate was his Below-Below-Average Speed, which meant he was always susceptible to Arcanists with Mire, who would almost always Double and kill him instantly. This kind of thing wasn't even exclusive to Alm's Army, because the exact same thing happened with Palla, Catria, and Est! Greith's Citadel is by far the sole Fire Emblem map that has stolen the most hours off of my life. With a Colossal 37 Game Overs, and a Gargantuan 367 Total Allied casualties, this single map took me FIVE WHOLE DAYS. (All the while my "Friends" were calling me Unskilled, Worthless, an Awakening C0cksucker [even though I've never played Awakening???] whenever I tried to ask them for help) After too many days of blood, sweat, and oh so many tears, I finally prevailed over Greith and his overpowered armada, my rewards were Deen & Est, whose Base Stats pretty much spat in the face of everyone else on Celica's side. (Save for Est's Skill & Deen's Luck) The next few combat encounters with them in tow really hammered in how abysmal my experience had been going up to that point, because Deen & Est were the first units I had who gained more than three stats on any Level Up, so when they showed up with Back-to-Back 5 & 6 Stat Level Ups, (This also happened with Mathilda btw) everyone else on the team looked like complete dopes. Catria could almost never kill anything, and Palla would die to the faintest breeze. Turn Wheel Charges were always in extremely short supply in Shadows of Valentia experience. Now take the above statement about Clive, apply it to more than half the units on both armies, and you have the summary of my SoV Normal Mode Playthrough!

[@empressmako]

as someone who really hates sov, sacred echoes was definitely a better experience, but it’s still pretty low in my fe rankings. a lot of my experience was carried by gba charm. it just didnt fix my biggest problems with a story i already really had problems, but it was definitely better

[@scythea428]

How is SoV/Echoes misogynistic?

[@nigini6092]

I usually enjoy your reviews, but the RN system is a non issue for 99% of the people playing it normally without save states. To me, it's the equivalent of being mad that a bug got patched out from a game. The only way someone playing this game for the fun of it would find a similar issue is if they're resetting for better luck in a chapter, and even when I was playing FE as a tween with no experience did just "resetting because the game didn't go exactly as I planned" was a strategy I thought of. As well, calling it "Player Hostile" is a very intense term that doesn't reflect what is at most, inconvenience for a hyper niche section of the community.

[@DaniDoyle]

This isn't a bug being patched out, it's one being patched in. RNs being fixed fundamentally alters the way that the game plays, and encourages unintuitive tactics. In the video I gave several examples of how this affects people playing without save states (I don't use save states on my playthroughs) discouraging strategies that would normally make sense and and instead encouraging bizarre actions (such as not attacking the enemies on turn 1 due to the fact the first 3 90%s will miss). "Player Hostile" simply means a decision that is adversarial the the players base, and the devs teams explanation of the motivation behind this change makes it clear to me it was one.

[@nigini6092]

@@DaniDoyle Okay, but HOW would a player know that the first 3 90% hits would miss unless they say "Fuck it" and reset at the slightest diversion from the expected result. By then it's just save states with extra steps. And sure, you can say it was "Patched in" but was arrow dancing a strategy really intended to be part of the FE experience, or is it an exploit that people got so accostumed to that they mistake it for a feature??

[@DaniDoyle]

Missing 3 high accuracy attacks in a row is far from a minor diversion, and claiming that resetting the game is "basically save states" is such an absurd mindset. Not everyone iron mans. As for arrow dancing being intended, yes, it is actually an intentional thing. It is what allows the GBA to simulate RNG, not because people arrow dance on purpose, but because people do it by mistake all the time. Unless you are super intentional about how you move your cursor, you will frequently burn RNs moving it. This is so the RN string can appear random, which is pretty necessary for a game with imperfect hit rates

[@shytendeakatamanoir9740]

I haven't played Sacred Echoes (which is why I am watching this review), and despite having a higher appreciation/tolerance for Gaiden/SoV, I felt your points pretty fair, and ended up agreeing with the issue you brought. It seems if I want to enjoy it, I'll need to go Normal/Easy Mode.

[@DaniDoyle]

I would definitely recommend the lower difficulties over Hard Mode