Fire Emblem: Darius the Conqueror - Endgame: The Conqueror and Epilogue
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- Опубликовано: 22 ноя 2023
- The fated showdown.
#fireemblem #romhack #dariustheconqueror
Man... so many emotions all wrapped up in this final chapter. It's a shame that the hiccupping camera and glitchy map sprites are so prominent to me, because I really do think that this is a pretty satisfying finale for the story. I'm very proud of that final scene between Darius and Havgan; I think it does a lot to encapsulate the themes of the story in a single scene.
There isn't a whole lot else to say here that I don't touch on in the sappy little ramble I do over the credits, but I am really grateful to everyone who has been watching along with these videos. Despite everything, I am still proud of this project and I'm happy that most people who stumble across it seem to like it as well. Fitting that this video is coming out on Thanksgiving, I guess.
And yes, I did forget to give Timon a character ending, and didn't catch the mistake until I had already recorded the video. This mistake is fixed in the available patch.
Play the hack here:
drive.google.com/drive/folder... 
Видеоклипы
I don't have the slightest recollection of how I came across this hidden gem of a fangame, but I am eternally grateful to have done so. Congratulations not only on finishing your fangame, but on making a magnificent one. Certainly one of my favorite FE ROMhacks. I can't wait until that plot hook at the epilogue gets adressed, but for now, amazing job. You should be proud.
And thank you very much for following me along as I saw this project to the end. I'm sorry to say, but it'll probably be quite a long time before I get around to addressing the sequel-bait ending, but mark my words that it WILL happen some day. I appreciate the kind words.
@@PhenomBuster13I can tell that’s really big elephant rider
-Who are you?
- I HAVE POWER OF MEMES!
-What the hell is "memes"
-POWER THAT GRANT YOU TO F*** ENEMIES!
This video is my first impression of your project, and I am excited for when I have time to play it.
God speed you, stranger.
This game looks awesome! I so wanna play this now, after how hard you worked on this!
Grats on finishing the hack, gonna look forward to playing this a little more often.
Thanks mate. Hopefully I'll have a little more time to help out with your project now, haha.
You made the absolute best enemy phase attack theme ever for a FE GBA game
With that ending at the end I'm gonna expect a Darius the Conqueror 2 hopefully in the future for sure
One day. But not anytime soon, I can tell you that much.
If you make this into its original IP I would definitely follow your content to see how that ends up being.
Hey! I've just finished Darius The Conqueror and it rightfully earned its place as one of my favorite FEGBA romhacks. Let me share you my feedback:
Gameplay wise, it was really satisfying overall. I played it in Normal, and up to midgame, I felt that the difficulty was on point: Smooth, fair and satysfing (with emphasis on satysfing). You really know how to draw the line for the player and push them without making the game stressful. I think that the levels that better exemplify this are chapters 7, 11 and 14. Sometimes it's a bit too lax though. In chapter 5, I managed to kill the boss before the Wyvern reinforcements came. Also, you handled the skill progression masterfully. I got a bit uneasy when I saw some endgame clips where each unit had 6 skills, but I never felt any type of overload throughout the hack: You get all the skills gradually and have more than enough time to get used to them. I was surprised when enemies kept learning skills at the last levels. However, I felt that bows were a bit broken, specially for fliers. I cheesed the game quite a bit after I promoted Persephone and Orion and gave them boots, and Assassin Crixxus was a killing machine as well, he could easily double and proc Lethality + Adept with Longbows, which is insane. I'd probably nerf them a bit (Couldn't test Boudicca because I played a Soft Ironman and got her killed embarrasingly to a longbow...). But when you reach the endgame and become so insanely powerful you can sweep half of Havgan's army in one turn with all the Legendary weapons and Barbarus, you really feel like an unstopabble Conqueror. It's dangerously satisfying XD Loved the Fog levels as well. I inherently hate those levels, but in DTC there are few of them and they really set the horror mood with the Hellspawns coming out of nowhere and debuffing your party. I lost some units to that because I'm a bit of an optimal/impatient player thanks to Vision Quest XD But it added to the experience. Each time Barbarus went "HSSSSSSS!" I was like "Oh no..." in a good sense.
Your tracks are really cool too. I find myself listening to many of them out of the game XD It really sets the "Roman Hype" mood the game tries to convey.
Graphically it looks solid. Not going to dwelve much here. As long as the graphics aren't assembled like in Code of the Black Knights and I get to see custom animations, I'm fine with that XD (Code of the Black Knights is cool and I love it because it tries hilariously hard to stand out and takes itself very seriously for what it is, but its presented terribly...). Maps look fine and coherent, and you picked the correct animations for the units and gave them a good pallete for them all. I'd probably would've picked another animation for unpromoted Darius and the Archers, and gave Julia a less generic portrait (She appears once or twice, but she's important), but it's fine either way.
Special mention to the dialogue: this hack has a lot of words and I'm not a native English speaker, so the idea of reading complex english sentences is a bit dreadful for me even though I use it everyday at work and have formal studies, but everything was really clear and easy to understand, regardless of the alliterations. I always looked forward for the roasts, insults, and sarcasm that each character had to say in the game. My favorite one is when Ulysess mocks Pericles for his "impeccable comedic timing" at the desert. And it was equally funny when the characters broke all that grandiloquence and started swearing as in the modern times. But the overly complex dialogue also made all the introspective moments much more meaningful and intense. I really liked Darius' conversations with Rasheverak. They always went straight to the point with what they felt at the time and they articulated everything with the upmost clarity and precision. It made everything more mystical and meaningful. Also loved when Darius and Oratorius make a meta reference playing Fire Emblem in chapter 6. Generally, that kind of stuff it can be extremely cringey, like Code of the Black Knights mocking Roy in Chapter 1 for absolutely no reason or the self insert character it has that makes constant references to Kingdom Hearts (I ended up liking Zero though)... But the cameos and references here were absolutely fine.
This hack also is quite dark too. Aside from the strong language and insults, it doesn't beat around the bush to describe some situations (Nemesis Deep-faking a Darius and Helen NSFW video to deceive Polonius was a really underhanded move XD And what Commodus does to one of its illegitimate sons... Damn...). Personally, I don't mind dark stuff. I think that everyone should be free to express what they want how they want. It might even help to know if someone is about to go off the rails sooner. And I was even expecting more crude things to happen, as if it weren't enough what Burrus did to Sculla's family (Maybe I'm already off the rails...). But I think you handled the dark themes maturely and with the correct degree of subtlety as well. Not everyone feels the same way about dark topics, and the warnings were well placed.
Finally, I really liked the story and its characters. I found it really simple and engaging. I liked that it never hide that something wrong it's about to happen in the next turn. Everything felt extremely sincere. It's proof that you don't need to be too ambitous or shocking to write something enjoyable (Like Code of the Black Knights... Again, I love it, but it's too dense). The story has this "Hey, this is just a simple beginning" feel from start to finish, but Darius and his crew really go through everything. Each chapter, the plot advances forward, presents every piece of info you need, and doesn't waste more time than needed. The antagonists get build up correctly and we get to see every side of them, no matter how cruel they are, leaving hints here and there about some future events (Loved when Barbarus hesitates to struck Nemesis and we realise later why). Darius screws up here and there due to corruption, reflects about his actions, clashes with other point of views, learns from all of that, and reaches to a solid and sincere conclusion after beating Havgan. However, I felt that the plot drags a little bit during the Exile arc. It made sense story wise and it was useful to add more chapters gamewise, but I think you could've taken away two or three chapters from there. The most important stuff that happens there were recruiting Timon, the Non-humans and Aerion and to form the Delian alliance. I would've probably merged chapters 17 and 18, as well as merging chapters 20 and 21 to go over that part of the story quicker (Easier said than done, of course). Nevertheless, after Darius gets recognized as the Conqueror, everything gets back on track with a lot of impulse to reach the conclusion. I felt that Darius swoops the antagonist forces a little bit too fast, but it makes sense due to having aid from Barbarus. The end twist was pretty cool too. (On a side note, I didn't expect Rasheverak to be a perv. It's absolutely uncomfortable and hilarious XD)
I think you also did a very good job matching the themes of the story with all the different characters. For example, each of the starting Preatorians is from a different race and birthplace. It gives a good and efficient glimpse from the lore of the story, and how their lineages impacted their day to day lives. You can see how people from Angaron discriminate most of them in various degrees, cope with that, and find their place through the journey thanks to the Praetorians. It adds to the feeling of saving the world with your band full of misfits, which suits Fire Emblem games really well. Haven't read all the supports yet, but the few I read were pretty cool. Crixxus and Pharah's C Support is my favorite so far. Also loved the endgame convos. It's really fitting how after the long journey, everyone knows each other very well and have no problem telling what they feel. My favorite convos from the endgame are the ones that Viper and Garrick have with Darius. They really let out everything there.
Well... Sorry for the long comment. I really enjoyed the romhack and wanted to congratulate you properly. You really put a lot of effort and came up with a very unique hack. Never knew I needed a Roman Fire Emblem until I played DTC. Looking forward for the sequel. I hope that Darius does nothing wrong like a certain long haired albino dude XD
Damn, this was an essay and a half! But I'm glad you feel passionate enough to go into detail about what you enjoyed about it. I'm still pretty proud of this project, and I'm always happy to hear from people who enjoyed it as well.
So it's finally done huh? Ceazy to see how far this has come. I was wondering are you aware of FE Universe? I'm sure if you'd post your romhack on there you would get a lot of love from the whole community. This romhack is on par with the greatest, even more so since it's finally finished. Definitely check it out!
Thank you for the compliment! I am aware of FEU; however, I have had some bad experiences with the community there that have soured any desire I might have once had to post projects to that forum. Think I even say as much during the little ramble I do over the credits in this video.
5:18 there’s a patch that allows to set prep BGM by chapter
I did try to use it, but it wasn't straightforward to edit and I ended up being too confused to bother.
Honestly this whole hack looks good from start to finish! Just needs a little polish on it and Honestly I think it ranks in top 3 of all FE hacks then!
Thanks for the kind words!
I did fall off from the constant progress but this is a great game. Will get around to playing it myself one day.
I'm still glad you kept up with my work, man. Thanks for sticking around with me on this journey.
@@PhenomBuster13 no problemo. been rewatching the old videos and its inspiring me to get off my ass and actually try and make an actual custom romhack
I recently discover this hack just by youtube recomendations, and i must say.....WHAT AN INCREDIBLE HACK MAN!
I'm not from the english community, so its weird why youtube recomended me your videos, but i'm glad it did, you really did an awesome hack that even it could reach to someone of another language like me, Great Job, and good luck with the next one, i'll be there to play it!
Thank you so much! Glad to know my stuff has the power to cross language barriers.
My Darius tigger Aether twice and just one shot Havgan 😂.
Pro: I don’t have to deal with the buggy sprites .
Con: was not able to fully experience the final map of this wonderful romhack.
Yeah, that is definitely a bit of a design flaw. Still, glad you enjoyed playing.
Whaddya mean it's pronounced DAWR-ius?
(Great hack by the way! Looking forward to what you do next, but now's the time to rest. Adding this in post since I felt bad not sharing as such.)
Thanks for playing it! The name Darius will always be "Dawr-ius" to me, especially in the context of medieval/antiquity names. Hoping to get to work on a new project soon, with any luck the wait won't be too long.
Hello! It's nice to see the Romhack in completion! I've got a question though, what is the intended difficulty? I picked Difficult, and while the first chapters were managable, by CH 3 most of the enemy units suddenly got a lot stronger (compared to Prologue and CH 1 at least), and in CH 4 most of the new units including some I obtained in CH 3 were ecclipsed in stats compared to their generic enemy counterpart (the comparison between Sylvando and enemy Archers and Castor to enemy Cavaliers is especially painful) with the only unit being capable of safely facing anything being Darius. I would have tried going into the arena to put my units on par to the enemy, but the matchups are too erratic ranging from weak Iron Sword Cavaliers to powerful Ignacio/Fimbulvetr Mages who can 2 shot my units (I even had an encounter where a Shaman somehow doubled Pollux) so I don't think the Arena is safe for me either, and I don't know if I should keep going on or just play on Normal like you did.
The intended difficulty is Normal. I'll admit I went a little overboard with enemy stats in some cases, so Hard mode is probably not super balanced at the moment. Might be something I'll have to fix later down the line. But for now, I recommend replaying through on Normal difficulty.
@@PhenomBuster13 Alright will do, thanks for anwering my question!
I am on ch12 so far on Hard mode and its hard but i can still manage it, also loving the game so far, its amazing!@@PhenomBuster13
@@PhenomBuster13 That's unfortunate to know now. I'm on chapter 16 on difficult, was concerned about the beefy prepromotes, up to this point and somehow made it with only giving up on pollux and don't want to restart even though it'll be a lot easier to get to this point again on a lower difficulty lol. At least the challenge on difficult hasn't made things not fun
Would you be fine with me streaming a (mostly blind) playthrougn of your fangame on Twitch?
Hell yeah, dude! Go for it!
Darius is the fe equivalent of Nick Cannon and me. THE GOAT
I made a review about the game but it got deleted???
Anyways the game is amazing, 10/10 one of the best jrpgs I have played in a while 👌🏾
So what’s this hack about? This is the first I’ve ever seen of it, and it looks pretty unique and interesting
If you're curious to learn more about it, I've got a full playlist showing off the full main story and several support conversations on the channel, if you want to check that out.
What game do I patch this onto?
US English version of FE8 Sacred Stones.
@@PhenomBuster13 thanks my guy,I can't wait to spend time on this hack it looks absolutely amazing
Hey the game glitched out on me and sent me back to chapter 2
That's... interesting. Are you sure you're playing the most recently released patch?
@@PhenomBuster13 i used the one in the description
@@ItscoffinYT Weird. That should not be happening...
EDIT: I figured it out. I made a mistake with the ending of Chapter 11, had the wrong command for the route where Garrick doesn't get recruited. New patch in the description, this one should have that issue fixed.
Sorry one question, I love doing Link Arena after finishing through but I noticed some units aren't working properly in Link Arena?
Barbarus and Tzipporal makes sense because they don't have an actual attack.
But there are 5 units that just say "these units can not be deployed"
1. Oratorius
2. Drusilla
3. Morgula
4. Hippolyta
5. Hannibal
I was wondering why these 5 units are locked out as they all have weapons they can use, and if you can fix it?
I don't know much about Link Arena and I don't personally care about it, so I'm not sure I can help. With the units who are undeployable, I think it's because they are modded over characters who can't normally participate in the Link Arena (Morgula replaces Myrrh and the others replace Creature Campaign only characters).
@@PhenomBuster13
Ahh no worries, that's definitely the reason then that's a shame. Link Arena is a big favorite of mine when it comes to game, but regardless the rom was incredibly fun otherwise, thanks again for the hack and I hope you have a great day :)
Anyway to turn off the damage on screen indicators in battle? It's super distracting and unnecessary in my opinion.
That just kinda came with the skill system patch I used for this hack. Don't think there's a way to turn it off outside of me going into the editor and disabling it.
@@PhenomBuster13 Okay, no problem. If it can be turned off in the builder, I can go in and do that my self. Thanks!
@@PhenomBuster13 I found the patch for damage and uninstalled it, it works. Thanks again.
So I beat Darius a while back, and I've got a fair bit to say.
I ultimately don't think I overall enjoyed it. I liked parts of it, but much of it was weighed down by the presence of many things which detracted from those positives. Hopefully this'll be constructive either way, seeing a sequel is being cooked from what I've heard.
Just to forewarn. My English is not the best and I'm really sorry if I at all come off rudely with my wording. I swear there's no offence intended, words are hell sometimes ^^".
-- GAMEPLAY --
It's very much like code of the black knights in this department.
Early is pretty solid, team up to kill, and slowly get the scrubs up. though the map where you get you real jagen does have the issue of feeling like you're stuck in one place breaking through a horde.
By midgame it does feel like it hits this slump of many maps not having much room/reason to really split and so you're often dragging a deathball around that just kills a bunch of guys each turn. Your bow units have likely come online and you get some promotions and now things start to be hard for the enemies to really keep up.
Then endgame suffers from the same problem Cotblack does, where it's just your lord with an incredibly powerful series of prfs soloing the endgame vs foes that can't keep up. With a final boss that unfortunately just devolves into a slugging match while your guys down below....
..Well, don't really get to do anything important, and I wish they'd have some way to help impact the fight Darius is having with Hardhammer without it just being warping up Crash (if you find him). As is they exist and don't get much to contribute to actually helping take him down as your ball of stats fights another ball of stats one combat at a time, waiting for procs to speed up the pace.
Skills were a hit or miss thing. By late game it made for enemies which were more frustrating (generally the monsters) and emphasizing NUKE ASAP (if they had a proc). Otherwise skills often did feel like they made for a situation where the rich get richer unitwise and some classes with strong units just get way better vs their peers.
Canto+ was also just way too hard to pass up, that stuffs powerful AF, LOL.
2-3 Bows worked way too well. especially in tandem with Canto+ on mounts. As it meant that archers/snipers lacked a really valuable trait and actually made them arguably the weakest bow units of all. Meanwhile mounted bow units became much more powerful for having these things. They became incredibly overcentralizing compared to other options because they gave so much power in a way little could really contest with.
Even without Canto+ it's definitely the same conundrum PE had with it's 2-3, where Archers just are their worst users. It's a matter where I think if it was just 2 range, and archers just had bowrange+ for 2-3, it'd give them a valuable tool over the the rest while still keeping bows valuable.
Then there's the matter of the very late (10+ turn) reinforcements that grant stuff like statboosters. This isn't good for design because it's encouraging me as a player to play SLOWER. It's rewarding me for turtling rather than doing the opposite and rewarding me for being proactive with my plays.
(continued in replies)
-- THE STORY --
The best way to put it is that Darius feels narratively at odds with itself. Especially when the more heavy topics appear. This is (as someone whose played it) the exact same issue Black Dragon had within its writing.
The fix wasn't content warnings, the content was never inherently the problem. It was and still somewhat is the execution of these things.
It tries presenting a more mature, gritty world with some of the atrocities it shows but it really often falls back onto hitting very similar tones to base FEGBA. So those moments don't break the veil and set things back into the harsh reality these characters live in. It instead comes off like a very ham-handed way to present these things to assure that this is a more mature story. Which it ultimately doesn't really land.
The story doesn't now feel deeper or more mature with them. Instead it gives off the vibe that the writing overcorrected on a concern of someone possibly taking the story as not mature while assuring loudly who every bad guy is. Because when it does that, it feels less mature than it would've been without the moment at all. It's darker themes work when it's not trying so incredibly hard to assure you that horrible things are being done.
Look at Hardhammer, the game gives just enough to present that you feel his most evil acts without it ever becoming tonally inconsistent like it does with the actions of Sulla, for example. Alongside placing faith on the reader's ability to understand these things.
Speaking of Hardhammer, the main group of the human villains are all generally pretty fun reads. You wanna see them lose and it's especially strong with Hardhammer. Who absolutely steals the show away from everyone else. The tone shifts gracefully when he appears, things feel serious without needing to reassure it. He's imposing and every time he's by Darius it makes you wonder how he'll get out of this one. Alongside just being the perfect ideological foil to Darius's golden heart.
Though Commodore definitely was a solid second contender. He's so petty and stupid and vindictive and it's perfect for making everything he does believable. It's an idiot drunk on power and he's riding that high for all it's worth.
If it was really like- just Hardhammer moments, It'd definitely be a very hard hitting narrative. But as is, I'll get into below another aspect that really bogs down the hack's story.
So, speaking of the villains, it's time to talk about the elephant in the room.
Nemesis. She quite honestly ended up feeling like she didn't much matter or have much need to exist (if not for the sequel bait at the end). Where the things she did could quite honestly be done by Hardhammer or by where these characters are currently at mentally anyhow. It only served to add to that feeling of tonal dissonance in her very generic "destroy humanity" type of villain, because she was ultimately just that.
She never has much added to her, and what she does have struggles to be appealing because she almost feels like a quota. There because FE games have people trying to destroy the world when Hardhammer is already functionally doing that.
She takes up quite a lot of screen time only to detract from other characters making these choices on their own. While also being effectively another representative of entropy when Hardhammer already fills that role. He, unlike her, also has ties back to other members of the cast and things going on with a motivation that lets the reader understand why he's like that.
Nemesis meanwhile as said, the story is weaker with her being there, detracting from the human element. I found her frustrating because she often meant I was missing out on more interesting angles this same scene could've happened from.
This problem of a lack of much "meat" so to speak also is really heavily stuck on Rasheverak and Oratorius. In the former case she certainly exists and she does things but I never could find myself caring equal to the amount of screen time she was given. Especially when Ulysses often felt like a much stronger prospective confidant of Darius, a more measured sort who has real ties to the plot via a villain who is the central real threat. She ends up feeling just as superfluous outside of being there to console him in dreams when as said, others very well could do the same with a stronger tie.
Then there's Oratorius. He suffers a lot from the same problem Storch from vision quest does, weirdly. In that he's there the whole time but it feels like he lacks much meat on 'em while also not having much to enjoy with what is there about him. While also being hard to remove from the story because some things just cannot happen without him around.
He, really unfortunately, feels like living plot armor. He's never really in danger and the one time he is he's quickly saved out of it. His personality widens a bit come near endgame but by then the story's almost done and he doesn't have time to really actually get to show that off.
So he ends up feeling much like the other two, a character with quite a lot of screen time but little he really actually does with that time spent. They do a lot to over time cut down on engagement and I do think I wouldn't of continued with these guys around if not for being as interested in Hardhammer's writing as I was.
As well, I though the journals were a fun flair but rarely added much beyond restating what we as players already know from last chapter. It added bloat.
Which is another final bit. Darius definitely would've benefitted from an editor. There's just a need to trim down unneeded fat within it's dialogue which would go a long way to just enhancing flow.
Alotta people I've talked to whove played (or that I've shown) Darius have felt similar to what I've written up. It's a game with strong potential within it but it needs to overcome a hurdle both hacks have heavily had.
-- THE SEQUEL --
This part did kill things for me, especially after the highpoint that was the final chapter's end cutscene. It's a personal one but it's the type of sequel that I just find really weak. When it's just saying that the same conflict is going to happen in 20 so years.
While it can work for being poignant, it fails to be so here because nothing Darius does gives the inclination that this'll happen in his lifetime.
All it does it take away his victories right at the end and give a shrug at the lack of cohesion between what's being said here and what the player gets to see time and time again.
It also just suffers from the fact that it's really the only time any of these otherwise fairly one note characters get any real fold to them. Rasheverak gets a major reveal which is a narrative shakeup she needed chapters ago, right not at the very end. As is, it's too little too late when these characters have often been around most of the game and only now, after being in so many scenes and saying so much, really start to get a layer of intrigue to them. They needed some spice, but they should've gotten some within this game and not taken the whole time for which to really get any.
While I'm generally not a fan of this kind of paragraph-long comment, I appreciate that your critiques are specific, focused, and most importantly, not delivered with a tone of excessive bluntness or rudeness that I find annoyingly common among my critics. I am a massive perfectionist, always hyper-critical of my own work, and find those types of critics annoying and not useful even when I do somewhat agree with the criticism, so this was a welcome breath of fresh air from that.
There's some parts of this that I don't fully agree with or don't have a good answer as to how to fix, but there is a fair amount here where I can at least understand the critique and somewhat agree with it.
One thing I'd like to clarify in regards to the sequel bait at the end: the sequel stories are planned to involve Darius and will take place in his lifetime. Maybe could have made that clearer in the text, but it's not a case where it'll happen years after his death.
Regardless, thank you for taking the time to offer your critiques. I am currently planning on turning this hack into a proper game and appreciate being told about what I could do better in the future.