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[From hack to indie] Path of the Midnight Sun


Alfred Kamon
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A little late but to get back on the interview: I agree that Midnight Sun has very nice maps! I like them a lot. And if you ever need some help/advice in making maps, feel free to ask me if you want to.

Also hooray for de-hooded mages. Always thought the hood looked pretty silly with how pointy it is.

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So hey... I finally finished the patch.

Whoo... nice ending. (Kinda had it spoiled by a number of posts here, but still appreciated it)

So guess I may as well post my ending characters, give my thoughts.

[spoiler=My Units]

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-Fa is a powerhouse. If it wasn't for her res being hard to level up she would be almost completely untouchable. She starts off not too strong, but get a couple good levels, especially levels with speed and she will be doubling and wrecking almost everything and everyone.

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-Hellios... good powerful Jeigan/Seth type unit. The Warp Swords are a nice touch. Tried not to use him too much, but he can make the chapters really easy if you let him. Used him as a meat shield in ch.8 very effectively, with a weak sword to chip damage.

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-Rya was a little hard to keep alive at times, but then she's still an archer and you really shouldn't have her in the line of fire anyways. Those magic arrows of hers were ridiculously useful against knights and monsters though, and a steel arrow made any eyeballs nearby a quick shish-kebab.

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-Squishy at first, but turns into a decent enough unit. Get some speed on him and he's your most reliable axe unit whereas the other two will take some time to catch up. He actually seems to be a decent human being too at the end concerned for Fa, so yay character development?

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-Good healer. Amusing old dude. Useful healer who can also chip in with slayer damage from time to time. What is not to like? Growths are actually pretty damn good too for a pre-promote.

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-God tier unit. Andre is the man! Once you get this bad boy to class change... watch out! Basically capable of soloing ch.8 if you use barrier on him. Amusing promotion too.

[spoiler=Ch.8 BIG spoilers!] 38bf97b94ce187b37bbeab3f6c7a5413.png

-seriously, Andre 1rkos the Boss. This was after he almost singlehandedly took out most of the "Game Over" monsters.

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-Very useful unit. Can even take some bow hits. Get some speed on him and he'll be fine.

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-I like her... but she's really squishy, and unfortunately not enough axe users/magic users for her to kill and not be killed right away as well. Ended up leaving her behind for other sword users, but will likely use her in the next patch when she can promote.

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-Alternated between him and Cristoph. Less squishy, but not as fast or resistant without some good level ups. Ended up using them both, but would likely drop Garion in favor of Djambo and Cristoph. Decent unit, interesting personality.

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-Ah the trainees... Djambo is hard to get to lv.10, due to being really squishy and slow to start. Once he does level up he's pretty good though, Look forward to using him more. Didn't know about the recruitment glitch in ch.6 initially, he got skewered a number of times before I rechecked the readme. Dx

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-Ponies! Hilarious dude, good unit too except being fodder for bow units. Used Solaris with him, did no regret it... actually able to use the Agile Estoc as he has enough strength to make it viable. High movement is a plus too.

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-Love this unit. Troubadours having swords is awesome, and they're already ridiculously useful as healers. Good magic unit killer.

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-Good character, good unit. Good jeigan... wish he had a class change item as he gets to lv.20 ridiculously quick, making me leave him behind for the final chapter. Almost solos 5x.

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-So cold... A cool stoic Amelia basically, but her colors again look really good with the recruit. Wish she had a custom sprite for the soldier as the vanilla Soldier is meh.(might have to look into that for ya) Typical trainee, hard to keep alive initially, but good once she class changes. Went with Recruit for the look and more total stat gains. Somewhat hard to recruit.

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-Amusing character. Kinda squishy, but then... he is a thief. Ended up not really being able to get him facing a lot of combat without him dying, or able to use the Solaris... Next run I do I figure I'll try to let him use the sword he wanted to get for his dear Mummy. Nice hat too.

[spoiler=Spoiler Character]

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-Nice to finally get a version of Shiori that is usable. Her personal tome is uber good, clever to have her maxed level to stop one from over-using her. I like the plot twists, and her personality is fun.

I look forward to using her more in the next patch.

Very enjoyable game with a nice variety of missions, game mechanics and plot twists to spice up the formula. Great job on it Alfred. I look forward to seeing the next patch. :)

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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Glad you liked the game so far, @Mono the Meerp, @TheErrantShepherd! ^^

So, I'm officially finished revamping v.1.0, in the next days I'll be working on some new fresh content (and hopefully I'll bring you some more juicy pics!)
As of now, forget about that last wave in chapter 8. Now it's "Game Over!" for real.
[spoiler=Contains Chapter 8 spoilers]
revisited11.png
"little creatures"?
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Huh, ok. What do you mean by "Get faster" though?
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O-Oh, I see... Well, as long as it's just +2 Mov...
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W-Wait, this is getting scary--
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HOLY SHIT RUN!!!
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And this is pretty much the situation after a few turns.
There's also a +8 Mov boost, but I doubt you'll ever survive long enough to see it.
Extra:
revisited10.png
Seems like Shiori doesn't use that "Fallen Zephiel" map sprite anymore here!
Thanks to L95 for the sprite. You're great, milady!

Edited by Alfred Kamon
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So is the old "Game Over" wave still there as well, or do the new marathon running monsters replace them? If the former, it shouldn't really change things too much unless you're an obsessive turtler. But whatever, it's sort of telling you to hurry up and...

...do exactly what the DK wants. He's hardly got the patience of a saint after all; he'd rather not have to wait on you pitiful mortals...

Edited by Wayward Winds
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May i ask something?

[spoiler=Plot spoiler]

Does the game over when hellios dies?

I have never tried that out but... because of him, all the trouble was there in the first place

and when he would die that means there would mean no trouble and Fa should just meet shiori which she will anyway according to shioris power to see this guy who guides her the way in her dreams

I don't think anyone has tried that out before since Hellios is such a good unit and such

also you can see that Hellios is not a real character since in the prep screen he isn't in the support list

So after i found out that he has no supports and he was suspicious i used him as meatshield only after that

he did never die on me though

it was only after the 8th chapter that i found out he really was the villain all along and i was like:

why did i not kill him in the first chapter?

Edited by Flare
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[spoiler=Plot spoiler]I have never tried that out but... because of him, all the trouble was there in the first place

and when he would die that means there would mean no trouble and Fa should just meet shiori which she will anyway according to shioris power to see this guy who guides her the way in her dreams

I don't think anyone has tried that out before since Hellios is such a good unit and such

also you can see that Hellios is not a real character since in the prep screen he isn't in the support list

So after i found out that he has no supports and he was suspicious i used him as meatshield only after that

he did never die on me though

it was only after the 8th chapter that i found out he really was the villain all along and i was like:

why did i not kill him in the first chapter?

you might want to spoil the unspoiled part too, because that is a huge spoiler...

Edited by GhastStation
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So is the old "Game Over" wave still there as well, or do the new marathon running monsters replace them? If the former, it shouldn't really change things too much unless you're an obsessive turtler. But whatever, it's sort of telling you to hurry up and...

...do exactly what the DK wants. He's hardly got the patience of a saint after all; he'd rather not have to wait on you pitiful mortals...

It's the latter. I figured that that last wave was bad for various reasons: firstly, it looked like an ambush spawn and didn't give the player many ways to counter it besides turtling. Secondly, since those were all high-levelled monsters, they gave a lot of exp. And that wasn't a good thing balance-wise because I feel like most players get overlevelled units way earlier than expected.

May i ask something?

[spoiler=Plot spoiler]

Does the game over when hellios dies?

I have never tried that out but... because of him, all the trouble was there in the first place

and when he would die that means there would mean no trouble and Fa should just meet shiori which she will anyway according to shioris power to see this guy who guides her the way in her dreams

I don't think anyone has tried that out before since Hellios is such a good unit and such

also you can see that Hellios is not a real character since in the prep screen he isn't in the support list

So after i found out that he has no supports and he was suspicious i used him as meatshield only after that

he did never die on me though

it was only after the 8th chapter that i found out he really was the villain all along and i was like:

why did i not kill him in the first chapter?

[spoiler=Ch.8 plot spoilers]Yes, he triggers a Game Over whenever he dies. He just isn't supposed to die

If you want to have a plot reason for that, well, let's say that if it wasn't for Hellios, Fa wouldn't have survived to begin with. He was the one who pulled the strings from the beginning, so he wanted Fa to stay alive in order to be set free once again. You can almost say that the true protagonist of the first arc of the story is Hellios.

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[spoiler=Ch.8 plot spoilers]Yes, he triggers a Game Over whenever he dies. He just isn't supposed to die

If you want to have a plot reason for that, well, let's say that if it wasn't for Hellios, Fa wouldn't have survived to begin with. He was the one who pulled the strings from the beginning, so he wanted Fa to stay alive in order to be set free once again. You can almost say that the true protagonist of the first arc of the story is Hellios.

Oh ok[spoiler=petty, spoilery opinion of a fan that likes to bring things into question and tries to be most constructively criticizing to make sure things are bullet proof]so he is in fact responsible for her being alive as he "looks after her" by e.g. by protecting her or making suggestions to do stuff to make sure she is safe(except not really, fa is the one who discusses things with magnolia which suggests to flee to lazuris or shiori suggests to take her to caelana to give her power in order to have more time traveling to "reseal" the demon king iirc) because if he is behind everything, he should suggest resealing her at the midnight shrine(even though his biggest hope was probably to make sure the demon king goes out of fa in the process in the forest) right after the forest "accident"

it looks like he tries to make the demon king go out of her but he has not a well thought out, flawed plan that does not work correctly or have a plan B in case it fails, in chapter 1/prolouge he did it right by controlling the soldiers and attacking fa to make the demon king go out of her but because of her strength(and of course tactican powahz) she managed to handle this situation so hellios plan failed but he had a plan b which was to make her kill her people and to make them believe that the demon king gained control over her and to make her believe he was her brother and that she is safe as long as hellios is there etc. so they go away and oh noes the hokaide army found out and they(not manipulazed by helios) attack fa and so on

the thing i am trying to say is, hellios doesn't seem like one that is relevant for plot except chapter 1, 7 and the fact that he is her "brother" as nobody would give a damn if something would happen to him since "he is so secret" "nobody knows about him" etc. it might seem dumb but i think giving him more relevance by making him say lines like: "I am a big factor that determines if the demon king would break out or not since i am her only relative she can depend on now and she trusts me, i cannot die yet!" when e.g. Christoph or Rya question his existence or something like that that says "oh man, if this dude dies, shit will hit the fan" but ambiguous in the way that "oh so he did say that on purpose so we don't kill him"when the plot is revealed or else everyone would wonder why there would be a game over if he dies

but that is only iirc there is no indication like that, i apologize if my comment was unnecessary like the last one about the "bug" that happened in vanilla fe as well and to spend your precious time over something insignificant like that

Edited by Flare
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I totally stole this idea from a video game

This idea is a mixture of Lyn!Rath's Chapter, Farina's Chapter and Kenneth!Karel Chapter from FE:7

If you've ever played Hyrule warriors, this is basically the idea. Have like X (Ideally, 3) enemy captains, which are much stronger than normal enemies, and have the boss blocked off. In order to reach the boss, you must first defeat said 3 enemies, which then unlock the path/door to the boss, This is a pretty gimmicky idea, and may be difficult to script, but I hope you like the concept.

Manhandla stalks could be Ballistae

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Oh ok[spoiler=petty, spoilery opinion of a fan that likes to bring things into question and tries to be most constructively criticizing to make sure things are bullet proof]so he is in fact responsible for her being alive as he "looks after her" by e.g. by protecting her or making suggestions to do stuff to make sure she is safe(except not really, fa is the one who discusses things with magnolia which suggests to flee to lazuris or shiori suggests to take her to caelana to give her power in order to have more time traveling to "reseal" the demon king iirc) because if he is behind everything, he should suggest resealing her at the midnight shrine(even though his biggest hope was probably to make sure the demon king goes out of fa in the process in the forest) right after the forest "accident"

it looks like he tries to make the demon king go out of her but he has not a well thought out, flawed plan that does not work correctly or have a plan B in case it fails, in chapter 1/prolouge he did it right by controlling the soldiers and attacking fa to make the demon king go out of her but because of her strength(and of course tactican powahz) she managed to handle this situation so hellios plan failed but he had a plan b which was to make her kill her people and to make them believe that the demon king gained control over her and to make her believe he was her brother and that she is safe as long as hellios is there etc. so they go away and oh noes the hokaide army found out and they(not manipulazed by helios) attack fa and so on

the thing i am trying to say is, hellios doesn't seem like one that is relevant for plot except chapter 1, 7 and the fact that he is her "brother" as nobody would give a damn if something would happen to him since "he is so secret" "nobody knows about him" etc. it might seem dumb but i think giving him more relevance by making him say lines like: "I am a big factor that determines if the demon king would break out or not since i am her only relative she can depend on now and she trusts me, i cannot die yet!" when e.g. Christoph or Rya question his existence or something like that that says "oh man, if this dude dies, shit will hit the fan" but ambiguous in the way that "oh so he did say that on purpose so we don't kill him"when the plot is revealed or else everyone would wonder why there would be a game over if he dies

but that is only iirc there is no indication like that, i apologize if my comment was unnecessary like the last one about the "bug" that happened in vanilla fe as well and to spend your precious time over something insignificant like that

[spoiler=chapter 8 spoilers]First of all, thank you for taking your time to write that.

You forget a point, that in order for the Demon King to resurrect at His full potential, both Fa's magic and seal need to be gone. He went through the process of making Fa fight against her country in order to cause her some terrible feelings that would have slowly corrupted her mind (as you can see at the beginning of chapter 6, where she doesn't hesitate to kill anymore) so that he would've been able to take full control of her through the reverted Vassalage and finally release Himself by pushing Fa to her limits (so by making the others defeat her). He also needed to take care of the seal first, so he gave Fa that whiskey bottle (that wasn't enough to control her mind fully though, in fact she still managed to restrain Him with her powers).

In FE you don't need a specific reason for a Game Over character, you just need to know that it's important. "Oh well he's a prince, he's important, Game Over if he dies, fair enough". The story just have to go that way because, huh, I want it to go that way.

I hope this answers your questions.

Nice suggestions though. :) Appreciated.

I totally stole this idea from a video game

This idea is a mixture of Lyn!Rath's Chapter, Farina's Chapter and Kenneth!Karel Chapter from FE:7

If you've ever played Hyrule warriors, this is basically the idea. Have like X (Ideally, 3) enemy captains, which are much stronger than normal enemies, and have the boss blocked off. In order to reach the boss, you must first defeat said 3 enemies, which then unlock the path/door to the boss, This is a pretty gimmicky idea, and may be difficult to script, but I hope you like the concept.

Manhandla stalks could be Ballistae

That's really easy to script, and a fairly good concept too.

Thanks for the suggestion.

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I totally stole this idea from a video game

This idea is a mixture of Lyn!Rath's Chapter, Farina's Chapter and Kenneth!Karel Chapter from FE:7

If you've ever played Hyrule warriors, this is basically the idea. Have like X (Ideally, 3) enemy captains, which are much stronger than normal enemies, and have the boss blocked off. In order to reach the boss, you must first defeat said 3 enemies, which then unlock the path/door to the boss, This is a pretty gimmicky idea, and may be difficult to script, but I hope you like the concept.

Manhandla stalks could be Ballistae

So like the final chapter in FE5.

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I've never played any of the Japanese games, so possibly :P

It's pretty much what you're describing, except with 6 enemies. You had to kill 6 boss-level enemies, then seize the points they were standing on, before you could open the door to the throne room and take out the Final boss.

Could be interesting, but hopefully in this hacks version there's less need for door keys. >_>

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If the Achilles Cavalry Regiment aren't part of the final boss/postgame final boss's vanguard I will be disappoint.

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Chapter 8 Spoilers Ahead (Sorry, Alfred. I learned how to spoiler.):

I don't like making the last wave in ch8 game over. I love your hack and most of your ideas, but using the same trick from chapter 4 takes it to gimmick-level for me , and is some serious gameplay and story segregation, something I think Fire Emblem typically does a great job of averting. I really think that the last wave was better when it was defeatable. Maybe another strategy for anti-turtling would work better?

Just my thoughts. I'll admit that I actually did play the chapter as a blitz, but I camped for the last wave to see what it was, then I two-turned it in a counter-ambush. I did this all three times I played through the hack. I always was able to kill Fa at least a turn before, but I held off for xp. I simply prefer the current, more elegant solution to the chapter.

Edited by The Protagonist
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[spoiler=ch 8]I don't like making the last wave in ch8 game over. I love your hack and most of your ideas, but using the same trick from chapter 4 takes it to gimmick-level for me , and is some serious gameplay and story segregation, something I think Fire Emblem typically does a great job of averting. I really think that the last wave was better when it was defeatable. Maybe another strategy for anti-yurt long would work better?

Just my thoughts. I'll admit that I actually did play the chapter as a blitz, but I camped for the last wave to see what it was, then I two-turned it in a counter-ambush. I did this all three times I played through the hack. I always was able to kill Fa at least a turn before, but I held off for xp. I simply prefer the current, more elegant solution to the chapter.

Could you please use the spoiler tags? :)

Anyway yeah, I understand what you said, but I had to prevent people from turtling while reducing the exp I was giving off in that chapter, and this seemed the most efficient solution.

Moreover it builds up the fear and anger towards those special units that will, in the endgame, be defeatable.

[spoiler=ch.8]Moreover, from a story standpoint it's actually better this way. "Why won't Fa summon those absurdly strong monsters if she already did so back in ch.4 when she wasn't even fully controlled?"

If the Achilles Cavalry Regiment aren't part of the final boss/postgame final boss's vanguard I will be disappoint.

Yup!

All these times fleeing from them... it's finally time to take your revenge!

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[spoiler=Chapter 8 Spoilers]

I don't like making the last wave in ch8 game over. I love your hack and most of your ideas, but using the same trick from chapter 4 takes it to gimmick-level for me , and is some serious gameplay and story segregation, something I think Fire Emblem typically does a great job of averting. I really think that the last wave was better when it was defeatable. Maybe another strategy for anti-yurt long would work better?

Just my thoughts. I'll admit that I actually did play the chapter as a blitz, but I camped for the last wave to see what it was, then I two-turned it in a counter-ambush. I did this all three times I played through the hack. I always was able to kill Fa at least a turn before, but I held off for xp. I simply prefer the current, more elegant solution to the chapter.

Yeah... I like being able to actually fight another wave as well... but still like the idea of the Achilletaurs actually being present... is there a way to meld the two? ...or have the Achilletaurs as a GOD DAMNIT HURRY UP? 'cause I did wait to see if anything showed up after 20-30 turns in the original... and yeah, nothing does... I dunno... Guess I will have to try out the new version and compare it to see what I think. :\

Once my party is fully maxed out by endgame... those Achilletaurs won't know what hit them? >.>

Edited by TheErrantShepherd
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Chapter 8 Spoilers ahead:

The achilletaurs in general feel kinda weird and gimmicky to me. I liked it as a one-time thing, but it would make all future monster fights completely inexplicable. Why wouldn't Fomortiis just send Giga-Achilletaurs after the group whenever, once he's escaped? Furthermore, he's now even more powerful than he was in Fa. This is the gameplay and story segregation problem. One time can be overlooked, two times raises too many questions and devaluates the game. FE9 did a great job of using the Black Knight as a way to create a believable reason for forcing you to move out of the way and play offensively, while simultaneously inspiring you to become strong and adding tension to the plot. That's good; it's gameplay and story integration. You eventually can fight the Black Knight at the exact same strength he was at when he harassed you prior, and you see him beat you and your allies around for the entire game before that. But the Black Knight couldn't be everywhere, couldn't be summoned, and had his own agenda. He also was the toughest enemy in the entire game, bar none.

In my last post, I made a typo because I was on my phone. I meant to suggest other anti-turtling strategies. For example, buff Fa after a certain point in time, or periodically. Have her spawn small groups of enemies every few turns some time after the last wave, but make their xp gains negligible or nothing (is that possible?). Make a flat-out game over timer. But invincible enemies spawned at will from a not-yet full-power enemy? They just break down the integrity of this great game, in my opinion.

Again, just my thoughts. Your hack's shaping up to be a fantastic game, and I can't wait to see future releases.

One other thing: Would it be worth arguing that Menmus might deserve just one more point of base speed? His growth is low enough that he can get speed-screwed early game, and the offensively-based monsters can often double him and make him almost a liability. I'm biased, though. Menmus is probably my favorite of the characters in the hack.

Edited by The Protagonist
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