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Protecting a Proper Princess [concept]


Emmar
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So I had a vague idea the other day about a Fire Emblem where the Lord character is, in fact, a cleric. From a storyline point of view, she's a princess, raised to lead a country, not an army - that's her sister's job. From a gameplay point of view, it gives you a healer right off the bat and (hopefully) means you can't just power straight through - if you grind one character to kill everything, your leader won't ever have to heal and will therefore not get any exp and will probably die.

This is just a concept for the moment, as I don't have hardware capable of running .exe files (look, a chromebook was a good idea at the time, okay) but I am planning to hammer out, at least, a chapter by chapter plot. The overall plot is remarkably pedestrian for a Fire Emblem game, probably; The antagonist is motivated by jealousy and revenge and wants to efface every trace of the former Queen (our protagonist's mother) from the face of the earth. This includes her children, her kingdom, and her legacy.

I'd like to have a couple of chapters with if/then events (if possible wrt programming); One that splits the story in two, probably at the end of the first third or so, based on the main character's level (which in-story means she either takes back the castle or, lacking confidence and conviction, leaves it to burn) and one based on the number of surviving party members that sets a specific level's win condition to either rout the enemy or escape (the latter of which would give you the option to bull through several high-level enemies or work a much longer, safer path to the goal).

I'm also planning to keep the total number of characters fairly small, both for plot coherency and the fact that you always end up with more characters than you ever use. Ones I have vague plans for thus far:

  • Princess #1, a cleric and your leader.
  • Her handmaiden, probably an archer or knight
  • Her seneschal, a cavalier, rounding out your starting trio
  • Princess #2, a myrmidon, who is probably accompanied by a handful of ranking officers such as
  • A pegasus knight
  • A mage
  • A fighter
  • And maybe a troubadour or monk

Maybe they pick up a nomad or a shaman along the way, who knows; Most of this list was me going though a list of FE7 classes and trying not to make it horrifically unbalanced.

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This is like Bow!Lord.

It automatically makes your thing better if you execute it well.

From a storyline point of view, she's a princess, raised to lead a country, not an army - that's her sister's job.

First, I love this.

Usually, the main protagonists in FE are the latter or are at least trained in such.

From a gameplay point of view, it gives you a healer right off the bat and (hopefully) means you can't just power straight through - if you grind one character to kill everything, your leader won't ever have to heal and will therefore not get any exp and will probably die.

Second, I love this even more.

Because it just works nicely.

The overall plot is remarkably pedestrian for a Fire Emblem game, probably; The antagonist is motivated by jealousy and revenge and wants to efface every trace of the former Queen (our protagonist's mother) from the face of the earth. This includes her children, her kingdom, and her legacy.

So like Lyn's tale in FE7?

I'd like to have a couple of chapters with if/then events (if possible wrt programming); One that splits the story in two, probably at the end of the first third or so, based on the main character's level (which in-story means she either takes back the castle or, lacking confidence and conviction, leaves it to burn)

I know this is possible.

and one based on the number of surviving party members that sets a specific level's win condition to either rout the enemy or escape (the latter of which would give you the option to bull through several high-level enemies or work a much longer, safer path to the goal).

I have no idea how difficult this would be to check. :X

I'm also planning to keep the total number of characters fairly small, both for plot coherency and the fact that you always end up with more characters than you ever use.

This is lovely as well.

I concur with Ghast, Knight/Cavalier sounds like a more rounded starting setup than Archer/Cavalier.

However, I think a better one would be Knight/Nomad, myself, since bows tend to be underrated giving the player an actually useful bow user would be nice.

And since it would grant the team better meatgrinding since they have ranged damage access.

I think you should go with a Monk for the second army so as to actually give the player two offensive magic users. But that would be fulfilled by the Shaman anyway...

I would be very hesitant to have a Troubadour and a Cleric!Lord. The Troubadour has movement over the Lord, which will constnatly make the Lord less and less able to get XP if they're in the same army.

If the two armies never group, however, then definitely; having staff access for both armies is essential.

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Yeah, troubadour was really a sort of 'is one healer enough' moment. I thought about nomad but didn't want too many mounted units, but having Knight/Nomad for the start is actually a really good idea, hmm. That, or go Knight/Cavalier and have them pick up an archer within the first couple of chapters (the way you do Wil in FE7).

Monk would go well; it was that or troubadour bc they both (iirc) promote into classes with Light/Staff. The parties will meet up, but I'm not sure when right now. Maybe the end of the second third, maybe the halfway point.

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sounds like you have something good going, but take note and work within your means. it sounds like the story split has a pretty big effect on the rest of the story, which means effectively doubling your workload.

don't be afraid to do something different with each class, you don't have to stick to FE archetypes. although I will never quite understand why everyone is so dead set on giving early game shamans

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Yeah, it's definitely going to be story-heavy, and the split will make it a lot more work. But like I said, I won't actually be doing any of the hacking bit for a loooong time, which means by the time I do, I'll either be burnt out (...likely) or I'll already have the whole story written out (also not unlikely).

I'm sticking to FE class archetypes because to do otherwise would really increase my workload and I'd have to do a lot more to balance the party than I think I will now. As it stands, I'll probably just give most of the characters growths from an actual FE7/8 character of the same class.

I actually hammered out the first couple of chapters in broad strokes last night while I was trying to sleep, so here, have what I remember from half two this morning.

Prologue: Betrayal

Gardenia (prev Princess #1) and vassals are staying... somewhere. Another castle?? Under the villain's hospitality? I haven't worked this out exactly. In the middle of the night, oh no, assassins! Most of the contingent are killed, leaving only Gardenia, her handmaiden (the knight) and her tutor/mentor in statecraft (the cavalier). They fight their way out. (Objective: rout the enemy.)

Chapter 1: Flight

A direct continuation of the prologue; The party flee into the countryside, towards home. Fellow countrymen are being run out of nearby villages, one of whom is an archer, who joins the party. (Objective: Protect villagers. 3 or 4 turns?)

The end of chapter three/start of four would be where the path splits, once the party reach 'home' as it were. The other princess' party probably come into play around chapter five or six. That's all I've got so far, though. I'm aiming for ten or twelve chapters, I think.

I also had a thought about the fact that I'd have to do some splicing for mugs rather than plain old recolours if I want the princesses to actually look like sisters, but still also resemble their battle sprites. If there's a female myrmidon sprite, Princess #2 will get that, if not, she'll have Lyn's. Gardenia will almost certainly have Serra's.

Edited by Emmar
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I was planning to have chapter 2 as 'escape' but then I had an idea about the archer joining. But yeah, you're right; Prologue would work better as escape.

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I had an idea like this, but the difference was that the Princess wasn't a usable character and there were many other plot things related to the reason. I hope to see something made out of this eventually. Good to see a bunch of new hacks coming to light, whether they're work-in-progress or just ideas written on paper.

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