FE7 Beta Playthrough Summary

[VincentASM]

It had been a while since I last played a Fire Emblem game, so I figured I'd fill in the void by playing (and I don't know why I thought of it) the beta version of FE7, specifically the 0205/0206 version. Unlike tbe FE8 beta, this one seemed to be more complete and hopefully playable all the way until the end.

Lyn mode

I didn't notice much different from the final version, besides a few more houses, most of them which gave me filler text when I entered. Not sure if I was lucky or if her growths are better here, but I had a pretty solid and useful Lyn. It might also be due to the 3x effective bonus in the Japanese version as well, making the Mani Katti much more effective.

Early on, when Lyn asks you (the Tactician) whether you'll follow her outside of her village and then whether you'll follow her all the way to Lycia, the game will actually prompt you to respond with "Yes" or "No". Unfortunately, picking "No" just gives you a disappointed response from Lyn, followed by a Game Over.

Occasionally, the tutorial elements were a bit buggy, asking me to move to an impossible square (eg. I was supposed to move Nils to play for Lucius, but Lyn was in the highlighted spot) or telling me to do something when I already did it. However, some random fiddling around got me past those moments. The "credits" at the end also seemed to take forever and I just ended up skipping it.

Eliwood mode

For some reason, even though I even finished Chapter 13x, Merlinus never appeared. I assume his role was yet to be finalised or something. As such, I ended up discarding tons of items and I also kept running out of equipment later on (since I couldn't buy things from Merlinus). It seems a couple of shops are missing compared to the final version, although I suspect some of them might just be invisible (there are a bunch of invisible shops near the starting point of Chapter 30). The Member Card was also nowhere to be seen.

In Chapter 16, the event where the soldiers bust out of prison doesn't seem to show up. After I let them out myself, two of them died after being sniped by the nearby archers. Whoops... Chapter 17, the ship chapter, froze before it even got to the battle, so I ended up skipping the whole chapter.

Chapter 22x was also a bit of a problem since even after defeating all the enemies, I still had one remaining - an invisible 0 HP enemy. I couldn't think of how to fix it, so I skipped the end of that chapter too. Same case with Chapter 25 (where I had two invisible enemies). I thought I had the same problem with Chapter 26x, but it turns out the displayed objective was just incorrect - it says to Rout enemies, but you actually need to seize the throne.

The game was mostly pretty easy, but I did struggle in Chapter 23, since none of the characters had a good chance of even landing a blow on Lloyd. He wasn't much stronger than usual, so maybe my characters were just weaker (I did train more characters than usual, perhaps overspreading the EXP)? The other time was Chapter 26... I really don't remember a Mage and Shaman reaching Zephiel's chamber by Turn 5 or 6. Not only that, but Zephiel didn't even heal himself when damaged, never mind running to a pillar to gain an Avoid bonus. In the end I used the debug menu to control the NPC team just to beat the chapter >___<

When I reached the final chapter, the game froze before entering battle much to my dismay. I don't know what causes it, but it's probably this mysterious green NPC civilian who appears for no reason once you start the chapter. That's where my main journey ended : /

However, I thought I'd try the final chapters anyway, so I used the chapter select to start the game from the final chapter. The units you get are fairly decent, including promoted Canas, Rebecca, Pent, Hawkeye, Florina and Sain. I mostly used Sain's Killing Edge to defeat the bosses, with a little RNG abuse (I would have played fair if I got to use my main team)... After beating the first four rooms, the other two just wouldn't open by themselves. So I had to hack in a Door Key and then everything went smoothily again.

Nergal seemed to have way more cronies in his room than usual, but it didn't really matter since magic units are really nerfed in this beta. I don't know why it's the case, but magical damage only counts half the user's Magic... Needless to say, I didn't bother using any magic users in my playthrough. The Athos and Pent here were fairly okay though (Pent had some crazy Magic - maybe 25~28). Nergal himself has a 0 use Ereshkigal, so once he's used it once he's a sitting duck.

Then the really final chapter. I can't believe I forgot, but in the beta version, your characters all start at the very bottom of the map. So you have to painfully walk all the way up, dodging all these annoying long-ranged spells (and you wondered what their purpose was in the final game...). The final boss doesn't seem much different, except he crashes the game when he dies. I remember using some cheap class-modifying code to get around this before, but I forgot how I got it to work. In any case, I couldn't really finish the game, but I suppose I did. I don't think there's much interesting afterwards anyway : P

Screenshots of my main team:

(Every playthrough summary needs these)

One Angelic Robe used.

Same as above. I don't know what happened to his Strength.

You can always rely on Hector.

That Strength isn't much better than Eliwood's...

Ah, that's better.

I need to pick people with better Strength growth o__o

I wasn't going to use her, but my Florina was even worse.

Was a bit crappy near the beginning, but improved somewhat.

I used him because his stats owned Raven at the same Level. Harken himself was fairly OK.

Also, a tiny bit of trivia. I don't think it's in the final version, or at least not the English version.

Sonia actually has (or had) her own title, which was Venomous Snake (or something along those lines).

It's also in her R description.

Some of the growth rates are a bit different as well. For instance Kent has 15% Res growth instead of 25%. Not sure about any others, since I only looked at a few.

[Raven]

Interesting read... Although, what the hell were they thinking giving Raven grey hair? I assume Priscilla still had red hair. I'm glad they changed it.

I also know that Lyn was planned to be able to use Durandal. Was she able to in this beta?

[Rodykitty]

Although, what the hell were they thinking giving Raven grey hair?

Probably because his name was Raven, or was based on Skasha, or the name Raven was the result of the latter.

[Mekkah]

As such, I ended up discarding tons of items and I also kept running out of equipment later on (since I couldn't buy things from Merlinus).

You can't do that in the normal game either from what I know. Without Merlinus you can't sell anything in battle preps though, which sucks for gems.

Fun to read.

[VincentASM]

I also know that Lyn was planned to be able to use Durandal. Was she able to in this beta?

I don't think so (you need to hack the weapon lock or something to make her use it). Annoyingly, Athos mentions giving Lyn the Sol Katti, but he doesn't have it to give in this beta.

Some fun(?) things I forgot the first time.

If you're in the chapter, you can access a battle-related debug menu by holding L+R and then pressing B. You can use the A, B, L and R buttons to change settings and press Start to watch battles. Note that battles only play if the actual battle is possible (so you can't do Eliwood with bows for instance).

Options:

Name: Character's name

Class: Unpromoted or promoted (if a character is promoted to start with, changing this does nothing)

Army: Changes the character's colour, eg. player, enemy, NPC

Weapon: Weapon type

Action: What the character will do in battle (it's a bit finicky - you need to get both sides to match)

There's also some data for Igrene (from FE6).

I'm guessing she was meant to be a NPC. She doesn't have a portrait, but she does have some unique-looking growths.

HP 50, STR 30, SKL 60, SPD 70, LCK 20, DEF 20, RES 05

Edited August 18, 2009 by VincentASM

[Rodykitty]

I'm guessing she was meant to be a NPC. She doesn't have a portrait, but she does have some unique-looking growths.

Oh! That must be the mysteriously colored character I kept seeing in the class roll.

[VincentASM]

You're half right. It's just the generic female Archer's palette.

Now, I don't know about that mysterious Cavalier though.

[Celice]

As such, I ended up discarding tons of items and I also kept running out of equipment later on (since I couldn't buy things from Merlinus).

You can't do that in the normal game either from what I know. Without Merlinus you can't sell anything in battle preps though, which sucks for gems.

Fun to read.

You can't throw items away...?

[VincentASM]

You can, but the point is I had no supply to send excess weapons to, so my "supply" space was a bit limited. I was a bit biased against tomes, so I ended up throwing many of those away.

[Mekkah]

You can't throw items away...?

You can discard, but usually you have the option to sell them (same as discard, except now you get money for it).

[VincentASM]

It appears the battle debug menu only appears in the earlier build. It's not there in the 0219 build nor in FE8.

However, all three known betas do have a few more debug menus...

If you hold Select and press R on a character, it will switch on the status debug menu:

It doesn't seem you can change anything here, but it tells you some useful information that might not be obvious, like support information.

Holding Select and pressing Start twice on a character opens this useful menu:

Options:

Max out the character? (Yes please)

Set HP

Attack AI

Movement AI

Recovery (unsure what this does)

Condition

Meanwhile, holding Select and pressing Start twice on empty space opens this menu:

Options:

Set Turn number

Toggle 2nd army

Toggle 3rd army

[luigi bros]

Is there a video of Lyn using the Durandal in the Beta? The one on the site just gives me a media screen with the sound of her using it.

Edited August 20, 2009 by luigi bros

[Fei Mao]

Is there a video of Lyn using the Durandal in the Beta? The one on the site just gives me a media screen with the sound of her using it.

[luigi bros]

Thanks. Is Fog supposed to be enabled.

[Fei Mao]

Thanks. Is Fog supposed to be enabled.

Yeah Fog on that map was intended on the beta.

[Starwolf_UK]

Holding Select and pressing Start twice on a character opens this useful menu:

Options:

Max out the character? (Yes please)

Set HP

Attack AI

Movement AI

Recovery (unsure what this does)

Condition

I had wondered if IS bothered putting one of those in as most debug menus have it and there you have it.

[Excellen]

Interesting.

Was there any significant changes in enemy AI?

[VincentASM]

I couldn't really tell since it's been a long time since I've played FE7 and I also haven't played through FE7 in Japanese all the way through.

I already mentioned Zephiel's AI, which obviously hadn't been coded yet >___<