Fire Emblem: Legend of the Black Dragon (Looking for assistance)

[TheKingBahamut]

So uh... I'm new here.

A while back, I came up with a story idea that I thought would work well as a Fire Emblem game, and after some deliberation, I decided I wanted to turn it into a ROM hack. The only problem is that I have absolutely zero experience with hacking or designing any kind of game, so I'm going to need some help. And by some help, I mean a lot of help.

The hack in question would be called Fire Emblem: Legend of the Black Dragon. I have some fairly ambitious story and gameplay ideas that I want to implement into this game, including an interweaving, multi-perspective narrative, new classes, and a morality-system-esque mechanic. I want this particular story to be a darker, more mature FE story (because originality, amirite?), one that deals with heavier topics than other games have in the past.

The plot is thus:

The continent of Rhoden has long been the site of a perennial struggle between two major powers: The Holy Empire of Damaria to the north, and the Kingdom of Maridia to the south. The Damarian empire is a theocracy ruled by the Church of Valkyrion, while Maridia is a constitutional monarchy that values logic over faith. The two great kingdoms have been at war with each other over ideological differences and have dragged many of the smaller nations into their conflict time and again. Five years ago, the last great war between the two great nations ended in a staggering defeat for Damaria, but left both nations on the verge of economic collapse. Now tensions are running high again, and war between the two kingdoms is eminent.

The story revolves around three major characters: Mikaela, the princess of Damaria, Richter, the High General of Maridia, and Zean, a wandering knight who holds the key to stopping the war between the two kingdoms. Each of the three Lords will have their own separate party and story arc, occasionally running into another Lord's party and either doing battle with or assisting the separate army. Eventually, the three join forces to stop the main villain from resurrecting an ancient evil and destroying the continent.

I'm still in the planning phase for a good chunk of the story, but I have most of the important beats down and am doing some work on creating characters for each of the three parties.

Some gameplay ideas I'd like to try with this hack:

-Roamable world map ala Sacred Stones and Awakening.

-Base camp area that functions similarly to the My Castle from Fates.

-Morality system that gives players different upgrades based on decisions they make in the game.

-Revamped skill system that takes the best aspects of the Tellius skill system and the new games and combines them.

-Revamped support system that borrows elements from the new games.

-New classes.

Example- Serpent Knight, sea serpent riding variant of the Wyvern Rider that specializes in sea combat and uses bows to deal with flying units.

These are all just nothing more than concepts for right now, but hopefully if I can get some of you lovely readers interested, we can work together and make something of this.

If you are interested in helping out, please let me know and check out my Twitter @TheKingBahamut. I'll be happy to send a more detailed plot summary to anyone who would like one.

Thank you,

Bahamut

[Zane Avernathy]

Ideally, what would you make this in? A custom engine? A hack of an existing game? FEXP/FEXNA/some other premade engine? Each poses unique challenges and strengths, so you should take some time to read up about them, maybe write down some pros and cons.

[TheKingBahamut]

I have no idea what engine to use! Because I have so many ideas taken from both old and new FE games, I'd consider using a custom engine, but that would require building an engine and I have jack squat knowledge about such things.