Nino & Jaffar: A Tale Reluctantly Told

When I originally started planning Elibian Nights, I decided to cut several characters from the cast. They'd have cameo appearances, perhaps, but no major story roles. In the initial drafts, Bartre and Karla were confined to a house scene in Lyn's Tale, Dart was only referred to by Fargus, and Nino and Jaffar were completely missing.

I didn't really much care about their fates, and had no interest in chronicling it. However, as the project grew, it eventually encompassed the entire cast. It came to the point where Jaffar and Nino were the only characters (save Athos, who had died) that didn't have a story role. So, Jaffar and Nino were reunited in the second part of Pent's Tale, and that fulfilled my duty to somehow incorporate every member of the FE7 cast. I'll admit it, they were initially simply thrown into that tale because they needed to appear somewhere. That tale needed a few more playable characters, so I made it work.

The Next Frontier: An FEXNA Remake

Exalted Legacy

• This, but on FEXNA.
• Tactical Mastery system; think Elibian Nights-style achievements, with a focus on pulling off difficult strategies for reward. An optional flexible difficulty system that modifies the difficulty mid-game based on the number of tactical masteries you've completed.
• Revamped story that explores the characters and world of Archanea with new depth.
• Paralogues, unlockable in-game cutscenes that explore the background to this classic story.
• Awakening-style level up skills, determined by character instead of class. No reclassing.

Gaiden

• Level-up magic system retained; also adding tomes and staves, which allow units to cast spells without having learned them (at the cost of limited use and weighing down the spellcaster, these items are uncommon and expensive). Learned spells cost HP to use.
• Revamping gaiden's maps into full-fledged chapters; adding dialogue, updating the story, and redoing the often bland and repetitive maps.
• Obviously, massive character rebalancing and cast additions to improve class representations. Villagers replaced with specific T0 classes.
• Expanding on the split party system, with certain points in the story where the parties meet and can swap units and items. You can send items to the other party by talking to an NPC in the villages. Part 3 alternates the parties, and I wanted to possibly add a merged section in Part 4 if it makes sense.
• Bringing the game into the 21st century of Fire Emblem.

Thracia 776

• “Class Skills” system revamped; as members of the same group of classes gain levels, their “class level” raises; 5 levels total, with each level unlocking a new assignable class skill. Class skills can only be assigned to one unit at a time, but can be reassigned at will.
• Improved fatigue system, with more ways to offset fatigue naturally mid-map (instead of just the S-Drink item, which just reset the fatigue count to 0).
• Fleshing out the game; possibly including some of the beta content that was cut. By and large, the biggest "issue" with FE5 is that it feels unrefined. That's simply the reality of developing a game with minimal distribution on an outdated console.
• Including an easier mode, making the game more accessible to players put off by the game's renown difficulty.

Binding Blade

• Expanding the game's route splits, adding to the replay value and making each playthrough potentially distinct. Going beyond simple Ch10A/10B, and adding a real element of choice to the game's progression.
• Obvious plot enhancements that bring the original Elibian epic into context with the games that came afterwards. This game needs to be less boring.

Blazing Sword

• A new "orders" feature, increasing the tactician's gameplay presence without resorting to a self-insert unit. Orders impact the battle directly. Offense, for example, gives all allied units +2 Str and +5 Hit, at the cost of -1 Def & Res. The momentum order gives units a small chance to act again (think FE5's movement stars). 15 orders total, with 5 available per playthrough based on the tactician's affinity and obtained by gaining rank stars.
• Adding skills, updating the game engine with many of the new features developed for BwdYeti's Immortal Sword (that's where the majority of improvements will come from).

Gameplay Concepts & Enhancements

With Elibian Nights winding down its development, I thought I'd take the time to reflect on some gameplay concepts that haven't seen fruition. There's always a chance I could come back and add them, but after the v6 release I'm essentially calling it a finished product. Still, here's four ideas I thought I'd share.

Abandoned Tales Archive: Athos' Tale

Yeah, this is going to be a series of articles (I have quite a few unused tale ideas to share). In the previous article we discussed the unused gaiden tales, but my discarded ideas aren't limited simply to follow-ups to the existing tales. In case you couldn't tell by this article's title, at one point I'd developed a potential tale for Athos. Originally, I'd planned to leave a significant portion of FE7's cast out of Elibian Nights; by the time I pondered an Athos Tale, every other FE7 cast member had an appearance in some shape or form. I developed two concepts to give Athos an appearance as well.

Abandoned Tales Archive: A Trio of Gaidens

During the height of Elibian Nights' development, quite a few tale ideas were formed. I thought it might be fun to release some of our unused chapter concepts, since there is a handful of them to share. In the final product, there are three main tales with "gaidens," side-stories that follow up on the previous tale's events. Plans were drafted for gaidens to the other tales as well (sans the two-part tales and the finale, of course), but ultimately those plans never saw fruition.

A Choice: Lyn's Tale Revamped

As things stand, Elibian Nights is in its final stages of development. The Final Tale is actually complete; I could, in theory, just release the thing after tying together a few odds and ends.

However, it's never that easy in my world. Recently I undertook the task of revamping Lyn's tale. Just when I'm close enough to release the thing, I just have to add more things to my plate.

Here's a bit of backstory. Elibian Nights began as a partnership between myself and Nayr, a spriter in the community. The original release contained three tales: Eliwood's, Raven's, and Lyn's. Out of the original trio, Eliwood's and Raven's had been extensively revamped. Both had been rewritten almost entirely; Eliwood's got a new map with a revamped story, Raven's got an entirely new location and plot. It's almost baffling to me, in retrospect, that I preserved Lyn's tale for so long.

Efta: The Last Morph

If it isn't apparent by now, I kind of have a certain fondness for unused beta tidbits. I find it absolutely fascinating to know what developers were planning, and I think it's really cool to see all of the discarded ideas. So, as a person developing a game, I enjoy sharing my unused concepts and releasing those development stories. To celebrate the reconstruction of Pent's Tale (complete with a new map, courtesy of Feaw), I figured I'd release the unused concept that was supposed to end Pent's Tale: Efta.

(Note: I posted this a while ago on Fire Emblem Cafe, which was supposed to make this blog obsolete. It didn't, and so I'm just reposting this entry so that we have the complete "development diary" thing going on).

Efta, given the nature of Elibian Nights, is one of the few unused characters that was conceptualized for the project. The character's name comes from an unused text entry in FE7, the name of a suspected unused boss. When commenting on the unused content, VincentASM remarked that it "sounds like a Morph's name." Efta was supposed to be a playable morph; at the end of Pent's Tale, at Renault's burial, Pent was to hear a rustling bush. Investigating, he found a young morph created in the likeness of a child, somewhat resembling Nergal himself. Pent took Efta, a lost child, back with him to Reglay. Efta was supposed to have a central role in Pent's second tale.

Onward, to Hector's Tale!

These are the kinds of numbers that Hector likes.

Progress report update: Tale 2x is officially completed, tested, and bug-free. I'm waiting on a new map for Tale 2, after which I'll be making some improvements there, but, for now, I'm moving onward to Hector's tale!

So, keeping with that, I figured now would be a good time for a bit of Elibian Nights trivia. Hector's tale underwent a rather unusual development cycle. It started with Hector leaving his post for some breathing room, in his absence Dawson's armies seized Ostia. Hector, Orun, and Matthew, stranded by themselves near a lake, had to fight their way to Ostia, picking up allies (Oswin, Serra, the NPC Ostian Knights, Erik, and Fargus) along the way. However, when it came time for revisions, I found the whole "your castle was seized while you left for 20 minutes" thing to be rather ridiculous, so I decided to basically invert the entire chapter.

"The director told me to come find you,
he's changing everything again!"

Dawson and Hector's starting positions were literally just switched, and the chapter was reworked around that swap. Not only that, but the starting parties were also inverted. In the original version, you started with Matthew and Orun, picking up Serra and Oswin later. Now, as players know, you start with Oswin, Serra, and the NPC knights, with Orun and Matthew coming in as reinforcements after a few turns.

The Many, Many Forms of Tale 7 (Part III)

I started looking at the blog today, and I realized, "wow, I wrote this article finishing up the story of Tale 7 and never published it!" So, coming at you quite later than it ought to have, is "The Many, Many Forms of Tale 7 (Part III)!"

Going into the fourth draft, I decided to focus on something different. First off, I wanted more emphasis on Zealot as a man, rather than a figure of history. Juno would obviously play an integral part to that sort of development, so she had to be included in some capacity. The conflict would need to bring out the best in Zealot's character, that was one criterion. Second, I wanted to change Zealot's class. I added the Halberdier class, but there were no opportunities to actually make it playable up to this point. Zealot was good with lances, so I figured "why not?" But then I'd have to explain how he went from Halberdier to horse-rider. That would be the end result of the conflict, I decided, and Zealot would have to be forced to change classes.

The final draft was developed around a small-scale conflict. Zealot had been dispatched to distribute rations under Marshall Tybalt, a simple task on a year Zealot wished to remain in Ilia. This, however, escalates into conflict when it is discovered that the bandits raiding these villages are actually involved in a money-making scheme set up by Tybalt, a bitter and crippled soldier seeking to line his own pockets. Tybalt, it was decided, would serve as a character foil for Zealot. Both men were promising, young commanders. Both graduated at the top of their class, and both had very, very bright futures in the eyes of many. During a conflict with Bern, however, Tybalt was greatly wounded. His leg was shattered by a Tomahawk thrown at him by the enemy commander, he could never walk again, let alone fight. Tybalt was given his post as Marshall and tasked with distributing rations to a scarcely populated section of Ilia. It was the guild's gift to him for his sacrifice. Tybalt, however, felt robbed of his future, and grew into a bitter man. Years later, Zealot would undergo a similar upbringing, and ultimately his fate would end up in the hands of Tybalt, envious of Zealot and the bright future that he possesses.

As time went on additions were made. Sykes was pulled, seemingly out of thin air, to join the cast as a conflicted subordinate of Tybalt's (mostly because he could display The Blind Archer's new Swordmaster animation, but hey, he was worked in quite well). Niime, a hermit living in Ilia's mountains, came into the picture as a confirmation of Canas's death (and also because the party was in DIRE need of a healer). Sain was added to the tale after it was decided that he would leave Caelin in search of love. With Sain came Sigune, adding a deeper love plot of a girl lusting for Zealot, in a committed relationship with Juno. Finally we had a romantic sub-plot with some depth, and a game's worth of Sain's shenanigans compressed into one tale.

"That's more like it," I thought. Fourth time's the charm, I suppose, at least when it comes to drafting tales.

The Many, Many Forms of Tale 7 (Part II)

One day, as I was mulling over characters, an idea struck. "Zealot!" I quickly sent to my go-to spriter at the time, Nayr. His response, however, almost turned me off from the idea. Instead of Zealot, he sent me "Zealot's dad," which turned out to be an incredibly recognizable splice of Orson's head on another character's armor, recolored to have black hair. At that point I was ready to just say "fuck it" if I couldn't get a decent sprite. Luckily, The Blind Archer was much more accommodating. Going to him paid in spades. Zealot would become the tale's new lead, and I could finally base the story around someone that I could work with, rather than exploring the continuing military careers of already-established, non-major characters.

Zealot, in FE6, is a renown and popular mercenary in Ilia, serving as the head of Ilia's Mercenary Guild. In addition to this he is also the honorary Lord of Edessa, and after FE6's plot Zealot reforms the government and becomes Ilia's first King. For such a major figure in Elibian history, I felt Zealot was left terribly unexplored. But, how exactly did he become so famous? What made him so compelling? These were interesting questions that I could possibly answer. I began working on the third draft, this time building it around Zealot's rise.

Draft 3: The Ilian Guild is in chaos. Given its loosely structured nature, warring factions have risen to prominence within the guild. One side, a band of corrupt, profiteering mercenaries, the other side focused on the people, but terribly inefficient at governance. As the people of Ilia starve, they await for a hero to rise above this conflict and finally deliver peace and stability. Enter Zealot, the young, charismatic commander of a squadron of soldiers. Zealot's forces wage a decisive battle against Sir Ayron's camp. The tale follows Zealot's path to triumph and rise to power.

Fiora and Farina returned in this draft, as did Wallace. Florina had already been moved to Tale 3, and there she would stay. Unfortunately didn't experience a net gain of any party members, I merely traded Florina for Zealot. However, this draft began a strong new foundation on which to build the tale.

This guy, once upon a time, was the Archer Captain.

The problem of party members would come to be solved by the chapter's decided "gimmick." While chatting with Blazer one day, he proposed an interesting idea. With his permission to borrow it, I took it and ran. The idea focused around creating an epic, large battle through the use of NPCs. There would be five unit captains for the five types of units you could call: Archers, Pegasus Knights, Soldiers, Cavaliers, and Mages. Every several turns, Zealot could talk to one of the captains and that would send the orders for 5 reinforcements of that type to come to your aid. The battle would be fought in waves, and which units you called at which time could either make or break your campaign. This idea went so far that I decided to commission mugs from The Blind Archer for each captain (which can be viewed in Tale 7, I recycled the mugs so they wouldn't be wasted).

Although I was excited by the chapter's gimmick, and the plot was acceptable, ultimately I decided that, while an epic battle and Zealot seizing power would be quite cool, that I would prefer to scale things down a bit. Zealot, after all, is only in his twenties at this point in the timeline, quite early on in life to be commanding the Ilian Knights. The quota for a grand-scale epic battle was also already filled, I felt, by Tale 5. One last draft, I decided, would settle it.

The Many, Many Forms of Tale 7 (Part I)

When I first decided to do the project, I had resolved to include an Ilian tale. I don't know, there's just something about that country that I like. Of all Elibe's countries, it certainly has the most character. A nation of poor, starving people shaped by harsh climates and even harsher circumstance... Ripe for a good tale, no?

The question became: "what form will this tale take?" And indeed, the Ilian tale went through several radically different incarnations. The most challenging part was figuring out what sort of interesting stuff can happen in Ilia? It was certainly a long road, going from a typical "bandits are attacking" chapter to a tale following the rise of Zealot. This will be a three-part article series, going through every step of that long road that lead to the product you're playing now.

Draft 1: The typical "bandits have attacked" story. Fiora was the main character and the tale followed her recent promotion, making her the leader of Ilia's homeland defense force and followed her accepting this new responsibility to defend Ilia's citizens. Wallace was a member of the militia, and Farina was her second-in-command. Florina was also present as a member of the party.

This, however, was a rather dull route to take. Just another standard, unoriginal bandit chapter. An interesting note is the party, I actually had difficulty coming up with a playable party. The idea to use Zealot hadn't dawned on me yet, and Ilians were certainly a rarity outside of the pegasus trio. As for the chapter idea, quickly after conception it was discarded, and I decided I'd draft another proposal. What fascinated me about Ilia was the people, their lives and their suffering. The second draft was designed to focus more toward that.

Draft 2: The pegasus trio is caught in the midst of an uprising. Ilians are dying of famine, there is no food and the government is not providing any relief. Desperate, they have risen up to fight their government. Sir Wallace of Caelin, now an Ilian farmer, has turned into the populist leader of the rebel movement. The pegasus sisters are initially dispatched with a batallion of NPCs to quell the rebellion, but after speaking with Sir Wallace, they fight against the corrupt Ilian government, headed by Sir Ayron (leader of the Knight's Guild).

This draft was substantially more acceptable. But I felt it still lacked. The cast, particularly, was quite lackluster, but there wasn't much to be done except add new characters, which at the time I lacked the graphical resources to do. This draft was essentially the Ilian Tale for quite a while, but as development continued I began to doubt it. As I completed Tale 5, the Ilian Tale was bumped up to Tale 7 with the addition of Karel's tale, giving me much more time to figure things out. I considered a variety of options. I would try one more draft, and if that didn't work I was seriously going to have to seek some outside help. I pondered perhaps opening up for plot synopsis submissions from fans, or maybe getting another individual to take over the writing for the tale. Either way I was stuck, but I'd give it one more shot.

Eliwood's acting sorta . . . . "Hamlety."

Depression? Check. Parent recently deceased? Check. Propping up a facade? Check. Isolated? Check. Talking to himself for long period of time as a form of emotional relief? Check. Eliwood's acting sorta . . . "Hamlety" in Elibian Nights.

 
Now he just needs to recite the "to be, or not to be" soliloquy and he's got the part!

For those of you who don't know, Hamlet is one of William Shakespeare's four "great tragedies." Hamlet's father is slain by his uncle, who uses the death to marry his mother and seize the throne. Hamlet is deeply depressed by the death of his father and his mother's acceptance of the uncle's marriage. The young prince's depression is akin to Eliwood's, whose depression is triggered by the death of his mother.

Indeed, at the time of the extensive Tale 1 rewrites I had just read Hamlet for the first time, the Shakespearean prince was indeed a major point of reference for writing a mopey/depressed Eliwood. Eliwood is isolated from his friends a wife and pretends to be fine when confronted about his behavior. Hamlet similarly isolates himself from the surrounding characters, including his lover Ophelia.

What's really Shakespearean about EN!Eliwood, though, is the "soliloquy thing." The soliloquy is a great storytelling mechanic; a character, left along on-stage, will share what's really going on inside his/her head with the audience. Eliwood gives two soliloquies in the first tale, one at the beginning and one at the end. Hamlet, as a Shakespearean lead, gives more major soliloquies than any other lead. This is not only because Hamlet is just naturally an insightful guy, but because of the extent of the facade Hamlet puts up. The soliloquy allows us to see what's really going from the character's unrestrained perspective. Eliwood's first soliloquy functions much in the same way as Hamlet's, letting the audience in on what's really going on with Eliwood whilst Ninian, Marcus, and Natalie attempt to figure out Eliwood's behavior.

Sorta interesting to see the source for Eliwood's character . . . . right? At least, I hope it is.

"Why all the revamps?"

It's official: every main tale (except for 6), has been coded and then revamped in some major way. In the next release, Tale 4 becomes an arrive mission. Tale 3 has seen extensive rewrites for Prasad's character, and Tale 2 has seen some revamps in difficulty and enemies. And those are just the small changes.

Tale 5 had some incredibly major changes done when the chapter had hit about 90% completion. The starting positions of Hector and Dawson were basically switched, and Hector, instead of storming onto the battlefield hastily, had stormed out of Ostia just as Dawson was about to launch his sneak attack to take Ostia. The starting party was even switched from Hector, Orun, and Matthew, to Hector, Oswin, and Serra. However, some ideas for improvement came a bit too late (literally when the chapter had completed). It required major event changes, and an essentially new script. So why go ahead with these changes?

With Tale 5, it was a question of this: do I put out a sub-par, uninspired Tale? Or do I take the extra three hours or so, and make a product I can be semi-proud of? For me, the answer was clear. The time revamping a tale is a small price compared to the pains of releasing a bad product.

Tale 1, along with Tale 5, saw the most extensive revamps, an entire change in the tenor of the plot. In the original release of Elibian Nights, Eleanora was still in the process of dying. This tale was similar to Tale 5, it was uninspired. The original Tales for Eliwood and Hector were forced; they were the main characters of FE7, I couldn't just not do a Tale for them. I don't have a particular fondness for the characters either, that certainly didn't help. It finally hit me that Tale 1 was truly lacking when Markyjoe, a hacking critic, had devoted time to pointing out the flaws of Tale 1.

It was then that I decided: I'm not going to just put out some work for a character because I have to, whatever I release will have to meet my standards of quality.  So, "why all the revamps?" Whatever I put out will be the best I can create, and I accept nothing less when it comes to quality.

The Original Tale 2

During the project’s beginning stages, I’d planned to finish three tales. After three, I would decide whether I ought to continue the project or not. Tale 1 was pretty straightforward, it was only later that it came to be overhauled (this was due to me following Nayr’s outline for the chapter). Tale 3, more of my own ideas went into its planning, but it was also quite straightforward. Out of the original trio of tales, the second went through the most radical changes.

Tale 2 actually began as an escape mission. Thorben wasn’t a Sage, he was travelling in a carriage (he had no combat skills whatsoever). The Marquess and his team of guards were travelling across Araphen’s countryside for a meeting with Marquesses Laus, Tuscana, and Ryerde (the rebelling Marquesses from Tale 5). Raven’s team had intelligence of his movements, and lay in waiting for Thorben to pass. The chapter’s goal was to kill Thorben, after which you needed Raven and his party to escape at a point in the north.

The idea was solid: a hit-and-run chapter in Fire Emblem. It was going to be unique, it was going to be good. Then came the honeymoon-killer: engine restraints. GBAFE had never done an escape mission. “Well, it couldn’t be terribly difficult to create.” Man, was I wrong; I ran into a bundle of problems! The largest of which was; if a unit waited on the escape tile, the event that activated for him to leave the map didn’t make him leave. If I couldn’t make units leave the map instantly, it wasn’t really an escape chapter. I tried having the game run the escape command at the end of each turn, but that meant only one unit could get away as you were being heavily pursued by Thorben’s elite guards.

There was Tale 2, floating dead in the waters of hacking restraint. It simply couldn’t work with its current structure intact. So I had to either scrap the tale or bite the bullet and move to a more “traditional” Fire Emblem approach. It ended up with Raven charging Thorben's castle in a ballsy, revenge-filled rage. Raven showed up in Ostia, ready to murder Hector...but he wanted to hear Hector’s version of the “truth.” Raven’s hatred having waned in recent years, he finally realized that he may have been wrong. Hector told him, and so Araphen became the target of Raven’s rage. It felt in-character for Raven’s order a head-on assault against his new mortal enemy. The new idea worked, and so it became Tale 2.

Just thought people might find a scrapped tale idea interesting. If I ever find a way to pull off an escape chapter....maybe this could be revived in some other context (I certainly hope so, at least).

Behind the Boss Gauntlet: Karel's Tale

Karel's Tale: From Demon to Saint wasn't originally in my lineup of tale ideas. I'd actually decided in the project's early stages to not do anything with Karel. "He's in FE6, his fate is already decided. We already know what happens, why bother making a tale out of it?" See, the big focus of Elibian Nights was filling in the "gray area" between FE6 and FE7. What happens to FE7's other cast-members (because we only really hear about the ones that die or survive to FE6). With some characters, it wasn't so set-in-stone. I was able to kill a character like Renault, I was able to see Raven fulfill his life's goal, I was able to show Pent continue his master's research, and I could do it all without conflicting canon. So why tell Karel's story?

Well, the initial idea for the tale came to me in sort of a...unique way. I was playing Super Smash Bros. Brawl with my brother, we were going through the Subspace Emissary boss gauntlet for fun. That was the inspiration. "What would a boss gauntlet in Fire Emblem look like?" I was eager to develop a chapter like that of my own, and what better project than Elibian Nights? The nature of the hack allows me to experiment like that, it's perfect for things like Karel's tale. I knew what I wanted in terms of the gameplay, but there had to be a story as well.