 |
|
| Creator | Olivia MommyRexacuse |
| Engine | FE8 |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 67/80 |
| Rank | =1st |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 8/10
The chapter is a defence map: for how long, you don’t know. You very clearly have your back to the wall: only one of your units can take a decent amount of hits and 2HKOs are the norm. You do have access to a healer and dancer, and all mounts have Jugdral Canto, which grants some flexibility in positioning. This is necessary as you can’t just put units in choke points and wait: reinforcements come from several angles, which require constant running back and forth in order to hold them all off.
After a while, the objective suddenly shifts to kill boss. You get units to handle this task, but victory is far from certain. I lost my general soon after the cavalry arrived and I nearly lost the defend point as the enemies she was holding off charged through.
Overall, Pillars of the Horizon is not to be treated lightly: mistakes can and will kill you. But it’s not an unreasonable challenge, and I won on my first try.
Presentation: 4/5
I can’t help but point out that most of the portraits are palette swaps of Melia’s Jugdral portraits! But they’re good portraits, and I do like Jugdral. Everything else looks good: good music, good maps, nice title screen. There’s even a few new backgrounds dotted around. I’ve nothing to complain about.
Story: 5/5
Ultimately, this is a tale of family. A mother leads one side of the battle, her daughter another. Her husband has died, and between the daughter rising up in revolt and a foreign war being fought off-screen, the queen is desperate. The story isn’t just contained within the opening and closing scenes, and many developments occur throughout the chapter. The support conversations
underscore just how dire the situation has gotten, but the defenders all resolve to fight until the end.
Without giving too much away, the ending cutscene has a decision akin to the Pelleas choice in Radiant Dawn. I chose to do the deed. Character deaths are accounted for in the ending cutscene as well. The most fault I could find was maybe one or two missing full stops somewhere. I have no complaints. I especially liked the sound effects put into certain scenes. Even the text is nicely formatted. Well done.
Total Score: 17/20
Judge 2: BandanaSplitzzz
Gameplay: 8/10
Pillars is a pretty lengthy defend chapter whose gameplay is heavily intertwined with its story. At the start, you’re barely scraping by with the few units you have, defending against an army whose unit quality is as high as it is dense. Your units will never one-round KO and will struggle to even deal damage on a bad matchup. It doesn’t ever feel like you’re ever death-spiraling, since cutscenes intersperse each turn or so, showing the progress you’re making, and that all hope isn’t truly lost. There are very few bells and whistles to the gameplay, units have 1 non-shove skill at most, and 1 unique weapon at most. It’s just remarkably tight and well-designed.
The map is the main focus here, and it’s good. Every turn or two, enemies start descending on your position in small groups of three or four, alternating directions from which they approach. You’ll find yourself moving your army back and forth, never really getting comfortable in one position before enemies attack the next. All of this is emphasized with your army’s super-strapped inventories, making every usage of your valuable tools meaningful. Before the midway point, you never truly leave your starting position, only playing around the chokepoints by your spawn. It makes that switch even more meaningful when you start tearing through enemies handily. This sort of gameplay-story integration is addictive, and Pillars executes it flawlessly.
Presentation: 4/5
Very good music, very pretty portraits, very nice eventing. It was especially nice how the mid-map cutscenes were integrated without breaking anything. I think I had like… one text skip throughout the whole thing. Good stuff all around.
Story: 4/5
Lots of effort was put into making this story shine. There’s a lot of depth to these characters, both on the player and enemy side, and the story needs a lot of text to make it happen. There are starting and finishing cutscenes, of course, but there are mid-map cutscenes, support conversations, talk events, boss conversations, and even branching endings and death conditionals. I’d complain if it was any less interesting, but it is gripping. It needs this time to weave a pretty complex narrative about a broken family, a meaningless war, what it means to honor someone’s memory, and why you should fight in the face of impossible odds. It’s cool. I think it’s cool, at least.
Total Score: 16/20
Judge 3: Fringus
Gameplay: 8/10
This is a defend all about keeping foes from getting to the wall, lest it’s all over. You can see it’s really heavily inspired by Tellius in design, especially Elincia’s Gambit. Unit design also very much comes from that area on both enemy and ally side. Your units aren’t the greatest, and while you have a few greens, you well and truly are backed up against a wall here, desperately trying to hold on. With your lord being notably iffy in combat, but an utter godsend with her massive hit boosting aura. After a while, it pivots to a kill boss map once your much stronger allies come by.
As said, it feels like you’re against the wall. Mistakes can happen and things can go wrong, but you’ve got enough to course correct that a even a loss or two is workable, but the pressure remains. Though it goes on a bit too long within the defense and cleanup, it’s very fun.
Presentation: 4/5
Everything looks and feels good, and the consistency is pretty notable overall. Though, recolored mugs of mainline characters is a bit jarring to see, and one of the units lacked a talking frame at all. Beyond that, it all does land very well.
Story: 5/5
A family loses a son to war, a father is slain by his daughter, and she turns to the rebels to end it. As queen, you’re left in a final, desperate stand without hope in sight with what few can fight. Even victory here will well and truly only end with the loss of another she cared about. It is a very comepelling snapshot of this world, with a heartbreaking final sequence, and post-map scenes that consider if some starting playables died as a great addition.
The mid-map supports I got were pretty compelling, and the angel was a particularly eadd with some neat lore sprinkled around about how that whole group works. With the use of mid-map flashbacks also being great for keeping investment going strong. All in all, the story is knocked out of the park here.
Total Score: 17/20
Judge 4: Electric Serge
Gameplay: 8/10
Pillars is a map defined by being a make-it-or-break-it moment; you’re holed up in a fort, surrounded on all sides, not knowing if help is gonna arrive or how long you need to hold out, and the map does a very solid job of enforcing that feeling through its difficulty. The first couple of turns are nail-biting, forcing you to distribute your fairly underpowered, minimal forces to cover every angle the enemies are attempting to rush. Most of them struggle to take more than a single hit without dying, so it really feels like a struggle (although a satisfying one) to thin the initial push while minimizing casualties. Things get a lot easier after that initial rush, and even moreso when Meredith’s squad arrives, as now you can truly go on the offensive and kill the boss to end the map.
As said, the map does a good job of feeling satisfying to play while varying up the way you approach it and the difficulty as it goes on. Even with the main force present, the final few enemies are noticeably stronger than the early foes, so as to not make the last leg a cakewalk. It’s a very focused and tight but fair map, very well refined while still feeling like something you could see in an official Fire Emblem game.
Presentation: 4/5
Everything looks and sounds very solid, and I must admit I’m incredibly impressed by the eventing, really accentuating the story through its use of transitions and mid-dialogue sound effects. Admittedly I didn’t notice that the portraits were recolored Jugdral portraits at first, and there were a few typos that cracked my immersion a little bit, but it still does a great enough job that these flaws don’t heavily affect my rating.
Story: 5/5
This tale goes all in on showing how deep the scars of war can run, tearing apart what could have been a happy, loving family because one of them was conscripted and died on duty. The conflict in the chapter is incredibly ugly because of how their relationships unravelled, and yet it feels distinctly human. It helps that the events of the past are spread out over time so as to give the player enough space to take in everything that created the situation these characters are currently in, and you’re able to feel greatly for them even in the span of a single chapter. Even the side characters get a bunch of fleshing out of their interpersonal relationships with all the talks and supports they get. Truly a remarkable showing of both the good, bad and complex beauty of humanity.
Total Score: 17/20
Results
| Category | Darrman | Bandana | Fringus | Serge | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 8 | 8 | 8 | 8 | 32 |
| Presentation | 4 | 4 | 4 | 4 | 16 |
| Story | 5 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 17 |
| Total | 17 | 16 | 17 | 17 | 67 |