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| Creator | MageBoy |
| Engine | FE8 |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 36/80 |
| Rank | 9th |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 4/10
Stars Over Bern puts the player on Vaida’s map in Blazing Sword. However, the map plays completely differently: you start at Bern Keep, with the objective being to survive for ten turns and visit the village. I did attempt to camp at the castle for the entire map, and while the village did appear to get destroyed without a game over, Lugh died shortly thereafter, resulting in one anyway. One particular reinforcement forces the player away from the castle regardless.
The map itself feels like a puzzle map: once you know where all the enemies are, it’s a simple matter of playing to advantageous matchups. There is some fun to be had with the infinite rescue staves Ellen and Guinevere wield, giving the player an effective positioning tool. Yet the enemy density was very low, and there was exactly one situation where a unit was under attack from more than two enemies. Perhaps this is to compensate for the low unit bulk: Narshen with his Runesword is the only unit capable of taking more than one hit on enemy phase. I had the map largely routed by turn seven. Overall, this chapter is not particularly challenging. It does take a few runs to figure out the threats, but the chapter is short.
Presentation: 3/5
Being set on Elibe, there’s a fair amount of flourishes that fit the setting. The status screen has been adjusted to the FE7 design, and a fair amount of music has been replaced with Elibian tracks. I must say, the rip of the boss theme does sound out of tune, however.
Most of the portraits are of FE6 characters, with the bosses having received edits that make them look younger. These generally look respectable.
Story: 2/5
The story is set in an alternative universe Sword of Seals, where Zephiel turned out to be a good king. He presumably took Nino as his queen, as Lugh and Ray are his children here. Lugh and Idoun are watching the stars when suddenly a shooting star falls. As Idoun, in her good ending demeanour, makes a wish, an assassin suddenly attacks Guinevere. Though she dies in the cutscene, she recovers with 1 HP in gameplay.
The story isn’t particularly focused on, with a brief scene playing when visiting Ray’s village. There are no optional talk conversations either.
When the timer runs out, Zephiel arrives and finds everyone safe. However, Bern Keep is not safe, and the party find its guards massacred. One survivor says a hooded figure killed them all and is after Idoun. Who attacked Bern? We don’t actually know, as the chapter ends after an ominous “Dragon”.
While there are some interesting ideas in a “Good Zephiel” world, the story does end too abruptly for me to feel particularly satisfied.
Total Score: 9/20
Judge 2: Frog
Gameplay: 4/10
This chapter serves as an FE6 prequel, taking place shortly after Zephiel found Idunn. He leaves for an unspecified errand, leaving her in the care of his close allies and family, only for them to be attacked by mysterious foes. This is a fog-of-war map with two goals (although one is visible only in the objective screen): surviving 10 turns and visiting a village at the bottom of the map. Units and combat are very reminiscent of FE6, with low hit rates and very powerful enemies – usually OHKOing your squishier units. And similar to FE6, you get a large amount of filler units who can die with little consequence. One final thing of note is that both healers start with an infinite-use rescue staff, which is a cute gimmick.
Unfortunately, the mix of fog, a survive goal, incredibly dangerous enemies, and no Torch staves/items until visiting the village made me play incredibly passively – especially since it wasn’t completely clear who (if any) were Game Over units. Most of my units stayed within the starting area all chapter, except for two fillers (a cavalier & wyvern rider) I sent to visit the village – both of them died, yet they accomplished their goal beforehand. Visiting the village supposedly adds some interest to the chapter – and finally gives you a Torch staff – but I just Rescued Raigh away and left the rest to die (except Narcian who soloed everyone with his Runesword) while camping in the starting area with my remaining units. I feel like adding even one Torch staff/item to the starting squad would’ve helped me play less cowardly, but as is, I didn’t want to take any risks and the chapter didn’t really punish my completely passive playstyle at all.
Presentation: 3/5
A lot of assets were changed to match FE6 – such as the status screen, battle screen and music – which was pretty cool and definitely matched the chapter’s vibe. Unfortunately, some others like the minimug box remained unchanged. There were also a lot of custom classes and modified portraits, and while they were all good, they felt inconsistent with the “basically vanilla FE6” vibes.
Story: 2/5
The story was pretty simplistic, but had some nice moments I liked: the mid-map events, the custom visit & boss quotes depending on the unit, and especially the ending scene – I wondered all map why it was survive and not defend, and that was excellent payoff. Shoutouts to the manakete boss disappearing mid-chapter as well, definitely added to the ominousity of it all. It did feel a bit too vague though and the story ended up unresolved. I’ll admit that my Elibe lore knowledge is very rusty, but I don’t recall this shadowy organisation (the Black Fang?) mentioned anywhere in FE6? There were also a lot of typos, which took me out of the experience a bit.
Total Score: 9/20
Judge 3: Struedelmuffin
Gameplay: 5/10
Stars Over Bern presents itself very much like a traditional fog-of-war map, but seems somewhat confused in its direction. The chapter objective is to keep Lugh alive for 10 turns as you fight off bandit assassins with a small roster of 7 units. The units and weapons are all pretty vanilla, aside from a new “Restrict” staff which can place down a light rune. With a combination of lethal enemies and little information being presented on account of the fog, the player seems encouraged to hole up in the safety of the initial starting area (especially since the new Restrict staff can create an easy choke point). The story, however, encourages you to visit the southern-most village. I decided to follow the advice of the story in this instance, since I was curious what would happen. As it turns out, visiting the southern village unlocks Raigh’s army, which is a fun addition, but also feels entirely unnecessary to complete the 10 turn survival goal. If anything, it actually adds to the difficulty of the map instead by giving you Raigh, whose death is a game over condition. Considering I only had Raigh unlocked by turn 7, I was expecting some kind of twist after the final 10th turn, but the map simply ended instead, leaving me confused as to why I bothered to move down to recruit him to begin with instead of turtling in the safety of the northern castle. Aside from this though, I felt that the chapter played out in a fairly straightforward but still enjoyable way, with units that were somewhat interesting to use.
Presentation: 2/5
I appreciate that the music was changed to fit the setting of Bern, and the introduction scene using the FE7 world map is a very nice touch as well. Ultimately, though, I cannot give much credit to the presentation on account of nearly all of the assets on display being vanilla. Even the map itself is identical to FE7’s chapter 24, aside from it using a night time palette.
Story: 2/5
The story appears to take place in an alternate universe where Zephiel married Nino, leading to Lugh and Raigh becoming the new princes of Bern. I can feel that there is an interesting idea being presented here, but there is not enough written for me to really make sense of what is going on. It’s never addressed how we got to the point where Lugh and Raigh are Zephiel’s sons, or why extremely powerful bandits are trying to assassinate Lugh. The ending event doesn’t explain much either, instead opting to present a scenario where a mysterious new threat (Jahn I think?) has emerged and captured Idunn, but it ends very abruptly on that cliffhanger.
Total Score: 9/20
Judge 4: BandanaSplitzzz
Gameplay: 5/10
Stars over Bern is a “Defend” chapter, but only in name. You are given a few units and politely asked by the game to reach the village in the bottom-left corner of the map, lest Raigh die to invisible red units. It’s a fog map with particularly strong enemy units, which makes traversing downward pretty scary. I actually had to think when moving downward, since I needed to properly manage my light source, all while making it down fast enough (if at all?) to save Raigh.
This chapter, more so than most others, really feels like a slice out of a full Fire Emblem game. In your initial defense position, there’s nothing you would need that’s out of reach. You’re given several shops, a singular chokepoint for enemies, and sleep staves. All of this means you have no reason to move forward. There could be a reason to go attack downward if you genuinely recruited Raigh in a full playthrough. It’s this really strange design space for a chapter that doesn’t work well. It’s a fine chapter, but it doesn’t really play to its strengths (being a singular chapter hack).
Presentation: 2/5
I really like the presentation’s dedication to mirroring FE7 in style, at least a bit. The portraits of non-vanilla characters kind of break the style of this, though. Nothing too dissimilar to vanilla otherwise. Stable performance.
Story: 2/5
There is a lot of story here that is offscreen that I genuinely do think makes this experience worse. I found myself asking why this world was this specific way compared to FE6, and why it makes it interesting compared to vanilla, with just some faces swapped around. Why are there new characters? Why is Narcian half-naked? Lugh is a prince, even! It felt like a slice out of a not very interesting, but much longer story.
Total Score: 9/20
Results
| Category | Darrman | Frog | Struedel | Bandana | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 4 | 4 | 5 | 5 | 18 |
| Presentation | 3 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 10 |
| Story | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| Total | 9 | 9 | 9 | 9 | 36 |