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| Creator | FrecciaVerde |
| Engine | FE8 |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 25/80 |
| Rank | 21st |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 3/10
At first glance, the map appears to be a fairly standard kill boss map. Player units are heavily skill bloated, but this does not carry over to the enemies. The top village got destroyed before I could reach it, and enemy density is high. The player units are much stronger than most of the enemies and combat is rarely an issue, but it is slow. Constant paladin reinforcements spawning from the boss area every single turn serve to slow the pace down further, and moving Bolting sages appear from every fort on the map for two turns late into the chapter, losing me some units.
The worst thing in this chapter involves having Rutgheb and the staff talk. Every other talk on the map has no gameplay effect, but here Rutgheb kills the staff, denying me my main healer during the boss fight. This isn’t Ragefest. Such a trap is a major annoyance. My advice would be to reduce the amount of reinforcements and not have one talk conversation randomly punish the player.
Presentation: 2/5
The map themes are fine and the portraits are of either vanilla GBAFE people or are reasonable splices. However, the enemy battle theme was vanilla, and a lot of combat took place on enemy phase. The new map sprites were also not properly inserted, with Rutgheb’s class sprite misaligned when hovering over it and Wendy occasionally having glitched artefacts. I will give credit for putting a hot dog on the title screen.
Story: 1/5
The story is nothing more than an excuse plot: Rutgheb wants some hot dogs, so he and Wendy decide to attack a nearby temple. The talk conversations attempt to be funny, but I was not amused at any of them. Some skill names are changed in a similar vein, and I was similarly unamused.
Total Score: 6/20
Judge 2: Rivian
Gameplay: 4/10
My initial reaction was that learning 15 units, their gear, their stats, their skills, all at once is an insane info dump. Fortunately, the map didn’t necessitate me fully understanding everyone’s kits, I just had to send some good units out there and get kills.
I can’t say I enjoyed the sudden bolting reinforcements that covered the whole map, but given this was one chapter and I had way more units than I needed, this worked out okay. It got some of my lagging behind units to get some action. The second wave might have been a little much, though it was very funny.
As is the case with provoke tanks, Oswin was a good send for tanking siege, which also helps alleviate the issue. I made it through with mostly everyone alive, Novala dropped by bolting and Gwen dying after I pushed too hard.
Ultimately, I felt like it was mostly move units forward and don’t eat a siege tome, which works out, but perhaps not the most exciting.
Presentation: 2/5
The hack was mostly visually okay, but with was some oddities. Some battle palettes looked a bit odd, such as Gwen’s. Some map sprites had graphical errors such as angel and Rutgheb, I presume due to wrong map AP. The vanilla chapter name and FE8 world map opening probably should’ve been adjusted. I do appreciate the massive hot dog in the title screen.
Story: 1/5
The plot was just an excuse plot. I will mention the text formatting could be better, there were cases were sentences that could fit in one text are broken down into two. The on-map conversation between Staff Bot and Rhutgheb, where Rhutgheb just instantly kills the poor thing caught me very off-guard and gave me a good chuckle.
Total Score: 6/20
Judge 3: Legend of Loog
Gameplay: 3/10
The 4-5 skills per unit are initially overwhelming, but you get a sense of who’s actually useful and who’s dead weight fairly quickly without needing to read them. The map is overall not difficult at all, but some of the units struggle to pull their weight and/or have such low HP that the surplus of siege can make it challenging to position units like Novala or Staff Bot. The map is also fairly dense, leading to long enemy phases where your good units slaughter enemies like it’s Tellius. Also, there are a ton of proc skills and floating crit rates, which can make the combat potentially shaky.
Other minor annoyances include the siege reinforcements mid-map are irritating, but ultimately, they are not much of a problem, and neither is the boss despite him having an immunity to attacks that aren’t at 1 range. My biggest problem with the map was that one of the player Talk events kills off Staff Bot, who’s very useful, without any reason that I can decipher except for the fun of it, which can be a sucker punch. in the end, the gameplay avoids a lower score by being quick to tear through, but it encourages mindlessness from the player on several levels, leading to unfortunately monotonous gameplay.
Presentation: 2/5
There is some effort put into the music selected for the player phase and player battle theme, though there are still some vanilla tracks for enemy phase. This is a bit jarring, and the player phase theme does not gel well with the battle theme. The portraits have both FE7 and FE8 outlines, and some battle palettes are oversaturated. The main thing that buoys this entry’s aesthetic score is the hot dog in the title screen.
Story: 1/5
The start and end event put together are shorter than the average start event alone, so the plot itself is clearly not a priority. There is some level of effort put into the various talk conversations, but the titular “hotdog quest” is fairly shallow and leaves no impact on the player.
Total Score: 6/20
Judge 4: Levin64
Gameplay: 3/10
Nothing to brag about. Can describe this as a mindless hack, you just wreck things and get to the objective. Some player units are memey, some are good, a few are stupidly broken (especially that one unit with Provoke and good defense), enemies are not exactly a joke and can be a nuisance due to the intense quantity. Skill bloat is the first thing I loathe; some skills are good, some don’t work together, and some skills are assigned without any benefit whatsoever. Why is talk not a free action, by the way? I had to save state just to read the talk convos in order not to disrupt my tempo sometimes. Also, why is there a talk that kills a player unit? In my honest opinion this is a big big no.
Presentation: 2/5
Some vanilla assets are still present, some aren’t. Chapter name isn’t changed too. The custom music is decent. The portraits are… eh. Again, the characters are mostly references to something else, I can’t really say much. Palettes are okay except Gwen’s (I don’t know if that’s because her armor is cursed but god my eyes hurt). The map is fine. Nothing to brag home about, really.
Story: 1/5
I don’t mind comedy stories, but this one is just not funny and very unbearable. It’s very basic; and why is Gwendolyn here? We get a homage of GhebFE and Dorcas Emblem (which is a very weird choice) and lots of old memes and FE related jokes like “myrmidon bad”, and “Gwendolyn sucks but you get the payoff if you train her” and lots of references that don’t really have any relevance to the story. I’d say this is a gameplay-focused hack with meme references sprinkled here and there, but even then again; comedy stories can be good, but this one really misses the mark.
Total Score: 6/20
Results
| Category | Darr | Rivian | Loog | Levin | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 3 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 13 |
| Presentation | 2 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 8 |
| Story | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Total | 6 | 7 | 6 | 6 | 25 |