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| Creator | SNexez |
| Engine | Lex Talionis |
| Download | Here |
| Score | 38/80 |
| Rank | 16th |
| FEU Link | Here |
Reviews
Judge 1: Darrman
Gameplay: 6/10
Net Arena is a homage to Mega Man Battle Network, a series with which I have no experience with. Stats are low, and area of effect attacks are everywhere. The battlefield is split in half, with player units on one side and enemy units on the other. Enemies attack over many waves, with choices given over which units should be recruited in-between each wave. This goes on for a while, ultimately culminating in a boss fight.
The chapter plays quite differently to a standard Fire Emblem chapter. Under standard circumstances it would require careful attention, but debug mode was not disabled and Eirika had maxed weapon ranks and powerful debug weapons. I didn’t use the debug weapons, but I’m not sure what weapons Eirika was meant to have aside from swords and bows. She cast Rescue and Fortify (which is bugged and only heals one ally) several times. Overall I’d say the idea is interesting enough, but the execution was so-so.
Presentation: 2/5
There are two new music tracks, with vanilla music otherwise being used. The map itself looks fine. All portraits are simply vanilla FE8 assets. Marks are lost for highly inconsistent animations. They’re usually off due to various unusual weapon assignments, but they do occasionally play with all the vanilla palettes removed. The non-vanilla item icons also have solid black backgrounds.
Story: 1/5
There’s little story here. Eirika is in a mysterious arena and a mysterious voice is talking to her. Along the way she meets various allies. Later Lyon appears and is killed, and it’s revealed it was all a dream. A short excuse plot is here to facilitate the gameplay.
Total Score: 9/20
Judge 2: Rivian
Gameplay: 7/10
This hack is based on Megaman Battle Network (which I haven’t played). Both sides have a 5×5 grid accessible only to them, with the exception of some melee classes. Units have a variety of ranged and AoE options to make use of these limitations.
There’s perhaps around 5 or 6 battles in total. One particular battle I found especially tough, was bolting mage, 4 range AoE Valkyrie and high damage shaman in the same squad. It was enough to cover basically the whole map and kill all of my units. I was only able to make it through with some particularly good luck. Light magic AoE seems to be one of the strongest options and I can’t image picking Natasha over Gilliam, whose defensive ability is pretty useless against any major threats. Some weapons also seem not very useful such as the straight line shot that does 1 or 0 damage.
Lyon as the final boss was also very tough, unable to be hurt except by the strongest weapons and one rounding both my damage dealers. Had to spam vulneraries and use steel bow on enemy phase on my last unit to win the round. It’s a pretty original take on gameplay and I think definitely has potential.
Presentation: 3/5
Assets are mostly vanilla palettes and animations, given it focus on vanilla characters which is fine. The battle platform is simple but a neat representation of the battle network grid. The item icons to seem rather funky, some using affinity icons and some having black borders instead of transparent.
Story: 2/5
There wasn’t really much of a story, just Eirika seemed to be having a dream and that’s about all. The appeal is in the gameplay.
Total Score: 12/20
Judge 3: Legend of Loog
Gameplay: 6/10
The chapter consists of several smaller fights in an arena, with a barrier inbetween you and the enemies. There are numerous tools to get past this barrier, like some classes being able to ignore it completely and some weapons having very long range. You start with just Eirika, but you get a few more units as you progress through each stage. Some of your units can be deceptively fragile, and I found it fairly sloggish to get through without losing a significant amount of units. There are debug weapons left in that can let you just tear through it, which are obviously unintended, so I ignored them. The chapter definitely has a unique approach to FE, but I think it falters a bit in practice.
Presentation: 2/5
A lot of FE8 mugs are reused, and the main notable changes from a presentation standpoint are some additional music tracks and the map, which looks nice enough. I noticed that the battle animations frequently looked off due to the weapons having weird ranges and the animations not having proper ranged ones, and that some item icons didn’t have a proper palette when inserted. Overall, ok but with some notable deficiencies.
Story: 1/5
There’s not much here beyond some basic dialogue from Eirika and each character chipping in when they first join, so I don’t really have anything to say.
Total Score: 9/20
Judge 4: Levin64
Gameplay: 5/10
A Megaman Battle Network homage! It feels weird to adapt that sort of gameplay to Fire Emblem where Megaman Battle Network feels more fluid and active, but it sorta works here. Both blue and red units have a 5×5 grid as their area to move around, but several classes can breach through other areas, like axefighters and pegasus knights.
We start with Eirika (the debug weapons are also here for some reason), and the weapons are molded to match with how a battle in Megaman Battle Network functions. Some work akin to standard FE weapons, some are changed, like steel weapons that have added effects like AoE or a ranged attack. I feel the weapons can use more tuning per se because some weapons aren’t really that useful like Cannon or Shot.
Overall, the idea is fresh but the execution needs to be more perfected.
Presentation: 2/5
The map is made to match with the reference material; again, not a bad idea and it looks great. Yet, most of the rest are basically from vanilla FE8. The animations are inconsistent; I ended up turning it off. Non-vanilla items have solid black backgrounds, several other items use affinity icons… these don’t really stick together.
Story: 1/5
The story isn’t much, it’s basically Eirika having a dream of fighting several waves of enemies that ended up with her fighting Lyon. After she’s victorious, it’s revealed that it’s all but a dream. The story ends up facilitating the gameplay; it’s not bad per se, because the conversations between the units and the narrator don’t look jarring. But all in all, I guess the focus is on the gameplay so… yeah, not much to say.
Total Score: 8/20
Results
| Category | Darr | Rivian | Loog | Levin | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gameplay | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 | 24 |
| Presentation | 2 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 9 |
| Story | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 5 |
| Total | 9 | 12 | 9 | 8 | 38 |