BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia Saga

BS Fire Emblem's title screen

Story

Akaneia is in the grip of war. The Durhuan Empire had spent the past two years in battle with the Holy Kingdom of Akaneia, and it had finally claimed victory. Marth of Aritia has no role to play in this tale. In his place are four tales, each with their own protagonist.

To start, Episode 1 covers the fall of Pales and Princess Nina’s fight against the invaders. Episode 2 deals with Minerva of Macedonia hunting deserters from her army while unknowingly encountering Hardin of Orleans. Episode 3 takes place some time Durhua’s conquest of Pales. Ricardo, a common thief, gathers various people to launch a heist on the royal treasury. Finally, Episode 4 depicts Camus and Nina fleeing from Durhua’s army to deliver the princess to safety.

While the episodes are sequential, there is no requirement to play them in order.

Information

BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia Saga was a title that used the Satellaview add-on for the Super Famicom. The Satellaview itself was a collaboration between Nintendo and St. Giga, a Japanese radio company. In addition to receiving radio, the device’s main selling point was the unique combination of video game and radio show. These games were known as “Soundlink” games, and BS Fire Emblem was one of them. Players had to tune in at a specific time, and the Satellaview would play a radio storyline to accompany the game. The Satellaview would also display special artwork to accompany the radio.

Unfortunately, preservation of Satellaview titles is difficult, and the unique Soundlink elements of the game are not contained within the four roms that make up Akaneia Saga. There is no music, and the opening and ending artwork is missing. Many Super Nintendo emulators struggle with running these games. Without additional modification, only the newest and most updated of emulators are capable of running the game.

Project Status

The patch itself translates everything that remains in the roms. All text, both in menus and in dialogue, is in English. At this moment in time, the missing content from the roms has not been restored. Recordings of gameplay footage containing the missing content exist, but this is not a true solution.

The next step would be to begin restoring the missing content. This would include finding the chapter events in order to add the radio script in as in-game dialogue and restoring the music. Ideally, MSU-1 capability would be inserted into the game and the original streamed audio restored, but failing that, using Mystery of the Emblem’s soundtrack is acceptable. Creating a dub using MSU-1 would be the ultimate aim, but between creating a proper MSU hack and finding voice actors to record the dialogue, this is not realistic.

Gallery

Level up prompt GOUBER: "Hmph. You fool! You are nothing to me!"

Character movement OLD MAN: "Please take this vulnerary. Use it when you are hurt."

DICE: "Ahaha... This is pointless. My apologies. Translated status screen

BULZARK: "C-Camus... Gah..." Terrain window translated

Downloads and Links

Releases

Latest release (v1.01, released 20th August 2020): Download here

Other Links

Project source is available here
Fire Emblem Universe thread: Here
Serenes Forest thread: Here
Romhacking.net page: Here

Fire Emblem E3 2020 video (by Radd): (on FEU channel)
KiddoCabbusses’s playthrough (no commentary): Here

Patching Instructions

BS Fire Emblem is difficult to get properly working, so players must carefully follow these instructions.

    1. Acquire roms of each individual episode of the game. Finding these is up to the player.
    2. Apply patches to the appropriate rom. Apply “BSFE1.ips” to Episode 1, for example. Download Lunar IPS if necessary; Romhacking.net hosts it.
    3. ZSNES ONLY: Apply the appropriate patch in the “fepatches” folder, otherwise the emulator will only produce a black screen on load. I suggest soft-patching the rom with these. To do so, name your patch the same as the rom. Eg: “BSFE1Eng.sfc”, “BSFE1Eng.ips”. If not using ZSNES, skip this step!
    4. Load the rom using your emulator of choice; development of the patch used BSNES+. It is recommended to load the episodes through the BS-X BIOS. I cannot provide this. Once inside the BIOS, proceed through initial setup if necessary and then enter your house. Select the top option (Load Stored Data) and select the only option. It should be labelled “BSFireEmblem EpX”, with X being the appropriate episode number.
    5. Adjust the clock if necessary. BSNES+ defaults to using system time. To change this, go to Settings -> Configuration -> BS-X and set the time as appropriate. The episodes start around ten minutes past the hour.