Toade
its a good game, i like my fire emblems longer so i wish this one had a few more chapters, but what we have is good. nothing really sticks out to me as really bad, but nothing sticks out to me as exceptional. it is a well rounded and fine game, it's been a while since i finished it but from what i remember the story is pretty good, there's 4 main characters but in reality there's really only two, the other two members of the protag group don't really get much. the characters are all enjoyable, and everyone in the game seems balanced stat wise. some things of note that i love about this game is giving the jagen a weapon that cannot crit, but on top of that the jagen even gets bonuses eventually to keep her competitive into the late game. i would recommend giving it a try
This review contains spoilers
This hack is very weird, but in a good way. Its weird in the sense that it shares a lot in common with the blazing blade, with both games having morphs, hector (or at least a guy who looks and acts like him), a tactician (but an actual unit this time) and more. Despite this, the story feels original, and actually its quite compelling. I think the story is kind of carried on the back of one of its protagonists, Freesia. Despite being the maiden of light alluded to in the title, shes a very morally dubious character, but her motivations make it understandable. She tends to be extreme in her thoughts and values, and is quick to take action, and the way her actions and words directly affect the other protagonists gives them interesting opportunities to develop and characterize themselves. Outside of the group of protagonists, the roster that makes up your army is pretty solid. A lot of them have ties to the world around them and other units, while some are kind of gag characters. I think the gag characters are definitely weaker, but the ones who are more involved with the world are some of my favorites. Jenna is a personal favorite. One point against the story is that the antagonists vary in quality. The most interesting antagonists end up joining you near the end of the game, and the ones who arent so interesting are the ones you slaughter. The main antagonist Maximillian would be underwhelming if not for how he is interacted with in gameplay.
The gameplay itself is solid. The map design compels you to play fast, without being too punishing or frustrating. There are many maps id say are standouts, like the map where you are being chased by Durga through an entire enemy fort, or the gaiden chapter where you need to pick a unit to undergo an onslaught of arena battles. The final maps of the game are its weakest I believe. The final maps bring out same turn reinforcements, and the enemy quality and density is very high compared to your units. The units you get in DLATMOL are pretty weak all things considered. I know that there have been updates that buff units, but I believe i played an earlier update, where these buffs were not present. The base stats of the earlygame units you receive are very poor, and their growths vary. Shermie is a unit you get on the first map, and her growths are excellent, however the tactician you play as hits like a wet noodle and is actually fairly inaccurate. With poor luck they wont ever begin to become reliable. Many other units will have good speed growth but poor strength or magic growth, and not deal significant damage to enemies as they increase in strength. Units like Horton, Shermie, Orion are exceptions, but a majority of your earlygame units will not preform fantastic long term without significant investment or good luck. A particularly rough example of this is Emma, one of the few cavs you get in the game. Her growths are coin flips, and she is very liable to getting screwed over. The prepromotes you get in turn vastly outperform units you have been training. Jenna has a 10% speed growth, but it hardly matters because her base speed is enough to double a majority of enemies in the game, and with one speedwing she doubles even more. She vastly outperforms Aislin, the earlygame anima mage you get, to such a degree where any investment into Aislin is better placed into another unit because you will get a better unit in Jenna anyways. The same principle applies to most other prepromotes. The enemies lategame begin to outpace the prepromotes you get, so only the few growth units in the game get to excel here. Maximillian is a unit that is present in many maps, though despite him not dying each time you defeat him, his presence in the maps as a formidable boss does help in making him feel like a more present threat to the group. The final boss is particularly rough, most units either getting one hit or dealing 5 or so damage. Only one unit (Horton) can reliably deal considerable damage to him.
Overall, despite what I may write, I think any fan of fire emblem should check out this hack. Its not a masterclass, but its very competently made, and a pretty enjoyable experience.
The gameplay itself is solid. The map design compels you to play fast, without being too punishing or frustrating. There are many maps id say are standouts, like the map where you are being chased by Durga through an entire enemy fort, or the gaiden chapter where you need to pick a unit to undergo an onslaught of arena battles. The final maps of the game are its weakest I believe. The final maps bring out same turn reinforcements, and the enemy quality and density is very high compared to your units. The units you get in DLATMOL are pretty weak all things considered. I know that there have been updates that buff units, but I believe i played an earlier update, where these buffs were not present. The base stats of the earlygame units you receive are very poor, and their growths vary. Shermie is a unit you get on the first map, and her growths are excellent, however the tactician you play as hits like a wet noodle and is actually fairly inaccurate. With poor luck they wont ever begin to become reliable. Many other units will have good speed growth but poor strength or magic growth, and not deal significant damage to enemies as they increase in strength. Units like Horton, Shermie, Orion are exceptions, but a majority of your earlygame units will not preform fantastic long term without significant investment or good luck. A particularly rough example of this is Emma, one of the few cavs you get in the game. Her growths are coin flips, and she is very liable to getting screwed over. The prepromotes you get in turn vastly outperform units you have been training. Jenna has a 10% speed growth, but it hardly matters because her base speed is enough to double a majority of enemies in the game, and with one speedwing she doubles even more. She vastly outperforms Aislin, the earlygame anima mage you get, to such a degree where any investment into Aislin is better placed into another unit because you will get a better unit in Jenna anyways. The same principle applies to most other prepromotes. The enemies lategame begin to outpace the prepromotes you get, so only the few growth units in the game get to excel here. Maximillian is a unit that is present in many maps, though despite him not dying each time you defeat him, his presence in the maps as a formidable boss does help in making him feel like a more present threat to the group. The final boss is particularly rough, most units either getting one hit or dealing 5 or so damage. Only one unit (Horton) can reliably deal considerable damage to him.
Overall, despite what I may write, I think any fan of fire emblem should check out this hack. Its not a masterclass, but its very competently made, and a pretty enjoyable experience.
this was the first smt game i have ever beaten fully (not counting persona) and it will probably remain one of my favorite smt games ever, as a fan of strategy rpgs already the gameplay appealed to me. the objectives for maps are diverse and fun, despite the maps being fairly simple the variety of objectives and layouts made it fun anyways. the games difficulty was fine, though there are some fights i dislike. the story is fantastic. the scenario is immediately interesting and a lot of things happen very quickly which gets you hooked. the characters are all enjoyable and i felt bad when i missed a chance to talk to one of them. the time management system is pretty neat too. i have only finished amanes route but the characters are all compelling and the best part of the game to me is that when it came down to the point of picking my route, i saw equal merit in all choices (except yuzus sorry yuzu youre still the number 1). usually in smt games there is a true ending, and when theres not, it usually seems like chaos is always the better option, but in devil survivor i truly had trouble deciding which route i agreed with. the game also makes your choices matter, not thinking ahead with your dialogue options and actions will result in the deaths of multiple characters, and i like that. it made it feel like your decisions each day had weight. as for the parts of the game i dont like, its beldr. he is basically the minotaur of devil survivor but beldr doesnt teach the player anything. he can only be killed by the protagonist with 1 specific physical move (physical being the worst attacking type in the game by far). the only thing i could say it teaches the player is to focus on objectives, but still thats a stretch. other than that all the fights were fun the mechanics are fun. the auction system being the only way of getting demons is a bit annoying, but overclocked fixes this. i would say this is a must play if you are a fan of smt and strategy rpgs (FUCK SHARP FE THIS IS THE REAL SMT X FE CROSSOVER)
(also play overclocked i played the ds version but im sure overclocked improves on the game wholly)
(also play overclocked i played the ds version but im sure overclocked improves on the game wholly)
2023
This review contains spoilers
(i have completed up to chapter 11 hard/classic at the time of posting this)
i have been very excited for this game and i am both pleased and disappointed. the positives are that the gameplay is very good, maps are tightly designed and feel good to play, the emblem system early on may seem overpowered but soon enemies will get emblems and they will use them against you, bosses also having multiple hp bars forces you to make careful use of your attacks so that you dont waste an attack that can be the difference between keeping a unit alive or them dying. the bosses are very strong offensively and it seems like the game will even rig crits (or ive been very unlucky) to punish you for not killing them fast enough. the battle animations are fantastic as well. the positives end there, as the writing is worse than fates sadly, every and i mean every non enemy character sucks off the protagonist for no good reason other than that they were born special, even some of the protagonists enemies suck up to them, it feels unearned and just bad. the characters are more one note than the awakening cast as well, some characters honestly are still fine and enjoyable but some are either immensely grating (CHLOE) or just disappointingly flat. it really does not bode well to have such a poorly written game especially right after 3 houses which was good but underbaked. i hope that the next new mainline entry in the franchise hires a new writing staff because this is bad. the character design varies, some i love some i dont. i wish some characters were not the way they were (bunet and boucheron are particularly unappealing desings) but some are very good. overall i enjoy the game but hope that we never get a game with this quality of writing again
i have been very excited for this game and i am both pleased and disappointed. the positives are that the gameplay is very good, maps are tightly designed and feel good to play, the emblem system early on may seem overpowered but soon enemies will get emblems and they will use them against you, bosses also having multiple hp bars forces you to make careful use of your attacks so that you dont waste an attack that can be the difference between keeping a unit alive or them dying. the bosses are very strong offensively and it seems like the game will even rig crits (or ive been very unlucky) to punish you for not killing them fast enough. the battle animations are fantastic as well. the positives end there, as the writing is worse than fates sadly, every and i mean every non enemy character sucks off the protagonist for no good reason other than that they were born special, even some of the protagonists enemies suck up to them, it feels unearned and just bad. the characters are more one note than the awakening cast as well, some characters honestly are still fine and enjoyable but some are either immensely grating (CHLOE) or just disappointingly flat. it really does not bode well to have such a poorly written game especially right after 3 houses which was good but underbaked. i hope that the next new mainline entry in the franchise hires a new writing staff because this is bad. the character design varies, some i love some i dont. i wish some characters were not the way they were (bunet and boucheron are particularly unappealing desings) but some are very good. overall i enjoy the game but hope that we never get a game with this quality of writing again
2020
not fun
1995
i had fun i am robbitpilled
i think intelligent systems should give up making games cause this one has got them straight shitted on
the game glitches at chapter 9 and becomes unplayable, the game is literally so widely hated that when i asked around for a fix i was told it was not even worth it. im sure the game was fuckshit awful and im missing nothing but im curious to see what the rest of the game was like
2015
i find it somewhat odd how many 1 star reviews there are for this game, its by no means anything special, with some glaring flaws, but 1 star is harsh considering its an old fanmade hack. Maybe im being a bit contrarian but i can appreciate the hack for what it tried to do, and while its on the easier side it can still be a bit of fun
2007
ub funkeys was my childhood game, so im incredibly binded by nostalgia. HOWEVER there is a lot of good in this game even if there is a lot of bad. to get it out of the way, yes toys to life was a horrible predatory scam that is only rivaled by the gacha system in games. That trend can be somewhat blamed on ub funkeys because it was one of the first ever to do it. The game still has so many things to love, the art, the music, even if the gameplay itself was nothing too special, the design and care that went into creating the world was real. The environments are really unique and nice pieces of art, the character designs are still fun and cute, and the games are fun when you are the intended audience, that being a kid. i have played the game to completion and over the course of all my life collected one of each kind of funkey (excluding the ones that were unreleased, some of them at least). I will love this game to death no matter how bad of a corporate scam it was. sprout is the best funkey btw and also please listen to the ost at least some of it the songs are fun
twewy artistically might be my favorite game of all time, it oozes 2000s style and charm and as a massive sucker for early 2000s fashion and edge i cannot help but be madly in love with this game, the narrative is also quite compelling and i enjoy the gameplay, though its not for everyone
(Probably will be my most comprehensive review on this website)
The dragon herald is a testament to how far the fire emblem romhacking community has come, it is a game built off the fact that with community resources like public portraits and febuilder, anyone can make a hack. The story is actually quite good, the playable cast all get little bits of dialogue that characterize them quite well. The difficulty is id say pretty rough. It is harder than any gba game, and id say harder than some of the higher difficulties of fe11 and fe12. I went into it mostly blind, which could be the result, but the game is fairly brutal. The game is straightforward and tells you what to do on most maps. My main criticism of the game is that the game seems to want you to cheese it for most of the game. Many of the maps will try to get you to rush to the end or else you will get demolished by reinforcements. Maybe this issue was due to my blindness or bad luck, but most of my units ended up growing poorly, and with most of the prepromotes either being exclusive to the last 2 chapters or being trash (with a few exceptions), most maps were taken care of by the protagonist which capped most stats, and the very tanky general. Most chapters near the end became a stomp with my one reliable and self-sufficient unit, while every other unit in the army became a detriment unless they were a flier and could rescue and bring away from combat whatever new recruit i couldnt bench. The game is also intent on giving you growth units in the mid to lategame, with very little room to train them. To be fair, in the game i missed out on 3 prepromotes, except the issue is that all of them were either not good, or my units were not strong enough to meet the requirements to recruit them. I think this comes to a head when you get to the last chapter, which has 24 deployment slots (in a game with 30 characters max). The issue here is that the game at no point gives you enough chance to train them without insane luck or save stating. While what i say is mostly negative here, it is possibly due to my inexperience with the game. I will be playing the game again with all my knowledge of it.
(I have completed the game again, and this will be my thoughts from my second run)
Upon a second run through the game I realize a lot of the issues I had were because I managed my units poorly and made poor choices. so yeah obviously the game would become much harder. on my second playthrough i did every side objective and got every recruitment, which lead to me getting one good and one decent prepromote, and one trash one (shouko). I think the game could benefit from more units overall, or small tweaks to the current ones (cassie being the notable problem child, in the chapter she comes in she has horrifically low hit rates on every unit she faces, meaning she has no way of reliably growing past being a terrible unit) i still have some issues with the lategame maps, i found chapter 17 to be poorly designed as it is too intensive with reinforcements, i found the most consistent strategy to once again be dogetanking with the lord except with a few tweaks to allow me to recruit shouko. I find the map design was overall very good, and the maps feel fun to play. in the endgame i had the lord solo her side of the map. still overall one of the most impressive and challenging romhacks while still being pretty fun. (mute as a ranger breaks the game in half btw she is insane)
The dragon herald is a testament to how far the fire emblem romhacking community has come, it is a game built off the fact that with community resources like public portraits and febuilder, anyone can make a hack. The story is actually quite good, the playable cast all get little bits of dialogue that characterize them quite well. The difficulty is id say pretty rough. It is harder than any gba game, and id say harder than some of the higher difficulties of fe11 and fe12. I went into it mostly blind, which could be the result, but the game is fairly brutal. The game is straightforward and tells you what to do on most maps. My main criticism of the game is that the game seems to want you to cheese it for most of the game. Many of the maps will try to get you to rush to the end or else you will get demolished by reinforcements. Maybe this issue was due to my blindness or bad luck, but most of my units ended up growing poorly, and with most of the prepromotes either being exclusive to the last 2 chapters or being trash (with a few exceptions), most maps were taken care of by the protagonist which capped most stats, and the very tanky general. Most chapters near the end became a stomp with my one reliable and self-sufficient unit, while every other unit in the army became a detriment unless they were a flier and could rescue and bring away from combat whatever new recruit i couldnt bench. The game is also intent on giving you growth units in the mid to lategame, with very little room to train them. To be fair, in the game i missed out on 3 prepromotes, except the issue is that all of them were either not good, or my units were not strong enough to meet the requirements to recruit them. I think this comes to a head when you get to the last chapter, which has 24 deployment slots (in a game with 30 characters max). The issue here is that the game at no point gives you enough chance to train them without insane luck or save stating. While what i say is mostly negative here, it is possibly due to my inexperience with the game. I will be playing the game again with all my knowledge of it.
(I have completed the game again, and this will be my thoughts from my second run)
Upon a second run through the game I realize a lot of the issues I had were because I managed my units poorly and made poor choices. so yeah obviously the game would become much harder. on my second playthrough i did every side objective and got every recruitment, which lead to me getting one good and one decent prepromote, and one trash one (shouko). I think the game could benefit from more units overall, or small tweaks to the current ones (cassie being the notable problem child, in the chapter she comes in she has horrifically low hit rates on every unit she faces, meaning she has no way of reliably growing past being a terrible unit) i still have some issues with the lategame maps, i found chapter 17 to be poorly designed as it is too intensive with reinforcements, i found the most consistent strategy to once again be dogetanking with the lord except with a few tweaks to allow me to recruit shouko. I find the map design was overall very good, and the maps feel fun to play. in the endgame i had the lord solo her side of the map. still overall one of the most impressive and challenging romhacks while still being pretty fun. (mute as a ranger breaks the game in half btw she is insane)
This review contains spoilers
very clearly someones first hack. that doesnt make it bad however, while the story is sloppy its not really anything groan worthy until the protag has an arc that lasts One Chapter where she goes fucking insane,,, the gameplay is fine, the skill system is not a nuisance or a massive boon so its just kinda there, its fine enough and fun for some characters. the unit balance is pretty good id say, even the joke units are actually quite fun to use. id say play it, it also has a sequel but that one is fucking hard and i haven't finished it yet
2013
cant believe this is on here,,,, but still this is honestly not a bad fanhack, there are definite issues with the lategame map design (being long slogs with ridiculous stat inflation) but in the end its a silly funny story to laugh at and actually find some small good things in, if you liked the gba emblems id say give this one a shot (its difficulty is below fe6 hard id say so i don't think you'll struggle too much)
2018
this game is quite literally everything undertale should have been