Editor's note: The opening post from Serenes Forest has been copied to serve as a readme.

Good morning everyone, I'm Klokinator, and today I'm presenting my newest and greatest Fire Emblem fan project, FE7 Chaos Mode! I have spent a ridiculous amount of time working on this, given that it was only supposed to take a month and be a quick reclass project. However, I began to realize that I had a different vision for the hack when Phobias let's play of it was started. [Link] He was lets playing it while I edited, so I often made changes to future chapters based on his progress and sometimes changed things to be easier/harder.

It wasn't until we arrived at Hawkeye's chapter though, that I began to realize a different vision for the hack. I have actually played many Japanese inflation hacks, like FE7if and FEGirls to name a few, and Ive always noticed how poorly designed they were. They usually had a couple predictable goals and the gameplay was never enhanced by them. Goals like:
-Add OCs.
-Make enemies tougher.
-Make the final bosses ridiculous.
-Maybe add some new classes/animations or just steal from people in the English communities.

In any case, I knew that they sucked. I wanted to improve on them, and when Phobia stopped the LP about 85% of the way through, I pretty much redid everything. Some of the features in this reskin include:

New features of FE7CM

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-Fixed LUK stat. 10 luck for unpromoted units, 6 for promoted units. Only one unit is an exception to this rule. You get lots of Goddess icons to offset this, but its mainly to avoid having units with 120+ AVO by chapter 18. (I'm looking at you, vanilla Guy)
-Randomized weapons (But I did balance them a bit to not be too ridiculous/shitty)
-Get sacred weapons earlier and they have more importance and utility.
-All legendary S rank and Prf weapons and tomes have carefully designed stat bonuses. They form their own unique weapon triangle and are balanced to defeat each other.
-Reclassed characters. Nearly all were randomized, but a couple were strategically reclassed based on what I felt the need was. (For example, Renault and Farina)
-Three tiers for magic users. You can promote to a Dark Druid, Archsage, or Witch (Females only).
-Altered events. Most event alterations are fairly minor. Some notable ones include making Harken and Karel appear a few turns earlier, adding in a new character, and a few other things. (Not spoiling anything, but... that final chapter...)
-All characters are usable, all have their niches, and many are excellent endgame characters.
-Some custom animations. (Noted in the credits)
-More items throughout the game. I have this policy to get every item in a chapter, so this is mainly to give me more challenge.
-NO arena. You cannot abuse levels unless you boss abuse, and money is limited so its unrecommended. Anyway you wont need it because enemies actually give good EXP now.
-Some slightly altered story elements. Those paying attention to the LP thread know what I'm talking about.
-Absolutely hilarious trolling moments and wicked surprises to piss just about everyone off.
-Finally, ridiculous difficulty that is not based on being boring like increasing enemy stats. While savestates are almost required, I'm fairly certain that RNG abuse is NOT. There is a difference.



I designed this hack around various principles that, in my opinion, greatly enhance the original games difficulty, while still giving the player plenty of levelups, plenty of items, and allowing them to overpower their enemies without becoming totally invincible. Most of the difficulty in this hack stems not from enemy stats, but from enemy weapons. Because weapons are all wildly different, a steel bow is vastly different from the iron bow and leads to a totally different kind of fight. The difference is no longer a measly 2 might and 10 hitrate per weapon tier, its now any combination between 1-3 range, 0-20 might, effective bonuses, weapon uses, WEXP, and a host of other things. You could even go so far as to say that every enemy is their own unique snowflake and must be approached differently from the enemies around them.

Additionally, player units have their own unique touches. Every unit has their own stat bases and growths, and units of the same class often have different themes. For example, Lyn is a pirate while Rebecca is a Brigand, but Lyn excels in SPD and RES while Rebecca is more durable and has better HP and DEF. Neither is better than the other, they are useful in their own situations and neither can solo the enemy army at any point in the game.

Some items have been altered too, such as the Afa's Drops, which are now called Stimulant and give +20% growths instead of +5% growths, and even boost EXP gain slightly now. They can only be used once per unit, and multiple Stimulants are scattered throughout the story. There are two boots in the story instead of just one, and the second is hidden and difficult to obtain.

 


FAQ

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FAQ:
Q: Why is this game so fucking hard?
A: Because Ive never played an actual satisfying hard hack before. I LP'ed FE7if a long time ago, and it was not fun and was in fact irritating. Stat inflation =/= difficulty.

Q: How do you decide whats hard and whats not?
A: After many, many years of playing fire emblem games, hacks, and my own forays, Ive stumbled onto the secret of True Difficulty. True difficulty is when enemies can 2-4HKO you, the player, but you also 2-4HKO them as well. If you don't watch your step, you die, but if you play carefully, you can usually avoid complete bullshit. In hacks, such as FE7if, the game relies on simply making enemies stronger, which makes the player hit less, the enemies hit harder, and the enemies take way more damage. It sounds okay in theory, until you get to the Cog of Destiny chapter and have 5 maxed 20/20 player units only possessing a 15% or less hitrate on that one Hellhound that charges at the start of the chapter and kills everyone with ease. That's not fun, that's just making people RNG abuse because you feel like it or don't know what you're doing.

Q: Speaking of RNG abuse, I bet this hack needs a lot of it!
A: No. Let me be clear, savestate abuse absolutely IS required, as in saving once at the start of each turn, until you've beaten the game once and gotten the hang of it. RNG abuse is almost never required, since you can nearly always achieve at least an 80% hitrate with a unit(s) on any enemy. Sometimes you'll inevitably run into complete bullshit and enemies will hit when they shouldn't, but otherwise the game is balanced and fair as long as you plan your moves carefully.

Q: Arrrgh my units are good, really good, but they keep dying! Why are they so bad in spite of being so good?!
A: Seeing as enemies have way more damage output and significantly more hitrate, you'll no longer have any ______s Solo Adventure going on. (See: FE8, Seth's Solo Adventure for reference)

Q: Well screw you, Ill just arena abuse my guys to max and fuck your shitty games balance.
A: That's not a question. Also, arenas don't work. You can certainly edit the rom with Nightmare and fix them yourself, but why would you do that, you awful person?

Q: So no arenas does that mean I'm going to be having issues leveling my guys up?
A: No. You'll find that all units can easily get great stats from the moment you obtain them to the endgame, as long as you continuously use them every chapter. Dont expect to stop using Wallace for two chapters and have him be just as viable as he was back then. Hes only viable if you use him continuously. The good thing though is that enemies give more EXP every chapter over the preceding chapters, so if you actually dont use him for a couple chapters, hell get more EXP per enemy because of his lower level in relation to them.

Q: Ballista swords and lances? Long range Luna that's also super accurate? This game is so broken and easy to cheese.
A: Dammit, that's not a question either. Also, every weapon you have access to, the enemy does as well. The enemy even has some unique weapons (Poison) which you can only obtain with mines. So really, the weapons you're given only make you able to stand on equal footing with the enemy and give you ways to strategize around the enemy army.

Q: Wait, you left the Mine in-game? Lol I can just cheese the hardest chapters.
A: Yep! I left the Mine in-game, as well as the secret mine in Ravens chapter (Its there, even in vanilla!) and an extra much later in the game. If a chapter stumps you, use the mine glitch, get some good weapons, and trivialize it! It will just give you more good weapons and items, not guarantee ease for the rest of the game.

Q: Oh shit I just got a bunch of legendary weapons! Can I just use these and kill everything in sight?
A: Sure! However, you might consider that Ive balanced the Legendary PRF and S rank weapons/tomes with their respective triangles in mind. Aureola/Luce is great against Gespenst, which is great against Excalibur, which is great against Aureola/Luce! And as for Forblaze its just good against everything else Did I mention the number of uses for legendaries is limited? You should probably refrain from wasting them on trivial battles when possible.

Q: Holy shit, why do the legendary weapons have such massive bonuses?! FE4 be damned!
A: That was a strategic decision on my part. For one, it makes battles between legendary weapons and regular weapons completely one sided, meaning an enemy with a legendary usually must be taken out with another legendary. For two, the bonuses mean you have to take on the final bosses with pretty much just those weapons. Most other weapons will have shitty hitrates so don't try and use them on the final bosses. Seriously.

Q: Holy shit, is that really the final boss??? WHAT THE FUCK???
A: Yep. Lol.

Q: WAIT DOES HE REALLY-???
A: Yep. Heeeeheheheeheheh

Q: Can I just play on Hector easy mode, or Eliwood mode, or any mode other than HHM?
A: No. Ive even hard-coded the rom so all modes default to HHM. Credit to Camtech for help with this. In fact, this ensures you can play the rom without using a savegame that has HHM unlocked. You don't need a savefile at all actually. Youre welcome!
By the way, if you change the rom back and play on a mode not called HECTOR HARD MODE dont scream at me when your rom breaks. Because it will. IT FUCKING WILL.

Q: Can I post videos of this on youtube?
A: Please do. I would love to see vids of people raging at this hack XD

Q: Are you still updating this? Are you looking for help with anything?
A: I could use some help, yes. If you actually manage to unlock Geitz's chapter, please send me a save file ASAP. Ive tried and concluded Geitz's chapter is nearly impossible to obtain over Wallace's unless you forgo your best units and use inferior units. They aren't terrible, but they include Bartre. So, that's a thing. Also, the Lloyd variant of CoD would be great to unlock. Additionally, the Jerme chapter too. Save files for any of those.
Aside from that, this hack is complete. There are a few glitches, like I once had Renault glitch when a Nomad Trooper attacked him at melee range, and Ill try to fix those when they're reported. I also plan to do an LP of this hack in many months time after I do some other LPs, so when that time comes Ill be giving it the Manriklass treatment with custom mugs befitting the new character classes.

Q: Are you gonna do an FE8 version of this? FE6?
A: Maybe. I am considering an FE8 variant but I have other projects I wanna do first, plus Im kinda tired of romhacking. If I were to do an FE8 Chaos Mode, it would use the classes of characters I already have in my Manriklass run.

Q: Do you love me?
A: No. Fuck off.




Well you now know pretty much everything you need to know. Here is a list of people that helped out in many ways with this hack.

 


Credits

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In no particular order!

Camtech for helping me fix forced promotions, Karla's recruitment, and a bunch of other tiny little things including the forcing of HHM no matter what mode you try to select.
Archibald for some help with events.
Primefusion for help with some important events regarding the final chapter.
L95 for the inevitable work she'll be putting into mugs for this hack when I LP it in the future. Lurv u <3
Mageknight404 for some of the animations in this hack.
Mercenary lord and NYZGamer for the DRagoon and map sprites.
Markyjoe for the female shaman fix.
Uh, actually I've got so many custom animations in this hack I can't remember which ones were in the hack lol. If you see something new, just assume I didn't make it and it was probably taken from FE6, or FE8, or from this topic.
I probably got help from a couple other people for a couple things but I can't remember who. If you aren't included, post here or PM me and I'll add you.



DOWNLOAD V1.34

Also here's an optional save file if you want the Mario Kart bonus items! They aren't necessary but after chapter 14 they do help out!

Thanks for checking out the topic!


Bug List

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Leila can occasionally make you skip to the next chapter the first time you play her map. Restart and this won't be an issue. Also, if Leila dies on her starting map, the game jumps to the next chapter. Yay, bugs! I can't fix this at the moment.
Will list more bugs as they come up, unless I forget.

 

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Click the following link for a listing of all characters and their stats+growths, a listing of major items in every chapter, all the weapons stats, and even a spoiler for the desert chapter!

This is a doc for the official guide for FE7CM.

FE7CM Official Guide for Characters/Stats/Items/Chapters

One of the Chaos Mode LP'ers, Tequila, put this document together and I cleaned it up and elaborated on a ton of info.

Potential Upcoming features in later patches.]Next version planned features: (V1.35)

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-Chapter 19xx unlocked.
-Gaiden requirements will be tweaked to be more intuitive.
-Maybe fixes for Rath not promoting with a heaven seal? Might be hardcoded.
-Jaffar/Nino's chapter will have some additions...
-New T3 classes! Dragon lord, mageknight and great knight are all planned!
-New animations for female variant classes, notably the female cavalier animation from FE8 so we don't have weird man-cilla.
-An enemy in Jaffar's chapter (Fem!Druid) is using an anima tome instead of a light tome. Will fix.
-Some character descriptions will be reworded.
-Gaidens will be changed! Chapter 15H and the pirate ship chapter will now be skippable! In fact, any non-essential chapter that doesn't give you a new unit will be skippable unless STORY REASONS.
-To follow along with that, all previous gaidens are now MANDATORY.
-Only one exception: You will still have the ability to skip Merlinus' chapter. However, if you skip his chapter, you will never be able to get merlinus again! The ultimate hard mode!


Final version planned updates: (V1.40)

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-New pegasus knight/wyvern knight tree. Pegasi will have swords and gain staves and lances on promotion. Wyvern Knights will have axes and gain lances on promotion, plus their third tier will have axes/lances and bows at S rank.
-Because of the pegasi/wyvern tweak, all chapters will have to be edited so enemies and players equip the correct weaponry. This will lead to a wholly different experience than any previous chaos mode update and will require a fresh game restart. For that reason, this is the final update.
-Possible addition of str/mag stat differentiator so falcoknights don't bug out when given staves. We'll see.
-Final balance tweaks for characters.
-Fixes for any chapters not completely smoothed out.
-Any final additions recommended by players.


There may be one last hotfix if I forgot any pegasi/wyvern knights when I edit all the chapters. It's pretty likely I will.

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