Fire Emblem: Souls of the Forest
is a ROM hack of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones created by Scraiza. It features a fully custom campaign with a wide variety of original characters, with one of a planned two routes having been playable from start to finish since 2022 and the other currently in development.
The story focuses on the Treuran Empire, a nation on the continent of Norium that has been plagued by banditry for much of its history. The newest empress, Sibyl, has decided to take a stand against these bandits while establishing Treura as a major player on the continent. This includes increasing the number of recruits to the military, as represented by the leads: Beryl, a hunter from the ashlands to the north (named so due to the large volcanoes scattering ash and tinting the grass grey) joining the army to find a purpose in life, and Rakel, his commanding officer.
We start the game with Beryl and a squad of fellow recruits joining Rakel in eradicating a group of bandits known as the Raiders. It soon becomes clear, however, that there are far more sinister forces than bandits at play. Odd dark mages start joining the Raiders' ranks, and once the Raiders' leader is slain a new, mysterious army starts attacking Treurans indiscriminately. When it becomes clear that this army, dubbed the Soulbound, isn't exactly human, the heroes are forced to flee for elsewhere, seeking aid in defeating these Soulbound and the cultists who created them.
Souls of the Forest is perhaps most known for its gameplay. Characters in Souls of the Forest, regardless of difficulty mode, tend to have very, very high stats (specifically in offenses, with at least one defensive stat often being incredibly low by comparison), and as such player character growths increase very, very quickly to keep up. It's not uncommon to have at least one stat capped before level 10, and given how easy to come by Master Seals are, it's not uncommon to have characters promoting incredibly early to take advantage of their promoted caps (in fact, in most recent versions characters don't even have to wait until level 10 to promote). This means that combat is mostly predicated on a combination of class caps, weapon triangle and the weapons themselves, and the variety of weapons available to the player is incredibly high. Knowing how to exploit the tools the player has is often the difference between life and death, leading to an intense, but reasonable experience.
Tropes in Fire Emblem: Souls of the Forest:
- Aerith and Bob: As one might expect from a Fire Emblem title. Some characters have normal names (like Emma and Brandon), others have names that are oddly-spelled but not outlandish on their own (Isayah, Rae), and then some have utterly fantastical names (Nuar, Valysith).
- Affectionate Parody: Steel is a loving spoof of Kelik from The Last Promise. He's a cold, independent, battle-hungry swordsman who insists that he can
handle the weight of his many blades. He even has "His World" from Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) as his leitmotif. - Anti-Frustration Features: More than can be counted. To list a few, thieves can now steal even with full inventories (excess items are sent to the convoy), said convoy has had its capacity increased drastically, the below mentioned Save Points let you pause halfway through and save you from late unit deaths, and if your army falls below a specific threshold, you'll be granted generic replacement units much like the official DS games.
- Armor and Magic Don't Mix: Subverted with the Shade Knight and Eldritch Knight, which replace Shamans and Druids respectively. They're physically bulky, but slow and vulnerable to armor-piercing weaponry.
- Armor-Piercing Attack: The Knife and Meisterdolch, both thief-exclusive weapons, ignore enemy defense.
- Annoying Arrows: Averted, especially compared to some other Fire Emblem titles; bows pack a hell of a punch, with their unparalleled attack range and the highly-offensive stats of most archers.
- Back from the Dead:
- Lada, Fila, Cotan, and Shimo are all resurrected by Faunia after their defeats in Hustia. Unlike their Soulbound army, they're reconstituted as whole people, rather than shambling husks.
- Meshelan is not nearly so lucky. He's resurrected as a Soulbound along with the other soldiers who fell at Marsel, and while he retains enough of his willpower to rejoin his old comrades and fight with them, he's hardly any better off than the enemy Soulbound.
- Background Music Override: Every round of combat Steel engages in will have "His World" playing instead of the usual battle theme. Same goes for Troy, with "Trombe!".
- Badass Family: Aenny's parents, Lanny and Brandon, are veterans of the battlefield, and she's just as capable as they are. Eventually, on Valysith's route, you'll be able to field all of them in battle at once.
- Battle Couple
- Aenny's parents, Brandon and Lanny, are both talented warriors. Once they're reunited on Valysith's route, Brandon can give Aenny a personally-forged Iron Sword that boosts her already considerable combat prowess to an incredible degree.
- As Empress of Treura, Sibyl is equally capable as a leader and a combatant, and her wife, Melanie, is a skilled Eldritch Knight in her own right.
- On the antagonists' side, Lada and Fila are both mages of great power who share a surprisingly tender relationship.
- Big Bad: The ultimate villain is the leader of the evil cult, a woman named Faunia.
- Cast Full of Gay: Various characters are confirmed LGBT+ through dialogue or their endings, with several characters of the same gender ending up together in said endings. The gender-exclusive weapons extend this further by implying gender fluidity in a large chunk of the cast, who seem willing to identify with certain genders especially so they're able to use specific weapons.
- Cosmetic Award: After beating the Prologue, you're given a gem which corresponds to whichever difficulty you beat it on. If you start with a Hard or Lunatic gem and lower the difficulty, the gem will lose apparent value, and raising the difficulty won't increase it back. The gem serves no purpose other than to say what the lowest difficulty setting you were willing to play the game on was.
- Crutch Character: Rakel is a Valkyrie, a promoted class noted for its high utility (thanks to having both staff access and a horse). She starts out as an excellent combatant thanks to enemies having poor magic bulk, but as the game goes on, her Power growth (a pitiful 15%) will eventually become her undoing, and she'll be relegated to a back line healer for a good chunk of the game.
- Cult: The villainous faction responsible for creating the Soulbound is one.
- Dark Is Evil: The vast majority of named cultists you see throughout the game are dark mages, either the physically bulky Shade Knight and Eldritch Knight or the frailer Summoner.
- The Dev Team Thinks of Everything: At the start of Chapter 18 V, Melanie asks Valysith to buy "something nice" for Empress Sibyl. This refers to the shiny stones and flowers that can be bought in the chapter's stores, which boost Sybil's base stats when she joins in the next chapter. If you buy enough to max her out (which takes about ten flowers and fourteen stones)...Melanie: I counted, Valysith. You spent at least two hundred and eighty thousand gold. I don't know why you did that... But I'll have you know Sibyl is very happily married already, hm?
- Difficulty Levels: Notably, this can be changed well after you've already started you save in the game's options. There are also optional modes that can only be chosen at the start which impact difficulty in varying ways (such as increasing or decreasing player or enemy growths, or preventing the player from attacking first).
- Ditto Fighter: As a Freelancer, Chroma can transform into a copy of any other unit in the army, much like Xane could in the original Archanea games. While transformed, they can't use personal weapons, like Beryl's Piercing Bow, but they're not beholden to any class-based weapon restrictions either.
- The Emperor: Sybil is a benevolent, heroic example, though that doesn't prevent her from being utterly unwavering in her convictions, not to mention going to extreme lengths to achieve her goals.
- Heel–Face Turn: In classic Fire Emblem fashion, a number of the game's recruitable characters end up defecting from whichever enemy faction they're originally allied with.
- After his defeat, Rodall can join up with Beryl and Rakel's troop, albeit without his horse.
- Later on in Valysith's route, Lada, Fila, and Cotan all find themselves unable to morally stand beside Faunia as her plans near completion, and lend their aid to Sibyl's army.
- Horse Archer: Beryl can promote into one (in fact, the only one) incredibly early, accentuating his Glass Cannon build even further in the process.
- Magikarp Power: Nuar is an extreme example; she starts out with 0 in every stat (save for HP, of course), but her growths are all over 100%, with most even going over 200%, so she'll catch up quickly if you can give her a few levels.
- Not Using the "Z" Word: The resurrected corpses employed en masse by the dark cult are always referred to as Soulbound, never as zombies.
- Optional Party Member: Several characters are completely missable, either by neglecting to visit certain villages or through more obscure means by failing to wait on specific tiles.
- Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Stats are high all across the board. While tanking is far from impossible, especially with certain weapons like Munio or the Shieldbearer, most characters will give and take massive amounts of damage.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Sibyl is noted for her willingness to actually accomplish things. She's stated to have personally assassinated the previous, highly corrupt emperor herself, and if choosing to stay with Valysith at the route split she'll even join your party... though, granted, she'll need some help before she can catch up to the rest of your team.
- Save Point: In place of the suspend feature, the player must instead reach one of these (inspired by a similar mechanic in the DS Fire Emblem games) in order to save on a map. On the plus side, if a unit dies after you trigger it, you'll only have to go back to that save point instead of restarting the whole map.
- Secret Character: If you've visited every cave that appears throughout the game, Rouweler joins your army on Chapter 21 of Valysith's route.
- Shout-Out: The descriptions for generic tomes slip a few of these in. Lightning is described as a "divine light that pierces your foes", and Shine strikes with "a shining force of great intention", but Nocturne is the most overt, simply reading, "One more god rejected."
- Sidequest: As usual, there are extra chapters that can be unlocked under certain conditions. Unlike how they're normally implemented however, units are unable to gain experience in these maps, meaning your only rewards for completing them are extra items and potentially new units.
- Story Branching: A planned future update will fully implement one after Chapter 16. Currently, Rakel leaves the army permanently after this chapter while Beryl remains with them. In the second route, however, Beryl would instead desert to follow after Rakel.
- Summon Magic: Summoners are an enemy-only class here, specifically associated with the cult.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist: The cult, by all accounts, desires something simple and uncontroversial, a world without conflict or strife. Unfortunately, their means to that end involve killing all of humanity and leaving emotionless husks, the Soulbound, in their place.
- Zombie Apocalypse: A Downplayed example with the Soulbound, who closely resemble the Morphs and Risen of official entries.
