GBA Fire Emblem: Deity Device (Hack) GBA ROM

[RageBurner]

A massive 3 part hack with all original story and characters using the FE8 engine as a base.

Author(s): Permafrost
Version: 2.0
Date: April 20th, 2024 (assumed, going by date of delisting)
Status: Complete
Source: https://feuniverse.us/t/fe8-removed-by-author/11646/1
(hack delisted by author)

Overview:

I actually know nothing about this hack's plot and inner workings other than it uses the common FEBuilder base most modern hacks use. The FEU thread is a mess and the author both wordy and unhelpful at the same time and I could honesty not gleam any succinct information about what the hack is even about.


RB's Notes: You need all three parts to play the story to completion, and each ROM contains about 10 chapters' worth of gameplay, not counting side quests and side chapters. After reaching a certain point, you'll need to save your game (don't use savestates for this!), then copy that save, rename that save's copy, and then load it with the next ROM in the set.

Example, assuming the ROMs are called DD1, 2 and 3:

DD1.sav is generated as part 1 is played normally, then chapter 10 is reached, save the game in that chapter, and when ready to move to part 2, copy the save, then rename the copy from DD1.sav to DD2.sav and only then start playing part 2.

Additionally, as usual, MGBA is recommended, MyBoy isn't supported (it's not going to support any modern hack of any game, I wager), and if using VBA, for the love of macaroni and cheese, make sure it is actually VBA-M and it is the most recent version (2.1.11).

 

[ootdega]

I fully agree, but some people have weird meltdowns. It's all the more reason I wanted to preserve it. I'm glad an user found it.

That user was me, first comment I made on this site

 

[RageBurner]

I mean...just because they don't think it was perfect doesn't mean they have to DESTROY it.

Man, I hate it when people do that. It's like they're somehow embarrassed about creating something that most people could never even begin to attempt. They have no previous work to show to an emloyer, they have no reference for how they've improved, and now likely nobody will get to experience what they've created ever again. Why??

Even if it was terrible, they could show it to people and go "Yeah, I made this. But now I can make THIS. "

I fully agree, but some people have weird meltdowns. It's all the more reason I wanted to preserve it. I'm glad an user found it.

 

[ootdega]

According to the developer, his vision wouldn't fit a GBA Fire Emblem game. I wonder if this vision became Dark Deity.

I mean...just because they don't think it was perfect doesn't mean they have to DESTROY it.

Man, I hate it when people do that. It's like they're somehow embarrassed about creating something that most people could never even begin to attempt. They have no previous work to show to an emloyer, they have no reference for how they've improved, and now likely nobody will get to experience what they've created ever again. Why??

Even if it was terrible, they could show it to people and go "Yeah, I made this. But now I can make THIS. "

 

[RageBurner]

According to the developer, his vision wouldn't fit a GBA Fire Emblem game. I wonder if this vision became Dark Deity.

 

[ootdega]

One last post now that I've finished the game. A review that's as short as I can manage, and a set of strongly recommended advice.

Spoiler: Story

Starts off slow, but becomes extremely compelling with very strong plot themes. You have domestic abuse, sacrifice, self-sacrifice, forgiveness, self-forgiveness, tragedy, crimes against humanity, manipulation, betrayal, separation through ideals, crises of faith, crises of duty, the question of personhood, self-actualization, mercy, it's all here and it's done very well.

There are a few spelling and grammar errors, and a couple lines that seem like the dev just...forgot to cut them, but they are minor and infrequent.

Spoiler: Gameplay

This is the most difficult RPG I have ever completed by a significant margin. Dark Souls, vanilla Persona 4 Expert, Elona, Darkest Dungeon, none of these hold a candle to this unholy monstrosity.

...Let me give you an example. By chapter 25, almost every single one of my units had 40 levels on them, and were maxed out on almost all stats. In any other game, every one of them would make the final boss look like an absolute joke based on stats alone, and that's not even getting into the downright ridiculous skills and weapons that nearly every unit has.

We're talking Galeforce on multiple units (one of which has guaranteed criticals and Astra with unlimited spells), Killing Machine, Provoke, Impale, nuke spells with 1-10 range on a unit with pre-emptive casting, if you can think of any combination that would create an unholy crime against god, this game has a better version.

...Despite this, Chapter 27 was very close to outright unwinnable without extreme sacrifices. The precision and planning had to be meticulous down to every last detail, and I had to know exactly how the AI worked. But even then, I STILL had to bank it all on a single 67 dodge. It was absolute hell. The TWO bosses at the end were barely a footnote compared to the rest of the map.

I had Cecily wiped out in one turn on Chapter 28 despite having 151 Evade.

You are in for a WILD FUCKING RIDE, friend.

Spoiler: In case you were wondering

Yes, Midge still literally one-shotted the final boss of the story. I told you I was not exaggerating.

Spoiler: Advice

- There are some visual glitches peppered throughout the code. They are harmless, you'll get used to it.

- Max out Walter's Skill and Magic. This is non-negotiable. Several chapters are outright impossible without him. Cecily is also very difficult to level without Stone, and I don't even want to know what happens if you don't Silence Midge.

- Do not ever break Lucy's Stiletto. Several bosses are nearly invincible without it. Max out her Strength. Abuse the RNG as much as you need to in order to accomplish this. I didn't need to, but her growth in that stat is low, so I got stupid lucky.

- The .zip contains a comprehensive guide on the entire game. It misses a few stealable items, but it is 99.999% complete. Skip to the end and look at the pairings for the final chapter, and plan your Support levels accordingly. Several endings and Orville's ultimate spell are missable if you do not. (He really, REALLY doesn't fucking need it, but at that point you're basically on a victory lap, so why the fuck not, right? Besides, poor Cecily misses out on her best ending if you don't. I didn't). There is no New Game+. Completing the Finale chapter just restarts it, so you only get one chance.

- There is one map that can technically be made unwinnable if Olga, Ivan, and Bertram are not up to snuff, or if you empty their inventory before they temporarily leave the party. There is no reason not to at least keep their exclusive weapons on them, but if you space out on that, you're done. RIP.

- There is no shame whatsoever in abusing the AI to power level. As I said in a previous post, the game REQUIRES you to do this. Especially with the units that start at level 1, which include the two most broken ones. Chapter 9 is likely impossible without a stacked party of units that were promoted at level 20. The start of Chapter 9 is a direct and brutal vibe check.

- You MUST be as aggressive as possible to survive. Letting units come to you is not an option until you have strong control of the map. You need to genocide as many units as possible as quickly as you feasibly can, or you will be overrun and completely stomped. Especially since the game LOVES to abuse mounted magic units with busted spells. And that is without mentioning the permanently missable spells in chapters with a time limit.

- On that note, do not miss any Chapters. They give you things you REALLY want.

- Vesta can tank. Yes, you can use your fucking Dancer as a dodge tank, and she draws aggro almost as well as Harold. Don't get too greedy, but don't be afraid to use her as a decoy. You're gonna have to a few times. She will max out Resistance quickly, so she has nothing to fear from most magic users.

- In order to clear the whole map in Chapter 16x, you will have to trap the boss in a room with an unarmed decoy blocking the door. Believe me...doing this is going to be hard to watch. But you absolutely need the XP. Never forgive. Never forget.

I don't know why the dev purged this, because it's really worth playing. Not something I'm gonna forget anytime soon.

My money is on harassment, if I had to guess. There are a few things in here that would trigger the League of Unsupervised Minors.

 

[ootdega]

Welp, you get the last party member in Chapter 27x.

I'm gonna put a review of them all here for anyone who decides to play this. These are just how mine ended up. A few of mine have unusually high stats in some areas.

Spoiler: Unit review list, in order of recruitment

Calista: 9/10
Somewhat frail, but she is a walking nuke from the very start and only gets more terrifying as the game continues.

Arachne: 7/10
Meant to be a tank, but not as tanky as you would hope. The game wants you to Nosferatu Tank with her, but the spell is 1 range. She is situational and take some finesse to use effectively.

Helen: 8/10
Mounted light magic user, pure offense. Ends up being highly accurate and hard to hit with a high critical rate. Also cute.

Jake: 1/10
Pre-promoted with garbage stats and terrible growths, and you permanently lose him not even halfway through the game. He exists solely to steal your early game XP. By Chapter 9, he was so outclassed it was actually hilarious.

Luke: 10/10
Healer that turns into a magic user. Ends up very powerful and near-impossible to kill. Powerful torches. Eventually gets access to the Hammerne spell, which you will NEED to abuse.

Olga: 7/10
Solid Pegasus Knight. A tiny bit situational, but she's a welcome addition. You'll regret it later if you neglect her.

Ivan: 7/10
Fast, beefy powerhouse. Unfortunately, due to the number of mounted units you get, the size of a lot fo the maps, and the sheer number of enemies, he ends up somewhat situational.

Lucy: 9/10
Ends up quite lethal and VERY hard to kill with extremely useful exclusive weapons. Don't bother buying knives. Mandatory for the vast majority of locks, and you will NEED what's behind them. Held back by movement. Also cute.

Glenn: Do not/10
Pretend he does not exist. You lose him permanently, and you will hate yourself for trying to level him, especially since his XP rate is pitiful.

Victor: 7/10
Somewhat above average Paladin. Very weak to magic. Extra point becuse he gets an exclusive Brave Lance early on, the only one in the game.

Bertram: 8/10
Exemplary swordfighter who promotes into a unique and very solid class. Also gets access to a hilariously busted weapon, just like his sister.

Vincent: 9/10
Your best archer by a very wide margin. Gets immediate and exclusive access to excellent bows. Pairs very well with Lucy. He can use swords and lances after promotion, but he'll never have the space to carry any.

Gregory: 8/10
Useful spell coverage, very fast and magic resistant. Mandatory for getting access to Midge.

Cosette: 10/10
Becomes a comically powerful mage. Quite hard to hit. Kryptonite for enemy mages. Also very cute.

Orville: 10/10
Once he promotes, he immediately puts the rest of your units to shame. Raise him to 20 as soon as you can and then backline him until he is promoted.

Nathan: 9/10
Next to useless at first, eventually becomes a support class with a missile launcher. Barrier is supremely useful the entire time, however. Shamelessly spam it.

Carson: 9/10
Next to useless at first, eventually becomes a walking heavy machine gun with infinite ammo that is virtually impossible to hit.

Vesta: WHAT/10
A dancer that can not only heal, but gets a free turn to do it, and the healing spell is fucking PHYSIC. She gets FORTIFY later on. The sad part is this level of utility is actually necessary for the ridiculous difficulty of this campaign.

Lailah: 8/10
Very useful tank early on. Gets good coverage for spells, hits hard. Speed is unfortunately capped at 24. Don't let her get swamped by mages.

Walter: 9/10
Remarkably useful debilitative status effect unit. He can cause every affliction except poison, from a massive distance. You will be very glad you leveled him. Gets access to axes once he promotes. This is in no way helpful, but the animation is neat.

Adelle: Active liability/10
Swordfighter with Astra, in a game with few free weapons and very limited funds. Nowhere near strong enough to make up for it in any area. Luke eventually gets the Hammerne spell, but by that point she would have easily been able to break a dozen swords.

Harold: 10/10
Heavy armored unit with Provoke. This instantly makes him god-tier. He will be very unsuitable for a lot of maps, but when you really need him, he is a godsend. Half the time I have used him, he has had nothing in his inventory. This was to use him solely to stand there and let the enemy uselessly hover around him and break their weapons on him, while units I was trying to level picked them off one at a time. He will reach max level this way by sheer coincidence.

Max: 5/10
Completely average Wyvern Rider. Zero bells, zero whistles. Definitely a better choice to promote than Adelle, but there is a solid probability you will forget he exists.

Midge: LMAO/10
Hilariously powerful beyond all sanity and reason. Sure, she is frail, but absolutely fucking nothing will survive a direct hit from her, and that is not an exaggeration. There is a reason she is very complicated to recruit. Also very cute.

Geneveive: 8/10
Extremely helpful movement utility, with absurdly high defense. After promotion, she gets the Black Hole spell. Problem: This spell has a weight of 20. Geneveive has a Constitution of 5.

Cecily: NUCLEAR DEATH LOLI/10
Makes Midge look quaint. Her Defense is quite low. This fact is irrelevant. The map to recruit her is very difficult to reach, for EXTREMELY good reason. Also very cute.

 

[ootdega]

Chapter 15 was absolute madness. 12 turns to do a LOT of things, including permanently missable spells, and starts with fifteen mounted units you have to break through to start doing them. Spawns 7 Cavaliers that chase you down on multiple turns, and they get progressively stronger. There were literally 30 enemy units on the map at multiple points. Thank god they give you a bridge. But that doesn't help with the 8 units that spawn BEHIND you several times. I was literally using my DANCER as a tank for those.

Your (almost entirely fresh) units are not very strong at this point. The one map you could use to grind XP has seven level 20 promoted flying units spawn at the top of the VERY SMALL map on like turn 10.

Chapter 15x was bullshit. You have to fight three of your own units with one of your other units. Yes, with the stats they currently have. And they gave one of them a Brave Lance. There is a reason you have the option to leave the map and skip it. It was (barely) doable in my case, and you get probably the most powerful spell in the game for doing it.

Chapter 16 isn't that bad except it can easily trick you into breaking all your weapons on respawning zombies for XP, which would make Chapter 16x a LOT harder.




...And Chapter 16x is genuinely one of the most absolutely horrifying things I've ever played. I am not going to spoil it. I am backing up this save just for this chapter.

 

[ootdega]

There is one called Celestaris which has fox girls. I suppose that's close enough

They don't have ears or anything in the battle sprites. Disappointed. What's the point if you can't watch them during gameplay? Dammit.


Okay, so this one does, in fact, have a high concentration of very cute girls.

Story so far gets a 7.5/10. Glenn is an asshole.

Dialogue in general gets a 6.5/10. Very, very little emotive punctuation. Many support conversations are very short.

Custom animations get a 7/10. Passable, but lazy in some places.

Mechanics get a 7/10. Not thrilling, but legible and engaging enough.

Balancing gets a 3/10. Holy shit. I abused the boss in Chapter 4 to power level everyone up to around level 15. Did it again for new units in chapter 7. I thought I was being cheeky and exploiting the system.

...No, it turns out this is necessary. If you don't do this, then by Chapter 9, you will be absolutely, completely, and royally fucked. By the end of Chapter 9, I had every unit promoted from level 20, and it was still a brutal slog. Jesus Christ. The number of kills in that chapter unironically started to approach 100 by the end. There are SO MANY DUDES. You have FIFTEEN of them bumrushing you from the start of turn 1. INCLUDING A BOSS.

At first it doesn't seem that bad. But after every objective, TWENTY more dudes spawn. Most of them are promoted. It is NUTS.


Lucy best girl.

 

[Erik Óptero]

Ok, MGBA for PC but for Android what emu? x'd?

 

[RageBurner]

I have Deity Device ,. Anyone have Saint Blood (sequel of deity device ) ?? ..

Saint Blood is incomplete, unlike Deity Device. it would probably be even more difficult to find.

 

[K2Z626]

I have Deity Device ,. Anyone have Saint Blood (sequel of deity device ) ?? ..

 

[thelazyperson]

Ayyyy, you got em.

It appears there are cute anime girls in this one. This means I will play it.

Still haven't seen one with any catgirls. But I can dream.

There is one called Celestaris which has fox girls. I suppose that's close enough

Post automatically merged: May 14, 2025

Ayyyy, you got em.

It appears there are cute anime girls in this one. This means I will play it.

Still haven't seen one with any catgirls. But I can dream.

There is one called Celestaris which has fox girls. I suppose that's close enough

 

[RageBurner]

It's mostly that the author failed to provide a good summary of the hack itself on the original thread. Apparently the plot is pretty involved and such, but the hack is considered lost media in general.

 

[SpaceCadetGenocide]

I appreciate the onslaught of FE romhacks, this one seems like quite a mess based off the description

 

[RageBurner]

Ayyyy, you got em.

It appears there are cute anime girls in this one. This means I will play it.

Still haven't seen one with catgirls. But I can dream.

Everything I need FE wise is Camila, haha.

 

[ootdega]

Ayyyy, you got em.

It appears there are cute anime girls in this one. This means I will play it.

Still haven't seen one with any catgirls. But I can dream.

 

[RageBurner]

How many fire emblem hacks are thre? I'm tired boss.

It never ends. Moreso with the dubious quality of official releases.

 

[FR4M3]

How many fire emblem hacks are thre? I'm tired boss.

 

[RageBurner]

No problem, this space is for questions about the hack (though keep in mind I won't be able to respond gameplay questions). I'll append the relevant documentation later.

Edit: documentation appended. Note that the readme explains the game's mechanics, the guide contains spoilers; they are separate documents.

 

[wildrunner1978]

Please read the description.

I sped through to the D/L links without actually reading the description... I should've known better. Thank you for your quick reply.

 

[RageBurner]

What's up with the three parts? Do I need all three to play the game or is it like old PS-1 games with multiple discs?

Please read the description.

 

[wildrunner1978]

What's up with the three parts? Do I need all three to play the game or is it like old PS-1 games with multiple discs?

 

[Pessoa]

I thought this hack was lost media.