GBA Fire Emblem: Illuminated (Hack) GBA ROM

[RageBurner]

A fully fledged original adventure utilizing FE8 as a base.

Credits: Sokaballa
Version: 1.0.1
Date: 22nd of April, 2025

Fire Emblem: Illuminated is a FE8 romhack that has been in development for over 6 years. The game spans 44 chapters and nearly everything about the game is custom, including story, maps, characters, weapons, music, and much, much more. Follow Jay as he travels around the war-ravaged continent of Ralspar searching for both his place and purpose in the world… While also running from his fate!


Overview:

• A brand new story (with a serious tone) set in a new continent, Ralspar. Everything in this story is entirely custom!
• 31 Mainline Gameplay Chapters, 5 Shop Chapters, 6 Interludes, 1 “War” Chapter, and 1 Unique “Gaiden” Chapter for a total of 44 chapters. Each chapter is entirely custom!
• New maps for each chapter that increase in complexity throughout the hack. Varied objectives in each chapter that also increase in complexity!
• Higher difficulty than Sacred Stones. There are three difficulties, however, and the player is able to swap between the difficulty levels at the beginning of each chapter by holding the Select button while the chapter title is playing.
• Plenty of custom classes, weapons, weapon icons, battle animations, and much, much more!
• The Skill stat is actually relevant! Each point of skill adds 4 to Hit and weapons have been adjusted for this change. It is now exciting when units level their skill stat!
• The Luck stat has been made more relevant as well! Every point of Luck now adds 1 point of Crit while attacking and 2 Points of Crit Avoid while defending.
• Custom UI for pretty much every menu!
• More unique/effective weapons to increase weapon diversity. Increased number of magical tomes for each magic type.
• A lot of custom music from famous games including Mega Man, Final Fantasy, SNES classics, and more!
• Quality of life hacks (Showing HP Bar, Show health to be healed, fast text and unit movement as a default).
• Circles Skill System. Each character in the game comes with several skills that can swing the tide of battle. There are several new skills and most skills have been altered numerically in one way or another from vanilla FE8 skillsystems. Note that enemy units will never get proc skills and that skills are balanced heavily across characters and classes.
• Most every chapter has some form of making you work efficiently and most chapters are finished within 15 turns. It is fairly guaranteed that if the player spends too long in a chapter, they could end up paying for it!
• This hack is designed to have a small roster and nearly every chapter has full deployment. There are only 16 characters that are recruit-able in the normal version of the hack. Because of the small roster, every character is valuable to the player and must be taken care of. It’s also why no unit can promote until after Level 15.
• A casual/classic split that is actually divided into three modes. There are the typical casual and classic modes, but in between is a mode called Casual Punish. In this mode, units who fall return the next chapter with a 25% Max HP reduction that is permanent. This is a way of making the game a bit more iron man friendly, given the point above.
• Plenty of secrets along the game!
• There is a fully fleshed out NG+ that is available after the game is completed the first time. This mode will allow you some features that change the base Illuminated experience a great deal and offer replay-ability.
• Timed Hits are in Illuminated! With this system, pressing the A button just before an outgoing attack lands will deal bonus damage. Just as well, pressing the A button just before being struck by an incoming attack will negate some damage. This system is NOT necessary to interact with in order to complete the game and is entirely supplemental. Illuminated was already balanced around not having this feature, so this is just a very fun and new way to interact with the game. Bonus/Reduced damage cannot happen with battle animations set to off either, so if you do not feel like using it, don’t bother!
• An in-game guide detailing the changes from the vanilla FE8 experience.

 

[RageBurner]

The writing is... sometimes bad. Characters are basically bipolar, and characterization is kind of poor. But hey, it's a fan project, and it's good enough.

Anyone can write, but very few can actually write well, that's the reality, yes.

 

[soosh]

Woof. I've been having a good time with this hack, up until Chapter 9.

First, the good parts:

• The active combat is fun! I don't skip animations now. It's more fun to watch each enemy and time your hit. You have to remember how quickly certain classes hit or how long a spell animation plays before striking.
• The new classes are cool with good spritework
• The writing is... for the most part, okay. Interesting premise and the main story beats, so far, are believable.
• I'm enjoying it overall

The caveats:

• The writing is... sometimes bad. Characters are basically bipolar, and characterization is kind of poor. But hey, it's a fan project, and it's good enough.
• The music is just random remixed Nintendo music. It's transcribed well. Some of the song choices fit really well. But sometimes it's a bit distracting to hear the Ocarina of Time main theme in a village, or hear Star Wolf's theme when you're under attack.
• Over-reliance on reinforcements (especially those spawning behind you).
• Chapter 9. I hate Chapter 9. The game gives you 15 turns with the objective of reaching 2 forts. Well, after you reach both forts, suddenly you have a new objective, to talk to somebody in the middle of the map. This would be fine, since the Status screen says ahead of time that you have to visit 2 forts and talk to somebody, if it weren't for two things: first, the game does not give you any additional turns to do this, and second, the game does not tell you that only your two Lords can talk to the guy. So... yay, time to restart the chapter.

 

[pitch_a]

Hello there,

would be possible to add two Fire Emblem GBA hacks, which are remakes of the first 2 games:

1. Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon (FE 1 Remake: Shadow Dragon Remaster)
2. Fire Emblem Sacred Echoes (FE 2 Remake: Shadows of Valentia Demake)

Wow, that was fast! Thank you very much guys for your incredible job

 

[RageBurner]

There are several fanmade hacks for FE that makes me wonder the potential of what could be if the later gen games where easier to mod

This one looks like it will be fun like Cerulean Crescent, The Sacred Trilogy, Code of the Black Knights, Dream of Five and Sacred Echoes

Yeah, though I personally think the visual style of the 3DS games is actually worse despite ostensibly being more advanced.

The only mod I remember is one rewriting the nothingburger plot of FE Fates, though I have no idea if it was ever finished.

 

[Zeo]

There are several fanmade hacks for FE that makes me wonder the potential of what could be if the later gen games where easier to mod

This one looks like it will be fun like Cerulean Crescent, The Sacred Trilogy, Code of the Black Knights, Dream of Five and Sacred Echoes

 

[RageBurner]

I fully intend to bring in more hacks of note, so stay tuned.

 

[AccordTheGynoid]

Lovin all the fire emblem love

 

[RageBurner]

Hello there,

would be possible to add two Fire Emblem GBA hacks, which are remakes of the first 2 games:

1. Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon (FE 1 Remake: Shadow Dragon Remaster)
2. Fire Emblem Sacred Echoes (FE 2 Remake: Shadows of Valentia Demake)

I've been thinking about it, actually. These remakes are amazing (and much better than the officially available versions, IMO).

 

[pitch_a]

Hello there,

would be possible to add two Fire Emblem GBA hacks, which are remakes of the first 2 games:

1. Fire Emblem Shadow Dragon (FE 1 Remake: Shadow Dragon Remaster)
2. Fire Emblem Sacred Echoes (FE 2 Remake: Shadows of Valentia Demake)

 

[FR4M3]

Incredible.