Video Game / Elibian Nights

Elibian Nights is a Game Mod of Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, developed by a team led by proficient Fire Emblem hacker Arch. Set in the twenty years between The Blazing Blade and The Binding Blade, it follows events in the lives of numerous characters from both games, fills in unstated gaps in the proceedings of the Time Skip, and wraps up story threads mentioned in The Blazing Blade's epilogue. The game is split into nine "tales", plus several hidden sidequest tales:

• Lost Resolve: While dealing with the death of his mother, Eliwood and the knights of Pherae must fend off a bandit attack on Castle Pherae and its surrounds.
  • Rebuilding Pherae: After the bandits are run out, Merlinus arrives to help coordinate the reconstruction of nearby villages. Some of the royal knights tag along to watch his back, and a good thing too, as the leader of the bandits returns with more men.
• Homecoming: Having abdicated her claim to Caelin, Lyn is travelling back to Sacae to seek to live with the Kutolah tribe, but is interrupted by an attack from the warring Djute tribe.
  • Poisoned by Madness: Prasad, a Kutolah herbalist, turns out to be an orphaned member of the Djute clan with a chip on his shoulder. A Djute sorcerer manipulates Prasad's hatred of Dayan to make him kidnap Lyn, luring Rath and Dayan into a trap. The map, a pitch-dark cave maze of doom, is a homage to Thracia 776's hellish Fog of War maps.
  • Caelin in Turmoil: After returning to Caelin with Lyn, Kent must deal with a rebellion lead by a woman claiming to be the illegitimate granddaughter of Lundgren.
• A Leader's Trials: Unsatisfied with his rule, a triumvirate of Lycian marquesses are seeking to forcefully overthrow Hector's rule as the leader of Lycia.
• The Archsage's Pupil: In furthering his study on morphs to complete Archsage Athos's research, Pent is guided by Renault to the Dread Isle to observe what few morphs still live.
  • Unwanted Visitors: Afterward, Pent and Louise return home to Etruria to look after their growing family. In the middle of a nice dinner with their old friend General Douglas, assassins storm into Pent's mansion.
• Undying Vengeance: Seeking revenge for the destruction of his family and home, Raven leads his friends and family to the Western Isles in pursuit of the men responsible.
• From Demon to Saint: Karel relates to his niece Fir stories from his history as the Sword Demon, and how he came to find purpose in life beyond murder.
• Ilia's Young Commander: On one of his first missions as an Ilian mercenary, Zealot is deployed to a rural patrol outpost with the young tactician Sigune, where military corruption is afoot.
• Ivory Flower of Light: Legault and Jan pursue a trio of former Black Fang members captured by a corrupt Bern noble, and from there work to restore the Fang to its former glory.
• The Beginning: The final tale starring Zephiel, where he and his generals attack the Dragon's Gate.

Technologically-speaking, it's probably the most ambitious Fire Emblem hack there is - it implements numerous features not seen in any of the GBA Fire Emblem games (or indeed, any entry in the series at all) like an achievement system, new victory objectives and numerous new music tracks imported from other Fire Emblem games,^note Note that, while difficult, it's definitely not unheard of in the FE hacking community. in addition to new and imported classes and weapons, minor alterations to gameplay and cosmetic makeovers.

In September of 2019, Elibian Nights was cancelled by Arch, citing a recent wave of overwhelmingly negative and non-constructive feedback. However, every chapter is still playable from start to finish, making the hack effectively complete.

In addition, in May of 2021, Arch declared he was working on the hack once more, seeking to fix various bugs, polish the graphics and add content that wasn’t in the original release. This director’s cut is still in development.

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Elibian Nights contains examples of:

• Ambition Is Evil: Played with by Erik in Hector's tale. He plans to rule all of Lycia one day, but realizes that the coup he's involved with probably won't get him where he wants to be and sides with Hector for the time being.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Most of the cast who aren't Eliwood, Hector or Lyn, but a particular example is Sykes - a throwaway name mentioned in passing in Zealot and Noah's support conversations in The Binding Blade was expanded into a prominent Swordmaster in Zealot's tale.
  • Orun, the marquess of Thria, is mentioned during one chapter of The Binding Blade but never makes an actual appearance in either game. He becomes a playable Great Knight during Hector's tale.
• Bad Boss: The Bolm Mountain Bandits in the Pherae tales have two: Warner who leads the attack on Pherae Castle, and his boss Onslow who wants to rule Pherae as the "king of thieves". Neither one of them care much for how many underlings they throw at a problem.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Raven's tale ends with him either surrendering and being executed by Arcard or fighting to the last man and getting himself killed. Either way, all of his companions live to tell the tale.
• The Cameo:
  • The big example is that Sigurd, Eldigan, and Cuan can be found scattered across the chapters, separated and claiming to have no idea how they ended up in Elibe. Some other characters from the two Elibe games show up in a minor cameo capacity, like Noah (a young boy from a village Karel "saved").
  • Damas, the less-than-bright first boss of The Binding Blade, makes a cameo appearance as a lesser mook in tale 1 if you clear it fast enough. In this game, he's Onslow's son.
• Chivalrous Pervert: Sain, as usual.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Erik, in a rare positive example — as soon as Dawson and Yorick launch their rebellion, he turns on them and sides with Hector despite their differences. The way he figures it, Dawson's plans will shut him out of any chance to rule Lycia, and Laus is better off positioning itself to not face Hector's wrath after the battle is over.
• Civil War: Marquesses Dawson, Yorick, and Erik attempt to pull one on Hector's role as leader of the Lycian League.
• Continuity Porn: Pent's tale contains artifacts of nearly every game in the series, including Eirika's bracelet, the Baldo Scroll, and the Leo orb.
• Cosmetic Award: It implements an achievements system, which doesn't exist in any of the normal games.
• Determinator: Zealot — even after taking a severe leg wound which means he will never fight again, he resolves to teach himself to fight on horseback and be back on the battlefield by the next year.
• Doomed by Canon: Consider where this is set and who most of these characters are. The most prominent example, Canas, is outright acknowledged — Pent's tale has him as a playable character, while Zealot's is set after his death by continuity errors and has his mother Niime playable, who acknowledges Canas's death and that her current actions are because of him.
• Duel Boss: Raven's tale locks him away in a corner of the map for a duel with Elisedd, his parents' killer. An enemy Bishop can heal Elisedd with a Physic staff... but then, so can Priscilla.
• Enemy Mine: In Hector's tale, Erik allies with Hector because he sees the Arc Villain as a threat to his own ambitions.
• Expy: The concept as a whole is an expy of BS Fire Emblem: Akaneia War Chronicles; the concept originated as a direct remake of those games, but that was rendered unnecessary by the announcement that New Mystery of the Emblem would contain remakes of them.
• Fan Sequel: The game is a fan-made midquel taking place between The Binding Blade and The Blazing Blade.
• Framing Device: A pair of travelers were kidnapped to tell stories to a spoiled young prince/princess; they settle on telling him/her several stories about Elibe.
• Friend or Foe?: Prasad mistakes Lyn, Sain, and Kent for a Djute warrior accompanied by two foreign mercenaries, coming to launch a surprise attack on the Kutolah. This prompts Rath to lead a band of warriors to deal with them.
• Funny Background Event: During "Rebuilding Pherae", Wil, Rebecca, and Dan have a long back-and-forth conversation chain/argument about trying to jog Dan's memory from his amnesia (or not). If you play all the conversations before the chapter ends, you get an achievement and an extra scene about Dan/Dart.
• Game-Breaking Bug: Occasionally some pretty debilitating ones crop up. There have been three "final" releases of the former "version" of the hack. The first of the three, intended to be the final one, didn't allow you to progress to Zealot's tale; whenever you tried to select it, it'd just restart the entire game. That error was eventually patched and made Zealot's tale playable... but now when it was completed, it instead kicked you to Chapter 10 of Lyn's tale of the original game, except now glitchy and unplayable. That too was eventually rectified, allowing Legault's tale to be playable... but when it was completed without recruiting a certain character, the game suffered a severe error and practically tore itself apart. Whoops.
• Giant Space Flea from Nowhere: One of the foes Karel recounts killing in his tale is a giant cyclops named Gigais living in the mountains. It's a monster lifted from The Sacred Stones. He exists to be the victim of a Curb-Stomp Battle.
• Go Mad from the Revelation:
  • Prasad's mental state was already dangerously fragile with Wayra manipulating him, and Dayan's explanation and apology for his parents' deaths pushed him off the deep end.
  • Efta does not take the news of his "daddy"'s death well at all.
• Heel–Face Turn: Erik and Sykes.
• Hero Antagonist: Nils, who is the final boss of Zephiel's Tale. If she isn't married to Eliwood, Ninian will also appear as a boss in the same Tale.
• Hero Killer: Along with all the other deaths he's responsible for in Fire Emblem: The Binding Blade, Zephiel adds Nils (and potentially Ninian) to his body count.
• Hopeless Boss Fight: Karel's duel against Kaherdin. It's still possible to win — and you get an achievement for doing so — but the odds are heavily tilted against you. And if you do succeed, it's a Non-Standard Game Over.
• If I Can't Have You…: Sigune attempts to aid Zealot after he is wounded by Tybalt... until he says Juno's name, enraging her and prompting her to just attack him too.
• Interface Screw:
  • Rath's tale uses the same evil type of Fog of War as Thracia 776 — blank one-color fog tiles that make it impossible to see anything under them. Think you can just cheat and use the minimap? It's been disabled. Have fun!
  • As a joke, a minor bug-fixing update replaced the names of all the focal characters with "Vergil", poking fun at several ongoing Fan Translation dramas on Serenes Forest.
• Last Stand: Part 2 of Raven's tale. It ends with him either surrendering and being executed or dying in the battle.
• Lord British Postulate: Played for laughs in Homecoming if you try to kill the real boss of the chapter before his reinforcements appear. Succeed and you'll leave the two storytellers with some 'splainin to do about the sudden crummy ending.
• Marathon Level: Karel's tale is six maps back-to-back, though they are set up more like a Boss Bonanza.
• The Mole: Prasad is actually of the Djute tribe; he's with the Kutolah because he wants revenge on Dayan for killing his parents.
• Nominal Hero: Erik makes it very clear he hates Hector's guts and is only helping him because it serves his own interests.
• Noodle Incident: "Whenever a storyteller tells me a boring story, I just call in the guard. He makes sure they can never bore me again."
• No One Could Survive That!: Ephidel survived his apparent death at the hands of the unleashed dragons. Barely. He looks a little worse for the wear now.
• Nostalgia Level:
  • Rebuilding Pherae takes place in an expanded version of Chapter 1 of The Binding Blade.
  • Caelin in Turmoil combines areas from Chapter 10◊ and Chapter 14/15◊ of The Blazing Blade.
• Oblivious to Love: Zealot doesn't seem to realise that Sigune wants him.
• One-Man Army:
  • Karel.
  • Hector is probably powerful enough to solo the map in his tale, provided he doesn't get swarmed by mages and his equipment doesn't wear out.
• Promoted to Playable: Dorcas's wife, Natalie, has become the royal medic of Pherae in Eliwood's story and is playable in that part.
• Punny Name: The name of the mod is a pun on Arabian Nights.
• Scars Are Forever: Prasad's got quite a vicious one where one of his eyes used to be. One of the unlockable bonus scenes shows where and when that happened. Let's just say Khitan is not as much of a Filler Villain as he appears, and that it's no wonder Prasad suffers from Sanity Slippage.
• Shmuck Bait: Let's see here, the achievement tied to Efta is named after a mythical beast that can kill you by looking it in the eye, it says there's a dangerous foe waiting for you in a tower, and you find this poor little kid locked up by himself in a tower structure. Hmm.
• Spell My Name With An S: Earlier releases use some very non-standard Romanizations of their names and those of locations: Elton, Quinn, Yggdrasil, Chalfie, and Trachia. This is odd since one of Arch's earlier projects was a Game Mod remake of Genealogy of the Holy War, wherein more common Romanizations were used.
• Took a Level in Badass: Gigais comes back in the last fight of Karel's tale to facilitate Karel's Heel Realization, and properly equipped this time.
• The Unfought: Wayra, the Djute sorcerer from the Sacae tales. He sticks around long enough to get owned by Prasad in his delirious rage, but he flees right afterward.
• Weak, but Skilled: In Hector's tale, Erik. Fitting of his typically lame character, he comes unpromoted, at level 20 with sweet equipment and a few stats capped, but is still weaker than even his own AI allies, and most of the other player units. If nothing else, Erik makes a good Stone Wall — but you can avert this if you steal Yorick's Knight Crest and promote him.

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