Fire Emblem: The Four Kings
is a Game Mod of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones created by KrashBoomBang. Releasing its first patch in January of 2020 and being fully playable in June, it's one of a recent wave of fully completed ROM hacks that have come about thanks to the advent of FEBuilder making the hacking process more accessible.
Set in the continent of Ibril, the story follows the royal family of the eastern nation of Askia. The king, Terril, sends his brothers Walter and Lionel off on a diplomatic mission to Behanzin, on the opposite end of the map. Despite having hired an entire fleet of mercenaries, Walter angers them enough so that only one, a mysterious thief named Zachary, remains. The group slowly regains their lost mercenaries as they make their trek to Behanzin, the relationship between the two brothers is put to the test, and they're thrust into a war that will leave the continent shaken.
The Four Kings is a heavily player phase-centric game, where enemies have high offenses but mediocre defenses. Every playable unit (with the exception of your bard) has their own personal weapon or weapons to help set them apart from the rest of your army. With other implemented features like replacing suspending and resuming with mid-map savepoints and a concurrent route split, The Four Kings is certainly unique among its fellow ROM hacks.
Tropes in Fire Emblem: The Four Kings:
- Absurdly Spacious Sewer: The Askian black market is hidden within one.
- All Your Base Are Belong to Us: The Askian capital is quickly taken over by rebels after Walter and Lionel's departure, and the latter becomes responsible for reclaiming it. Shown in detail in Terril's trial map as he attempts to escape the coup with his life.
- Anti-Grinding: All maps that throw infinite reinforcements at you have them grant zero experience points if you try to bother fighting them. That being said, nothing's stopping you for grinding for weapon experience.
- All of the game's arenas are located only in timed chapters, preventing them from being used to power level units endlessly.
- Barbarian Tribe: A variety of bandits make up a vast majority of the boss enemies for the first act of the game, spread between various gangs all over Ibril.
- Big Bad: Feran, the High Chancellor of Teodros, who's bent on resurrecting King Teodros I to return the country to its former glory by any means necessary.
- Brutal Bonus Level: The trial maps you unlock at the end of the game are designed to put your abilities to the test. As a reward, they help flesh out various characters, both playable and non-playable.
- Calling Your Attacks: The enemy armies have a bad habit of spelling out their battle strategies and time until reinforcements arrive, often in red text for the player to notice and take advantage of.
- Co-Dragons: All of the major antagonists have two main captains that take direct orders from them. Rhiner has Viper and Ian, Daltry has Jeremy and Sarah, and Feran has Virgil and Dante.
- Cowardly Mooks: Several maps feature thieves (and occasionally other characters) fleeing from your army with valuable goods that you need to steal.
- Crippling Overspecialization: A regular occurrence with the specificity of preferred weapons. These range from an archer who either kills instantly or is killed, a pegasus knight that can only kill mages, a Stone Wall with hopeless offenses, et cetera.
- Rhiner also suffers from this in his boss fight, possessing extreme power and physical defense but being nearly helpless against magic.
- Death of a Thousand Cuts: Short Bows have low might, but can strike twice per round, à la brave weapons. Enemy nomads tend to employ these in bulk.
- Didn't Think This Through: Walter, frequently.
- Failed a Spot Check: The main plot begins when Lionel takes his and Walter's troops into a meeting with a Behanzin king. Despite him being characterized as wise and a perfectionist, along with Walter and Ava strolling through the capital, it takes Zachary snooping around for it to be made clear that the king was overthrown in a violent coup.
- Final Boss: A resurrected King Teodros I, who was driven mad by the Royal Weapons. He gets better after you beat him.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: The main characters receive new portraits upon promotion. Certain instances, such as their death and map escape quotes, ignore this and always depict them with their pre-promotion appearances.
- Get A Hold Of Yourself Man: Zachary to Lionel frequently throughout the latter's route in order to stop him from panicking over every battle.
- Headbutting Heroes: Walter and Lionel constantly bicker with one another throughout their journey to Behanzin. It takes half of Ibril being at stake for them to go through personal journeys that open their eyes to their ridiculousness.
- Heads I Win, Tails You Lose: Regardless of the player's efforts in Chapter 10, the enemy armies will break through into the center of the forest by the end of it. The only difference is that defeating the bosses prevents this from being a game over.
- Helpful Mook: Tim in Chapter 4 will quickly turn to your side once you recruit his fellow guard. He gets Promoted to Playable in one of the trial maps.
- Informed Ability: Lionel's shrewdness and intelligence rarely ever amount to a useful skill, and largely leads to him getting put into precarious situations throughout the game.
- Jungle Warfare: Chapter 15 sees Walter's army engaging in this to cover for a surrounded Ladon.
- Might Makes Right: The nation of Behanzin runs on this. The crown can even be claimed by defeating the current leader in a duel.
- Port Town: Ports Pollux and Castor, which serve as the locations for Chapters 13 and 14.
- Prison Episode: Chapter 8 sees Walter, Ava, and Zachary having to bust everyone else out of the Behanzin prison after they were captured.
- Really 700 Years Old: Feran and Zachary, who turn out to be Remus and Romulus, two of King Teodros I's advisors.
- Save Point: Ala FE11. Many maps feature 2-3 of them.
- Significant Wardrobe Shift: All of the lord characters gain altered clothes and portraits upon unlocking their promotions (sans Terril, who never promotes).
- Status Effects: And they never miss. The enemy frequently has more access to this than you do.
- The Unfought: Feran is killed by the very king he revived, without the player ever getting to directly fight him.
- Timed Mission: A few chapters have turn limits, some stricter than others. Most notably, you have to reach the final boss before he reaches a certain point in the map, which can be made easier by deploying a certain unit.
- Unique Enemy: Ladon's trial map features the game's sole generic enemy Lady Knight, a class otherwise exclusive to Sarah.
- Useless Useful Spell: Occasionally crops up with the preferred weapons:
- Ron's Justice Pike has the bonus of ignoring enemy defenses along with boosted critical hit chances. However, very few enemies have enough defense for it to be more damaging than a generic but strong lance, and the ones that do can be easily destroyed by your plethora of magic-users. Its poor accuracy can also bite you at the worst times.
- The Hurlbat will never miss its target but its user has a very high skill base and growth, making him one of the last units that would need it.
- We Cannot Go On Without You: Not only Walter and Lionel cause a game over when they die. Ava, Zachary, and later Terril also cause the same fates upon their deaths, and are frequently force-deployed throughout the game.
- Many early chapters also hit you with a game over if the chapter's newly recruited units kick the bucket.
