The Morrrow's Golden Country - My Game of the Year

Hi everybody! I've just come off of playing a good amount of this game, and I just completed one of the parts of the story. I'm going to talk about it later, because I need to vent and it feels so heavy. First, I need to talk about what this game is, and why you should play it.

What is this game?

The Morrow's Golden Country (TMGC) is a strategy RPG that runs in the engine of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. It is a Fire Emblem romhack, but it has so much going for it, to the point where I think it doesn't only set a standard for romhacking, but a standard for Fire Emblem and SRPGs as a whole.

Background, Plot Outline, and Worldbuilding

You play as Blair, a young lord (I can hear you all groaning, hear me out) from Aercolyn, a territory within Dalst. Dalst is run by an alliance of lords, one of which was Blair's father. He was charged with treason and exiled, for reasons unknown. Blair is now put in a position where she wants to restore the place her family once held in Dalst. She's kind of just being pushed around and used as a tool though. Her closest friend and self-taught tactician, Arin, says as much, although Blair continues on with her actions.

Without any heavy spoilers, the game starts out with a seemingly simple (although very well-done) plot. Blair has to re-gain the trust of Dalst, but an evil empire (Yg'stra) seems like it's planning to conquer the continent. It's then up to Blair and friends to stop it. That whole plotline feels like a whole game, and while it's well done, it isn't the masterpiece others had made it out to be. YET. Why yet? Because that's only the first 1/4th of the game, give or take a few decimal points. The game goes deep into a conspiracy, with many twists and turns that are well executed, leaving me feeling like this story was well written, and at times leaving me absolutely devastated. I go over what completely wrecks me later, but that's basically what the plot is.

To motivate you all further, I feel like I need to emphasize. This is not a story among lords. The main character is a lord, and some of the other characters are as well, but this is a story of the whole world. There are rebellions, nations with differing political structures, political conflict, as well as physical conflict. The worldbuilding is very well done, and the world feels lived in rather than being a place for lords to mess around. The weight of the actions the ruling classes take is felt. The people who are exploited and impoverished are shown, and the high rate of banditry that is present in so many of the Fire Emblem games is addressed, and many, if not most of the criminals, are humanized, showing their desperation. To motivate you all again, and without heavy spoilers, many battles will occur before you truly realize who you were fighting. Many times, opposing armies' motivations will be revealed, leaving you with a feeling of understanding, or even outright horror at what you have just done. It's a great story, with well-written characters, even beyond FE standards. If this game was released on it's own, without the context of Fire Emblem or the FE label back in like 2005, it would likely be remembered as a standout in the genre, if not a classic GBA title (or a hidden relic that wasn't very popular, you get my point I hope).

New Mechanics, Gameplay, Etc.

TMGC introduces many new mechanics that weren't in the original FE GBA games. These make it feel fresh and unique. There are many new items that players can use to boost the growths of their characters, rather than just stat upgrades, for example. However, this is just the start of the changes.

TMGC adds a base area, similar to that of Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn. It's like a buffed level prep area. Support conversations are managed here, and are managed chronologically based on the level, rather than with points earned through combat. This means that even characters who are permanently benched can be used in supports. This is a really great change, one that really adds to the quality of the game.

TMGC also adds save points in the maps, areas where characters can use free turns to save progress. Rather than starting a whole map over again, save points can be used to continue battle where you left off. This does eliminate the original resume function, but some of these maps are on a massive scale, so it was a really nice change. It also allows for resets if you make a stupid mistake, in a way that isn't as punishing as a full reset (but can be), but not as overpowered as something like Mila's Turnwheel or Divine Pulse (undo actions).

TMGC also adds a robust support system, and many characters have supports with each other. It's locked to five supports per character, I'm guessing due to hardware limitations, but for many characters it's enough. These are good support conversations that can not only flesh out characters or be entertaining, but change how the game is played. Supporting the troubador Avan with Blair for example will allow Avan to use Anima Magic, something that couldn't be done without the support. There are many other examples of this, and it allows for different character builds based on the support chains chosen, meaning the game gets even more replayable. I do think some characters could do with more support slots, like Arin or Blair, but again, I think it has to do with the ROM limitations. Additionally, supports chains are locked in once they are started, meaning that once all 5 slots are full, no more support chains can be started, even if the characters in those supports die.

It adds so much more, so much in fact that I can't really go over it here. Individual weapons, so many unique spells, unique battle animations and classes, it's all so great, and you should really just check out TMGC for yourselves.

Horatio

Oh my gosh I love Horatio so much. He has to be the prophet of Fire Emblem, the messiah himself. He gets his own theme song, for Opistus's sake! He gets his own weapon, that YOU get to name. Do it for him.

That thing that hit me really hard. Story spoilers, of course, but if you aren't going to play or you don't care too much about the story, I would appreciate the read.

There's a section of the game that focuses on the Viridian Mercenaries, a group of commoners that take jobs in order to survive. They're a lovely bunch, and they're all great characters that you can get really attached to. You can see their relationships, see how noble they truly are, how they wish to serve the common folk as they make their living. You get to meet their families, see those who have made the company their found family. And then you get to see it all get taken away.

Before the final battle of their part, you have to choose three people to go on a scouting mission. It's risky, and it's insinuated that those you send will die. You have to pick three of these people you have grown attached to, and send them to their deaths. That isn't even the worst of it. The battle is a survival mission, where you fight the army of nobles who see you as a nuisance and nothing more. The whole time, they talk as if you mean nothing. In the end, you do. They excitedly talk about testing out their new magic in order to try to defeat you, and it's once you complete the survive mission that it's revealed: you're all going to die here. The mission dissapears, and none take it's place. Hordes of strong enemies start appearing in order to decimate your team. If you somehow survive, mages come out that have 100% hit chance and do 300 damage per hit. The magic they use is really long range. They essentially summon magic missiles that kill your team, one by one, as you watch their death quotes appear on screen and the death music play. Before this point, death was something avoidable, and you now have to watch them all, some of them caring for each other in their last moments, as you realize the three you sent on the scouting mission would be the ones to survive.

There are two child units available in this part of the story. I brought both of them into that battle. There's a unit you need for one of the good endings that I had already messed up. I brought her into that battle. The main character and their partner, who had recently been realized as such, both got sent into that battle (although the MC had to). It wrecked me, on top of a few things that happened before. I haven't played the game since, and I started writing all of this soon after.

Before I wrap things up, I want to talk about homosexual and polyamorous representation in this game, but there are going to be spoilers involving the characters. You have been warned

Polyamory in my vidja game? I messed up this ending, and I'm sad that I have to wait until I replay the game.

Blair, the main character, has a poly ending with 5 of her companions. In order to do this, you have to support Blair with her 5 companions, and only those five. There's one more step that I don't know, and it's so hard to find this information, but I'm sure it's on the FEUniverse post somewhere**. Either way, the partners are Arin, Natasha, Avan, Yuyu, and Estelle, in case any of you wanted to go for that ending specifically. Yes, Blair is specifically a Lesbian as well, but I'm not sure about some of the other characters in the polycule. Still sad that I messed this ending up.

Also, a tip to remember, especially if you didn't read the thing that hit me really hard. Send Estelle to scout when that becomes an option. You'll thank me later.

**Edit: I found it out. Avoid A ranking any of the potential partners. That will unlock the ending.

That's all I've got for now, I'm tired and I just whipped up this post in about an hour. I know I've said a lot of this same stuff for another rom hack I went over, Sacred Echoes, but this really is the best FE game I have ever played. It beats Sacred Echoes. To put things into perspective, Sacred Echoes is a great Fire Emblem game, and it's really well made and I still recommend it. However, TMGC sets a whole new standard for Fire Emblem, and is a great game, PERIOD. The story is great, obliterating the typical Fire Emblem standards (even Sacred Echoes), and the characters are great, going beyond Fire Emblem and just being good characters. They beat Sacred Echoes as well, although the cast of Echoes holds a special place for me. TMGC is just on another level entirely, and I don't know if another romhacker, including myself, or even Intelligent Systems themselves, will ever be able to create a better game.

If you want to play TMGC, you must first download the link here. You must then obtain a copy of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones and apply the patch to the rom using this rom patcher. It's a GBA game, so MGBA will run it with few hiccups. I hope you all enjoy this game as much as I have!

Here's the original post where the game was shared. Might contain information to help you and answer questions you may have.

This post was a long time coming...