Video Game / Fire Emblem: The Morrow's Golden Country

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Fire Emblem: The Morrow's Golden Country is a ROM Hack of Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones created by Retina, previously the creator of Fire Emblem: Code of the Burger King. The Morrow's Golden Country is completely standalone from his previous work, and instead of a pure comedy it strives to tell a serious story while still building off of the quirky, high-numbers gameplay his previous work is known for.

The story follows Blair, the young heir to House Aercolyn in the Dalstian Alliance. Her father's exile on charges of high treason renders the territory all but powerless, with but a small military to its name and a handful of advisors to rule in her father's place. Determined to restore Aercolyn to its former glory, Blair agrees to do whatever she can for the head nobles of Dalst to prove both her own worth as well as Aercolyn's. She's left to go on errands such as quashing rebellions or fighting off troops from nearby Mevion, but when forces from Yg'stra suddenly arrive and attack her she's forced to go on the run. The consequences of this lead to secrets being uncovered that shake the continent of Ulmaron to its very core.

The Morrow's Golden Country is an ambitious project, featuring several mechanics that are uncommonly seen in ROM hacks, primarily taking inspiration from the Tellius duology of games. Supports (mostly early-game) are primarily gained in a menu on the map preparations screen, numbers are all-around higher than the game it's a modification of, there's a wide assortment of items that boost a character's base stats or growths when held, and there are even segments where the player moves away from Blair's party to follow another, smaller group. Combine this with interlude chapters where the player can walk around a town freely, the presence of Combat Arts as seen in Fire Emblem Echoes and an incredibly diverse cast of characters and The Morrow's Golden Country does a lot to set itself apart from its contemporaries.

Tropes in Fire Emblem: The Morrow's Golden Country:

• Aerith and Bob: Tends to swing more toward the Bob side with its names (Kenneth, Sam, Rachael, Jeff, etc.), though this isn't a hard rule as there's still plenty of odd ones (Sveltzalus, Hyperius, Ptolemy, Elcorian, etc.).
• Ambition Is Evil: Lazarus is a scheming general of Yg'stra who's obsessed with the idea of rising even further through its ranks. Which made him a great Unwitting Pawn for Girard to use for his own ends.
• Armor-Piercing Attack: The Luna combat art functions much like it does as a skill in the official games, ignoring the enemy's defense or resistance depending on which the attacker is targeting.
• Blue Is Heroic: Blair, the lead protagonist, has blue hair. Subverted with the Big Bad, Girard.
• Cast Full of Gay: Any given playable character is more likely than not to be queer in some shape or form. Blair is a lesbian, Zeke has Cassius as a potential love interest, and there's a small handful of non-binary characters, including Viridian, the third Lord.
• Crutch Character: There's a handful, though the game does its best to give you reason to use them later into the game.
  • Arin's combat is very strong early thanks to her strong synergy with the early Levin Sword, though her terrible Strength growth and middling Magic growth mean that those stats will quickly lag behind. That being said, she gains experience more quickly with healing than with fighting, and that combined with her increased level cap, access to lock-picking, stealing, repositioning skills and Rallies means she'll still see use for a long time as a Utility Party Member. And then there's her lategame Apex Valkyrie promotion, which fixes her lacking offenses and makes her incredibly mobile to boot.
  • Desmond is a much more straightforward example, being built similarly to a horseless Paladin. His combat is even better than Arin's, especially if you raise his lance rank enough to use the Brave Lance, though his lack of utility outside of repositioning skills means he'll struggle much more than Arin late in the game. This is, at least, partially remedied by a midgame promotion to Lance Paladin that comes with a personal weapon which buffs nearby allies' attack and accuracy, letting him function well as a Support Party Member for a time.
  • Hyperius is a very high-leveled Sword General who joins during Zeke's chapters in the midgame. His bases are very high for the enemies he's dealing with, he's largely in no danger of dying and access to a Brave Sword means he'll kill just about everything you throw at him. Eventually after the parties unify though, his high base level will become his undoing, preventing him from capping most of his key stats even with his high growths, and the large maps make using Generals just generally difficult. Though he will fall off, he can still see use for a while just based on how high his bases are.
• Difficulty Levels: Normal, Hard and Lunatic. Unlike in the base engine, these can be changed at any point in the options by changing the difficulty option and restarting the map.
• Doomed Protagonist: Viridian cannot and will not survive to the end of their arc, being murdered by Ethyl alongside Chartreuse and all but three of their fellow mercenaries, those three having been sent to scout in the previous camping map.
• Dynamic Difficulty: Each difficulty mode has a slightly different enemy formation, with higher difficulties either adding more enemies, promoting a handful or both. Lunatic also decreases the player's experience gain by 10%, while Normal increases it by 30%.
• Evil All Along: Not just one person: It turns out that the entire higher governing body of Dalst is in on a conspiracy to conduct horrific experiments on people to create an army of Simulacra for the sake of Girard's vision of a utopia. All of this while Blair is none the wiser.
• Giant Mook: Dragons eventually start to appear as enemies around the halfway point. They're big balls of HP that do a lot of damage but are otherwise fairly slow.
• Guide Dang It!: There are various secret units and items that can't be obtained without guesswork or a guide. It wouldn't be a Retina hack without these secrets, after all.
• Healer Signs On Early: Arin joins during the very first chapter with a Heal staff that she can use. Your next healer, Peggy, joins four chapters later.
• Kidnapped for Experimentation: What happens to a lot of people who end up crossing paths with certain researchers from Holanis, namely their leader Nathaniel. It's why Johan looks so sickly when you finally recruit him, and also what made Arin and Horatio the way they are today.
• Magikarp Power: As is standard, sometimes you'll just get a unit who's underleveled and needs some help getting up to snuff.
  • Hilbert is a level 2 mage who joins in Chapter 11 with some rough bases and a low weapon level. He can still be trained well enough thanks to joining in a rather uncomplicated level, and if work is done to patch up his shaky Skill and coin-flip level Magic he can become something of a Lightning Bruiser thanks to his incredibly high Speed and Defense and access to Sol.
  • Secret party member Q is a very silly example. She's a prepromoted Sword Paladin with comically low bases but far and away the highest growth total of any unit. If one chooses to invest in her she'll likely cap out every one of her stats except her HP by the end.
  • The most straightforward example of an Est-archetype unit in this game is Johan. Initially teased in Chapter 3 as a level 8 Lance Cavalier, he doesn't join proper until Chapter 21 with the same bases as he had before. The game does, at least, compensate by giving him incredibly high growths, which while not as absurd as Q's will still be more than enough to help him cap his stats and more than likely surpass his ally Stefan.
  • Parodied with Ian, a young boy who stashes away into your army in Chapter 26. His bases would be bad even for the first chapter, his growths are incredibly average, and he can't even promote.
• Meta Power-Up: The various growth rate boosters that exist to help units patch up specific growths, usually at the cost of reducing others by a small amount. The exception is the Honey Charm, which only grants boosts to the relatively underpowered Skill and Luck stats without any downsides.
• Might Makes Right: Pretty much how Yg'stra operates as a nation, with its emperor being decided by a nationwide combat tournament rather than heritage and other lower positions also requiring immense combat capabilities.
• Named Weapons: Before Horatio joins your army, he asks Zeke to name his personal sword for him.
• Not Using the "Z" Word: The Simulacra are artificial beings usually made using the remains of the deceased. Despite this, they're never once referred to as zombies.
• Official Couple: Joan and Sonia are two late-game prepromotes who come with a high support rank and are portrayed explicitly as a couple, even getting married if they both survive to the end.
• The One Guy: The starting friend group's only male member is Kenneth.
• Pink Girl, Blue Boy: Inverted with the two main Lords. Zeke is male and has pink hair while Blair is female and has blue hair.
• Polyamory: There's a way for Blair to end up involved in a six-person polycule if one obtains five specific supports while avoiding A-ranking any of them at a certain point. Alternatively, she can also form a three-person polycule between herself, Arin, and Yuzu.
• Rocket-Tag Gameplay: Taking a cue from the DS Fire Emblem games, hit rates and damage output are high for both the player and the enemy. Effective weapons will kill most units in one hit, and only bosses can expect to survive two hits from them.
• Rotating Protagonist: Blair is the lead for the most of the game, but for two separate stretches of three and five playable chapters respectively, the player instead controls the parties of Prince Zeke of Elcorian and Viridian of the Viridian Mercenaries.
• Running Gag: Horatio's dialogue frequently references the names of other hacks, sort of like how Owain from Awakening inserts the names of official games into his dialogue.
• Save Point: Imports the DS games' save point system in place of a standard Suspend system. This proves to be helpful on especially large maps which can take a lot of effort to get through.
• Searching for the Lost Relative: Laronde, a boss from Chapter 12, mentions that he's looking for his sister, a girl named Rose. Said sister is a member of Viridian's party later in the game, and if you send her to scout in the Viridian camp map she'll be able to talk to him in Chapter 24 to recruit him more easily than his other methods.
• Superboss: There's a handful of enemies this can apply to.
  • If one refuses to pay Liam upon his return, he can become one that can be defeated for his Infinity +1 Sword.
  • The spirit Ineubrenos in Chapter 24 who is seen upon visiting some ruins in Chapter 24. The main thing making her dangerous is the weapon named after herself, a 24-might bow that can hit up to 7 tiles away. If you can beat her, she'll give you the bow.
  • The most straightforward example is the Blader. He's a Swordmaster that appears in an isolated corner in Chapter 27 if Blair and Zeke both have a sword rank of S by then. He appears with capped stats and a single item, the Big Iron, a heavy blade with massive statboosts. If you're somehow able to defeat him, you'll get to use the Big Iron yourself.
• The Theocracy: Opistia is a theocracy centered around the worship of their similarly-named deity, Opistus. The acting head of the country is Archbishop Vladimir, who is thankfully not too pacifistic to lend aid to Blair's cause.
• Utopia Justifies the Means: The motive for the game's Big Bad, Girard. He oversees and encourages numerous unethical experiments on humans and the creation of the Simulacra, believing that they're the means to creating a perfect future.
• Video Game Stealing: A few units get access to items stealing. Units like Jeff also get access to Mug, which allows him to steal unequipped weapons and staves at the cost of reducing the number of uses they have to exactly five.