#I'm tempted to just... completely remake it from scratch as something to keep me occupied

[slumberinglabyrinth]

Blazing Blade Reverse Recruitment was a lot of fun. Overall it was a great way to create a fresh experience using the same resources, but it also being my first go at Hector Mode probably helped with that too.

Stuff like making your second healer (either Priscilla, who replaces Geitz and can be missed because of that, or any promoted mage) come 15 chapters after your first and getting your only thief (Jaffar and Matthew both come promoted) considerably later than usual changes how much you rely on consumable items in the opening half of the game, and getting two fliers (Vaida and Farina) by your third chapter also changes the ways you can approach the earlygame. The two biggest changes to the structure of the game, however, come from Ninian replacing Florina and the Florina that is supposed to be replacing Nils being a bard (that also can wield lances because she copies the unit data from Ninian!Florina); having a dancer earlier in the game opens up new ways to go about the 8 chapters where you’d normally not have one, and having two for Victory or Death and Light completely changes the ways you can approach those chapters.

From a design perspective, I liked how it gave you the chance to use units that usually come late and are (typically) less ‘usable’ than their already trained counterparts. I’ve always found myself preferring lategame characters in terms of personality, etc., but I would rarely use them because by the time I get them they’ve fallen far behind the units that I’ve had all game. In shifting around units, it also changes the weapons you have access to at certain points in the game; the most notable example I can think of is in swapping Matthew and Renault, you get one more runesword than you usually do but at the cost of a fortify staff, forcing you to go into 32x if you want to have fortify for the final chapter but making 32x marginally easier because you now have a runesword from the start of the map.

Despite how much I enjoyed fe7rr, I find it difficult to recommend the current(?) patch because despite being completable it is incredibly buggy. There are some minor things, like sprite pallets during combat animations being messed up, certain cutscenes hanging before continuing, and Karla and Hawkeye (replacing Eliwood and Lyn) being completely unable to seize, forcing you to only be able to do Hector mode (and making you unable to play it on a clean save; luckily starting a new file on a vanilla fe7 save causes no issues beyond locking you out of 19xx and the related Nergal dialogue), but there were some that extend far past minor inconveniences. Additionally, for some reason I haven’t been able to figure out, the patch also included something that made any given level up give the same stat boosts every time (not unlike Fixed Growths mode), which I would have greatly preferred to be able to turn off.

The ones that I personally encountered were, in order:

The pathing for when Lucius (replacing Fiora) enters Chapter 19 can freak out and place him offscreen (where he can’t move back on-screen) or in the ocean, or make him never stop moving, making either him unobtainable or a pain to get, or softlocks the game and forces you to restart the chapter. Solution/Fix: rewinding to right before you end the player phase before he appears seems to produce a different result each time (which doesn’t make sense but I’m not going to complain), and will eventually allow you to progress through the game. As far as I can tell, this doesn’t occur with Guy, who replaces Farina

Promoting while in the base causes the game to restart (as if you pressed A+B+L+R) once the character’s stat-up screen disappears. This will hardlock your save if you save at the start of the chapter where Merlinus will promote, since it occurs immediately upon entering the base in that chapter and cannot be skipped/prevented. Solution/Fix: Load the save in an unpatched copy of FE7, have the promotion play out, and then save the game and reload it in the patched copy.

Athos’ plot promotion will corrupt significant parts of the RAM and depending on how you’re playing the game, the cutscene will softlock and prevent you from progressing. I’ve tested this on every core for bizhawk and none of the will break in a way that allows the game to continue; the current revision of VBA-M should allow you to make it to the next chapter. Solution/Fix: pick a god and pray.

While VBA-M will allow you to make it to the next chapter, the ram remains corrupted and, among other things, will prevent Athos from being used because he has no HP value, make his sprite take up 9 tiles because it’s loading junk data from the map tileset, and looking at his unit info page will prevent you from . Solution/Fix: save once you reach the base, reset the game to clear the RAM, and reload the chapter.

Athos’ plot promotion puts him in the unpromoted Lyn!Lord class. This puts his Mag higher than the cap for the class (making it downgrade to 20 when he levels up), makes him lose all points he obtained in skill, and significantly lowers his HP. Has the added benefit of treating him as an unpromoted unit, which lets him get roughly on level per skirmish, and then lets you promote him into a Blade Lord if you didn’t sell all your heaven seals (granting him access to Bows and, amusingly, the ability to wield the Sol Katti). Solution/Fix: None.

(Vanilla) Karla’s recruitment appears to check not that (vanilla) Bartre is promoted and at level 5 or higher, but rather that his class is a Warrior and is level 5 or higher. Since there is no way to make Karel (who replaces Bartre) into a Warrior without directly hacking your save, this locks you out of obtaining Eliwood (who replaces Karla) and prevents you from using Durandal against the final boss.

Nils!Florina is a bard and can use lances. This shouldn’t happen for reasons that should be self-explanatory. Solution/Fix: None.

Athos cannot wield Forblaze, hindering your damage output against the final boss even further. Probably related to not being in the Archsage class (as the ability to wield Sol Katti is tied to the Blade Lord class); there’s no fix for this without directly hacking your save.

The vast majority of these seem to be the product of GBA FE hacking tools not being anywhere as good 8 years ago. In its current state FE7RR can be completed, but I think you seriously need to weigh how much potentially game-ending bullshit you’re willing to put up with before you decide to try it out.