Fire Emblem Gaiden

Fire Emblem Gaiden
Developer: Intelligent Systems Publisher: Nintendo Platform: NES Released in JP: March 14, 1992 This game has unused areas. This game has unused playable characters. This game has unused enemies. This game has unused graphics. This game has unused items. This game has unused text. This game has a hidden sound test. This game has a prerelease article

Fire Emblem Gaiden is the second game in the series and the only other one for the original Famicom. While set after the events of the first game, it is not a continuation of Marth's adventures (hence the Gaiden titling), but instead focuses around two new protagonists, Alm and Celica (each leading their own army), as they seek to bring peace to the continent of Valentia, a land divided by a war between two deities. The game adds an exploration aspect that brings it closer to more conventional RPGs, as opposed to being just a series of battles (an approach very similar to Shining Force, which was coincidentally released in Japan a week later).

It would later be remade for the Nintendo 3DS as Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia, this time getting an international release.

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Prerelease Info

Unused Characters

Gaiden has no shortage of characters that go unused. These unused characters are at varying levels of completion.

Alm-Forsyth

To do: Hack him into the game properly and check for data such as death quotes and endings.

The character found at ID 18 is the most complete of this vast assortment of unused characters. Though his name (フォルス) is an identical copy of Forsyth's and his portrait is simply Alm's, the rest of his data is unique and not used by any other character. He would have joined the army as a level 5 Paladin, carrying no special equipment.

	HP	Str	Skl	Spd	Luck	Def	Res
Base stats	32	12	6	9	3	7	5
Growth rates	50%	15%	25%	15%	10%	30%	0%

Clive's Clone

Adjacent to the used (クレーベ) Clive is this duplicate of him at ID 0B. This duplicate is almost completely identical to the original.

	HP	Str	Skl	Spd	Luck	Def	Res
Base stats	26	12	7	7	6	7	0
Growth rates	40%	20%	20%	20%	20%	20%	0%

In identical fashion to the used Clive, he joins as a level 6 Cavalier wielding a Steel Lance. The only discrepancy that can be found is in their resistance stats: this clone has absolutely zero Resistance, while the used version has a single point of it.

Other Playable/Neutral Characters

To do: Add the offsets for each of the name strings, unpointed-to strings especially.

ID	Name	Translation	Notes
24	おんな	Girl	While this name label is used when talking to the woman who promotes Celica in Grieth's Fort, this ID has Alm's promoted portrait attached to it for some reason, which can never be seen as there is no data left for this character as a unit.
25	おとこ	Boy	This name label never gets used. Celica's promoted portrait is associated with this unit slot.
26	むすめ	Lady	This label also goes unused. No portrait data is associated with it.
29	Gナイト	Gold Knight	This generic unit is meant to represent some of Zeke's underlings, who turn into temporary allies on the Rigel Plains battle. While the paladin and bow knight are used, this gold knight is not: the only gold knight in the formation is Zeke himself.
---	ジュノー	Juno	This name string can be found amongst the playable characters. No pointer to it remains. A character with a similar name, Juno (ユーノ), is playable in Fuuin no Tsurugi; the reuse of the name is likely coincidental.

Unused Enemies

There are several unused enemies present within the code of Gaiden. Non-generic units are associated with their map; none of these units have any remaining data besides their names and portraits.

ID	Name	Translation	Notes
8C	ハンニバル	Hannibal	Uses the same portrait as Slayde and several other minor bosses. The name Hannibal would later be used for a playable character in Seisen no Keifu.
8D	マッセナ	Massena	While Massena does appear as an NPC in the final game, it is noteworthy that his unit ID is an enemy's. He never fights the player in the final release. As he was the captain of Emperor Rudolf of Rigel's guards, it is likely that he attacked the player at some point of development instead of surrendering to Alm as part of Rudolf's final orders.
99	リゲルぐん	Rigel Army	Most Fire Emblem games label their generic units with the unit's affiliation. Final Gaiden does not do this, with generic units simply referred to by their class. This shows that naming units by affiliation was planned at some point. The game's 3DS remake later followed this scheme. These represent the forces of the Kingdom of Rigel, the main enemy kingdom throughout the game.
9F	リゲルぐん	Rigel Army	Another unit ID representing the Rigelians.
A0	ギースぐん	Grieth's Army	These generic units are loyal to Grieth, who has carved out a realm for himself in the eastern deserts and is fought during Celica's half of Chapter 3.
A1	ドゼーぐん	Desaix's Army	These are soldiers of Desaix, who organized a coup against the king of Zofia and attempted to take over the kingdom. His forces are the main enemy for Chapter 1.
A2	ドルクくん	Dolth-kun	Considering the context of the surrounding unit IDs, it is likely that ドルクくん is a typo and ドルクぐん, Dolth's Army, was the intent. Dolth is a boss fought in Celica's half of Chapter 4, described as "the Great Cantor Dolth" by himself and NPCs.
A3	まどうぐん	Netherworld Army	The word used is actually "madō", which can mean several different things, ranging from "heresy / (the) path of evil" to "sorcery", to even the netherworld. Without more context to go off of, it's not really clear which reading was intended here. It was likely intended for either the Duma Faithful, a cult of dark sorcerers, or for the numerous monster units, who often appear under the control of said Duma Faithful.
A4	かいぞく	Pirate	Several pirates are fought throughout Chapter 2, which largely takes place on the open sea.
A5	さんぞく	Bandit	Bandits are staple early game enemies in Fire Emblem, and Gaiden is no exception to this. The first few maps in Chapter 1 involve skirmishes against bandits.
A6	まもの	Monster	Monsters are a staple enemy type in the game.

(Source: Darrman. Translations based on Artemis251's patch)

Unused Classes

Due to the way class data works in Gaiden, there are no unused classes with any amount of data remaining. The majority of enemy name IDs beyond B0 are dedicated to the unit names used by generic enemies, and unused entries here were presumably at some point intended to represent some form of class.

ID	Name	Translation	Notes
C8	デビル	Devil	An unused monster type. No monsters resembling traditional depictions of the devil appear elsewhere in the series.
D0	サーペント	Serpent	The translation patch renders this as "Gorgon", monsters with a snake motif that appear in Sacred Stones. However, simple snakes are not fought as monsters at any point.
D1	ナーガ	Naga	While its name is shared with Naga, the dragon god of Archanea, it is unlikely to be a reference to Ankoku Ryu or its as of then unreleased sequel. Since nagas are snake-like creatures belonging to Indian mythology, it was most likely intended to be a variant of the serpent.
---	ハイナイト	High Knight	What these knights were originally above is anyone's guess. The name would never be seen again in any other Fire Emblem game. A quirk of the fan translation uses this name for まじん ("majin", officially localized as "Fiend") enemies.
---	ジェネラル	General	Generals are a series staple, being the promoted form of the Knight. For whatever reason, Intelligent Systems chose to call the promoted form of the Knight class "Baron" in Gaiden, since the aforementioned staple would not be properly established until Monshou. Its position amongst the enemy unit names suggests that the name was intended for use amongst enemy barons at some point.
---	きょうせんし	Berserker	Berserkers are a later staple of the franchise, typically being depicted as promoted brigands and pirates. This axe-toting variant would be introduced in Thracia 776, well after Gaiden's release. A sword-using berserker can be found in Monshou. Whether that variant, Thracia and beyond's version, or something else entirely was intended to be used for this name is unknown. Worth noting is that the きょうせんし ("kyōsenshi", literally "crazed fighter") name would only actually be used for the class in The Blazing Blade. バーサーカー (the English word "Berserker", transcribed into katakana) is the name used for the class in all other appearances.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Items

Gaia

The only functional unused item is the Gaia spell. The term Gaia has a history of being unused within Fire Emblem games: Medeus, the final boss of Ankoku Ryu, was originally named Gaia earlier in development, and the final game has an unused character slot using that name. Even as late as Shin Monshou, Dark Breath's file names refer to it as "Gaiabreath".

The spell name is located at 0x3DE56.

ID	Weapon Name	Translation	Mt	Hit	Wt	Crt	Rng
1E	ガイア	Gaia	0	100	0	0	1-2

Outside of having 100% accuracy, the rest of Gaia's stats are all zeroes. If hacked in as an item, it can be used by priestesses. Its icon is a bow, like all magic spells that are hacked in as items. When cast, a copy of the caster will move towards the enemy.

(Source: Serenes Forest)

Other Unused Items

No other functional items are present, but there are some name strings with no accompanying data.

• ボーマ Bōma
• ボース Bōsu

Neither of these items appear in any other Fire Emblem game. Their name strings are located amongst enemy spells, so it is most likely that that was their original purpose before getting cut.

Unused Graphics

Unused Portraits

• 

  Portrait ID 1E

• 

  Portrait ID 33

Gaiden has two unused character portraits. The first, ID 1E, is an edit of a generic boss portrait, though this particular version of it never gets used.

The second, ID 33, is more interesting. It is an edit of Zeke's portrait that cuts his hair back. Zeke's portrait is a slightly edited version of Camus's portrait from Ankoku Ryu; this is because they are one and the same person. It is possible that earlier in development Zeke's design would've been slightly altered so that even though he would still recognizably be Camus, he would not be completely identical. In any case, the final release opted for a much more conservative edit of his Ankoku Ryu portrait.

(Source: Original TCRF research)

Unused Locations

Desert Shrine

The (さばくのほこら) Desert Shrine is a fully unused dungeon. The video demonstrates the player exploring the dungeon.

To access the dungeon, go to the world map and attempt to move to a location. When selecting where to go, edit RAM 0x74B5 or 0x74B6 to 0x3E to replace the first or second available destinations with the Desert Shrine. The dungeon layout itself is the same as the Liberation Headquarters, featuring a hallway, an encounter, a hallway with some graves, and finally the Mila shrine. The encounter is not used anywhere else, featuring a battle against a single Fiend. The shrine's lion heads provide three HP or Luck bonuses to be distributed at the player's discretion. This combination of stat bonuses is not found anywhere else. When leaving the dungeon, the player will be placed outside of Mila's Temple.

(Source: Robert Stewart)

Other Unused Entrances

In addition to the Desert Temple, there is unused entrance data for the Fort and Duma's Gate, which cannot be entered in the final release. Wherever they originally lead to no longer exists: both drop the player into the Lost Woods. While Duma's Gate is located near the Lost Woods and an entrance to it makes sense, the Fort, a location late on Alm's route, transporting the player to a dungeon on Celica's route is unlikely to have been the original intention before the entrance's removal.

To enter the Fort's entrance, set 0x74B5 or 0x74B6 to 0x49. Set it to 0x4C instead to enter Duma's Gate.

(Source: Robert Stewart)

Unused Location Names

(ドーマのさいだん) Duma's Altar, the final dungeon of the game, has its own location name like all other locations. Its name string is at the very end of the area names. While the location is named in dialogue, it does not appear on the world map at any point, only being accessed through Rigel Castle. As a result, its name string goes unused and no pointer to it remains.

Difficulty Select

On the title menu, set cursor to the "さいしょから" ("New Game") option, hold Select + Start and then press A on Controller 1. When selecting a save slot, a new additional menu with a difficulty select will appear. "NORMAL" and "EASY" are the available options.

Easy mode doubles experience gain for all player units and allows unlimited trading between Alm's and Celica's groups. On Normal mode, there are a limited amount of times items can be sent across groups. Enemy attributes and layouts are unchanged, making this mode comparable to Thracia 776's Paragon Mode, which is also unlocked in a similar manner and also granted doubled experience gain to all units.

Sound Test

This needs some investigation. Discuss ideas and findings on the talk page. Specifically: Some sounds in here are definite FE1 leftovers - the "no damage" tink, for instance. Figure these out.

This game contains exactly the same sound test mode as its predecessor, although the method to access it is much simpler: at the first game message ("1991") after startup, press Up, Down, Left, Right, Up on Controller 1. This still works in the remake, albeit at the title screen, though the sound test's basic functionality remains unchanged.