The Evolution of What Lies At The End {Gaiden • Radiant Dawn • SoV • Premium Arrange}

Music(s):

0:00 What Lies At The End (Classic)/Alm Map 2 - Fire Emblem Gaiden (1992)
0:53 Unused Map Theme - Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn (2007)
2:40 Stairway of Delight/Duma's Ordeal - Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2017)
5:03 What Lies At The End - Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2017)
7:48 What Lies At The End - Fire Emblem Premium Arrange (2019)

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Alm Map 2, officially titled as What Lies At The End (Classic) later on from the Shadow of Valentia album in 2019, is the near-victory phase track that plays in Fire Emblem Gaiden, released in 1992 for the Nintendo Famicom. This track plays when you're closing in to victory in the level, replacing Alm Map 1 which plays in the majority of the maps in the game.

In 2007, Intelligent Systems released their next Fire Emblem entry for the Nintendo Wii, titled Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn. Found in the game's files were unused content for the game such as skills, items, character portraits, and unused music. In there lies the file names: fe10_bgm_map_extra_32k.brstm and fe10_bgm_mapextra_32k.brstm ; which was hypothesized as the Trial Map music for the post-game, which later on titled, or mostly known as Unused Map Theme by the community. It's a remix of Alm Map 2.

A decade later, in 2017, Intelligent Systems released their fifteenth (15th) entry in the series for the Nintendo 3DS, titled Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia; a remake of Fire Emblem Gaiden.

From this remake, I'm going to discuss two versions of Alm Map 2: the first is Duma's Ordeal, or officially titled as Stairway of Delight, which plays for the Amiibo dungeon for Alm that requires his Amiibo;,and has a counterpart for Celica's that plays Chasing the Wind on the Plains, which is Celica Map 2.

The second track, titled What Lies At The End, plays at the start of the map of Act 4. It is a remix of Alm Map 2 that culminated into a life of its own, and is a strong follow-up to his earlier map theme from the earlier Acts, which is March to Deliverance.

And last but not the least, the album Fire Emblem Premium Arrange was released in 2019 for the Cipher Festival 2019, releasing fifteen (15) different tracks from different series in the franchise. With two (2) tracks representing Shadows of Valentia: With Mila's Divine Protection, and What Lies At The End.

And a special mention; the next year, the album Fire Emblem Premium Arrange II was released for the cancelled Cipher Festival 2020, also with two (2) tracks representing Shadows of Valentia: Scion's Dance in Purgatory for the Grand Battle Medley, and March to Deliverance. At the last thirty (30) seconds of the track was a flute that plays Alm Map 2 for a short time; the same flute that prominently plays on the Premium Arrange version of What Lies At The End, which is a great touch for the tracks as these two go hand-in-hand together.

And that's about it! The Evolution of What Lies At The End, a slightly more complicated case with it having two branching versions in the remake, and is arguably the best soundtrack in Shadows of Valentia, along with the many other tracks in the game that are also the best.

Like I promised, the animated sprites are back for this video, and for the next one so long as there are available assets for it online. I wonder if there's a way to find animated FEH sprites for future videos..

And with that out of the way, Justice RIP will be next in the series, it will be up next week, so look forward to it! ^

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Big shoutouts to the people from The Spriters Resource for providing sprites from Gaiden all the way to Shadows of Valentia! I used their sprites and animated them myself:

https://www.spriters-resource.com/nes...
https://www.spriters-resource.com/3ds...
https://www.spriters-resource.com/3ds...