RELEASE SOMETHING! DAY VIII: JOURNEY OF THE CURSED KING [DISCUSSION]

So I got Blink. It was boring x_x. The beginning didn't made sense, no music killed the atmosphere for me as the text is so slow, it was horribly short as well. I'm not sure what's going on but if it's about atmosphere through maps then I guess it's ok and weird to have that much cobwebs in your room as if you never lived in it O_o

I played Chronology of The Last Era. Here is my feedback in bulletpoint form.

- Long annoying backstory I care nothing about. Nice.
- Hey, I can finally move! Oh god random battles...
- Aha, well, at least it's manageable. Though the encounter rate is slightly annoying...
- Well I like the mapping I see so far.
- I wish there was a save point at the beginning of the intro area...
- Enterfests, Enterfests, Enterfests~
- Also, the RS3 midis are too low compared to the field music.
- I love how these enemies just throw Healing Tonics at you. Kinda invalidates the need to buy them, if ever.
- The charset and the enemy for the Devastator are hilariously different. But hey, what can ya do with pre-made resources?
- Sooo, I'm randomly thrown into a new scenario with a full party without any conclusion to the previous one? :U
- Very strange seeing FF6 style characters mixed with RTP style...Why not edit some FF6 characters to fit your RTP style party members? Not very consistent as it is now...
- Also very strange how it went from one shotting dogs and soldiers with one guy to it taking four party members to down a slime...
- Oh hey, met up with my other friends I guess. Probably won't join me since I have a full party.
- Eh, another wall of text about kingdoms and wars and other such things. I think I'm at the end of my rope for now.

Basically I think that you need to consolidate your visual style, and do something with your battles. They don't need any fancy bells and whistles, but even just clever use of the default settings would have sufficed.

I didn't find anything technically wrong with your characters and dialogue for the short time I spent with them, but the style and subject matter didn't grab me. The game overall didn't grab me. But Isee that others are enjoying the game so perhaps this just isn't for me.

I'll try Visions and Voices overhaul next, but after that I think I'm done.

A CORNERED FOX IS MORE DANGEROUS THAN A JACKEL

expect more crits later, MOG. that's all i'm saying... ;)

I'll try chronology sometime tonight. I've been meaning to give the game a shot, but was waiting for the revision.

Despite the intro being a "wall of text", I liked it. It was just the right length, it was executed properly, and it didn't read like it was written by a two year old. I wish I could be so kind to everything after that. The music selection is just... horrible. Not only in quality but in volume (The battle music volume is ridiculously low, and Wild Arms 2 music? Blegh). The dialog could use a lot of work as well. A lot of it sounds unnatural and hokey. I also feel more could have been done to make the introduction's (the playable part) more dire / hopeless, not to mention the rather sudden transition into character control.

IE; before getting control, main character narrowly evades a few guards, after waiting for the danger to pass you gain control, or say, a quick run scene, with quick and vague flashes of what just happened in the game, giving some insight into what the character is going through, etc ---/ runonsentence]

All in all, I had expected more from a revamp, despite the flaws I'll soldier on to see if things improve steadily as I go; but I remind you this isn't something I normally bother doing.

So I am going to get through most of these games I would guess, but I've already played Monstrous Wars A LOT because I did most of the beta testing (which is why it is so rife with bugs) so I will firstly comment on that. One thing I've noticed from the first time I opened up Wars is that on the surface, in many ways, it looks like another MnB-Theo-We've seen it before-generofest. And then, about five seconds in, I realised what a stupid thing to think that was.

Wars has so many little details, especially graphically but in terms of scenario design as well (although that's not as obvious until you get further into the game) that I am constantly impressed. There are all-new animations and animations and sprites I've seen before used in new and creative ways- things I would never think of doing. That's probably the best thing about it, for me. It's filled with things I would never have thought up. There are twists and turns and it's hard to guess what's around the corner, which stands in stark defiance to most RPGs.

One think I will definitely recommend is that people play this past the early segments, which are, in my mind, some of the weakest. There is a noticeable improvement in quality as the demo progresses, especially near the end of the demo where the level design elevates itself to another level. Those of you who play through the bugs (it seems like I've missed a lot, but you should see the lists I've sent, all of which were fixed by this demo) will be rewarded with some amazing graphical feats. You'll know what I mean as soon as you see it. There are two reasons for this, from what I can see from my journey testing it: one is that the game, like many of our projects, was started a long time ago and so didn't benefit from the experience that comes with just making something. The other is that it has to set the stage for itself, which takes awhile.

But once it does, it really puts on a show.


The other game I've played is Chronology: This Title is Too Long. I'm enjoying it so far, though I'm not too far. There are a few things that should be pretty easy to fix that I think will make this a lot more enjoyable. Here are my SUGGESTIONS!!!

One: Make the metal slimes have higher defense but only enough HP to withstand physical blows. One spell should kill them, especially from Libra. This early on, stuck without a shop or an inn, MP has to be closely controlled. If you are unlucky enough to get a couple of slimes in a row, you are out of MP. The Machine Guns could also do less damage, since I encountered them and they killed Libra in the first turn despite him(?) having near-full HP. That required a restart!

Two: The wall of text with the HORRIDLY repeating train sound has got to change. Here, use this: http://pub.gamingw.net/47964/Phantom%20Train.wav after the initial "choo choo" sounds, as this actually bothers to repeat. I cut this for someone else, but I don't think they ended up using it. This will, at least, make it sound like the train is moving, not having a seizure. The other thing is to cut that sequence up a bit. It was too long to stare at a blank screen. Especially since it was only filling half the line. That was strange. The siren sound immediately following this made me stop playing the game.

Otherwise, it's looking a lot better than the last demo I played. There are a lot of rough edges, but it's better put together and there are lots of neat touches. The balance in the fights, with the exceptions I pointed out earlier, also felt really good. The selection of skills at the beginning is also a nice touch, with little in the way of redundancy. I'll play more, for sure. I might have to mute the train section, though.

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One: Make the metal slimes have higher defense but only enough HP to withstand physical blows. One spell should kill them, especially from Libra. This early on, stuck without a shop or an inn, MP has to be closely controlled. If you are unlucky enough to get a couple of slimes in a row, you are out of MP. The Machine Guns could also do less damage, since I encountered them and they killed Libra in the first turn despite him(?) having near-full HP. That required a restart!

Noted! And thanks for shouting that out. Those are good points.

However, the battle system (at the beginning, anyway) is designed so that running away is always an option! Facing every battle head on to the death isn't necessary, and I gave players an easy way to do it with Libra's 'Getaway' skill.

EXCUSE ME WHILE I CROSS EVERYTHING OFF MY NOTES AND START AGAIN >:(

Libra doesn't seem to have a Getaway skill, and trying to run away from those damn turrets got me killed. >:O

also come on rockman my post is like three pages long and took over a year to compose how could you not have out typed me