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"Would you stake your life on a world that cannot be saved?"

Version 1.07 - Released May 4th, 2012

-Strategic turn-based battles reward careful positioning and smart actions over brute force.
-No typical HP/MP drudgery - Instead, battlers have Body, Mind, and Soul ratings that serve as both health and fuel for special abilities. Knocking any of them to zero means defeat, so heroes beware!
-No level grinding or money hoarding!
-Diverse elemental and weapon-versus-armor system for all sorts of exploitative goodness.
-Structured mission-based gameplay means you'll never have to wander around figuring out where to go next.
-Oh, and no random encounters either, because, seriously.
-Over a dozen colorful characters to recruit and train.
-20+ hours of adventure - multiple secrets, sidequests, and endings!

TV Tropes Page available here! Here be spoilers!

Unofficial Official Wiki available here! Here be spoilers too!

Fanfiction here! Spoilers?! You better believe it!

A play-by-play commentary at Dragon Quill! - Spoilers, slowly but surely!

Text of the entire in-game glossary! Note: Link is working again as of 4/11/14.

Latest Blog

Featured in the RPG Maker Bundle #1!

~RISE FROM YOUR GRAVE~

The Reconstruction was featured alongside a few really great games on the RPG Maker Web main site! Here is the link: http://forums.rpgmakerweb.com/index.php?/topic/23772-rpg-maker-free-game-bundle/

If you're reading this, you probably already played it ages ago, but I want to express my gratitude regardless! So, thanks for the positive buzz and whatnot that made this possible!
  • Completed
  • Deltree
  • RPG Maker XP
  • Tactics Strategy RPG
  • 09/02/2009 05:06 PM
  • 06/07/2015 01:39 PM
  • 09/03/2009
  • 409653
  • 70
  • 10605

Posts

Hello! I am huge RPG fan, and from what I've played thus far of The Reconstruction, it is an excellent game, and I plan to play I Miss the Sunrise and The Drop once I finish it.

However, I have one small request/criticism.

Do you think it would be possible to nerf Captain Yat? Several users, myself included, have noted that he is extremely overpowered, especially since he's only the first boss of the game. It is to the point that being able to beat him seems to come down more to sheer luck then player skill.
This is true. AoE attack that can oneshot your healer if you keep her too close to your meat shields (which you're encouraged to do due to the way her healing works), and he begins with all three buffs. Rehm has an elemental bonus against him but that's all you really have working in your favor. For the first boss, he is pretty tricky.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Hi!

Oh man, I have to find out four years later? I've always had a pretty consistent strategy in mind (Clapian on the front row, the others 2 spaces behind to avoid the lightning, take out the cronies first) meant to enforce all the aspects at once - positioning, weapons/armor types, and elements.

I can lower his starting stats, I suppose, but then I'll have to make an updated version just for that and upload it and ughhhhh we'll see. If anyone else wants to chime in, I'd love to hear it.
....Captain Yat? That's odd, I don't ever remember it being difficult for me, just a nice level of challenge without being horrible. I think. It's been a while.

The worst difficulty option I did for the game was a 7/10 value, though, so maybe that was it? Did you have it a max difficulty or something?
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
The difficulty doesn't get set until after the prologue. Everything beforehand is essentially down the middle.
...just shows how good my memory is today. I knew that. *facepalm*

...I still don't remember him being difficult.
I beat him on my first try, but only barely. He would be fine as a regular boss, but as a prologue boss where you have severely limited options and a poor grasp on the mechanics, he is a bit extreme. The Broodmother was a cakewalk compared to him, which seems a bit unbalanced to me.

I really think it's Lightning Strike that's the problem. You have no warning of it in advance, especially since he's not Physical-elemental himself, and it stands a good chance of defeating Vasra, who is pretty vital to your success. You also have only three party members, so losing one is all the more painful. I think the solution may be to either make it single-target, greatly reduce its damage output, or change its element to Cold in order to harm Rehm the meat shield instead of Vasra the squishy healer. Any one of those things would make the battle much more tolerable, I think.

(Gods, has it really been four years? How time flies.)
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Understandable! Although, since you don't have anything to lose yet, maybe it's a good introduction to the "game over but not really" mechanic, too.
I can't find the last sidequest, I've reached the point of no return, I've done every other sidequest except for the last entry on the chapter 5 achievements list, I've looked in every town and can't find this last elusive sidequest anywhere, anyone know where it is?
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Hi! There used to be a bug where a phantom sidequest would show up for Chapter 5, but that should have been fixed in version 1.06.

Looking at the achievements handler, these are the last quests that should be listed:


Chapter 5:
Sanctuary
End of Days
The Blinding
Insatiable
The Blackening
Annihilation

Sidequests:
All That Glitters
Silver Opportunity
Herding
The Drop


Let me know if you want to know how to initiate whichever one is missing!
oh I believe it's the drop one which i'm missing, is that the one where you recruit the secret char cos I did that.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Strange - I would think the same thing, but I've combed through all of the events related to recruiting him and as far as I can tell, that achievement is never actually used. I must have botched it when I was fixing the other one last year. So like me.

Oh well! Congrats on making it this far! I think you're safe to move on.
Hello, random question: Did you ever plan on making a personal sidequest for Lani that was cut? If memory serves, she's literally the only playable character without either a personal sidequest or personal subplot. It seems a bit odd that everyone else gets at least some character development, but she remains a static character throughout.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Oh hi! I think what I ended up doing was giving anyone who didn't have a sidequest a "star" upgrade as part of their normal upgrade progression instead. I would have loved to have a sidequest for everybody (let's imagine Lani's would have involved meeting her embarrassing parents in Do`Ssha), but, fatigue and all. Rest assured that if I ever decide to do a remake, I'll spread the love around some!
Hey everyone. I felt that I should probably mention that I'm currently tearing this game to shreds on the review blog Dragon Quill. I do it out of love. Honest.

I've just about finished with chapter 1, and will hopefully continue until the end of December.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
you so crazy

(added to op)
could you please tell me how you made that first quest mode? I#d like to create a game that's based on investigation.
thanks already!
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Hi! Sorry for the delay; I've been stuck on my phone all day and just got back to a proper keyboard.

The Quest Mode handling is pretty rudimentary, and there are probably better ways to do it, but here's what I did:

-First, I make the player invisible (use a Move Event command and set his Opacity to 0), then I lock the player with the command "Move Event: Player: Move toward Player." This trick worked in RPG Maker XP; I'm not sure if it does in later versions. This keeps him from moving around when you press the arrow keys. You can "unlock" him with the command "Move Event: Player: Move away from player". I do all this in an Autorun event that is turned off (actually goes to another page) with a Switch so it only runs once.

-Next, I have a "cursor" event (the blue arrow) that I put at the player's position. This only happens once, too.

-To move the cursor around, I have a Parallel Process event that listens for input (like direction keys) and moves the cursor event whenever a key is pressed. So, if the player presses Right, I move the Cursor event to the right by one square, then wait 3 frames. After the cursor moves, I update a couple of variables to store its X and Y on the map.

-If the cursor is "on" something, I write the name of the target. Basically, after the cursor moves, I check its X and Y coordinates against all the hotspots on the map. To draw the text, I do a bit of scripting to write text on the screen using a "bitmap" object. Beware: it's tedious!

-I also use this to detect if the player pushes the Enter key/space bar (in RPG Maker language, the "C" button) while the cursor is at the X and Y position of one of my hotspots. If so, I throw up an inspection message or perform whatever events are needed for that hotspot.

Basically, it's entirely event based. I'm sure there are scripts that let you do the same thing, and probably scripts to make it work with the mouse instead of the keyboard. I just liked to do things the hard way.
Hello! I realize I'm a bit late to the party, but I just completed the game yesterday, and it was amazing.

I'm only playing it now because I only found out about it recently, and there are no playthroughs of it online (disgraceful!). Even speaking as someone who's not great with most video games at the best of times, I had very little trouble with it, and what little trouble I did have tended to be caused by my own ineptitude. The only times that actually felt unfair were any time where your party is set for you (especially the fight with Asarik, which is basically a matter of hoping he doesn't use The Torment on the first turn) and the stealth section in The Blinding (which was just plain frustrating).

Other than that, nothing I really didn't like. I could give a detailed breakdown of my experience with the gameplay and story, but I'm lazy, so here's a few simple questions about gameplay mechanics I didn't understand.
When you complete Kidra's character sidequest, it says something like she's "able to adopt a more aggressive stance", and I never figured out what that meant. I'd assume it was a star bonus, but every other time you get a star bonus it clearly says ____ has become ____* or something like that...or maybe it DID say that and I just don't remember.

Speaking of sidequests, the "phantom sidequest" on the Achievement screen people have mentioned is still there in the Violet Sands section.
On a similar note, the Achievements say I did three sidequests in the Violet Sands when I only remember there being two (not counting The Drop which someone said doesn't show up). The Fortifel section also lists three sidequests when there should be four (Scientific Method, and Tehgonan's, Moke's, and Yfus's sidequests).

Simpler observation, what does it mean when you attack an enemy and an exclamation mark appears above their head during the attack animation? That was never explained.

Finally, I only have one big story question: where was the first Emitter that Tez found? He said that the one in the last quest was the second of five he found, and we see him find two more in the epilogue, but I don't recall them ever showing or mentioning the first one.

Other than those minor questions, nothing much to say other than great game, definitely planning on playing the others at some point.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Thanks for taking the time to let me know your thoughts! I'll try to answer what I can with my fading memory.

Yes, she did get a star for her attack affinity. I guess I could have made it clearer, but it wasn't an actual physical upgrade like with most of the other characters, so I worded it as best I could.

That whole quest table seems to get worse every time I touch it. I think you got it all. Fero has one in Chapter 5 too (I doubt you missed it, though).

I think the exclamation mark was Kidra's weapon proc that caused the enemy's Wait time to decrease.

Hmm, let me recall. There is one in Rulian's cave, one that Havan had, and one in the Watcher's room. Huh! The only thing I can imagine is that he's counting the one in his crashed ship, as well. It's been almost 5 years since I've even thought about it, to be honest. I'll make sure to clarify (and reveal the last one) in the next game.

Good luck with IMTS! I hear it turned out pretty good!