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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
  • 409737
  • 70
  • 10605

Posts

Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
I broke down and downloaded the XP trial so I don't say anything without being entirely sure. I also wrote them about retrieving my activation code so maybe there is a chance of a patch coming two years late!

Someone else pointed this out a short time ago too. It's definitely a bug (although more like a discrepancy between my design doc and my actual implementation). Here are the actual ability modifiers:

Shock Burn: Spirit
Storm Surge: Strength
Fiery Raid: Intelligence

So, the battle screen is correct; he does use all three.
Also, I just found what I think is a bug: the modifier stats for Rehm's skills contradict each other. In battle, it says that Shock Burn is modified by Spirit, Storm Surge by Strength, and Fiery Raid by Intelligence, but the menu screen says that the first two are both modified by Spirit, and the training screen agrees with the battle modifiers, except that it says Fiery Raid is modified by Spirit, not Intelligence.

Anyway, erm...do you remember which one is correct? Even if you don't want to do a bugfix at this point, it would be nice to at least record the information somewhere. I would assume the training screen is correct, since otherwise Rehm would use all three offensive stats, something that no other character does.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Yeah, just another grand experiment that needs fine tuning.

As for part B:

He's still kind of a kid at that point, and just flew off the racially-charged handle. Also, keep in mind the sort of lineage he came from - he joined the crew in an attempt to escape it, and ended up having to return to it anyway, so it was a moment of frustration that stuck with him.
Indeed. Passives having a bias makes a bit less sense, though, since they already cost more than active skills, and don't give you any skill points for using them... But eh, your decision of course.

By the way, sorry if this sounds like it came out of left field, but I have a question about the plot that's been bugging me (spoilers for interlude 3, all those who read this):


So, after Rehm has his breakdown in interlude 3 and tells the crew to leave so he can commit suicide, Taru tries to convince him otherwise, then suddenly gets angry, flips out at him, and runs off. Okay, fair enough, but, a) why did that suddenly make him decide to hate all shra when he seemed like a nice accepting guy beforehand, and, b) why does he still hold that grudge and bigotry half a century later? Most people move on with their lives after such an extended length of time. Is the moral supposed to be that he was always a selfish shra-hating jerk and only put on an act so he'd be accepted into the crew? Occam's razor says that makes zero sense, so I assume you had some other reason in mind...?
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Peculiar! Especially if it's every one of them. I think passives should have been one way or the other too. Some day I should reinstall XP and look at that.
Huh? No no, I understand that, I meant the passive skills specifically. All of them are weighted towards the skill side (like I said, the rank V upgrade costs 2500/2000, while the Rank I upgrade costs an even 200/200). The fact that the Rank I costs are even after the fix seems to imply you wanted the other passives to follow the same pattern...
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Ah, I see what you're saying. I don't remember wanting them even, though - each skill has a bias of "magic" versus "non-magic" (with some in the middle) which also determines how many points of each you get every time it's invoked in battle. It's very likely I ended up favoring one over the other though (or maybe your preferred party was all casters with few non-magic skills, I dunno!)
5000+ points


Holy-! O_O That's...gah. Glad you toned it down.

Anyway, though, I understand what you mean about not being able to get everything, but my complaint wasn't about the cost so much as the imbalance -- it gives skill points much more weight than they should. I often have an absurd amount of stockpiled mana points by the endgame, but a dearth of skill points because I spent them all on passive skills. :( What I meant was: It seems like your intention was to make them an even split, but unfortunately only the Rank I skills were fixed.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
This may sound crazy, but I think the max levels were originally 5000+ points. You're not supposed to be able to max every skill without some serious savant level grinding, so it's more of picking and choosing to match your playstyle.
I have to admit I kind of borrowed the format from this. It is especially fitting for this game, though.

Glad you like the review, I was worried it would be horrible and amateurish.

Edit: Oh yeah, also: I know you probably won't bother at this point, and I'm sorry I didn't notice it earlier, but I believe that I mentioned the skill point costs for passive skills were too high a while back? You said you fixed them, and the rank I skills are indeed a 200/200 split now, but it doesn't look like they were fixed beyond that. Rank V skills still require 2500/2000 points, for example, which makes them virtually impossible to get in normal gameplay. :/ Is this intentional...?
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Very well done! Thanks a lot for taking the time!

(Also, the way you structured it is exceedingly clever.)
Since I noticed the game was rather lacking in reviews, I finally bit the bullet and made my own, even though I'm a horrible writer and am very nervous as to what people will think of it. The game deserves as many reviews as it can get, though. Give it a look once the queue finishes digesting it if you so desire, fellow RMNers.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Aww, I liked the coin thing!

Maybe something from Big T's little revelation speech in the closing cutscene? What little I remember of it seemed optimistic.
On an unrelated note, I'm trying to think of a good quote for the footer of the TV Tropes article. I made a post on the discussion page, but no one ever goes there so my request for ideas was ignored, which is why I'm posting here. Can anyone think of a good quote from the game that would work as a "final thought" for the tropes article? I was thinking it should be more idealistic than the opener, which is currently the rather bleak "Would you stake your life on a world that cannot be saved?", but it can be anything, really.
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
All valid comparisons! I figure fantasy stories are full of that stuff, in a "history repeats itself" kind of way. Not intentional as much as subliminally inspired, though.
By the way, sorry that this is completely out of the blue (I don't know why I didn't ask this earlier), but Deltree, was any of the social commentary in this game intentional? (I read the Fortian Councillords -- a small group of powerful and wealthy individuals who are only powerful and wealthy because of a monopoly on an extremely important resource, who try to stifle anything that could undermine that monopoly, especially alternative sources of energy -- as analogous to greedy oil corporations, and the Kir'Sshans are obviously religious fundamentalists, which I, as an atheist, can definitely see as a big problem in today's world.) Or am I just reading way too much into things, as usual?
Haha well I'm certainly not one to oppose original narrative structures, and yours could even be better suited to the videogame medium than the usual JRPG scheme IMHO, but sometimes the gameplay sections seemed a bit too disconnected from any kind of plot advancement whatsoever. At least in IMTS most missions are somewhat motivated by story elements ; I like it when narrative and gameplay go hand in hand. Even if it's just about the characters (and it can very well be, most TV shows run like this and some are great), it's nice to feel that each mission brings some evolution, else the situation seems a bit static.

But I'm probably more narrative-obsessed than most players (it even hampers my willingness to play story-less games nowadays)
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
I am secretly delighted that you stuck with it! It is kind of obviously an RPG Maker first-attempt all around, which I make no effort to hide. Maybe I'll remake it in a (less laggy) engine some day with IMTS' combat improvements.

I guess I'm kind of averse to direct narratives. That's probably why I never introduce the actual big bad until the very end. I don't consider the conflict as important as the characters themselves, but I definitely have things to consider more closely now. Thanks for your mini-review!
I've just finished it ! My first thought after the endscreen : the story may actually be even more enjoyable due to having played IMTS beforehand (especially the ending with the sixteenth character, of course), even though it obviously removes some elements of surprise.

Other than that, you must have heard it a hundred times already, but I suffered a bit from the slow pacing at the beginning, with so few narrative developments during the first two hours - there was a point where I stuck with it only because I was convinced that it would get more exciting later, and it sure did. This is to be expected of a deconstruction of fantasy RPG tropes, but I was truly relieved when the story moved beyond pest extermination and general uninvolved do-gooding.

Fortunately, the writing started good and ended great, and the protagonists just kept growing more and more interesting, so I was well rewarded for my perseverance ! I have to agree with ludeshka : Dehl's personality and the way he matures throughout the game is one of the most remarkable aspects of this story. I was even a bit pained to see him make certain choices in the last two chapters, which tells a lot about how much he'd grown on me.
Many other characters had their own moments of awesome as well, and I really liked the way they became more detailed, through their interactions and their special quests. Also, I can't believe how long it took me to realize what Tehgonan's last name was !

The overall mixture of enacted and avoided clichés was really fun, as it became hard to know whether any situation or character would turn out as expected, or the opposite, or something in between. Antagonists tended to be quite good in that respect, some being played completely straight and others noticeably less so.

Finally, the setting was rather detailed but less convincing than in IMTS, due to following the common (almost claustrophobic IMO) feeling in fantasy that we're looking at a "pocket universe",a small set of sceneries rather than a true, fully fleshed out world. I guess that one guy in Wadassia would agree, so it's more a feature than a problem (the initiated will get my meaning).
If I dare say so, you've appreciably improved in the way you handle your infodumps between The Reconstruction and its prequel : here, I never found the courage to read the entire glossary.

As for the gameplay, the frequent use of multiple characters in quest mode was really nice ; other than that, I think most of the changes leading to IMTS were in the right direction. The same goes for the visuals and interface of course, your sprites and decors and everything have markedly improved, though they were already quite nice. On the audio side, the musics were good, and once again I have to say it's really impressive to think you handled every aspect of the game yourself.

Overall, if I had to write a review (and I must admit this message is almost one), I'd give it something like four stars : still one of the very few RM games I would suggest to anyone outside the community, and a complete, solid and addictive game. Yet IMTS is an improvement on all fronts that could possibly be improved (even the pacing, although I'd still appreciate a lil' more narrative meat, as the end of The Reconstruction demonstrates that you're fully able to do it).
Deltree
doesn't live here anymore
4556
Oh wow, those are great! I love the style! (I wish I could draw with any capacity.)