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A thousand years have passed since the events of the first part. When Meridia is attacked on the night of Prince Eidan's sixteenth birthday, his country is pulled into a war against both the Council and the Resistance, which had been fighting for hundreds of years previous. Join Eidan on his quest to round up as many specialists as he can find to wipe out both enemy factions, and with them, the ancient evil of so long ago...

Demo2 has the following features:
- 6 Playable characters
- caterpillar system
- random banters between party members. if the character doesn't like you, he'll let you know, or vice versa.
- skill levelling system for all PCs is implemented and active
- improvements to the intuitive twists on the DBS from the first game.
- several improvements to the encounter system from part one. monsters will notice you if you get close, - the actual distance and follow speed is different depending on the monster.
- Fabulous (mostly) custom musical score, some familiar from the first game, others not.
- Scaleable difficulty system
Full version will boast the following:
- 24 playable characters, each with unique traits, stats, skills, weaponsets and personalities.
- complete overhaul to the magic system from the first game, characters can unlock magic in themselves with a mana stone and then begin accumulating Essentia Points to buy spells.
- Extreme character customization use your Essentia Points to purchase stat upgrades and HP/MP boosts.
- Change party on the fly from any savepoint or on the world map.
- Dozens of minigames and sidestories depending on which character you have in your party at specific parts of the game.
- In battle voiceclips make their return (if I can ever find enough voice actors)
- Story driven masterpiece, should provide at least 12-14 more hours of gametime.
- Import your final save into the third part to make the transition between the two seamless*

*dependant on which maker I actually use for the third part

Latest Blog

Weekly(?) Update Oct 28

I missed a few weeks in the middle there, but it's time for the weekly-ish update!

I've spent most of the last two nightshifts doing a bug seeking playthrough. Mostly a balance test, making sure the battles aren't too difficult now that the battle engine speed has been adjusted. Also checking to make sure that the skill leveling system is balanced, now that the skills are ranked up based on usage rather than number of battles fought.

I also had an interesting battle with fullscreen mode in windows 8. I submitted an article on it, perhaps it'll show up on the site sometime soon.

Also during this playthrough I'm streamlining the in game text. There are times where I previously used ***asterisks*** for emphasis in spoken dialogue, and other time when I used CAPSLOCK to the same effect. Also, inner dialogue has times where it's in (brackets), or in dark grey text. Mention of key items, or important places have set text colors in use. Overall the plan is to have everything look streamlined throughout the whole game.

The main thing I'm finding is that a lot of scripted events in which I moved the caterpillar events are messed up now, because I changed the caterpillar event structure.

The battle with the Mysterious Man in the Meridian Cavern has been modified, in an attempt to make the battle seem more urgent. If Hanna is KO'd by his attack, she is removed from the battle. If enough turns pass without Hanna or Eidan being KO'd from his attack, he will "enrage", Eidan will tell Hanna to get back, removing her from the battle. The end result is the same, but the individual dialogue is different depending on which of these two things happen.

The Worker ants in the cavern have had their 'Psycho Buzz' attack modified so that it only affects one ally, otherwise it was too much like the Cave Bat's Hypersonic attack.

Cave Rats have had their double attack replaced with a more fitting skill.

The first bug in the new encounter system was found and fixed - monsters that had to travel an exceptionally long distance before reaching where the hero was last seen would make their "give up" sounds long before they reached the destination. They would then immediately stop searching for the hero once they reached their destination. This has been repaired.

Fixed a bug where the music did not cut out as intended inside Meagan's house during her recruitment.

Fixed a bug where a box that used to be in Ruiga still had event code that could be ran if you inspected the tile where the box used to be, prior to the revamping of those interior maps.

Fixed a bug where leaving a map onto the world map, from a teleport in which an enemy had already seen, or would have seen you if it had respawned would cause the caterpillar system on the world map to be wonky, as well as cause the "danger" heartbeat sound to continue onto the world map.

I'm considering working the particle effects plugin into the game, though at this point it'd only see use in chimney smoke and other similar background things.

Also still working in the text plugin. A lot of early areas (read: Meridia) have some floating text in use to add to the immersion. When it's fully realized, it will add a lot to npc interaction in the game.

Removed the menu background images from the game clock plugin. The game menu now has a solid black background. There was a bug in it where it would always revert to the default image when the game was loaded, meaning that it wasn't saving what background should be in use at a given time. I wasn't making very good use of it (most of my backgrounds were just the battle backdrop of the area) anyway, so I switched it out.

The skills tutorial given by the sleepy soldier in Meridia Castle has been updated to reflect that skills get stronger by using them.

The options menu is outdated, and needs to be updated. The banter dialogue on/off option has no effect, and the world map minimap off/on option is probably unnecessary - if a semi transparent image on the world map is given your computer difficulty, the rest of the game is probably not faring any better.

I will be reducing the number of monsters inside the Jabar temple. I haven't play tested through the temple on my currently playthrough yet, however. The intention is to reduce the level you fight the boss at (making him harder), and also to ensure that you're not pushing level 25 by the end of the Temple events. There's a lot more game to go after this point, and that many levels is preposterous.

I may also revamp the experience curve a bit. Leveling up is a lot faster than I originally envisioned. Most of the stat increases in the game will come from "training" and equipment upgrades, leveling up should only account for a gain in hit points.

Speaking of hit points, on this last playthrough Hanna got completely trucked by Hui-Zhi in the forest - even after 3-4 Defensive Harmonies. I believe she was one level lower than my other playthroughs, as I skipped a couple of trash mob fights to make it harder. I can see why a lot of people complain about the difficulty of that fight now. I can't stress it enough - fight as many mobs as you can!

At this point, there is no specific date that I'll be done with this revamping. As a result, I can't put a solid date on the new demo release. I'll try to update here some more as I go along.

That's all for now folks,


~Ramza
  • Production
  • Ramza
  • RPG Tsukuru 2003
  • RPG
  • 11/16/2009 03:16 AM
  • 10/28/2013 09:38 AM
  • N/A
  • 88359
  • 25
  • 630

Posts

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Random battles between party members? Not THAT'S interesting!
banters *BAN*ters!

basically they'll talk to the main character, or eachother at random intervals. Usually about something non-story related, usually revealing character backstory/personality, etc.

Sometimes they will also interject their opinion in the middle of dialogue between the hero and NPCs.

Example:
Elder: "So you see, we can't open the floodgate to let you through until you get the key back from the monster who took it."
Eidan: "Kind of a pain... but there is no other way."
Carmen: "Perhaps he'd be more inclined to find the spare key if we cut off an arm or two..."
Meagan: "I *really* don't think that's a good idea, Carmen."
Carmen: "..."

that is purely an example, nothing like that actually happens in the game, at least, not yet.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't read correctly. I'm such an idiot. -__-
I would just like to advise the general public that the intro in this demo is virtually identical to the ending of the first game. As such, it will also ruin the ending of that game. if you have any intention of finishing the first game, I suggest you do it before playing this demo, thanks.
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
I found a couple of issues with the newest demo:

- if your party dies, you'll get a "Unsupported PNG image" error
- after meeting Niam, the game can't proceed due to a missing "councilmen" file
ah, it's probably still in 16bit mode, I'll have to fix that.
the missing councilman png is an oddity, considering I made that after I released the demo, to replace the characterset that the guy in that cutscene was using. I didn't think I updated the one in the demo, I probably accidentally did it.

anyways I'm in the process of re-uploading the 1.20c demo to the host, it will be updated automatically here, as it was just a link to the upload on blade2k.. I'll post a notice on the main game page for people who had downloaded it prior to my fixing it.
edit: note is fixed, and I uploaded the missing and broken file to my locker so anyone who already downloaded the game can get them without downloading the whole thing over again.
edchuy
You the practice of self-promotion
1624
OK. Thanks for the prompt fix. I'll let you know if I found something else (I'm hoping I don't have to!).
This replacement file from your locker:
http://rpgmaker.net/users/Ramza/locker/MC_Gameover.png

...has an underscore where there should be a space.

The locker uploader must've added that. :/
Downloaded and played this (just got the Strength Bracelet), then I decided to get a peek at the database. There were a few things I noticed that seemed kinda weird:

-the Mental Cure item didn't do what it was supposed to do (fixed)
-Vance's Triple Shot is weaker than Double Shot, even though the latter costs more (fixed)
-no descriptions for most of the magic spells (fixed, just need to do the 4th-tier multi-target ones)
-other stuff here and there (did nothing)

Other than those, your game's pretty solid!
The black magic spells weren't in the demo yet, so I didn't bother writing descriptions for them, as they're basically placeholders until the real spells come into the game later.
The mental cure thing is wierd, but now that you mention it, I have that fixed.
Vance's triple shot being weaker than his double shot is a byproduct of my rebalancing the skills in the game before release, I must've thought that there weren't enough fights during the course of the demo to unlock that skill, and left it at it's lower damage. (of course, that is not the case, I just fail XD)
hi i'm norvin from indo btw if u don't mind i just have one question:
1.how do you create ur battle sprites do u use generator???

sorry about my verrryyy baaddd english.
to the best of my knowledge, all of those battlechars were made from scratch (perhaps using the characterset as a template) in idraw3. The ones I made (Rolf, Eidan) were made in idraw using the characterset as a template. RPGVirtuoso made the rest of them, probably the same way.
comment=28386
to the best of my knowledge, all of those battlechars were made from scratch (perhaps using the characterset as a template) in idraw3. The ones I made (Rolf, Eidan) were made in idraw using the characterset as a template. RPGVirtuoso made the rest of them, probably the same way.


ohhh thank you can u give me some tutorial how to make it because i like ur battle sprite it's very unque for me!! thank you!!!!

sorry again for my veryy baddd english
ehh, I'm not the kind of person that should be giving tutorials on spriting. It takes me forever to do even the simplest pose. Each one of the bchars I did took me at least 6 hours, and they're definitely of the quality that a good pixelartist can spit out in 15 minutes or less.

Besides, the only thing I can really say that you probably don't already know, is that for a 3/4 view sprite (like the bchars) take the features of the front view characterset sprite and combine them with some of the features of the sideview sprite. Move the features on the sideview head about 2-3 pixels to the right, then just add in the details from the front view to the new pixels on his face, voila, 3/4 view head. Obviously, hair and clothing aren't quite that simple to fix. But for the most part, I just change it pixel by pixel until it looks alright (and this is a very time consuming process). I wish I could help you more, but, like I said, I am probably the worst pixel-artist to be asking advice from.
thank you for ur advice that's help me a lot

c'mon u are not the worst it's me the worst one!!!hahahahha
do you have facebook account
maybe we can keep in touch!!!

sorry for my very bad english grammar
I think I probably do have a facebook account, but I don't use it. Best place to contact me is right here.
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