Hayate no Gotoku! Dream Apocalypse

If you haven't noticed, the game's soundtrack is very schizophrenic. This has to do with the fact that in addition to HnG, this game is every other game/anime. In order to convey the full feeling of the media franchise that I'm parodying in any particular area, I used a song from the respective series that was referenced/parodied. After thinking about it for an extensive amount of time, I've decided to exclusively use the HnG soundtrack for all the situations and areas of the game, with only very few exceptions. This was a very hard decision to make but I think it is for the best due to many reasons.

Having only HnG music, i.e. the tracks derived from the 1st and second season OSTs, as well as character discs is because for one, it makes the game much more consistent and "professional", albeit this being an indie game, but you get the idea. Having so much music from so many different sources, no matter how much better it conveys the area or how much kick ass it sounds, gets out of hand pretty quickly. It's like the naive kid who has just created his first website and wants to cram as much stuff he likes into one super home page. There is no organization and no focus, which are two of the aspects I feel that are very important for a game.

Another reason is that it will make the game size a lot smaller. In this day and age, it probably doesn't matter with those 1TB or greater HD's floating around getting cheaper and cheaper, but for a game of this caliber to exceed 150 MB or something solely because of the purpose of music is a little absurd. This is observing the fact that the game, as of now, only heavily parodies two series, Mushishi and Planetes. The idea is that I'm going to parody a major game or anime per area as I continue to develop this game, and with that in mind, the OST can only get larger and larger with music from all those respective series if I'm not going to be reasonable and put a cap on it in any sort of way.

The third reason is that... HnG, the anime adaptations that is, are excellent examples of parodies and references to hundreds of series, and yet, they do not necessarily have the soundtracks to those series (exceptions are of course in order, I'm looking at you Cruel Angel, but even so, it had its own twist to it), and I think I should follow the example of the great series that I'm essentially basing my game on.

Enough of the boring stuff (though I am looking for feedback, opinions on the boring stuff.). Let’s dig into some of the new stuff I've been realizing. First of all, there will be a grade system implemented for the final release. For all those who've played Tales games should have a good idea of what this is about. This system also has a heavy tie with the New Game + feature that I'm most likely going to implement. Essentially, during battle, you have actions that will increase your grade, and actions that will decrease your grade. For example, using items will get grade points deducted, using techs will increase your grade, and running away will completely destroy your grade for your current battle. At the end of the battle, that grade amount, whether positive or negative, will be added to your aggregate grade, which accumulates from the beginning of your game to the end. Once you beat the game, you will be able to spend your accumulated grade points and buy "features" you can use in a "New Game +", whether it would be carrying over your GYEN, arsenal, items, etc. or gaining x2, x10, or x100 experience per battle.

I've also found an easy way to have different difficulty settings that you would be able to toggle any time during the quest. This more or less only has to do with the difficulty in fighting the enemies in the game and has nothing to do with the dungeon set ups, etc. It also affects the yields you receive after defeating the enemies. There will be extra grade benefits or penalties depending on your difficulty. Say if you are playing on Easy mode, your grade will be cut in half from the amount you would get if you played Normal, and it will double if you attempt to play in LUNATIC mode, in which an enemy deals x3 the damage per hit, have more HP, give less TP, etc. Hopefully, this will increase a lot of replayability in the game and allows the player to be much more engaged with the game, i.e. trying to beat the game the best way possible, as oppose to "just beating the game", though both endeavors would be supported, if you don’t care about grades or something. Basically, I’m trying to add depth while trying to appeal to the widest audience as possible. Maybe players with high grades can send me their save file for me to confirm it and add their name to the websites wall of fame or something. Anything is possible.

That's all for now, hope enjoyed the update :)