Legacy Reborn

My brother used the concept of "scales" in an attempt to balance the original Legacy. What this meant was that he had sample curves on the character page that represented various stat growths. Whenever he created a critter, he decided on a sample curve, chose a level for the critter, and went from there. I don't quite remember how successful my brother's system was, but my execution totally failed, as can be see with Liberty's Let's Try of the game. What I have to do is toss the "scale" idea out the window, and think more about where I want characters to be to make a more balanced game. It's something I'm meaning to do with Matsumori Days as well, but this game is somewhat more pressing.

I think my brother must have been influenced by Vagrant Story when he was making this game. I say this because I'm trying to think about the best way to reinforce the idea behind the slash/bash/pierce system, and coming up with a somewhat familiar listing of what types of critters would be weak towards what kind of physical attack. I have nothing against Vagrant Story, but I want Legacy Reborn to be simple. The game will have one attribute devoted to it. I'm probably going to reduce the number of skills associated with physical attacks down to an appropriate number as a result. I fumble with names and descriptions as-is.

The way equipment worked in the original game was pretty odd. I suppose my issue isn't as so much with the actual equipment, but in who could equip what. For example, Kazuto could equip every single weapon in the game. Considering that his concept base was that of the Dungeons and Dragons Fighter class, this made perfect sense. Unlike the classic Fighter class, Kazuto could not equip Plate Mail, or really any heavy armor. If memory serves, Kazuto couldn't equip much heavier than Studded Leather, or Legacy's equivalent thereof. I'm not sure what the end-result equipment database is going to look like, but Kazuto should be able to equip the heavy stuff.

For a game that is supposed to "care" about what kind of weapon is used on an enemy, I can't help but to notice the classes built into Legacy that would traditionally use blunt weapons. The cleric (Miho) would use a mace. The wizard (Takuya) would use a staff. The monk (Saya) would be bare-handed. While Legacy Reborn will not care about what kind of weapon is being used, I do want some kind of piercing presence, as it were, in the game.

If Saya remains a monk, what I could do is deny her access to weapons, but give her an increased critical rate. Whatever she ends up being, she would be the fastest character, but she certainly wouldn't be a slouch in the strength department.

As much as it pains me to let it go, the opening sequence with Matsuta is being tossed. While the sequence is important to the background of the game, I'm not sure if playing it out without the background that leads up to that moment makes it worthwhile to the player. If the sequence makes an appearance at all, it will be relayed as a flashback where the context would make more sense.

I knew there had to be changes to this game to make it better. It knew there were moments where I was just being lazy and saying "It's a remake! Work with me here!" However, the game needs to change. But I'm just too stubborn. My memories of this game are tainted, making me unwilling to change anything unless I had somebody come come with evidence of this game's horridness.

So I asked for a Let's Try, expecting the worst. The first one was heart-wrenching enough to watch. As of this writing, I have yet to watch the second one. I fear to, yet I must.

I have some initial reactions to the first video, but I think I'm going to hold off on those until I finish watching the second one.