Bronze Soul

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned yet but when I tried to play this game, after I started speaking to Brian the event stopped. The other events like the woman and the dog continued to move though. I'm not sure if it was because I moved and even the slightest tap causes the game to give up, but apparently there's more to the demo than that.

Also, if you change the first character's name to anything but Diane, the game doesn't recognize the change in the dialog outside of the "Ah, I remember now, her name was (name)." Also, if you give the player the ability to change names, make sure that all references to them doesn't cause the message to go beyond the box, as this happened to me when I set the hero's name to Rachael, therefore cutting the box at "wha".

While I agree this game needs a lot of work, I approached this differently than Craze's opinion. I found it simple yet fun, and the quirky dialogue seemed intentional, as if MKID232 was attempting to create a parody in addition to an rpg. In fact, I haven't played very many RMXP games because usually there are a lot of bugs, mapping plains sucks, the writing is horrid, or I'm bored out of my mind. The dialogue here, while a bit stiff, was kind of humorous. And when I came across the NPC that says "I am a girl", I thought this has to be intentional, no self-respecting game designer would ever use such dialogue by accident.

Anyway, the story was interesting, even if it should be revised to make more sense. I really hope you can continue this, if not on RMXP then maybe another game engine.

However, a lot of work is still needed. For starters, it's all RTP. I don't mind the graphics so much, although your mapping skills really needs work, although I find it better than a lot of first time game designers. The problem with RMXP is that everything is so detailed compared to other makers (at the very least, compared to RMVX). RMVX is so simple that you don't need to worry as much about priorities and layers quite as much as you do with RMXP. In RMVX, trees that appear in a simple row would seem almost retro, like a game from before the playstation era, whereas this would look hideous in RMXP. But beyond the graphics, I'm okay with people using RTP in their maps. What I have a problem with is using the same RM music, when it's so easy to grab other music. And also the placement of the music. In the first world, when I was on my way to the cave, the music sounded like some sort of kingdom music, like something I'd hear in a royal castle, not something I'd hear on the mountain trail to some sort of cave.

Also passability issues appear throughout.

Finally, I'll forgive the same old battle routine, because without much scripting knowledge, it is hard to change that up. But you can still spice up the old routine several ways:

1. It's easy to insert new battlers and monsters to change up the RTP.
2. While I don't recommend new skills for every level up, a few extra skills every so often (say when you hit level 5, and then again at level 9, and maybe a new skill at level 13) goes a long way.
3. Not everybody needs to learn a new skill by leveling up. The girl could learn it through leveling up, the boy could gain skills by some other means, like perhaps he's a nerd that likes comic books, and every comic book he finds teaches him a new skill, and maybe the cat could gain a new skill when he successfully finds and kills so many mice.

So while I look at the dialogue as being entertaining, there is still a lot that can be done. Hopefully you get your resolutions resolved with Enterbrain, because I'd like to see this more of your story take place.

Edit: I did not find the initial fights to be hard. Quite the opposite, I found them to be simple, fun, and perfectly balanced to get players to start grinding. And since you can restore at the save crystals, I didn't have any problems. I raised my characters to level 6 pretty fast (within about 45 minutes of grinding). My only complaint was that (aside from the random kid at school) the only monsters to fight were the girls from the Dagger gang, which tends to get boring. A few extra enemies thrown in, at least in the plains south of the town before getting to the South Cave, would have been nice.

The battle system works for me. As I've stated, unless your good with scripting, it can't be helped, and I actually enjoy the front view system these days, since everybody else likes to use the same old side view. RTP music isn't so bad in itself, and can certainly be used, but I recommend using it with other music that's not RTP, since people hear the same RTP music over and over again. Comic books was just something I pulled out of the air, but could be anything hobby-related. Actually, I enjoy fantasy worlds that include bits and pieces of the real world, but anything could work.

It always helps to have any idea of the type of class a character will be, whether you emphasize that throughout the game or not. For example, I look at Diana as more of a sorcerous and good with black magic, but not so great with regular attacks, so in the remake you might consider making her attacks less effective. She could gain her skills throgh finding skill books, or perhaps by visiting temples and praying to whatever god/goddess this world worships, if it's part of the story. Brian seems to be more of a fighter, so naturally his skills would grow simply by gaining levels. His skills could be sword-based attacks, like double slash, triple slash, etc. Kitty seems more of a supporting character. Cats generally are there for comfort (this is a stereotype, but it seems a lot of older folks tend to own cats), but they are also sneaky thieves. So his skills could include healing, but maybe he could eventually have a skill for Stealth that once used would eliminate random battles for a short time, or maybe he could have a stealing ability.

Anyway, just some ideas.

As for my comment about maps, here is my reasoning: Your maps are simple and easy to navigate. There was never a time I couldn't figure out where to go. Yes, RMXP requires more imagination and proper use of the mapping tools, which is probably why some people choose RMVX instead, but in comparison to other maps I've seen and played, not bad. A lot of games I've played with bad maps (and not limited to just RMXP) include maps that are as large as you can imagine (like 500*500 in size), but very little detail or a path to follow, just a plain green map to represent grass, maybe a tree once in a while, with no direction to go or a path to follow, and numerous random battles as you spend the next hour trying to decide if the exit is at the top of the screen or at the bottom

post=207456

Show

Don't worry, the optional character is basically Kitty...but a girl...and his fiance...and is the Cat-girl sprite...and is basically the stereotypical Japanese annoying hyper girl you see in every single JRPG ever...

(:

'lo Peops