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Purpose:
This is an RPG for those who want high levels of customization and difficulty. Be warned that the challenge level of this game is much higher than just about any commercial RPG.
Features:
-About 25 hours of gameplay
-The Soul System, kill enemies and steal their soul, equip it to gain that enemy's strength and learn their abilities.
-Finite grind, the effectiveness of JUST gaining XP is severely limited (though there are many other ways to improve your characters), as a result strategy and wits are required to topple challenging enemies, not just grinding away levels.
-Unique script additions coded by me that you won't see anywhere else. Along with completely altered battle mechanics and formulas.
-Totally revamped graphical interface, compared to the standard RMXP build, the text is a lot easier to read, graphical meters are used for various stats, and multiple windowskins are offered, as well as much better status, shop, and equip interfaces.
-The Impulse System, fill your IP meter to unleash special attacks on enemies.
-The Shard System, shatter enemy souls into shards, equip these shards to gain special effects.
-General Complexity, many more than the stock character stats have been added to this game in order to create more room for strategy and customization.
This is an RPG for those who want high levels of customization and difficulty. Be warned that the challenge level of this game is much higher than just about any commercial RPG.
Features:
-About 25 hours of gameplay
-The Soul System, kill enemies and steal their soul, equip it to gain that enemy's strength and learn their abilities.
-Finite grind, the effectiveness of JUST gaining XP is severely limited (though there are many other ways to improve your characters), as a result strategy and wits are required to topple challenging enemies, not just grinding away levels.
-Unique script additions coded by me that you won't see anywhere else. Along with completely altered battle mechanics and formulas.
-Totally revamped graphical interface, compared to the standard RMXP build, the text is a lot easier to read, graphical meters are used for various stats, and multiple windowskins are offered, as well as much better status, shop, and equip interfaces.
-The Impulse System, fill your IP meter to unleash special attacks on enemies.
-The Shard System, shatter enemy souls into shards, equip these shards to gain special effects.
-General Complexity, many more than the stock character stats have been added to this game in order to create more room for strategy and customization.
Latest Blog
zombero
- Production
- zombero
- LockeZ (Co-Map Maker)
RPG Maker XP- RPG
- 11/01/2010 03:09 PM
- 04/10/2023 01:40 PM
- N/A
- 241622
- 47
- 1254
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Posts 
zombero
448
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Closeauthor=doomed2die
Woah... Is this completed yet? I remember playing the demo and talking about production with you. I've largely lost interest in designing myself (might get back in for teamwork but not really feeling it).
This was a really good game concept and I'm glad to see it here :)
Hey, yeah, I remember you too. Sucks about the losing interest, but it can be tough to stay motivated for me too. It's good to alternate design with playing games. Sadly the game is not done, I've been making some progress behind the scenes, but I'd like to finish the entire thing before doing another release.
zombero
448
author=himaActually, now that I'm home and can look at that section of code, I think Reaper is working fine, and this is a different problem. I must have made a release after fixing Reaper afterall. Hmm, was it with a Nekomata and using Wild Fang each time? Were any of your party members dead? Was it against the same party member? Any extra info would help :) I'll try to reproduce it myself. My immediate suspicion is something shard related, since those are the newest addition to the game and have been tested the least. But Nekomata's shard should only activate when he dodges attacks, so I'm wondering what other shards might be on the target of Nekomata's attack?
That bug prevent me from continuing until I got a response from you, since it happened to me twice and I've lost my progress so it was pretty demotivating :( And yeah, my main character is equipping Reaper + Nightmare combo for some free HP,SP,IP when dealing with Pixie and Angel. I guess it has to do with Reaper, so I might need to revise my strategy.
author=himaSure, if you'd be interested in doing that, it could probably use it!
I could pretty up the readme file for you once you got everything down. Would be better if it's a html file with some css styling.
hima
4237
That bug prevent me from continuing until I got a response from you, since it happened to me twice and I've lost my progress so it was pretty demotivating :( And yeah, my main character is equipping Reaper + Nightmare combo for some free HP,SP,IP when dealing with Pixie and Angel. I guess it has to do with Reaper, so I might need to revise my strategy.
I could pretty up the readme file for you once you got everything down. Would be better if it's a html file with some css styling.
I could pretty up the readme file for you once you got everything down. Would be better if it's a html file with some css styling.
zombero
448
author=Battlemaster1
Hi Zombero. I'm gonna try the game and give feedback.
Right at the beginning right now.. I think poison is too common at the beginning. I keep getting poisoned and having to go back to the inn -_-.
Also that Kobold is absolutely ridiculous for the point in the game when you can reach him. I like hard games, but he's way too hard IMO.
You have to build up some souls before you can venture very far past the first town. The start of the game is pretty hard, even by comparison to the rest of the game, although it remains pretty hard. Ultimately, this comes down to how I feel as a player. A game has very little time to impress me as a player before I'd move on to something else, and extreme difficulty in RPGs is an important part of it. The other, equally important part of it is my choices as a player having a significant impact on this difficulty. As for Kobold, I like presenting obstacles before I expect a player to be ready for them, it gives them a chance to try things before they should be able to win, which I like as a player.
zombero
448
author=hima
Currently playing the game and loving it so far, despite the fact that I hate the cute main character and the dungeon seems rush. I think it'd really benefits from a darker theme with first person point of view like good old SMT.
It isn't as much that the dungeons are rushed as that I have no talent for map making :( I've tried to get as much as help as I can find on the map making side of things, and have a few good works, but they don't come until after the point of the demo.
author=hima
I do wonder why this game hasn't got any reviewed. The system is well design and is really solid. I carefully observe the enemy behaviors, and every choice I make with Soul switching or Shard switching is important and is a meaningful choice. It's been so long since I've played something like this.
Glad that you're enjoying it :) that's really how I felt the first time I played Shin Megami Tensei Nocturne (it was the first SMT I played) and Etrian Odyssey, so I'm glad I can give people with similar tastes a similar experience.
author=hima
I died many times in the game, which is to be expected. But because of the system, dying in this game doesn't seems to be penalty. Every time I died in the game, I learn something. I learn more about the enemy I'm fighting with. I learn more about skills they use, so I can decide whether I should switch my Soul to this enemy or just shatter it to get more useful Shards.
I hope to expand on the usefulness of shard skills going forward :) and also have several new implementations in mind. I'd like to focus more on party mechanics, and having your characters work together as a team.
author=hima
README file could use some work. Basically, the organization of some part make it a bit difficult to find useful information. I read the file before starting the game to prepare myself, but I got puzzled by the 'Warded' thing.
It could probably stand to be more than just a basic .txt, I'll have to see about improving it once the game is finished.
author=hima
I also think there should be some more signals when some special condition is activated. Tail Wind, for example, should have some kind of animations playing, showing that the effect is activated. While I think the reason you didn't add this because you want the player to observe from the status effect text by themselves; but to me it looks unpolished and is a bit of a turn off to see the status text change suddenly.
Mostly this is programming laziness, Tailwind should have an animation, but I haven't programmed one in yet. I had planned on a lot of polishing once the game is fully playable.
zombero
448
author=hima
I just found two bugs. One is more like something you overlooked, while the other is a show stopper.
1.) When the main character switches back to human soul, he'll learn Lai Strike regardless of how many skills he already has. This allow the number of skill he has to exceed the maximum number for one battle.
2.) This happened when Nekomata attack me with Wild Fang
I also found a way to teleport to other home points now. Much more convenient! :D
Thanks for the report about Lai Strike, sounds like an oversight. As to the error, that's interesting, I know people have gotten all the way through the demo without experiencing that, so it must be a fairly specific situation. If I had to guess, the most likely cause is a problem with a shard skill on that character. I will take a look at it when I get home. I should say, however, that there is a known bug with the Reaper Soul Shard, I have since fixed it in the current project, but it remains unfixed in this demo release for the time being, and it makes Reaper essentially unusable. Glad to see you found the second home point :) there's only 2 in the demo, but basically every time you reach a new stratum of areas, there'd be a new home point. Did you manage to topple the end demo boss?
author=hima
2.) Control over skill learning
Soul system allows you to customize your character to suit your needs, without randomization involve.
Yeah, the randomization thing was really annoying in the megaten games, I once re-rolled a Michael for about 3 hours before finally getting what I wanted. Not something I really want to put people through.
hima
4237
I just found two bugs. One is more like something you overlooked, while the other is a show stopper.
1.) When the main character switches back to human soul, he'll learn Lai Strike regardless of how many skills he already has. This allow the number of skill he has to exceed the maximum number for one battle.
2.) This happened when Nekomata attack me with Wild Fang
I also found a way to teleport to other home points now. Much more convenient! :D
1.) When the main character switches back to human soul, he'll learn Lai Strike regardless of how many skills he already has. This allow the number of skill he has to exceed the maximum number for one battle.
2.) This happened when Nekomata attack me with Wild Fang
I also found a way to teleport to other home points now. Much more convenient! :D
doomed2die
180
Woah... Is this completed yet? I remember playing the demo and talking about production with you. I've largely lost interest in designing myself (might get back in for teamwork but not really feeling it).
This was a really good game concept and I'm glad to see it here :)
This was a really good game concept and I'm glad to see it here :)
hima
4237
Zombero, you mentioned that Warp Crystal can take you to other town and not just the initial one. How do we do that? I keep returning to the first town :O
hima
4237
Kobold isn't that hard, really. Just need to prepare your party appropriately.
- Weaken him so he doesn't do ridiculous damage.
- He's weak to fire, so equip Shard from Blob + Flame would do big damage every turn if Burn catches him.
- Alternatively, you can poison him. He seems to be weak against it. Deal something around 100+ damage every time he acts.
- Don't waste time deal little damage. If your healer can't do much damage, just guard.
The more I play, the more I appreciate the system and the challenge. Man, I really want to help you remake this. RMXP doesn't do this game justice :/
As for Magatama/Demon Fusion vs Soul system, I like this better than SMT for the following reasons :
1.) Skill Information
Magatama doesn't give you anything about the information of the skill you'll get. On the other hand, whatever enemies are using, it's there in their souls - down to their Shard. All the information is there, and you just have to observe. Magatama hides this information from you completely, and it's all trial and error.
2.) Control over skill learning
Soul system allows you to customize your character to suit your needs, without randomization involve. In SMT, the randomize skill inheritance system is there to prevent you from getting all the skills you need too easily. But because it's random, you can't really control it and all you can do is keep checking the fusion result, cancel, rinse and repeat until all the skills you need show up. It's like playing a slot machine but not as fun.
In Soul Shepherd, there is no randomization in learning skill. With a little bit of planning and smart Soul switching, you can get all the skills you need. Yes, it's a bit tedious to fight and gain skill, but I think this is too prevent from getting skills too easily. It's the same reason as SMT random skill inheritance. But this system allow you to have some control. You know that if you do this, you'll definitely get that skill. So you can predict the effort you have to put in, or come up with an optimize plan to customize your character.
Like you mentioned, Avatar Tuner is just too grindy and suffer from a what I'd like to call 'gotta catch'em all' syndrome. Skills in that series is like Pokemon where people collect them and then decide what to do with them later.
Some problems with the system though.
In SMT games, there are characters outside of your party. You can use them as another resource for healing, cure bad status alignments or use some special spell like Liberama or Estoma. Some characters are like sideboard cards in MGT, that you can switch in if the battle calls for that type of nakama.
In Soul Shepherd, however,there are only 4 characters so having a convenient support character is impossible. If there are battles that require different type of skills, it'll take time to customize character to suit the current situation. So I agree that there should be some way to buy back skill or make this part not so time consuming. Let the player choose whether they want to invest time or money would be ideal.
Still, this is related to level design as well as how many skill slots will you allow each party member to have. It's 8 in SMT, which is pretty limited considering they also include passive skills in there. But you already separate passive skills into Shard system, so maybe 8 active skills would be plenty.
Will keep playing if I have time. This is definitely one of the best RPGMaker games I've ever played, gameplay wise. Kudos for making a solid system :)
- Weaken him so he doesn't do ridiculous damage.
- He's weak to fire, so equip Shard from Blob + Flame would do big damage every turn if Burn catches him.
- Alternatively, you can poison him. He seems to be weak against it. Deal something around 100+ damage every time he acts.
- Don't waste time deal little damage. If your healer can't do much damage, just guard.
The more I play, the more I appreciate the system and the challenge. Man, I really want to help you remake this. RMXP doesn't do this game justice :/
As for Magatama/Demon Fusion vs Soul system, I like this better than SMT for the following reasons :
1.) Skill Information
Magatama doesn't give you anything about the information of the skill you'll get. On the other hand, whatever enemies are using, it's there in their souls - down to their Shard. All the information is there, and you just have to observe. Magatama hides this information from you completely, and it's all trial and error.
2.) Control over skill learning
Soul system allows you to customize your character to suit your needs, without randomization involve. In SMT, the randomize skill inheritance system is there to prevent you from getting all the skills you need too easily. But because it's random, you can't really control it and all you can do is keep checking the fusion result, cancel, rinse and repeat until all the skills you need show up. It's like playing a slot machine but not as fun.
In Soul Shepherd, there is no randomization in learning skill. With a little bit of planning and smart Soul switching, you can get all the skills you need. Yes, it's a bit tedious to fight and gain skill, but I think this is too prevent from getting skills too easily. It's the same reason as SMT random skill inheritance. But this system allow you to have some control. You know that if you do this, you'll definitely get that skill. So you can predict the effort you have to put in, or come up with an optimize plan to customize your character.
Like you mentioned, Avatar Tuner is just too grindy and suffer from a what I'd like to call 'gotta catch'em all' syndrome. Skills in that series is like Pokemon where people collect them and then decide what to do with them later.
Some problems with the system though.
In SMT games, there are characters outside of your party. You can use them as another resource for healing, cure bad status alignments or use some special spell like Liberama or Estoma. Some characters are like sideboard cards in MGT, that you can switch in if the battle calls for that type of nakama.
In Soul Shepherd, however,there are only 4 characters so having a convenient support character is impossible. If there are battles that require different type of skills, it'll take time to customize character to suit the current situation. So I agree that there should be some way to buy back skill or make this part not so time consuming. Let the player choose whether they want to invest time or money would be ideal.
Still, this is related to level design as well as how many skill slots will you allow each party member to have. It's 8 in SMT, which is pretty limited considering they also include passive skills in there. But you already separate passive skills into Shard system, so maybe 8 active skills would be plenty.
Will keep playing if I have time. This is definitely one of the best RPGMaker games I've ever played, gameplay wise. Kudos for making a solid system :)
Hi Zombero. I'm gonna try the game and give feedback.
Right at the beginning right now.. I think poison is too common at the beginning. I keep getting poisoned and having to go back to the inn -_-.
Also that Kobold is absolutely ridiculous for the point in the game when you can reach him. I like hard games, but he's way too hard IMO.
Right at the beginning right now.. I think poison is too common at the beginning. I keep getting poisoned and having to go back to the inn -_-.
Also that Kobold is absolutely ridiculous for the point in the game when you can reach him. I like hard games, but he's way too hard IMO.
hima
4237
Currently playing the game and loving it so far, despite the fact that I hate the cute main character and the dungeon seems rush. I think it'd really benefits from a darker theme with first person point of view like good old SMT.
I do wonder why this game hasn't got any reviewed. The system is well design and is really solid. I carefully observe the enemy behaviors, and every choice I make with Soul switching or Shard switching is important and is a meaningful choice. It's been so long since I've played something like this.
I died many times in the game, which is to be expected. But because of the system, dying in this game doesn't seems to be penalty. Every time I died in the game, I learn something. I learn more about the enemy I'm fighting with. I learn more about skills they use, so I can decide whether I should switch my Soul to this enemy or just shatter it to get more useful Shards.
README file could use some work. Basically, the organization of some part make it a bit difficult to find useful information. I read the file before starting the game to prepare myself, but I got puzzled by the 'Warded' thing.
I also think there should be some more signals when some special condition is activated. Tail Wind, for example, should have some kind of animations playing, showing that the effect is activated. While I think the reason you didn't add this because you want the player to observe from the status effect text by themselves; but to me it looks unpolished and is a bit of a turn off to see the status text change suddenly.
I haven't gotten far into the game ( just rescued the blacksmith and then got a Fairy Soul ) I'll write more of my thoughts here once I finish the game.
I do wonder why this game hasn't got any reviewed. The system is well design and is really solid. I carefully observe the enemy behaviors, and every choice I make with Soul switching or Shard switching is important and is a meaningful choice. It's been so long since I've played something like this.
I died many times in the game, which is to be expected. But because of the system, dying in this game doesn't seems to be penalty. Every time I died in the game, I learn something. I learn more about the enemy I'm fighting with. I learn more about skills they use, so I can decide whether I should switch my Soul to this enemy or just shatter it to get more useful Shards.
README file could use some work. Basically, the organization of some part make it a bit difficult to find useful information. I read the file before starting the game to prepare myself, but I got puzzled by the 'Warded' thing.
I also think there should be some more signals when some special condition is activated. Tail Wind, for example, should have some kind of animations playing, showing that the effect is activated. While I think the reason you didn't add this because you want the player to observe from the status effect text by themselves; but to me it looks unpolished and is a bit of a turn off to see the status text change suddenly.
I haven't gotten far into the game ( just rescued the blacksmith and then got a Fairy Soul ) I'll write more of my thoughts here once I finish the game.
zombero
448
"Souls are considerably closer to Magatama than equipment" -- I said Magatama are like equipment, not souls are like equipment. Souls completely remake all your character's stats, so it's quite different indeed. Magatama's immediate effects are exactly like equipment, though yes you do learn skills from them too. But I was talking in the context of what you'd equip for one battle.
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the feedback. I'm more open to the concept of paying gold or exp for previous skills than I am to an ability to bank... Part of the problem there is I don't want to encourage learning all the skills in the game once for the purposes of building up a pool of skills you've learned. That is also grind-happy, and defeats the purposes of planning and optimizing ahead of time. But we'll see. The wipe-happiness probably won't go away unless I make an easy mode :)
I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for the feedback. I'm more open to the concept of paying gold or exp for previous skills than I am to an ability to bank... Part of the problem there is I don't want to encourage learning all the skills in the game once for the purposes of building up a pool of skills you've learned. That is also grind-happy, and defeats the purposes of planning and optimizing ahead of time. But we'll see. The wipe-happiness probably won't go away unless I make an easy mode :)
Einander
70
Mmm. I don't consider demon fusion for skills to take too long, when one considers the ability to buy back demons, though I suppose that is a matter of opinion. I really do think Souls are considerably closer to Magatama than equipment; they both teach abilities, alter stats, and change your native resistances. Equipment does the second and sometimes the third but never the first, and Magatama and Souls always do all three.
And yes, I've played DDS. In DDS, however, your characters all start on a given path and have natural stat growths, and as such aren't as flexible; while Heat can learn Ziodyne perfectly well, he'll never be good at casting it without many +Stat items. In that respect, your party in Soul Summoner is more like a set of four Demi-Fiends or Serphs than the other characters of DDS. You'll probably still split roughly 2-2 physical/magical because of Soul constraints, but it's not otherwise imposed that I'm aware of.
I consider a few of the mechanics needlessly grindy, yes. I'm not fond of having to repeatedly refight enemies for Souls without being able to affect the drop chances. Negotiation in SMT is sort of random, but it also follows patterns and your chance of success therefore rises after an attempt. A Soul isn't statistically any more likely to drop on your fifth try compared to your first, and the lack of ability to personally influence it also makes the random nature more of an irritant if you're particularly unlucky.
I don't think the Soul breakage particularly adds much; in the time it takes for the character to learn all three skills, you'll probably get another one if it's a soul from a random encounter. It just means it's not guaranteed. It's understandable to have it break if it's a boss soul or is 1-1 on its shards, certainly, but I don't really see how it adds much value otherwise.
I also consider the relearning unnecessarily grindy. In my opinion, the only practical difference between "buy back skills" and "reacquire through releveling the souls" is the grinding necessary. If the concern is that skills will be swapped too freely, why not require the skills to be bought for money or exchanged for experience? Grinding allows you to acquire both of those, and it means that sufficient amounts of either allow you to save time while still making you feel some sort of penalty. There's just something discouraging about knowing that the only way to get a skill back is to invest time. Time leads to money and experience but it's still more pleasant to spend either of the latter two.
Still, as mentioned, I'll probably end up playing through the final release. While these things were irritating and the game was a bit too wipe-happy for my tastes, the overall product was good. I'll be looking forward to any news.
And yes, I've played DDS. In DDS, however, your characters all start on a given path and have natural stat growths, and as such aren't as flexible; while Heat can learn Ziodyne perfectly well, he'll never be good at casting it without many +Stat items. In that respect, your party in Soul Summoner is more like a set of four Demi-Fiends or Serphs than the other characters of DDS. You'll probably still split roughly 2-2 physical/magical because of Soul constraints, but it's not otherwise imposed that I'm aware of.
I consider a few of the mechanics needlessly grindy, yes. I'm not fond of having to repeatedly refight enemies for Souls without being able to affect the drop chances. Negotiation in SMT is sort of random, but it also follows patterns and your chance of success therefore rises after an attempt. A Soul isn't statistically any more likely to drop on your fifth try compared to your first, and the lack of ability to personally influence it also makes the random nature more of an irritant if you're particularly unlucky.
I don't think the Soul breakage particularly adds much; in the time it takes for the character to learn all three skills, you'll probably get another one if it's a soul from a random encounter. It just means it's not guaranteed. It's understandable to have it break if it's a boss soul or is 1-1 on its shards, certainly, but I don't really see how it adds much value otherwise.
I also consider the relearning unnecessarily grindy. In my opinion, the only practical difference between "buy back skills" and "reacquire through releveling the souls" is the grinding necessary. If the concern is that skills will be swapped too freely, why not require the skills to be bought for money or exchanged for experience? Grinding allows you to acquire both of those, and it means that sufficient amounts of either allow you to save time while still making you feel some sort of penalty. There's just something discouraging about knowing that the only way to get a skill back is to invest time. Time leads to money and experience but it's still more pleasant to spend either of the latter two.
Still, as mentioned, I'll probably end up playing through the final release. While these things were irritating and the game was a bit too wipe-happy for my tastes, the overall product was good. I'll be looking forward to any news.
zombero
448
Alright, there's a lot I disagree with here, so I'll have to do a point-by-point:
"Why are the souls randomly dropped?" -- I'm not sure why this is a problem. In SMT - Nocturne demon negotiations are randomly successful, even if you pick all the right answers. You mention conditional drops later, I assume specific actions that trigger the drop? Killing them is the specific action. I like to kill things. I think a poke-ball type effect would be pretty annoying in my game too...
"Why does taking the Soul off anyone other than the main character break it? Why do we have to relearn abilities if we want to place them in our active slots again?" -- To encourage strategic planning in what souls you equip and skills you learn. By observing the enemy in battle you can see all skills that their soul will give you and plan accordingly. If there were a skill bank, not much thought or care would have to go into this process. But I'm rather merciful in how easy it is to correct your mistakes... especially compared to Nocturne. The main char can -NEVER- re-learn any skill that you forget on him, and fusing a demon with a lot of skills you want takes more time than forging a skillset does in my game.
"why does taking the Soul off of a character reset their learning progress?" -- To allow you to re-learn skills you passed up previously.
"The Magatama in Nocturne are in pre-defined locations, making acquiring them predictable and not tedious, and can be swapped freely, allowing you to change your stats and resistances according to the needs of the present battle." -- Yes, but Magatama are more like equipment than souls, which I also let you swap freely. In Nocturne, all the points you put into your main character's stats are permanent and all the skills you passed up are permanently gone. Magatama give a few minor stat bonuses and a resistance. Admittedly my EQ doesn't have resistances yet (it will later on), but it does have stat bonuses. So yeah, have that.
"Yes, there's limited slots and no databank of previously learned skills in Nocturne, but you only have one character to which that applies - your demons are much more flexible" -- I powerfully disagree here, fixing your demon's skillsets is much more time-consuming then fixing your skill sets in this game. I spent 4 hours trying to inherent 5 skills I wanted on Michael. If you don't want to spend hours rolling every demon, then you are forced to be content with a "sub-par skillset" as you complained about earlier.
"implement a "switch present skills for previously learned ones" databank mechanic, and then rebalance accordingly." -- You should play Digital Devil Saga, it is a lot like Nocturne, but it has this databank mechanic you speak of. I've played both games, and as such I know what system I like better. In DDS I felt generic, I felt like there was no design strategy to my team because I could just swap skills out any time I wanted, very little thought when into the whole process. However, I thought Nocturne went too far with how much of a pain it was to undo decisions, so I marked Soul Shepherd as a midway point between these two. Which is why I'm really confused on your comparisons to Nocturne.
"As is, Soul Shepherd is not "difficult," it is "needlessly grindy,"" -- You are the only person I know of that thinks that. Soul Shepherd severely limits the benefits of grinding. What there is benefit to is having well designed skillsets, the latest souls, and enough money to buy equipment (grind with a purpose if you will). Beyond that point, grind does almost nothing. And once you've reached that point, the game is still pretty difficult. The benefits of grinding in Nocturne are much greater as it is directly tied to your character's power.
"The "back to town" items also need to be able to go somewhere other than the initial town." -- They do.
"Dick move" -- Yes. Yes it is.
"Why are the souls randomly dropped?" -- I'm not sure why this is a problem. In SMT - Nocturne demon negotiations are randomly successful, even if you pick all the right answers. You mention conditional drops later, I assume specific actions that trigger the drop? Killing them is the specific action. I like to kill things. I think a poke-ball type effect would be pretty annoying in my game too...
"Why does taking the Soul off anyone other than the main character break it? Why do we have to relearn abilities if we want to place them in our active slots again?" -- To encourage strategic planning in what souls you equip and skills you learn. By observing the enemy in battle you can see all skills that their soul will give you and plan accordingly. If there were a skill bank, not much thought or care would have to go into this process. But I'm rather merciful in how easy it is to correct your mistakes... especially compared to Nocturne. The main char can -NEVER- re-learn any skill that you forget on him, and fusing a demon with a lot of skills you want takes more time than forging a skillset does in my game.
"why does taking the Soul off of a character reset their learning progress?" -- To allow you to re-learn skills you passed up previously.
"The Magatama in Nocturne are in pre-defined locations, making acquiring them predictable and not tedious, and can be swapped freely, allowing you to change your stats and resistances according to the needs of the present battle." -- Yes, but Magatama are more like equipment than souls, which I also let you swap freely. In Nocturne, all the points you put into your main character's stats are permanent and all the skills you passed up are permanently gone. Magatama give a few minor stat bonuses and a resistance. Admittedly my EQ doesn't have resistances yet (it will later on), but it does have stat bonuses. So yeah, have that.
"Yes, there's limited slots and no databank of previously learned skills in Nocturne, but you only have one character to which that applies - your demons are much more flexible" -- I powerfully disagree here, fixing your demon's skillsets is much more time-consuming then fixing your skill sets in this game. I spent 4 hours trying to inherent 5 skills I wanted on Michael. If you don't want to spend hours rolling every demon, then you are forced to be content with a "sub-par skillset" as you complained about earlier.
"implement a "switch present skills for previously learned ones" databank mechanic, and then rebalance accordingly." -- You should play Digital Devil Saga, it is a lot like Nocturne, but it has this databank mechanic you speak of. I've played both games, and as such I know what system I like better. In DDS I felt generic, I felt like there was no design strategy to my team because I could just swap skills out any time I wanted, very little thought when into the whole process. However, I thought Nocturne went too far with how much of a pain it was to undo decisions, so I marked Soul Shepherd as a midway point between these two. Which is why I'm really confused on your comparisons to Nocturne.
"As is, Soul Shepherd is not "difficult," it is "needlessly grindy,"" -- You are the only person I know of that thinks that. Soul Shepherd severely limits the benefits of grinding. What there is benefit to is having well designed skillsets, the latest souls, and enough money to buy equipment (grind with a purpose if you will). Beyond that point, grind does almost nothing. And once you've reached that point, the game is still pretty difficult. The benefits of grinding in Nocturne are much greater as it is directly tied to your character's power.
"The "back to town" items also need to be able to go somewhere other than the initial town." -- They do.
"Dick move" -- Yes. Yes it is.
Einander
70
I've played through most of the demo. I'm a fan of the SaGa, Shin Megami Tensei, and Etrian Odyssey series, so I'm not opposed to 'difficult' games. I thought about posting a review, but I may as well just post my thoughts here. It'll come off as less vitrolic if I'm writing to the designer instead of an imaginary audience.
When it comes down to it, the difficulty of any kind of RPG isn't the actual battle, it's devising a tactic and preparing your party appropriately. With that in mind, a number of the decisions in the game confuse me. Why are souls randomly dropped? Why does taking the Soul off anyone other than the main character break it? Why do we have to relearn abilities if we want to place them in our active slots again, and why does taking the Soul off of a character reset their learning progress?
None of these make the game harder or improve it, they simply make the process of battle set-up considerably more tedious, or inspire you to go into a battle with a knowingly sub-optimal set-up because it would be irritating to spend the time to do otherwise. In fact, the pointless grinding involved, and the levels it will provide, additionally incentivizes wasting your time! The Soul system is obviously inspired by SMT: Nocturne. So why aren't you following its lessons?
The Magatama in Nocturne are in pre-defined locations, making acquiring them predictable and not tedious, and can be swapped freely, allowing you to change your stats and resistances according to the needs of the present battle. Yes, you might lose out on a skill at level-up, but it's generally considered worth it to go into the Matador battle with Resist: Force regardless.
Yes, there's limited slots and no databank of previously learned skills in Nocturne, but you only have one character to which that applies - your demons are much more flexible, and it's easy to have a large set you switch between appropriately. You can rotate through your selection of demons, phasing out the old and experimenting with new set-ups, without being significantly deprived. If a new set-up fails on a demon you don't want wasted, buy a earlier version of that demon and try again. Soul Shepherd has no equivalent. The limited skills mean that players will tend to gravitate towards templates; your 'physical' and 'magical' characters look very similar, because experimenting means having to grind back the more generally useful skill afterwards.
I sincerely suggest you make soul drops conditional or guaranteed instead of random, remove the Soul breakage, and implement a "switch present skills for previously learned ones" databank mechanic, and then rebalance accordingly. As is, Soul Shepherd is not "difficult," it is "needlessly grindy," and in that respect it feels very little like the games that apparently inspired it.
There's other little issues. (The escape rate is ass in a game where you're already punished in three different ways for not fighting enough, and seriously, a max of 9 items of any one type? Despite the fact that you're unlikely to keep Detox and there are enemies that use full-party Poison spells? Dick move. The "back to town" items also need to be able to go somewhere other than the initial town.) That said, the ones addressed in the previous paragraphs are the big ones, and the ones which should be your priority.
When it comes down to it, the difficulty of any kind of RPG isn't the actual battle, it's devising a tactic and preparing your party appropriately. With that in mind, a number of the decisions in the game confuse me. Why are souls randomly dropped? Why does taking the Soul off anyone other than the main character break it? Why do we have to relearn abilities if we want to place them in our active slots again, and why does taking the Soul off of a character reset their learning progress?
None of these make the game harder or improve it, they simply make the process of battle set-up considerably more tedious, or inspire you to go into a battle with a knowingly sub-optimal set-up because it would be irritating to spend the time to do otherwise. In fact, the pointless grinding involved, and the levels it will provide, additionally incentivizes wasting your time! The Soul system is obviously inspired by SMT: Nocturne. So why aren't you following its lessons?
The Magatama in Nocturne are in pre-defined locations, making acquiring them predictable and not tedious, and can be swapped freely, allowing you to change your stats and resistances according to the needs of the present battle. Yes, you might lose out on a skill at level-up, but it's generally considered worth it to go into the Matador battle with Resist: Force regardless.
Yes, there's limited slots and no databank of previously learned skills in Nocturne, but you only have one character to which that applies - your demons are much more flexible, and it's easy to have a large set you switch between appropriately. You can rotate through your selection of demons, phasing out the old and experimenting with new set-ups, without being significantly deprived. If a new set-up fails on a demon you don't want wasted, buy a earlier version of that demon and try again. Soul Shepherd has no equivalent. The limited skills mean that players will tend to gravitate towards templates; your 'physical' and 'magical' characters look very similar, because experimenting means having to grind back the more generally useful skill afterwards.
I sincerely suggest you make soul drops conditional or guaranteed instead of random, remove the Soul breakage, and implement a "switch present skills for previously learned ones" databank mechanic, and then rebalance accordingly. As is, Soul Shepherd is not "difficult," it is "needlessly grindy," and in that respect it feels very little like the games that apparently inspired it.
There's other little issues. (The escape rate is ass in a game where you're already punished in three different ways for not fighting enough, and seriously, a max of 9 items of any one type? Despite the fact that you're unlikely to keep Detox and there are enemies that use full-party Poison spells? Dick move. The "back to town" items also need to be able to go somewhere other than the initial town.) That said, the ones addressed in the previous paragraphs are the big ones, and the ones which should be your priority.
Silently
127
I tried fighting Kerberos
and it seems he has breaths of all 3 elements rather than only ice. I assumed he only had ice because I only got that far into the battle before (when my characters only had ~600 HP) and he's blue. Since I had not yet thought of getting the Cancer's Aura, I don't think I would've been able to keep up with the damage anyway.
It looks like I'll also need to acquire the !Heat skill, but I don't remember which enemy has that.
It looks like I'll also need to acquire the !Heat skill, but I don't remember which enemy has that.
zombero
448
post=Silently
I'm not sure where to go now.
Yep, all that's left then is Kerberos. No that chest shouldn't have been opened, I'll look into that too. Though I wouldn't worry about it, none of those 3 chests had anything important in them.
P.S. Good luck :)
zombero
448
post=Everguard
hey zombero, do you mind if I use some of the music in this game in one of my games? (specifically Imperial Sorrow and Muladhara) I'm really big on having perfect music in a game, and these seem to fit my quota...
Sure go ahead, they aren't original works anyway.
