So this borderline-rambling post is what I've done with the game since my decision to change engines about a month ago. Progress has been going at a nice pace despite my being distracted with playing Morrowind, haha

- Finished the waist-up portraits for Aidus, Moshi, Remi, and Vera. (By the way, Vera is the name of the woman who appears at the end of the VX demo.) While making this custom stuff, I've been cutting down on underused emotions so I don't overwhelm myself. Minor characters likely won't have as many emotion portraits as major ones.

- Revised the Chain bar system with Galv's Battle Favor script. (this thing is great! :D) Instead of random buffs appearing on the party when you fill up the bar in the old version of the game, you get a big buff as well as an experience boost if you kill an enemy troop while the bar is full. If the enemy fills their side up, they get the same buffs. I may go into more detail about it once I've finalized some things.

- Increased the size of the Sun Palace's maps because the 17x13 size screwed up the dialogue portraits with the larger screen size.

- Converted some skill action sequences to Symphony and added new ones; status-inflicting chemical vials have a new throwing animation and break into shards of glass on impact.

- Finished setting the passabilities for all maps up to the end of the first dungeon.

- Changed most of the item icons to improve consistency. For example, a mundane knife bought from a shop is a brownish gray color, while a knife obtained from crafting has a gold icon. Most armor types use the same icon.

- Made some small custom scripts for myself to edit the weather effects and the equip scene.

- Speaking of equipment, I cut down on the equipment slots because I happen to prefer the default layout and it gives me less crap to juggle and balance. The types of equipment available are now Weapon, Device (adds an attack effect), Body (modifies defense and occasionally other stats), Book (teaches skills), and Trinket (misc stuff).
Skill learning progression from books can now be viewed in the equipment menu instead of a separate spot in the main menu.

- Made custom background images for the status menu and all scenes that can be accessed in the menu, like items, system options, equipment, etc.

- Practiced a little spriting just for fun

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While cutting the fat from this game, the following things have been removed in the Ace version:

- Pills and sigils that raise a character's ailment & element resistances are out. Their effects were too negligible to me to keep them.

- Head and Feet equipment slots have been removed. Some of them may return as trinkets provided they fit the game's setting. (goggles, for example. maybe top hats too?)

- In a past blog post, I talked about a bar that drains when you kill enemy troops. When the bar empties, they respawn. To be honest, the system was an inefficient mess of checking for event numbers, self-switches, and changing images after every single touch encounter. So, I've been leaning toward scrapping the respawn bar entirely and having the encounters respawn only when you use a heal spot or leave the dungeon. Something like that.

Thanks for reading!