• Add Review
  • Subscribe
  • Nominate
  • Submit Media
  • RSS

Fun fun fun!

Hello.
A looong time ago I reviewed a little complete adventure game called Beta, set in a small town (Beta Town, duh!).
Well today instead I tried Fade, a demo of a sequel of that adventure.

The first thing I remember of Beta is that it was an adventure without combat, a lot of funny scenes (saturday morning cartoon humor) and minigames. Well, Fade instead is a little different because while it mantains the humor and minigames, it integrates them into a more traditional jrpg experience.
In this game the protagonist is still Roth the master of Thunder, joined once again by his brother Thieme and his friend Rage (warriors with the power of Earth and Fore respectively), but to fill the fourth slot of the party there is Eldin, a girl met in the first adventure in Beta Town (play it if you did not already, or you will miss some references and half of the fun) that is a sort of mage/healer.
After the adventures of the first game out heroes earned a flying vessel, unfortunately in the prologue they make a new enemy that destroys their ship. They survived the crash, but now they are stranded in the middle of a forest with no weapons, equipment or even clothes. And I guess youc can expect that the place is full of monsters and hostile animals...


Oh yeah, old friends. I'll tell you again before starting Fade try Beta, the first game!

Unlike Beta that was incentrated on the exploration of a single town, Fade is a journey (sadly incomplete) about traversing a forest, hills and a volcano. There are lots of enemies wandering the areas, and luckily no random encounters, but if you want to escape from combat then you need to use an item, the smoke bombs.
Combat is classic but with some features: for example you can recover some mana using the standard attack and each character has a special ability with no cost that provides a temporary small bonus to a party member (to attack or defense or regeneration of mana or hp). Beside this each one has some special attacks or healing abilities that her or she learns after some level ups, the important thing is using stategically these skills: while the natural element of the enemy is not important (a fire elemental still receives full damage from Rage's fire attacks), some are able to protect and even counterattack physical or magical attacks, but luckily the game list the party members and enemies buffs and debuffs clearly.

Bosses and mini bosses present additional characteristics, like the ability to summon minions, to change form, or to regenerate by consuming other monsters! These encounters were really interesting, but also some more common enemies like the fairies will be a nuisance for our ill equipped heroes. However the difficulty of the game is average, and became a bit more challenging near the end of the demo (I struggled to win against the final boss since the two last miniboases made me consume almost every healing item... but I won on my third try).

The game, like its predecessor Beta, includes some minigames like climbing a wall while avoiding falling boulders, shooting bros with cannone and deflecting fireballs. Some are mandatory and other are optionals like some boss encounters (but both provide useful extra loot), in most cases they are pretty easy and can be'm re-tried until you are successful.


You can't see from the pic, but... WE'RE FALLING DOWN!

Graphically the game is really nice: there is the use both of rtp and edits, but it even includes some custom graphics like some nicely animated battlers and monsters (the only problem is that sometimes heroes stops in front of the enemy after missing an attack... but that happened in other games I played recently too and it is not really a problem), and some cool custom facesets for most main characters. Mapping is pretty good, despite the use of rtp only, the maps are well organized and include both useless (but funny) details and secrets. There are a lot of optional interactions (try approaching a sign from the wrong direction!) and funny animations.

However there are a couple of little bugs, for example the game goes to blackscreen after the Gameover (but you can press F12 to go back to the main menu) or Thieme that disappears if you enter and exit the farm after the slime quest. Luckily you can save anytime and anywhere, especially before the hardest combat encounters.


Fighting a family of Trolls... they are hiding a treasure, so we will have no mercy!!

The Verdict
Fade is just a demo, but in my opinion compared to Beta it is an improvement under every aspect: I liked more the dialogues and situations in Fade, and I also was never stuck into a situations or place without knowing what I had to do next or where I had to go (this happend to me in Beta). There were also less annoying minigames and combat was balanced and familiar, but at the same time it felt different because of the particular complementary abilities. I also like how this game is player friendly, despite providing some good challenges too. What else? Great usage of rtp and really nice custom sprites that fits perfectly the rest of the game, entertaining gameplay, funny dialogues...
This is a good game, gets a 4/5, yes, that's more than Beta!

Posts

Pages: 1
Oh, I see. You did submit a new game. It just doesn't show up on your main profile page. I'll try it out this week.

author=Biggamefreak
When I get my confidence and experience up, I will work on my main game series because this was something I always wanted to do. I just have to stop being afraid of failure, know that that professionals are people who did not give up, and just keep making.

Hmm, yeah. I think the best way to go is to just have fun with creating the game you want to play, and consider what other people think of it as secondary. Of course it's never going to be perfect, but as long as the game is playable without running into bugs, it shouldn't be considered a failure.
I have game making of course in the back of my mind. I hated procrastinating for so long, and when RPGmaker MZ came out, it just clicked and I got to work.

I actually finished one game in the fall (on my gamepage) and I am finishing up a short time traveling game. My next project should be larger as I am scaling up what I am learning and how I should pace myself. When I get my confidence and experience up, I will work on my main game series because this was something I always wanted to do. I just have to stop being afraid of failure, know that that professionals are people who did not give up, and just keep making.

You have a game I want to play. It's called FADE. I'm loving that you are mulling over the details with a complex battle system. I gotta learn how to figure out how to implement those details.

Biggamefreak

P.S. I also hate mapping and I need to get better at it.
author=Biggamefreak
I agree with this review. This game is like using RTP+ since you make fresh maps, fleshed out fun, and cool minigames.

Milennin, I want you to release this game in installments even.
I've considered doing that, but the limitations and issues that come with the combat system in RPG Maker 2003 ruined my motivation to finish it. Limitations, in the sense of too little I can do with skill descriptions, and so few options to fine-tune things the way I want them to work, such as damage formulas. Then the main issue of the engine skill cancelling actions when a new action is put in before the animation of the previous one has finished. I've tried a lot of things to fix it, but nothing seemed to work. All you can tell is people to not go too fast with action input for the characters, or else their skills/attacks may fail to do anything.

I've been working on an MZ version of this, though. I don't really want to go into too many details, but what I'll share for now:
-A complete overhaul of the character skill sets. MZ gives so many more options for more skills that do multiple things at once. At their core, the characters will still do what they did in RM2K3 (such as Roth being made to refill the party MP), but with more complexity and a skill branching system that will take the character into different directions each new playthrough.
So the way skill branching works is, each character has a set of base skills, which then branch out into 1 of 3 advanced versions of that skill that come with additional effects. The way each of them branch out is determined at random, so you don't know what you're going to get, but it'll make it so that replaying the game can make the way you play the characters in combat feel different.
To give an example of a branch: Rage's Axe skill (which replaces his Aura of Strength, but still grants the Attack boost for 3 turns) can branch out into a version that
1. Gains a 50% chance to inflict Burn on the enemy when Attack is used.
2. Restores some MP to Rage when Attack is used.
3. Restores 5% HP to all party members when Attack is used.
Meaning, depending on which version you get, you're going to benefit from the upgraded Axe for different purposes in combat.

-Addition of passive skills that will replace Auras. They'll no longer be chance based in their activation, and letting you go with different playstyles on a character, depending on which you do equip on them.

-I'm trying to get a paid plugin request done to emulate the way FADE in RM2K3 plays like (minus the issues, lol) and some extras to improve upon it. If I can't find nobody to do it, I'll settle for the MZ default system, which honestly is an OK compromise to me.

All in all, I'm aiming to make the combat system way more complex, with a lot more depth. Offering different ways to play each character, both through randomised skill branching and letting you choose which passives to equip on them. Making the game replay-friendly with options to skip like cutscenes and stuff, so if you want to play through it one more time, you don't have to sit through everything again.
Where I'm going to cut corners is the world and the story. And yeah, I'm not doing it because I want to, but I came to realise my scope for the original FADE was getting far too big. What I've learned with RTP (my MV game) is that I'm better off not spreading out my focus too much. I want to focus a lot on the combat, but it'll be at the cost of the game's world and story.
I really hate mapping sadly. I like how my maps turn out when I do get to finish them, but I found them taking up far too much of my time and motivation each time.

That ended up being longer than I thought... I could go on forever, lol, because game making is always on my mind somehow. But yeah, a remake of FADE is in the works, but I don't plan on releasing any demos for it. If/when it comes out, it'll come out as a finished game. And it also won't be anytime soon. I've fleshed out a lot of the combat mechanics and skill sets, but I'm still figuring out how to tackle the overworld stuff. And also still looking for a plugin creator that's willing to take up my request.

Anyway, very long time no see, BGF. I had no idea you're still hanging out around here. You have no plans on returning to game making yourself?
I agree with this review. This game is like using RTP+ since you make fresh maps, fleshed out fun, and cool minigames.

Milennin, I want you to release this game in installments even.
author=Milennin
Ah, so you did get around trying out FADE. And you had a pretty good experience with it, I see. You even found some of the game's secrets, impressive. (Actually, I don't know many people who battled the Lava Troll mini-boss on the volcano...)
You're right about the bugs, I did find those later on, but I've decided to drop the project because of issues I ran into with the engine and some other things, such as making the scope of the game far too big to manage.
I've been working on a smaller sized version of FADE in MZ, that I hope to release at some point (no demos, will be the full game once it goes up).

Heh, as I wrote to you after my review of Beta, I was going to try this!
Pretty easy and fun even if final combat was HARD! But I did it using all my resources! Despite the abrupt ending was a cool adventure! And yes I liked it even more than the first game!
Ah, so you did get around trying out FADE. And you had a pretty good experience with it, I see. You even found some of the game's secrets, impressive. (Actually, I don't know many people who battled the Lava Troll mini-boss on the volcano...)
You're right about the bugs, I did find those later on, but I've decided to drop the project because of issues I ran into with the engine and some other things, such as making the scope of the game far too big to manage.
I've been working on a smaller sized version of FADE in MZ, that I hope to release at some point (no demos, will be the full game once it goes up).
Pages: 1