ARCDUKE16'S PROFILE

Hey, just finished. The "Hero's Realm, but with story" approach is pretty interesting, as were the battles. Allow me to unleash some bullet points.

-Probably my biggest problem was the lack of easy access to items in Wachenta. I ran out once about halfway through and had to walk all the way back to the city, and just barely had enough to scrape through the boss fight. An in-dungeon shop or Phylomortis-esque "commerce sphere" item that gave one-time access to a shop would've been nice, especially since you don't have enough money to get all the items you need until you're actually fairly deep in the dungeon.
-What happened to Deckiller's rope from the castle to make you have to pick up a new one in the dungeon? Especially peculiar because it's not removed from your inventory when you use it in the dungeon.
-It looks like it's possible to permanently lock yourself out of one of the rooms in Wachenta.
-Having transparent tiles in a boulder-pushin' maze isn't a good idea. I recommend you remove the ceiling tiles that rocks can (and must) be pushed under. Also, there should be a way to escape if you accidentally block yourself in.
-The big boss was a good challenge, but I wouldn't have minded him being a little slower. Also, you might like to consider having someone point out that it's best to go all out once the boss breaks out the Ruin spell.
-I would have liked to be able to go over secondary skill descriptions again after the time they pop up when a character joins.
-How often are you going to be busting out the FFXIII music? I can see it getting old real quick, like what happened in Legion Saga III.

That's all from me. Eager to see more!

Hey, noticed a few problems with the download:
First, you'll want to mention that the game needs the expanded 2k RTP to run; not everybody has it, and the game gives a confusing "Install RTPe.exe" message if it's not there.
Second, the game folder was missing the harmony.dll file, which can just be copied over from another game folder.

I'll be playing now.

EDIT: and then it was missing the "Hit" file in the intro when Rei ordered the tank to fire.

Well, for me it seems that percentage-experience gain for inactive members is mostly a way to make the player to switch around his or her entourage often so that the player has to use different strategies for regular battles, with the payoff being that the party as a whole is more well-rounded and prepared for a wider variety of combat situations; this was my experience with Yeaster's games, although he may not have intended it that way. With full experience for inactives, there's nothing to stop the player from finding the ideal party for a dungeon and then just cruising all the way through, which may or may not be a bad thing. I personally enjoy changing my party around in general so I don't need the game to give me any reason to do so. Also, it seems like your game's mechanics already reward characters for being active (Lee's abilities, heraldry, thievery), so I don't think party switching needs to be encouraged any more. Ergo, I see no issue with giving full experience to inactive members.

As for Lee, the problem I see with limiting his skillset is that forces the player to choose which skills to bring into an environment he knows nothing about; therefore, the player may potentially opt to forget a fire skill in favor of an ice skill right before entering an ice dungeon. The five-skill limit is fine in theory, but I would want it to be possible to easily change which five skills Lee has, possibly by being able to change them around via a CMS accesible by save-point or something.

Hey, great job! I'm just incredibly impressed with everything you've managed to do with 2k3. A few comments, if I could:
-Erin's "Providence" is pretty much prohibitively expensive, to the extent that you'd have to have her boosted already to use it. Seems to me like it should be pretty easy to deploy for some quick bonuses, so it's weird that it costs more than Second Aid.
-Jake's "Temporal Stasis" doesn't seem to work quite as well as advertised; he only seems to get one move in before it wears off.
-Sometimes it's hard to make out if there's a ladder somewhere; some green arrows at the bottoms would make it a lot easier.
-The two syncs you find in the factory don't specify whether it's you or the enemy that has to have the statuses active for them to work. I figured it meant the characters, but it was confusing when I first found them.
-Indy's skills not being guaranteed to drain make it a little uncomfortable using her, especially considering how frail she is. It's like playing Russian Roulette every time I cast Drain. Maybe it's supposed to be incentive to get her MND really high?
-In the Gallith boss fight, the event controlling the death of the little Specks doesn't seem to work right once they're revived. As a result, they can't be killed by Abilities, though items can destroy them without activating their death animation.
-Whenever there's an EX degen due to a Mode, the deduction occurs before a character acts but after an ability is selected, so that you won't be able to use a 2 EX skill if you have 2 EX. I'm guessing it's a bug in the battle system.

Again, great going. I'm rooting for you.