ACRA'S PROFILE

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Bacylae Revolution: Session 2
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Had a brief talk with Marrend about Runes in the mean. PageUp/Down shift through characters, and all three of buying runes, equipping runes, and unequipping runes cost me, thus the act of removing Minotaur was nothing short as an act of self-sabotage. The game does tell me such cost, but I guess I overlooked it, trying to mash my way to selecting a different character. It probably won't be the last time I have button issues.

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Grinded for a bit, and realized the Medicines enemies drop are far more valuable than the gold they drop, so got the units to 13 or so. Didn't help a bit with the Plants/Bandits on Glikx, so I just snuck past the area without getting into any battles, hoping I'd find a shop on the other side. Instead, found some more allies.



Four of them, all Bandits. They're the first ones to get any actual attempt at characterization. Simple, but it's all it needs to be. I know Gail is the leader, Sevat is an asshole. As bandits, they benefit from weakening the nobility. They joined at level 11 and have better gear than I can buy, and the four combined have an attack-all, so I guess they're my entire new party now. Also, we've now got both a Karina and a Karuna. Also also, Gail means to say 'reins of government from', not 'reigns of government form'. ...I actually didn't even notice those typos earlier. Not even sure Reign/Rein is wrong, as you're reining in the reigning ruler. Anyway.



Okay. Group battles. I got a bit excited for a second, but it doesn't look like it's a real reason to use multiple characters. It just tosses you to this kind of nothing screen, without any descriptor of anything, and no ability to choose the teams. As near as I can tell, all I can do is mash Enter and hope for the best, as there's no skills, targetting, enemy status, or anything. Those coloured 38/63 might be important, but I got no idea what that may be. Went for a while, and then the enemy archers started going ballistic and started doing 170+ damage on every action. So that didn't go great.

Re-try went better, mostly as the Orange team got a lot of early evades and crits, and Archer didn't later on. Realized what that enemy status screen was about; there's only two enemies, an Infantry and an Archer, with the Archer only coming up when Infantry is dead. Sucror's number is expected damage taken/dealt for them specifically. Tactic seems to be to use the Sucror team early, as they heal when not attacking. Still, we're typically eating 3x the damage we deal, which isn't a great look, but we outnumber them, so a winner is me. All in all, not terribly compelling, and certainly less so than a regular battle. Aaaaaand four more units arrive out of the ether.

Our next goal is Wal Pinnacle. Is THAT the mountain I've mistaken both the volcano and the range for? Are we really doing three mountians back-to-back-to-back? I know I keep bringing it up and it's super not a big deal, but it does strike me as a little silly. I suppose it's not even that fair as the volcano is fairly different, but I just, like, I've never seen a volcano be a location you visit in the first 30 minutes of a game.



It seems now that we've taken over the entire Imperial Capital, THIS is the real base. All the units I've recruited are wandering around. Their dialogue isn't anything amazing, but it at least passes the bar, and most character seem to have a whiff of a personality or background. Seems like Oharu lets you summon any encounter table on a whim.

That merchant from earlier is here. Of those four who joined when I took the castle, only one is playable, the other are other kinds of 'shopkeepers'. Someone lets me adjust the MWin's colours, something I could do from the start. I can just hear the strain to get 108 people here and have them have SOME purpose.

So now that I can see the pieces come together, for real this time, personal opinion time. This is what should've been happening at Natasha's old base, or at least partially. I don't think it's unreasonable to think that, at least our key units should wander that castle, at least while it's our base of operations. They can leave for the main castle when we get it. The vendors, yeah whatever, they can stay. Kinda think that Rune girl shouldn't be at Natasha's castle at all, as all I was able to do was harm myself with it at that point. If there isn't a 'better' Rune buy-list, maybe Rune editting should be available as soon as you get the main Imperial castle? And even if there is, maybe split the duties across multiple people, so your options expand with time? Maybe this already happens.

Skipped her earlier, but there's this Blackjack girl, Mae, at Natasha's old castle. Thing is, I'm, uh, not sure what the buttons actually are. I... can't find Stand. Enter and Space both seem to Hit, Esc and Delete are forfeit, thus absolutely useless. Are A/B/C programmable in the options? No? Hm. Z hits too. We're getting closer... Found it! It was Shift. Swear I tried that before... Aaaaand now I have infinite money, especially as Blackjack is a pretty easy game to win at, and Mae doesn't win in a draw. Personally, this is why I don't like the idea of gambling/minigames when save-anywhere is allowed, especially when I can bet millions every round; if the cap was in the hundreds, it'd be pretty inoffensive. That said, I won't abuse it if I don't have to. ....Prrretty sure I'll need to, though.



I had noticed the ability to distribute party XP before now, but I didn't think it would've amounted to all that much. Turns out, I've got more than enough to take Sarah from 15 to 50, more than tripling her stats. So I guess that fault's on me. Maybe explains the huge boost in enemy quality. While I'm probably going to regret not making one uber-character, it's enough split six-ways to get a group to mostly reach 21.

Now fighting Monks on the Pinnacle, Aurelie's Inevitable Blade does a whopping 300 to all enemies, even if it does half-kill her in the process. Far better than anyone else can do, even better than Rush. One board into here, and I've got five new characters, all combatants. Some are as high as level 27 and 35, probably making me splitting my experience a foolish endeavour. I've actually completely lost track of the number of characters I have now.

I've also finally bought new equipment here, but the upgrades in stats are relatively minimal, weapon-wise. Armour-wise, +2 across five different slots is a lot more noticeable, and honestly, less important right now. Enemies are were already only doing one-third of one character's life per attack, while soaking up all but the absolute strongest attacks for single-digit damage. Mild typo note; Poelyn is supposed to be Poleyn. Split Mail is probably supposed to be Splint Mail, but at least Split is a word, so, whatever.

There's something about Runes I gotta figure out, as while two of the new recruits are Water mages, what spells have have isn't the same. That's actually pretty interesting, but I don't know the full context yet. If I tried to put Fire on, say, Kerry, would she get four spells, or would perhaps she only have access to just one? Doesn't look like there's a Rune shop here, so I'll do it when I get back home.

Mina's Water did darn near 1000 to everyone. That's... yikes. Meanwhile, Best Friends, an attack that uses two characters' turns, is doing like 50, and Unicorn, which Paralyzes the user, is doing maybe 15. Later encounters with weaker enemies keep these general ratios. Female Monks seem immune to Light/Dark attacks, but even still, it looks like we're entering the age of mages only. I've always seen inklings of this, but if this is how things stay, this game's balance is completely busted. I didn't notice any earlier as spells were either prohibitively expensive before now, only produced meh results (Sarah's light arrow against the plants), and the Earth mage from the early game has like zero offensive spells. Mina's attack-all Water spell costs 2 MP. Maybe it's just Mina who's busted. Time will tell.

I wasn't sure I was done in Wal Pinnacle, but since I couldn't find anything else to do, went home, and yup, that was it. Time for another skirmish. Bleh. Sarah and Mina are now level 50, with 5 others being 30. Now that I'm here, I think I should investigate how Runes work.



Okay. It seems I was getting a little confused, because Sarah and Mina have 'better' versions of Light/Water Runes, so they have slightly different spells. They're not semi-unique lists per character. While, unique as that may be, it is a little disorienting, especially as Mina's got a spell for 2 MP that a normal water mage gets for 7 MP. Hold on. I'm editting Runes in the Castle, and... they're free to edit here?!? Yeah, at the old castle, when you click Attach, that part of the menu changes to show prices. No such thing happens at the Imperial Palace. And backing out of the menu, can confirm it's free. This NEEDS to be made consistent. It might be a different story if getting free Rune changes at the Imperial Palace was a reward, but you're handed her for free (or virtually free; she might've joined when Momo the librarian did, or something like that, but that's still like a two-minute walk).

Coupled with the self-harm I did early game, I would personally just introduce Runes either after Glikx Range, or just before Glikx Range, and the reason I got bodied there was because I wasn't utilizing the new mechanic. But that comes to an issue I don't have enough foresight on; I'm REALLY worried physical users are going to turn out worthless for the remainder of this game. Lord knows I've never seen Unicorn/Minotaur break 30 damage, against enemies with 500+ HP. If I'm just in a 'physicals suck right now' rut of the game, that's totally fine.



I found a book girl in that fort in the forest, and she runs this library, host to this screen. It gives a description of every character (and also location/event). This is, again, far more description and detail than 90% of these characters have ever gotten. It was a great find, but all the same, makes me a little sad, because you see none of this in-game. It tells me that Marrend had some foresight in character planning, but I think a lot of it got left in his head and never makes in into the game. Something I think happens with a lot of people, myself included, really. Oh yeah, and not that I ever used her, but Sylvia in my party is misspelled as Slyvia here.

There's also the baths on the bottom floor (random aside; is it weird this castle, and the others so far, for that matter, is 75% underground? Aren't castles, like, literally towering structures?) where pre-determined (those with Unities, I think) sets of characters have brief conversations with each other. Also, it looks like I've got 46/108 characters, and have all around seen about 45% of this game so far in a bit over 2 hours.

Links to game sessions:
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Baclyae Revolution - [ 1 | 2 | F ]
Keeper of the Fog
Notes from Province - [ 1 | 2 | ...
Port Traventor - [ 1 ]
{ New game slot here . . . }

I've complained multiple times about how too many developers here keep their nose to the ground, only worrying about their own project(s), with no care for the rest. It's something I've most certainly been guilty of. And will probably continue to be guilty of from time-to-time. So this is my attempt to rectify that, at least a little.

I think what makes this different from other similar topics is that the main goal isn't about getting a review out of it. Those may or may not come out afterwards, down the line, but that's not my priority. It's to give my full mindset, step-by-step, as I play through the game. How my opinions and perceptions shift over time, and a more in-depth look at any given section of a game than a review would. I think the best descriptor would be to call it a Written Let's Play? I don't really like that moniker, but whatever.

When I'm not guts-deep in my own gamedev, I'd hope to put out a session a week (roughly an hour of gameplay, several more of editing my thoughts into something coherent), hopefully more, but I guarantee nothing. I'd also like to say that I'll probably juggle between multiple games at a time, which hopefully won't get confusing, but should loosen the glut of one big game clogging the system for months and months. I likewise make no promises to finish every given game. But I'll try.

Now, I'd like to say I'm taking all comers, but I know I can't realistically deal with every one that might cross my table. So I'll be upfront and say what traits I'll specifically favour when making decisions of what to play, probably in this order:

1.) A high degree of customization: classes, skill trees, interesting equipment choices, a choice in party members, that sort of thing.
2.) Nonlinearity. I realize that's a pretty rare request when taken at face-value, but I mean it in broader contexts, too. Things like branching dialogue and whatnot.
3.) Long; this might seem an odd specification, but I know other people tend to favour a breadth-first approach to make their Makerscore number go big fast, so I figure I'd specifically go the opposite direction and tackle lengthier games. This doesn't mean I won't do unfinished games or demos, just that I'm aware of the irony that the longer the game, the less likely it'll be played, and would like to do something to rectify that.
4.) Only RPGs, or at least still in the turn-based domain. It sounds like an absolutely idiotic thing to say, and yet I feel RPGs are under-represented on a place called RPGMaker.net, what with every other month's Featured Game being a platformer.
5.) Not Commercial. Obviously.

Doesn't mean I won't consider things that fail to meet these criteria, but that should at least give a general direction. I do at least somewhat know where my biases lie. You are also welcome to suggest a game that you didn't personally create... but I don't realistically see anyone doing that, and I'm primarily looking to help active developers gain an outsider's perspective on their projects, and another playtester, rather than being funny or interesting or anything.

So, suggest away!

This is something that honestly terrifies me. It's no exaggeration to say it's the only thing motivating me and keeping me alive. What if, after doing absolutely everything within my power, I still fail completely and totally? That all my efforts haven't even helped a single person? So long as I'm still working on it, I at least have some sort of flimsy excuse to hide behind. That nobody cares, that it's no good because it isn't done yet.

Are lengthy RM games really that rare of a thing? Well, then, while I've still got some cleanup to do, I'd like to mention that Draug's Resurrection's playtime, by my sluggish testing, is somewhere around 30 hours, and is more or less finished. While the underlying engine itself is, uh, old (2003), and not RPGMaker at all, the game itself is new.

This is honestly an incredibly broad question, but in the majority of cases, the worst characters are those with poor Speed. In most cases, they're the ones who invest in Defense, too. Given a general face, it means the old bearded dude in the heavy armour is going to be the worst character, rarely getting a chance to do anything before everyone else has mopped things up, missing whenever they do go for a swing, yet still dying about as easily as everyone else.

Speed tends to be ridiculously valuable in many games, as that one stat often affects Turn Order/Frequency, Accuracy, AND Evasion. Defense tends to be the among the worst stats, not being useful whatsoever against magical foes, of which tend to be extremely common later into games, and Defense rarely offers enough of it to meaningfully reduce the damage taken, meaning they're typically dying sooner than HP-heavy characters/classes anyway, who can also put that HP-pool to soaking up magic attacks as well.

About the only other obvious answers are the above mentioned 'outside-combat utility' characters, like Merchants and Farmers. Yes, they can get you money and resources, but they're nigh-on worthless in an actual fight of value. In a game where you can go back to old areas to gather stuff with them easily enough, they can serve a role, but throwing them face-first into the actual difficult content (ie. bosses) is foolishness.

The other other obvious answer is anybody built around ailments or debuffs. This is kind of a series-by-series issue, but good lord, in the average random RPG these skills are worse than useless. They rarely land, are extremely weak when they do, and anything you'd want to use them on (bosses) are almost always completely immune. It's a real shame too, because in the games they do work, they tend to be the more interesting characters/classes to use.

Lastly, I ought to add that the average player focuses exclusively on seeing damage. No value placed on utility, support, or even healing. They're all about seeing the biggest number with the least effort.