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Matsumori Days
The damned trial can easily be cleared without fighting anything at all. I didn't clear the damned trial after the sacred trial though. However, had I known you don't have to fight anything there, I probably would have done so.
As for my gripe with the accuracy of weapons, it's that accuracy doesn't matter. There's no reason to ever hit attack in a serious fight. If you don't use spells, all characters have attack based skills that deals more damage than standard attacks. Those skills do not care about the accuracy of your equipped weapon. Try lowering the accuracy of all weapons to 1 and then use Flurry. You will see that Flurry hits perfectly every time. However, Flurry certainly do care about how much attack your weapon has. So, Toshie gets a useless advantage and pays for it by losing quite a lot of damage. Also, a stat that does almost nothing doesn't qualify as flavor in my book.
Masako's staffs are great. They boost her spirit for the cost of attack, but she won't use her physical skills anyway. Also, you can clear her trial without fighting anything, so she doesn't have to be in even a single fight without her spells.
As for my gripe with the accuracy of weapons, it's that accuracy doesn't matter. There's no reason to ever hit attack in a serious fight. If you don't use spells, all characters have attack based skills that deals more damage than standard attacks. Those skills do not care about the accuracy of your equipped weapon. Try lowering the accuracy of all weapons to 1 and then use Flurry. You will see that Flurry hits perfectly every time. However, Flurry certainly do care about how much attack your weapon has. So, Toshie gets a useless advantage and pays for it by losing quite a lot of damage. Also, a stat that does almost nothing doesn't qualify as flavor in my book.
Masako's staffs are great. They boost her spirit for the cost of attack, but she won't use her physical skills anyway. Also, you can clear her trial without fighting anything, so she doesn't have to be in even a single fight without her spells.
V1.3 Demo Release, Name Change
I've played it and beat it.
I've noticed two bugs. Steel Greatswords aren't any stronger than their iron counterparts. The enemies with the paralyse attacks seem to hit twice. I assume it's a bug because that attack seem to do way more damage than anything else.
I've noticed two bugs. Steel Greatswords aren't any stronger than their iron counterparts. The enemies with the paralyse attacks seem to hit twice. I assume it's a bug because that attack seem to do way more damage than anything else.
Matsumori Days
I played trough the game.
I must say, you made quite an impressive job with Masako. It's hard to write a character that's smarter than yourself, but I think you pulled it off. As for the other characters, they did have their own distinct personalities, but they never shone trough. I don't think it was the writing that failed, rather I get the feeling that the game just wasn't long enough to give all the characters enough spotlight.
Anyway, I think I'm going to focus on balancing. You said you're finished with this game, but this can be useful for the next game.
Goho has the highest attack and Masako has the highest Spirit. The other characters were somewhere between. However, being flexible is only useful in situations where the enemies differs greatly, i,e, some enemies have high defense, but low spirit and vice versa. Joruri for example, is just a weaker spell-caster than Masako. The fact that she has higher attack barely matters since it practically never pays for her to use physical attacks instead of magic.
Toshie is shafted equipment vice. Her bows have less attack, but higher accuracy. However, accuracy only matters for standard attacks, skills uses their own accuracy scores. Once you get Toshie, you're way past the point where you will ever use a standard attack, so her extra accuracy is useless. This also means that Kaitai's weapons are awesome since he gets extra attack for practically free.
To your credit, status abnormalities are great against bosses. However, they are poor against standard enemies. As a rule, status abnormalities either have to be very accurate or hit multiple targets to be useful. Against bosses you can just keep using them until they stick, but that strategy is very unappealing to use against standard enemies.
The status abnormalities are also the only element in your game that gives battles any tactical depth. Other than them, battles are all offense and heal spam. There's no buffs, debuffs or utility moves.
Later enemies are way to hard. They simple overpowers the characters unless you grind. You can get trough them with status abnormalities, but why bother? You get exp faster by grinding in an earlier area. For example, enemies in the damned trial gives about twice the exp that enemies in the sacred trial does, but it takes much longer than twice as long to kill them, so you're better off just avoiding them and farm in the sacred trial instead.
I must say, you made quite an impressive job with Masako. It's hard to write a character that's smarter than yourself, but I think you pulled it off. As for the other characters, they did have their own distinct personalities, but they never shone trough. I don't think it was the writing that failed, rather I get the feeling that the game just wasn't long enough to give all the characters enough spotlight.
Anyway, I think I'm going to focus on balancing. You said you're finished with this game, but this can be useful for the next game.
Goho has the highest attack and Masako has the highest Spirit. The other characters were somewhere between. However, being flexible is only useful in situations where the enemies differs greatly, i,e, some enemies have high defense, but low spirit and vice versa. Joruri for example, is just a weaker spell-caster than Masako. The fact that she has higher attack barely matters since it practically never pays for her to use physical attacks instead of magic.
Toshie is shafted equipment vice. Her bows have less attack, but higher accuracy. However, accuracy only matters for standard attacks, skills uses their own accuracy scores. Once you get Toshie, you're way past the point where you will ever use a standard attack, so her extra accuracy is useless. This also means that Kaitai's weapons are awesome since he gets extra attack for practically free.
To your credit, status abnormalities are great against bosses. However, they are poor against standard enemies. As a rule, status abnormalities either have to be very accurate or hit multiple targets to be useful. Against bosses you can just keep using them until they stick, but that strategy is very unappealing to use against standard enemies.
The status abnormalities are also the only element in your game that gives battles any tactical depth. Other than them, battles are all offense and heal spam. There's no buffs, debuffs or utility moves.
Later enemies are way to hard. They simple overpowers the characters unless you grind. You can get trough them with status abnormalities, but why bother? You get exp faster by grinding in an earlier area. For example, enemies in the damned trial gives about twice the exp that enemies in the sacred trial does, but it takes much longer than twice as long to kill them, so you're better off just avoiding them and farm in the sacred trial instead.
Help with dialogue
To make the king repeat what he said, you want to use the "Label" and "Jump to Label" event commands. To make the king say something different when you talk to him again, you need to use switches or self switches. Look for a tutorial that explains switches, self switches and variables. You absolutely need to understand them to make a decent game.
Space in the maps
Not making large empty spaces unless you have a special reason for it, is one of the rules I recommend learning, even if you don't want to focus on mapping. Putting more details takes time, but making maps small does not take more time than making them large. Large empty spaces also adds traveling time for no good reason at all. So, open space usually makes maps more boring, both visually and functionally, without adding any positive benefit to it.
Do you guys still acknowledge your early projects?
My first project never went far, but idea wise, it wasn't terrible, just very bland. I never deleted it as far as I can remember, but it was on a computer that has since long been trashed.
Stream of consciousness: I am the completeness!
Multiple Antagonists
Out of the three approaches you mentioned, I definitely prefer when multiple villain work both against the player and each other. FF VII is an example of that, not the Golden Sun approach.
The worst is definitely the Naruto approach. That approach is usually done between different games of a series, you defeat one villain in the first game and in the sequel you're up against a second villain. Even then it's sometimes iffy.
One idea is to not make it known who the central antagonist will be until near the end. For example, we have multiple antagonists competing against each other over who will get the McGuffin of godhood and until one succeeds, they are all more or less equal.
The worst is definitely the Naruto approach. That approach is usually done between different games of a series, you defeat one villain in the first game and in the sequel you're up against a second villain. Even then it's sometimes iffy.
author=elipswitch
Ultimately though, while there are multiple antagonists, there has to of course have the ultimate central antagonist to finish it off. There can also be games whereby the secondary major antagonist turns over a new leaf and helps the heroes defeat and main major antagonist and so on. Ideas, ideas :)
One idea is to not make it known who the central antagonist will be until near the end. For example, we have multiple antagonists competing against each other over who will get the McGuffin of godhood and until one succeeds, they are all more or less equal.
Storytelling from an interactive perspective
author=Max McGee
Games with stories are by their very definition an interactive story, Crystalgate, so I'm not sure what you mean.
To some extent yes, but most game stories are only interactive at a very low level.
Storytelling from an interactive perspective
I think the story and gameplay should supplement each other. For example, if the next dungeon is an ancient catacomb, the story should be such that the player wants to go there. Another example, a villain that the game hypes as very powerful should be harder to fight than it's lackeys. Then there's also the question of phasing, I for once likes neither long cutscenes, nor long stretches of dungeons without story.
So, I do think there shouldn't be any conflict between story and gameplay. However, I don't think the story needs to be very interactive. It's enough for me that the story and gameplay is on the same track. The story says that I'm breaking into a prison and freeing someone and gameplay wise, I am walking trough an area that resembles a prison and fighting guards.
Still, if you make an interactive story, that can also be fun. It's however not a miracle idea that's necessarily superior to the cutscene -> dungeon -> cutscene -> dungeon model.
So, I do think there shouldn't be any conflict between story and gameplay. However, I don't think the story needs to be very interactive. It's enough for me that the story and gameplay is on the same track. The story says that I'm breaking into a prison and freeing someone and gameplay wise, I am walking trough an area that resembles a prison and fighting guards.
Still, if you make an interactive story, that can also be fun. It's however not a miracle idea that's necessarily superior to the cutscene -> dungeon -> cutscene -> dungeon model.
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