SAILERIUS'S PROFILE

I'm thinking about how much I'm hoping we get that snowstorm tomorrow night. Enough with the snowing on the nights preceding my only day of the week with no classes.

author=Karsuman
hey you know the paint leonardo da vinci used to make his paintings?

they don't make it anymore. it's outdated.

Indeed. Just imagine what he could have made if he had access to today's tools.

author=Jericho
I still don't know why Vanquish was in the game.

A subplot that was going to be really important but ended up being dropped at the last moment. It was supposed to be in Act II, but as I got further into development, I couldn't fit it in so I said "eh, screw it, it'll go in Act III." Then I couldn't find anywhere to fit it in Act III.

Thanks for the review!

I've a few comments to make, so I'll start from the top.

Act I:
* You're spot on when you said that it was more oriented toward fleshing out the setting than the story or characters. That was my big mistake with Act I which I've fixed up in the new version. In the new version, the Alibaas segment is skipped altogether and the encounter system from Acts II and III is implemented, so there are explorable fields and whatnot. There's also a long-needed escape (?!) feature added to battles.

* I'm confused when you said that Act I needed sidequests, though. There are a good dozen or so. If you didn't complete any of the sidequests, that may be why you found the battles so difficult; the sidequests gave you equipment and the battles were designed assuming the player completed a couple sidequests.

* Yeah, the battles in Act I suck. Aside from the dated writing, they're the reason why I'm so embarrassed about the game.

Act II:
* I'm curious about why you only gave the writing a 3.5 when the only complaints you mentioned were the length of cutscenes and the pacing in Act I. Was the problem in Act II's writing the fact that it followed Act I or was there something else? I'd really like to know if there was something you thought could be improved.

* When you're talking about avoiding enemy encounters, I'm guessing you mean in Maladorr Manor. Yeah, that was fixed in Act III. I'm adjusting the dungeon corridors for that reason, and the Escape option will make that a lot less of a pain.

* I'm really surprised that you said that the Beginner difficulty was extremely difficult. Not to sound like a jerk or anything, but I designed Beginner's difficulty such that people who've never played RPGs before would have a little bit of a challenge, but that it would be a joke to anyone who's ever played one before. I've watched a lot of people (including several friends who don't play games at all) steamroll through the game with no challenge, so hearing that it's too hard is kind of a shock to me. What build was your Auria? What reaction did you use? How did you spend your points at level up? There are some builds in Act II that are harder than others, but I've had it tested on every difficulty with most builds and I didn't notice any that was significantly underpowered.

* It's intentional that you can't customize anyone but Auria. The idea is that Auria is the person who you control, so you're the only one you can make decisions for her. A problem I acknowledge in Act II is that she grows to be far more powerful than anyone else in Act II, which was remedied by adding unique functions to the party members in Act III.

Act III:
* What about the characters seemed dull to you? This is actually the first I've heard someone make that complaint (and I've heard a lot of complaints about the game). Normally, the liveliness and strength of characterization is the one part about the writing that's consistently complimented, so I'm very interested to hear what you didn't like and what I could do to improve it.

* Which endings did you get? Resurrection and Resignation aren't really meant to be full-fledged endings. They're nonstandard game overs (the game over music even plays). Did you receive the Relinquish ending? I could understand if you thought that Resurrection and Resignation were just tacked on, but your complaint about bad endings being forced in doesn't really make sense considering Relinquish (which is a fully-featured 'bad' ending route).

* It's true that Return is the "canon" ending for the rest of the series, but there is no "correct" ending (contrast it with Remission to see what I mean). Remission (as well as the two new Act II/III scenarios being added in the Complete Edition) is a completely different take on the story which could be regarded as equally "valid" as Return or Relinquish if the story is looked at as self-contained. What would you say are the "desired effects" of the alternate endings and how would you suggest I improve them?

* Much thanks on the compliment abut the menu system. It's actually been improved a lot in the new version, thanks in part to the much nicer windowskin.

* You didn't mention any faults about the gameplay in Act III. What about it didn't you like? There were a ton of sidequests and optional areas, along with three completely separate story routes and a couple optional dungeons. What would you suggest improving about the battle system? Again, I'm confused at you saying that it was too difficult, since the general consensus of Act III's gameplay was that it was far too easy. This matters a lot to me since I want to get the gameplay perfect in the Complete Edition, so I want to know what areas (and, if possible, what specific aspects) need to be improved.

General:
* You say in your final comment that it's a "very linear path." In what way is the game after Act I linear? I'm not sure if you noticed or not, but Act II was completely nonlinear. The order in which you explored the new areas was up to you and the order in which you did them actually affected the story. It was designed such that every path you took would adjust itself to be seamless and make it seem as if you were doing it the "correct" way, so if you didn't notice, I guess that means it worked well. Furthermore, Act III was far from linear. Ignoring the two dead ends, there were several places where you could significantly alter the story and a lot of optional content.

* In general, how do you think the plot and dialogue could be improved? It seems that you just didn't like the characters, which I guess is entirely opinion, so I don't know if I can do much about that.

* What features do you think the battle system needs to make it more fun? I've recently completely redone the battle system from the ground up and it's still open to modification, so I'd like input on what I can do to improve it.

Thanks again for playing and for the review.

I'm glad you enjoyed it! Do you have any suggestions for improvement that I can make use of in the revised edition?