SHADOWTEXT'S PROFILE

Rather than just repeat everything everyone else said, I'll just throw in Scary Go Round. Totally my favorite strip on the web. Also, Mewd, if you like Machall, you should probably check out Three Panel Soul, if you don't already know about it, since it's essentially the continuation.

I thought FF12 was the best one in the main series after 9 and 6. It had a great, novel battle system, engaging and frequent side quests, a pretty cool character customization gimmick and brilliant dialogue, plus it was actually challenging in some parts (admittedly mostly sidequests), which is more than I can say for most of the Final Fantasies since the Super Nintendo era.

author=yamata no orochi link=topic=274.msg3598#msg3598 date=1191106562

author=kentona link=topic=274.msg3553#msg3553 date=1190987090
A ninja high school. With aliens. And robots.

I'm all for that. High school+ninjas+aliens+robots=awesome

Combining all of your ideas so far...

In an attempt to save the world from destruction, the Elders took all the ninjas in the world and sealed them away in a crack in the space time continuum. The ninja high school drifts through time and space, and is often attacked by aliens, robots, and pirates, who were also sealed in the space-time continuum and are the rivals of the ninjas. Assorted killer robots and aliens are sometimes taken into the School to learn how to be ninjas themselves. Each character in the school has a long and needlessly complicated backstory.

The main character is a clinically depressed ninja who has been stuck in high school for a long, long time. This ninja also has a phobia of manga (the character's eyes are too big, he says). The school is cared for by zombies, which were reanimated by the ninja teachers from the three hundred corpses used to seal the ninjas inside their prison.

Wheee!

I've already seen that one. It's called ??????????????????!, or "Janco Foreign Handlers." And it is excellent.

author=brandonabley link=topic=240.msg3092#msg3092 date=1188932352
It has a higher resolution than RM2k3. Because of this, you can't rip graphics from Square-Enix RPGs like everyone used to love doing. It's also a little harder to make convincing edits, because spriting at a higher resolution demands a little artistic ability. I think this is the single reason people tend not to use RMXP -- for some reason, nobody realizes that there are a lot of games (such as Suikoden) with larger sprites and tiles that are prime for ripping off. What is interesting is that, in my opinion, a second-rate but competent pixel artist will have more luck at a higher resolution than a lower one, and that awesome low-res spriting requires true viruosity.

I'd agree with that, because I consider myself merely competent with pixel art, and some of my sprites and backgrounds actually come out looking pretty great in higher resolutions....whereas my smaller sprites are, at best, completely unremarkable. Part of that is probably more because my experience is more with higher resolution drawing rather than pixel art, and at high enough resolutions they become awfully close to the same skillset requirements, though.

But yeah, like how you said your first point was actually a good thing in many ways, I consider #2 to be an advantage rather than a disadvantage. I've said many times how much I hate rips, and I stand by that and consider the lack of compatibility with most of them to be a feature. Forces people to not be lazy. Of course, it also means fewer finished games, or maybe just slower creation of games, but I think it's a fair enough trade off.

I agree that RPG Maker XP is worth it. I find it to be superior to the previous versions in every way. It is a shame that there's a smaller community for it, and less good games released....but on the other hand, that also means that the "big thing" that makes the community explode hasn't come out yet....there's still time for one of us to be the maker of that game. Plus it increases the chances that future titles will get translated and released over here.

If you call the people who handle the Activation, they'll fix you up with another Activation Code. They did for me. It's just an annoying thing to have to go through.

There are obviously other options, but those options are illegal, even if there's no moral issue for people who've already paid for the thing.