SILVIERA'S PROFILE

I guess I was giving more specific advice since I have played the game Rei is working on(where the protagonists are anything but silent). It is of course important to be consistent about things like that.

Default damage equations=battle formulas.

Sample:
Damage = Base Damage + (Attack power of A / 20 * Attack influence of skill) + (Defense of B / 40 * Intelligence Influence of skill)

In rm2k/2k3 you cannot change this. This is a problem because both the defense and intelligence stats are woefully underpowered, and the influence of Attack on skills is also relatively small. This leads to skills to relying primarily on the Effect Rating, which of course means as the game progresses old skills quickly become useless.

As for Agility, it is hands down the most powerful stat in rm2k3, largely because of issues with the default battle system I just described. Many people do not understand this and it breaks a lot of games, particularly those which allow character customization and let you grow your Agility stat as fast as everything else.

Can you make a great battle system in rm2k3? You can, see Cyber Factor. But it requires a deeper understanding of the battle mechanics than any amateur developer should have to deal with.

I love that game. It is a weekly tradition of mine to blow through the game on Hard mode hitting Overburst as soon as the game starts and never leaving it.

Game: Secrets of the Light

Battle System- 3/5
Very traditional combat here, using the RPG Maker 2000 core mechanics. You can select your party at the start of the game, constructing a party of 4 out of possible physical attackers and 4 mage types. I went with the tried and true party of Knight, Ninja, Priest, and Wizard. There are a few interesting classes thrown in such as an AI controlled Berserker and a Beast Master that learns attacks from enemies, but I never ended up experimenting with them. The early part of the game is superbly balanced and quite challenging. Your party levels quickly and each level grants a significant power boost, and in some ways a lot of the game feels like you're playing an old RPG on fast forward.

Things kind of fall apart in the latter half of the game. Enemies start throwing out high damage multi target spells that will easily wipe out your party in two hits. You'll pretty much have to keep leveling until your priest learns a multi target heal in order to counter the sudden hike in difficulty (and if you have no priest, good luck to you). Unfortunately for me, this involved a little over an hour of nonstop grinding in what had been up to this point an incredibly fast paced adventure. After getting this healing spell I went from having no chance in most encounters to being able to live through anything with ease. Around this point my Knight and Ninja had pretty much lost all ability to deal damage, as they were completely outclassed by my Wizard and even my Priest's incredibly powerful skills. They spent the rest of the game tossing out mp pots while they watched the mages decimate everything.

Storyline/Characters- 3/5
Four silent heroes are called to destroy an evil overlord, but before they can reach him they'll have to collect a set of elemental stones. It doesn't get more cliche than this, but fortunately the game doesn't spend a lot of time dwelling on the story and just throws you right into the gameplay. It doesn't even attempt to try and explain who the heroes are or where they come from, the game actually begins with you on the world map standing in front of the first dungeon, with a town at your back should you wish to resupply. One thing I really enjoyed here is that throughout the adventure the villain is actively working against the heroes, even while they're still in single digit levels. He doesn't just sit in his ivory tower waiting until your party is powerful enough to take him down with ease. On top of that the other characters in the world are actively working against the villain, there are even entire towns devoted to bringing him down. It goes a long way to make a cliche world a lot more lifelike.

Level Design- 2/5
Definitely a weak aspect of the game, and at some points you'll get the feeling the creator is mocking the player with the limitations of the game maker. You'll encounter forests full of diagonal paths despite the fact you can only move in 4 directions. You'll also encounter mazes that utilize nothing but pillars which obscure your view of both the hero and the maze itself. The standard dungeons tend to be extremely square which makes a lot of the maps look completely unnatural, particularly the caves. Much like the battle system things start to slow down a lot in the last half of the game. In particular the final area is especially frustrating, and just prior to entering the last boss's castle you'll be forced to run through 6 elemental towers in a row in order to break a barrier. It makes the last stretch of the game drag on far longer than it needs to and ends up breaking the dramatic tension that builds during that final trip to the boss's lair.

Graphics- 2/5
Mostly RTP here, along with a few popular edits. There's a bit too much palette swapping going on with the enemies. Overall the creator didn't seem to put much effort into this category, which is fine considering the rest of the design choices.

Music/Sound- 3/5
A mix of RTP and various popular 8 bit era songs. Since it's such an old school adventure everything fits pretty well here, though the sound quality tends to be on the low side.

Random stuff I liked-
At one point in your adventure your way is blocked by an NPC who refuses to help you out of selfish reasons. The way around this objective is to drag the king off his throne and to have him order his subject to help you. Later in the game this same king grabs a sword and helps you storm the villain's lair.

Eventually you encounter a second group of '4 heroes' and give them a thoroughly savage beating.

Random stuff I hated-
The ending. It's pretty monologue heavy for a game that is so light on storyline, and tends to ramble on about characters you haven't seen enough to be even remotely attached to. The worst part is the text speed slows to a crawl during this segment.

Crazy coincidences-
I named one of my party members Shade, which also happens to be the name of the main villain. This resulted in frequent humorous scenes. Halfway through the game I determined this hero had taken up the sword because he was sick of being blamed for everything that was wrong with the world.

Final Thoughts-
I get the feeling this is the kind of game Enterbrain expected people to make with RPG Maker in the first place. Even though it is a simple adventure it's also pretty fun, at least until the last half of the game sets in.

Overall Score 2.5/5
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Some extra notes for the developer-

Super haste is described as raising attack and speed, but it actually heals and raises attack.

Super slow is described as lowering the speed and attack power of enemies, but actually lowers speed and intelligence.

1: You'll need to make an Event on the map and change the graphic to a character sprite (double click on the graphic in the event menu).

2: You can do this by setting a battle event under Troops in the database to run on Turn 0.

3: You will need to make two different stun effects, since status resistance is set in the monster database.

I highly suggest reading the entire help file even if it doesn't initially make sense. After you've done that spend some time experimenting and things will begin to fall into place.

Edit: On further inspection, the VX help file is quite worthless. Instead I suggest right clicking on many many things in the editor and selecting What's This? It will explain the function in detail.