SILVIERA'S PROFILE

XP's framerate can be adjusted by throwing this little code snippet into Main.

Graphics.frame_rate = x

As for the choppiness, I tend to suffer the same amount in both XP and VX, and I find you can avoid all of that if you set up your maps efficiently in the first place. I can't remember ever lagging in rm2k/2k3 (and my computer is terrible).

Though I suppose it is dangerous for newcomers since they may accidentally lag their game to death without realizing what's going on.

Game: Lost Land Ruin: Volume 1

I'll start this review off by saying there is an unavoidable game breaking bug right in the first 5 minutes of play. It's an easy fix if you have rm2k3 handy, but in its current state this game is not playable for those who don't have a copy of the program. My score will not reflect this bug, as I am assuming the author will fix it shortly, but until then this warning will remain here.

Battle System- 2/5
Combat is very traditional without any extras thrown in. Since each party member tends to have a very limited skill list battles will be dull for the most part as you spend far too much time mashing the attack button. There's a pretty big problem with balance that tends to rear its ugly head during most boss fights. A lot of them are capable of using devastating multi-target attacks that your party just can't deal with unless you do an obscene amount of grinding or are just plain lucky. No character has healing abilities, and the only form of healing comes through consumable single target items available in shops. Unfortunately bosses tend to deal more damage than can be recovered with items at any given point of the game, and unless your agility is extremely high you'll find yourself dead quick if the boss decides to use his good attack twice in a row. It's a situation you'll probably find yourself in far too often, as the regular encounters tend to be incredibly easy so you usually won't be grinding at all until you get stuck.

Storyline- 3/5
Long ago, an alien planet known as Gaia came from space and merged with Earth in order to acquire an energy necessary to its survival. Eventually the Gaians realized this fusion was destined to doom both worlds, and thus they fled into the deepest reaches of space. But not before leaving a devastating scar that would ruin Earth forever. I'm going to ignore the fact this plot is torn from Final Fantasy 9 verbatim, because after the painful intro the story veers off in an entirely new direction. The story picks up as a member of a rebellion awakens a mysterious being who will supposedly be able to save Earth from its deterioration. Unfortunately, he has lost his memory and has no idea how to fix anything. Along the way you'll be fighting against the government and uncovering strange conspiracies, and overall the whole tale is rather interesting. It is occasionally marred by spelling mistakes and the odd bit of unnatural dialogue, but even with that the script is entertaining enough to keep you playing.

Characters- 3/5
Aside from the aforementioned savior, the party is comprised of an overeager member of the rebellion, a mostly silent robot, and a convicted criminal with unclear motives. Most of the story revolves around the first two characters, though the criminal gets a bit of extra development as well. The villains are a little more unique than your standard black wizard or evil overlord, even though their motivations are rather predictable. Most characters have some twist involving their background, but if you've been paying any attention to the storyline you'll see everything coming a mile away. I found myself attached to at least the main character before the story came to an end.

Level Design- 3/5
I don't really have a lot to say about this category. Dungeons are mostly unremarkable with a few very easy puzzles thrown in. The town design is extremely simplistic but not distracting. Overall I never found myself interested by any given location, but I never felt compelled to rush through any area out of disgust ether.

Graphics- 4/5
I appreciated the graphical selection in this game quite a bit. The author obviously took a great deal of care in selecting maps to represent a world on the brink of destruction, and there's never a green field of flowers that randomly appears and breaks you free from immersion. There's some minor inconsistency concerning the battler graphics, but other than that I liked the look of this game.

Music/Sound- 3/5
Entirely rips here, though they are drawn from a large variety of sources. I've played a ridiculous number of games so I recognized everything, but I think the selection here is large enough that most people won't be annoyed by it as much as I was (except probably the FF7 song). Each song is chosen with the correct mood in mind, so no major complaints in this category.

Random stuff I liked-
RM-305. I do not know why, it just clicked somehow.

Random stuff I hated-
Bugs, bugs, bugs. This game is full of bugs from beginning to end, from slight annoyances to things that will break your game.

Nei's battler doesn't match up her with map sprite at all.

Final Thoughts-
An interesting adventure that is bogged down by numerous bugs and occasionally poor balance. There is a sequel on the way, so it is at least worth keeping an eye on.

Overall Score 2/5

-And here's the bug report for the developer. Hopefully this makes up somewhat for me giving you two low scores in a row.

In the very first room the player gains control, if you attempt to exit rather than search around the scene outside will be played again. Thankfully this doesn't break the game, but it needs fixing. The secret passage you find in this room cannot be entered, because it is an event set to Below Hero up against an impassable tile, meaning you can't progress any further. I'm shocked no one has mentioned this in your comments as it has a lot of downloads.

Returning to the Inn after escaping the sewers will yet again play those intro scenes. And in this case it breaks plenty of things.

This game allows you to save anywhere, which is confusing as it also employs save points in numerous locations.

The path to the refugee base only activates by a single tile, despite most of the north side of the map being open space (not to mention the tile due North of the scene telling you to go there is not the one that activates). This happens again in the Desert just after you gain your 3rd party member, and several other times throughout the game.

An NPC informs you that robots improve their hp through firearms and armor, but this never actually occurs. The only time your robot's hp ever gets upgraded is when downloading new programs.

In the NW corner of the refugee camp, the person inside randomly becomes covered in blood the moment you talk to them. Definitely needs a fixed graphic.

If you rest at the inn in the refugee camp a 2nd time, the screen never exits cinematic mode, which makes it impossible to see the exit.

In the interiors of the 2nd town you can walk on top of many many things you should not be able to, this also occurs in various other points of the game including the data castle and the last town.

When returning to the rebel base the scene in which your party looks over the carnage can end up breaking the game. This happens if you trigger it with anything except the center tile, because the main character will attempt to walk over a party member and thus freeze all movement.

In the Arc Base you can walk out onto the black part of the map.

After rescueing Nei, the game will not progress unless the NPC's variable is set to exactly 3. The problem here is that any time you talk to a party member it is incremented by 1, and if you happen to talk to any party member twice before returning to Vicks the variable will hit 4+ and the player will be stuck forever.

When accessing the boat from the Refuge area, if you choose to go to the Abandoned Cavern then returning home will take you to the abandoned rebel base rather than back to the refuge area. You can also decide to go directly to the rebel base from the boat, except when you arrive the boat has suddenly vanished.

After the events where Mack recovers his memory, the game never leaves cinematic mode, this occurs again within the station shortly after.

One of the temple exits has no teleport event.

There are many situations throughout the game where Vicks will not accept a Blueprint to build a new weapon, including the very last time he asks you to bring blueprints to him.

Talking to the president prior to the final boss room will destroy the mist effect in that room.

The cinematic mode doesn't function properly in the final scene, only half of it is properly displayed.

Several skills have no description at all, including everything Nei ever learns.

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Now that the bug report is out of the way, a bit of advice for future projects. I must stress these are only my opinions.

You should really list in the description whether an item is effecting more than just attack/defense. Especially when several items have the exact same defensive values but differ in other categories.

Nei seemed severely underpowered compared to the rest of the party. Even when hitting an enemy with weaknesses a gun skill was almost always far more effective, and there were many cases where spells would do 0 damage. The one saving grace here was the Burn status effect, which almost seemed broken in how effective it was on bosses.

The Master Computer boss is horribly cheap. He can repair himself for far more damage than your party can inflict, and since MP totals are so low in this game even a high leveled party can barely damage him for half as fast as he repairs. If he decides to use this ability often this fight drags on forever. (and another bug I just remembered, his name gets cut off as Master Compute in the fight itself, making it one word should fix that).

The Tech Armor boss in the prison needs some serious rebalancing. He's a big jump from the boss in the previous area, and since you give the player no opportunity to level or buy items between the two bosses they can trap themselves in an unwinnable situation very easily.
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Phew...that was a lot. Good luck with your future projects and I hope my feedback was at least somewhat useful.

Gaussian Mist was actually someone trying to copy him, though he has written other stuff. If you're curious I could gather up all of his songs I still have and send them through your mailbox here. I won't post them in this thread because he would kill me (he hates all his music). I do have to warn you a lot of the stuff is still in midi form and not as awesome as those two songs, but personally I like nearly all of it.

Edit: Leaving the ID tabs blank is fine. This is an XP project if that makes any difference, though I don't think it does. And again, thanks a lot.

I'd also like to bring up there are more ways to go about MP recovery than just simply having potions and inns. For example in my current project every character regenerates 1% of their MP total every turn, 2% when they are guarding.

There are also systems such as draining mp from enemies and having a specific command which sends the character into a state of enhanced regeneration. These all require a bit of input from the player during battle instead of just expecting them to replenish themselves between every fight.

Edit: I can't think of any more types offhand, but I'm sure there are some out there.

One thing I want to make clear is that in a game where mp restoration is extremely hard to come by, mp totals themselves need to be high. There should be no hoarding of mp involved (in fact this will kill you), but it should be used selectively and with caution. This requires the player to acquire a solid grasp on the abilities and roles of their characters while at the same learning everything they can about the enemy. You have to decide which character has to attack which target, and how many people need to team up in order to kill that particular enemy. If you spread yourself too thin or avoid using a spell where it is needed you'll end up leaving every enemy alive which is going to result in a serious round of pain (which will then require your healer to expend a lot of MP to fix this mistake).

This is opposed to the alternative, I'm looking at most FFs here, where each battle begins and ends with your largest multi target spell or summon that will generally instantly annihilate any normal encounter.

The most extreme example I can think of is Master of the Wind, where recovering your party to full is trivial. Tents are sold in bulk at any item shop, are dirt cheap, and can be used at any time outside of battle (not to mention healing mp inside battle is just as easy). What happens as a result here is that there are only two points in any given dungeon where combat matters. The first few encounters and the boss. In those first few encounters you're up against new opponents, you don't know their weaknesses or what to expect of them. After you've got a solid feel for the enemies in the area battles become far easier, and since as you fight you're going to be leveling up so the difficulty curve soon slides off into pointlessly easy.

You could argue that all those extra, very easy encounters, are just there to prepare you for the boss. But I'd respond by saying why not just make the boss easier and avoid all that tepid grinding in the first place?

To summarize, I think having mp restoration is a completely valid way to go about your game, but if you go overboard there are serious problems. You really have to consider a lot of the other design aspects of your game as well.