XCALIBAR'S PROFILE

When rescuing your companion from the case of the werewolf's curse, when they rejoined my party, it left a duplicate of my companion facing to the right, where I talked to them. It's minor, and it goes away after leaving the room.

After defeating the fiend of that dark werewolf area, there's a cave which leads to the jungle, where you can pick up a bottle for magic water. If you go into the cave after beating the fiend, but leave and go back to the dark field, the music, lighting and cave dripping sounds continue while walking around outside.

On that same note, in the jungle festival bar place, after defeating the fiend; if you enter from the top of the bar, it will be dark and raining inside D:

In the expert Monster Tournament, the Iron Giant, the 11th monster you fight has never hit me even once! I don't know if my monster is just immune to his attack type or what... Made my life easier though :P
At that point my monster Izzy, chose :
I took damage from melee attacks by the Vampire and Angel.

After the flashback cutscene with Eliza the sage in the jungle, your companion is on top of your character D:

Oh, and THIS HAS to be a bug

He should say, "Your monster looks pa..."
*gulp* xD

"Not a critter!"

Oh, wish there was a way to rename my companion later in the game...
Izzy was the name I chose for the Slime... Who knew "she" would end up being a lovely Harpy D: Izzy, doesn't quite cut it later on!
Roleplaying, I thought about calling Izzy, Eliza... And then lo and behold, I run into the last sage, her name Eliza! (Izzy ... Lizzy ... Eliza)
Would be a fitting tribute to the Sages sacrifices if I named her that...

The battle gameplay was really tense and quite fun. It was tough for my party! Especially, since I tried to avoid resting too often...
The toughest battles were :
The marsh fiend, the dark werewolf area fiend, and the shapeshifter of the crystal cave. The fiends killed me at least a few times..., and the shapeshifter was a constant life or death struggle the entire time. Because, my character and companion were both magic users!
Oh! That's right, she ran out of magic. ...... lol That might be a bug...?

The gameplay completely changed after I went to the jungle however... I guess I can only blame myself, but up until that point, the battles were taxing on my party; had to keep focused. But, after spending a hour or two at the monster battles... xD I turned over a new leaf. I ran around one-shotting most of the tree area, and had to hold back during the fiend to give him a chance to fight back xD

My character chose : Male -> Magic -> Family, and became a sorcerer. (Have you played Lunar?? Because I felt like I was playing Ghaleon with the skills I was getting ;D I lovedddd it lol)

I am curious to see if dialogue changes if I start a new game and choose revenge, if my happy-go-lucky attitude becomes something darker...

As for the mapping... Great job!!! It's really very well put together, and a pleasure to run around the world. I'm not sure which area would be my favorite... The Dark Plains were pretty fun... The lake area actually felt like hte smallest of the areas, since there was no extra areas outside the dungeon. The lake was nice though...

Great music. Nice choices. I love listening to the Wall safe area theme. In fact, I'm listening to it while I write this ;D

As for the story : It turned out to be quite interesting, though I still consider it limited... More along the lines with how much story you get out of a game like Zelda : Link to the Past. I'm interested to see how it all ends!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
NOT AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ahh... *sigh*. I thought for sure this time around I'd somehow get Lavie on the boat before we left. PULL HER RYAN!!!! arrrrrrrrrrgh.

Shoot.

-_-

Anyway! Amazing job all around with the revamp.
5 star rating.

Could always use more voice acting, finish replacing the original CGs, and maybe a few more custom portraits...
The maps are pretty much perfect. The dialogue and story is pretty perfect. Quests are good. The dungeons overall are still a little too easy, but then again I am replaying, so my judgement is iffy. The music could use a full blown original soundtrack... (what's with that look!?) But, it's already memorable and nostalgic.
The characters are pretty top notch too. I love games that avoid making empty NPCs, and flesh out a living world... So many fun conversations...

Nice touch with the Programmer's Room... It was short, but it makes the core team that much more memorable. And the clips were priceless lol

Out of curiosity... what took the longest with the voice acting?
Was it getting everyone to record their parts? Or having people re-record parts, since you couldn't do it live, so you'd have comments and direction about certain lines... Or just finding people willing to do it?
Or was it the intricate process of timing it manually?

Doesn't seem like every important part got voiced, but there was a generous amount. :D
Mmmm... I did think some of the voices needed some audio editing, to balance out the volume at times. But the only feature with the voices that was really missing, was being able to skip dialogue. Press a key once to make all the text appear, press it twice and it displays the next line, and cuts off the previous voice.

I'm tempted to donate, but I'm kinda in the red at the moment... by a sizeable amount.... .. . . . . Still tempted though...

Maybe instead I can offer services for Act II... you know how to contact me should the day come... :D

It would be a crying shame to not see Love and War's epic untold. And I realllly hope the main characters can continue to be voiced! (by the same people! ... guh.... Xenosaga....)

...
I was thinking maybe this time I'd be able to get Lavie on the boat thanks to the new choices, like neglecting Marianne... so Lavie wouldn't cry @_@

Please take all my random notes with a grain of salt. Most are just my "feelings" about this or that.
Not sure if they will be useful, annoying, or what... I just figured I would post them to give some kind of feedback/expectations/etc...

...
-First, "The mapping is epic." I haven't compared the previous version yet, but every place looks better than ever before. Don't know if it's just my bad memory or if SGCN has been working overtime :D It's great.

-I recall one weird thing in Davenport, the place Ryan doesn't want to go; the one with the music harp sign above the shop... The door doesn't look like it fits the frame! There's a black space above the door... Is that supposed to be like that?

-I had hoped there would be new matching portraits for all NPCs... I'm good with the current ones, but they are from all sorts of games. The original ones for Ryan, Lavie and friends are still the besttttttttt.

-"Epic Lavie forced her way into the party scene XD" Yes, I wrote that in my notebook

-Jun's voice seems a tad too quiet at times... Probably just how he speaks, but... I noted it D:

-Also I noted I felt there was a lack of ambient lighting effects? Like lights at night... and stuff? I had more to say about this, but I can't remember the specifics... Unimportant, but these were in my notes >< lol

-I'm a huggggge Lavie fan. And I must say her voice actress does an excellent job. Sounds professional <3
I did note however, that I thought she might sound too sweet at times...? Like when Armin and Henrik are fearing for their life and RED EYED Lavie makes her appearence with her cooking in question; I didn't feel the hairs on my neck stand on end :P

-"Wish the campfire scene was voiced..."
Awwww I was hoping that one was voiced... I was looking forward to it... I know it was really too long to do though xD

-The picture of Lavie and the teddy bear, and the picture of Ryan and Marriane was superb. Double take awesome.

-The really important scene where Lavie grabs ahold of you at Blackwater Park...
I had mixed feelings about that picture... I thought the style between her talking portrait below and the full screen CG conflicted unlike the previous CGs... Also, I'm wondering if the colors in that CG set could be limited better? For instance in the part where she blushed, her eyes looked awkward due to the limited colors... My experience with photoshop makes me question if the colors could be limited differently to be more true to the original... (wants to try...)
I like the picture though, loved it when I saw it on the website; just undecided about how it meshes in-game...

-"Hi. My name is xcalibar and I'm an obsessive compulsive level grinder."
Given the opportunity and the saftey... I end up killing all the spores on the map...
In the situation like when you're chasing after Lucky the dog, I thought it might add a sense of pressure if you added a timer to the first part, till you rescue him. That would have forced me to try to avoid the slimes instead of taking my time, max lvling thieving skill, and all my weapons xD
Oh and the full instant refill save points... I noted it might be better if they were one time use health / ammo restores. That way I don't just "camp" the points...
.... I just can't stop myself!

-I noted there wasn't a huge sense of relief after surviving the Viper Lair... I don't recall Mr. El????? really congratulating me on surviving and exterminating the menace D: I know he was shook up about Lucky, but.... Well I guess I need to play that scene again before I say anything else; maybe my memory is faulty xD

-"The Dogtags..." I can't wait to see the explanation as how or why they are so crazily scattered and that he expects me to find them O_O I thought I was going to find them next to graves or something D:
That aside, I can dig a good treasure hunt!@

-"Some of the music is too loud..." I guess I needed to write specific examples for this to be of any use D:

-"Would be nice to be able to save before the 'meanwhile...' cutscenes"...

Despite these random complaints and whatnot, I want to make sure you know that L&W was one of my top rated rpgmaker games, next to The Way before the revamped version. And replaying it, I'm having just as much fun as I did the first time. That's a huge compliment for me, since, rarely am I able to replay games and enjoy them just as much. :D
Don't worry about trying to respond to this crazy post, I usually give people headaches trying to figure it out >< lol