AMERK'S PROFILE

author=kentona
The fate of Aether Pulse should inform your expectations for this game.

Gah!... But can we at least expect a demo before you cancel out?

Whoo Hoo!!!! I was seriously thinking this needed to be done, and now it is! Hopefully if all goes well, you'll then redo CO 2.

Edit: And still impressive mapping skills. Wish EB would consider hiring you for making the sample maps in their next maker.

2nd Edit: I don't have much time this weekend to play, so I spent the last hour running through it as quick as I can. Overall impression, very good. The writing is greatly improved over the original, and so is the mapping. Enemies are also fairly well balanced (outside of the flashback - more on that in a brief moment). It's amazing how much this feels like the first game, but being completely different.

Feedback time - I died (pretty hard) in the flashback. Maybe it was my reliance on using Starfall to hit all the enemies at once to ensure I'm not far behind in beating the clock. I was doing okay, though, until I hit the skeletons. With no items to restore HP or MP, I was slaughtered. Which got me thinking, if it's a flashback, and I'm telling the story, how is it even possible to die?

My thoughts on this: Provide the player with a few restorative items.

Otherwise, this is shaping up to be a very good remake.

What games do you play? - Mostly rpg's, but also shooters, racing games, side scrollers and Metroid-like platformers)

How do you play them to become better designers? - I usually do that for RPG Maker games. I still play RM games for fun, but a part of me thinks about the overall design of the game, and what ideas I can get for my own projects.

How many games do you beat? - I probably wind up beating about 1 or 2 a month. Sometimes more if the hours for completion isn't that high.

In what difficulty to you play? - Usually normal, but sometimes easy (if I'm not too invested in a challenge). Never hard unless there is an incentive for doing so (such as extra story or dungeons).

Do you usually quit after you have understood the game? - No, I usually quit if I'm bored of the game, it's a type of game I am not interested in, or it's a broken mess.

You had no way of knowing the name would eventually backfire, and I always thought the name was a clever take on the Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest series.

I've often wondered if somebody came across your game, realized it was a free indie with commercial rips, and then felt they could make a game with their own resources, give it the same name, commercialize it, and then ride on the success of your own work; because I swear that prior to the DF commercial game, your games popped up every time the title was searched.

I haven't bothered with consoles in awhile. I'm still gaming off the PS2 and GBA, if that tells you anything - just rekindled my love for Burnout 3 of all things.

The latest I've bothered to own was an XB-360 and a Wii. While I'm all for the latest in technology, I also think gaming companies have forgotten the primary point of a console - the games. I had hopes at one point things would change for the better, but at this point I've moved on to tablets, mobile, PC's, and RPG Maker.

Personally, I don't think consoles have much more life in them, especially when they're pushing to try and become nothing more than a PC. At that point, you may as well just invest in a PC. And with Steam and their Steam Link and Steam Machines around the corner, consoles are going to have their work cut out for them, especially as more and more developers swap to PC development.

All that said, though, if I were to choose between the three, I'd go with Nintendo. They may be scraping the bottom of the barrel along with the others these days, but they still are much closer to their roots than what I've seen from MS and Sony. If Nintendo were smart, they'd port their whole entire library to VC and even start translating some games that never made it over (such as the NES versions of FF2 and 3 and the SNES version of Star Ocean). I thought there idea of swapping between tv and handheld was a great idea, but perhaps not as well marketed as it should have been.

Edit: Something I think could be in Nintendo's best interest is to stop trying to compete with the others. Let MS and Sony bury themselves in their own war. Focus on what made Nintendo the number one game system back in the 80s and 90s and work with that.

Triple A and the like aren't support Nintendo? Fine, the hell with them. Focus on the indie developers that have been congregating on Steam. A lot of them have fresh ideas, some of which got the AAA devs to where they are in the first place.

Create an easy to use indie platform, and even work with companies like Enterbrain to allow easy exports for commercial RM projects. Considering that the vast amount of classic rpg lovers are probably either using handheld or mobile, if not emulating the games they grew up with, I'd imagine out of all 3 consoles, Nintendo would be the system of choice for rpg lovers.