AMERK'S PROFILE

As long as they fit into the story, and get EXP even when not in use, it's okay. An even bigger plus is when they can be swapped during battle, or when you have a game that allows them all to play in battle at once.

Pretty much what others have said. Final Fantasy 3 was my least favorite, although I much preferred the Nintendo version over the DS, because at least that still maintained a sort of charm in its gameplay.

What's more, is that with NES you expect crippling gameplay elements, like no save points in the dungeons, high encounter rates, and a crude job system (although in fairness to the NES it was pretty innovative at the time).

With the DS version, I expected they would fix the flaws. Instead, they left them in, and that made an otherwise classic retro game feel more tedious now than it did back then.

On top of the game being the most difficult in the franchise, the lack of save points in very long dungeons is a cruel joke in an age when time is of essence. I kid you not when I say the last dungeon of the game will take you somewhere between 2 and 3 hours to get through, and that's if you run from half of the fights there. It's probably much longer if you explore it completely and fight everything. It's actually 2 dungeons together, but there are no save points anywhere in either of the dungeons, or between the two dungeons. I believe there is a quick save feature (at least on DS), but if you die at any point in this dungeon, you potentially lose 3+ hours of grindng and exploring.

Not to mention, the boss fights are tough, and the final boss was no exception. Which is typically fine, since I like a good challenge, and it should be expected to die a few times before figuring out the pattern of a boss. But when it takes you this long to finish a dungeon and get to the boss, only to have one shot at figuring it out or losing everything you've done over the past few hours, it's insanely frustrating.

Now they want to put this on Steam, and I applaud them for bring more games to Steam, but I fear this will be the death toll for Final Fantasy games on Steam. Most new gen gamers don't care for heavy grind, high encounter rates, and no save points. As one of the most difficult games in the franchise, I honestly think they should have put some other titles up first.

You really need to figure out how the passability of RPG Maker works. I found I could walk over and through half the things I encountered. I can tolerate some passability issues, but when I can walk through chairs, on walls, over pianos and bookshelves, it's a sign of sloppy game design.

Space Funeral is one of my all time faves on RPG Maker. It was a unique experience. So far this captures the feel, and I enjoyed the demo. The country music playing in the background adds an added effect.

A plot twist for the sake of a plot twist is going to feel awkwardly forced and probably hurt the story more than it would have had it remained linear.

Good writing comes with careful planning and research. Plot twists are nice when the reasons behind them are carefully planned and they make sense in the scope of the story, but they need to feel natural in the writing itself versus slapped in because your player might want one.

To make an example of this. Let's say one of your characters turns out to be a villain near the end of the game. That's a plot twist. However:

Bad Plot Twist:
The character turns out to be a villain, and there was no amount of warning beforehand. In fact, he was very helpful to all the townsfolk the entire time, never so much as swore, and treated everybody with respect. Take the movie Frozen. The betrayal was poorly done and felt like a last moment attempt at creating a twist for the sake of having one.

Good Plot Twist.:
The character turns out to be a villain, and when the player thinks back to some of the scenes there was that occasional moment when the character acted strangely. The character managed to deceive everybody around him, but when you put the pieces together, it makes sense. Movie wise - I'd have to go with Fallen, Secret Garden, 12 Monkeys, and Dark City for some of good examples.