DARKWRAITH007'S PROFILE

author=TODhaseo
It's a damn shame that Variant wasn't made...

Parts of Variant were made (and the story was conceptualized at least partially, possibly moreso) but the project was halted due to excessive morons yelling at the dev and making demands on how he should make the game.

Sometimes a game dev needs to 'filter' feedback somewhat so they aren't driven to madness by the trolls.

On that note:
It wasn't mentioned in the RED CAPITAL LETTERS on the main page, but if you make any edits or even open the game up in the RPG Maker 2k3 editor program, then the game will have some map freezing issues on the world map. Specifically for me, saving the game on the world map and then later loading it from that point would have my cursor 'frozen' with the map options window open.

The trick to fixing this is simple. You only need to do this if you've opened up the game in the editor at any point.
-Open up the game in RPG Maker 2K3
-Press F8 to enter 'Database' mode. Or go to Tools Menu, then Database.
-Click 'Common Event' tab.
-Scroll down to Common Event #425: Remove Save Freeze
-At the end there will be a line that says
Switch Operation 0441-0460 OFF
Switch Operation 0460 ON

Get rid of the line that has 0460 ON.
Once that is done, hit OK and close the project, then you won't have any more save/load freezes (hopefully). This worked for me :)
I hope the author can upload this 'fixed' version for people to easily use. :)

It is possible if you're loading a save game that is 'frozen' even after this 'fix' so you may need to do a 'Test Play' in RPG Maker 2k3, then hit F9 to open the debug menu and flip switch #113 to OFF. That'll unfreeze your cursor and let you do stuff. Switch #112 only controls the World Map Options menu and doesn't need to be turned off if you don't want to do so.

So here we go....
I played this game and have finally 'completed' it.
Unlike most games:
-I don't feel sadness (from the awesome game being over).
-I don't feel apathy (where I didn't care about anything).
-I didn't feel anger (for a half-assed 'to be continued' ending).

I feel..tedium; I am merely weary and finally glad that it is just...OVER.
I'm happy this game was remade, because seeing all the near-universal praise for this game makes me think that either this was the first halfway-decent RPG Maker game to be ever released back in 2010, or there wasn't enough honesty in the reviews, or people's standards were just that low.

Let me be blunt, this game isn't as good as the hype surrounding it. A few changes could've been made to unify the storylines together (which has been done in AA:Genesis).

Forcing the player to go through the game FOUR times, then having to REPEAT the last area again because of a false ending...that was a gut-punch and completely unnecessary to do that. I was seconds away from just deleting the entire fucking thing until I read up on the 'true' ending and stuff if you talked to X party member.

AA:G is an exercise in tedium. No more or less. The insanely ridiculous random encounter rate (with the same few shadow enemies) during the final 'dungeon' reminds me of the worst of Dragon Quest games and the outdated tedious tropes of bad RPGs in general. The story kept me going, nothing more or less.

Rebel ending was awesome but confusing, Imperial ending was terrible and I wish I never had to play it at all, Independents were cool but a bit boring compared to the Rebels. The final 4th path was the only worthwhile one, but the final dungeon puzzles were a bit too much. Someone went a bit puzzle-crazy with obscure trial-and-error gameplay that doesn't lend itself well to such a long dungeon.