Xephyr

A better question is how could he recreate like 99% of what is present in that game

Game: X-Noir http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/8466-x-noir-demo-available/ Volrath and Artbane have, needless to say, done it again. Presentation Showing off a map and the only passability issue I managed to find Being a game that takes place in a more modern society, the duo had no choice but to use some custom tilesets, and the ones they used work very well. The mapping is, frankly, excellent throughout and realistic as well. They took careful time into making the city (the hub where you spend essentially all of your time) seem like an actually city. The interiors are also mapped well, especially the apartment of our protagonist and his friend. A couple of the faces used are inconsistent with what Eddie and some of the other important characters have. Additionally there are cars driving around the city that look sort of funny, especially when they turn. But, animating a realistic-looking turn from a car would be more difficult than what it's worth, so I give this a pass. They even went so far as to mp realistic bathrooms! From the audio side of things, the music is absolutely gorgeous, sporting an array of ambient tunes that make the exploration that much more wonderful. I spent a considerable amount of time wandering aimlessly through the large city, exploring everything it has to offer while listening to incredibly wonderful city theme. Gameplay The gameplay in X-Noir involves lining yourself up with enemies and shooting them, and getting out of the way before a meter fills up which means they will shoot you. This is where the game sort of falters. The combat, in nearly every instance, is not very exciting and doesn't require much strategy and can be abused pretty easily. Against one of the boss enemies, I dashed to one side of the desk and, since his movement pattern was set to "follow", I abused this so he would stay on the other side of the desk and I could simply move left and right and shoot him without being touched. One particular boss fight simply ends up being extremely frustrating and needlessly time consuming rather than difficult or fun, mostly because of his ability to traverse through chain link fences while moving quicker than the player can, which just becomes frustrating more than anything. There's a "reload" button but I'm not really sure why, since the game never makes you stop to reload. The entirety of the battles are basically just strafing and shooting. There were a few instances where there were several enemies on the map which made things more enjoyable and strategic, and I hope the gameplay goes in this direction more rather than what is present in the tutorial and sewer dungeon. The game throws a few puzzles at you, and they are brilliant designed. In particular, I cried for a few hours while trying to solve this maddening dilemma: Good. Luck. This is to be expected, though, with Artbane at the helm, as he is famous for his level design. So with that in mind, the gameplay is redeemed by the excellently designed puzzles and areas. Story Let me put this bluntly: This is masterful storytelling. This game tells a classic film noir story, as you follow a Private Investigator who's not exactly thrilled with his life situation. Some of the best writing really comes through during the therapy sessions, where we really get to see into Eddie's fascinating character. The cases that you solve are relatively interesting as well. The first one was rather lackluster on it's own, but a certain plot point surrounding it develops into something bigger, making it a fine introductory case. There are a lot of characters with varying personalities that are easily distinguishable and the player grows to thoroughly enjoy the interactions with some of the cooler characters (Munoz is such a bro). The interrogating system (this is kind story and gameplay together) doesn't seem to have much of a point. It's not difficult to lower Eddie's anxiety (which is the byproduct of making a wrong choice), and at the end of a case you will be reminded of how many mistakes you made, but there don't seem to be any repercussions from what I could tell. Perhaps there is a reward for making no wrong decisions? I could try this sometime. Verdict This game gets my highest praise. The gameplay is a bit of a letdown, but in the grand scheme of things it does not bring down this fabulous RPG Maker experience. 9/10; Must-Play

Yeah, echoing Snake's sentiments above...Dark Cloud 2 is a masterpiece of a game but dang man...there's just so many intricate systems in that game that are outrageously difficult to re-create in RPG Maker. I just don't see how someone that's not a master scripter could get even close to replicating DC2.

It's a shame this hasn't gotten any attention. I played through it and managed to beat it but I found it relatively difficult. I might play again, it was definitely a very enjoyable game.

To start I shall address some of the simpler concerns: "I'm still wondering why any character has the 'Special' command" The characters DO learn abilities in the traditional sense by leveling up, and abilities like those go under "Special". At level level 6 Lucas and Steven learn relatively useful abilities that go under "Special". So basically the skills that go there are non-magic related stuff. Random Battles: Upon reflection, I'm starting to agree. As such, I'm significantly lowering the encounter rate. On most maps I generally use somewhere around 40 steps, but I'm going to make it 60 steps or more now. My worry is here is people might become under-leveled, and I might have to adjust some bosses. I'll figure it out. Regarding the boulder: During that conversation they try to give you a sort of hint, that Lucas's wind magic can interact with things, and you're supposed to press enter/whatever on the part of cliff below that brownish boulder and you'll move it around and knock the heavier boulder out of the way. I think your opinion of the story would have changed quite a bit if you had progressed farther, as a lot of motivations are explained. I assure you that the tablets are extremely integral to the story, along with the cloaked man and the things he does. You actually have confirmed to me that I have achieved my goal: I want players to question the cloaked man and the reasoning for the tablets. This will make "reveals" later in the story all the more satisfying. The story is indeed pretty serious, and gets pretty brutal later on, but the humor makes Lucas seem more human to me. I don't know if you've ever read Lord of the Rings, but I kind of liken it to the war scenes where Gimli and Legolas compete to see who can kill more orcs. It's an extremely serious scene and everyone knows that, but the two having such a humorous competition adds an additional element to those characters and makes it a more enjoyable read than endless sentences of "And Gimli swung his axe again". I will pay special attention to gameplay aspects from now on. I generally hate when developers do this whole, "I swear it gets better!!" thing about their games, but I genuinely think there's merit to this statement: the story really starts to take off in Chapter Two. And then in Chapter Three, well...shit hits the fan. Anyway, thank you for reviewing my game! Your suggestions are valid and greatly appreciated, and I think making the necessary adjustments to the gameplay in response to your critiques will make the game a lot better. Thank you for your time

Hey man, I find your LP's to be really well-done, and I would love to see you play through my game. Topic: http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/7408-crossing-chapter-two-released/ You say you love great stories, and I think my game fits that requirement. It's at about 3 hours of gameplay time right now for an average player, so it won't take a whole lot of time to do either. Have a nice day

I don't usually do this, but you've spent so much time on this game so I figured you'd deserve it. Notes I took as I went: In the intro there's a spelling mistakes. "Jeapordize" is actually spelled "jeapardize". "Supress" is spelled "suppress" Didn't really like that intro, but I never like slow-moving all-text scenes in front of a picture anyway. Loving the first scenes with Zyn. Also pretty humorous. The attention to detail in the castle is fabulous. Love this map. Also a big fan of the smaller things like the menu system and sound effects as you traverse said menus. While I obviously didn't NEED to watch those tutorials, I really appreciated the work you put in making them very comprehensive and worthwhile to someone unfamiliar with this genre. This may have been mentioned before, but the battle backgrounds are little eh. Zyn is standing on a vertical pillar, hah. Aww, I wish I could've seen the outside of the castle when I left instead of appearing in the village. I talked to Lew and there was a message where the /n[something] code was still there I think (I was flipping through the messages quickly). A little odd. When you pick up a lot of items in rapid succession the little noise that plays is delayed heavily and just keeps going for a while Heh, I kind of wondered what would happen if I didn't deliver the beer in those 5 minutes. Anyway, I liked that. Nice touch. I will edit this post with more opinions when I have time to play longer.

Revealing that would be a spoiler! D:

-Crossing -http://www.rpgmakervxace.net/topic/7408-crossing-chapter-two-released/ -Should take about 3-3.5 hours giggity

@Compass: Good lord, I wish I could make towns like that. If you're ever looking to make a nice city map for a game with a decent following to showcase your skills, feel free to contact me The only cool thing I can offer to this thread right now is a battle scene featuring a nifty battler I made haha: Real men fight distorted...dog...things.

RPG Maker is designed for making jRPGs, quite obviously. I'm not sure how it's possible to be more clueless than this...? Brilliant collection aspects that are impossible without random encounters. Thanks for proving my point <3 Final Fantasy 1 starts by throwing you in a field next to a town. In said town, the king tells you to go north and kill Garland. It's impossible to kill Garland without grinding several levels. This example from this game, the game that literally is the only reason this forum exists if you trace back in time far enough, is what makes it so magical after all this time. You just get dropped in this field and have to do battle with all these goblins and make yourself stronger and stronger. It stands the test of time wonderfully. Without random encounters and without grinding, your experience is not unique. Your characters will develop exactly the same as anyone else's will. You won't ever have the ability to gloat that you reached an extremely high level before a tough boss and were able to smash it. So yes, elements like this are completely necessary for traditional RPG experiences. Also, I'm getting called disrespectful, ignorant, and insulting from the guy that barged into this thread uninvited with this statement: Yeah lol ok You can't beat Pokemon without resorting to those tactics? Are you honestly THAT bad at video games? Whenever I play Pokemon I make it a point to have basically the worst team possible and I still breeze through the game. I mean come on. The point is that you're a prick and you're trying to force your opinions of how RPG games should play onto people. You tried to do it to my game even. Which is funny, because most reviews indicate my game is better than yours anyhow. Have a nice day.

Grinding and random battles have been mostly phased out of modern gaming for a reason. They are needless and only detract from a games overall quality. Do you honestly enjoy grinding? Or would you rather continue along the games primary path without needless interruption? Do you enjoy randomly encountering enemies out of nowhere? Because that's completely unrealistic. Just because elements are traditional doesn't mean they are necessarily good. Also, I never "trashed" them. So you don't make ignorant statements like this. Random battles have been phased out of modern gaming?! Perhaps you should educate yourself on one of the most successful and profitable role-playing series to ever grace video gaming and the fact that it's still going on as strong as ever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pokémon Let's also not forget Final Fantasy 1-10, Dragon Quest 1-8, and plenty of recent cult classic-type games (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_Galaxy) The fact that you DON'T enjoy grinding leads me to ask why you're even on this forum. This is a forum about designing jRPGs, and the entire core of their being is having a party of quirky characters that are meant to become extremely powerful. I absolutely love grinding, because it makes me feel like my characters are getting much stronger, which is the entire point of the gameplay in games of this genre. Further, a certain recently released game that is basically the greatest jRPG since Final Fantasy 7 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni_no_Kuni) was recently released that's basically impossible to complete without grinding. Are you going to try and tell me that nobody likes that game because grinding is a requirement? Is the game "bad" because in it exists an age-old concept?

This is grinding. Don't use grinding, nobody likes it. It gets in the way, it's boring, and it's time consuming. Just balance the battles along the players primary path so that there is a natural difficulty progression to the game. Also, this is something you can use the make the default battle system less bland (it's something I suggest to any and every game that uses the default battle system), insert Yanfly's Battle Engine Ace. It improves the functionality and makes the battle interface a lot cleaner. Stop making these blanket statements where you complete trash traditional RPG elements and try to state that "no one likes them". You do this with random battles too. It's pathetic and makes you sound unbelievably ignorant to what traditional role-playing games are and what people actually enjoy. What nobody ACTUALLY likes is when you try and state your opinions as fact. Grow up.

Good lord...this is a monumental achievement! I've never been much of an ABS fan, but this is brilliant. What impresses me the most is the party AI. I've never seen an ABS that allows party members and does it well. Bravo, my friend.

Good lord, man. This project looks utterly brilliant. I know that this is essentially what everyone else has been saying, I just thought I would also reiterate. Seeing this project reach a completed state would be absolutely awesome.