Aka vs. Shiro

So, some of you may remember a little two week contest that got run over at gamingw. I found out about it a bit late, and was slow anyways so it never got completed. I ran across it the other day and realized just how close to completion it was so I decided to go ahead and do what little there is left and release it. For those who never saw the rules, it had to have a panda as a main component and the protagonists weren't the good guys. This is what I came up with for that, heavily imbibed with my own dry sense of humor and a snarky view on certain things in popular culture lately, especially ninja and the Japanese obsession.

A disclaimer:

Spoiler for:

Yes, I love Japan too, I love the culture, the history, the food and the arts. I do not love what Your average fanboy is obsessed about. I've had it with the popular view of ninja, samurai and ghosts. Please do not complain to me that I don't understand Naruto's awesomeness, I'll ignore you like I ignore the rest.

The Story:

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In a kingdom far far away, an evil king has enslaved a peaceful country of magic users....

Okay..no..

We come upon a young and dedicated ninja, Eiji, as he has just infiltrated the evil merchant, Honjou's private storeroom to discover a secret yakuza alliance and bring the foul merchant to justice--
<Akajiro> "Evil merchant? Riiight..and the evidence of the secret alliance is in that bundle of silk and coral under your arm?"
<Eiji> "..what..? Hey! I'm telling the story here! Besides, you haven't even come in yet, furball!"
<Akajiro> "Yeah yeah, just get on to my intro already and stop embellishing the story."
<Eiji> "A ninja always tells the truth...as I was saying..."

This alert and wise young ninja discovered amongst the stockpile of ill-gotten goods a small statuette of an animal. The statue emanated a strange aura, so our wise hero investigated it. Somehow sensing our hero's star-crossed destiny, the statue suddenly began to glow! A red and black form appeared from within the light, Summoned forth to aid our brave and noble hero as he fulfilled his destin--

<Akajiro> "Yeah yeah, real great story telling, you're done. Now go sit down like a good little boy."
<Eiji> "...ungrateful leaf eater...why couldn't it be a tiger spirit or something.."
<Akajiro> "So here's the real deal, numbles over there happened to find an old prayer statue to me, the red panda spirit, and while he was groping it looking for jewels I got summoned back to the human realm. I got a beef to settle with my old rival, the white panda, and pajama-boy over there is gonna help me out whether he likes it our not. See..there's a ton of spirit activity at the shrine to the white-wonder and his followers aren't just gonna let me in to do as I please. So here comes our brave, noble, wanna-be hero, perfect ghost fodder and scapegoa-..ahh.I mean just the kind of strong and brave ninja I need to help me out."

The Characters:

Spoiler for:

Eiji
Our hero
A wanna-be ninja who's really just a thug and thief.
Has the misfortune of being bonded to Akajiro.
His strengths lie in dirty fighting, cheesy ninja moves and breaking and entering.


Akajiro
The Red Panda Spirit
One of many animal spirits, Akajiro's got a major beef with the Great Panda Spirit.
He has the misfortune of being bonded to an idiot.
A furball of many talents, he wields ancient magic and his own deadly claws.

The Eye Candy:

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Eiji's moment of "destiny".


Going in through the servant's quarters.


Don't mind the black-clad man behind the screen, Mr. Samurai.


A fast-paced battle with some of the oni who've flocked to the shrine.

Features:

Spoiler for:

RTAB system, Side view, fast paced and vibrant.
Completely reworked database, No rtp spells, items, armors or skills here.
Bye Bye earth wind fire water heart! We're using Chinese elements in these parts.
95% Non-RTP graphics, HK size (okay..so I recolored a couple tiles)
Graphics by Joy, Mochiron, Scriptkitty, Showkaizer, Mack and Nexus

Scripts Used:
Cogwheel's RTAB w/ configuration system
Minkoff's Animated Battlers (fixes by DerWulfman)
Cogwheel's Hp/Sp/Exp gauge
DerWulfman's Battle Status Mod for Cog's RTAB
Cogwheel's Skill Casting Timer + Damage Display
Kiamnior's Two Person CMS

Progress:

Spoiler for:

Mapping: 95% done
Database: 90% done, just gotta fine-tune battle dynamics
Story: 100% done!
Graphics: 85% done, just need to animate some battlers and make some light effects
Eventing: 20% done
Scripting: 95% done
Music: 60% done, just need two battle tracks and some sound effects

That's the game, just need the last few resources and the time to event and fine-tune it and I'll be posting it. I'm not posting a demo, it's too short of a game.

It looks fun. I am looking forward to its completion.

This looks very nice. I like the way you have worked with the HK. It looks very nice. Im not that exited over the battlers, but it's just personal taste

Can't wait for a demo to play later.

The tileset looks outstanding.