[2k3] Touhou Fantasy

[jjwebb]

Family is over for a week, so will be doing stuff slowly if at all for the next 7 days or so; thought I would update you on that.

[Xenomic]

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5CoHqjqwB60&feature=youtu.be[/yt]


Update to Winter Forest! For reference, this is the old map:

http://youtu.be/FBzmrBirhzE

Yeah, quite a drastic change eh? Don't mind the caves, they're not done yet, and expect a few mapping errors here and there. This is the first time running through the map after finishing it, so there's bound to be some errors here and there. A lot of the stuff you see here, such as trees bunched together, or bushes in front of one another, was done by eventing. It's the only way I CAN do it that way!

So tell me, what do you guys think? Would you like to see more videos of other updated areas? Think it's too long? Note that I did do this with random encounters turned off, and remove about a minute or 2 for the start and end, and well...it's about 4-5 minutes long. Not really that bad all things considered, even with random encounters.

[jjwebb]

Looks pretty good.  The only things that really bugged me were at 2:07 and in the caves.  2:07 had an area where there were leaves, but no trunks of a tree.  Instead it just connects to a river.   The caves bother me because you used a thin layer to tell the difference between the lower level that you walk on or the upper level.  This doesn't look very good, but if you can't think of another method to do that (for example, making one level darker) then that will work.

[Xenomic]

Yeah, I did say in the video to not worry about the caves (they got fixed up now). And I fixed up that part at 2:07 (water won't run beneath the trunks so...).




So with that, Winter Forest is pretty much done save for some errors here and there. The Icicle Caves (as they're called in-game in the database) needs a new tileset because it's using a default RTP tileset ugh...

Currently working on fixing up Yojana Gardens in Hakugyokurou. Went from 200x30 to 88x30 if that matters to anyone. ^^;

[jjwebb]

Awesome, looks better now.

[Xenomic]

I know some folks over on the other RPG Maker forum would say to cut it into separate maps and add more details but eh. I'm not going for Grade S mapping, otherwise the game would take forever and a half to finish.

In other news, have a Alice's house, done by another mapper~

[jjwebb]

Well, graphics on the walls on the house could use improvement, but I'm not complaining.  Looks pretty accurate to Alice's house.  Good job, other mapper.

[Geokoer]

I've been putting off downloading this game because of the different files and size - but I am getting more intrigued by seeing this progress. Also - I am big fan of RPG 2003. I love sideview battles! Plus, the tilesets are better than for RPG VX in many ways.

I may have to download a demo some time soon...

[jjwebb]

I've been putting off downloading this game because of the different files and size - but I am getting more intrigued by seeing this progress. Also - I am big fan of RPG 2003. I love sideview battles! Plus, the tilesets are better than for RPG VX in many ways.

I may have to download a demo some time soon...

Are you familiar with the Touhou series?

[Xenomic]

The music is being reworked as well by DemonicHobo, as he's cutting down the filesizes of songs and trying to loop them nicely (if they can be without killing them). In addition, several songs have been removed from the game entirely (some got outright replaced by one song. For instance, Reisen only has one boss theme instead of 2, and the same goes for Remilia).


Once he gets the music fixed up, I'll have to reupload all of that and people will need to redownload the music again, but trust me, it'll be worth it. When that happens, the maps MAY be close to finished...hopefully...

[Geokoer]

Are you familiar with the Touhou series?

Nope. Not at all.

[kaldrim]

Are you familiar with the Touhou series?

Nope. Not at all.

That can make it a little hard to get into the game. I know some people who don't like the game because they don't understand whats going on. This is a game meant for people who know the series.  If you want to learn more about it though, by all means go ahead, you might want some prior knowledge before playing though to really enjoy it.

[Xenomic]

It's very hard for me to actually establish characters to players who don't know the characters since well...the game does kinda aim towards the Touhou fanbase moreso than not. Plus it's oddly hard for me to introduce them to the character without having some kind of big information sheet for players to get to know the characters (and there's a lot of them...a LOT of them).

It also probably doesn't help that beta1 is entirely made on purpose to confuse players with the story with how much is going on, which is again how it's supposed to be. From beta2 onwards, that starts to be resolved over time (so the first 5 dungeons is where players will get a buttload of stuff tossed at them).

[kaldrim]

Btw, its awesome to see you get more work done on this, Its been harder to play this because of so many new game releases that came or are coming out. I put some play time in every now and then.

[Xenomic]

Helps that jjwebb is helping with what he is, Jstar is helping with tilesets and doing Marisa's/Alice's houses (well, he'll have to redo Marisa's. Alice's was never there to begin with, and there will be an inside to that place too), and I have DemonicHobo helping with the music issue, as well as brainstorming ideas, mapping, and other things. If I had at least one more person helping with mapping or remapping, then the remapping process would go by a lot quicker too.


For those interested, this is the current ChangeLog:

[spoiler]
SYSTEM:

*Skill descriptions have been updated with information.
*Jellyfish Princess Lv1 and Lv2 are fixed. They originally reduced Defense instead of inflicting damage to HP.
*Keine's leader theme now works properly.
*Music has been trimmed down in filesize a bit and some songs have been outright removed. Please see the Music document for what to change.
*After any battle, there is 10 steps before random encounters are turned back on again.
*Damage on various elements and skills have been adjusted accordingly.
*Status skills now start at 30-40% minimum and increase to 80-90% maximum for accuracy (+5% accuracy per level). This does not apply to every status skill in the game however.


SKILLS:

*Aya
Wind Sickle Veiling
Lv1: 50% to grant Blink
Lv2: Grants Blink
Lv3: 50% to grant Blink/Regen
Lv4: Grants Blink/Regen



MAP:

The following maps have been updated:

*Bamboo Forest of the Lost
*Winter Forest (Both outside and inside, barring Icicle Caves)
*Hakugyokurou - Yojana Gardens
*Insect Forest
*Blazing Fires of Hell (Not including the second half visited in beta4)
*Underschool Caves
*Poltergeist Mansion (Not the basements yet)
*Forest of Magic
*Kourindou (Currently in development)
*Eientei (Currently in development. Only the entrance has been redone)
*Scarlet Devil Mansion (Mostly reskinned. Voile has been changed and basement has been fully changed).


The following has been added:

*Alice's House (only outside is accessible right now)


Other map related things:


*The doll found at Forest of Magic - Clearing has been moved to Underschool.
*Maps now have hidden passages that the player may go through to find alternate paths or treasures.
*Maps now have working overpasses/underpasses.[/spoiler]

[kaldrim]

Speaking of hidden passages, weren't/didn't you have a character who was going to be able to detect/sea them, I'm not sure if you did or not? (Reisen)?

[Xenomic]

Reisen was going to be able to find traps basically, or hidden objects (not treasures though. Things like pitfalls and the like).

[kaldrim]

Yeah, as far as I know, in any RPG if the item was hidden, there as no actual way to have it revealed on the overworld. Closest thing I can think of that does that is the item-finder item in pokemon.

Edit: I just remembered when you zoom in the camera in FFIII DS you can see sparkles too.

[Xenomic]

Nitori might have the passive ability to find items (I have graphics now to indicate sparklingness so that it's super easy to find). Why Nitori? Because Nazrin isn't a playable character (I'm still deciding if she should be a temporary or not though...). That, and Nitori is pretty much the full-on support character in the game. Only has one attack that does damage, while everything else is a support. ^^;

[kaldrim]

I haven't really used Nitori much. I like how her abilities work, and I have her grinded up to a decent level, but Its hard me to use her in the long run. In a way this kinda reminds me for suikoden games, a lot of characters, but you only use a select few along with storyline requirements. only thing is, Suikoden has 6 characters in the battle-party. So far my main party is almost always Momiji, Youmu, Patchouli, and the storyline character (if no storyline character, someone I'm grinding atm). Not sure how hard its going to be for me to pull myself away from that team, unless I need to replace Patchouli/Momiji with a more Physical/Magical based character respectively.

Another thing I noticed so far, that quite a few bosses that I fought don't have really noteworthy steals. there's a couple, but its mostly just use-able (restorative) items. This is the main reason why Marissa isn't a main party member for me. I don't know if the steals get better or are worth it later in the game, but that's something I kinda don't like. The best counter I can think of that is, if you don't want to give them equipment to steal, (something you can possibly buy in the next area or area after) or rarer skill scrolls, you can always to to give permanent stat boosting items respective to their type. Only if it doesn't make  you to overpowered (which i see hard anyways). I mean there's so many character that quite a few people might play differently so those items can be distributed a little better. Like i said though, I don't know if this gets better later in the game because I really haven't gotten to far into it, but its turned me off from trying to steal from every boss like I normally do in RPGs.

Of course it's up to you on what you do, I'll enjoy the game either way, it'll make things less tedious to try to steal from everything, or bringing Aya into the party to check what they have to steal, then reload game to set-up actual party (unless you are an Aya fan then you'd be fine). Well this was a long post from me, I need to go to bed now. Once again keep up the good work, and I'll keep playing it as much as I have time too.

[Xenomic]

The game will be forcing you to use just about everyone at some point in the game, whether you'd want to or not, so do keep that in mind. I generally go Marisa/Meiling/Momiji/Yuuka or Youmu myself (Marisa's sparks are quite powerful I think, and I like having a healer even though Meiling has the third worst MP pool in the game). Cirno was pretty good early on, but I think once you get her back she kinda falls behind everyone else sadly...

Nitori was voted (by me and a few others) to be one of the two worst characters in the game (I think she's a bit better now because of Armor Elemental Bless), due to her only have one attack that can deal damage to enemies. That, and she is tied for worst MP pool in the entire game. Suwako is even worse than her I'd think personally.


Yeah, some of the steals are pretty terrible and I have been considering just turning some of them into crafting items. But they do get better (one of the bosses has a Ribbon to steal for instance. Hard fight though, and it's a low chance to steal, but a RIBBON man!). Other than that, most treasure chests/steals/drops are probably going to be crafting items if I ever get around to it...

[kaldrim]

Oh when you say use most characters, I really hope you don't have a Multi party dungeon set-up (ffVI comes to mind). In my opinion, that is one of my most hated things in large character pool RPGs. Forced storyline party members are fine as long as they only take 1 or 2 spaces ( Blazing Hell is fine also). But a dungeon that requires you making more than 1 party to get through something ( although two parties won't be bad depending on if and who the forced choice members are) just sucks to do. Sorry to say, but more-so on a game were it takes forever to level like this one.

Sorry for the rant there.

[Xenomic]

For the most parts, levels don't really matter TOO much (then again, I speedrun through this game all the time. Maybe that's why beta3/4 encounters start killing me). I would do something about EXP and leveling up, but 2k3 has a terrible leveling up system to it. >_<


But yes, there is a planned multi-party dungeon for later. Assuming I get that working right (I had a system for switching between 2 parties in the same screen, but I haven't messed with that in forever so I may have lost the coding...). There's roughly 20 playable characters (8 optionals), so there's more than enough for multi-party dungeons really. At least it won't be like Genius of Sapphieros where you're stuck with a party that has only 2 characters, while your other 2 parties have 5 characters each!


Other dungeons, mostly beta5 onwards, tend to cater to using specific characters over others more due to their gimmicks and whatnot.

[jjwebb]

Ok, I need to make a few comments about the last few posts made.  First of all, I discovered Touhou Fantasy when I was very new to the series.  I essentially only knew who Cirno and Flandre were while knowing a little more about the music (not so much which characters it belonged to etc.)

Second, I agree about Nitori .... she seriously needs improvements.  The main charm with her right now is her supportive spells, but she's too mana hungry for that.  Her mana pool needs a serious increase OR her spells need to not cost that much.  Maybe even give her a free spell that recovers a bit of mana? (for herself or if you prefer, give a bit of mana to a party member as well).  Also, maybe give her a few more abilities.  One attack isn't that great.  I'm a fan of multi-target abilities, so that's something to keep in mind.

Thirdly, Kaldrim, shush, I like multi-party dungeons/areas.  It makes it so the rest of your team has a use to you other than strictly story.  Anyways, the thing he means mostly by "use most characters" is, for example, having you use Aya, Momiji, and/or Nitori for an area relating to the Tengu Mountain, because that is their home.  As far as I know he has you "test out" a new character when you get them right away.

As for the party that I like, I like Marisa, Momiji, and Yuuka.  I haven't really gotten to the part where I got Cirno back yet, cuz testing on Linux is a pain due to the text being broken ... Xenomic knows what I mean by this.

Haven't really got much done, have been spending time with my family.  I might try to get something done today or some day where we decide just to hang out at home.

[Xenomic]

Her character specific armors are meant to deal with her MP pool and Stock in general. For instance, the first armor will halve MP cost for Stock in particular, while her second armor will halve MP cost all around. Her final armor will be making MP costs for Stock abilities be 1 MP each (that's what I'm thinking of doing anyways). She's meant to have terrible MP, and that can be alleviated by giving her MP+% accessories or MP+ items. That was the whole idea behind her (also, she's meant to be full support and not focused on attacking at all. That's why she only has that one attack~).

That's pretty much how it is. Again, some areas later cater more to specific characters than others (for instance, a dungeon in beta5 has a gimmick of No Items, and a subgimmick of Status Tiles. Nitori's Stock command bypasses the No Item rule, and Reisen/Nitori/Hope are all great for curing statuses if the need arises). But by no means are they REQUIRED to finish the dungeons. They just make them a lot easier to get through.


Also, seems a couple people over on RPGMaker.net want half of the elements removed. Not sure why though, when FF had just as many elements. Sure, FF doesn't really utilize the elements THAT greatly (Poison and Gravity are generally never used. Same with Wind and Water), but I think the game uses them fine enough as it is....