Tower of the Spirit World(Demo V1.1), Massive overhaul Options

[Rast]

Eons ago, the tower spewed forth beasts and monsters of many kinds.

Adventurers set forth to end the invasions and find the legendary Paradise on the other side...

It has been said that the tower in the center of the world is connected to Paradise. Dreaming of a life in paradise, many have challenged the secret of the tower, but no one knows what became of them.

Now, there is another who will brave the adventure...

Characters:
Humans

Humans have the highest HP of all characters, and moderate attack and defense. They rely on equipment for stats, as well as some stat boosting items. Humans can equip styles, which represent their fighting style and further customize their stats.

Mutants

Mutants have the lowest HP of all characters, and cannot use most armors(though there are a few they can use). They instead use attack skills and spells, relying on their own abilities rather than equipment.

Monster(WIP)

Monsters have overall average stats and do not excel at anything by default. They are able to use special skills learned by devouring the corpses of enemies. Monsters cannot equip any standard equipment, and instead increase their own abilities by utilizing monster soul-gems. More features planned in the future. Monsters start with rather good natural defenses, sometimes able to avoid damage completely.

Screenshots

Features

Customizable party - Create your group of adventurers from 3 different races, each with their own strengths and weaknesses.

[][]-Humans: Utilize armor and weapons to fight. Can use different styles, which grant stat boosts and special Role skills
[][]-Mutants: Rely on their natural armor and claws(or light armor and weapons). Can learn a wide variety of spells.
[][]-Monsters: Unable to use standard equipment, they instead utilize souls devour corpses to increase their abilities.

Skill and equipment based combat

[][]- While you may go out grinding for money on occasion(there will be more entertaining ways eventually), there won't be any level grinding to worry about. All you need to worry about is how equipped your party is, what spells and skills you have and the like.

But wait, leveling -does- exist! Enter the Legacy system.

[][]- A true hero is measured by his deeds, so they say, and that's how it works around here. As you fight and aid others, you accumulate a Hero Rating. This eventually allows your humans to use their game-changing style skills more. On top of that, you'll gain experience, which can be used to level individual characters up, making them stronger. Fear not, though. While leveling certainly helps, you by no means need to grind for levels just to succeed.

CREDITS

:

Original story and concept by Square Co. I intend to flesh out and expand on the original story, while trying to keep true to the original feel of the game.

The OST was composed by Nobou Uematsu, and is from the Final Fantasy Legend/SaGa trilogy, as well as Final Fantasy Adventure. The music was then remixed and remastered by me. "Epic Dungeon" music composed by Hanstone.

Original uncolored sprites were downloaded from The Shyguy Kingdom. They were then edited, resized, and recolored by me.

The sound Effects come from the RM2K3 RTP. The chipsets were originally ripped by woundedgoat of Charas-project, and combined/edited to what they are now by me.

Demo:

Sendspace - 57.3MB


This game was created with RPG Maker 2003. I've included the RTP files as well, so there's no need to install anything extra. If it doesn't, post the error here and I'll upload any missing files. The demo covers the first two worlds, and the tower levels in between. Also includes three "Epic Dungeons" in the first world.

Installation

Simply unzip the .rar file to a location of your choice, then run Setup.exe to install. Afterwards, run RPG_RT.exe to begin the game. Don't like fullscreen mode? Hit alt+enter to switch between modes.

If you're having an issue with the fonts clumping together, download and install the RM2000 font: http://www.sendspace.com/file/fgboql


Update Log
I'll be noting updates here as they happen. Most won't be implemented in the current demo unless otherwise noted.

[Show/Hide] April 29th Update Log

*Removed many unused resources from the game folder.
*Condensed and combined many chipsets. Added new tiles to many of them.
*Updated music for towns, battle, the overworld and the introduction.

[Milton Monday]

A few things.

1) The reason Final Fantasy Legend doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy game is that it isn't a Final Fantasy game. It's the first game in the SaGa series. Sunsoft changed the name for US release to boost sales.
2) What about monsters? They're the most fun class. Not very useful, sure, but fun!
3) Instead of recolored GB sprites, maybe you could rip resources from the Wonderswan Color version instead?

Anyway, Final Fantasy Legend/SaGa is a cool game. Make sure to do it justice, and you'll have a fine project on your hands. I'll try it out.

This post has been edited by Milton Monday: Oct 17 2008, 05:59 PM

[HeavensLastHope]

The game crashed when i finished deciding names for my people.....

is says

Error: ???? Object 1 ????

So ya.... ugh..

EDIT: I wonder if its me... has anyone else had a problem?

[Rast]

That means that a file is missing...Odd, I though I made sure every file was there. Just copy another charset(preferably one with doors, or it might look wierd), name it object1, and put it in the Charset folder. That should work for now, though some areas might be missing a few doors.

I'll reupload a new demo soon, and triple check to make sure everything works right. Sorry about that.

Oh, just noticed your post, Milton.

1) The reason Final Fantasy Legend doesn't feel like a Final Fantasy game is that it isn't a Final Fantasy game. It's the first game in the SaGa series. Sunsoft changed the name for US release to boost sales.

Yes, I'm aware of that. I mentioned above that it wasn't a part of Final Fantasy.

2) What about monsters? They're the most fun class. Not very useful, sure, but fun!

I haven't added them in yet, but they will be there.

3) Instead of recolored GB sprites, maybe you could rip resources from the Wonderswan Color version instead?

Well, I don't know where I'd get them. I've already done a ton of GB recolors anyways, so it's a bit far in to change.

[Milton Monday]

I didn't have any trouble with the file.

So, about the game. It's obviously in a very early stage of development. First the good...

-Great work on the music. The arrangements are fantastic and a definite improvement on the original.
-The recreations of the maps are very faithful. Nothing was out of place or felt wrong.

But there are (a lot of) problems with the demo as well.

-The monster class is missing. Aw...
-Why do I only get 3 members? FFL let you have four.
-The human male sprite's head keeps changing size when he walks right.
-Mutants can use Strong potions?
-I don't seem to need to have a weapon equipped to use it; I ended up equipping my humans with two rapiers each for the agility boost while they shared the King Sword for attacks.
-There's no townspeople in the Town of Hero, and only the inn has an interior. The town music is missing, too.
-I can walk through the trees in South Town.
-The battle music never resets to the default after killing King Sword. The boss music keeps playing during random battles.
-The King Shield is never added to the inventory. I could still return it to the statue, though.
-After fighting Genbu, I couldn't leave the square by the statue. All the exits were blocked off. This prevented me from finishing the demo.

There's a lot of issues that need to be hammered out (and I don't know that it was wise to release a demo this early), but this is a pretty good start, and your heart is clearly in the right place. Keep going, it would be a shame to waste those awesome arrangements!

[Rast]

It's been updated a bit. So I'll go over your list of bugs/problems and report what has been/will be done to fix them:

1)Monster class/3 members.
Well, at the moment, the Monster class isn't implemented yet. I still have to get the sprites working, and then work on the Meat system(amongst other things. As for three party members, I'll most likely change that later. At the very least, I'll update the Guild soon so you can recruit a 4th member.

2) The human male sprite's head keeps changing size when he walks right.
I'll go over that tonight and fix it. It's not top priority right now, but I'll see what I can do about it.

3)-Mutants can use Strong potions?
Problem in the database. I completely forgot to change the settings, but it's been fixed now.

4)-I don't seem to need to have a weapon equipped to use it; I ended up equipping my humans with two rapiers each for the agility boost while they shared the King Sword for attacks.

Yeah, big issue with the battle system. I hadn't noticed it for a while. I recently changed the battle system to a simple Attack command(attack with the equipped weapon). While it doesn't look like the classic battle system, and you can't have multiple weapons equipped, it removes this problem. It pained me to do it, but it was really the only way.

5)There's no townspeople in the Town of Hero, and only the inn has an interior. The town music is missing, too.
Fixed that recently. The town music is now the original FFL town BGM(until I rewrite and remaster it), the town is populated, and there are shops.

6)-I can walk through the trees in South Town.
Fixed. Wrong passability settings for the tileset, obviously.

7)-The battle music never resets to the default after killing King Sword. The boss music keeps playing during random battles.
I've gone and checked that, and it's fixed now. I thought I had it set right, but RM2K3 crashed a while back and I lost some progress.

8)-The King Shield is never added to the inventory. I could still return it to the statue, though.
Are you sure? I checked the event, and it gives the shield right after you defeat him. Ran through it, too, and it gave it to me. The shield is listed as KING(like the armor), so you might have missed it. Not sure why it didn't add it.

9)-After fighting Genbu, I couldn't leave the square by the statue. All the exits were blocked off. This prevented me from finishing the demo.

I've fixed that one as well. You didn't miss much, really. The demo ends after unsealing the Tower door, so you didn't miss much. Maybe it was a bit early to release a demo, but I think I'm glad I did. I wouldn't have noticed a lot of these problems otherwise, and I'll be a bit more careful while I'm working now.

And I'm glad you liked the music I spent a lot of time trying to make it sound good. A new demo will be up soon(tomorrow, maybe)fixing most of the above bugs. It will probably be the same length(until you enter the tower), but with all the problems fixed.

[Dark Gaia]

Well well well... I remember playing the entire FFL trilogy way back. Despite the fact that everyone said it was crap and all my friends hated it, I somehow really enjoyed playing it. FFL 1 just happens to be my favorite one in the trilogy as well, so I'm happy to see a remake. Perhaps if you make it better, a whole new bunch of people can experience the game.

Keep it up Rast! This is one of the only RM fangames I would ever consider playing.

[VerifyedRasta]

I noticed in the intro you can press <Esc> and you bring up the menu ... I'm sure you did not want this to be possible or did you?

[HeavensLastHope]

That means that a file is missing...Odd, I though I made sure every file was there. Just copy another charset(preferably one with doors, or it might look wierd), name it object1, and put it in the Charset folder. That should work for now, though some areas might be missing a few doors.

It already had a Object1 file, but was named "FFLObject1"... So I just made a copy of that file and renamed it Object1. So now it works.

@ Milton: I don't know why you didn't have the same problem.... Lucky

[Rast]

@VerifyedRasta: Yeah, that's not supposed to happen. Thanks for letting me know. It's been fixed.

I guess I just forgot to change one of the event's sprites. Anyways, I've fixed a lot of these bugs. I'll try to upload an updated demo soon., after I get everything working in order. The combat's been changed around a bit and needs to be balanced out first.

EDIT: Maybe not so soon. It's near 3AM, so I'll be going to bed.

[Rast]

BUMP/UPDATE

Here's the new demo. A lot of bugs were fixed, problems solved, and now the demo is slighty longer. You can go through the first part of the tower, which is relatively short. There are a couple deathtraps to look out for.


[Link outdated and removed]

[Dark Gaia]

Rast, as a quick observation, in my opinion, the charsets and chipsets really don't fit together. You have NES quality chars on a SNES quality chipset. Might I suggest you use the NES chipsets included in Dragon Fantasy? It would look more consistent and would probably fit the feel of the game, if you are going to use GB rips.

[DrakeOneil]

I would definitly play this!?!?!?

I've never heard of Final Fantasy Legend though.
But good job so far!

[Rast]

Bump, for lack of wanting to create a new topic for this.

Massive updates:
==========================================

As of December 3rd, the game has been reworked quite a bit. The graphics were changed, made to work a bit better together. Combat was rebalanced, and has been made overall easier.

In addition, new "Epic Dungeons" have been added. These are dungeons with a time limit designed to present more of a challenge. Currently, only three have been added, all to the first world. Two of them have obvious entrances, one of them is hidden. One of them can only be opened after a certain point(made clear in game).

There are other changes that have/will be made. Recently, I've decided to stop making a clone of the original game, and branch it out into something a bit more original. Over time, I intend to rework the story and maps. The story will still be the same, but more fleshed out, more complete. NPCs will be clearer(and wandering around in greater numbers). The new demo is out, and can be found in the first post, or at the end of this post.

So far, the Monster race has not been re-added, and max party size is still 3.

The demo should be around 2 hours long, perhaps 3. I suppose it depends on how much time you spend looking around and exploring the new dungeons, on top of the original content.

[Rast]

Updated as of today.

As of today, the game has undergone another large update. A lot has been changed, updated, and ironed out. Enemies have new sprites, combat is more balanced and entertaining, and areas have been redone. See the end of the first post for more info on all recent updates.


Demo: Download (Sendspace) 35.97MB(compressed)

Simply unzip the .rar file and run RPG_RT.exe.

[Rast]

Updated yet again. Fixed a rather game-breaking CBAData error that occured in most of the first random encounters. All downloads fixed with the new version, and the first post has been reformatted for ease of reading, with new screenshots from the current updated game.


By the by, I'm toying with the idea of giving it a new name: Tower of the Spirit World. It's essentially a shortened version of the original translated name(Almost literally "Warrior in the Tower of the Spirit World"). The idea is to bring it closer to the original game concept, while driving away any negative criticism over the Final Fantasy title. The US name was changed to it solely to boost sales after the success of the original Final Fantasy. Thoughts?


Aaaand BAM, new name, new WIP story ideas and the like being implemented. I plan to release an updated demo with redone dialogue, the Monster race and rebalanced combat sometime during the first week of April.

[Rast]

Massive update

As of right now, the new demo is released. You can download it here(Sendspace, 57.3MB) or in the first post.

Update Notes

[][]- Graphics have been redone. All chipsets(save a special few) have been changed to colored versions from the original game
[][]- Monsters are here! That's right, they're available and ready to go. Read the first post for info on how they work.
[][]- You can now have 4 party members, instead of 3.
[][]- On top of that, the character creation system has been revamped and made easier to use.
[][]- Combat and all races have been rebalanced to match the new updates.
[][]- Many, many bugs have been fixed.
[][]- You now have a chance to find enemy corpses. Feed them to a Monster and it will learn a new skill.
[][]- The Monster Hunter is in town. She'll occasionally have a few corpses for sale.
[][]- The style shop is now in the Town of Hero. How do you want your Human to fight?

Detailed explanation of some features:

Styles
Styles can be equipped by Humans, and will give them small stat boosts as well as a skill or two while equipped. These skills are generally powerful attacks or boosts for the party or user. At the start, Humans have 1 Fatigue point, and each skill will cost 1 point to use. You gain more Fatigue points(to the maximum of 5) by raising your Hero Rating, which is done via fighting and assisting others.

Souls and corpses
Souls are found randomly on slaying a monster. They can be equipped to Monsters to provide unique statboosts, to balance out the lack of armor or weapons.


Corpses are found in a similar manner(or bought from the local Monster Hunter), and teach your Monster special skills.

Legacy System and leveling
As you fight and help others, your Hero Rating will go up, and experience points will be added. For 100 points, you can level up one party member. The current max level is 3. Leveling provides a moderate race-specific boost to HP, defense and attack. In future updates, new skills per level will be implemented.

Additionally, doing extra things, as well as Epic Dungeons will give you bonus exp, which is like an additional stockpile of exp. There will be other things aside from leveling to use it on soon, but if you're lacking normal exp, you can fork out 100 bonus exp in it's place.

================================================================================


And that's it! I'd love to hear some feedback or critique about it, I've been working quite a bit on it with very little actual feedback to go on. Almost 1300 views, only 16 replies(8 of which are mine) works out to less than 1% of viewers replying. This makes me sad.

[Rast]

Demo updated to 1.2. Fixed a few more bugs and changed a few things.

Is there -any- interest at all in this?

[Ignasis]

Demo updated to 1.2. Fixed a few more bugs and changed a few things.

Is there -any- interest at all in this?

I'll check it out man it would be a waste to let something you've spent that much time on disappear.. keep up the work man, I know i have trouble finishing my projects but I really want to at least finish one.. you seem like your coming along.

[Rast]

Still absolutely no feedback? I've put three years of work into this. Without any critique I really don't know what direction to take this.