The Black Rose, Now with a Complete Walkthrough. Options

[darkhalo]

Finally after 3 years in development, the Black Rose is now completed and test played. .
This is one project Iv'e been aspiring to make for years (arguably since leaving the 2k3 days) in 2005.
This key project was created to try and match the later Playstation One rpg's such as Star Ocean 2
or Legend of Dragoon which never left my imagination for wanting to make a similar game with equally
stylish graphics and in game flexibility using 8 way movement.
NB: Though the game is finished, it may change in development (for testing purposes).
Therefore the game/game link may change accordingly..

The Black Rose

Abstract: The game is set in a beautiful fantasy world which focusses on the main character called Chao.
Chao is part of the Shimante faith, a minoist born to restore it's crumbling powers after a leak in it's circle allows a
sinister being to emerge within the ranks with dire consequences. Chao, the last minoist, has to group with his friends
and fellow minoists to find and destroy this new ordeal.

Genre: The game is essentially a jrpg type rpg.

Engine: The game has been created using RMXP.

Story
Wajjir the great god, created five shimante minoists. Each one representing the runes Darkness, Wind, Lightning, Fire and Ice.
Each minoist had its own rune guardian, blessed by Wajjir himself. The story starts one day when DInah (Chao's own guardian)
visits him to say that not all is well, that the great Shimante Rose is dying, and that one of the runes has become lost somewhere.
Chao's friend, a fellow minoist called Lianne goes out with her own guardian to try and track down the dark minoist and tries to
seek the revenge for her mother Rethica, who had in the past challenged the wrongful minoist claimant and battled and beat him
and his guardian Shaman. Shaman was once the fire guardian of Chao's father Growan....and the story unfolds.
Wajjir immediately conceals Shaman back to the Guardian Chamber....and Chao's has to reclaim as his own.
Chao has visited his so called ill mother for several years, but then realises that his mother is something much more important
and has been hiding elsewhere as the rose itself. The story reveals !
Chao and his party set off to find this missing link, and faces more than he ever expected to find.
Characters

Chao
A true minoist born with rune of fire. His father, though a loyal servant, had weaknesses that Chao and his guardian has to deal
with as the story reveals more intrigue.
Chao is a Combatant, truly a dedicated minoist who is devoted to find out why the Shimante Rose is dying.
Chao is also an inquisitve person, and is the main key character throughout the game.
Has an abilty to use all level of fire spells.

Lianne
Features mid way during the game. A blessed minoist with the Ice Rune, she shares a link why she should pursue the mystery
rune of darkness.
A long freindship with Chao, Lianne initially wants revenge for her mother who almost died defeating Shaman.
Lianne's class is Mage.

Gulia
A very close friend of Chao and Cyrus. Bubbly and flambuoyant, Gulia likes to be positive, and will always hide her intelligence
by conveying her somewhat passive thoughts to please the party.
Gulia is very close to Chao.....as the story unfolds.
Class....Cleric.

Cyrus
An intelligent lady who always has the right answer. A close friend of Chao and Gulia. Through research, Cyrus has a good
understanding of the minoist faith and what Chao and Lianne's emotions are going through.
Class: Warrior.

Junar
A very confident , yet emotional person, who makes his living from finding gemstones. Meets Lianne, and chases after her in the
Incus mine after discovering she left the village without telling him.
Junar enters the game midway during the game.
Class: Mage.

Croix
Son of Tienkus, Croix initially wants closure with his father who he belives was a true minoist. He tries to seek fairness, in finding
him, but soon recognises that his judgement may not have been the right one.
Class: Imperialist.

Credits
Graphics:
In game Characters.....taken from "Sora ro Kiseki".
Still character sets....darkhalo.
Maps and tilesets: (Converted from Fantasy Westward Journey) darkhalo
Credits to Net Ease re map material" and from "evil arev's" dungeon sprites.
Battle Sprites: dichuyen and Sora ro Kiseki.

Music tracks: Ken Nakagawa
Rosary

Overlays. darkhalo

Rmxp scripts:
Superlag script by Amaranth
AMS 4 by dubleaux
Location Window by unknown.
8 Way dash by Paradog
8 Way direction by Paradog
CBS by Nortos (Include Minkoff, DerrVulfmann, Cogwheel)
HP/SP bars by Seph
Damage script by Paradog
CMS by Raziel. (My favourite script of all time !)
Cursor script by Squall
Title script by Paradog
Shadow text by Risefields
BGM Fade by "The Law"
Auto battle by Thousand Dragon Link"

Eventing by darkhalo.
Known issues: Event detection not always accurate. Eg Walking map sprites facing hero & collision niggles
with a couple of the larger tilesets. Addressed to some extent with eventing.













Features
As close to 2.5D as you will get in RM !
Both Battles and all maps are in full isometric view !
Walking sprites are in 2.5D too.
No RTP dependency in this at all.
Use a PC analogue controller if you have one. It really works well for gameplay.
Those with Playstation 2 DS adapter....all controls both menu options and on map functions.
Those without....simply use the keyboard direction arrows and Z key for Rush movement.
Ins key brings up the menu.
Spacebar to execute events etc.

Standalone = Yes.
Gameplay is between 4-5 hours +.

The Black Rose game exe download. Version 2a

Graphics download file. V2.

1 Simply download the game zipfile and install. (111Mb) Part 1
2 Download the Graphics file and then place it in the actual game folder. (Part 2) 98Mb.
Note: Please do not use these w/m tilesets without permission.

And finally:
The game may well in time be revised due to final touches such as extending the mining sub game and
adding more individual battle features with the rune guardians and their respective characters.
Fishing sub quest too.

Official Game Walkthrough.

[ZarroTsu]

Am I the only one finding this game INCREDIBLY hard to follow? Not even five minutes into the game and I not only have no idea what I'm doing, but no grounding reason to care, and I for some reason was teleported into the middle of a town? Who are these people? What am I doing? Hello??

[darkhalo]

Am I the only one finding this game INCREDIBLY hard to follow? Not even five minutes into the game and I not only have no idea what I'm doing, but no grounding reason to care, and I for some reason was teleported into the middle of a town? Who are these people? What am I doing? Hello??

Hello indeed...then I suggest you follow the story .
Finding Lianna maybe.... ??

[ZarroTsu]

the story

What story? I'm given, as an introduction, some monologuing without any hard meaning to it, a knock at the door, a floating leaf spirit or something who our protagonist doesn't bat an eye at or react to realistically who was supposedly something in a dream she had (Which would have made a much better introduction unless my game's broken!), saying something but not clarifying that there was someone the protagonist once liked or loved, then poofing away to neverneverland and leaving me, the player, with nothing to do.

If that's REALLY the intro, and my game ISN'T missing a scene before this point, then you've officially made an RPG I cannot possibly review.

[darkhalo]

the story

What story? I'm given, as an introduction, some monologuing without any hard meaning to it, a knock at the door, a floating leaf spirit or something who our protagonist doesn't bat an eye at or react to realistically who was supposedly something in a dream she had (Which would have made a much better introduction unless my game's broken!), saying something but not clarifying that there was someone the protagonist once liked or loved, then poofing away to neverneverland and leaving me, the player, with nothing to do.

If that's REALLY the intro, and my game ISN'T missing a scene before this point, then you've officially made an RPG I cannot possibly review.

Hmm. The intro was quite simple in terms of story objective. It typically unravels like most rpg's.
Re review.....yes, fair enough we all have our own opinions....per se.
This may not be SquareEnix, but it holds it's own as a single home brewed RM development project.

[ZarroTsu]

but it holds it's own for a single home brewed RM development project.

If that were true, you'd at least tell me where to go, in context of the game itself, to start off my journey. I replayed the intro to see what I missed, and I really didn't miss anything. Apparently some rose turning black will mind-screw the protagonist girl, but... why? What rose? Why does she know this? Jeez, it's sure be nice if I could SEE what this DREAM they keep TALKING about WAS so I KNEW what they were talking ABOUT!

See this is the thing: SHOW, don't TELL. This is not a good way to start an RPG, because you've effectively told me all about some dream your protagonist had by referencing the key facts as if I were there to see it, when I clearly wasn't. It would be like if I told you about this HILARIOUS time I had going to the grocery store to buy some milk, and long story short I sold my soul to the Devil. So what?

I expect you to at least introduce a concept in a way I can immediately understand, and can follow along with. It's true it will "unfold as it goes along", but in order for it to "go along", I need things to actually do, that I am told to do, and then shit hits the fan along the way.

If we want to use the example you gave of Square (Square Enix hasn't made a good RPG in YEARS), Chrono Trigger started off telling you outright to go to a fair, a fair that was there celebrating the turn of the new millennium, which is a pretty big deal, and an understandable big deal. You go there and goof around a bit, because that's what you DO at a fair, you run into some girl and travel around with here, and then you find someone who's supposedly your childhood friend who built a damn teleporter, and you decide to sit back and watch. Shit THEN hits the fan, and the plot gets going when HOLY SHIT GIANT VORTEX IN SPACE/TIME, BATMAN! You might not hold much attachment to the girl you just met, but you sure as heck aren't going to be an asshole for no reason since, the main character being a lens for you, the player, you yourself wouldn't just ignore the situation, and you follow after her to save her, and the plot kicks off from there.

Because it told you what to do. In the first five minutes, you're given a direction, and then you're given a goal. Things then get interesting as you're chopping up imps from five hundred years in the past, there's a war going on with demon lords, you're in shit with the law in present time for this bullshit, and then through another time-gate into the future you learn that a parasite the size of a city is going to expunge the entire planet one day and nobody can do anything to stop it.

Chrono Trigger sure as hell didn't start its gameplay by telling you "how cool that fair was the other day", and then expect you to know what point in the story you're in. That would be stupid, and nobody would like it.