Final Fantasy Arcade

[Bloodbane]

 That's the reason I suggested you to learn scripts. there's script to deduct MP in any animation.

 Also I also suggest using target scripts I've made in my mods. Crime Buster v2.5 has these but I suggest using the ones in GI Joe mod instead.
 This would look great for projectiles and magic shot right at player/enemy .
 And with some modification, you can make moves such as Dragoon's Jump or Locke's Snatch.

[Hodgypointspeaks]

That's the reason I suggested you to learn scripts. there's script to deduct MP in any animation.

 Also I also suggest using target scripts I've made in my mods. Crime Buster v2.5 has these but I suggest using the ones in GI Joe mod instead.
 This would look great for projectiles and magic shot right at player/enemy .
 And with some modification, you can make moves such as Dragoon's Jump or Locke's Snatch.

Ah ok but for right now I'm just trying to keep it simple and finish arcade mode with the enemies and bosses and add more stuff. I might try to learn how to make a menu(For Challenge mode and Dungeon mode) after I'm done with that I'll work on the MP Script and see what I can do.

Edit: another boss vid with a couple of new magic attacks v
http://youtu.be/zZ8HC6UQO80

[Hodgypointspeaks]

Made a W.I.P of branching menu which will be used in arcade and other modes
http://youtu.be/mrViZ8eOWDc

I'll make backgrounds later.. I might include this for challenge mode in the .1 demo

[Bloodbane]

 You know, that branch menu is not good at all without script.

 You should just use world map like in Classic Fantasy. It looks better and works better too.
 Even better, you can have more branches in single screen. No need for texts, the map describe it well enough.

 And you should edit backgrounds. I know it's easy trick to use mirrored copy to add missing part but since it's simple old image, you should be able to add missing part. Just copy parts of background, paste then edit.

[Hodgypointspeaks]

Blood It was just an W.I.P showing what it would look like that's why it had no background(I said it was a test here and on youtube)  . Using a world map in every mode out would be boring imo. I can really seeing the map working with challenge mode or dungeon mode but arcade mode not so much. Plus using a menu like the could be useful for my other ideas(recruiting party members in the single player mode and possibly other stuff). As far as using a script I have no idea how and what to exactly use for it

[Hodgypointspeaks]

After three weeks of spriting, learning a bit of BOR, and trial and error I give you the .1 demo of Final Fantasy Arcade!

http://www.mediafire.com/?jlf666rjlkdk65v

Please note this this is the Classic version not the Single version. I'll probably have that demo out soon as soon as I add more npcs and stuff. Please read the read me and enjoy!!!!

P.s you don't have to have four players to play this mod. A way how to play is in the read me so... READ IT. Feed back is welcome and Thank you for playing!

[NickyP]

Interesting idea. I just have two comments/advisements:

1. Pretty much every character in the game, except for Holy Dragoon, has a tiny world map sprite (FF1-5) available. Dancer and Archer come from Romancing Saga (SNES), which uses the same world map sprite style as FF1-5. Right now it's understandable that you gave everyone Fighter's world map sprite, as your still new at this, but it looks a little sloppy. And a mod worthy of the NickyP brand deserves much more polish than that! 

2. I see you used the world map from ClaFan. That's not a bad thing, but eventually you should replace it with your own world map. I created the world map in ClaFan using RPGMaker VX; why don't you give that a try? If you have Windows Vista or earlier, you can use RPGMaker 2000 or 2003 instead.

Other than that, not bad. I like it, it just needs to be polished up some more. Ideally, I'd like to see you improve it so much that I don't even recognize my own work anymore!

[Hodgypointspeaks]

Interesting idea. I just have two comments/advisements:

1. Pretty much every character in the game, except for Holy Dragoon, has a tiny world map sprite (FF1-5) available. Dancer and Archer come from Romancing Saga (SNES), which uses the same world map sprite style as FF1-5. Right now it's understandable that you gave everyone Fighter's world map sprite, as your still new at this, but it looks a little sloppy. And a mod worthy of the NickyP brand deserves much more polish than that! 

2. I see you used the world map from ClaFan. That's not a bad thing, but eventually you should replace it with your own world map. I created the world map in ClaFan using RPGMaker VX; why don't you give that a try? If you have Windows Vista or earlier, you can use RPGMaker 2000 or 2003 instead.

Other than that, not bad. I like it, it just needs to be polished up some more. Ideally, I'd like to see you improve it so much that I don't even recognize my own work anymore!

Thanks! I gave myself a time limit so alot of the other stuff was left un-done (the first part of the world map and the last map and the intro and title) I'm not sure how far you gotten in the game but I made the second map (although it did kinda suck lol). Did you find any of the hidden bosses? and have you beat the game yet?

[Bloodbane]

 I've just traveled the map for couple steps toward cave on east and I got warped immediately to battle level without touching that cave. Worse, after clearing this level, I got taken to world map again.

 Finally after couple tries, I realized that you hide branch entities somewhere on the map. It's nice trick except that I don't like returning to start everytime I win a battle.

 As for battle itself, you should have not removed NPC mode, it makes hard for single player to test the mod.

 I haven't finished this yet since I don't know where to go.

[Hodgypointspeaks]

I've just traveled the map for couple steps toward cave on east and I got warped immediately to battle level without touching that cave. Worse, after clearing this level, I got taken to world map again.

 Finally after couple tries, I realized that you hide branch entities somewhere on the map. It's nice trick except that I don't like returning to start everytime I win a battle.

 As for battle itself, you should have not removed NPC mode, it makes hard for single player to test the mod.

 I haven't finished this yet since I don't know where to go.

Yeah I'm not really sure how to make it warp you to the previous branch you touched. I made the hid the "random battle" branches all over the map so it could have a FF feel to it. As far as NPC go I stated in the release post that this was the Classic version and I'm currently working on a Single version. I wanted the  NPC's to have more attacks and stuff before I decided to add them and if you read my "READ-ME" then you would have known to set p2-p4 controls to your current P1 set up. I decided to separate the mod because I knew there would be possibility of the mod having 6 modes.

As far as knowing where to go... you have to explore to find out! That's the part of the reason why I don't tell you in the read me. And plus if I told everyone where everything was it'll make the "random battles" useless and they won't find out cool secrets on accident.

[Hodgypointspeaks]

So for those of you that have trouble controlling 4 characters at once I made a single player mod with stronger NPCs. I didn't really add attacks do to a rebalance that might have took a while to finish. So here you go: http://www.mediafire.com/?35cofelq852iu1a

I might upload it here as well

[Bloodbane]

Aaah, this NPC mode is better! thanks!

 I have played more and understand what's going on here. I think you're missing some scene or any storytelling but I assume you'll fix this later.

 Anyways, I don't know if you are going to keep using ClaFan map or not but whichever map you are using, you could do this:
1. Set wall in mountains, rivers and oceans to prevent players from walking on them. Yes, I know what you're thinking but see #2 below
2. Since each stage returns to same map, why don't you use slightly altered maps for each stage? for instance, at start, towns,castles, ships etc aren't visible yet. Then as game progresses, they begin to appear one by one.
 For town across river, add bridge too (and don't set wall on bridge of course) to access it
 This way, players will have other reason to explore the map after clearing each stage
3. Aside of that, you could add clouds to show that time has advanced . Or maybe dark clouds + rain ?

 Related to #1, there's another alternative to this: you can add something in story that (after couple stages), player have ability to cross water or mountain which allows them to access locations on water or mountain. At this point, the map should
not have walls there.

 About battle with Phantom Train, you need to set bglayer's xrepeat to -1 so it is repeated infinitely. Right now, it is only played once.

 As for battle, you added something I really want to see from original RPG games: enemies coming in to join battle! This is great mostly because it cuts time seeing winning pose. Not saying I'm bored with that pose but while levelling up, players usually walk around to hunt for enemies. They battle, win and hunt again until they are satisfied. This process can be sped up drastically if enemies come as mentioned above instead.
 Ah, that was off topic!

 Oh yes, related to this, you could add some effect to enemies when they enter play field for instance, ground enemies move in/jump in & flying enemies 'drop in'. They don't have to move in same manner e.g move in in zig zag, move straight fast/slow, fly in straight down or diagonally.
 If you're willing to do some edit, you can have some enemies phase in or rise from ground when they are spawned.

[Hodgypointspeaks]

Aaah, this NPC mode is better! thanks!

 I have played more and understand what's going on here. I think you're missing some scene or any storytelling but I assume you'll fix this later.

 Anyways, I don't know if you are going to keep using ClaFan map or not but whichever map you are using, you could do this:
1. Set wall in mountains, rivers and oceans to prevent players from walking on them. Yes, I know what you're thinking but see #2 below
2. Since each stage returns to same map, why don't you use slightly altered maps for each stage? for instance, at start, towns,castles, ships etc aren't visible yet. Then as game progresses, they begin to appear one by one.
 For town across river, add bridge too (and don't set wall on bridge of course) to access it
 This way, players will have other reason to explore the map after clearing each stage
3. Aside of that, you could add clouds to show that time has advanced . Or maybe dark clouds + rain ?

 Related to #1, there's another alternative to this: you can add something in story that (after couple stages), player have ability to cross water or mountain which allows them to access locations on water or mountain. At this point, the map should
not have walls there.

 About battle with Phantom Train, you need to set bglayer's xrepeat to -1 so it is repeated infinitely. Right now, it is only played once.

 As for battle, you added something I really want to see from original RPG games: enemies coming in to join battle! This is great mostly because it cuts time seeing winning pose. Not saying I'm bored with that pose but while levelling up, players usually walk around to hunt for enemies. They battle, win and hunt again until they are satisfied. This process can be sped up drastically if enemies come as mentioned above instead.
 Ah, that was off topic!

 Oh yes, related to this, you could add some effect to enemies when they enter play field for instance, ground enemies move in/jump in & flying enemies 'drop in'. They don't have to move in same manner e.g move in in zig zag, move straight fast/slow, fly in straight down or diagonally.
 If you're willing to do some edit, you can have some enemies phase in or rise from ground when they are spawned.

All great ideas! Thanks for the feed back. I'll address them in order here v

1, 2,and 3. I wasn't sure about setting walls about setting walls because I saw there was a limit to how many walls you can place in a level(Which I saw some where was 15 until I saw the manual[after I made the first demo] which said you could put up to 40 walls. But I did use the idea of "walking through walls" to add hidden battles and bosses (which I'm sure you haven't found out yet lol) but the clouds and rain is a possibility. But I'm going to add different areas as well in the next demo I just made the secret battles as a treat for everyone that DLed the game lol.

As far as a story goes there might be one but I kinda wanna save most of that for the story mod of the game. And to answer if I'm going to keep the clafan map or not, I'm not. I'm going to use the same style as the 2nd map (After you beat gilgamesh and the ship level) as the continuation of the overworld. I'm still not sure how far you've gotten so I can't really spoil alot here lol.

The enemies joining the battle was merely Nickyp's idea with more enemies lol. I could add more to the idea and have enemies spawn other enemies after a certain period of time.

And spawning thing I'll see what I can do still learning stuff you know lol. Btw you know the arcade mode saves correct? so if you get stuck or die in a battle you'll reset to that battle with the same character and the same amount of lives. And would you mind saying how far you actually got and how hard you think the game is so far? I would like to know so I could see if I'm keeping the game at a steady pace.

[Bloodbane]

 I just got to new map and stop playing there since I got other things to do. I'll resume later.

 From rough prediction, I think Clafan map won't use many walls.

 As for difficulty, well like you posted, NPCs are too strong, I could survive only by drinking potions over n over and let them do the work.
 And aside of that, seems like everyone's attack (both players and NPC) are too strong i.e it doesn't take much attacks to defeat any regular monsters.
 The only time I found trouble is when battling against Evil Elf. His death spell instantly kills player. Very strong attack for 2nd stage boss.

[Hodgypointspeaks]

I just got to new map and stop playing there since I got other things to do. I'll resume later.

 From rough prediction, I think Clafan map won't use many walls.

 As for difficulty, well like you posted, NPCs are too strong, I could survive only by drinking potions over n over and let them do the work.
 And aside of that, seems like everyone's attack (both players and NPC) are too strong i.e it doesn't take much attacks to defeat any regular monsters.
 The only time I found trouble is when battling against Evil Elf. His death spell instantly kills player. Very strong attack for 2nd stage boss.

Hmm I see perhaps I should edit the NPC attack strength to match each stage. I buffed them mainly to survive the final stage in the game. I'm guessing you just got to the second map? around stage 7 you'll start to see why I buffed them the way I did lol(even in stage 6 if you run into a secret boss). Astos(The Evil Elf) has death because that's what he uses in the actual game. I could switch it to be a freespecial so he wouldn't use it as much. I might make more use of the weapon function and add weapons for the player to find to make they're journey harder or easier depending on what they find. Hopefully I could work out a good basic formula to balance things better because most enemies are using their stats from the actual games with minor adjustments