It has recently been discovered that emeralds hold the energies of powerful dead creatures. Emeralds, previously just a worthless gemstone, are now in high demand all over the world as people are trying to get these powers. But not all of the emerald hunters want to use them for good reasons...
The game begins with a small group of inexperienced adventurers (you) sneaking into a magic crystal mine, looking for any of these worthless gems that were left behind.
Emerald takes place in a strange world where magic & modern day-conveniences collide. Some characters will do battle with medieval-style equipment, but at the same time use things like Candy, Hamburgers & Root Beer to restore health. This game features many custom systems, some of which are spoiled below in this post.
This is more light-hearted than many of the dark stories you'll find in games today. However, it's not a comedy game - it's just "fun" with a few epic elements mixed in and one of the most unexpected final bosses ever.
http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/4859/emerss1jx1.th.png[/IMG] http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/8716/emerss23xr.th.jpg[/IMG] http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/792/emerss3sr2.th.png[/IMG] http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/8056/emerss43of.th.jpg[/IMG] http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/8574/emerss6fo0.th.png[/IMG] http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/6272/emerss59xg.th.jpg[/IMG] http://img83.imageshack.us/img83/1223/emerss8rr6.th.png[/IMG] http://img223.imageshack.us/img223/3905/emerss10ug7.th.png[/IMG]
Please note: Maps are improved with the release version. While making this as a Black Tuesday game, I had to map for speed instead of trying to be perfect and I have not changed the screenshots.
Check back soon!
There are many playable characters in this game, most only join you for a short time. You can see some of them in the screenshots above.
You're given the choice of your main character. Some of the story and areas you visit change depending on which you take. Every character has completely different skills.
Most characters are "guests" and only with you for a short while. These are AI-controlled in battle, and often play smarter than you
. There are also several main characters, who you can adventure with and later recruit to form your final group.
A small sampling of the 20:
Duke (Optional permanent)
The annoying guy you'll either love or hate. He has a variety of skills and is the typical spiky haired "way too big" sword guy that these games usually have. Luckily, he's not the main. Enemies hate him almost as much as the other characters do. Most of his abilities involve getting enemies to hit him instead of other group members.
Fraise (Optional permanent)
The red-haired, strawberry loving pirate chick. She starts off with only a few skills, but she can also steal the enemy's skills for her own. Some need to be drained a few times to be permanent, others are automatically and some can only be taken for that specific battle.
Denne (Guest, name will change)
A blind girl with the ability to control the weather. Her skills involve changing it to another weather effect, and various things to turn the weather against the opponents. Only a selection of her skills are available depending on the weather.
Garic (Guest)
An ancient wizard who's trying to cure a degenerative disease. As he gains in power, his body becomes much more frail (his hp goes down, etc). He is the only character that starts off with a lot of magic already learned, but because of his condition that's a bad thing.
You're given the choice of your main character. Some of the story and areas you visit change depending on which you take. Every character has completely different skills.
Most characters are "guests" and only with you for a short while. These are AI-controlled in battle, and often play smarter than you
. There are also several main characters, who you can adventure with and later recruit to form your final group.A small sampling of the 20:
Duke (Optional permanent)
The annoying guy you'll either love or hate. He has a variety of skills and is the typical spiky haired "way too big" sword guy that these games usually have. Luckily, he's not the main. Enemies hate him almost as much as the other characters do. Most of his abilities involve getting enemies to hit him instead of other group members.
Fraise (Optional permanent)
The red-haired, strawberry loving pirate chick. She starts off with only a few skills, but she can also steal the enemy's skills for her own. Some need to be drained a few times to be permanent, others are automatically and some can only be taken for that specific battle.
Denne (Guest, name will change)
A blind girl with the ability to control the weather. Her skills involve changing it to another weather effect, and various things to turn the weather against the opponents. Only a selection of her skills are available depending on the weather.
Garic (Guest)
An ancient wizard who's trying to cure a degenerative disease. As he gains in power, his body becomes much more frail (his hp goes down, etc). He is the only character that starts off with a lot of magic already learned, but because of his condition that's a bad thing.
Features
- 5+ hours of gameplay
- Amazing artwork by Tori
- Heavily edited default systems of all types
- Many mini-games
- Many sub-quests
- Master the exploding frog
- Multiple storylines to follow
- No laggy pointless eye candy scripts
- Over 200 custom scripts, almost all made by me
- Simple, but fun, storyline
- Visit towns as your main character (Star Ocean 2)
Free Bonus Information
The battle system in this game is a heavily edited version of the DBS.
Other than a couple very specific areas (with reasons for it), all monster attacks are only triggered by on screen monsters you can avoid. These have custom move routes to make their areas even more interesting. Some will follow you, some will teleport around the room, others will ignore you or run away if you're a high level.
Most enemies only turn aggressive if you're near them, and you can make them forget about you running away. If you run away during battle (which is very easy to do, 50-80% chance), you'll appear in the previous area.
- AI controlled characters
- Automatic options and selection memory
- Auto-Healing/Resurrection/SP Regen
- Custom aggression system
Watch out healing allies the enemies hate on hard mode! - Easy escaping from almost every fight
- Extra enemy moves, like calling for help or eating each other
- HP rolling down as you're attacked (similar to Earthbound)
- Much quicker battles/animations sped up
- Multiple actions, some enemies may do 4 seperate attacks
- Retry a fight when you lose
- Summon equipped emeralds
Rye's "Cookie Dust" & Ccoa's "Administer Punishment" can be very useful - Tons of custom states
- & many more new things
Other than a couple very specific areas (with reasons for it), all monster attacks are only triggered by on screen monsters you can avoid. These have custom move routes to make their areas even more interesting. Some will follow you, some will teleport around the room, others will ignore you or run away if you're a high level.
Most enemies only turn aggressive if you're near them, and you can make them forget about you running away. If you run away during battle (which is very easy to do, 50-80% chance), you'll appear in the previous area.
Rather than leveling and random encounters, I chose to make them map-based where you can easily avoid most of them. But, some players may require more leveling for whatever reason or just plain want to fight. I came up with a fun, completely optional way of doing that.
Monster vaults are scattered around the world of emerald in some of the most unlikely of places. Once opened, a few waves of enemies will pour out. Defeat them all and you'll be able to enter the vault to grab whatever goodies are inside.
Monster vaults also hold several secret bosses and more powerful enemies. Defeat opening a monster vault isn't a game over though - the door just shuts and you'll keep some of the AP/XP you earned during the fight when you died. However, the weird magic of these vaults prevents using your items in battle, and you won't have a chance to rest between enemy waves.
Monster vaults are scattered around the world of emerald in some of the most unlikely of places. Once opened, a few waves of enemies will pour out. Defeat them all and you'll be able to enter the vault to grab whatever goodies are inside.
Monster vaults also hold several secret bosses and more powerful enemies. Defeat opening a monster vault isn't a game over though - the door just shuts and you'll keep some of the AP/XP you earned during the fight when you died. However, the weird magic of these vaults prevents using your items in battle, and you won't have a chance to rest between enemy waves.
Scattered throughout the equipment, special bonus events and emeralds are effects that your characters gain. Some of these are simple, like "Anti-Molly" (resist being turned into an evil molly doll), while others are more complex or simple boosts to attributes/magic.
There are also negative effects, and pets (of a sort) that assist you at the start of fights if you've met their requirements. A submenu shows you a full list of effects on your characters.
Some of the items you find will be able to permanently boost the number of accessories a character can equip. Raising attributes through "booster accessories", which break and raise the stat permanently, works better than leveling the normal RPG way.
There are also negative effects, and pets (of a sort) that assist you at the start of fights if you've met their requirements. A submenu shows you a full list of effects on your characters.
Some of the items you find will be able to permanently boost the number of accessories a character can equip. Raising attributes through "booster accessories", which break and raise the stat permanently, works better than leveling the normal RPG way.
Emerald features three different difficulty modes, which you can pick from at the start of the game. Unlike most games, these don't just affect how hard the enemies are!
- A few dungeons have extra rooms (with goodies too)
- Chest items & some places change
- Combat bonus rewards happen more often on hard
- Emerald over-equipping penalty is based on difficulty
- HP rolls down faster in higher difficulties
- More monster events will try to race for the player
- New areas & events just for "Normal" and "Hard" mode
- Some puzzles will be slightly more difficult
As you find emeralds, you can equip them to gain special skills. There are no limits to how many emeralds can be on a single character (this works in addition to equipment equipping), however any that aren't equipped as your "Main Emerald" will have negative properties attached to it.
You'll gain Emerald Affinity Points as a battle reward. After winning enough points with a main emerald equipped, you'll gain it's skills permanently. Since this game doesn't use random combats, you can't "sit around and level" for any new skills and often have to pick the ones you want the most.
Skill power is raised and cost is reduced depending on how many points you've earned for it. There are also a few special items to increase both emerald and skill effects.
This allows you to give your characters huge amounts of skills, or overpowered bonuses, but there is always a price to pay. However, unless you're in higher difficulty modes, the price is barely worth mentioning for all but the most powerful of gems
I've been told this works similar to the Esper system in Final Fantasy 6, but I haven't played that since it's release so I can't confirm. Probably the same concept, but expanded the idea. Over 69 emeralds to collect, including the elusive Minkoff.
You'll gain Emerald Affinity Points as a battle reward. After winning enough points with a main emerald equipped, you'll gain it's skills permanently. Since this game doesn't use random combats, you can't "sit around and level" for any new skills and often have to pick the ones you want the most.
Skill power is raised and cost is reduced depending on how many points you've earned for it. There are also a few special items to increase both emerald and skill effects.
This allows you to give your characters huge amounts of skills, or overpowered bonuses, but there is always a price to pay. However, unless you're in higher difficulty modes, the price is barely worth mentioning for all but the most powerful of gems
I've been told this works similar to the Esper system in Final Fantasy 6, but I haven't played that since it's release so I can't confirm. Probably the same concept, but expanded the idea. Over 69 emeralds to collect, including the elusive Minkoff.
The world of Emerald is filled with mini games and interesting things to do. You'll find some almost everywhere you go! However, the community of this world knows that not everyone likes them, and almost all are optional.
Adventurers for Hire
You can guide and guard merchants & noblemen on their travels. Only for experienced adventurers, bandit attacks happen often on these roads.
Barter
The Corcosa Marketplace is filled with traders looking to swap their goods. Make sure you shop around for the best prices! Many unique items are only available here.
Herb Hunt
Anyone who played "Easter Egg Hunt" will recognize this. This game has been much improved since then.
Run a Shop
Yes, you too can be a lonely shopkeeper whose only purpose in life is to ask people if they want to buy his lousy potions!
Search for Buried Treasure
Buy clues in the town of Oasis from the treasure hunters to where they hid stuff! These are not direct clues, you're instead given directions by landmarks to follow. Beware, if you don't follow directions properly and dig at the wrong spot you'll find scorpions instead of treasure!
& many more!
Adventurers for Hire
You can guide and guard merchants & noblemen on their travels. Only for experienced adventurers, bandit attacks happen often on these roads.
Barter
The Corcosa Marketplace is filled with traders looking to swap their goods. Make sure you shop around for the best prices! Many unique items are only available here.
Herb Hunt
Anyone who played "Easter Egg Hunt" will recognize this. This game has been much improved since then.
Run a Shop
Yes, you too can be a lonely shopkeeper whose only purpose in life is to ask people if they want to buy his lousy potions!
Search for Buried Treasure
Buy clues in the town of Oasis from the treasure hunters to where they hid stuff! These are not direct clues, you're instead given directions by landmarks to follow. Beware, if you don't follow directions properly and dig at the wrong spot you'll find scorpions instead of treasure!
& many more!
You can build your own town! But, not really - the event/script work for that would take forever. Instead you're given opportunities to recruit tradesmen and vendors from throughout the game, once you have your very own pocket dimension.
How you set up your city is up to you and there are thousands of variations possible with all kinds of weird effects on your game.
How you set up your city is up to you and there are thousands of variations possible with all kinds of weird effects on your game.
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