Final Fantasy: Awakening

[Gubid]

I hope that you enjoy the demo when you play it. And I would encourage all to play it rather than just being critical of the 'non-complete custom graphics'.
Might I also mention that it is very hard to find a good spriter that is willing to work for trade work that has any skill. DarkSora has been a blessing to this project and I wouldn't trade him for anything. Besides.. who out there has a hobbie game that is full custom graphics? I personally cannot think of a single one.

 

[mawk]

thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to debunk legitimate points raised. it's definitely your business to protect jacen_omas from critique, because it's just aimed to hurt and it can't possibly help him improve.

who cares about full custom? this game isn't full custom. it's RTP and game rips with custom sideview battlers and some tileset addons tossed in. strictly speaking, I got no problem with that.

I am not saying do everything custom because knowing darksora and most of the other spriters out there you'd never finish. what I am saying is make sure what you have is decent and that is not that hard to do idk why you're fighting me on this point

what you have so far as custom graphics go is not that good and I am raising these points so that can maybe change in later iterations. you talked about potential earlier. how come you're stomping on something he could use to improve now? or is potential just a buzzword to stomp on other kinds of critique and it didn't really mean anything at all?

p.s. second sun riot chasing citsuaki (or whatever it's called now it's in the guy's sig) ghost's town star ruler paradigm shift and that one the swiss guy's doing in Construct. oh, and Diego's cool 3D thing but he's keeping that one under a few wraps so far

close to full custom, at least

 

[Kaimi]

The Materia tutorial was a tricky one, its a actually a complex picture event that is made to look like the menu. Its all done via events and pictures.

I thought so; but still it's great thing.

 

[darksora]

Glad to see I still have my account as I haven't logged back in since the forums were changed over. ^_^

@number nine: I'm currently spriting the character battle sprites and some of the rtp size sprites (used on maps). Thanks for your critique on the sprites, I'll definately look into those issues with the sprites Anything to improve my spriting is welcome. I'm not working on Jacen's project alone as I have my own project to work on, so I'm doing my best to find time to work on this game. I could very easily walk away from this project but like Gubid, I understand the potential and also see it as an oppurtunity to develop my spriting.

I would also like to request that you atleast try out his demo as from what I've read, you've been really critical of his project so far without even considering or trying the demo.


anyways thanks again for the critique on the sprites

 

[jacen_omas]

Thank you for the critique number nine myself and the team will look into the issues you have pointed out. Most of them are cosmetic however so I would recommend you download the demo and give similar constructive criticism.

The Comic Sans is supposed to look like that used in FF IX but you may have a point. Any suggestions for a font that would fit the bill?

 

[Kaimi]

[...] The Comic Sans is supposed to look like that used in FF IX but you may have a point. Any suggestions for a font that would fit the bill?

Berlin Sans FB, maybe? Here's a screenshot of it from FFIX Custom Menu System, by BigEd781 from RGMakerVX.Net, for VX:

 

[Ynlraey]

Hello I just tried the demo but if I might make a suggestion, a full cure save point will definitely save us since our stocks are limited. Also the materia, I accidentally removed the red hatted guy's equipment and I Can't bring his materia back :S

I know there must be a point that you can access it but just a heads up that maybe everyone aren't able to remove the equipment in the beginning until the materia tutorial like what ff7 did. So far I'm sad to say I am not appealed yet, not that I haven't gone THAT far. Will play more later when I have more time.

Besides.. who out there has a hobbie game that is full custom graphics? I personally cannot think of a single one.

*raises hand*
And Granciel Witches and Vampirella to name a few

 

[jacen_omas]

a couple other things

you do not filter snes graphics so they fit in with your resolution. it's instantly recognizable and the juxtaposition doesn't look very good. your character sprites are also inconsistent with your monster sprites; whereas the monsters have fairly soft colour scemes and no specific outlines, your character sprites use heavily contrasting colours, lots of dithering (?), and a prominent outline. they don't fit with each other -- graphical consistency is the first pillar of spriting for a project, man.

more on the sprites, whoever's spriting for you has trouble with detail in places. his poses are alright, but there are a couple bits (the flowing black material just below the red mage's knees, for instance) that bug me -- just tell him to give it a once over and fix things, because those bits either didn't have enough work put in or were drastically overthought.

probably getting too specific here for my own good, but the backs of the chairs should be visibly higher than the seat. the way you have the seats and the perspective done up right now, the train's passengers will just be sitting with their backs touching since there's nothing to lean back on.

do not use comic sans ms. comic sans ms is the ugliest font. do not use comic sans ms. there is no exception to this -- no one should ever use comic sans ms in anything ever, even ironically.

also your color scheme for the menu is sort of dull. just darkening the windows for more contrast with the white text and getting rid of those ugly bubble borders will do wonders for the aesthetics. as far as the borders go you could probably even just get rid of the black outline around the white and be good.

Valid points, first and foremost I have addressed what you and others have said about the font and windowskin. I have looked at it so much comic sans started to look okay for me but its really not. Here are some screens of what I am using now. Like you said it really has worked wonders for look.

Screenshots:

Spoiler

 

[cordynasty]

It's a bit bad when I can recognize the background picture you used in the title of the game. :grin:

 

[jacen_omas]

It's a bit bad when I can recognize the background picture you used in the title of the game. :grin:

Do you mean the games title screen or the logo?

 

[cordynasty]

The logo. I haven't touched the demo because I'm hesitant to play fan games these days. Not unless the person has credits of some original games under their belt first. It shows me that the person has some experience in making games and understands the basic principles behind making an rpg work. No offense to you.

 

[Ynlraey]

I finished it last night after a while, well...

Spoiler

I didn't like it :x

Whenever I hear Primate whateverhisnameisagain I think of a monkey.

Also that...GARM THING or Mantra Guardian whatever it was called...it would've been better if a better materia was in there, it's like I lost all of my items and stuff all for a dinky materia?!

The battle with that Dryad turned into a limit break fest, it's a good thing I didn't lost all my ethers and my phoenix downs got kapoosh as well. Sometimes the random encounters are so erratic like 3 steps bam enemy again, the limit of items for our survival was really annoying and that mog, it'll be better if he didn't leave after we gave the kupo nut...also...moogles are supposed to be at least half a size of a person right? or smaller, it was just so weird seeing a human sized moogle.

And as usual I really dislike it when RO sprites are mixed with other sprites, the graphical consistency already failed orz. I think you might want to realign some sprites, some like that red hatted guy goes off the sheet when he uses his limit break. But yeah that's all. I just find it kinda disappointing that I was downloading it for 3 hrs and the gameplay was less than an hour.

EDIT:

Also...
PLEASE
PLEAAASSEEE PLEAASSSEEE
change the name of the Evil Forest. It sounds very unprofessional and makes your world less alive, make it like Forest of X or X Forest or something!

But overall it was an average game.

 

[Akuma209]

Jacen: I say without a doubt your game has followed the Final Fantasy Standards, awesomeness is the word, the only bad thing was the too short demo or else everything was perfect, very well developed and il keep in tuch

 

[Noobitron]

Played the demo, and I was amazed on how well the scenes worked out. A little disappointed on the length of the demo because it was extremely well done, and addicting. The best fan game for Final Fantasy made using any rpg maker engine I've ever seen.

 

[jacen_omas]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I am currently working on a ver 0.2 of the demo. It will rectify many of the bugs and issues that people have brought up, as well as make some cosmetic changes to the games presentation.

The logo. I haven't touched the demo because I'm hesitant to play fan games these days. Not unless the person has credits of some original games under their belt first. It shows me that the person has some experience in making games and understands the basic principles behind making an rpg work. No offense to you.

None taken, I understand some peoples feelings toward fan games. I think that this project may be a slight cut above some of the previous endeavours you have played however, so you might want to give it a shot.

 

[Kaimi]

After completing (I think that I completed it fully) I like to write a few words:
(I advice read spoiler only to those that have complete the demo)

Spoiler

1. Font: I don't think that Comic Sans MS is bad, but when I saw upgraded screenshots - game presents perfectly from thi side with it.
2.Name Input Screen: it's a little to limiting - only 6 characters - Final Fantasy series features 10 charcaters Name Input Screen whilst yours...
3. Matra Guardian (I probably mispelled it) - I thought that great Materia will be some kind of Summon, but no - Materia that rises max HP... Beside, this boss was a hard thing to defeat.
4. As someone said before me: Mog left you after you gave him Kupo Nut. BAD idea.
5. Battle with Dryad, as said before: Limit Break race (though with Matra Guardian is the same).

I can't think of any more; I think if something else will come on my mind - I'll post it.

 

[jacen_omas]

Thanks for the feedback Kaimi. The issues you have raised have been mentioned by others as well and I have fixed most of them for a v0.2 demo release. Will post updates as soon as I can.

 

[Kaimi]

@jacen_omas - How's the project going'? It's nearly three months since last post: other Final Fantasy fangame projects are updated not-so-often, but are. I'm really worried, 'cause I liked the demo.

 

[Mustardy85]

Bad Use of Windowskin - does not match theme/atmosphere, opacity is too high, might want to change colour of it aswell?
Good Use of autotiles/ nice mapping...
Original Story.
Good work. 4/5

 

[-LuX-]

download link isn't working; I get a login screen