Dead Content [FULL] Tales Of Worlds

[Dark Gaia]

I would like to present to you all my first complete RPG Maker project, which I released 7 or so months ago, which took me over a year to complete. It is an RPG Maker 2003 game, but I thought I'd present it to you anyway, as it's sequels will be made in XP/VX, and possibly a remake. I intend to make the sequels heavilly related to this, so I felt that if I was to post my future RPGVX or XP games, you would need to play this first to understand their plots. I hope you enjoy it! Please comment if you play.

Tales Of Worlds
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... worlds.jpg[/img]

For Tales Of Worlds 1, being the start of a saga, I went for the lighthearted, adventurous feel of the old SNES RPGs of the years gone.
In the month this has been released, it has been downloaded over 350 times, over three diferent versions, and has gotten great reviews at RMNet and Gaming World Forums, hailed as a challenging and solid, well paced RTP adventure, with realistic characters and an outstanding storyline.

I must advise you though. RTP served as the majority of this game's graphics, so if you cannot stomach them, don't even download. But overlook that, and you'll find an engaging and emotionally charged story with a nostalgic atmosphere and overall a great game that is fun to play.

Storyline And Features
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-

A great evil has gripped the world. Time itself has been mutilated, and the lives of all will forever be doomed to relive the same life of terror over and over until the one who bear's the Creator's soul arrives, one who will carry the legendary sword and restore peace to the world and rewrite the planet's history itself...

The world of Taltarus hangs on the brink of war. The Arechon Empire, stable and neutral for many decades has mysteriously launched a war campaign on the free lands of the world.
Harnessing the legendary power Mana, which created the world, rumoured to be impossible to control save for the prophesised demon said to arrive at the brink of Taltarus's life, the Emperor encroaches on Farris, the last free kingdom.
Rene, holding a legendary sword passed down to him, and an as of yet unknown role in the death and rebirth of the planet, and his companions, the Remnants, members of the world's last free army, set out on a journey to reseal the Mana Pools, sources of the emperor's power, before the Mana balance becomes unstable and Taltarus itself tears into pieces.
What the experience along the way changes their lives, their destinies, and the fate of everyone alive now and everyone yet to be born. They discover the dark secret behind the empire's invasion, a secret that has held the world in it's grasp for thousands of years, and one which links them intimately with both the current crisis and the very birth of Taltarus.

But first Rene must uncover his own past, and discover a secret about himself that he'd rather have not known.

Follow a journey that has been in the making for over a year.

. An intricate and epic story starring unique and highly complex characters with different abilities and each with their own dark past and a great destiny.

. A massive and realistic real time world. Watch day turn to night and shops close, tides rise and fall, mystical dungeons unlock and different quests become available at four different periods of the day.

. An epic traditional style RPG with 20+ hours of gameplay, over 70 spells and abilities, over 200 fierce and intelligent monsters and 7 different characters, each one valuable to your group in a different way.

. Intense ATB Based combat with over 200 monsters and 21 challenging bosses.

. Powerful emotionally charged cutscenes.

. Minigames including a monster arena, casino, rapier dueling arena, and roulette.

. A gripping atmosphere of high adventure.

. An epic story with emphasis on emotion and character development, love, revenge, war and peace, which spans time itself.

. Over two hours of side quests, unlocking ultimate spells, weapons, gods to summon into battle and the greatest boss to ever grace an RPG Maker 2003 game.

Screenshots
-=-=-=-=-=-

Title Screen:

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot1.png[/img]

Ingame shots:

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot2.png[/img]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot3.png[/img]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot4.png[/img]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot5.png[/img]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot6.png[/img]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot7.png[/img]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot8.png[/img]

http://i298.photobucket.com/albums/mm26 ... wshot9.png[/img]

Download
-=-=-=-=

You can download the full game Tales Of Worlds by clicking one of the links below.

Tales Of Worlds Full Version

Alternate Mirror (Incase MegaUpload is down)

Game Guide/Manual

Enjoy! Please, don't hesitate to ask for help or tell me what you think. In fact, I encourage feedback.
I welcome criticism and feedback, both positive and negative. I hope you enjoy what I have created, and get immersed in the storyline.

 

[SoulReaperGod]

nice from the screenshots the game looks cool i can't wait till the dwnload is done

 

[Dark Gaia]

The download is up now, and you can play the game! Enjoy!

 

[SoulReaperGod]

ok and what version of RPG Maker did you use

 

[Dark Gaia]

Oh... Umm... RPG Maker 2003. But I am considering a remake of this in VX in the future.

 

[SoulReaperGod]

hmmmm ok i can't wait to play the next one lol

 

[Dark Gaia]

I thought I'd post this one anyway because players will need to have played this to fully understand the next games in the series.

 

[SorcerGamble2]

i remember when rmxp first came out... alot of people that were using rm3k were like... 'meh, i'll stick to rm3k and the side view battle system and rm3k is better anyways because...'

and i understand that you started your project over a year ago, but its really gotten to the point (i'm afraid) that many persons are just immediately turned off by the older style graphics.  personally, even a VX game would have to have a lot going for it (specifically some customized rtp or original graphics at least) before i'd really want to play it. 

it will be interesting to see if the same thing happens to XP once the action game maker is available (if it offers resolution of greater than 640 by 480, which i'm guessing it will).

I tried a different rmk3 game the other day that used the default font... and i realized how horrid and difficult to read it was.  rpgmaker has come a long way, really, though its always behind the times. 

alot of people claim that story is more important to them than graphics or gameplay though, so... maybe this will do alright.  my greatest concern is that it seems to fall into the "Alex Goes On a Quest Category" if for no other reason than it uses the most overused sprite character Ever.  Ever.

 

[Dark_linis]

Oh my, how long has it been since I've seen Alex (the sprite) Oh so long.

I may download but its really hard to gauge the quality of the game judging from the screen shots. If I try it later I'll edit with my opinions. ^_^

 

[Dark Gaia]

Thanks. Yes, I didn't think many here on this site would remember Alex. Please do try. It's been getting great reviews over on RPG RPG Revolution. I am currently working on a VX project though. Rm2k3 no longer cuts it for me. But my VX project is going to be related to this one, so that's the reason I thought I'd present this. Really, if you do try it, it's not so bad. It got 9/10 on RRR, and 4/5 on Rpg Maker.net.

I admit though I was lazy when making it as I have tons of custom graphics, but for some reason I just didn't feel like using them. It's probably because this began as a side project (to my main XP project, which I'm now remaking in VX, as I never completed it) that grew.

 

[ghk128]

I like 2k3 graphics so I downloaded it, but not only is the character invisible but I got killed in one hit on the very first screen.

 

[Dark Gaia]

Yes, that was an overlooked dev glitch. Just don't move, as that is an intro scene. I accidentally made it that you can move.

 

[toefoo]

Hey seems like a good game I'm downloading...How do you make a mugshot in the menu instead of the character graphic?

 

[dadevvtsvre]

Hey seems like a good game I'm downloading...How do you make a mugshot in the menu instead of the character graphic?

It's made in RPG Maker 2003, which means that it automatically uses face sets instead of character graphics. Only RPG Maker XP uses character graphics.

 

[Bridgeman]

Oh yay Alex is back. I love the lil guy. But why did you use the Rm2k tileset for the worldmap and the Rm2k3 tilesets for everything else?

Will try out the game soon, I hope there's a touch of humor (almost required for games with Alex)

 

[moog]

This was mentioned on irc so i felt i should give it a spin:

:|

Ok, sorry to say this (well not really) but this game is really awful. I started it up and it looked pretty decent, even the opening screens were nice but the beginning gameplay was terrible.

Theres no need to give a tutorial on how to fight, christ its RPG MAKER if your player cant identify how to function in the game then they are probably retarted or under the age of 5.

Next, the opening was just executed very shitty. Within 5 lines of text the game begins and youre off to save some mana stuff (idk it was too boring to pay attention).

The maps arent too bad but jeez some were pretty terrible. I wont hold that against you too much because its rtp.

Dont think im bashing you, this is not personal at all. But when im going to download and install a game on my pc that get rants and raves from people it damn sure better be good. I didnt get to far but im not one of those people who play through a game to get to the good parts. if it doesnt start good, fuck it.

Good luck. I congratuate you on finishing a game.

 

[mawk]

Okay, well, I'm going to jump in with a poor attempt to talk about this as it comes. I feel that like moog I should include a disclaimer that this isn't personal in any way. I saw the good reviews and expected something much better than a lame-duck attempt to copy the Final Fantasy franchise, though.

Spoiler: chya

First off, this title screen is pretty cool -- I was half-expecting that horrible-looking title screen in the first post, but this one works pretty well. The one big problem is the huge copyright thing at the bottom -- since you've changed the splash screen and you have the obligatory copyright information on the start of the game, so I really don't see all the concern you still have for your copyright stuff. It's really obnoxious to look at; you could have at least better integrated the copyright stuff into the visuals.

Okay, so I'm playing. Lots of exposition about some mana pools that I don't care about. Sounds really cliche so far. I'm able to move the camera around with the arrow keys during parts of the cutscene -- use an autorun event next time. I assume control of Sadeske, the only japanese man in the whole world (this is a medieval english setting, why throw in  a random samurai!?) and I go to protect a nexus of existence, which is inexplicably constructed inside a more recent castle. I run into some guards. What's with this tutorial? "I CAN ATTACK WHEN THE ATB GAUGE FILLS AND IF MY HP REACHES ZERO I DIE." Thanks, tips! If someone's playing an RM game, they know enough about RPGs to know this already. Why does Sadeske have a skill that costs zero MP and is significantly more powerful than his regular attack? What's the point of ever attacking regularly if I can use this stronger attack with no drawbacks? It's not like it matters, anyway, since no one does any damage! I talk to someone and they tell me I can open a chest and interact with objects with the Enter key. Is this necessary? I've been using that key for two minutes now to advance the text! I used it to talk to this guy in the first place!

So far, this is reeking of "I'm going to go by what I think commercial games do without any consideration given to the finer details or why they do it! Tutorial levels are unnecessary at that level of simplicity -- even if this is the player's first RPG, they will know that there will be some button that makes things happen, another button to back out of menus, and that when that number by the player's name reaches 0 it won't be good.

Okay, so... Okay, this parallax is really ugly. I don't even get why it's packaged with the RTP. I'm not gonna blame you for ASCII's mistake, though, so that's all I'm going to say on the matter.

... Wow, train tracks. I don't know why the nexus of all creation has train tracks in it, but I have to admit that it'd be pretty cool seeing god drive a locomotive!

Fairly generic initial fight with the Big Bad, obtains ultimate power, uses strangely named attack (possibly Latin) and Good Guy falls from the bridge. I wonder if I'll hear from him again...?

thoughts so far: very, very generic. the style of medieval fantasy game with an unequivocally evil empire that seizes power isn't yet past the point where it can't be made into an enjoyable experience if it's executed well, but I'm not seeing that good execution anywhere yet. I'll keep an eye out.

Jump-cut to ten years in the future. Guy in a storm, talks about how the empire slaughtered all the "Good" leaders of the world. I really can't stand unequivocal evil in any medium. So the empire is an ultimate badass nation, and they came to power over the world, which was previously a peaceful utopia. Incredibly boring. There's no such thing as PURE OMG EVIL, and whenever people try to use PURE OMG EVIL it comes out incredibly uninspired and unmotivated.

An inn. They're full up with, what, clients? I can wait until they're done? Is this a brothel!? I would expect that anyone who's using an inn would stay through the night, but hey, the clerk is a woman in a bunny suit...

Well, whatever. I shamble around the sexhouse a little (and save at the incredibly ugly savepoint which clashes with the rest of the graphics and has visible and jarring white flecks all over it) and decide that for the plot to advance I have to talk with the person with the most interestingly-coloured hair. I start the conversation from the top and he tells me to sit down. I sit down, and he's still facing up. Weird. My schizophrenic friend kindly tells me who I am and gives me a brief overview of my past, and then a dragon attacks the town. Isn't that just the darndest thing? You'd think that if the town was in danger of a dragon attack they'd have some form of armed guard, but I suppose that blindly assuming that a passerby will have military training has worked out for them often enough to ensure the survival of their town. It's about to work for them again tonight, I guess, as it seems I'm the only person with a sword in the entire city.

...

What the fuck!?

Why the hell are you restricting yourself to an eight-character limit for enemy names!? That's an incredibly poor decision!

Allow me to reiterate:

So far, this is reeking of "I'm going to go by what I think commercial games do without any consideration given to the finer details or why they do it! Tutorial levels are unnecessary at that level of simplicity -- even if this is the player's first RPG, they will know that there will be some button that makes things happen, another button to back out of menus, and that when that number by the player's name reaches 0 it won't be good.

Seriously. I know you want to seem like old console RPGs, but character limits are just annoying and unnecessary. I think Wumpi made a topic on the subject recently -- I know you see those professional game developers jumping off that bridge, but check their reasons first! They're wearing bungee cords and you're not!

Character limits were put in place entirely due to hardware limitations. As an actual stylistic choice they suck. Suck suck suck. Please never stuck to character limits again in anything you make.

Okay, so I'm fighting PrplDrgn (SEE WHAT I MEAN!? IT'S NOT STYLISH, IT'S JUST ANNOYING TO READ!) and it's kicking my ass. I sure could use some deus ex machina right now.

Hey, it's the World's Only Japanese Man again! I guess he's pretty busy. Honestly, it seems pretty contrived that the Ugly RTP Parallax would send him to this precise moment in time, but hey, I'm sure there's going to be a clever explanation for it later.

Okay, so the PrplDrgn's dead. I go back into the brothel and int heir gratitude they've booted out their less attractive clients to give me a place to sleep for the night. Suddenly, I'm confronted with two incredibly trusting strangers who upon seeing me take my word that I am a Rebellious Young Man and spill the beans on how they're rebels against the empire. For an evil megapower with its own twist on the KGB, it sure seems easy to bamboozle it. Rene introduces himself as Slayer of Monsters Across the World. I don't know whether to wince or track you down and beat you.

This is really contrived, I'm not going to lie, but at least I now have a full array of Four Chosen Heroes. Okay! fun times!

Oh, and the World's Only Japanese Man tells me that he sealed away the World's Only Japanese Sword to beat the evil. I really don't get all this japanese crap in a medieval fantasy setting! Why the fuck is there a LONE SAMURAI WITH A JAPANESE NAME in a world otherwise populated with western medieval dudes!? Very sugoi, actually. :japfag:

Time to shop around. There are some houses, and if I talk to the doors they'll sell me stuff. It's not a big issue at all, but I guess I prefer it more when there are interior maps to walk around in. I dunno.

Okay, this day/night system is kind of cool. Wait. The inns close at night!? Is there a point to this besides inconveniencing the player? All I get is that for a third of the day I can't heal my characters or buy anything! There's also the Lamia Cave thing (which pointlessly and arbitrarily adds to the player's walking distance by patterning the straight line that forms the cave in its entirety with rows of matching obstacles) but there doesn't seem to be enough cool stuff associated with the day/night system to justify the annoyance of being essentially gimped for a third of the game.

I'm gonna go to the Scaven cave now. Ooh, they wanna eat me. They're badasses, I can tell.

Random battles are generally pretty difficult on the world map, but I don't have to worry about the Scaven much. Why? They spend three quarters of their time wasting their turns by casting Sharpen, and I can usually pick them off before they actually attack.

Boss time. Sadaske tries to wax diplomatic with the king of the monsters who've been trying to eat us this while time. Kind of strange. Whatever, I wanna fight.

Wow, this is easy. I loaded up on spellbooks early on to teach everyone everything, and so I get by by spamming Cold at him while he again spends two-thirds of his time casting Sharpen. Sadaske acts sad because we killed a king of malevolent underground trolls who live for nothing but to capture and eat human beings. Really strange.

Okay, necromancer time. I've been warned repeatedly to stock up on Exorcism Kits before going, but, strange -- no one seems to be willing to possess me. I feel a little unwanted. Zombies, skeletons, and a shroudy ghost with the quintessential Final Fantasy name "VowBreak." I find a sword that makes all the battles mostly pointless. Including the boss battle. It deals three hundred damage in a hit. What led you to believe that it was a good idea to make a weapon that so severely unbalances this dungeon so easy to obtain? It completely took all the fun out of the fights and the boss battle.

I go to a mansion and someone mentions a Chosen One. I have to suppress my punch-the-game-developer reflex, because at this point I'd bet my sweet bippy that it's this thoroughly uninteresting Slayer of Monsters Across the World.

I have both halves of the Standard Magical Artifact Broken Into Pieces And Scattered Across the Globe now. I step on a smashed dinner plate and it takes me to Random Mythical Creature Name Island, but not before some random exposition from Rene's young life as a farmboy living in a flammable village.

I find myself at a tower with an exposed shoreline and make my way to the top floor where the thoroughly unguarded sword lies. It's a wonder the Empire didn't commission a boat or something and nip the threat this sword represents in the bud. I reach out to touch it, and Sadeske realizes my worst cliche fears. Slayer of Monsters Across the World is the One True Hero To Defeat the Evil.

Oh, wait, some more exposition.

... Worlds... Terra, hey, isn't that that horribly Star Trekky name for Earth? Earth is a Savage Place. the Main Evils are Capitalism Comunism (sic)...

FUCK!

Tell me you didn't! Tell me I'm not reading this!

I don't know what you think you're doing but I don't get the point of this incredibly hackneyed piece of flower-child exposition! The world's major evils are political ideologies regarding the amount of government intervention and planning in the economy and other political affairs!? I don't like this THE WORLD WE LIVE IN IS AN AWFUL PLACE shit because, frankly, I doubt the Medieval England Universe would be much better (unless you like dysentery!)

I'm laughing. I'm literally laughing at the flower-child view of Earth. Fuck this, I'm done.

P.S. "My soul is too big for just one person." Hot.

Closing comments: This game is swimming with lame attempts to copy off of established commercial games. The story is fairly generic 80s RPG fare (with plenty of points that make little to no sense,) the characters are poorly developed and uninteresting (and they are SHOVED IN YOUR FACE! You should introduce you characters in a more tactful fashion than just "Hello I am Magic Knight, this is my backstory!",) the gameplay is frustrating (and the bosses are disproportionately compared to three or four sequential random battles and mostly oil down to "spam the element that everything else in the dungeon is weak against!",) and in general it's very disappointing given the amount of positive press it's gotten. I can't imagine that you put a lot of thought into any aspect of the creative process beyond "well, FFIII did this... That might be cool."

 

[Twirly]

Holy shit miek.
You said everything I wanted to say (and even more) about this game.
You should register on RRR and write a review.
OH MY FUCKING GOD read the review on RRR (it is short):
http://www.rpgrevolution.com/review/340/128.html

 

[mawk]

That's the exact reason I'm never going to register on RRR.

 

[Twirly]

Actually the site isn't SO bad. (except the post count revolutionary shit)
But yeah that is not part of the discussion, sorry for going offtopic.