Yeah, although if you pre-ordered MV, which i was planning to buy it anyway, you got that as well as the essentials addon free of charge. You also usually get about 15 dollars off, which is huge, especially when the maker is 90 after the fact with none of that DLC included. 90 USD converts to about 115 AUD on steam, so I'll be glad to reduce it.
I'm already sold if only because I want the rights to use the battle backs, parallaxes and other art assets that still retain some manner of usefulness to me. Even if I don't use the maker much itself- it's just a smart investment for my kind of thing.
The amount of titles and battlebacks pleases me. Though the extension to picture movements and move-route previewing is what is selling me most on actually using the engine over MV. If I did use it I'd be unlike to convert any of my current projects into it. It might be good for a remaster of a project or even a new project... if the plugins from MV carry over which they actually MIGHT for the first time in rpgmaker history- that would solve a lot of the reasons people usually hold off on switching engine... the wait while everything is translated over or remade. Even if it isn't so simple, it won't be quite the jump it was from rgss3 to flat out javascript.
The get locations by region eventing maneuvers might just be able to entirely do away with my usual need for a collision script. That being said, any games like that will likely be made in Pixel Maker MV (PMMV) from now on while RPGmaker will be kept solely for rpgs and things that don't require much in the way of foundation, but even then I'm more likely to use PMMV due to how easy it is to rig up sprite animations that look decent compared to RM. It also has multiple-scrolling background support from my recall which is good for expressionistic atmosphere games.
Menagerie would be a good reason. Both me and Jake have hit a nostalgia trip lately what with the recent soundtracks he's had to make. Menagerie is also still one of my most compact and well written games, up there with a great like PFC. It has such a strong sense of being, it knows what it is- and thrives on it, something Fantasia has struggled with is defining it's nche- it definitely has such a niche, and it's got a lot of potential, but it's yet to find its sea legs, though I'd expect as much from a game that's only 2/5th's of the way done as far as main story progression goes. Before PFC hit it's master stroke it was far worse because the main character Pep was too good at what he did, and kind of irritating. In PFC Pep became more grounded so as to give his strife respectability. This worked well. Menagerie was also remastered for a reason, the original lacked overall purity and was blighted by a number of themes that i went too hard on. In Remastered the base theme the whole way through is "Finding a Home in a caustic Universe".
There are some things about PFC I'd like to make better. The Fight with Esperia for instance, is phenomenally difficult, I personally can beat it, and it would be possible for everyone else to as well so long as they persevered, if it weren't for one thing. Lag. Even with a resolution like 640x480, that game has it's laggy moments.
I'd like to put it on Fantasia's level some day, make it wide-screen, less laggy, with more stuff. PFC definitely had a strong main story, but it is let down by it's occasional laggy encounters, and I'm sick of that 4:3 ratio. I'd probably keep to a similar art style, i.e. let Xiie do the portraits, because that more painterly look works for PFC incredibly well.
We had so many ideas, but it had to be scaled back so much due to the scope of the engine and how difficult some of the fights would have been to make given how grounded and weighty the combat was. I for one had to never have more than four enemies on screen. There was also weapon levelling, heaps of optional bosses, while some of the ideas made it, like the divine spears, and the Archonite levels my friend frubi came up with, which became the Archonite caverns, one of the strongest zones in the game-- aesthetically and story wise. It was like PFC's version of the true lab from undertail, with various journal entries in the form of NAC: Data Consoles. All of which were written by Saxxis, his original intention being to find a way to fix the power crises, as fossil fuels were on the way out and renewables had'nt been streamlined yet. This is where he discovered Archonite, and eventually something much worse- the Helgate. Saxxis has always been a good guy, seeking ways to better the world and it's people- but as he says himself, the path to hell is paved with good intentions and the blood of innocents, a line he just fucking jacked from Borderlands. This was an incredible way of handling the origin story of how the Heldathian's got to where they are in the game, without shoving it down the player's throat, they can choose if they want to read them.
The main flaws with PFC are in the Esperia final fight. The final phase is fine, but the first three where she only takes damage from certain weapons, the phases having a change to just screw up impressively and become game-breakingly difficult, etc. Originally this was just keeping in line with Soulcatcher's behaviour... in that if you try to run away they can cast a stamina curse on you so you end up actually going slower. So because Esperia is ascended beyond a regular soulcatcher, hers freezes you in place, she just deflects ranged weapons-- and even has a few lines to say 'that won't work, idiot.'
It does ultimately leave the whole fight as a bit of a dangerous and frustrating guessing game though. What I should have done was just reduced the damage of the other weapons drastically, and given some kind of hint the cleaver was her weakness. Each boss had their weakness.
Naxon #1: You only had shotgun so the method was obvious>.
Saxxis #1: Shotgun was effective in phase two, but black death triumphed in phase one.
Esperia #1: Orbs of Annihilation was all that damaged her. She'd like usual, shrug off mortal weapons like the shotgun and Nola's fuumar.
The Clash of Leaves: There wasn't really a better weapon here, but it was just a gauntlet of enemies, it just was written down as a bossfight due to it's difficulty and multiple phases.
Esperia #2: Now the Zodiac is much more effective against her, but the Orbs work fine, too. Like before the shotgun and fuumar weapons were not any help.
Saxxis #2: Zodiac was really good because not only could it to a lot of damage to him, but also deal with his nuclear bolts before they got very far, as they spawned to each side of him.
Warth'og: By this point you have the lich reaper, and while it is designed mostly for use against liches, it is immensely effective against warthog too, due to it's high damage and good range capabilities.
Naxon #2: Lich Reaper is the go, good range, easy to aim, it's alternate fire is also great in a pinch, he also kinda follows you arround, but with the Lich Reaper you can keep clear of his orbs of annihilation attack and keep peppering him with potent damage.
The Blood Council: You only have one weapon here, and the Divine Spears are killer. it also helps Svoli has a much more powerful shadowdash calls Sunshift or something, which actually felt a lot more fun, and this is why it became baseline for Fantasia.
Naxon #3: Lich Reaper again, but this is the last time it really is a mainstay. As a certain bitch is unaffected by it, even if it isn't a mortal weapon.
Esperia #3: She's only vulnerable to two of your weapons, the melee ones. The Cleaver is the most potent of these. This weapon is your mainstay the entire fight, even in the finale where all weapons work due to overriding her coy bullshit with the devil gene powerup.
Nola Deus: The Recusant's Glaives are your go to here for all but the final phase where Kara becomes dangerous, for this phase you can just shadowdash through her attack and keep peppering her with the lich reaper, the last time it'll be of any real use.
Xepp: In both phases the Divine Spears fuck his shit, in the second phase they are incredible for quickly taking out the bloodseeker bats so long as you can set them up right. In the final phase they are abouts the only way to beat him without the Bible of the Anarchists exploit.
So yeah PFC is flawed, it was my first time making an entire game steeped in the kind of combat system that Fantasia improved so much upon. I could do so much more with PFC and give it the chance to be perfect as I would wish in PMMV.
But for now I'm done with remastering old projects, beyond Intelligence Multi-Verse, i'm looking at making new stuff for a while. Between Seraphim, Crowfeast and eventually final round, as well as a bunch of unfinished projects like terra New Moon, Exile, Hellcat and so on, I have a lot I can do before I go back to remastering games that were already incredibly good on their own, if flawed. There's also the other Intelligence prequels, like Trust: The Last Kangaroo or Resolve: He Who Ran. I probably won't make a prequel for Limbo, as it's largely irrelevant to the events of the universe and his behaviors in present times. Laughter: Locked and Lamented will not be a thing I make any time soon. There's also some juicy conceptual games like the Kitsune game, which is so just 'oh yeah i'll make that at some point' that it doesn't even have a name yet. I'm also looking forward to making Cannonhell, which is basically a game for the Space Monkey Pirates. Oh, there's Junked, which I've already set up a good foundation for.
Speaking of all my projects, I've made a whole section for them on my website, it doesn't always work well on mobile but PC users are in for a treat.
Feel free to check it out if you wish, I spent all wednesday on it.
Oh also, Coyote, I might have given them your feedback on the music, although I left you anonymous, as you just worded what i would have said myself better. Due to copying what you said and putting it in a paint file and altering the font it should be fairly untracable unless they painstakingly copy the entire bit word for word and smash it into google, but I doubt they'll be so desperate. For the most part the marketing account ignores negativity and pats itself on the back, ironically they call me the one with narcissistic disorder.
It's actually gotten three likes, which is over double all the other replies. Congrats, it appears your insights are valued by the lepers either craven or in my case, irritated enough to actually look at these petty things.
I pray to god they actually fucking maintain this one properly, and bugfix their shit, instead of their attitudes towards MV, where they let a plugin stand in as a patch for months, only to fail to replicate the same fix without breaking other parts of the engine, like play movie.
I think it's just because I'm one of the only people who uses that feature, but it's really annoying that was never brought up. I looked for a fix, before realizing it worked in versions prior to 1.6 so i just reverted to 1.5.2 and used yanf's patch to cut the lag cleanly out of the equation. How much it says when an altruistic coder can outperform people who are actually paid money to fix their broken ass shit.
Sorry for the derailment's, lots on my mind lately.
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