VXAce - Academia Legends (Working title)

Hello everyone. This is my very first post (despite having apparently made my account a long time ago lol) and I've been working on an RPG, or should I say, working on the idea of an RPG where the flow of the story strongly ressemble the one of Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel on the PS3/4/Vita/PC, with some key differences:

-The game will not take place in a single country with references to other countries, but across 2 continents and an archipelago, each hosting a country.

-Like ToCS, the main ''hub'' will be an academy where people will train/study to become knights, healers, mercenaries, etc. There will be three kinds of courses: Those who want to train with standard weapons (Swords, axes, etc), those who want to learn magic arts (For attacking/debuffing enemies and buffing allies) as well as those who will specialise in healing arts.

-Like in ToCS, the main cast will be part of a experimental class where all three kinds of studies will be mixed. There will be 9 main characters, and naturally, there will be 3 characters for each specialty.

-UNlike ToCS, none of the 9 students will have more importance than the others. However, each character will have his or her chapter where s/he will have more importance than the rest.

The world of the game.

As stated, there will be 3 countries, the first two on a continent of their own, and the last one on a small archipelago. Each country will be under the protection of an element. Each element will be represented with a shrine or a temple. Fire is the exception, as no country will be under it's protection. The fire shrine will be located on an unihabited island.

The Aurum Empire: This is the biggest country of the world. This is where the academy is located, and where the most of the story will take place. Seven out of the 9 main characters will be from that country. This country will be procted by the element of the Earth.

The Kingdom of Loryana: A peaceful kingdom located in the archipelago southeast of Aurum. One of the main character will hail from Loryana. The element of Water will protect this country.

The Lands of Trozay: The Lands of Trozay will be mostly made of vast plains where nature thrives. The last of the main characters hails from there. The country will be protected by the last element, Wind.

The lore of the game

There is an old legend, that tells of a God, who after seeing the people of the world fighting wars and commiting genocide, decided to wipe ou humanity and became malevolent. Before the evil god could destroy humanity, an archangel, the evil god's most trusted underling, managed to seal the god away. Being the god's underling, he did not have the power to completely destroy him. So he sealed him using the power of the elements, and gave each of the three country a shrine, representing an element, to protect. Seeing as the Archangel saved humanity, humans stopped fighting and began to worship him, instead of the evil god that almost destroyed them.

Despite the fact that the legend tells the world would meet certain doom if the malevolent god were to return, there are people who, in recent years, have attempted to destroy the seals, in hope of reviving him. These people are branded as terrorists. Many have been arrested and executed for attempting such deeds. However, no one managed to ever destroy even one of the seals.

Obviously, the party will fight such terrorists at certain points in the game.

The main cast

As I said, there will be 9 main charcaters, separated in 3 groups (Weapons, Magic and Healing) So here is a summary of each of them (Sorry, I have no pictures yet)

The weapon oriented students:

Anthony: Anthony's skill will mostly involve swordsmanship and heavy defence using a shield and armor. He will be somewhat like a paladin, as he will also have some (very basic) healing spells.

Jakob: Jakob will be a man of few skills. However, that won't render him useless, as he will be by far the strongest character of the game. He will be equiped with Axes and clubs.

Regina: Regina will be more like an assassin, boasting impressive speed (the highest of the game) and fairly low attack power. However, she will be the best for status ailment (Stuff like poison dagger)

The magic oriented syudents:

Caleb: Caleb will be the exact opposite of Jakob. He will have by far the lowest attack of the game, but will have the biggest arsenal of magic spell. While all three magic oriented characters will have access to some offencive magic, Caleb will be the only one to have spells that target multiple targets, and will obviously be the only one with the ''ultimate'' magic. He will also be the only one to summon spirits at later points of the game.

Princess Sophie: Each members of the Royal Family of Aurum are required to take swordsmanship class in the academy. However, Princess Sophie was originally not interested in wielding a sword at all, until she realised her own magic capabilities. That's when she decided, with the Emperor's surprise, to join the magic Class and mix steel with magic. Out of the magic oriented students, she will be the strongest physically (she will be on par with Regina, in fact) and will specialise in magic sword techniques. (Obviously, she didn't end up in the Magic class after all)

Prince Dimitri: The prince of Loryana was instructed by his father to join the academy, despite not being from Aurum. It is a tradition for Loryanan princes to join the academy as a way to show the country's gratitude toward the peace between Aurum and Loryana. Despite being fairly timid, he learned at a young age that his voice has magical properties and has been known to be increase the physical capabilities of those around him while signing. When he learned that other people like him joined the magic class to perfect their voices, he decided to also join that class (until he was sent to the special class, of course) His voice will allow to buff the party, and debuff the enemies.

The healing oriented students

Elyza: While each healers will have access to the basic healing spells (the Final Fantasy of Cure/Cura/Curaga, Raise and Poisona) Elyza will be the only one to be able to cast HP healing spell on the party.

Kiza: Kiza, hailing from the Lands of Trozay, have been living with nature her whole life. So her specialty will be status ailments healing. She will be the only healer that can heal status other than poison, as well as be the only one to group-cast such status-healing magics.

Dominic: Haling from Aurum's holiest city (I don't have a name for it yet) his speciality will be reviving fallen party members. Again, Elyza and Kiza will both be able to use the basic revive spell, but Dominic will be the only one to be able to cast the stronger revive spells (such as the FF Equivalent of Arise). Also, as it is a trend with healers at this point, he will also be the only one to be able to group-cast such reviving spells. Those come at a cost though. THe most powerful revive spells will require a LOT of MPs and Dominic will have the lowest MP of the 6 magic/healing users. (Otherwise, he'd be way too broken in the late game, lol)

The story flow

There will be a total of 12 chapters in the game, 9 of which will involve a field study. During each field study, you will only have 3 of the students (one of each specialty). But don't worry, you won't be stuck 75% of the time with an incomplete party, as during each field study, the trios will be joined with a guide, which will serve as a temporary 4th party member. This will bring the total playable character to a fairly staggering 18, so I'm keeping them strictly as temporary characters. Also, a bit like ToCS, there will be a mini-dungeon between each chapters where you will have access to the entire class. And obviously, after the 9th field study, your entire class will be together permanently

The first chapter will be the prologue (so it won't be a numbered chapter), where each of the 9 class members will be quickly introduced, that is also when they will learn that they will be working together as an experimental class composing of students of each specialty, rather than going in separate classes.

Chapter 1 through 8 will be where the main story slowly, but surely develop. The class will meat the terrorists and will stop them in their attempt to destroy the seals. Chapter 8 will likely finish in Aurum's capital with the apparent defeat of the terrorists.

Chapter 9 will sort of the now-typical beach chapter, minus the swimsuit, lol. The terrorists are gone(?) the school year is coming quickly, and there's a final field study where nothing significant really happens.

Chapter 10 is where sh** goes down for the rest of the game. The class will learn that the terrorist are still there and that the benefactor funding the terrorist is one of their closest ally (Don't worry, it won't be one of the class member lol) This is where the seals WILL be broken, and the malevolent god will be released.

The last chapter, well... I'd rather not speak of it. I have a very good idea of the events that will happen, but the whole finale will be a plot twist, so I won't say more.

Last notes (for now)

There won't be a world map. Like ToCS, you will be sent to a town during each chapter, where all the events of the chapters will occur. There will be roads around the towns, but they will not lead to other towns. They will lead to the nearby dungeons where most of the fighting will take place. UNlike ToCS though, each town will not be a giant point of no return. At some point, the class will get an airship. The airship will work like in FFX: You get it, select a destination, and you will be transported there. Only the towns and some select locations will be available to go to. So if you go back to a chapter 2 dungeon to defeat the superboss that wasn't there the first time, you WILL have to walk from the chapter 2 town to the dungeon.

What do you think of the idea? I'm open to new ideas, however, bear in mind that I really do suck at RPG Maker VX, so don't suggest stuff that would be too technical for a beginner, lol