VXAce - [Demo Ver. 1.4] A Shadow's Echo [Story-Focused Dark Fantasy]

Ok, when I said the desert had too many random encounters, it has nothing on that cave in the Wood Village. Seriously, I know it's a small cave, but getting a random encounter every 3 steps is too much. Especially since the only random encounter seems to be 3 enemies that cast confusion with two other status effects each attack. The cultists and actual boss at the end were pathetic compared to them.

Also, apparently, I was supposed to have Shar'ka as a companion throughout the whole cave quest, since when I went for my reward the game said he left the party (he was never even in it). After I completed the quest, I talked to him a second time, I got a dialogue about how I convinced the mayor to cut him some slack if he can get the sword from the cave, he said "let's do it" and joined the party. I guess I was supposed to return to Shar'ka first before going to the cave. Well, now I have a 4 person party, the quest is completed and I can't leave the village, because Shar'ka doesn't let me. So, reload. I'm glad that I saved in a different slot.

I seriously hope the reward I got was much better than if I just gave him 20 gold, because this path wasn't fun. Well, now I have to make sure I don't talk to Shar'ka ever again so as not to make the game unwinnable.

The Reaper quest was very nice, they turned out to be pretty easy once you discovered their weaknesses. But I feel like you should get more than 50 XP for it. You get the same amount of XP for bringing Mr. Glavik a bottle of wine from his cellar or delivering mail to a guy in the same village.

Ok, now I'm in the Northlands I think it's a bit too early for Ralir to share his plans on deposing the king if need be with Draxus and Joseph. Feels like a big leap forward. Also, the encounter rate is as frequent as always. Only now, dash is also disabled. Joy.

Ralir says he'd love to meet Mr. Glavik sometime. Would be nice if you could then go have a chat with Mr. Glavik with Ralir in the party.

I really enjoy these empty maps with no random encounters. Maybe part of it is because otherwise I would get into battle every third step, but it has a nice atmosphere, you can explore and Ralir's exposition is interesting.

It's always a laugh when RPG heroes enter random portals only to end up trapped in the fiery realm of daemons. You know, I'd expect Draxus or atleast Joseph to be a bit more worried. And of course, the encounter rate is very frequent, but now we can't even go back. My party almost got wiped out by a floating head monster and Joseph is KO'd. Well, that AoE fire breath attack is seriously strong. Well, alright, I guess fleeing from them is the only option, otherwise I will run out of healing items.

So, apparently, that "reward" from the reaper quest does 321 damage, but it's useable only on your own party. Great. This daemon boss really needs a Skip Cutscene option, since the dialogue is seriously long and you are bound to wipe on him so much. Maybe atleast a Full Heal before the boss fight would be nice?

Also, Ralir's uselesness because of a lack of self-heal or any healing option shines through in this part. I had to stop wasting Lifestones on ressing him and only got him back before the daemon. It's kinda hilarious, he's supposed to be an elite Mage Knight on an epic quest with two peasant tagalongs, yet in the actual combat, he feels like the comedy sidekick that just lays there helplessly, while the village boys do the heavy lifting. You know, I'd say the Healing Poultice skill is overpowered, but the combat wouldn't really work without it, as Ralir demonstrates, so it's fine. Dodge helps Ralir a bit, but not that much. What doesn't help Ralir is also the fact that he gets KO'd from full health, when the Daemon Lord does 185 damage. Or the fact that the boss apparently eventually starts regenerating HP. This is truly hardcore :D Thankfully, the Eldritch Arrow crystals work wonders. Ralir still sucks though. He spent the whole last boss battle attempt KO'd. If that Battle Castle prophecy comes true, I'm definitely sticking with my bro Joseph.

So, the boss is down. And Draxus is supposed to Ralir is avoiding responsibility and pushing all the major decision on the guy from a backwater village he barely knows. No wonder he's so useless :p. Well, Main Character is supposed to solve everything after all!

So, now Draxus is supposed to change the world? I can get that Joseph would say something like that about his best friend, but Ralir? Maybe there's something behind the scenes that justifies this and Ralir knows he's the Chosen One or whatever, but right now, it seems to come out of nowhere.

Also, why's the decision to Take the Tome or Leave it? Can't they destroy it? Or is that impossible? Seems like that would be a better idea than to leave it with the daemons. Not to mention it makes the whole expedition seem rather pointless if they just leave it there.

Alright, I saved and chose to take the tome as my first route. And they take the demonic portal straight to the king's throne room in front of the king's throne. Don't the banishment shrines prevent that? And if not, then why didn't the daemons already attack the king this way? Seems like it would be ridiculously easy. Even if it's not possible with actual daemons, just teleport some cultists there. A pretty major security breach. Btw. I'm confused as to whether the Banishment Stone and the Banishment Shrines are supposed to be the same thing.

Draxus can now choose a class, a Shadow Knight or Eldritch Knight. Would be nice to know what's the difference before you choose, but alright, Shadow Knight it is, since I suspect taking the tome was the evil choice anyway. Ralir disapproves apparently, but all Draxus knew was that Shadow Knight had a cooler name. Well, Ralir is clearly just jealous because Draxus can last longer than a couple rounds in combat :p

After Draxus becomes a Shadow Knight, the formation switched and now Joseph is leading the party. I guess that's one meaning of "Shadow Knight", controlling things from the shadows while a useful tool- I mean, trusted friend Joseph is in the front.

It feels a bit weird that Frank doesn't know who Draxus is after he presumably spent some time training to become an edgy Shadow Knight. Though with the story as presented, it seems like all it takes to become one is to say it and it comes true instantly. Also, it seems Draxus lost the all-powerful Healing Poultice (NOOOOOOO), but atleast he has a heal in Shadow Heart, unlike Ralir. Btw, it feels weird that after all that, Draxus and friends still haven't leveled up once.

So, after getting the prince to come and help, I accidentally discovered an inn on the island. I talk to an old woman there who suddenly bursts into a monologue about some village. Very realistic, those old people sure are chatty. Still, this is probably the best of those random NPC monologues in the game so far. Pretty nice writting. That Mr. Glavik thing was a pretty funny gag. Also, I love how some random shady quest giver wants the party to take a magic artifact from the Queen's Manor for no reason he's willing to share and Draxus is immediately all "sure, we will help!" Either he is seriously naive or his Shadow Knight training is starting to take its toll along with that daemonic book.

Oh, ok. "But this random guy said he said he needs it!" Damn Draxus, if you seriously become evil, you will be the nicest villain ever. Probably helping old ladies cross the street and carry their groceries in between all the world conquering. I absolutely love his portrayal, he is so pure :D

Ok, got the orb, back to the merchant. "What king of merchant were you again?" I guess a typo. Wow, all of the daemons? That orb is pretty valuable indeed. Nice to have a fourth party member I guess. Is he the evil one?

Ok, the following dialogue pretty much confirmed it. Well, down the dark path for Draxus, I guess! Seems that book worked really quickly one him! Nice dialogue between him and Ralir!

Oh, so that's the end of the demo? Shame, seems the story just started to get good! Well, looking forward towards more, that's for sure! Though I'm a bit disappointed that I didn't get to test out Shadow Knight Draxus in actual combat due to following the main story.

After experiencing the whole demo, you were right that the encounter rate in the desert is on the low side. Compared to the rest of the game, it definitely is. But that's not really a good thing. I could maybe understand it in the Daemon Realm, since it forces you to make strategic decision (though it could still be lowered a bit), but the rest of the game could do with less encounters. Especially that Wood Village cave, that one was just ridiculous. Maybe remove random encounters there entirely and instead, you trigger a fight each time you destroy an orb?

Also, please give poor Ralir a buff.

Ok, I went back and quickly did the "Don't take the tome" route and... my opinion of Ralir dropped even lower than before. Seriously, he's the worst, Joseph all the way. He's basically like "I didn't do anything, they made the choice, don't blame me, it's on Draxus!" Wow, I'm frankly surprised that the king didn't throw him in the dungeons along with them outright. Now I'm not surprised the guy always gets KO'd and lies on the ground all the time in combat. He has no spine to stand straight.

Alright, seems he found his spine at last. Still, his lines before that made him look pretty pathetic tbh. He could atleast own up his decision.

Ok, couldn't they have just subdued the king? He didn't even seem to be armed. And this time, Draxus's class choice seems to come out of nowhere, atleast in the "Evil" path, there was exposition from the Narrator. I chose Guardian, because Mage Knight is Ralir's class and Ralir is terrible.

Oh, now the Narrator exposition happens. Draxus is to be trained as either a Guardian or a Mage Knight, except Draxus already chose to be Guardian. The choice should be after this I think. Along with some explanation as to how these classes differ.

So, Guardian also loses Healing Poultice, but instead of an awesome self-heal in Shadow Heart, it gets the ability to make an ally invulnerable for one turn, which also prevents the ally from acting during that turn. Ok, that sounds pretty useless, especially in comparison to Healing Poultice. I guess that's why Koth turned evil. The lack of healing was just too much for a man to take.

Also, Ralir is still KO and I don't have a Lifestone. Well, if the good path is as short as the evil path, then he shouldn't be needed anyway.

Ok, so now that I read the dialogue with the Quartermaster again... the Quartermaster asked Draxus what he needs, he said he needed the papers for a ship and then both Frank and Ralir went on a PSA about how Draxus shouldn't take advantage of his authority... what? Seriously, for everything wrong with Ralir, he doesn't need "patronizing" added on the list.

Ok, so the Evil Companion won't even talk with Draxus now that he's on the side of good. Makes me wonder what kind of companion good Draxus gets. Hope it won't be Ralir 2.0.

Kinda surprising about how on the evil route, the Queen was the one who told the Prince to come back to the mainland, while on the good route she seems to be against it for some reason and the Prince convinces her to allow him to go there.

Ok, so this is the Good Side companion. If Draxus is good, the Prince decides to order some knight to accompany Draxus and co. Not sure what's changed exactly that wouldn't allow that in the Evil playthrough, but sure, I'll take it.

Alright, good companion is a Guardian too... seriously, the evil party had a much more diverse class lineup.

1. Dream Sequence and Waking Up
This is probably the third or fourth RPG Maker game/demo I've played recently which starts the game in a dream sequence and has the character wake up in bed. I'm not a fan of this trope and it is immediately off-putting for me. If I were playing this demo to see if I wanted to purchase a game (as opposed to testing it out to give feedback), this would have been a red flag. The fact that I've mentioned something like this so many times on the "Games in Development" posts at least illustrates that a lot of people are using the same trope. That alone should be reason enough to consider a change (unless you have the other, probably wrong rationale; "If so many people are doing it, it means people like it!").

In this case, Draxus could easily have a waking vision to similar effect, or he could react to actually seeing an unknown creepy guy skulking around in his village (where Draxus presumably knows the entire population).

2. Character Motivation, Hero's Journey
The call to adventure could be made stronger. It feels like Draxus (and Joseph) immediately walk into a lot of questionable scenarios for no reason except Draxus' weird dream and the brainwashing they've undergone thanks to the Old Guy's adventure stories. With the dream as the only motivation for Draxus, the subsequent chain of events makes it seem like he's simply the inexplicable "Chosen One." The characters don't say he's the chosen one, but the game sure treats him like it.

3. Character Distinction in Personalities and Roles
Draxus and Joseph seem to fulfill the same roles personality-wise as well as in combat. They both have standard good guy morals and have minimal sense of humor. Neither is witty or sarcastic. Neither is impatient or patient. Neither is particularly smart or dumb. They're just lukewarm in all ways. The only time they're different is early on when Joseph is uncharacteristically hesitant about adventure (and he's called out on it repeatedly). Eventually, Joseph suddenly stops being hesitant when he sees Battle Castle and from then on he and Draxus are essentially the same guy.

Some overlap in character personalities wouldn't be bad if they're only a handful in a much larger cast of characters. Here, however, these two are the first characters you get to play with and the cast is small.

Throughout the demo, they're also identical in combat. They're both fighters who can use the same gear and do the same things. The player can force them to be different by gearing one up as a slow-moving tank, and maybe making the other guy Reflex-heavy and a counter attack specialist. However, there's really no real nudging (or incentive) for the player to gear them up differently. I made them both slow-moving (eventually near-immortal) damage dealers.

It's clear that beyond the demo, you're going to give them different classes so they end up playing differently. However, the differentiation in the demo is non-existent and wouldn't be good if you ever want to use the demo to attract players (rather than using the demo as alpha testing).

Compared to the Mountain Village twins, Ralir is drastically different in personality and his combat role (ironically, Beregon hates Ralir for almost every reason he's different from the other two; I have similar feelings). Ralir has strong convictions (until his memory issues start popping up) and is consistently a know-it-all (more on that later). In combat, Ralir also plays differently than Ken and Ryu because Ralir's skillset is almost entirely different (more on combat later), though mostly in ways that makes him inferior.

4. Exposition and Ralir the Chatterbox

Unfortunately, Ralir's know-it-all-ism gets kind of annoying throughout the demo. Once he joins the party, he takes the role of Mr. Exposition and explains the history of absolutely everything they come across. While world-building is generally a good thing and having rich lore can be great, the player shouldn't be forcibly beat over the head with it.

Force-feeding lore to the player through dialogue in large chunks will also make dialogue feel unnatural. This is unfortunate since you've obviously spent a lot of time laying out the history of the game world.

Luckily, certain game mechanics which already exist in other games (including RPG Maker games) can help to alleviate the problem. Two examples: (1) dialogue choices (so players can choose to hear the short version or to ignore the know-it-all player almost altogether); and (2) books sprinkled around the game world (a la Elder Scrolls/Fallout).

5. Combat and Difficulty Balance
The curve is not working. The battles in Mountain Village are fine, but once you leave your hometown, things get wonky real fast. The game is linear, so controlling difficulty should be easy.

To illustrate the problem:

The narrative tells the player to go to Wood Village. Once there, the player will naturally trigger the quest to go into the cave with the Mountain Folk guy. If the player did not grind enough before that, they will likely be screwed (since the quest makes it so they cannot leave to grind against more reasonably- powered foes, they have no choice but to grind in the cave with the overpowered monsters). In my opinion, good game design will avoid "low quality time." For RPGs, that means the player should never be required to grind.

The demo, in its current state, absolutely requires the player to grind. Otherwise, they will hit the brick wall that is the cave. Most players, if playing for fun, might stop playing there. In the case of Beregon and myself, we're playing to test the demo and not simply for pleasure, so we pushed forward.

I was level 5 and upgraded about 80% of my gear with equipment from the local vendor. Unlike the other tester, I also properly recruited the Mountain Folk guy so I had a proper 4-person team. The cave was still difficult! The random encounter rate was way too high (annoyingly so, which was somewhat ironic because the world map doesn't have any random encounters and I thought that was nice). The 3-monster team that spawned over and over was simply too tough. There was also no variation in monster encounters in the cave (which is a problem unique to this cave, since you give plenty of proper monster variation in other maps).

While I managed to complete the cave with a bunch of reloading, item use, and utilizing Dodge, I would say the difficulty is too high.

Game Design 101: The game should always seek to get players into a flow state where the level of challenge isn't so difficult as to make players anxious and frustrated, but is also not so easy as to make the player bored. Most of the gameplay in this demo exists outside of flow: either frustratingly difficult (the cave) or so easy it's boring (attack-spam grinding). I (almost?) never found an in-between while playing this demo.

After the hellish experience of the cave, I did some grinding outside of Battle Castle and decked my party out with gear from the Battle Castle smithy. I assumed the rest of the game would be difficult like the cave. Due to the placement of the two grinding zones, I figured the level 5 zone was intended for Wood Village and the level 10 zone was intended for Battle Castle.

Seeing as how level 5 was too low for Wood Village, I wanted to make sure my team was tough enough to tackle what came after Battle Castle. I tried to hit level 10, but I became thoroughly bored after I hit level 8 and decided to press onward.

The rest of the game was a cakewalk after hitting level 8 (and selling a bunch of my victory spoils to gear up at Battle Castle).

Draxus and Joseph became immortal with their high defense and ability to self-heal. In battle, all I did was attack and use their healing poultice. All of their other skills became pointless. They churned out damage and pretty much could not die. Controlling them in combat quickly became formulaic.

Ralir, unlike Mario and Luigi, died all the frickin' time. This might have been my fault because I kept giving him the magic-related gear instead of making his gear identical to the other two. I also gave Ralir the gear that gave him a chane to auto-kill whatever he hit (and he actually one-shot a boss; I was surprised it worked on a boss, but it was a relief since I was getting tired of combat). Using Ralir also became formulaic. Dodge whenever he could, then attack when the Dodge option wasn't available. Generally speaking, I could let Ralir die and combat would still be winnable because the other two guys could not be killed (on the latter parts of certain dungeons, I didn't bother healing or resurrecting Ralir as the other guys could carry him).

6. Class Choice
Considering all the dialogue explaining every other part of the game, suddenly being forced to choose a class for Draxus without explanation seemed off. I assume you're going to flesh it out later and make the class choice more organic (with details lore-wise about what they mean).

7. Overall Story
The best part of the game is probably the overall story.

The mysteries you planted here and there are interesting and did make me want to see how things unraveled. I want to see the true mastermind manipulating the humans and daemons, figure out Ralir's memory problems, and also figure out why Joseph has a doppelganger (time travel? time loop? parallel/alternate universes?). I'm curious to see the explanations, and that's a good thing. Unfortunately, Draxus (the supposed hero) has the least interesting story around him (arguably, the whole story is about Draxus, but it doesn't seem that way; seems like they could leave him out of the game entirely and all the interesting parts would still be there).

Although I skimmed through a lot of the world-building dialogue/explanations (there's just so much of it), there were parts that had me stop and read more carefully because I thought it was interesting. If you worked the exposition into optional dialogue choices, books, and other less overt parts of the game, then the game could feel rich and full without feeling forced and distracting. It's definitely a good thing for you to have fleshed out the world as much as you have, and it's good to continue.

World map Battle Zone theme has been changed.

Fixed various tileset errors.

Fixed various minor issues everywhere.

Item descriptions are now consistent.

Increased the font size.

All of the game text has been rewritten to reduce text walls, exposition, and increase character consistency.

Early story progression has been shuffled around to keep momentum.

Draxus and Joseph’s journey is no longer limited to Battle Kingdom. Now, the world map is split between 5 Kingdoms, with a myriad of villages in between. To combat the Daemon threat, you will have to travel to all of them and try to get them to realize what’s at stake. This will not be easy, as diplomatic relations range between neutrality at best, and war at worst. The world map has also quadrupled in size to accommodate these changes.
The intro’s been expanded. Now, instead of stumbling on a cultist near the well and then going in for no reason, you go into the forest to forage for berries and find odd changes. I’m not going to say anything else to keep the experience fresh.

Each skill or swing of your weapon has a consequence. If you spam powerful skills, you will tire yourself out in extended or sequential fights, making your character vulnerable. Basic attacks require stamina. Fights can end quickly but you need to watch your stamina. If all of your characters get very winded then enemies can get free attacks while you rest.

Skills in general are a lot more powerful. I haven't tested it fully yet, but the system revolves around doing at least 1/4 of an enemy's health in damage per skill or attack, pre-boost from equipment. This will speed up combat massively, but also make it more dangerous.
All weapons have skills depending on what it is. For instance, swords can inflict bleeding, parry enemy attacks, hit twice, and do heavy damage to enemies that have been knocked down. Axes can be thrown, penetrate enemy armor, and can knock enemies down.

Bows require arrows, as well as drawing the string. Crossbows require cranking. They penetrate a lot of armor to counter these drawbacks.

As your stamina goes down, you gain various states of exhaustion. This decreases your agility, as well as your defense a bit. This also works in reverse, where you lose exhaustion as you gain back stamina.

Each class has a Rest skill giving you back stamina, but you cannot act the turn after. Each class also has a unique stamina gaining skill that fits their class theme. All of these skills have a downside, so food becomes more important if you don’t want to expose yourself to vulnerabilities.

Each time Draxus does something evil, he gains corruption. Attacks from high-powered Daemons also give you corruption, as do various interactable items in Hell such as Daemon Statues, Sacrificial Alters, and Forbidden Fruit Trees. Corruption increases your susceptibility to evil story choices, and possibly other things like turning party members evil similar to Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

The Hell area has been expanded to accommodate these, and is no longer a random encounter death trap. Instead, it’s now a fully explorable area with a Battle Zone like the world map. The plot-related Daemon Tower still has random encounters, though. The new interactables placed around can give you powerful items, buffs, or make you fight minibosses who have their own special drops.

All humanoids now have 100 HP, creatures have inbetween 50 and 200 HP, and Daemons have 100 to 200+.
Daemons have been grouped into 3 tiers for more depth:

• Corrupted Humanoids/Animals.
• Minor Daemons.
• Daemons.

Corrupted Humanoids/Animals are slightly tougher stat-wise than their normal versions, and have a Shadow-focused skill to give them an edge in combat.

Daemons in general are now something to be feared. Minor Daemons are similar health-wise to the player, but have a variety of dangerous skills and increased stats.

Daemons have at least double the health of the player, and feature a wide variety of skills to make each fight teeth-gritting. They also taint you with every encounter (detailed in the Corruption section).

All classes have been completely redone. Though there are some skills that are the same concept as before, they have been changed to function better.
Draxus and Joseph are both the Villager class like before, but each one has unique skills. Draxus is defensive focused, while Joseph is offensive focused.

One of Draxus’ new skills is Heroism. It forces enemies to attack him but he deals more damage, and is immune to death for that turn.

One of Joseph’s new skills is All-Out Attack. It deals a ton of damage, but makes Joseph take more damage the next turn.

Ralir no longer folds like wet cardboard. One of his new skills is Crystal Bolt, which penetrates part of an enemy’s magic defense and can one-shot them if they have a certain state inflicted. He also has powerful buffs that increase his evasion and counter rates, as well as healing.

The other classes like the Guardian, Shadow Knight (now called Eclipse Knight), and Eldritch Knight are also changed. You can’t use these in the current demo so I won’t list the changes.

Joseph's room washing basket makes chest sound
I could read the stone from the back. (maje event set facing up)
1st town, smoke from the chimneys are missing.
Some characters face move up when talking to them, fix it please.
Sign also readable from both sides and it's set to player touch.
The tree trunk in the woods(small gold pouch) made chest sound.
The torch outside when the guard is, need to det to direction fix.
It glows green when you push it.
The chest next to the supply guy, once you looted it,
His dialogue doesn't change. It's the same as before.
When getting the sword, it still is on the wall,
remove it when he gets the sword.
After completing both quests, remove the quests from mr. Glavik.
In battle "Physical Training" is too long.
I can't talk to the guards next to Lord Trevor.
Take the King's letter....So Lord Trevor is a king?
In the crystal elf cave, I could walk through both the baskets.
Also in wood village itself, through the bucket.
The battles are sometimes hard, like I bought the 2 swords in wood village, but almost no damage
to that boss in that house, only like 20....

Mapping is very well done.
The music is really good.
I love the idea of that mine in the town, ot's where he works.
Like that you've set your own text with victory and level up.
I love that free battle zone thing. Never seen that.
Thank you for that kind of freedom, but I wish the enemies would drop more.
Really love the game over screen.