VXAce - Legends of an Otherworld [FFX-like, high difficulty]

ninjamida · 2018-01-11T19:09:00+0900

So I've posted this game on a few smaller communities, but figured - why haven't I posted it yet on any of the really big ones? So, time to change that! Introduction / Background Legends of an Otherworld is a game I first started making about 8 years ago, then under the title "Legends of an Otherworld: Curse of Saria". I later dropped the subtitle since, as progress continued, the subtitle had less and less relevance to the overall plot. (And for those who are wondering - no, no relevance to the Zelda series. I've never even played them. The "connection" in that name is just a coincidence.) The setting, story, etc... let's be honest here. While it might not win any records for "worst writing ever", it's in no danger of winning any awards for "best writing ever" either. My focus in making this game was primarily on the gameplay - the battles, especially boss battles, are its strong point. And let me be clear here - while these are designed to be fun, they are also designed to be hard. Very hard. If you're the kind of player who loved playing crazy challenge runs in Final Fantasy X, this game is perfect for you, as the kind of strategies and obstacles encountered in such runs were a huge influence on this game. If you're after a compelling story with fun-but-easy gameplay, or beautiful custom graphics and sound, you might want to find another game to play. Synopsis The game begins when two cousins, Tara Ascira and Leanna Haysworth, awaken in a mysterious dungeon that seems to ignore every law of reality. With no recollection of how they got there, or even much idea of where they were from or what happened in their past, they decide to do the only thing they can - try to find a way out. While attempting to return to their hometown of Saria – of course, via the obligatory roundabout route with many distractions along the way – they encounter a young white mage, Harley Ryder, who realises that the dungeon they mention bears strong resemblances to an almost-forgotten ancient legend of the world's origin, and the greatest evil threatening it. Needless to say, what started as simply a quest to get home – and find out how they ended up in such a place and what they had forgotten about themself – quickly turns into an adventure that could determine the fate of the entire world. No matter how much they – or at least, Tara – want to avoid getting involved, it seems everyone, and even the universe itself, is determined to force their involvement. Legends of an Otherworld features a CTB (conditional turn battle) system, similar to that of Final Fantasy X, with a large degree of freedom in terms of what bonuses to give characters and what skills to teach them. Careful management and strategic use of these abilities, and of the items obtained, is critical to winning. Those who try to win simply by level grinding will have a hard time, and towards the end of the game bosses (and even some random encounters) are perfectly capable of wiping out even a max-level party without much effort, if the player neglects strategy. And for those who find the main storyline bosses aren’t enough, there are extra-hard optional bosses available at virtually all stages throughout the game; the first one becomes available before the third storyline boss, while there are also plenty of postgame-level bosses that make the already-hard endgame bosses look like pushovers. For those who seek to just complete the storyline, you may be looking at 30+ hours of gameplay. Optional content can easily add another 10 – 20 on top of that. This is a very large game. Lucky you can save anywhere you like – that’s one of the few ways the game is nice to you. Screenshots / Videos Spoiler: Map images. Spoiler-free. Spoiler: Battle images. Spoiler-free. Spoiler: Scanning can reveal useful information about enemies. Spoiler: Blue magic works in a unique way. Instead of directly costing MP, you must charge BP and use that to cast it. The advantage is that Blue Magic is generally very powerful, or otherwise very useful. Spoiler: Scanning can reveal status vulnerabilities too. Spoiler: Battle video 1. Mild strategy spoilers for an early-game boss. Note that as an early-game boss, this only shows a fraction of the various options available to you in combat. There's MUCH more to discover beyond this! Spoiler: Battle video 2. Moderate strategy spoilers for an early-game "roadblock" boss. This one is a bit more in-depth. Download Links Current version: V026b The game is finished at this point, and any further updates will be bugfix updates only. Download: https://1drv.ms/u/s!Am6NTdy4vnPXhjBxJ5DdppjLWtil Note that this download does NOT include the RPG Maker VX Ace RTP. You'll need to obtain that seperately if you don't already have it. All other necessary resources are included. Steam Workshop link: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1252703211 Official Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/loaocos/ If you have played this game in the past and still ha…

● ARCHIVED · READ-ONLY

Started by ninjamida Jan 11, 2018, 10:09 AM 109 posts Page 2 of 6 View original ↗

Semolous29

#21 Nov 18, 2018, 05:53 PM Source

Looks interesting! I'll give this a download when I get home
norman

#22 Nov 19, 2018, 04:49 PM Source

hello.
i little aliciain a dream.
how do you win the fight with yuki and sasha
ninjamida

#23 Nov 19, 2018, 07:18 PM Source

Semolous29 said:
Looks interesting! I'll give this a download when I get home

Thanks! Don't get your hopes up too high for amazing mapping / story, because the game really did a bad job of those (I did contemplate going back and fixing it up, but I eventually decided it'd be more worthwhile to put my effort into a new project instead). But hopefully the gameplay makes up for that - many people have said it does. :)

norman said:
hello.
i little aliciain a dream.
how do you win the fight with yuki and sasha

If you've got some Sensor Spheres (there's a few in a chest, or otherwise, I think there's something in the ruins you can win / steal them from), you can use those to be able to see their HP. The key is that you need to defeat both of them at the same time, or at least very close to each other, because both have the ability to revive each other. I don't recall exactly what items you can or can't get during that segment, but IIRC there was either an item to give yourself Haste or one to give one / both of them Slow. Haste and Slow are extremely useful in this game - far more so than they are in the average RPG (after all, this one's gameplay is FFX-inspired, which also has very potent Haste / Slow) - and making use of one (or both) of them where possible will make your life a lot easier. :)
Aoi Ninami

#24 Nov 19, 2018, 08:31 PM Source

Also, I seem to remember either Yuki or Sasha can cast Slow on you, but can only do it once, so wait until after this before putting Haste on yourself.
norman

#25 Nov 20, 2018, 12:26 PM Source

thanks
Evilmumrah

#26 Nov 22, 2018, 12:08 AM Source

What the heck?! I'm in the Haunted House, I've disposed of Craig and Brianna, turned one of the lanterns on. But when I go in to the room with the switch where the ghost things ask riddles, one of them appears to not have a correct answer. So what do I do now? I'm sorely confused.
ninjamida

#27 Nov 22, 2018, 12:10 AM Source

Evilmumrah said:
What the heck?! I'm in the Haunted House, I've disposed of Craig and Brianna, turned one of the lanterns on. But when I go in to the room with the switch where the ghost things ask riddles, one of them appears to not have a correct answer. So what do I do now? I'm sorely confused.

I encourage you to try a bit more to figure it out first. I will clarify that it isn't dependant on anything outside the question, nor do you need to answer multiple times to pass.

Solution
Don't answer at all. Press Esc / Cancel to back out of the question.
Evilmumrah

#28 Nov 24, 2018, 11:15 PM Source

Wow! You weren't kidding when you said this game is hard. How exactly am I supposed to get past the Dark Returner when it keeps healing faster then I can hurt it?
ninjamida

#29 Nov 25, 2018, 12:38 AM Source

Option A
Damage it faster than it can heal. Of course, this is easier said than done considering other details of how Returner and Dark Returner work.

Option B
Use Virus to temporarily block the healing.

The boss after him is generally considered the hardest one in the game. Good luck. :)
Evilmumrah

#30 Nov 25, 2018, 05:52 AM Source

Virus?
ninjamida

#31 Nov 25, 2018, 05:55 AM Source

The Virus status effect prevents healing, and spreads with physical attacks (ie: if you're under it, and physically attack an enemy, the enemy will receive Virus status, assuming they're not immune / successfully resistant).

If I remember correctly, the only things accessible to the player by this point that inflict it are the blue magic Infection (which inflicts it on the user), and maybe the blue magic Plague (which might have a chance of inflicting it on all enemies, though I don't remember for sure if it does or not).
Evilmumrah

#32 Nov 25, 2018, 06:19 PM Source

I have Blue Magic Plague, which didn't work on my one try before I got killed, so where and when should I get Blue Magic Infection?
ninjamida

#33 Nov 25, 2018, 08:25 PM Source

I recall it being possible to obtain in the Haunted House, I don't remember exactly how. Try drop-farming or stealing from anything that itself uses Infection (or otherwise inflicts virus).

IIRC, you can only backtrack to there if you have a save prior to completing the Ice Temple (this includes watching the cutscene at the end; even after defeating the boss you can still backtrack as long as you don't trigger the cutscene).

If you're stuck and don't have an older save, your best bet for defeating Dark Returner would be...

Spoiler
Pay attention to his turns. He alternates between Gathering Energy and either Unleash Energy or Disaster.

You probably already figured this out, but between Gathering Energy and Unleash/Disaster, any damage dealt to him ends up being the damage done by Unleash Energy (divided equally between party members) - and if that's too low (EDIT: below 455 per party member), he casts Disaster instead.

At other times, he doesn't store the damage from attacks on him, but he does counterattack with a physical attack. He might be vulnerable to Darkness, I don't remember, if he is, that will help here (EDIT: He is, but he has very high resistance to it). Otherwise, throw up a couple of rounds of Adrenaline, cast Shield if you have it, and use that time to go to town on him. Aside from the physical attack counter, there's no consequence for damaging him during this time, so this is where you'll want to do most of your damage.

(For the record, regular Returner works mostly the same way, except that the required damage to trigger Unleash Energy is extremely low (as in single-digit, though non-zero), and he casts Flare rather than Disaster.)

When he's gathering energy, you want to do the minimum possible damage you can to get him to use Unleash Energy rather than Disaster.

Haste will be a huge help here if you have it, though if you only have a limited number of the Turbo Boost item (rather than the Haste spell) you might want to save them for the next boss...

Also, he's vulnerable to Spirit and Agility debuffs (though he has resistance to the latter), which might help. He's weak against all elements except Dark, taking 300% damage from Light and 200% damage from all other elements, which can help - give your physical attackers an elementstrike (preferably Light), and have Amanda cast Light if she's got it. He's vulnerable - with only a small resistance - to Weaken and Meltdown too; his Defence isn't very high in the first place so Weaken won't do much, but Meltdown might be useful.

I guess I should set up RPG Maker on my computer again so I can actually check these details instead of going from memory, since people are getting interested in this game again. :D EDIT: Done, and edited the above to account for this.
Evilmumrah

#34 Nov 26, 2018, 12:07 AM Source

Thanks for the help. I'll see what I can do.
ninjamida

#35 Nov 26, 2018, 12:50 AM Source

I'll add to that re: Infection; not being able to backtrack and get it is temporary. After you defeat Dark Returner, and the next boss after him, you can go back and get it.
Evilmumrah

#36 Nov 30, 2018, 06:02 PM Source

I did finally beat that beast but boy, you don't mess around when it comes to villains. I'm in the room with the four orbs and am having a terrible time. I beat the two on the left side of the room but the other two are literally killing me. I know you said Bolder would eventually self destruct but he kills me first when he stores energy. And the other one? Sheesh, I can't find anything to harm it.
ninjamida

#37 Nov 30, 2018, 08:13 PM Source

Re: Boulder (the survival one), the attack after he stores energy is - IIRC - the last attack he uses before self-destructing. Disaster is a magical attack, so break out all the stops there. Aura will halve the damage, Harley might have learnt this or you might have an item Alicia can use. A double-stacked Spirit buff (via Vince's Meditate) will cut it by a further 25%. Equip some Magic Defence+??% abilities if you need to reduce the damage further - you won't actually see any increase on the stat screen, but you should notice a reduction in damage taken. Ivy is probably your highest HP character. You only need one character to survive Disaster itself, though you'll definitely want to revive a second one before Boulder's next turn, as his self-destruct is single-target but guaranteed 9999 damage (and this cannot be reduced in any way, IIRC).

Re: Tamerant, no attacks can directly deal damage. You can still deal damage via Poison or via Zombie+Regen. Or, if you've got a move that can inflict it, he's not immune to instant death (but he does have very high resistance to it).

Very quick Tamerant kill
If Tara or Leanna has learnt "Dispatch", it's a guaranteed one-hit kill against Tamerant (or anything else that isn't completely immune to instant death). Dispatch never fails unless the target has complete immunity; partial resistance is ignored.

On a side note - are you aware that by pressing Shift (or equivalent button on a gamepad) while viewing an enemy's scan info, you can see their status vulnerabilities? I think this is briefly mentioned somewhere early in-game, but it's easy to miss. It's very useful info. Although you'll already by this point have encountered the odd boss (or maybe even regular enemy) that's immune to Scan, most aren't, even in the late-game.
Evilmumrah

#38 Nov 30, 2018, 08:19 PM Source

Well, I feel dumb. I tried that with Leanna but I forgot she was blind. Oops. And bolder did finally blow himself up. Thanks, until the next time.
ninjamida

#39 Nov 30, 2018, 09:13 PM Source

Ah, yeah, that's a point I overlooked - Dispatch can still miss, based on normal hit / miss factors for physical attacks. But if it doesn't miss, and the enemy isn't 100% immune, it always works, even if the enemy has eg. 99% resistance. That's what I meant to say.

Anyway, you should have fairly smooth sailing for a while from here. :)
Evilmumrah

#40 Nov 30, 2018, 09:48 PM Source

Just how badly do I have to beat up Aisha before she stops sending me away?