I have to admit: XP was my gate into the Makers, and I still have a very soft spot for it, even though it was not long ago that I installed it again and had not opened it for many years before. Time flies, and as of now I use MZ for virtually everything.
But the RTP on the other hand… yes, yes and yes!
Today we are going to have an in depth look at the default XP graphics and how they can make your project in new Makers even better!
(I focus on how to make them work for MZ, but with some tiny differences that is the same for MV and sometimes even Ace)
Animations
Since the Update with sheet animations for MZ dropped, we have a whole new range of possibilities unlocked in that area!
if you look at the animation folder in XP, you can see that you get 30 sheets with the material for a multiple of that of animations.
Since you have XP then, you can check out how they have set up those to work and mimic that in your (more recent) engine of choice.
And yeah, they work, check this out:
The upper two rows are 015-Fire01 from XP, the lower two Howl from MV. XP, VX, Ace, MV and MZ share the same grid size for animations and you can use their sheets interchangeably.
Battlebacks
They are very pretty, but sadly too small to be of any use as battlebacks with the default window size. But with a frame around them or edited into in game books (like a questlog or lore compendium?) they can still be used out of the box ;3
Just maybe not the #1 reason to get XP.
Battlers
To be honest, that is the folder that I always skip. In my opinion they did not really age well and while the cartoony style has a certain charm to it, I personally do not see myself using them anytime in the future.
But, maybe that is just me. You totally can just use them in any front view battle system from Ace to MZ, just as they are.
There are definitely some very cool designs in here, and that is even much more the case for the…
Characters
Okay, I admit, the human chars look just a little bit too tiny to pass in an MV or MZ environment without any further edits…
… but what about the animals and monsters?
I mean, come on, look at this gorgeous sprite for example. It is huge!
In fact, it is nearly the same size as the MZ hydra and therefore the perfect size for a big monster to encounter.
There are only 2 things you need to do to utilize it for MZ:
First, adjust the number of columns, usually you can get a fully functional 3 frame cycle by cutting off the left row.
While XP’s move cycle was 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4-..., VX and everything after it are: 3-2-3-2-1-2-3-2-..., and in many cases for XP, 1 and 4 were the same. For this sprite the cutting off works just fine!
Second, adjust the contrast, as MZ has a lot more contrast (and saturation, but I’d say upping that is up to your taste) in their sprite palette. You could also color swap with shades from the MZ sprites, if you are not sure you can hit a shade that works well. You can use the method to check the contrast from this tutorial here. For MV conversions, I would recommend to add a black outline to the bottom as well on top of recoloring, for Ace conversions the MZ treatment will do as well, just use the Ace sprites as reference.
And to be real, from super cool effects…
(Flame, fireplace, grass and Reid are MZ, everything else is just reformatted but not recolored XP)
…to some amazing monster and animal designs that due to the different proportions do not have to be resized at all, XP has more than 60 sheets that I would say can be used in MZ with just minimal recoloring and reformatting!
(only Reid and the grass are MZ, everything else is one column cut off and slightly recolored XP)
Since XP has been out there for so long, you might even be able to find battlers in a different fanmade style that mixes better with the default MZ style.
And the charsets are also something where those edits go a long way: there are many edited animals out there, and you unlock the whole world of user made XP animals and monsters for your games as well, for example by PandaMaru and Personigo de la Cefo!
Plus, if you see yourself capable of adjusting or do not care about a little style difference, there are amazing object sprites in there as well, here are some examples:
I could talk even longer about everything in the charset folder, fond memories and new ideas compete with each other every time I look at it. But of course, there is more to see in the other ones as well!
Here is a full conversion tutorial and here are my already converted characters plus some tiles!
Fogs
Fogs are something from the “maybe, depends on you”-department, as MZ doesn’t have fogs as native resource. You could still get them to work by utilizing one of the many many existing plugins out there and then you can use them as is, as they do tile and therefore the size does not matter at all.
The ten fogs are nothing to be crazy about, but on the other hand, a very nice bonus on top of the other things.
Shade01 for example can add some nice atmosphere to your forest maps.
Gameovers
Yeah, I guess you could edit it to be MV/Z size or use it for Ace, but the one default one included is a little boring. Just make your own ;3
Icons
If you use (edited) Ace icons, XP icons match them well and are the same size. So if you use Ace style anyways, enjoy the extra stuff!
Panoramas
Since Panoramas tile, the slightly smaller size compared to the one of newer engines does not really matter. Like the fogs, they are not the selling point for me, but I can see myself using them since I have them at hand.
And again, maybe it is nostalgia, but I love the mountain view from XP a lot.
Tilesets/Autotiles
I love XPs tiles, hands down. My favorite tile style across all RPG Makers, but… since it is pixelated and 32x32, while you can technically upscale it and some people do it, it doesn’t sit right with me.
On the other hand, due to the same grid size, you can reformat it for VX Ace or go full parallax with it for MV or MZ.. Or you could - and that would take a very long time, try to use my Tutorial here on all of the tiles as well as possible…
Plus, they make great references and bases to rebuild for example the house structures with MV or MZ tiles and you can still use for example Ebanyle’s tree repaints.
To be honest, just to use Ebanyle’s repaint getting the license is so worth it.
The other three, well..
Titles
Transitions
Windowskins
Could you try to edit or upcycle or whatever those? Yeah, maybe. But is it worth the effort with everything the other makers already have in these departments? Probably not.
To sum my opinion up:
If you own MZ and have a little graphic editing skill or at least some motivation, XP offers you:
Main selling point:
- 30 animation sheets that you can simply import and set up resulting in many more individual animations
- over 50 (it all depends on what you feel would work proportion and stylewise, possibly it is a lot over 50) animal, monster and effect charsets, including full 4 directional walking huge monsters as a stone golem, a dragon, a living tree, several demons and more!
- You can now use Ebanyle’s repainted XP trees, which work very nice in any MZ project if reformatted
- This also means, you can use all the XP animal and monster edits by all different creators out there, which would actually up the charset count buying this engine unlock to hundreds, just make sure to follow the terms of those people. There are so many fanmade battlers and busts for the XP creatures and heroes out there, so many edits and recolors of the animals…
Nice goodies:
- Battlebacks you could use in title cards or books, just maybe not in places where you need them to be fullscreen
- VX Ace style icons that you would have to convert/set up
- Some neat panoramas and fogs (which might need a plugin to work as you wish)
- you have the tiles as edit base and references and can use any edits people made with them
- a full set of retro cartoony battlers, if you like them