Spoilers: The Ending and Questions

[Daran]

SPOILER ! DON'T READ UNLESS YOU FINISHED!






Okay - first off, I loved this game. I felt really sad for all the people on the way back. Coping with the end to come and not being able to change anything.

But now that I finished it, let me ask a few questions please, especially since the Dev lurks around here ;)

1. What where those Asian letters in the end saying? Sorry, I never learned that language :P
2. Is there an chance to make the ending a happy ending or soem sort of secret chapter? I know the game is all about what happens when the heroes loose. But this ... the feels, man!
3. Since I'm too lazy to backtrack and my job leaves little time - does what is in that secret rooms behind the 4 crystals in Fluffies chapter change anything for the game or the ending? I never got in.
4. How did you get the idea of this awesome game (srsly)?

Cheers

[Lucia Silvermoon]

I lurk, I see, I reply. <3

So happy read your post!

1. Should I be spoiling this? Ah, what the heck... It's Mandarin and translates to:
Don't let me forget everything. I don't want to forget.

2. Hehe, who knows...actually we already have some plans. You'll see it in the future DLC. We just want to wait a bit and check with everyone what their favorite and least favorite parts are before we begin work. I do hope the ending is not too sad. We wanted to create a subtle sense of hope.

3. It won't change the ending, but it'll increase your user rank. There's a secret boss (very difficult) behind the door!

4. Haha aww *blushes* xD I just always hate finishing an RPG, because I want to see MORE! I want to know what happened AFTER the game! We began playing with that concept and decided to use NPCs as the POV because it is more interesting and unique. It allows us to create a different atmosphere and gameplay for each NPC/chapter.

[Daran]

And he did lurk, see and reply indeed :P
Thanks for answering :)


About 1.] Okay - now I get what the ending said. Thanks for clarifying for me.

Hmmm I am hoping for a DLC. I do not mind the sad ending. It left a bitter after taste but only because we are so used to good or perfect endings where everyone is joyful. But without the Mandarin text translated I only noticed the "The End?" part which was not much of hope :)

And combined with the ending words in mandarin ... what if:
The "game" or world restarts (New Game + anyone)? But one of the characters or several (maybe the NPCs) remember what happened last time due to their final thoughts (Mandarin text). So they have another chance to change the outcome. And since you wanted to make a team dungeon or sth as far as I read somewhere - what if the NPCs team up to help the heroes or become a second hero team.
But no matter what they try, the Emperor wins over and over. They keep changing little to big things (getting items, leveling up, getting aid, ultimate weapons, ...), but to no avail. Until one of them finds a piece of paper in the Emperors chambers ... SetLowestHealthPossible_Emperor=1HP" ... Someone is playing dirty. :P
OR the heroes were never the heroes to begin with but the NPCs ...

Jesus I think I just wrote a fanfic -_-
I feel dirty on the outside and inside and will now go take a bath.

About 3.] Ohh so that is what the Iron Giant achievement is about. A Homage to Final Fantasy 3 remake with the Iron Giant boss and hence the crystals? If my memory does not play games on me?

[Lucia Silvermoon]

Haha, wow, I LOVE your post! It's so awesome. A part of that might end up in the actual DLC, I'm totally in love with the direction you took! *saves*

By the way, I'm not sure if anyone consciously noticed this, but Harold's sister was supposed to be the hero to go out. Except..she broke her leg, and Harold ended up going.

It's mentioned passingly in a conversation, as we didn't want to make it obvious.

Actually, maybe it means nothing. Maybe his sister would've been even worse. Who knows?

[Thom Quixote]

Yeah, I alluded to that allusion in one of my posts somewhere, I just didn't want to say it outright though =p.

[Daran]

Happy you like it, Lucia. :)

Feel free to use anything you like. But please make the story how you want it to be and how you want to tell it. To quote someone: This is it. This is your story. It all begins here (cookie if you find out without google). Looking forward to the DLC no matter which way it goes :)

I got that idea from all those "New Game+" where the characters get to keep all the items and sometimes skills from previous playthrough, but never wonder how they got them in the first place. Or don't notice that their world always seems to reset and that you can get special endings/outcomes in a new game+ which you could not in a normal game. Maybe the emperor found it out and is tired of the never ending cycle no matter who wins :P

About her leg:
I did notice that part with her leg actually at that exact point. And immediately wondered: What if she went instead of her brother? But then I though "what would it change"? One person being stronger - would that matter? Or would it be more than strength & skill but also the course of action she would take. Like hiring that witch she asked about (and which Harold commented was really nice and had dinner with). And now I wonder if the Mandarin part referred to Harold's sister.

Holy Moley - Just realized how I grew up with gaming consoles, JRPGs and became a total Nerd.

[Thom Quixote]

Originally posted by Daran:

Snipped for length!

...And immediately wondered: What if she went instead of her brother? But then I though "what would it change"? One person being stronger - would that matter? Or would it be more than strength & skill but also the course of action she would take. ...
.

I would think that it would change a whole lot. Consider this: Fights in these NPC scenarios are all designed to be beatable because of the specific character's skillsets.

Because the Jester's there, he can break the lv 50 Harold's attack down to a level survivable by his other 3 other lv 5 NPCs. His skillset also allows him to keep the King from one-shotting him via silence and confusion.

The Old Lady's skillset allows her lv 40-ish self to essentially solo things that are near-endgame, as well as keep her (weaker) daughter alive for a near-infinite length of time with the power of hugs.

The lv 35 Fluffy is part of a race of wolf-like people who thrive by hunting things in the volcano, and comes to rescue the heroes from a NORMAL ENEMY (for his scenario) that (according to the heroes) can't be damaged by either conventional physical or elemental means. Additionally, his runic edge ability allows him to survive the otherwise unmitigatable damage of the Phoenix's flame breath.

I believe it was a failure precisely because Harold lacked a key skill, quality or ability that made his sister the hero and while everything was going smooth up until that last moment... it all fell apart because Harold was a false hero.


TL;DR- Harold was a big fat phony and while it was "good enough" for most of their adventure, he was lacking a key ability to defeat the Demon Lord and the world went poof because of it.

[Cari Kenja]

Originally posted by Lucia Silvermoon:

I lurk, I see, I reply. <3

So happy read your post!

1. Should I be spoiling this? Ah, what the heck... It's Mandarin and translates to:
Don't let me forget everything. I don't want to forget.

2. Hehe, who knows...actually we already have some plans. You'll see it in the future DLC. We just want to wait a bit and check with everyone what their favorite and least favorite parts are before we begin work. I do hope the ending is not too sad. We wanted to create a subtle sense of hope.

3. It won't change the ending, but it'll increase your user rank. There's a secret boss (very difficult) behind the door!

4. Haha aww *blushes* xD I just always hate finishing an RPG, because I want to see MORE! I want to know what happened AFTER the game! We began playing with that concept and decided to use NPCs as the POV because it is more interesting and unique. It allows us to create a different atmosphere and gameplay for each NPC/chapter.

:ohrpgralph:

Pretty much everything here contains some elements of spoilers but only the very end should give away any kind of plot everything else is just comments on the gameplay elements.

So that was it eh? I see... Well for the price I think it was about right.

Thoughts on what I liked and didn't like:

Didn't like:
Missing some RPG elements of collecting and leveling up to overcome difficult obscticles.

I HATE that clown. Everything about the Jester was bad. Timed battles. Forced battles (Sneaking? Not even possible. Ha- why would you want to anyway makes the boss harder.) Sidequest wasn't very hard but the timer made things needlessly stressful even though it gives you all the time in the world to complete everything. Also the boss... that boss... There was almost nothing to give away his patterns of attack and that made him horrible to fight.

In the volcano level specifically the elements of searching around for items became pointless when you get so many upgrade materials and you can't even use them all. This was a common complaint with many of the characters; if I missed something it was hard to tell and then I found myself an abundance or a lack of ability to upgrade which left me feeling like I was playing sub optimally or missing things.

Overall the call mechanic was very unreliable- you pretty much had to suffer through the game before you could really enjoy it because the best way was just to rely on yourself.

Nun Sidequest.... Big ol time sink for little reward.

Nun Secret room.... Big ol time sink with little reward.

Ring Around the Rosie; lacking in game hints to the notes.

Old lady first playthrough: I couldn't find the gun and my HP was draining so fast that I was struggling as hard as I could just to survive and blast through the mobs with my pipe in hand. This made her boss fight ULTRA frustrating. The Gun is a must for a first playthrough since it makes her feel much more balanced.

Forced replay. Replayability is a good thing. Forced replays without additional content or options to help a player explore builds and storylines is not a good thing. I understand it's not a traditional RPG from what I played but the player scores seem arbitrary and don't add much to the game. In fact it adds nothing. Once you beat it the game is done. Nothing changed.

What I liked:

The Nun- I love that nun. Everything about her was balanced interesting and her difficulty seemed fair. She had self heals and even though the mobs would curse her it didn't stop her from dishing out enough DPS to defeat them before she was defeated. Even though she was the weakest in terms of the fact that she got 3 different accessories and no other real upgrades that I could find she still was the most balanced in terms of difficulty and gameplay.

The Old Lady Second Playthrough- Once I had an idea where to look for the gun I grabbed the shoes to prevent taking as much damage as I did the first time and quickly searched for it. After finding it her playthrough felt smooth and much more enjoyable. The difficulty spikes dramatically cause her first playthrough to be murder. Some better map planning may be in order since it's so early on in the game to throw this at you.

Fluffy- The fox was great. No real complaints outside what was mentioned above. Well balanced- easy to work with- easy to counter.

Gobbie- This was probably the better part of the game. I do wish we could have delved a little more into him but oh well... we know how this game ended.



Overall: Interesting concept; needs fleshing out. I enjoyed playing a somewhat traditional RPG even though it wasn't. I was challenged but at times frustrated. I like figuring things out on my own but it did seem like some elements can't be figured out without visiting these threads.

Possible spoilers...

What I want to see:

I would love to see something new come of this; maybe all our NPCs team up and save the world? Just about anything but a timey wimey fix where the 'true hero' takes her brother's place and she successfully saves the world. That would seem a little dumb.

More refined gameplay would be nice.
Better helper mechanics- less blind luck/trial error.
Possible grinding options to help make it feel less luck based.
More exploration of the world.


Anyway I'm nobody but that's my feelings. Overall still better than FF13.

[Daran]

@COOL DUDE

Well I do not think that Harold is a "phony" or "failure". He did save his fiends in the second last chapter, which was admitably heroic and a clever move.
Even the NPCs became heroes when they beat the bosses (even if with some help). Bosses, which they would have never encountered under other normal circumstances - e.g. if the heroes had won.
So I believe given the circumstances everyone in that world can be a hero and so was Harold. And he did the best he could. It was just not enough against the Emperor.
But maybe he would had won in other cases where his sister would fail, making him the hero and her the "phony"?

@Korusi

Regaring your "What I want to see:"

I would love to see something new come of this; maybe all our NPCs team up and save the world? Just about anything but a timey wimey fix where the 'true hero' takes her brother's place and she successfully saves the world. That would seem a little dumb.

-> I agree that the "she replaces him" solution would be too simple. There should be more to it. I support the idea of the NPCs teaming up.

Blimey- 21st century and still have to do forum text formating (quotes, spilers, ...) with text pieces instead of easy buttons.

[Cari Kenja]

I would like to add one more complaint. I forgot about this but the Nun Chapter had a terrible bug where in the church where you first meet the heroes there is TERRRIBLE TERRIBLE just... I don't even know what frame issues. I have a computer that can run the best games at 60FPS but this game struggles on that one part? Surely a bug. Just thought i'd throw that in.

[Lucia Silvermoon]

Love those ideas! :)

Originally posted by Korusi:

I would like to add one more complaint. I forgot about this but the Nun Chapter had a terrible bug where in the church where you first meet the heroes there is TERRRIBLE TERRIBLE just... I don't even know what frame issues. I have a computer that can run the best games at 60FPS but this game struggles on that one part? Surely a bug. Just thought i'd throw that in.

Yeah, we are aware of this. O.o