Hiya, I’m back!
I’ve been having a look at the Wikia/Fandom pages on various game series for a few hours now, trying to get some ideas and inspiration. Some of the Wiki’s are quite extensive, so it’s taking a long time to get through the various articles about JRPG series installments. I’ll post the links to the ones I’ve been focusing on:
https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Wiki
https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Wiki_of_Mana
https://goldensun.fandom.com/wiki/Golden_Sun_Wiki
https://suikoden.fandom.com/wiki/Suikoden_Wiki
https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem_Wiki
Whilst there are countless JRPG’s out there, I’m going to focus on these five for now, as they are all series that I’ve actually played. My first JRPG experience was in fact Golden Sun, although I had already heard of Final Fantasy by that point (growing up in the early 2000’s, thats hardly surprising).
Now about Itch.io. For those who don’t know, it’s a website similar to STEAM, except that it’s more friendly and focused towards Indie developers. Many RPG Maker users use Itch.io to self-publish both games and resources, so I thought I should look and see what I could find. I found two games that massively caught my attention: Asylum – Secret of Caledria, and Ara Fell. I’ll post the links before I start talking about them:
https://neosoulgamer.itch.io/asylum-secret-of-caledria
https://stegosoftgames.itch.io/ara-fell
Firstly, I’d like to talk about Asylum, as I have the ability to talk to the developer. This is due to the artist that produces the assets that I’m planning on using; Asylum uses the same asset style, and the artist has a discord server that I’m part of. Here’s a link to the artist’s website, Itch.io page, and their Patreon (which I’ve been subscribed to for about a year and a half):
https://finalbossblues.itch.io/
https://www.patreon.com/finalbossblues/posts
I’ve played through the first Asylum demo (it’s still in development, and the second demo should be coming out soon), and I did enjoy the battle system and plot development. It was quite slow-burn, as well as having an ingame lore that I could sink my teeth into. NeoSoulGamer (Asylum’s Developer) has also gone to the trouble of trying to integrate the mechanics into the lore, so there isn’t anything out-of-place or disjointing. Driftwood Gaming did a first impressions video on it a while back, so I’ll post it here now. I must say, it’s a very good playthrough video:
Now onto Ara Fell. Made using RPG Maker 2003 (which is older than any game engine that I know, except possibly Unreal), it uses a slightly different pixel style, but the game mechanics are amazing. I played through the free demo, and it has all manner of complex systems that aren’t difficult to use (a massive surprise, considering editing the code for RM2003 is an extremely arduous affair), and it uses them to great effect. The crafting system in particular was well done, as well as the levelling mechanic, with the ability to choose where the stat increases go (quite a difficult feature to implement in an RM game).
I’m gonna go now, but I’ll be back soon with some more material. Until then!
Bibliography:
Finalfantasy.fandom.com. (n.d.). Final Fantasy Wiki. [online] Available at: https://finalfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Final_Fantasy_Wiki [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Mana.fandom.com. (n.d.). Wiki of Mana. [online] Available at: https://mana.fandom.com/wiki/Wiki_of_Mana [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Goldensun.fandom.com. (n.d.). Golden Sun Universe. [online] Available at: https://goldensun.fandom.com/wiki/Golden_Sun_Wiki [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Suikoden.fandom.com. (n.d.). Suikoden Wikia. [online] Available at: https://suikoden.fandom.com/wiki/Suikoden_Wiki [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Fireemblem.fandom.com. (n.d.). Fire Emblem Wiki. [online] Available at: https://fireemblem.fandom.com/wiki/Fire_Emblem_Wiki [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
itch.io. (2019). Asylum: Secret of Caledria by neosoulgamer. [online] Available at: https://neosoulgamer.itch.io/asylum-secret-of-caledria [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
itch.io. (2016). Ara Fell by Stegosoft Games, charblar. [online] Available at: https://stegosoftgames.itch.io/ara-fell [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
itch.io. (n.d.). finalbossblues – itch.io. [online] Available at: https://finalbossblues.itch.io/ [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Patreon. (n.d.). finalbossblues is creating Pixel Art Game Assets | Patreon. [online] Available at: https://www.patreon.com/finalbossblues/posts [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
Gaming, D. (2017). First Impressions MV – Asylum Secret Of Caledria – Very Well Done – Hard to even find any flaws. [online] YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6SDEeefpZM&t=28s [Accessed 21 Mar. 2019].
SLGameDesign FMP 