[From hack to indie] Path of the Midnight Sun

[mmKALLL]

Oh wow, Chapter 5 was just stupid..

How should the player know that only fliers can get the croissant? I spent an eternity trying to figure out how to get Faratrass to Seize even though she can't move after dropping, and was confused when the shop didn't open at all and stuff.... That's just mean .-.

A very interesting chapter with a very different objective, although I'd imagine that this one will divide opinions..

Edited May 27, 2014 by mmKALLL

[Siuloir]

For someone who reminds people he is an 'English major' on multiple occasions Klok, you're sure complaining a lot about having to read 'walls of text'. I'd hate to see someone put some Joyce in front of you.

Your tone is also completely inappropriate for anything resembling a reasoned, ordered critique - All of what you just said came off sounding like a venomous, mocking assault rather than 'here's what I think can be improved'. Things like '#narutoangst' and 'Fartass' only further undermine your credibility. In fact, I daresay if it were my hack, and people couldn't be bothered to parse the name 'Faratrass' as something that decidedly isn't 'Fartass', well, those people are not my target audience anyway and can go find their entertainment elsewhere.

Furthermore, if you only play the first ten minutes of a game, you're really not doing an exemplary job as a reviewer. That's the equivalent of turning an album off 45 seconds into the first track.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Siuloir

[ghast]

@klok

that's pretty harsh dude.

and most of what you said seems like personal preferences (names, opening scene) rather than actual critique.

@l95 lol ok

Edited May 27, 2014 by XxXPierogiMaztR3pleXxX

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Pls don't quote kloks entire post, even with spoilers it's still very long XD

If people dislike Moonie so much, I shall suggest the alternate spelling "Munie"

Edited May 27, 2014 by L95

[tuvarkz]

Started a new file, and I must say, Agile Hasta makes Menmus so much stronger than without it.

[Klokinator]

Also, if you only play the first ten minutes of a game, you're really not doing an exemplary job as a reviewer. That's the equivalent of turning an album off 45 seconds into the first track.

I'm going to give you a sandwich. You'll bite into it, and the first bite will taste like really bad earwax. After you enjoy that first bite and taste the disgusting yucky of earwax, be sure and tell me how great the rest of the sandwich tastes.

In other words, the way a game starts is often a tale of how the rest of the game will play out. The same goes for films, books, and everything else. If the beginning of the game doesn't grab my interest in any way and in fact turns me away, I'm going to be vocal about it. For every 1 person that complains, 200 don't and simply leave. My tone may be "inappropriate" (It seems clear that you didn't follow your advice and read past the first two lines of text or you'd notice I pointed out many things I did like) but that doesn't nullify the truth of it.

[DingoCZ]

Well congrats man, you've just earned my deepest respect.

Because of crazy courageous heroes like you, I'll add an Elixir to Saai's inventory.

I think he didn't need that. Now I know I was wrong.

RESPECT EARNED??? YESSSSSSS! lol

(I swear this is what attempting lunatic+ legitimately does after giving up on chapter 20)

I just figured that you wanted to award the player for killing him since he had a droppable item.

When i test play DoG for NYZ, i end up thinking that a chapter would be a bit too easy but then when he changes it,

some people complain about the difficulty which is understandable. (i'm not trying to offend anyone)

Either way i always try to kill any enemy that isnt supposed to be killed just to make sure that it's not possible.

[Siuloir]

I'm going to give you a sandwich. You'll bite into it, and the first bite will taste like really bad earwax. After you enjoy that first bite and taste the disgusting yucky of earwax, be sure and tell me how great the rest of the sandwich tastes.

In other words, the way a game starts is often a tale of how the rest of the game will play out. The same goes for films, books, and everything else. If the beginning of the game doesn't grab my interest in any way and in fact turns me away, I'm going to be vocal about it. For every 1 person that complains, 200 don't and simply leave. My tone may be "inappropriate" (It seems clear that you didn't follow your advice and read past the first two lines of text or you'd notice I pointed out many things I did like) but that doesn't nullify the truth of it.

I saw your entire post, and I saw what you praised. Your tone is still inappropriate for garnering any meaningful feedback. It's just you running your mouth. I'm not going to pat you on the head and give you a cookie for incorporating a couple lines of praise into that pompous outburst.

Also, your sandwich is a huge equivocation because a sandwich and work of media do not operate on the same principles. If you like, I can present you with an analogy that explains that, even - I'm going to give you an apple. I want you to take it along with this orange, bite into both, and compare the two.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Siuloir

[Alfred Kamon]

First off, after choosing a game mode, we get to see the FE8 cg intro that is in every FE8 hack. That's unfortunate but I ignored it.

I'll obviously change that later.

It's just tedious to replace because it's a bunch of graphics with some nasty TSA.

I'll also replace the "Warning" screen you get at the beginning, and hopefully all the animated intro.

It's a lot of work I just couldn't do that in time for the first release.

I just posted my Shatterlight vid two days ago for their chapter one, where I criticized their also-bad wall of text intro. However, the Midnight Sun into is in fact even worse. Not only is it this weird... recap wall of text... but it also breaks the third wall and simultaneously acts like a Dragon Ball Z "previous episode recap" thing. It's just bad. Cutting out the entire bit and replacing it with some dialogue from the main character and company that explains the world in a more fluid way would be preferable.

Unfortunately FE8 world map events can't be hacked (as far as I know), so I just had to follow the original events of vanilla FE8. All I could change were dialogues and mugs.

So if you're blaming my world map prologue for being too long, you're automatically blaming the one in vanilla FE8 too-- it's exactly the same.

I do agree with you on the narrator though, it breaks the 3rd wall only in the prologue event, and it could be changed into something more professional and appropriated.

After this, the player is greeted by...

[spoiler=...]

93zeP.png

Loling here. Queen Moonie? Really? Not only is that a hilariously terrible name, but when I think of Moonie I think of the goddamn moonies. Anyone who knows anything about history and has even faintly heard of them will think of them, and while it was probably unintentional, it does a bad job establishing any kind of serious plot. I can't take a plot seriously when the very first character we meet has such a silly name.

...I don't see anything wrong with that name.

It's the nickname I used to give to a dear friend of mine that for various reasons I can't see anymore. She was the one who created Phoebe and Rya, and I used to call her Moonie.

I'm sorry if that sounds weird in English.

But again, it's full of names that sound weird in other languages.

"Lucina" means "Little Light" in Italian. << Oh hey Little Light, how are you?>>

"Tiamo" means "I love you". << Hello, I love you... >> <<R-Really!?>> <<To be honest, I was just greeting you...>>

But hell, I know those are their names and they're not supposed to sound funny in other languages so I accept them.

I'm afraid you're just not as open minded to realise that I didn't call her Moonie because I'm an idiot with a knack for stupid jokes, but because that name is important to me.

Also, I'm ignoring the placeholder mug, but the fact that it IS a placeholder mug means that to a first-time player, you look like you're renaming an FE8 character to a silly name. This is lended credence by the images I posted in the first spoiler, where this is supposed to be an "alternate" FE8. That makes it seem like these aren't placeholder mugs, and that these are alternate characters in an alternate timeline. Do you see how ridiculous that sounds?

I don't, and I think 95% of those who played the hack don't see placeholder mugs as a problem either.

Also, there's no alternative to placeholder mugs.

Shitty splices, maybe? That's not a possibility. I'll just wait for Regina to make those FC mugs, that's not a problem.

I think you're pretending a little bit too much from a first release.

I like this guy a lot. Good mug, looks like he's an intimidating villain.

I'm glad you like him. He will be a very important character in the next release.

Fa? Really? I tried to ignore Moonie originally when I played this because the name was so absurd that I was sure you'd never heard of the moonies before. Then I hear her called Fa, as in that one really important character in FE6 who was a main plot point. Not gonna go into this further, since I've already stated my intense dislike of Faratrass as a name earlier in the thread, but if you're gonna chop the name down to a nickname, "Fara" would be better here. That's all I'm gonna say on that point.

....That doesn't make any sense.

You're basically saying that I can't name my OC that way because that name was already used by another character in FE?

Also, I like "Fa". I've been calling her Fa in my stories for years, even before I even knew there was a Fa in FE6, and I won't change that because *you* don't like it. Fair enough? =)

Also, Fara is quite the whiny annoying little protagonist. I feel no empathy towards her as a character, at least not in the prologue.

I'm sorry I wasn't able to give her a full character development in the PROLOGUE.

Did this story idea come to mind right after watching a Naruto marathon? The similarities are too great to be coincidence. (Also, "Hoikade" sounds an awful lot like "Hokage", just saying.)

So you're saying that the whole demon possession business was invented by Masashi Kishimoto. Okay.

...Even vanilla FE8 has some demon possession in it.

...And another billion stories.

Also. "Hoikade" means "At home" in Ancient Greek. =)

Two things.

1. Is this "The Price is Right"? LADY FARATRASS, COME ON DOOOOWN!

2. I've showed that screenshot to 4 people who don't play fire emblem, and all of them thought it said Fartass until I showed them a screenshot of her name later on. The red text makes it even harder to tell the difference. If Moonie didn't make someone stop taking the plot seriously, Fartass will.

That's just offensive and nonsensical.

I can't read that as constructive criticism.

93Azb.png

#Narutoangst

???

I will give you some credit though. I love the soundtrack. The maps are good. The gameplay is challenging in a good way.

Thanks.

Too bad you didn't play 95% of the game.

It actually gets even better.

Thanks for reading.

Thanks for speaking out loud your thoughts.

While I do agree with you on the narrator bit, all the rest seems just like a lot of subjective, moody opinions rather than objective, constructive criticism.

I will improve the first few lines of the intro as you suggested, but I reject all the other "critiques" you offered.

Should you give the hack a second chance, I hope you enjoy it.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Alfred Kamon

[Tryhard]

you broke the website oh god

[Book of Ereshkigal]

Whoa, I think your reply broke the forum somewhat, like the post and sig are going into the Avatar column on the left. It's really weird

EDIT: Holy crap, my post is now in the middle of your post

Edited May 27, 2014 by L95

[Alfred Kamon]

Man, serenes sucks at times. Let me see if I can fix that post lel

[ghast]

owned so hard the forum can't even take it

Edited May 27, 2014 by XxXPierogiMaztR3pleXxX

[Alfred Kamon]

Fixed! I should make a tut on how to hack serenes

[Ancora]

Wait, it's not Fa. It's Faratrass ^^ Fa's just a shortened version of the name :)

I'll join in this parade?

[spoiler=Characters :D]

There was no mistake in putting Menmus first. As far as I know, he is the main character of my story >.< (He's a boss)

Oh wait...

Third playthrough :O I've been on this too long

Edited May 27, 2014 by Ancora

[fuzz94]

It should be "saved lives."

s'all I gotta say other than, this is really well done! keep up the good work dude.

[DodgeDusk]

[spoiler=Potential typo in chapter 4]I say potential as I read stupidly fast, so it might not be a typo and I might've just read the dialogue preceding it wrong, but it looks like one. I'd provide a picture, but I already went to the next text box before the mistake registered

During the conversation with Garion and Djambo at the ending Djambo says something among the lines of following Garion's decision, and Garion says, "... I understood," or something very similar. I'm pretty sure it's meant to be understand, not understood

Besides that, I'm really enjoying this hack so far. Kudos, Alfred

[Wayward Winds]

That's confirmed. Text ID 0x0978 Alfred.

Also, the FE6 character is Fae by the official translation. Which is quibbling I know, but if we muck around to that extent, we'll run out of names we can use.

[mmKALLL]

The typos and structure mistakes are numerous but for 99,99% of the script pretty much unnoticeable regarding normal play. The stylistic choices in the writing were very, very, well executed though, especially speech patterns.

Edited May 27, 2014 by mmKALLL

[Alfred Kamon]

Oh wow, Chapter 5 was just stupid..

How should the player know that only fliers can get the croissant? I spent an eternity trying to figure out how to get Faratrass to Seize even though she can't move after dropping, and was confused when the shop didn't open at all and stuff.... That's just mean .-.

A very interesting chapter with a very different objective, although I'd imagine that this one will divide opinions..

[spoiler=stupid chapter 5!]Hm yeah, I should make that crystal clear somehow...

I didn't close the shop for everybody but fliers because I wanted to create some nonsensical extra difficulty (that's a really stupid way of making puzzles more difficult) but because it was the only way I could manage to create some proper events with the hungry kid. Otherwise, you could get the croissant with any character and activate the event with a completely different character. That'd have been weird.

Having two characters activate the event make it all possible to tell the game to recognise what character activated it-- and I just chose the fliers because they are the ones who are supposed to be used the most in that occasion (why on Earth did you visit that house with somebody else to begin with? XD)

sorry for the long and technical explanation

Anyway you have a point. I'll just have the crone say something along the lines of "Ho ho ho, I think that [Red]people that enjoy flying[Red] will be quite lucky today..."

Started a new file, and I must say, Agile Hasta makes Menmus so much stronger than without it.

(Y) Yeah!

Wait, it's not Fa. It's Faratrass ^^ Fa's just a shortened version of the name :)

I'll join in this parade?

[spoiler=Characters :D]

There was no mistake in putting Menmus first. As far as I know, he is the main character of my story >.< (He's a boss)

Oh wait...

Third playthrough :O I've been on this too long

Holy cow man, you've just won everything.

[spoiler=Huge spoilers on demo end]Ahahaha you TOTALLY benched Hellios! Just look at that, he didn't even battle ONCE!

Ahahahaha!! And those stats?? Those levels!? Absolutely amazing!

Thank you for liking my hack that much, Ancora! ^^

It should be "saved lives."

s'all I gotta say other than, this is really well done! keep up the good work dude.

Oh wow. Thanks for that, fuzz. =)

And I'm glad you like it.

[spoiler=Potential typo in chapter 4]I say potential as I read stupidly fast, so it might not be a typo and I might've just read the dialogue preceding it wrong, but it looks like one. I'd provide a picture, but I already went to the next text box before the mistake registered

During the conversation with Garion and Djambo at the ending Djambo says something among the lines of following Garion's decision, and Garion says, "... I understood," or something very similar. I'm pretty sure it's meant to be understand, not understood

Besides that, I'm really enjoying this hack so far. Kudos, Alfred

[spoiler=chapter 4 ending]Yeah, he does say "understood":

[ToggleMouthMove][A][OpenEyes][MoveMidRight]Okay, okay!

I understood.[.][A]

Huh, is that wrong?

I'll fix it asap then, thanks man! ;)

Thankies

That's confirmed. Text ID 0x0978 Alfred.

Thanks, my friend. :)

The typos and structure mistakes are numerous but for 99,99% of the script pretty much unnoticeable regarding normal play. The stylistic choices in the writing were very, very, well executed though, especially speech patterns.

I'm glad you've appreciated the writing so far. =)

[Crimson Red]

Well congrats man, you've just earned my deepest respect.

Because of crazy courageous heroes like you, I'll add an Elixir to Saai's inventory.

I think he didn't need that. Now I know I was wrong.

lol, I had this same problem

"Cid's unbeatable"

> someone beats Cid

*buffs him*

*makes sure during testing to try to beat Cid, still can't beat him*

> someone still beats Cid

you've got to really lay down the hammer XD

#Narutoangst

I made this same joke in my LP

@Supports, I hear that they will be added later but currently are not integrated (and there are no support points being raised or anything in the mean time, so sitting characters next to each other probably won't do you much good)

I should make a tut on how to hack serenes

I approve

[mmKALLL]

[spoiler=stupid chapter 5!]Hm yeah, I should make that crystal clear somehow...

I didn't close the shop for everybody but fliers because I wanted to create some nonsensical extra difficulty (that's a really stupid way of making puzzles more difficult) but because it was the only way I could manage to create some proper events with the hungry kid. Otherwise, you could get the croissant with any character and activate the event with a completely different character. That'd have been weird.

Having two characters activate the event make it all possible to tell the game to recognise what character activated it-- and I just chose the fliers because they are the ones who are supposed to be used the most in that occasion (why on Earth did you visit that house with somebody else to begin with? XD)

sorry for the long and technical explanation

Anyway you have a point. I'll just have the crone say something along the lines of "Ho ho ho, I think that [Red]people that enjoy flying[Red] will be quite lucky today..."

[spoiler=Because..]Sorry, I can't remember names this late in the evening anymore.. Anyway, I got the wyvern rider killed earlier on (SHAME ON ME), which meant I was left with Fa and her bro to take the mission up. Since Schwarz and bro were able to rescue each other, I figured that I should just make my way on top with them while lugging Fa with them and get all the villages by using canto movement. However, on the top level I went right with bro and left with Schwarz, which left me confounded.

On turn 28 or so, I figured out that yay I can get the croissant now (and it didn't even occur to me that the requirement was doing it as Schwarz instead of waiting), but was immensely confused as it didn't appear as an item and didn't think an event could be used for that (since it would be counterintuitive) - the reason why I didn't try making it back at all, though, was that I recalled reading something about getting it after a suspend not working so I was like "ok, this didn't work out, let's forget about the whole croissant since it's probably just the access to the gaiden or something."

Needless to say, two hours later I was immensely frustrated and found your video about it (which didn't pop up immediately from Google for me, either). Now I understand it a lot better since Memnus (typo'd?) shouldn't be dead by this point and would be an obvious pick otherwise if he was ever recruited, but.. Still ;__;

By the way, is it stressful to answer all these questions for hours every day?

Edited May 27, 2014 by mmKALLL

[tuvarkz]

[spoiler=Because..]Sorry, I can't remember names this late in the evening anymore.. Anyway, I got the wyvern rider killed earlier on (SHAME ON ME), which meant I was left with Fa and her bro to take the mission up. Since Schwarz and bro were able to rescue each other, I figured that I should just make my way on top with them while lugging Fa with them and get all the villages by using canto movement. However, on the top level I went right with bro and left with Schwarz, which left me confounded.

On turn 28 or so, I figured out that yay I can get the croissant now (and it didn't even occur to me that the requirement was doing it as Schwarz instead of waiting), but was immensely confused as it didn't appear as an item and didn't think an event could be used for that (since it would be counterintuitive) - the reason why I didn't try making it back at all, though, was that I recalled reading something about getting it after a suspend not working so I was like "ok, this didn't work out, let's forget about the whole croissant since it's probably just the access to the gaiden or something."

Needless to say, two hours later I was immensely frustrated and found your video about it (which didn't pop up immediately from Google for me, either). Now I understand it a lot better since Memnus (typo'd?) shouldn't be dead by this point and would be an obvious pick otherwise if he was ever recruited, but.. Still ;__;

By the way, is it stressful to answer all these questions for hours every day?

You can do it with only Schwarz. Only difference is that you can only get the Bow; and will take 29 turns with no houses visited, 30 bow house visited iirc

[Shugey]

Well, I blitzed through this in a day, I'm nearing the end, and apparently I'm experiencing this semi-common bug.

That's a problem.

So far so good, going to save a big text dump until I actually finish. That being said, I'm very impressed by what you have so far.

EDIT: Also, I'm playing on Difficult Mode.

Edited May 27, 2014 by Shugey

[Alastor15243]

Hey, I really want to play this, but I have a mac, and I'm having serious trouble finding patching utilities for UPS files that are mac compatible. Am I out of luck?