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Sanctaea Chronicles (SRPG Studio, Fully Playable)


Von Ithipathachai
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27 minutes ago, Ayra said:

By the way, aren't Mend staves kind of priced high comparatively? They have 10 less uses, only heal for 5 points more, but cost like three times more?

I hadn’t actually noticed that, since I mostly stick to Heal staves.  I could either make them less expensive or do some rebalancing to Staves as a whole.

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Currently playing so I'll probably have feedback for more chapters to offer soon, but I just hit a strange bug and since I have the screenshot on hand I figured I'd post it now...

https://imgur.com/a/pTYxQuM

This is Josie with both her Skeleton Keys (30/30 uses) and the Chest key. She doesn't have the Chest command available to her. I first tried with just the Skeleton keys by itself, same thing. However, Carol with the Chest Key was able to open the chest, so it doesn't look like the chest itself was bugged. It looks like there's something wrong with Josie and her Skeleton Keys somehow.

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48 minutes ago, Ayra said:

Currently playing so I'll probably have feedback for more chapters to offer soon, but I just hit a strange bug and since I have the screenshot on hand I figured I'd post it now...

https://imgur.com/a/pTYxQuM

This is Josie with both her Skeleton Keys (30/30 uses) and the Chest key. She doesn't have the Chest command available to her. I first tried with just the Skeleton keys by itself, same thing. However, Carol with the Chest Key was able to open the chest, so it doesn't look like the chest itself was bugged. It looks like there's something wrong with Josie and her Skeleton Keys somehow.

That's very odd.  I'll have to look into that.

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@Ayra

So as it turns out, one of Josie's Skills, Pick, seems to be bugged.  It's supposed to let her open Doors and Chests without keys, but for some reason it disables the Chest command.  After taking it off of her, she was able to open Chests normally with her Skeleton Key.  You should still be able to open Chests with her if you use any keys she has as items.

There don't seem to be any obvious options I selected/forgot to select by mistake, so it may be a problem with the software itself.

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46 minutes ago, DiogoJorge said:

Can I have your permission to use the resources that are located in your Avatar Demo? There are a lot of new classes there that would spare me hours of frustration and work.

Go ahead.  But not all of them are mine, so make sure to use my Staff Roll and update it accordingly.

It should be noted that the Griffon Knight class’s charchips in there are outdated.  Look for the “Beast Knight” ones in JAPANWeb’s custom graphics thing on the Steam Workshop.

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1 hour ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Go ahead.  But not all of them are mine, so make sure to use my Staff Roll and update it accordingly.

It should be noted that the Griffon Knight class’s charchips in there are outdated.  Look for the “Beast Knight” ones in JAPANWeb’s custom graphics thing on the Steam Workshop.

Thank you. I will do that.

EDIT: Where did you find the Knight Lord file? I subscribed to JAPANWeb's files, but none of his projects has them, unless I missed one. I was kind hoping for a female version of that.

Edited by DiogoJorge
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And done!

... good thing I just doubled-checked before posting because else I'd look very silly. On the computer I played on, the "passable forests" and "impassable forests" looked nearly the same color. I found myself throwing my units at deadends constantly (see the horse archer for an example), but looking at my screenshot from this computer it's clearly different... So I'm removing my complaint before placing it.

Chapter 13: It's better than I thought it'd be. I thought the map was wide open: I hadn't realized at first that there was some terrain that could not be traversed. Mind you, it's still not a great map in my opinion, but at least it's not catastrophe-level like I feared. It's slow with absolutely nothing happening (and it's certainly one of the ugliest maps I've ever seen), but figuring out where to use flyers best can get some enjoyment. Also a good map to safely feed some exp to weaker units. Not much to say about this one!

Chapter 14: Pretty decent. Upon seeing the flyers all rush in I was afraid that we'd get a chapter 6 situation where nothing happens past the initial rush, but the reinforcements solved that. I felt they were both fair but still sizeable enough to make a difference. I took the long way around for most units, but I still had turns to spare to get the bonus exp by the end. A bit on the easy side in my opinion, but not really warranting a change due to it.

Chapter 15: ... well, I can't give a fair assessment of this one unfortunately since I "cheated" here. Since this is the last chapter, I figured I'd use all my bonus exp and use all the Merit Crests I had even on units that were about level 15 or 16 and get to experience some advanced classes. The result is that it changed what was probably a very hard chapter into a breeze. My thoughts on the chapter are very good overall, but I can't vouch for the difficulty since Landskenneck (sp?) Ciceria using Troy's Spirit Sword just tore through the bottom right side of the map all by herself and Dolphiné and Bouddica did the same on the bottom left. The thieves were still pretty nasty though: even 20/2 class changed Carol could only handle one side, and only by using an entire stack of Hi-Potions, while Hera and Shaman Rosa managed with quite a bit of difficulty the other side.

The shops being the defense points is pretty neat. I think this seems like a great chapter, but I really can't vouch on it difficulty-wise considering what I did... Visually, the strange buildings are great, but the "dense city" parts on the bottom and top corners looks strange.

 

Overall, I'd say the game is still very good and fun, but I can't say I feel it's getting "better" either, if that makes any sense. Some chapters were fillers of the highest order. Storywise, it feels extremely strange not to have Hera join the main cast in dialog. Dialog-wise, I felt the last chapter was pretty weak. To me it felt like a large drop in quality compared to earlier in the game. The encounter with that new ruler was basically:

"Hey, we need you to declare war on the rest of the continent."

"Hmm... No, I don't think that'd be wise. We're invincible after all, with a super strong navy."

"What? How dare you not declare war on our behalf, us people you know nothing about?

"Oh! The enemy just got through our invincible navy and instantly launched a massive attack right at the heart of our capital. We're doomed! Save us and we'll do anything!"

I realize the king is supposed to be spineless and incompetent, but Carol's request to declare war on every other nation feels extremely silly. The whole exchange felt extremely unrealistic and super simplified, something more akin what you'd find in children tales. Too simple and basic compared to what we've seen before, which is unfortunate considering it's one of the critical parts of the story. I feel this game's writing is decently strong on the whole and in particular I enjoyed when Cato was being split between giving over the reign or holding on thinking his plans had the best chance to save his people, but I have to give a big thumbs down on the final chapter. Carol is a nobody in court; very few people know she's the legitimate ruler.

On the other hand, Bouddica is the princess of her land and her father was slaughtered by Cato at the negotiation grounds and herself captured. She's by rights the queen, but her lands were conquered by Rema. Hera is a legitimate princess of her land, in the middle of a civil war. The king has probably met them both before, and they have actual political ground and good arguments to request assistance (was Carol's legitimacy even mentioned to the king?).

When I stopped at chapter 6, I was looking forward to play more. When I played up to chapter 12, I thought it was great. When I finished final chapter 15 here, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Sorry about complaining about what is a massive labor of love but since you asked for feedback I figured I should be honest.

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1 hour ago, Ayra said:

Chapter 14: Pretty decent. Upon seeing the flyers all rush in I was afraid that we'd get a chapter 6 situation where nothing happens past the initial rush, but the reinforcements solved that. I felt they were both fair but still sizeable enough to make a difference. I took the long way around for most units, but I still had turns to spare to get the bonus exp by the end. A bit on the easy side in my opinion, but not really warranting a change due to it.

...

Overall, I'd say the game is still very good and fun, but I can't say I feel it's getting "better" either, if that makes any sense. Some chapters were fillers of the highest order. Storywise, it feels extremely strange not to have Hera join the main cast in dialog. Dialog-wise, I felt the last chapter was pretty weak. To me it felt like a large drop in quality compared to earlier in the game. The encounter with that new ruler was basically:

"Hey, we need you to declare war on the rest of the continent."

"Hmm... No, I don't think that'd be wise. We're invincible after all, with a super strong navy."

"What? How dare you not declare war on our behalf, us people you know nothing about?

"Oh! The enemy just got through our invincible navy and instantly launched a massive attack right at the heart of our capital. We're doomed! Save us and we'll do anything!"

I realize the king is supposed to be spineless and incompetent, but Carol's request to declare war on every other nation feels extremely silly. The whole exchange felt extremely unrealistic and super simplified, something more akin what you'd find in children tales. Too simple and basic compared to what we've seen before, which is unfortunate considering it's one of the critical parts of the story. I feel this game's writing is decently strong on the whole and in particular I enjoyed when Cato was being split between giving over the reign or holding on thinking his plans had the best chance to save his people, but I have to give a big thumbs down on the final chapter. Carol is a nobody in court; very few people know she's the legitimate ruler.

On the other hand, Bouddica is the princess of her land and her father was slaughtered by Cato at the negotiation grounds and herself captured. She's by rights the queen, but her lands were conquered by Rema. Hera is a legitimate princess of her land, in the middle of a civil war. The king has probably met them both before, and they have actual political ground and good arguments to request assistance (was Carol's legitimacy even mentioned to the king?).

When I stopped at chapter 6, I was looking forward to play more. When I played up to chapter 12, I thought it was great. When I finished final chapter 15 here, I couldn't help but feel disappointed. Sorry about complaining about what is a massive labor of love but since you asked for feedback I figured I should be honest.

How were the two bosses of Chapter 14?  Were they too hard?  I often have a bit of trouble with them because of how hard they can hit.  I'm usually able to Mute them with my Staff users, but this also gives them higher Avoid because they're essentially unarmed and not weighed down by anything.

I had avoided giving Hera and Boudicca too much spotlight because there's going to be a route split at the end of v3.0's chapters where you can either accompany Boudicca to liberate Tirna or accompany Hera to liberate Feniz; each princess plays a major role in their respective route.  But maybe the opening of Chapter 15 would benefit from their presence and input.

Actually, I doubt that Zheng would be able to recognize Hera and Boudicca.  He'd be more likely to recognize Duncan and Suleiman as fellow kings, but Duncan is dead and Suleiman is an antagonist.  My idea is that every kingdom has a God's Medallion like the one in Carol's possession (back when the game used the Fire Emblem name, these were Emblems for the elements of Fire (for Rema), Water (for Xanadu), Earth (for Feniz), Wind (for Tirna), and Light (for Ferenca)).  If the royals in Carol's army had these medallions on them, they could all prove their legitimacy.  But I would have to figure out how each one managed to get a hold of theirs.

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The bosses were not much of an issue for me. Like absolutely everything else, Cami simply one-rounded the death-using witch. The witch would only have dealt 5 damage to her, so even with a crit Cami would have easily survived (the witch missed). Cami was around level 16 unpromoted at the time with no stat boosters used on her.

The "nosterafu light witch" took a bit more work, but it was a low-risk affair. I shot her with Ashaki at three range for low damage (she has arrow guard) then hit-and-run with Bouddica (missed one attack and the witch hit so there wasn't too much progress done there). Healed Bouddica and repeated next turn, which worked this time. Ciceria would have been in reach to finish it this time though if it had failed again. Pretty sure just throwing Cami at her would have worked just fine though; she got there barely too late for that. It's plausible the witch could have survived a round of combat against Cami (mayyybe; she'd have been the first character to do so) but I'm pretty sure Cami would have 1-1 her handily anyway.

I thought maybe there would have been gatherings and meetings where the kings would have brought their heirs so it would have been pretty plausible for Zheng to know them, but you certainly know your world a lot better than I do :) If Bouddica and Hera actually have story chapters later on, I think adding them to the chapter 15 intro could be a good idea to "keep them in the loop" anyhow, so I think it'd be an even better idea to do so.

 

Edited by Ayra
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As to how each of the other royals could have their respective Medallions in their possession:

(Note:  Each Medallion has an enchantment that prevents anyone not of its god's chosen bloodline from touching it normally.  Iopter's Medallion, for example, burns people.)

Boudicca's case is pretty easy.  Duncan probably would've been confident enough to wear Nuada's Medallion into battle at the time of his death, and since nobody can really handle it other than Tirnan royalty, Cato would've had no choice but to let Boudicca keep it while she was to be imprisoned in Lancaster.

Hera's case is much more difficult.  Suleiman is not dead, so he'd probably be flaunting Aaliyah's Medallion regularly and it would be impossible for anyone other than Hera to steal.  Figuring out a plausible way for Hera to take the Medallion from her father would likely necessitate a significant rewrite somewhere.

Edited by Von Ithipathachai
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Well, you could also have them not have their medallion, as per your original plan. Boudicca and Hera could claim their position, and Zheng just scoffs them of because they don't have proof. That'd keep things the most similar to how they are right now, but still make the diplomatic scene a bit more believable.

By the way, for some reasons the bosses of chapter 13 and 14 only gave one single experience points upon their defeat. I have no ideas why that was the case, but it felt very strange. After the chapter 13 boss I thought that this was maybe because she joined you, but the two witches from chapter 14 certainly don't.

Speaking of the chapter 13 boss (Hippolyta I think?), she felt pretty mediocre as a unit when I deployed her on chapter 15. I'm used to berzerkers being able to at least take down units, but she's too slow to double the enemies there; a berzerker that can't kill stuff isn't too great. Compare her stats to Hera: Hera joins earlier, is lower level, has higher stats in most things, and she flies which is huge considering how flier-friendly this game is, especially since they can canto. Except for weapon exp, most of my high level but still unpromoted units would probably beat her 1vs1 actually. 

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1 hour ago, Ayra said:

By the way, for some reasons the bosses of chapter 13 and 14 only gave one single experience points upon their defeat. I have no ideas why that was the case, but it felt very strange. After the chapter 13 boss I thought that this was maybe because she joined you, but the two witches from chapter 14 certainly don't.

Speaking of the chapter 13 boss (Hippolyta I think?), she felt pretty mediocre as a unit when I deployed her on chapter 15. I'm used to berzerkers being able to at least take down units, but she's too slow to double the enemies there; a berzerker that can't kill stuff isn't too great. Compare her stats to Hera: Hera joins earlier, is lower level, has higher stats in most things, and she flies which is huge considering how flier-friendly this game is, especially since they can canto. Except for weapon exp, most of my high level but still unpromoted units would probably beat her 1vs1 actually. 

The low EXP from defeating promoted bosses is an issue with how EXP gain works that is noted in the changelog in the OP.  The next version (v2.1) should fix it.

Hippolyta's stats are kind of low because her playable and boss appearances are supposed to have identical stats, like Dougall and Boudicca's.  Any stat gains the playable version gets have to go to the boss version as well.  I think I could afford to give her a few more points of Skl and Spd, though.  What kind of weapons did you give her?

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2 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

The low EXP from defeating promoted bosses is an issue with how EXP gain works that is noted in the changelog in the OP.  The next version (v2.1) should fix it.

Hippolyta's stats are kind of low because her playable and boss appearances are supposed to have identical stats, like Dougall and Boudicca's.  Any stat gains the playable version gets have to go to the boss version as well.  I think I could afford to give her a few more points of Skl and Spd, though.  What kind of weapons did you give her?

Ah, I recalled reading something about an issue about experience gain for high level unpromoted units, but I forget / didn't notice that it was only for killing promoted units and thought that it was just too low gains in general (I didn't find that to be the case though). I thought it might have been something to do with their boss status too, but the minibosses gave me plenty of experience... but I beat them with now promoted units so it all makes sense. Good to know that it's going to be fixed eventually!

I think I just kept her with her default hand axe and silver axe. Now that you mention it, that might be part of the issue. I'm used to silver weapons being light and not an issue regarding weight in Fire Emblem in general, but this game gives a straight speed penalty and I didn't even check how heavy that axe was. I normally would have, but I admit I kind of winged it for the last chapter, and I didn't use her in chapter 14 (I added Hera instead with the additional deployment slot you get there).

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29 minutes ago, Ayra said:

I think I just kept her with her default hand axe and silver axe. Now that you mention it, that might be part of the issue. I'm used to silver weapons being light and not an issue regarding weight in Fire Emblem in general, but this game gives a straight speed penalty and I didn't even check how heavy that axe was. I normally would have, but I admit I kind of winged it for the last chapter, and I didn't use her in chapter 14 (I added Hera instead with the additional deployment slot you get there).

My balancing scheme for weapons has Silver being right in between Iron and Steel in terms of weight.  For example, an Iron Axe has 5 Wt, a Steel Axe has 7 Wt, and a Silver Axe has 6 Wt.  Hippolyta (and really most Axe users) would probably benefit from having a Petite or Mythril Axe on them to maximize their AS.  (Sterling Axes aren't obtainable yet.)

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  • 4 weeks later...

Whoa, even the generics are getting full artwork? They seriously look good enough to be main characters. The generic myrmidons aren't the brightest folks around it seems! "Oops, that's the sixth time I get a deep cut on my arm... maybe I should get some armored sleeves? Nahhh..."

I said it before, but I adore the upcoming art for those characters. It's vibrant, colorful and it looks great. In all honesty I much prefer it over the Three Houses designs... Huge thumbs up for me regarding those.

The one single "complaint" I have is that Petricia's bottom right and the column 2 row 2 portraits looks strange at that size. Maybe they look great at normal size (I can't say; I haven't seen them), but at this tiny size they look a bit off to me (but then, Fates Charlotte's berzerk portrait would too, so it might be intentional).

 

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3 minutes ago, Ayra said:

Whoa, even the generics are getting full artwork? They seriously look good enough to be main characters. The generic myrmidons aren't the brightest folks around it seems! "Oops, that's the sixth time I get a deep cut on my arm... maybe I should get some armored sleeves? Nahhh..."

I said it before, but I adore the upcoming art for those characters. It's vibrant, colorful and it looks great. In all honesty I much prefer it over the Three Houses designs... Huge thumbs up for me regarding those.

The one single "complaint" I have is that Petricia's bottom right and the column 2 row 2 portraits looks strange at that size. Maybe they look great at normal size (I can't say; I haven't seen them), but at this tiny size they look a bit off to me (but then, Fates Charlotte's berzerk portrait would too, so it might be intentional).

Generic class portraits for all three affiliations (player, enemy, ally) will be used in cutscenes at some point if not in battle, and especially for the Scout's Report in the Base.  The implication is that Carol's army always has some number of unseen generics accompanying the playable characters as they travel around Sanctaea.

Future releases will still use GBA-style portraits in-game, but there will be a new Extras menu accessible upon starting up the game where you can view the character and class portraits that have been completed so far.  Only when every single one is finished will I start changing the dialogue system to use these new halfbody portraits.  And this probably won't happen until all of the game's content is finished.

Of the 96x96 character expressions, only the default ones (i.e. the faces that the halfbodies have) will be used in the Unit Menu.  The extra 96x96 expressions are really only there to show off different facial expressions in a more compact manner, since otherwise Furan would have to include multiple copies of the same halfbody portrait with only their faces being different and that's a lot of wasted space.

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3 hours ago, Von Ithipathachai said:

Generic class portraits for all three affiliations (player, enemy, ally) will be used in cutscenes at some point if not in battle, and especially for the Scout's Report in the Base.  The implication is that Carol's army always has some number of unseen generics accompanying the playable characters as they travel around Sanctaea.

Future releases will still use GBA-style portraits in-game, but there will be a new Extras menu accessible upon starting up the game where you can view the character and class portraits that have been completed so far.  Only when every single one is finished will I start changing the dialogue system to use these new halfbody portraits.  And this probably won't happen until all of the game's content is finished.

Of the 96x96 character expressions, only the default ones (i.e. the faces that the halfbodies have) will be used in the Unit Menu.  The extra 96x96 expressions are really only there to show off different facial expressions in a more compact manner, since otherwise Furan would have to include multiple copies of the same halfbody portrait with only their faces being different and that's a lot of wasted space.

I fully approve the presence of generics in the story. It certainly makes more sense for them to occasionally show up in cutscenes than the standard "We occasionally talk about them existing but we never see them" that's present in most FE games.

That's a shame regarding the portraits only making it right at the end of the project, but it's perfectly understandable and makes sense from a development standpoint.

I understood why the expressions were displayed that way here; it's just that two of Petricia's expressions looked strange in that size to me and I didn't know if the full-size version of those look fine or not. Based on the quality of the rest of the art, they probably do, so forget I said anything :)

By the way, would it be a good idea to put maybe the lords portraits in the opening post? I assume a lot of people just poke their head in a topic to glance if there's anything that catches their interest. People seeing this nice art might be more interested in actually reading the rest of the description of the project and more likely to download the game and give it a try. That can wait until the project is finished of course (or that the portraits are in-game), but if you want to drum up more interest now it might be worth considering. Someone liking how a character looks is often enough to get them to at least give a game a try.

Edited by Ayra
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3 minutes ago, Ayra said:

By the way, would it be a good idea to put maybe the lords portraits in the opening post? I assume a lot of people just poke their head in a topic to glance if there's anything that catches their interest. People seeing this nice art might be more interested in actually reading the rest of the description of the project and more likely to download the game and give it a try. That can wait until the project is finished of course (or that the portraits are in-game), but if you want to drum up more interest now it might be worth considering. Someone liking how a character looks is often enough to get them to at least give a game a try.

I could do that, but I feel I'd have to wait until the next version that actually has those halfbodies comes out before I put Claudius and Carol's halfbodies in the OP.  Any earlier and I feel I'd be misleading people.

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  • 3 weeks later...

More new portraits, this time for the playable Lancers:

Ciceria_Pres.png?width=728&height=613

Mitch_Pres.png?width=728&height=613

Chester_Pres.png?width=728&height=613

Portrait updates in the forseeable future will consist of a pair of generic class portraits and the playable characters who start in that class.  In this case, the characters to appear in the next update will be the generic Fighters, Elma, and Troy (a pre-promoted Hero who is first seen as a Fighter).

Let me know if these portraits are too big and I'll post the shrunk versions next time.

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I appreciate the big portraits personally; I vote to keep them for future updates.

Ciceria's super pretty! I appreciate the armor design: it's basic and functional, but still has some details to make it looks nice.

Chester breaks the trend of long-haired lancers, shame! :)

If I can give a tiny criticism about something pretty insignificant... Chester's spear tip is probably too short to be very effective. The two prongs are liable not to go in, so the effective blade length of the spear is quite tiny (especially considering that armor is common in this setting). In my opinion, without the prongs it would look fine, OR with the prongs and a longer main blade. It's not an important point of course; it's single just the one thing that seems off to me (which is pretty darn good for three different art!)

By the way... I'm kind of wondering if it would be preferable for me not to post on those portraits post unless I have something actually important to say about them..? I know some people go to the last post in a topic to evaluate if they want to read more of it. Seeing beautiful character art is probably better than a random's fan comment!

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8 minutes ago, Ayra said:

Ciceria's super pretty! I appreciate the armor design: it's basic and functional, but still has some details to make it looks nice.

Chester breaks the trend of long-haired lancers, shame! :)

By the way... I'm kind of wondering if it would be preferable for me not to post on those portraits post unless I have something actually important to say about them..? I know some people go to the last post in a topic to evaluate if they want to read more of it. Seeing beautiful character art is probably better than a random's fan comment!

Ciceria's art has definitely grown on me.  There's this one person on the Discord server who really likes her in particular.

As for Chester, considering he's actually transgender and trying to look more masculine, I thought the short hair would work better for him.

I would think the people who mainly check the last post would also read a few of the ones above it for context.  But if you're still concerned, you can always join the game's Discord server (assuming you haven't already) and leave your feedback there instead.  You can also find more updates (mainly with regards to how many Supports I have left to come up with right now) and people following the game's progress there.  Yesterday I posted a giant wall of text in the #story-ideas channel of ideas I had for a rewrite of the Feniz arc.

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