Castle Paradox

Friend · Joined: 06 Feb 2003 Posts: 235 Location: California

My memory is a bit hazy... but I seem to remember that there's a cave in the forest around cyport area. Scarf should be there. Once you have all the components, go to the cyport blacksmith to get her to fix the sword. She's only there if you helped her earlier in the first town, I think, not sure.
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"I am Collins. From my position in the moon's orbit, I watched Armstrong and Aldrin land and walk on the surface. I was so close to the ground of the moon, and yet I returned without having trod upon it... I am Collins." -Friend

JSH357 · Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 1705

I remember there being an eastern exit to Cyport that I didn't find until after I'd beaten the game once. That's where you find the last part of the sword, if I remember correctly.

Battleblaze · Posted: Fri Jul 14, 2006 1:32 pm Post subject:

Is it me ot has it been a week? Whats up next?
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JSH357 · Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 1705

A) You haven't even added anything to the discussion. Why does it matter to you if we change focus?

B) If we do a new game every week, there will be no games left to discuss pretty shortly.

Camdog · Joined: 08 Aug 2003 Posts: 606

I'd like to keep this pretty informal anyway. If you have thoughts on another game we could do, feel free to post about it.

Personally, I'd like to find some time this weekend to construct the sword of jade, get the good ending, and post my thoughts on that. I'm also hoping we'll still hear something from the people who disliked the game. Fyre also said he was going to post some more about specific points raised in this thread, which I'm interested in hearing as well. Still plenty more to talk about, if you ask me!

Onlyoneinall · **Bug finder** Joined: 16 Jul 2005 Posts: 746

Okay, I beat the game with the Sword of Jade this time. Much better ending as opposed to crap credits and GO GET SWORD JADE! Thanks Friend and JSH.

First off, let's start with the graphics. Wonderful. They are guilty at times of having the "grid" obvious, but the graphics really are done superbly. I can't say there are any flaws, since everything is done well. The staggering amount of enemies surprised me, plenty of variety, I'd bet there were around a thousand different ones. I also like that palette swapping was rarely used (aside from slimes and those mage guys in the desert).

It was also nice to see your hero pictures constantly change throughout. I also found it interesting how as the game progressed, your character's weak and dead pictures are more determined, and less fatigued and defeated looking. It was also funny to find Dogero getting mad more often as the game progressed. Stupid Talvas.

Also commendable is doing the graphics for the four different times of the day. If nothing else, the graphics would truly grab a person into playing the game.

What they may be thrown off by of course, is the beginning difficulty. I actually stopped playing this game the first time around for a month or two because I simply found it too difficult to get into. Eventually, I began to train and then I finally got into it. The game is very difficult in the beginning, but the game levels off and becomes less difficult and more tedious, making sure that you win the battle by keeping your character alive, but not struggling as in the beginning. Getting the maximum benefit from the saludists probably made it a lot easier.

Gameplay was excellent. The jade countdown had me going at Keltan because I spent a lot of time training and I only had about six days left to complete the dungeon - and after I did I found that the jade countdown didn't become extended. Scared me there until I got to Cyport.

I was glad when the jade countdown stopped. At first, I was confused when there was none at the Rohc dungeon. That leads me to get to something that really bugged me. The fact that if you don't get to Dart on time, it's supposed to change the story. I was off by literally three seconds. I was at the stand where the birds were when he descended, before I could reach that last bird. Then he went down. I didn't think it was a big deal, so I saved, only to find out that it's supposed to be a turning point. A major one. There's no way I'm going back through and playing sixteen hours (it took me that long to beat it) to get a better ending, despite its temptation.

Anyway, I liked pretty much everything about the gameplay. The difficulty at the beginning may turn most people off, but like someone has mentioned, once you get into it you won't stop. It was cool how I got Nix to support me in the last battle. I had no idea a fifth valorian existed until I got to the tomb.

As for the story, I think it was fine. At times, I agreed with the game's philosphy, and I was neutral with the whole positive business and the overly negative business. I guess because I didn't have a serious disagreement with the game and found the story and dialouge to be more intelligent than what I normally find, I was fine with it. The characters were well developed, but Mi'la was seriously annoying the shit out of me. I was glad she finally calmed down at the snow mountains.

Music was great. The Aldez theme sort of annoyed me though, I think it would sound better in the original MIDI format if that's what it was created in, and I liked all the battle songs. It fit perfectly. I didn't like so much the theme in the mines, and I found the songs for the final battles to be a bit lacking. It made me just think of Castlevania. The forest pass song is pretty awesome. The main battle theme is always catchy, and the boss theme first played when you fight Lycant is awesome. I hope a soundtrack or something is released, that would be kickin.

Hmm, I think that's about it. As for battle strategies, I tried out having Mi'La use Spdstrike a ton of times and she was fast as hell. I realized that this combined with an Aid++ makes her nearly invincible. She becomes a valorian in that sense, as long as nothing nulls the effect. I liked Dire Rage and Overwhelm. They were often useful techniques, and the Clash series was a staple attack, as well as Johan's Nulvortex and Sunflash. Gauge HP was useful, up until Rift at the final area. Pyrus mostly used Crush+ and a few times, Recover.

I hope I didn't overdo it. I guess I will say more as more people post so I can make this more complete.
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FyreWulff · Posted: Sat Jul 15, 2006 2:15 am Post subject:

Onlyoneinall · **Bug finder** Joined: 16 Jul 2005 Posts: 746

Moogle1 · Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:36 am Post subject:

I started a new game in the last week and was surprised by how easy the game is if you know what you're doing. Perhaps there's not so much a need for difficulty reduction at the beginning of the game as there is for a better tutorial or explanation of the skill system. (In particular, I didn't realize you could raise SP with level up until *well* into my first game.)

By the way, when will the extras CD be released? I would've expected it a long time ago, but here we are...
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FyreWulff · Posted: Mon Jul 17, 2006 6:50 am Post subject:

When I finish writing the Making Of.

which is extremely long.

Some other things need to be worked out.

while i'm talking about that, re: soundtrack CD: although I paid for Jazz Man's tracks, all the other tracks were unsecured. Meaning it's pretty much up to him if he wants to do a soundtrack CD. The Big Update(tm) will make it pretty easy to play the game's music in your favorite media player (since the game will run unlumped, the MIDIs will be out in the open)

Onlyoneinall · **Bug finder** Joined: 16 Jul 2005 Posts: 746

Can't wait for the soundtrack.

I never noticed that Master Dao was Longebane. Took me a little bit to figure it out.

Did it bother anyone that the True Jade animation wasn't as wild or fancy as it could've been for the battle with the purple Gahn? I thought it would have been cooler if it was a little more elaborate.

Game bug? We see a white Talvos instead of Pyrus.
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FyreWulff · Posted: Tue Jul 18, 2006 8:00 am Post subject:

Pyrus likes changing his appearance a lot. He tends to do that in a couple of other places, too.

re: final jade animation: the best was done within the limitations of the OHRRPGCE. At one point we considered a FMV but the game was going to end up so large that it would been too big.

Onlyoneinall · **Bug finder** Joined: 16 Jul 2005 Posts: 746

JSH357 · Joined: 02 Feb 2003 Posts: 1705

I had been meaning to ask about TrueJade(I think?)'s animation too. It closely resembles an attack that I made in one of my old games where the hero would jump into the air, fly across the screen, then land on top of the enemy.

I'm not complaining if it was an inspiration, but I would like to know.

Onlyoneinall · **Bug finder** Joined: 16 Jul 2005 Posts: 746

Hmm, well my Eight Granasties game has a move like that too. The character jumps into the air, attacks the enemy in three different ways, lands on the enemy and then the attack has been executed. I think it would be safe to say that the attack was... inspired?
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http://www.castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=750 Bloodlust Demo 1.00