Castle Paradox

[Newbie_Power]

[Onlyoneinall]

[msw188]

Hmm. The more you describe what you like about PS2, Rya, the more I am inclined to suggest Dragon Warriors 3 and 4 to you. Both were for the NES. I'd also suggest my games, although only Tales I is complete and there is not much gameplay in Tales II yet. Both feature exactly the kinds of items you are talking about (an item to warp the player back to the entrance to a dungeon, and an item to warp the player back to the last town where they saved). Plus, I implement the Dragon Warrior death system which is also exactly like what you described (dying takes you back to town, but you retain your EXP and items from your trek through the dungeon, although you lose half of your currency).
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My first completed OHR game, Tales of the New World:
http://castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=161

This website link is for my funk/rock band, Euphonic Brew:
www.euphonicbrew.com

[Newbie_Power]

I haven't played Dragon Warrior 3, but I would suggest Dragon Warrior 4 as well. It just works right in all of the areas suitable for a classic RPG, while not being overly annoying.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Newbie_Power]

Star Ocean 3 is the most cleverly disguised dungeon crawler in the world. I love it.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Rya.Reisender]

@Onlyoneinall
Oh, I forgot to mention that I was talking about the school in Bloodlust. That moving boxes thingy just reminded me that I never figure out that puzzle.

@msw188
You really make me want to play your game now. :-)
Also a shame that I started with the Dragon Warrior series too late? Or maybe too early, I better wait for a 3x exp remake.
So the first part of your game is a completely finished story?
By the way I dislike the "lose half of your money" thing in Dragon Warrior, it makes the whole feature completely pointless. I rather press reset instead of giving up half my money in most cases. Especially because the equips in Dragon Warrior are darn expensive. >_>

@Newbie_Power
Now that you mention it, Star Ocean 3 indeed had some good dungeons, but they varied a lot. Some were really linear with just some hidden rooms. Others had stupid switch puzzles. But some were really good. I usually didn't like that they were so extremely dark, though. You never really played Star Ocean 3 on the screen, you just used the map all the time... also I have painful memories of trying to get 100% map in all dungeons and field maps.
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Newbie_Power]

[Rya.Reisender]

Don't bother with Sphere 211, it's just randomly created anyways. Better is Cave of Trials. :-)

Yeah Tripling Exp can break some games but it didn't break Final Fantasy 1 and I was kind of referring to that Remake when saying 3x EXP. :p
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Newbie_Power]

[Rya.Reisender]

Well I played the PS1 version with 3x EXP and 2x GOLD and enjoyed the game a lot (I haven't played the original so I'm not influenced by it), so I think that did the job well.
_________________
Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Newbie_Power]

I can't stop you from enjoying that (unfortunately, hopefully people won't give a care that you beat it on 3x EXP mode or you enjoyed the game like that), but I refuse to tolerate changing a game permanently and catering to inexperienced gamers and alienating old school, more skilled and patient gamers.
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TheGiz> Am I the only one who likes to imagine that Elijah Wood's character in Back to the Future 2, the kid at the Wild Gunman machine in the Cafe 80's, is some future descendant of the AVGN?

[Rya.Reisender]

Increasing the exp rate doesn't really make the game easier, it just removes the grinding.

Also, someone recorded his complete Phantasy Star II playthrough, so if anyone's interested to see the dungeon design look for a good part on youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VW9KDn9sFCo&NR=1
_________________
Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)

[Newbie_Power]

[msw188]

Newbie Power:
If you enjoy 'old-school' RPGs with little to no active plot, you really must give Dragon Warrior III a go. Levelling takes a little time, but the overall battle and dungeon balance is, in my mind, second only to Dragon Warrior IV. It doesn't always feel as 'magical' as some of the other DW games (in fact I'd say that it is the one game in the series that seems to add up to less than the sum of its parts, although I can't decide why), but it is quite a satisfying game in the end.

Rya:
Yes, Tales I is a completed game and completed storyline. It is my first ever OHR game, so there are a handful of small flaws (I had never drawn any kind of pixel art when I started, and I've still never taken any kind of visual art class since middle school, now over a decade ago). It is very long, but I think it is satisfying to complete.

PS: The music is almost entirely original - the few songs that were 'stolen' were still arranged by me (by ear alone). I have received several compliments on the music, but don't forget that most of it (everything early on) was made with Notate!
_________________
My first completed OHR game, Tales of the New World:
http://castleparadox.com/gamelist-display.php?game=161

This website link is for my funk/rock band, Euphonic Brew:
www.euphonicbrew.com

[Rya.Reisender]

Okay I gave Tales I a try now. The bad graphics indeed spoil the fun a bit and I'm more into 'trance' music than classic, but well... I didn't expect much more and for a 'first game' both graphics and music are actually better than mine. I played up to the Dwarf chapter, there I encountered a bug that it tells me unlimited times that something nameless levels up and I couldn't figure out how to go around that, oh well.

Back to the point, the dungeons. Although I can notice some maze-like design, the dungeons are way too small to put up a challenge. Also the only one-tile big walls don't really help because I can look so far that I already see half of the dungeon, so most dead-ends are getting pointless. The encounter rate is really high, though. I'd wish you had at least doubled the size of the dungeons and in exchange halved the encounter rate. Also, the "If you go down / up, you'll stay at the same coordinates" is not always given in your game. It works in the tower, but for example tower -> cave and cave -> tower seems to be all random. I like how you have to go some stairs down again to reach the treasure chest, but again, the dungeon is small that I already knew the exact path I have to go down to get the treasure chest because I saw it all when going up already...
But the tower is what I liked most so far. The other places like forest and forest cave just seemed random to me and not really 'clever'. Also I have the feeling treasure chests are lacking there...
The dungeon design already gets close to how I'd do it, though. So it's okay. Actually the game made me think "Man this guy should just do the story and the dungeon design and let others do the graphics and music". Being capable to write a long story with all the dialogues all yourself isn't something many people can endure to make a finished game, so I credit that. You really should look at the dungeon of PSII, though. Maybe you can get some good ideas from them to improve your dungeon design even more. :-)

What I like about PSII dungeon is also that they basically take an 'extremly big room' then multiply that room by the number of floors and then put in random obstacle maptiles together to create a maze. This makes the dungeons make way more sense than just creating a maze out of "floor" and "wall". And also it gives the feeling the graphics are quite good with only like 10 different maptiles used per dungeon.
Take Bio Labs as an example: http://www.pscave.com/ps2/dungeons/biosystemslab.shtml
(keep in mind that in PSII you can only see 2 tiles ahead, so even the small dead ends still require you to walk into them, in an OHR where you can see further you need to extend the map more to enable longer dead ends, raising the dungeon size but keeping the encounter rate lower seems most reasonable to me)
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Snippy:
"curt or sharp, esp. in a condescending way" (Oxford American Dictionary)
"fault-finding, snappish, sharp" (Concise Oxford Dictionary, UK)
1. short-tempered, snappish, 2. unduly brief or curt (Merriam-Webster Dictionary)