Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

Well, I've been working steadily, but nothing terribly significant. Or at least, no major steps forward. I found out that RPG Maker XP's sprite style is 50% the size of SoM/SD3's sprite style, so I had to enlarge everything by 200%. Actually, the long story version is that I thought it was 75% and enlarged everything to 150% . . . but then saw it still wasn't looking right and had to enlarge everything again by another 133%. Ugh.

I've worked on that screen I showed last time a bit. I'm probably going to use that tileset for the intro woods, so I'm trying to get used to it until my DoM strategy guide arrives that I ordered online. (I can't start mapping the woods until I have the actual map!) But here's what it all looks like in-game so far:
Image

Since I'm not going to force myself to adhere 100% to the original DoM maps, I guess I could just work on setting up the actual interactive scene with the player chasing Buju and Ritzia in the woods that I've already started designing . . . But first I need some help about something I'm on the fence about:

Should I cut out that whole Spirits-telling-the-story framework? It's atypical of all other Mana games, and the point of this remake is to rework the things that made DoM atypical. I could have the game begin with Ritzia telling Keldric to catch Buju?

What do you lot think?
Last edited by bastian on Sun Mar 07, 2010 6:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
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LunarWisp
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by LunarWisp »

I think you should keep the story scene. I mean, you have some perfectly good sprites of the Spirits in both Secret of Mana and Seiken Densetsu 3 styles, why let them go to waste?

The only bad thing is that we won't get to hear Shade's lovely Dracula voice.
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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

Well, the Spirit sprites are certainly going to be used for when the player meets each Spirit and then when they summon the Spirit to cast a spell.

It's just that no other Mana game is told within the framework of a story. Plus the concept is a little hokey. Gnome is telling the story about how "it all began" to his fellow Spirits--who already know because they were there, too--who help him out telling the story? It just comes off as clumsy and a way to speed through what would otherwise be a longer (and more interesting) cutscene if it just played out instead of being "told" by the Spirits.

But if people think I should keep the story-telling framework, I will. :)

And while I'm at it, I guess I could keep all the voice acting, too.
kirby
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by kirby »

I think you should keep the voice acting, but yeah the way the story was told was a bit hokey...
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DeadWolf
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by DeadWolf »

Voice acting is what I hated about DoM. Take it out and embellish the script. Make it better than DoM
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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

DeadWolf wrote:Voice acting is what I hated about DoM. Take it out and embellish the script. Make it better than DoM
Well, I was on the fence about the voice acting. I personally thought that out of all the voice acting I've heard in videogames it was some of the best (the Spyro games are better, but that's because they have A-list celebs doing them). But it would create a HUGE file for someone to have to download. The music is going to be bad enough.

So . . . yeah, I think I'll take the voice acting out.

I'm still on the fence about the storytelling-framework. I just wish my strategy guide would arrive already so I can start work on mapping and eventing for real. Argh! :P
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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

I've done quite a bit of work on it lately. I grew impatient waiting for the strategy guide to arrive in the mail so decided to map out my own intro forest place. I set up Ritzia to ask Keldy to catch Buju, and I set up Buju to hop around this forest place for a third of it so far. Setting up Buju's movement is difficult, because I have to plot out each of his steps to get him to the tree at the end. Maybe once I have that whole intro thing done I'll release it as a little demo for people to get a feel for what it will be like.

I also cleaned up the title screen a bit. Here's what it now looks like:
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kirby
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by kirby »

It sounds like you have been hard at work, and it looks pretty good so far, but I am not a big critic on videogame series that I like so I am not being as critical as I can.
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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

I'm stuck on something and I need help.

Geography. Even the strategy guide doesn't help out much. I'm not understanding how the various stages fit together.

Specifically Sunbeam Forest (the woods you start the Prologue in) is WHERE exactly, in relation to Mana Village? I get that Mana Village is North of Rolling Knolls and that the Mana Tree is North of that . . . but where is Sunbeam Forest located? The first few scenes of the Prologue show Buju hopping just outside the gate of Mana Village in Rolling Knolls and then when the Prologue starts we're suddenly in Sunbeam Forest . . . but where the bloody heck IS Sunbeam Forest? The cut scene after the Prologue is of no help, because after they hear the golem soldiers it shows Keldy and Ritzia suddenly in Rolling Knolls. So . . . Sunbeam Forest is located off of Rolling Knolls somewhere? Where should I put it?

Help, please!
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by nick912012 »

Man, that screen shot looks really cool. Eldy (which I agree is a far superior name) does look a tad weird, but you've acknowledged that. It does the job though, and I'm really glad your making this.

As for my thoughts on the story, I agree with you that the spirits shouldn't tell it. I'd want to feel like the events are happening in the present as opposed to the past. Their narration just killed a little bit of what I wanted.

As for weapons, Sheexy had a brilliant idea with the Mana Weapons.

This project looks really cool, and if you need help with something, I'll pitch in my efforts (in one month) to the extent of my abilities.
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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

I'm still on the fence with Eldric/Eldy vs. Keldric/Keldy. Maybe I should post a poll?

nick912012: i'd love any help I can get. what can you do? :D

I've got the first part of the Prologue done (I'm not dividing it up like that, though) with Keldric and Ritzia in the Sunbeam Forest and Keldy chasing Buju and getting his Branch weapon and beating up some Mushbooms and finding some treasure chests and finding Buju at the tree where he carved his and Ritzia's initials and then Ritzia does her Eastern philosophy speech about hurting living things is hurting oneself and then . . .

Now I have to figure out how I'm going to do the Golem soldiers. The regular golem enemies from SoM/SD3/SwOM/LoM/CoM are a bit goofy looking to be the scary threat DoM makes them out to be. So I'm thinking about using the Empire soldiers from Sword. I mean, I figure that logically Professor Bomb (or someone) could have built golems and used the Lorimarian (Empire) armor for the casing . . . ? Is that acceptable? Or are there any objections?
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by nick912012 »

If you're using MIDIs, I can work with those decently. If ya find a track, I can edit any instrument if you wanna vary things up. I can compose a bit, too, but my stuff's either hit or miss.

And as for the soldier thing, there's nothing wrong with that as far as I see. I'm sure you can do any plot device ya want as long as you provide justification within the game.
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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

nick912012 wrote:If you're using MIDIs, I can work with those decently.
Most of the music will be the actual soundtrack to Dawn of Mana . . . unless people hate it? I plan on using Hiroki Kikuta stuff where I don't like the arranged Ito stuff (and I'm definitely using "Angel's Fear" for the opening titles). But thanks for the offer! Any other skills? :D
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by nick912012 »

Besides just busy work like recoloring and, to an extent, sprite ripping and editing, nah, I'm a little dry in the arts field.
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bastian
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Re: Dawn of Mana remake. I'm making one. And I need ideas.

Post by bastian »

Well, I can certainly use help with sprites since they're clearly not my forte. For instance I have NO idea what to do about Lekius. Can anyone suggest any already-existing sprites that could look enough like Lekius after being recolored?
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