Nyarth

when neither of your favorite characters, best girls Flora and Erin are on the list ;-; @Norman Guy is right, my friends. Melia and Zetta? Pfft. They’re rip-off blonde’s. Aelita? Nancy? Still dead. Saki? He was alive before she was, making him cooler. Honestly, let’s just replace the whole cast with Thomas. Everyone can become gravel for him to step on.

No... could it be? The one and only... Dr. Jenkel?!

Oops, that was my mistake. I put the spoiler tag around the post, and I’m sorry if I spoiled or inconvenienced someone in any way.

On your Xerneas theory... I have a feeling that the final Pokémon on Melia’s team is going to be a shiny Xerneas .-. Prior to going to GDC, Melia says that she still needs one last team member, and that she doesn’t actively search for them herself, but they come to her instead. It’s a bit of a stretch but I think the addition of any other non-climatic Pokémon would be a really awkward place in the story. I’d much rather have the player get it though... but yeah.

@ArmoredGuardian I got curious and checked Cosmia's sprite. I think you're onto something...

I wonder if it has to do with that Game Over feature...but it's kind of unlikely since that's something that's implemented into RPGMaker already. Maybe it's just more modes or something, like Nuzlocke's and stuff. I would also guess online features too.

@Silver Boy (About the professional help comment) Interestingly enough, Sigmund would actually be perfect for treating Amaria. ECT is used to temporary offset severe depression, which is what Amaria is suffering through.

Oh my gosh, I'm so excited! Thank you so much for anyone who's worked on this release!

I wonder if this field is for Tesla since her Talonflame got nerfed. And don't Strong Winds completely absolve Flying weaknesses too? Yikes. It looks pretty sweet though. And an absolute nightmare as well!

Oh good, this trainer rebalancing will make the random battles a lot more interesting. Hopefully, it’ll mean I’ll stop devoting all my energy to avoiding trainers as much as I can with this. Good update— >>no more jackpot starters >>no more jackpot starters >>no more jackpot starters

To be honest, unless this does anything good for Melia’s character or advances upon Rejuv’s own story, it seems kind of contrived. The MC is a silent protagonist, and it’s very difficult to do show such a relationship when they don’t have set mannerisms to begin with. This kind of makes any affection feel one-sided, since the MC can’t exactly respond. However, it has been established that the MC is their own character in this game. They even get some sort of character development after Blacksteeple, so they have that going for them. If that was expanded upon further in the game and the MC was portrayed with silent as a trait and more humane qualities, then whatever relationship interactions would be more feasible. Also there’s the issue with Melia. Poor Melia. I desperately want her to be a good character. Melia’s issue is that, as literally everyone and their dog has stated, she is very Mary Sue-like. She really has no flaws, and what the game thinks and states as flaws are not expanded upon, and her supposed flaws end up becoming excuses for her actions. Out of all things you can pair up, a silent character and a perfect character are one of the absolute worst. There are multiple reasons for this, and the main being that these leads to no chemistry, which is essential in writing a good relationship. The thing about relationships is that they are supposed to complete each other’s faults and balance them out. In writing, this adds dynamics, and it’s often utilized when creating fluid scenes between the two romancee’s. There lies the problem. Since there is no traits for the MC and no faults for Melia, any scene or drama happening in their relationship would feel extremely pointless. Any interesting dynamics in their relationship would be virtually nonexistent, since both are blank slates interacting with each other. There wouldn’t be any drama since there isn’t any room for any to begin with since neither have complimenting personality. The other main problem is how a relationship like this would leading like. Since the MC cannot talk as a silent protagonist, and Melia is so intertwined in every single plot thread of the game, the MC character would end up just being a coattail to her. She would be the one speaking for them, she would be the one to broadcast the MC’s non-existent emotions. This isn’t even a relationship at that point—that’s just someone dictating their actions. So in the end, it would be really awkward and dysfunctional. And I just made a stupidly lost post about the love life of a player character and the blond NPC, meaning my life cannot possibly sink any lower. I never really answered the question though: Would I want romance in the game between Melia and the MC? My answer... my fanfictions will be canon

These look really nice. Aria and Axel’s change are my favorites. I don’t know though, I kind of prefer Aevia’s old sprite for some reason. It might just be that her hair was a lighter shade of pink that I like more, but it’s not too important. These really do look unique though. I’m excited to see the NB character designs and the time travel outfit change!

Giant spoilers for Desolation but

Pokemon fangames are at their peak right now. There are tons of projects going on at the moment. Some are public, some are private, and some probably haven't been announced yet. But there's a lot happening, and I'm interested on everyone's perspective on what they're doing. Unless you're a super-optimist, there are some lousy sides in making games. Ones you put off doing for a while or try and get them done as quickly as you can, just so you don't have to deal with it. They're your foil, your ultimate weakness, and the death of you. So dramatic stuff aside, what's your least favorite part in the process of working on your fangame? And this doesn't just apply to fangames, but to pretty much any project in general. Scripting? Mapping? Writing a character? If you rant about it enough, you can make everyone else feel your pain! For me it's balancing, or just making Pokemon battles in general. I swear, I'll do anything but balancing. I'll let a blank document with the word TEAMS scrawled on the top sit in front of me for hours, while in the background I watch the Important Videos playlist loop over and over again. I'd rather torment myself with cringy bootleg movies rather than work on battles or distribution. This topic itself is being created right now when I should be making teams fair. I would call myself lazy, but the sheer amount of work I do just so I can get out of balancing the game is depressingly high.

(ʘ‿ʘ) All jokes aside, I always end up resetting my game file whenever a new version sweeps around. Even if there aren't any changes to past events. I can't help it!

Yeah, it might be a bit more of a simpler process in gyms than having a new type of system entirely. Now that I think of it, it might take a bit for the player to get used to it too. I like your thoughts on this though! I think I remember something similar, but it wasn't a fangame. It was a ROM hack, and you played as four different roles in this medieval setting. All I remember is that they switched from ROM hacking to Essentials. The absolute absence of any type of gym-like system was what I was thinking about a lot, and your take is a pretty good example of what I meant!

I actually completely forgot about Phoenix Rising and the spin-off's when creating this topic, shame on me lol Anyway, it's nice to see other's perspective on this. I've been wondering about the story vs. battling stuff for a while now, and which one should be given priority at this point. I never considered the sentimental part of gyms, but it does make sense. I think gyms are awesome, but I've been kind of curious about the other side of the pond without them. Thank you for your input!