It's an RPG, a la the old Dragon Quest games. And you can play it, it should be ready (the beta, of as far as I've gotten in the story) by this weekend.

Yep. The program I use is pretty easy to pick up (it's called RPG Maker VX), but it's really flexible once you get the hang of it. There are sprite and face generators online for custom characters, and a fairly large, productive community that puts out a lot of free resources.

The one Cupcake. Phantom, the lava spider guy, round one. He's easy after that but the first encounter has always been brutal. I nearly killed him the first time around, getting him to one centimeter of life, but after that he seemed to get a lot harder, or I just got really lucky in my first attempt.

I'm stuck on Nelo Angelo round 2 at the moment, since I'm hideously out of pratice with the game and don't have many places to practice. He doesn't seem all that hard, just tedious. I'm more into the run and smash type of boss fight than the run around on tip-toes and smack once and a while type. I get impatient.

@Suzerain, I remember RPGs always being expensive. Aside from that I don't remember much about game prices.

@Quiet, I hardly played Devil May Cry 2 so I don't think I could help, I'm sorry :(

@Cupcake, I'm just hoping I have time to play Suzerain's game :p

Haven't played Devil May Cry 2 either Serra. I was talking about the first one.

There's a transport into hell thing? That's news to me. I just gradually smacked him down, running in circles to avoid the black death skewers that where following me around the room, and climbing on top and smacking his head in when I could. Saw my friend get a lucky hit once. He managed to grab Phantom's side when he jumped, climbed up, and smacked him back down to the floor for big damage. I love non-realistic fighting. :D

Nelo round one was peanuts as long as you had the Stinger ability. Havne't yet figured out how to deal with round two though, apart from not losing patience and doing something dumb.

Oh, well, I DID play all of Devil May Cry 1. When it came out. However many years ago that was >< I just remember the shadow cat things really, and the lava spider of course xD

I know I played that game and fairly far in it, but for the life of me, I cannot remember that first boss you like to recall so fondly, Quiet. You'd he would have stuck out in my memory...

Also, speaking of bosses, they just keep getting harder and harder as I work through my play-test. I finally caved in and made one easier today after wasting two hours trying to kill her.

Suzerain, your bosses sound more Persona inspired all the time ;p Hmm... Lufia inspired story elements as well as tough bosses. xD

When it got to the point that everything went in my favor and I still ended up losing, I decided it was time to tweak some stats downward. Just slightly. :p

Shadow cat thing eviscerated me the first time I fought one. Now I whipe the floor with them. So far no creature I've encountered has required the effort and caused the frustration that Phantom did on round one. Soooo satisfying to smear him across the ground in round four. Ha! By then of course, you have your devil trigger and fancy abilities to go with.

I wouldn't mind playing DMC again. However I think my most enjoyable Dante experience is seeing him in Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne :p Of course that's an RPG and more to my liking but DMC was a fun game regardless.

I wonder if you've played Chaos Leigon?

SMT: Nocturne seemed like such an awesome game, but I always felt too weak in it, despite grinding for hours. Not to mention feeling like I was always missing something... never got very far in it. Gave up shortly after killing Thor, I think.

And, I played Chaos Legion very briefly in high school. A friend thought it was amazing and insisted that we all try it, but I never really got into it.

Haven't heard of either game actually. I like DMC but I am a role play fiend too, hence my hours of time put into Baldur's Gate and the Elder Scrolls games. I not typically big on the Japanese not-quite-chibi style of game so that limits the number of RPGs that tend to catch my interest. There was a copy of a Dragon Quest game for DS in the dumb bin at Walmart the other day. Was leery of it though. They guy on the cover looked like he walked straight out of Dragonball Z.

Shin Megami Tensei isn't really like that. It's cell-shaded, and kind of creepy, honestly.

That's because it's the same artist Quiet. Don't let that fool you, Dragon Quest games are in my top three favorite game series o.o Though actually if you don't want chibi stuff go for the Persona games. They don't kid around when it comes to a serious storyline.

Suzerain's RPG might be chibi-looking... storyline couldn't be any more serious though, or it would bend all the way around to humor.

I don't call Suzerain's game chibi-looking. I call it old school ;).

It does depend on the game too of course, but I like to be happy with what I'm looking at, hence my fondness for Okami even though I pretty much spend the bulk of my time running around. I'm ambivalent about the Final Fantasy games, but I've only actively played 9 and 12 adn tactics A2. Tactics and 9 I liked though not so much 12 even though it's more realistic looking. I didn't mind Breath of Fire 4 really either. I guess it depends as much on environment and such. Suikoden 3 and Wild Arms 3(I think) I was fairly neutral about. There haven't been any that I've encounted that I've been really keen on. Though part of that may also be that I haven't played enough into the games to get involved in the storylines.

Gee, aren't I a mess? Sudden thought to go track down Breath of Fire 4.

Have I mentioned yet how much I like your new Avy, Suzerain?

I don't recall those, but they may have been there anyway seeing as I was making great efforts to avoid nasty black pools given that they tended to go spikey and try and kill me, succeeding more often that not. It didn't help that it was a pain in the neck trying to navigate around the room with pillars and a big lava spider in the way. Got stuck in a corner and skewered more than once.

@Serra, no, you haven't. Why, thank you. :)

@Dolly, no need to apologize. We kind of ramble back and forth in here, anyway. :p

@Quiet, you played all the wrong Final Fantasies! :p Seriously, though, the older ones are great, particularly 4 and 6. Some of the best games I've ever played.

Final Fantasy 1 is still my favorite of the series despite it's simplicity. I still remember my run of a single fighter through the whole game. (I let the other three die and never revived them.) I think Final Fantasy 5 was my second favorite in the series.

They go in descending order in which I played them for me. :p Which would be,

6/4/1/7/5/8/9/10/10-2/2

Tactics isn't on that ranking because I like it more than any of them. :p

Gameboy to Gamecube adapter to the rescue!

Haha, actually I've been thinking of plugging in my Gamecube for that exact purpose lately.

Wii doubles as a game cube. Makes that easy. There are a couple games that are amusing for it. I haven't had a nintendo system since my N64 though, and my sister has that now since I'm not playing it.

I hated the x-box controllers, though that seemed to be a universal issue when the original one came out. My friend described it like playing with a brick. It just didn't work for my hands and made playing games that used any of the side buttons really uncomfortable. Even the triggers were awkward. Sucketh.

I don't mind my DS, but my thumbnail does get in the way of my going right on occasion. Haven't cut my nails in a while. Keeping them around for my sister's wedding later this month.

I only ever used my gamecube for playing GBA games on the big screen. :p

Oh, also, here are some screenshots of my game I finally got around to taking:

You just can't use the Wii to play Game Boy Advance games, as far as I know. I might be wrong :p

And Cupcake, I admit my mind went way dirty when you said you wanted a hard controller in your hands x.x

Edit: Suzerain... -drools- I wanna play ><

Sheol, you're talking in ellipses again. ;)

Sheol used an RPG maker of sorts to my knowledge, but he can fill you in with all that. I like the little pics that accompany dialogue, and it's very nice to have quality ones in any game with dialogue boxes. Makes them less tedious.

And I must away to bed lest, come morning, I am trod upon by mastiff feet for my catatonic stupor.

I don't believe the Wii can play gameboy games, at least not the way the gamecube can, given that the adapter snaps on to the bottom of the gamecube.

And, the art for my game is mostly either the standard art that comes with the maker or recolors of it (which I've somehow managed to teach myself to do halfway decently despite my negative artistic ability). The only custom art is the enemy graphics, which were done by an extremely talented artist who was kind of enough to make them publicly available for use.

Oh, and Quiet, I think this game is my record for ellipses. They crop up everywhere. :p

Anyway, on the older RPG Makers, they didn't have the option to include pics with the dialogue, which meant having to note who was talking in every speech box, which of course led to less words per speech box.... Eventually, I would like to find an artist to do an emotion face set for all my major characters, but that's a concern for polishing the game when it's all done.

I generally think standard pic are fine for all dialogue. Some of the emotion pics look really funny. Some are in my head but I can't recall the game. I want to say Front Mission 3 but I'm, not sure.

I think Front Mission 3 had facial expressions when talking.
-goes to check the box-

Edit: No pictures in the manual with conversation scenes. There's a basic picture of the person on the status screen, in battle, etc. though...

Yeah, I watched my friend play some time ago and haven't seen it in some time. I'm assuming I have the right game. Turn based mech fighting? Sort of tactics-y?