It's been 7 months since my last post! Wowzers. A lot has happened to me, and at the turn of the year i am hopefully nothing gets in the way, moving to Toronto Canada! It's a big moment for me, and has taken up a lot of my time. Still, it's high time i did something for my projects, so lets actually do something!
First up, this is just 3 of a whole slew of new promotional images on the hearts DS page. I didn't actually change anything in the game (yet), it just needed more then literally just 1 crappy image to sell itself to prospective players. In addition, i'm going to be going around and giving each project a bit more polish and love. Nothing major, just some busy work on them all to improve their current states. Up next, i will be hopefully working on redoing all arte descriptions in hearts DS. It's current state has some descriptions still in JP, but more then that, the way i inform people of link arts is extremely inconsistent. This is because of text space issues, but with a new tool, that will be a thing of the past, and we will have much better clarity on link artes. In addition, i'll also maybe play through the game and give it some more quality assurance it needs.
Up next is Tales of Reve Unitia! Unitia has gotten some love, and is now updates from V0.2 to V0.2.8 with some artes being WAY less english (many are still bad), but also with the intro of the story now in 100% English! You can now play the intro chapters in english, story and all. I'll probably circle around to this game again sometime and do more arte updates eventually. I also got links from some nice people to translated social links someone did, and i'll have to try and see if i can get permission to use them to save time.
Keroro has been updated to V0.5.5, and it's a huge upgrade! To start with, almost every tutorial name and description is in english, ALL artes were redone, with fully english names and descriptions. Keroro (Green Frog)'s weapons are in some lazy english i quickly pushed out, and the game now has the first area plot in english! Just like reve unitia, i did a basic into pass for english plot. If anyone out there wants to help show support, or get involved, hit me up! In addition to everything else, i also created a randomizer! It's pretty simple, but i used keroro as a test case in order to prepare for a new project i'm excited to announce. You can set some limitations to make the game harder or easier as well. I actually tried to use Hearts DS as my test case, but it's seemed harder, and keroro was just so easy in how its enemy data was stored.
As for the new project, there is THREE of them! First, there is a unspecified upcoming Tales randomizer in the works! It is for a major console game, and is going to be exciting i hope for some tales fans out there! What i can say is it's NOT Tales of Arise, but i will have to take some time and both play, and crack that games insides open and see how mod-friendly it is. The second project, is another clarity mod, this time for a tales game already in english! I won't spoil what game it is yet, but what i will say is i want to do the same thing for Tales of Xillia. Unfortunately, Xillia seems to be extremely unusual in how it stores information, and if any hackers, or tales fans want to contact me on my discord, or directly to help, my discord id is Dawnbomb#3408
Finally, the third project i AM ready to announce, is a difficulty mod for Fire Emblem Fates! This mod is getting a tiny financial sponsorship, and at this point i should really open my own patron to receive proper support for my projects. Anyway, upcoming is Fire Emblem Fates Lunatic+. Using my knowledge from the keroro randomizer and other things, this difficulty mod will feature enemies that randomize them self every time you enter a chapter. This will prevent players from collaborating on tactics, and only able to provide each other with strategic character builds, but now answers to specific situations. To make it more dastardly, it's being done entirely using in-game code, giving me full control. Unlike awakenings Luna+ mode, a number of changes have been made for a different experience, both difficulty wise, and thematically. First of all, the skill pool chosen is different, geared more towards FE fates and it's puzzle-like stages it presents. Further, changes have been made to game balance specifically for this difficulty mode, characters have had their growths and bases changed, and enemy classes as a whole have been touched. On top of this, The entirety of birthright has has every chapter massively reworked, to increase it's difficulty to be much closer to that of the other routes. It will still be the easiest of the three, but no longer by a landslide. How Lunatic+ itself is implemented has also been changed. By having code access, the mode now applies across all difficulty levels, so if you want to play on 'Hard' Luna+, or 'Normal' Luna+, now you can. This will hopefully support more silly builds and setups, and maybe some crazy youtube videos creators make.
I could have stopped there, but we are going further. In creation of this mod, i have consulted with content creators who have done repeat playthroughs of Awakening Luna+ on youtube, twitch, ect, and reviewed vods from older players who tried streaming back to back Awakening Luna+ Ironman run attempts. Changes have been made to fates to account both for different playstyles, and for aspects generally agreed as undesirable. For example, the shiny tiles giving RNG gear is 'unfair', and top players often destroy this gear. For Fates Luna+. The shops have been changed to include such gear if your willing to pay for it, so its no longer entirely random. For 'serious' players, grinding a dancer is boring, and instead they join at a higher level. In addition, forging weapons has been nurfed, to put a greater emphasis on weapon differences, then on how many times you bought a iron lance. NPCs in maps get buffs, to make working with them easier in the random and ever changing Luna+ landscape. For players unfamiliar with the AI Nuances of Fates, or players who got used to Three Houses Enemy AI preview feature, we also have AI Insights! Replacing enemy personal skills, Simply Tap, Click, or Example where a enemies personal skill would be, and get info on their AI. Now even new players can know what enemies are sleepers who won't move until you enter their attack range, if a enemy waits until you trigger a plot event, and more. Hopefully, this feature makes fire emblem much more approachable for people who don't want to look up on google if a enemy moves, or what turn some events happen on. There are other changes as well, and i won't go into more paragraphs then needed listing every change, but to further add to insanity, I have already added fully functioning support for Luna+ to have what i call a greater randomizer. This option is toggled by a skill you can equip or take off at any time, and with it, the further into the game you are, the more your enemies will become unpredictable. Unusual gear, class changes, random reinforcements, the whole randomizer experience. This is for players that want to take the crazy to the next level.
To end my huge post, lately i've also been playing Naraka Bladepoint. It's a new Battle Royale game for fighting game fans. The inputs are simple like smash brothers or the tales series, and it's controller friendly. Currently, i'm one of the top 100 Temulch players in Canada. It's a pretty awesome game, i recommend it.
And thats about it for this post. If you want to talk to me, hang out and meet other people, or contribute to any ongoing projects, please, join the Crystal Mods Discord!
https://discord.gg/G9hWFVq Please join the discord!
Oh, and many more webpages on this site now support posting comments (oops!) No longer will your voice be left unheard. I didn't meant to FORCE people into the discord, it was an accident, i didn't know i needed to enable comments on every individual webpage i create >_>