Brave Hero Yuusha [DEMO v 2] - Update 8/31/15!

[Mettool]

What better way to spend an evening than gathered around listening to a classic tale of a brave hero saving a princess from a sinister demon lord bent on ruling the world? Sure, it may be the same story you've heard time and time again, but don't old stories get better with age?

So here we find our usual crew. A hero, a demon lord, and a princess all congregating to tell the story of the hero's triumph and the defeat of a great evil. Everyone here know their role and exactly how to carry it out. But what happens when the story doesn't go exactly as we know it? What if someone were to rewrite the story to something no one within it knows how to enact? Who's responsibility is it to put the story back on its track and find the happy ending we all know and love?

Brave Hero Yuusha is a satirical love-letter to an older, simpler time of role-playing games when one's mission was solely to rid the world of a great evil and save the land. But nobody would be content if we played such a thing straight. Instead, players can look forward to a trope-shattering romp built with visuals heavily inspired from older RPGs; namely Dragon Quest, Hydelide, and Destiny of an Emperor, with extra emphasis on the former. Arm yourselves to the teeth and face off against a rogue's gallery of monsters and strange creatures as your journey to piece this broken narrative back to the way it should be!

Brave Hero Yuusha is based on games from a simpler era, and therefore aims to keep its gameplay and systems relatively simple yet enjoyable. Players can look forward to:

• Classic turn-based combat
• Custom visuals inspired by NES-era RPGs
• Splendid chiptune tracks
• A brief but enjoyable journey with 3-5 hours of gameplay.

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The Hero- Like the hero of any good story, our protagonist has a "strong sense of justice" according to the back of the box, and is probably also completely unqualified for this role. The Hero is abruptly awoken on the morning of his seventeenth birthday to be appointed the title of "Yuusha", despite never having done anything, and is to take on a grand quest to save the world against his will and well-being. Having been sent off to the Demon Lord's castle hours before he was supposed to, all The Hero just wants to go home and do goodness knows what, but when someone disrupts the very fabric of the story, guess who's responsibility it is to put the plot back together? It's tough being the Yuusha.

The Demon Lord - The bumbly, often-befuddled Demon Lord's role is to kidnap princesses and threaten the world with a great evil and await defeat by the hands of the Yuusha. It may not be the most well-liked of positions, but it puts bread on the table so he might as well not deviate from the usual motions too much. Angered by the destruction of his mighty fortress when the story is steered off-course, the Demon Lord joins The Hero to seek revenge and the proper compensation for the damage. Despite what many people think, he's actually pro-union when running his domain.

The Princess - The Princess's role is to be saved by The Hero, but when he gallantly shows up earlier than expected, The Princess grows furious and vows to knock some sense into both he and the Demon Lord to show them how they should act. She is short-tempered and openly enjoys berating the Demon Lord's bumblings, whom does not dare say a word otherwise. She is proficient in magic.

Screenshots​

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Version 1 Screenshots​

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Scripts

• Luna Engine
• FullScreen++
• Mithran's Text Cache
• Victor Basic
• Victor Frames
• Gump's Resolution
• Zerbu's Text Sound
• Yanfly Messages
• CP's Pop-ups
• CaitSith's Vehicle Passability 1.1
• Yanfly Battlebacks

Credits

• Visuals, Story, Design, etc: Mettool
• Music and Sound: SpecialAgentApe
• RPG Maker VX Ace Engine- Degica

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A short 10-minute demo of the game is available! This is an early build subject to change and any feedback would be greatly appreciated! This will take you through the prologue and the first boss. You do NOT need the RTP to play this!

• Download it HERE!

Developer's Notes

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The game is currently standing at about 40% completion. I do not currently have an ETA on the game's release!

Updated 8/31/15: Big update! New visuals, screenshots, name change, and a new demo!

 

[SpiralSigil]

I love everything about this.  As a retro-gamer myself I adore the visuals and cant wait to hear what I'm sure will be some amazing old-school styled music to go with it.  Keep this up

Also, is that the villian IN the party in one of those screens?  Well now I must know whats happening!

 

[Caustic]

oh mah gawd the slime is adorable >w<!

*COUGH*

For some reason the story kinda reminds me of Half-Minute Hero XD

Also, the sprite-y graphics are quite endearing. Even if it ends up being short, it does seem promising :3

 

[Mettool]

There definitely was a bit of Half-Minute Hero inspiration in the premise! It's very hard to play 8 and 16 bit era RPGs completely straight, and the types of trope-shattering satire they put in those games (at least the first one) really helps keep games like these fresh.

 

[Vinedrius]

My eyes >< Judging by the screenshots, it is hard to look at for long, but it may differ from person to person. Other than that, retro visuals look interesting. Good luck~

 

[Kes]

The colour scheme is a bit - how shall I put this - "bold and brave" in its use of high contrast colours, so I don't know how I'd manage a couple of hours with it, but everything else looks like it could be fun. Good luck with it.

 

[Oddball]

The Princess - The Princess's role is to be saved by The Hero, but when he gallantly shows up earlier than expected, The Princess grows furious and vows to knock some sense into both he and the Demon Lord to show them how they should act. She is short-tempered and openly enjoys berating the Demon Lord's bumblings, whom does not dare say a word otherwise. She is proficient in magic.

I read this and rolled my eyes. Personally, I prefer games with strong female charecters, who are able to save themselves. Did she put up a good fight when she was captured? Did she at least try to come up with some scheme to escape? I might play it if you worked that in, but otherwise I don't say i'd be very interested in this. Good luck though

Edit: Ah! it looks like this is a satire

 

[Mettool]

Bump a lump!

It's been quite a while since I've really posted anything about this game's development, but I've made significant strides in the past few weeks. Here's what's going on.

If there is one thing everyone (here and elsewhere) agreed upon, it's that the game's palette was difficult to look at. Even I had a hard time looking at it after a while, so I've gone back and cleaned up and detailed the visuals significantly so that theyé much less headache-inducing. The palette is still largely the same as it was before (The NES's color palette plus some liberties where needed) but the detailing should make things less visually straining.

Here is a before-and-after comparison:

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OLD

NEW

In addition to this, an early demo is now available! Check the OP for details!

 

[Seriel]

Brilliant game! I just played through the Demo, loved every second of it!
Can't wait to see the rest!

 

[Mettool]

8/31/15 Update Extravaganza!

Hoo boy, big update time!

So things have been fairly quiet on this project over the summer on account of working full time, but there are definitely things to show here.

For one, you'll notice that the OP has been updated, and the game's title has been changed, since "Unwritten Tale of the Yuusha" wasn't quite hitting home with me. The game is now sporting a much simpler title: Brave Hero Yuusha!

Secondly, I've updated the game's visuals to a much more uniform style. As it turns out, the style of NES Dragon Quest-esque sprites have not aged as well as I would have hoped. All of the charcters now have an outline and have been completely redrawn to make them stand out more. The windows have a different frame and the game should now be much easier to look at also, to heck with the NES limitations. I kept the old screenshots available if anyone wanted to see a comparison.

Progress has been significant in the last month or so, and the game is sitting at around 55% completion (maybe I should ask to get this moved to Project Development?). I also have a new sound composer, SpecialAgentApe, who has been a tremendous help to the project and can be found in this thread's credits in the OP.

Lastly, there is an updated demo available if you so wish to see the changes that have been made. Link is in the OP!

 

[Vox Novus]

This looks interesting I'll have to give the demo a try sometime. Just pointing out that you credit Degica for Ace but you should be crediting Enterbrain; Enterbrain is the maker of Ace while Degica is the publisher/Distributor.

 

[Rikifive]

I love the original look! I love retro style! I love CHIPTUNES! I gonna play this!