Does this just bother me?

[cyberwaffle]

Okay so I really like side view battle systems. I hate just having enemies in front of my and not being able to see my character.

However... It really bugs me how in side view battles, your character is a sprite... and your enemy is a very artistic image. Does this just bother me?


Could anyone maybe tell how to either make my character in battles be a nice image like my enemies ( It doesn't have to be animated )


or could someone tell me how to use sprites, as my enemy as well? Did anyone else ever try to make it so both was either a sprite or


a picture or am I just weird?

 

[byronclaude]

I've contemplated using sprites as my enemies.  (Capture just a singular side-view of a sprite in it's own image, and import it as a monster).


FF4 (way back in the day...   you other "old" people know what I am talking about) did this thing with the villain 'Kefka' where in certain parts of the game, he is a little simple sprite in the battle scenes...   then in other parts, they had him be this extravagant battle...  and by the end, he is the mega-extravagant fallen-angel looking creature.  


THAT annoyed me SOOOO MUCH!!!!   Go with one or the other for your monsters...   don't switch around and try both...  it makes guys like me want to pull their hair out...       ...maybe that's why I'm starting to go bald 

 

[Ms Littlefish]

Character sprites and drawn battlers were pretty typical in the the 2D RPGs of the 80s and 90s. In order to make the enemies a sprite or the character an artwork, you'd need to find or have the assets created and then added to your game.

 

[cekobico]

I think it depends on what generation are you from. 


This looks normal to me though. 

and I guess it kinda become a tradition? 


If you want to change that, I guess you can use this one. 

 

[Ellie Jane]

Depends what normal is. I mean, to a lot of modern gamers, having 2D graphics isn't normal. But for the games RPG Maker is intending to emulate, both are quite normal.

 

[Frogboy]

Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior won, I guess you could say. Those two formats became the norm. These are the standard front and side view battle systems built into RPG Maker.


Ultima and Dungeons and Dragons lost. They were more complicated to develop and in a lot of ways, weren't as flashy with the artwork. Those games used sprites for both heroes and monsters. When RPGs went 3D, the two merged back together as animating models isn't quite as much work as animating sprites.

 

[Shaz]

Is this a discussion thread, or a request for help thread?  We have a forum for script requests - if you want a script to fix the images, please ask there.

 

[Valryia]

@cyberwaffle If i read that right, do you mean something like this?

 

[LaFlibuste]

FF4 (way back in the day...   you other "old" people know what I am talking about) did this thing with the villain 'Kefka'

 I'm not sure it really bears correcting as it's probably very obvious to everybody and maybe is even a typo, but you are talking about FF6. Just sayin'.


As for OP:
I kinda agree with you, although it doesn't bother me THAT much, but I also understand the technical limitations. On one hand, having big artsy gifs for the characters would take up a lot of screen space and wouldn't make the characters much more relatable, you might as well use front view. On the other hand, having animated sprites for every monster is a lot more resource intensive, it requires a ton more art. Which is an issue for your artists' workload, your budget, the game's file size. Especially if you plan on having a certain diversity of enemies. You might end up having to use less different enemy types, lots of recolors, etc. to compensate. Also, these enemy sprites would use much less screen space: you'll have to compensate with menus or lush decors to make up so that it doesn't look empty and dull (without feeling bloated, of course). Which is also more work. So having animated sprites for your heroes makes sense, it makes them more relatable and is a worthwhile investment since you are going to see them all the time, and having big gifs for ennemies makes sense since it's simpler. It might also participate in making them look more frightening or imposing or something.

But hey, if you wanna try any other variant for your project, be my guest

 

[Nuxill]

I'm kind of surprised that they don't make the enemies in the same kind of sprite style as the characters. Not animated, but at least pixel art as opposed to a fully rendered image. But they've been doing it that way since the beginning (i think??) so I guess there's no reason for them to change it. It also kind of breaks the immersion for me when the "human" enemies are twice the size of the heroes. They definitely feel like they've been optimized for front view battles.