Labyronia 2

[Labyrinthine]

Labyronia 2 (RPG Lite Series)



10 years have passed since the hero of Labyronia fulfilled the Dark Prophecy.

This hero, Arres, fought back against the four elemental beings , invading their strongholds across the land. He helped to dismantle the armies of monsters that had trampled the countryside and devastated the centers of human power.

Backed into a corner, the elemental beings used their weapon of last resort: a power so bleak that it threatens to suck the life from the planet itself.

The world has gone cold, and dark. The sky is completely clouded over. Dangerous ice wraiths attack any living being that comes near them. Dangerous elemental beings cloister in their fortresses, waiting to pick humanity's bones.

It's up to the last band of human survivors to find the power to reverse this apocalypse. If they should fail, the world will be left an eternal frozen wasteland.



Key features -

-Partly non-linear progression in a large and original world.
-Find and buy spellbooks and arms manuals to maximize your chances of survival.
-Strategic Boss battles, and smooth combat system.
-Dark visuals and haunting soundtrack.




This game has been released on Steam.

 

[Labyrinthine]

Bump. This game has been remastered/ reworked (and compressed for a more humane links).

 

[Clord]

I check it out. Something to review after all.

 

[FishDiamond]

Looks nice!

 

[Matseb2611]

Heya. I've decided to give the game a try. Have some thoughts I'd like to share. A lot of them are critique, but I hope you'll find it useful.

Presentation is fairly nice. The title screen is good and I like some of the edits and recolours you've done of the basic assets. However, most of the music is just basic RTP. How come? There's so much free music on the forum. I'd highly recommend to use it. It will make the game seem more unique than just using generic RTP tunes. Some of the menu sounds were rather odd choices too, but it's not a big issue.

Can't save anywhere. Is there a reason why this is disabled? I know I can save at save crystals, but it just feels like an unneeded restriction.

So the town is attacked. Now some NPC told me to find healing items I should go and look in other people's houses. Really? He is totally fine with me doing that and even encourages me? In one of the houses I bumped into an old guy, who suddenly started telling me the backstory and some stuff like that whilst the town is being attacked. Not the best time to go into the backstory to be honest. He should've waited till after the attack.

Battle screens look a bit strange. It's nice to be able to see the actor sprites, but now the enemies look like they're floating in the air slightly.

I'd personally recommend to have a 'Confirm' command at the end of the turn when I've picked my party's skills. One time I accidentally pressed 'Guard' instead of 'Item' and it executed the turn, even though it's not what I wanted to do. Having the 'Confirm' command lets the player to go back in case they've made a mistake.

My biggest gripe with the game is the absolute lack of direction. I am not being told anything. The characters briefly mention something related to backstory that I am not aware of, and then I am left to my own to find what to do. Some kind of a quest journal would be nice here. It helps to remind the player what they should be doing.

In the shop there are 3 items. One revives, one restores MP, and then there's meat which heals, except it's rather pricey and it heals a whooping 2500 HP. Are there no weaker and cheaper healing items available? My character's maxHP doesn't even reach 2500 HP. Using meat here is kind of a waste of money. Also, why is the epic music still playing in the village after we've beaten the enemy that was attacking it?

So I've gotten to the tower and Windir joined the party. Not quite sure how he is related to the story. He just seems to know the main character.

The tower looks nice on the inside. I really like the atmosphere here. It's so dark and grim. But then I got into a fight with one of those wandering ghosts and... I can't kill it. Garik's attacks do nothing and Windir's magic does nothing. I have no way to damage the enemy, and I can't escape the fight either. This is kind of a bad game design and it really annoyed me when I was playing. This means I have to either let the ghost kill me or reset the game. It'd be nice to at least have a chance to escape the battle. Otherwise it's the equivalent to giving me an instant game over upon touching one of those ghosts, except it's been drawn out to test my patience.

I've managed to get to the top of the tower, get Magic Compass, and to return. Phew! Then I wasn't sure where to go. Magic Compass description says that it prevents getting lost. Doesn't really seem to work, since I was lost the entire time I was playing. Luckily I found a path in the world map where I had to go. But now I'm on an enormous open field and it's way way WAY too big. I can't stress this enough. I am just walking and there's nothing there. There were even times where the entire screen was just white with snow and nothing else. Did this map need to be so big? I can barely find anything there.

I finally found a path blocked by a magic barrier. I guess this is where I have to go, but I have no idea how to get past it. I found a random dragon chilling by the lake, thought I'd had to kill it to release the barrier, but there was no battle. Then I stumbled upon the ogre holy ground, and... the entire area just has 1-2 step encounters. I don't really see the point. It does nothing other than frustrate the player. I was starting to pull my hair out whilst walking to a chest there because of how annoying this was. Even though I could escape every single one of these encounters, all this was unneeded.

Anyways. I couldn't find what I had to do, so I decided to stop there. When I went into 'Game End' option in the menu, the small menu to come up after that seems to have its commands completely invisible. Not sure why.

So yeah. Overall, the idea of the land dying and being covered in endless winter is pretty great, but the execution is heavily lacking in my opinion and there are a lot of issues that need to be ironed out, the most notorious one being lack of direction. I hope this is helpful and good luck with your other projects.

 

[Labyrinthine]

Thanks for the critique , Matseb. I can't really argue with all your points, except to say that it gets noticeably better after getting out of that large area (Fields of Darkness). It is indeed too large for it's own good. When i was creating it, i wanted to do an area which would have a grim and hopeless atmosphere, with the characters wandering in the dark cold with no certain way points. The problem is that it's not too fun to play, and admittedly, the ogre area is crap and lazily designed. Gladly, this entire area is the only one in the game functioning like this, and dealing with the ogres is completely optional.

Quest journals in general are a thing i usually don't use in my games, since i prefer free exploration and finding the stuff as you go. However, the story finds it's direction after some progression have been made. At that point it's clearly stated in the story what to do and where to go, and why. It starts slowly. I could've arranged it in a better way, admittedly, and i'm a bit worried that most of the people might get bored in Alathar (that large snowy area), thus never being able to see the actual story when it really begins and content that follows.

I don't get the what you mean with the "confirm battle commands" thing... never had any issues with it. Wouldn't it just slow down battles? I doubt misclicks like that would be too common. The perpetual epic music in the starting village is intentional, since the village is supposed to be under the threat of monsters at all times... buut i think i could've slowed down the pace after the first battle. That's a fair point all in all.

That game ending thing is weird... i really didn't notice it at all as i was making the game (since i usually end it just by pressing it off from X). I think it has to do with the thing i did with the title screen (erasing the title box). A minor thing, but gotta fix it at once anyway. Good thing that you noticed it!

Oh yeah.. about the music... there are a lot of new and original songs/ ambient pieces in the game, but since it seems people are getting tired of RTP stuff (most of the music in-game is from RMN music pack, which is not automatically default in the program), my next game is gonna be avoiding these tracks as much as possible.

About saving.. if you could do it anywhere, it would make the game less challenging. There must be some tension and fear of dying in games in my opinion. The same thing was going on in certain older JRP games. I could've made it possible to save in the world map like it was in the first game, though. I think this and the issue you had with the "no quest journal thing" simply means that our design philosophies what comes to games in general differ a bit. It's not as tough at it used to be in the 8-bit times anyway :- D

And well, about the ghosts. They are immortal, and encountering them should feel like a not good idea. To be honest, i took the easy way out with this... maybe i should've implemented a smoke bomb or some sort of escape option, rather than just letting the characters die everytime they encounter these beings. At certain point, a way to fight them will be discovered.

Anyways, thank you for trying my games, even if just briefly  Critique is useful, and at the time of making this game and the first Labyronia there were still a lot of things i had to learn. In my next project, i will be taking into account many of the things discussed.

Edit: Fixed the issue with the Game End box. 

 

[silverkittensandshoelaces]

I'm having difficulties with the statue/switch puzzle in the tower in Solthan. Is there a way to know which statue is from which kingdom or is it a guessing game?

I tried even going back through the first game (Labyronia) for clue and also going back through the game an visiting several places, but the only definite statue that I have a king for is Alathar (dragon)

Is there a better way to solve the puzzle or am I missing an instruction?

Thank you for your help!

 

[Labyrinthine]

I'm having difficulties with the statue/switch puzzle in the tower in Solthan. Is there a way to know which statue is from which kingdom or is it a guessing game?

I tried even going back through the first game (Labyronia) for clue and also going back through the game an visiting several places, but the only definite statue that I have a king for is Alathar (dragon)

Is there a better way to solve the puzzle or am I missing an instruction?

Thank you for your help!

That puzzle was not very well designed in the version you're playing, unfortunately. I'm in the process of remaking this game at the moment, to fix its issues. Anyways, solving the puzzle is possible by reading the books from certain places. Since this can be a laborious and somewhat confusing task, i can send you a spoiler PM to that part if you want.

 

[Labyrinthine]

Update: Version 3.0 (remake)

The purpose of a new version was simply to improve the game in every aspect. My attempt has been to go through systematically all the issues that were plaguing the earlier version, and fix them.

Update notes:

- More detailed direction in the beginning of the game.

- Mapping has been greatly improved and progression streamlined in multiple areas.

- Some maps contain completely new non-optional objectives. 

- Many battles have been tinkered, some redesigned. Encountering a dark ghost no longer means certain death.

- A bunch of new skills have been added. 

- RTP music has been partly replaced by music from various resource artists.

- Most of the major cutscenes have been redirected.

- A lot of new graphical edits and sound effects added.

- The Abyss lag has been reduced greatly.

- Ice Giant area revamped.

  etc.

Hoping to get some feedback from this latest (and hopefully the last) attempt :3

Edit: Managed to trim the filesizes a bit.

 

[iammrfrank]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I found a bug. 

In the house where the ghost is, the "you found 2 F. Water and some others" secret is broken, you can spam it endlessly. And based on what you get... I'm sure this has to be a bug. 

Otherwise, I just got Ann and am enjoying the game quite a lot! Thank you! 

 

[Labyrinthine]

I'm not sure if this is the best place to post this, but I found a bug.

In the house where the ghost is, the "you found 2 F. Water and some others" secret is broken, you can spam it endlessly. And based on what you get... I'm sure this has to be a bug.

Otherwise, I just got Ann and am enjoying the game quite a lot! Thank you!

This bug was fixed.