How to make battles STAND OUT!

[Darkfox]

SHAAAAAARK PUNCH!!

In any case there isn't much I could say that hasn't already been said. Very similar has been discussed before, and yes SaiKar made a thread tut on it too.

[aboutasoandthis]

Originally posted by coasterkrazy

Originally posted by cherko
In Final Fantasy VIII, the one thing that annoyed me the most when I was drawing 100 of a new kind of magic for all my three characters was the terrible battle theme.

It's video game music, not a hit single. So why must there always be such a convenient song lenght? A progressive 10 minute epic would fit much better.

Though, I guess for most RPG Maker games, there won't be a lot of long fights.

I feel like I couldn't disagree more on all of these. FFVIII had a wonderful orchestral battle theme that eventually just blended in instead of becoming annoying, a progressive 10 minute epic would NOT fit for a regular battle AT ALL (special bosses and stuff yes, which is done anyway, but not normal battles), and why not many long fights? Perhaps some game is revolved around bosses or something. I think there have been plenty of long fights in good RM games. But everyone's entitled to his or her opinion...

Concerning what DB said about changing music, I like this only when done well, which isn't easy to do. I feel that battle music needs to be consistently enjoyable to listen to, and if multiple themes are used, they all better be as good as the next, so as to not make me think, "I wish the old battle theme was the one playing; this new one isn't nearly as good."[/B]

I thought FFVIII's battle theme was gorgeous. The ruined it with the boss theme.

[cherko]

Originally posted by Dragoon de Sol
Then it'd be the same thing, just longer ^^

No, not exactly. Being longer doesn't mean it'll just repeat the same melody over and over, it should change over time.

[Dragoon de Sol]

In theory yes, but remember that this is Final Fantasy VIII, which is second only to FFVII on the crap list.

[Moosetroop11]

Seems like a good basis for a tutorial... you just need to add a lot more and add more detail.

In my battles everyone has a unique battle command (Like Sabin's Blitz in FF6). It works pretty well, except that I can't be bothered to go through the problems of making any commands that harm enemies so there's less variety than I'd like.

It's easy to do. For instance, one of my characters has a command underneath the attack command which inflicts her with a condition which doubles her attack. This condition lasts until the battle ends or she is attacked physically which breaks her out of it. So in battles with not much physical damage, where the monster uses a lot of magic for instance, you would use the 'charge ATK' command and it would help in the long run. If the monster is fast and attacks all the time, you would be broken out of the condition before it was useful so you wouldn't bother using it.


What I'm trying to say is, to make battles interesting, make your heroes more interesting.

[Almeidaboo]

I ROFLMAO at the SHAAAARK PUNCH! That one was awesome...

[Phayre]

In theory yes, but remember that this is Final Fantasy VIII, which is second only to FFVII on the crap list.

OH SHNAP!

For battle cakgrounds, do you think the cipset based ones are overdone? I was thinking of doing that since I can't find any that look good with sprite-sized battlers, other than FF6, which I'd rather not use.

[Roland_Deschain]

Chipset based ones aren't overdone, as far as I can tell. At least, I hope not toooo overdone, since I'm using them too.....

And, I shall make a secret boss shark with arms that punches people now, thanks to this thread.

[zuhane1]

Yeah, it's a tough one. I got this AMAZING battle theme off Mystic Legends, it's a WAV I think aswell, not MIDI. After a while I hated it!  Saying that, I LOOOOOOOVE the FFX battle theme and could listen to it without playing the game! I absoloutely adore it!!!!!!! So it's a tough one!

[Roland_Deschain]

Me, I started using a lyricless version of Symphony X's Seven. It's.... well, not amazing as a battle theme, but with a tiny bit of editing, including a looping effect, it works really well. Revelation and Eve of Seduction make good battle themes too.
Real music FTW!!

[zuhane1]

I just got garageband!!!!!!! Making music should be a blast now, for £800 it's well worth it (Mac Laptop included)! Once I get good, I'll do songs for people if they want a very rich battle tune.