[COMPLETE] Eternal Paradise

[Ephiam]

Eons ago, the world and all of its splendours were created by the magnificent and all-powerful being simply known as the “Creator.” It wove the threads of life, and upon creating the planet Earth, spotted it with its most cherished life-form: man.

Having gifted mankind with all of its blessing and necessities, the Creator simply watched as man forged his own path in life, and over the decades crafted himself in to a race of truly wondrous individuals numbering in the millions.

The Creator, however, grew tired of this creation, and thus gave life to four heavenly Kings to watch over and monitor the world in his stead. One of these Kings, Celes, wanted more than the Creator could ever possibly give her: she wanted its power—the divine power of creation. Upon being rejected of her request, the mighty guardian revolted against her creator and all of his creations, and was tossed from her perch atop the heavens in to a realm of purgatory; an island resting between Earth and the Heavens, but far enough away from either that they'd taunt her position for all of eternity.

Countless years have passed since that fated day, and now that island prison hanging in purgatory between Heaven and Earth will become the destination for four youths seeking revenge against a murderous man. Their journey, however, may lead them on an adventure that could reshape the very foundation of all that was, and all that could ever be...












CHARACTERS


Andrew
Age: 23

Andrew is a young man who married the love of his life, Maria, at the age of 21. Two years later, they both had a child together—a baby boy—who they named Evan. Sadly, their child passed away due to an unknown illness when he was only a few months old. From that point forward, both Andrew and Maria's lives became a living nightmare to which there was no escape.

Being the kind-hearted soul that he is, Andrew is willing to lend an ear to anyone who is in need, but his calm and rather playful demeanour tends to mask his overall serious attitude. The young man can not stand overly serious situations, and usually finds himself short-tempered  and frustrated at such times. Both he and Maria share an unbreakable bond that has, after the death of their son, helped them out of the terrible pit of depression they'd sunken in to.



Maria
Age: 22

Andrew's wife and former travelling companion. She is a sweet and fairly modest individual, but also very fragile. She has difficulty accepting any form of pain or loss, and oftentimes allows her emotions to get the better of her, resulting in her doing or saying things that she would later come to regret. Some of Andrew's care-free spirit and lightheartedness may have rubbed off on her, but she still clings to her
semi-serious ways.

When faced with personal problems, she is often lost to the surge of emotions rushing through her head, along with the swirling array of choices she has made, or will undoubtedly (in her mind) have to make. However, when helping another individual (usually a close friend) cope with their problems, she is much more capable and able of voicing her true opinions and offering a helping hand.





Laura
Age: 29

Laura is a very strict and powerful mage. She's been studying the Dark Arts for well over the majority of her lifetime, and has had to adapt a serious and punishing attitude for herself in order to cope with a world that more-often-than-not shuns such heinous practices.

Between the three other characters she travels with, she is without a doubt the most iron-willed and determined of the lot; speaking her mind and keeping her calm irregardless of the situation at hand.

Laura has made more than one attempt to try her luck at improving her love life, and hopefully settling down with a husband of her own, but found that she could never deal with the daunting amount of tasks associated with such a relationship, and the plethora of drama that goes along with it. Instead, she chose to live freely and could not care less about whether or not she find the “perfect man” or not.



Alexander
Age: 23

Alexander is a rather “unique” character. He takes on a very non-serious attitude, and rarely will there be a situation in which if the topic being discussed is either bit serious, that he will not make any and all attempts to deviate in to something completely unrelated. Because of this special trait, he has earned a fair share of dislike from Laura, although Maria and Andrew still tend to find a soft spot towards him and his bizarre mannerisms.











CREDITS:

GRAPHICS CREDITS:
Jaymonius (Phantasia series)
Final Fantasy
Star Ocean
Treasure of the Rudras
Romancing SaGa
Breath of Fire
RPG Maker RTP
Secret/Legend of Mana
Seiken Densetsu 3
Actraiser 1 and 2
“Tales Of” series.
Kentona (Hero's Realm)


MUSIC CREDITS:
Final Fantasy
Lost Odyssey
Castlevania
Last Remnant
Chrono Cross
Grandia


STORYLINE AND GENERAL GAME CREATION:
Ephiam (EphiamOricuna)


EDITING/TESTING CREDITS:
ScarymanMEOW
Mary4D
Deckiller
Lance VII
Corfaisus










Screenshots:
























DOWNLOAD
http://www.filefront.com/17252777/Eternal-Paradise.zip/







THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW!!!

+After completing the game, you have the choice to start a “New Game +!” What this is, is a part of the optional content of the game. You can start a new game with your current Levels, equipment, skills, etc. Here is a list of NG+ content:

   (7 new chests containing the most powerful version of each weapon type appear scattered throughout the game. If you manage to find all of these chests and defeat the primary 3 optional bosses, the ultimate weapon becomes available.

   New character abilities! During New Game+, Andrew, Alexander, and Laura obtain access to a new set of skills to accompany their old.

   Even more treasure! A slew of new treasure chests become available, and each contains some very nice items!

   Optional bosses! There are 6 optional bosses that emerge, pushing the total up to 9!

   Level modifier! With the "Level Master"s help, you can de-level your characters down to Lv.1 if you choose to do so! (It is advised that if you decide to do this, then make an extra save! It's unlikely you'd get very far at Lv.1, but you never know!) )



+Using the DEFEND option in battle recovers 100 HP, and 20 MP. Make good use of this, and don't waste your money on too many Ethers!


+A LOT of equipment has special/hidden properties/abilities, thus making them far more unique than they may first appear. Try experimenting a little, and switching things up every now-and-then!


+Certain weapons have the ability to deal extra damage to a specific class of monster. This class is indicated by having (Dino), (Demon), (Human), etc. In their descriptions.

[Ephiam]

I have CHANGED/MODIFIED THE DOWNLOAD LINK. Myself and a friend went through the game and combed through the remaining bugs and small errors that remained, and have finally come to produce this (rather) "COMPLETE" version of the game. None of the errors were game-breaking, but they might be annoying to some people (or easily exploitable) =P

Feel free to download again (if you already have) and switch over your save files, but if not then you should still be able to enjoy the game.

[zuhane]

Wow! Looking good! Think I'll download this as soon as some free time jumps up!

[Infected]

I love the look and style of the game, can't wait to try it!

[Ephiam]

Excellence. Both of you (and everyone else out there!) need to get back to me with your opinions once you decided to give it a go!

[Ephiam]

There has to be more people out there than that who have played the game. Step up, people! You need to comment!

[victimofgrace]

This looks nice, I like the mapping style. I may download I f I find time.

[Infected]

It's a very pretty game, from what I've seen. As I died at the Yeti inside the cave.

I like the gameplay, again from what I've seen. It's very nice, everything fits well together, graphically.

The only thing that bothered me is when the four characters all warp in at the beginning you can see the clouds below/around you moving quite fast, compared to the slow moving clouds in the next area. Not sure if this is intentional, just found it strange.

I'll be playing it more, and I'll give a better review!

[Ephiam]

And I hope that time soon arrives! This game has not been getting enough attention as of late!

[SaiKar]

I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't shamelessly bump like that.

[Ephiam]

Sorry about that. I won't try to do it again. I'm still curious if I can squeeze any final comments out of the people on the internet about this though.

But it's hard to feel bad about bumping, you have to admit. Ah ha.

Anyway, I'll leave it at that.

[Prpl_Mage]

Welll. I managed to get past the Yeti this time. But people start dying after a couple of battles and that's a bad thing.

I like the style of this game, it uses original graphics but I could swear I've heard the battle theme somewhere before.

Also, is there a point in starting at lvl 41-44? Just seems kinda odd.

Loves the conversations you build up when reaching certain places although I'm no fan of the speech bubbles with comicbook emoticons.
What else then... Yeah, might be because you start about half way to 99 but the game don't start off boring. You get a dungeon with the whole darkness "puzzle" and battles aren't cakewalks. I like it. But it's hard.

[Ephiam]

It's supposed to be difficult! Not overly so, but hard enough to provide a challenge that provokes some sort of thought both outside and inside of battle. I've found that with a lot of RM games, people expect to go in and just mash spacebar while healing every now-and-then. I don't make my games like that any more however, and since that change took place I've been getting a lot of complaints saying some of my games are TOO hard. I'd have to disagree with these people! I've even watched videos of people playing this game, and took notes of several things a player just did not do (that were fairly obvious) before challenging an "impossible boss."

None of this applies to you, but I just wanted to get that out there for the sake of saying it. =P

And I think you're one of the first who has actually LIKED the dialogue! Most people dislike it, and think it is the weakest part of the game. I'd have to agree with them here sadly, because I wasn't being concise enough with what I was writing and so things tended (or do tend) to drag out longer than they should have. But oh well, we learn from our mistakes! Hopefully this won't happen in my next project (if there ever will be a next one =P).

[SaiKar]

It's supposed to be difficult! Not overly so, but hard enough to provide a challenge that provokes some sort of thought both outside and inside of battle. I've found that with a lot of RM games, people expect to go in and just mash spacebar while healing every now-and-then. I don't make my games like that any more however, and since that change took place I've been getting a lot of complaints saying some of my games are TOO hard. I'd have to disagree with these people! I've even watched videos of people playing this game, and took notes of several things a player just did not do (that were fairly obvious) before challenging an "impossible boss."

Not to pick on you specifically with this one, but basically 100% of amateur RPG games are too hard because it seems they were designed to challenge the creator rather than the casual player. I don't know what players did or did not do, but chances are they didn't intentionally do anything to make the game harder for themselves. If they're missing things en mass (ie it's not just one player missing stuff but it's a large number of people making similar mistakes) then it's not their fault - it's the game creator's for making things either too obscure, too based on luck, or just too hard.

[Ephiam]

That's okay.

I had a fairly big group of test-players go through this game 1-3 times once it had been finished to iron everything out and make it as balanced as possible. I think there is still a single boss (that's not an optional one) that I messed up, but other than that I've had a lot of people tell me that the game was difficult, but not to the point of being impossible as some had claimed.

In this one instance I was referring to, the player was going up against a boss they were having a lot of difficult with without doing any of the following:
-Learning from their previous loss, and trying to utilize the 13 000~ Gold they had remaining and put it to better use.
-Healing before the actual boss.
-SAVING before the actual boss.
-Thinking about (before entering the battle) what Relics/Armor/Skills would be useful for said boss battle.

By this point they'd pretty much given up anyway because of the massive amounts of dialogue, but the boss was far from impossible as they'd claimed.

I blame myself for this one boss in particular, but if they'd thought things through then it would have been much easier than they'd lead themselves to believe.

Not many of my games are really meant for the "casual" gamer anyway. =P