[SRPG Studio] Broken Legacy (full version complete!)

Hey everyone! I’m excited to announce that the SRPG Studio game Broken Legacy is now complete and fully playable!

Download can be found here (v1.02, Sep 1 2020)

Link to SF thread is here

Discord link is here

Story

Rodrun was once a unified nation, but a great conflict saw it divided into four near-autonomous states: Ormur, Anarcia, Remdare and Silveria. For decades now, there has been hostility between the states, with tensions about to boil over the entire country…

The story begins when Ormur’s King Delron calls for the unification of the nation. Confusion ensues when Anarcia’s Duke Calum sends his daughter, Kara, to seek refuge in Remdare – despite planning to surrender peacefully.

During her escape, Kara becomes separated from her knights. Now alone, she must now gain reliable allies - first to reach Remdare, but more ultimately to reclaim her homeland of Anarcia. Kara’s journey will see her joining a mercenary group, engaging in complex political situations, and finding out if she’s truly worthy of inheriting the throne…

Features:

  • 21 chapters with a variety of map objectives including escape, rout, defeat boss, defend and seize
  • A small cast of 25 playable characters, with full deployment for much of the game
  • Three difficulties, Classic/Casual modes, can swap between them freely
  • A base system similar to the Tellius games, including base events and Bonus EXP
  • Bonus EXP and other rewards for fast play/completing side objectives
  • Skills, including a cooldown system where skills are selected via the menu (sort of like combat arts or skills in Berwick Saga)
  • 30+ classes with branching promotion paths
  • Supports which progress through the story
  • Visible growth rates and support bonuses
  • Ranking system (see here for details)
  • Custom music
  • The ability to save every 5 turns

There’s also a few differences from standard FE gameplay:

  • Units can only double on their own phase
  • ‘Proc’ skills that are activated by menu command
  • Level cap is set to 10 higher than the level promoted at
  • Crits deal 2x damage

A quick note on difficulty:
This game is designed to be challenging, but not unfair. Normal mode is probably more difficult than most FE games. Hard mode is very tough, even for me as the creator. Don’t be discouraged if you’re having trouble, and make full use of the 5 turn saves! Also remember you can freely change the difficulty in the options menu between battles.

Screenshots

Click to open

cullen dual 1 dual 2 ervin kara remdare revenge safeguard

How to play/Config:

Download the zip files and unzip to your wanted location. Then just click on the ‘game’ application to run. Extra options and controls can be found in the config file.

Press F11 to reset and F4 to toggle full screen. If full screen is causing stretching, try the following:

  • Change HardwareFullScreen in the config file to 1
  • If this doesn’t work, you might need to go to your graphics card settings. Look for something like ‘scaling mode’ and set it to ‘preserve aspect ratio’

To transfer saves between versions, simply copy your Saves folder to the new version. Note that any pre 1.0 saves are likely incompatible with post 1.0 saves due to a large renaming of content files (not sure about this though).

Self-identified flaws, improvements/additions planned:

Just in case you feel like listening to me ramble on.

Click to open

Graphics

  • Let’s start with the elephant in the room: portraits. I’m using GBA portraits which 1) don’t really fit the style of SRPGS and 2) don’t look very good because I am bad at making them. I’m hesitant to commission an artist for multiple reasons. Another option would be to try to make my own from scratch (considering my artistic ability, this is probably a mistake).
  • Tilesets: at the moment I’m using a mixture of RTP, my own stuff and some other freely available stuff. I’m thinking of transferring to McMagister’s tileset since they look incredible (who doesn’t like Thracia-style graphics?)
  • Animations: most melee classes don’t have critical animations now. Furthermore, most sprites use default colours and are not unique to the character. These are honestly a pain to set up and will take a while, but is something I do plan on finishing some time.
  • The world map still doesn’t look great. I might try to keep improving it, or I might scrap it and start from scratch. Don’t know yet.
  • There’s a whole bunch of other stuff which could be replaced… stuff like the title screen, UI, backgrounds etc. Changing these could give the game its own little touch.

Gameplay

  • Still not too happy with Chapter 1. It’s difficult to make the map engaging with only two player units. I might revamp this chapter entirely by adding a third player unit (e.g. Raymond)
  • Chapter 11 can be kind of wonky. I want to keep the principle the same, though there might be more tweaking.
  • Veteran seals are kind of useless at the moment since units rarely reach their level cap even when promoted early (particularly in hard mode). I might need to fiddle around with EXP gain etc. to fix this.
  • I may add bonus maps in a future release. This could include old versions of chapters, axed chapters, or something completely new. They will probably be non-canon with self-parodied dialogue.

Story

  • Worldbuilding still kinda sucks ngl, and is definitely something that could be improved upon. The narration events before chapters are pretty boring with them only recounting stuff which has happened. There’s definitely room to develop the world more in these events.
  • The intro still doesn’t feel great. I still like the idea of the Prologue, but having the first thing the player sees be Kara musing about her father’s decision isn’t exactly the most compelling opening.
  • Later chapters feel kind of stiff w.r.t dialogue and interactions. Particularly noticeable in Chapters 17 and 18.
  • There’s a few scenes I’d like to add. Nothing major, but hopefully it would take away some of the exposition (trying to go by the “show don’t tell” mantra)
  • I am planning to add more supports, though there likely won’t be too many. I don’t want to force myself to reach a support quota, hence why I’ve moved away from the C/B/A system. Aiming for quality over quantity.

Credits:

Please let me know if I’ve missed anyone. Everyone’s contributions have been invaluable and I don’t want to exclude anyone!

  • Engine: SapphireSoft
  • Scripts: Lady Rena, repeat, Milele, CB, o-to, Goinza, 1-239, Release, Tactician Dream, Ragnarok, Balberith, Cube
  • Graphics: pipoya, fluffy, JAPANweb, Ishizaki, 1-28, Sfilna, Senaka, Moon ☆ Wind
  • Music: Moon ☆ Wind, H / MIX GALLERY, Wingless Seraph

Special thanks:

  • Von Ithipathachai for providing Kara’s portrait
  • CommonKnowledge for providing a bug list for v1.0

Known issues:

  • Staff Mastery skill doesn’t display increased staff range (it still functions correctly, though)
  • Assassinate and Barrier do not reflect on the battle forecast display.
  • Player characters who use two weapon types may occasionally change hair colour while they are moving on the map.
  • Camera can still be a little wonky sometimes, especially in Ch 11.
  • The attack penalty for light magic against anima magic doesn’t apply, since light tomes are set to ignore defence (it also ignores defence from supports etc.)
  • Rescue and Saviour are incompatible. They still work as intended, except for the fact that you can’t swap rescued units between ‘savioured’ units.
  • I’ve had one player have Elric in Chapter 9. He shouldn’t be there. It’s never happened to me, so let me know if this happens for you!

Changelog

  • May 9, 2020: First release, 13 chapters complete
  • May 17, 2020: v0.2.0 released (16 chapters complete, bug fixes)
  • May 28, 2020: v0.2.1 released (bug fixes, minor gameplay tweaks)
  • Jun 9, 2020: v0.3 release, 19 chapters complete
  • Jul 4, 2020: v1.0 released
  • Jul 10, 2020: v1.01 released
  • Sep 1, 2020: v1.02 released
14 Likes

Ooooh, this one looks promising. I’ll have to try it out!

1 Like

Update!
v0.2 is playable up to the end of Chapter 15, which is 3 new chapters. A few other changes:

  • Fixed a bug which prevented changing starting positions after resuming from battle preps
  • Fixed a bug where enemies could move through some walls in Chapter 8
  • Added a ‘reference sheet’ under Info which contains useful information like battle formulas
  • Slightly nerfed Marcel. -2HP/-1Str/-1Def/-1Res and -15%HP/-10%Str/-10%Skl/-10%Spd/-5%Lck
  • Probably some other minor things I’ve forgotten about
2 Likes

Version 0.2.1 is now available! No new content yet, but there’s been a substantial amount of bug fixes and gameplay tweaks. In no particular order:

  • Fixed enemies with incorrect weapons in Ch 8 and 9
  • Slightly increased EXP gained and increased BEXP by about 20% on average. This was done since units weren’t as high-levelled as I’d expected heading into the late game.
  • Increased weapon level growth rate
  • Nerfed light magic users (Mag and Spd)
  • Changed generic soldier dialogue from ‘Ormur’ to ‘Soldier’
  • Additional 100 BEXP reward for Ch 3 boss kill
  • A few less enemies and reinforcements in Ch 9
  • Non-Kara/Marcel people can now die in Ch 3-5 without causing a game over. Yippee!
  • Added some buyable and droppable Antidotes for curing poison
  • Fixed some garbled text in the Unit Window
  • +1 HP/Str/Skl/Spd buff for Cullen

The maps for Chapters 16-18 are near complete, but I still need to write the dialogue. The next update will hopefully include these chapters as well as a transition to GBA styled portraits.

I’ve also created a Discord server here (link also in the OP). Feel free to join if you’re interested (we have a grand total of 6 people at the moment!)

Edit: Turns out the Discord link expired. This one should work

2 Likes

Version 0.3 is now available! We’re into the final arc of the story now. This update is playable up to the end of Chapter 18 and has some pretty big plot revelations (better revelations than Revelation revelations, I hope). The RPG Maker portraits have all been replaced by GBA-style ones, though some NPCs etc. are still using default SRPG Studio portraits. I’ve updated the screenshots in the OP if you want to look at my mediocre splicing abilities and awkward scaling . Kara’s terrific portrait is courtesy of Von Ithipathachai.

Other minor changes include:

  • Added a few more supports and made some minor changes to how they work. I won’t list the details here, but basically I’ve moved away from the standard C/B/A progression, allowing for greater flexibility.
  • The opening event is now skipped when loading a game from battle preps. This fixes a bug where swapped positions sometimes weren’t saved.
  • Slight changes to how in-map saving works. It’s now like Vestaria Saga where a prompt shows up every 5 turns and you can then save from the menu. This fixes a bug where some enemies wouldn’t move after loading a mid-chapter save.
  • In easy mode, anyone can now seize. This would’ve been a problem if Kara was defeated/retreated in seize maps.
  • Clarified that the turn goal is for BEXP and added it to the objective screen as a reminder.
  • Bumped up Dustin’s base level and stats a bit.
  • A few less enemies in the prologue, hopefully to speed things up a bit.
  • Updated the world map, now it looks slightly less trash!

Only two more chapters until the finish! I’m aiming for a full release by the end of June, though who knows if I’ll actually stick to that. Feedback is still very much welcome and will continue to be after the full release!

For those wanting to transfer their saves, simply copy the Saves folder from the old directory to the new one.

And some new screenshots:
audrey

1 Like

I’m excited to announce that Broken Legacy is nearly finished! There’s still some stuff I need to do, including some extra dialogue, dialogue for death variants, etc. I’m planning on doing at least two more full playthroughs of the game before the 1.0 release to iron things out. If anyone is interested in playtesting, shoot me a message and I can send you the current version (playable to the end).

And here’s a few more screenshots, mostly showing how skills are now reflected in the battle forecast. You wouldn’t believe how happy I was to see that x3!
charge dual count ervin vs kara luna+brave

1 Like

Version 1.0 is now complete, featuring all chapters! As well as being playable from start to finish, some of the more major changes include:

  • You can now play on any difficulty in classic or casual mode.
  • Added battle/win records. These are displayed in the unit menu and at the end of the game.
  • Added rankings because they’re fun. There’s three categories:
    • Turns (200 turns for S rank)
    • Survival (this also includes recruitment)
    • Completion (basically, visit all villages, open all the chests, etc.)
    • I’ve added a spreadsheet explaining rankings in more details here. Have fun going for your S rank Hard/Classic playthrough! (I can confirm it’s possible)
  • Mostly fixed the forecast display for skills. Assassinate and Barrier don’t work for now, though.
  • Added a sound room in Extras, accessible in the title screen.
  • I’m now using the smooth scroll scripts by MarkyJoe. They’re awesome and make the game much smoother, props to him.
  • Made some changes to Chapter 6. There’s now a bridge in the top-right, opening up the map a bit.

Note that this version probably not compatible with older versions since I’ve renamed a lot of files.

Even though the game is complete, I’m still very much open to feedback and suggestions. Of course, if you just want to sit back and enjoy the game, that’s completely fine too!

Updates from here are planned to be fairly staggered. I don’t want to make people keep on downloading updates while playing through the game. If there’s any game-breaking bug though, I’ll definitely address it.

Hope you all enjoy playing through the game!

4 Likes

Even my potato computer can run the game at 60 fps xD, congratulations on finishing it! I’ve already played a few chapters and I love it! Awesome job, man!

Awesome job on the completed project! I just have 1 question. Is there any way to use a controller to play this?

You should be able to use USB gamepads to play SRPG Studio games. I’m not sure what his settings are for them, though. You might be able to play around with game.ini to get something that works for you.

I’ve been able to get it working on the USB gamepad I own, at least. Just make sure GamePadDInput in the config file is set to the appropriate option (0 for DirectInput, 1 for XInput). In my case, the controller supports both, so there’s no problem.

Hopefully that’s enough to get it working on your controller as well!

Version 1.0.1 is now available!

Thanks to CommonKnowledge on Discord for pointing out a number of bugs. I wasn’t too keen on releasing an updated version so soon, but one of the bugs involved the game crashing when fighting Generals with animations on. I really don’t like game-crashing bugs, so I’ve addressed it along with some other minor issues in this patch.

I can confirm that v1.0 saves are compatible. Still unsure about pre 1.0 saves, but I guess it can’t hurt to try.

1 Like

I just beat this and I have to say, it was really good. I played Hard/Classic and got a B rank, which isn’t bad for someone like me who isn’t the greatest at SRPGs. I missed one village, one chest and beat it in 308 turns. I look forward to any more games you may make in the future nd I’ll probably replay this eventually, trying characters I rarely used before and try to get a better rank

Congrats! Beating the game on Hard/Classic is no mean feat - even I have trouble with it sometimes!

I can’t say I have any plans to make another game in the near future, though I did have thoughts of adding a few bonus maps in a later release.

1 Like

Hello robinco, just want to say I Love the game. I do have one question, does Cullen leave at the end of ch 8, or did I let him die on the last turn without realizing…:frowning:

Cullen shouldn’t leave at the end of Chapter 8 - it should be Elric, Candace and Hardwin who leave. That being said, there was another player who had Elric stay at the end of Chapter 8.

I have no idea what’s causing these issues, since the event clearly says to remove the 3 characters above. I’ll have another look and see if I can find what the problem might be.

Just wondering if you have something like a turn 10 save for Chapter 8? Might be a good way to check if your Cullen was still alive.

I’ve made a minor update, since a few things were bugging me.

  • Fixed some issues with the bridge and upper village in chapter 7
  • Slightly improved enemy/ally AI in chapters 8 and 12 (still not perfect, but it’s better)
  • Made a few small changes to chapter 9 (slightly reduced the number of reinforcements and adjusted Kelcey’s starting position)

I’ve also added an option to play in 0% and 100% growth modes. Similarly to the difficulty, this can be selected at the start of the game and changed any time inbetween battles.

The link should be the same this time, but here’s the link anyway.

1 Like