Concept idea in the thinking... Any comments?

[Shurikane]

I was thinking of a FFT-A spoof of sorts ever since I started playing the game and I somewhat came up with a little something in the same style. Comments are friggin' welcome!

The basic storyline is this: it's the same universe as I've been working on (c.f.: Discipline Thread, Fighting Game Character Thread-o-Rama) but it's a sequel. In this sequel, the Earth is dead, everyone's up in the spirit world and are having fun. No Last Judgment or anything; the world's ended, now relax and reflect on your past lives. However, there are a few black clouds in the sky...

-Number one: Master, the chief of Department Twisted, doesn't intend on giving up his power so easily, and he's ready to make a comeback to get his share of the booty.
-Number two: November Echo, who was featured before as a die-hard militant for leaving Earth alive, has stayed there and is working on pumping souls back into the physical world, against the set rules. She's since known as a "black market" character of sorts, or rather a soul smuggler. She will be able to grant you powerful allies.
-Number three: The Negatives, evil soul twins, are strong and present, and keep making everyone's life hard. The spirit world's order keepers are constantly having trouble keeping them at bay.
-Number four: The Reli demons have been gathered up by the war lord Altastrast, and are planning to invade the spirit world, with no compromise. This is by far the worst menace.



And hence, the spirit world becomes divided:

-Department Twisted has a tiny share of the spirit world, but he's growing his turf on Earth, and fast.
-The Order Keepers, the spirit world's police and army in a sense, have a very good share of the spirit world but of course have nothing to do with Earth.
-The Negatives have both a respectable share of the spirit world and Earth. They are strong on defense, preferring to make strong walls to guard their stuff, while sending out raiding parties to get to their ends.
-Altastrast has already conquered most of Earth already now that all the souls have left it, and is taking the spirit world over at breathtaking speed.

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UNIVERSE LAWS

The basic battle system is very, very similar to FFT-A. Of course, there are a few differences.

First, there are danger zones on the battle field, which can damage or even kill you. For example, if you're on top of an air ship, you can try knocking your opponents into the propellers for an instant kill!

Second, there are laws, but their operation is different. Here, there are no yellow or red cards or jails. If it's against the law to do something, you can't do it, period. That function is disabled. And here, the laws affect physics and other universal operations. For example, one field may have a law of electricity which states that air is a conductor with virtually no resistance. The result: your lightning spells have infinite range! Or, one other law could say gravity is very low. That means you can't move as fast, but you can easily jump on high places you couldn't reach before. Laws are different for each area and are governed by whoever controls them. Gain control of an area to set up its laws in your favor!

Third, there are no job changes. The character is final. It won't matter much anyways because you'll be given characters instead of being prompted to design one. But, although you can't change jobs, you can morph between appearances, which will affect your stats. Let's say you have three forms: human, wolf, and horse. As a human, your stats are average. As a wolf, your defense goes down, but your offense and agility go up. As a horse, you can move through the battlefield very quickly, but your stats take a dive. Each character has his own set of forms. You may also change forms during a battle.

Fourth, the map is set - it can't be designed like in FFT-A. I honestly thought it just wasn't useful in FFT-A. Looks nifty, looks like more power, but at the end it just gave me headaches more than anything else...

Fifth, some locations are broken down into sub-locations. Let's say you invade a big city. You might have to take it by sections.

Sixth, battles will go quicker. In FFT-A, it took me 10 minutes to just do one fight, and I was in full turbo mode. Hence, I want to make my version more expeditive. Animations will be quicker, more stuff will be shown simultaneously during an animation, and some AI maneuvers will be quickened up. So instead of seeing the monster get his movement grid, choose a spot and move to it, you'll just see the movement grid and the chosen spot appear while the monster moves. There. It took less time to do, and you still got to see where the monster was going and where he could've gone. The more I can cut down on time, the more frantic the battle will appear.


Now, why do you need to take an appearance? I mean, it's the spirit world, you could basically do anything, right? Well, not in my version. My design of the spirit realm consists of two main sections: one where you have no shape or form and that's about it, and another where you are given a physical self. All fights will appear in the latter section. Therefore, you will need a form, gear, and weapons to fight it out. The physical worlds are what must be conquered. The "spirit" part of the world is basically like a giant chatroom and therefore useless. Therefore, if Altastrast conquers all the physical worlds, everyone opposing him will be locked out in the spirit part of the world. Locked out equals no possibility for spiritual growth. Bye-bye, nirvana!

So what do we do? Master himself is the man with the plan: throw Altastrast into Plane Zero, a taboo realm which acts like a black hole, and shatters any soul that goes into it. Ultimate death. However, Shrike is opposed to this. Who's gonna get the last word?

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SYSTEM

The combat system will be the same one as in PO Wars - or rather, the stuff Shino is coding in. Yay! I found a good use for those hit-and-miss rates!

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CHARACTERS

Lots of characters will be making a comeback on this one. The main char will of course be Shrike. She's agreed to help the Order Keepers fight Altastrast and the others, and goes on missions to kick some ass. She comes with three forms: one human (see PO self), one android (remember PSO?) and one in-between. As a human, she has the best resistance to magic and can deal good magic offense too. As an android, she is all physical, but her magic is weak. As an in-between, both stats are balanced, but don't think this is your master key. You WILL have to morph a coupla times to adapt to battle conditions. If you jump into a fight as an in-between against an army of mages, you are cooked. Better change to human form to survive those attacks.

I also have plans for some other characters to make a comeback, namely:

-Yang, one of Shrike's friends. She's a fighter like Shrike
-Ilica (also known as Zinackst), Shrike's opposite and halfway between a friend and a rival. Very heavy on magic and attacks, but poor defense.
-Kod, who's always been featured as a expert in fighting. Extreme physical stats, mediocre magic.
-Severance, the ex-assassin of Department Twisted and now on Ilica's side. A balanced fighter.
-Elise, Shrike's friend. Great physical offense and magical defense. She features a human form too!
-Whatley, Shrike's friend. He retains his Insa Android heritage and loves napalm!
-Kestra, Shrike's friend. Virtually a golden angel, she can heal great, and has varied magic attacks.
-Ash, the Department Twisted second in command. He hasn't changed a bit!
-BWS-1, who's still siding with Severance and Ilica.
-Esther, the double-bodied woman, who's kept her stange trademark in the spirit world. She works alone and is encountered from time to time.
-Kay, originally Shrike's friend, she now works alongside... The Negatives?!!
-Kode Future, the Negatives officer and arch-enemy of Kod.
-Lisa M, a rogue Negative with surprising abilities. She's rather undecided of her alignment...!
-Aiman Voltar, the Reli officer. He has rebelled against Altastrast but has no plans to join the Order Keepers either...
-Dream, the conglomerate of thirteen souls, have decided to team up after all and use a single body. Her attacks are weak and her defense is laughable at best, but she is gifted with blazing speed.

I might put in a few POs in there too. If you want to be in there, just tell me. So if the concept ever makes it onto a computer, I'll try to keep a spot for you. And feel free to tell me how you align. You could be among the good guys just like the bad guys, and a small backstory doesn't hurt.