[RELEASE] Golden Sun: The Balance Age

[Caledor]

strongest staff and strongest robe.
ker's slightly stronger than lachesis and dark robe has the highest defense among robes, to match how stealth armor has the highest defense among armors.

[Rolina]

- Tyrfing
- Meltdown

I'm better with spells that with items - just to let you know.  

Consider looking into similar effects as Tyrfing, such as animation from Undead Sword.  I always saw that as a good Ragnarok counterpart for Felix.

[Caledor]

Thank you!
meltdown is just perfect. Exactly what i wanted.
tyrfing is also great, but i think i'll tinker with it a bit, i want to see if i can add some rocks near the sword.

[Rolina]

What's the unleash for the staff?  What element/animation?

[Caledor]

the unleash name is soul doom. element is venus and animation heartbreak
The name comes from the Keres, female death spirits from greek mytology.

From wikipedia:
"They were described as dark beings with gnashing teeth and claws and with a thirst for human blood. They would hover over the battlefield and search for dying and wounded men."

Also Kerostasia is the Weighing of souls, a method of divine determination of fate. when they were "observing" battles, gods used to weight the fighters' souls to determine who deserved victory and who death.

Hence Ker's Weight, which summons that dreadful looking spirit that has a chance to automatically kill the target.

[Rolina]

Best I've come up with for the dark robe is an Iris Robe recolor, and that doesn't meet my own standards...

Here's what' I've got for Ker's Weight:

[Caledor]

Looks really good. I'll tinker a bit with this one too (probably less red and add some black) but the most part is done. God knows how much time would have took me to reach this stage without your help... once i tried to make atropos rod similar to DD's one... i don't even know if it looked like a staff lol :P

[Rolina]

I'm afraid I'm just not good with items and equipment, neither in GBA or DD styles.  My talent seems to be more in spell generation. :/

[Caledor]

trust me, ker's looks really good. I'm just removing some red cause the sides look a bit too much like the ones of the demonic staff (= it's not entirely unique). If it didn't give me this "where have i seen this before" feel, i wouldn't have even touched it.

Edit @Role
i noticed two things: first, your tyrfing looks much more faithful to the animation than mine, so i'm probably gonna use that one and say goodbye to the rockish one i made. second, no matter how much i try i can't edit ker's to something that satisfies me (maybe cause it looks like clotho, which is by far the staff i like the least, or maybe it's the graphic filter on my vba or the palette... i don't really know) I'll probably try with a simpler design and see how it goes.

Also, this reminded me that i wanted to get rid of clotho's icon altogheter and replace it with something that looks like the ankh it is.

Edit 2: current versions
Ker's Weight
Tyrfing
Meltdown

What do think about Ker's Weight, Role?
For the other two, i just shifted them a bit left or right to make them more centered.
Waiting for your Dark Robe! ;)

Edit 3:
Clotho's Distaff DD Style
Opinions? Should i add this to the mod?

In-game screenshot, x3 zoom with xBRZ filter (italian ROM)
[spoiler][/spoiler]

[Rolina]

No, it clashes with the art style. Stick with the old Clotho's Distaff - DD notably changed arstyles, so it's best to stick with what we have.

Ker's weight is too flat looking, I think.
Tyrfing's edit seems... minor
Meltdown's edit seems plain unnecessary.

Also, thought I implied that I couldn't get the robe edit to work...

[Caledor]

Ah, i thought you just didn't manage on your first try. Fine then, i'll figure out something.

About Ker, I kinda gave up trying to make something unique and cool looking, so i just went for something simple but that looked both strong and evil. I'll try adding some details later but even if i don't manage i'm ok with it staying like that.

About Tyrfing... yes, it's really minor but maybe i went overboard with those particles... well, i'll know for sure when i see how it looks in game with filters and all.

About Meltdown. Actually, I just shifted the whole thing 2 pixels left to make it more centred. Was there some particular reason for yours to be so aligned to the right?

[Rolina]

Take a look at all the dark stuff in TLA's sprites.  You'll see that they're not as dark as you'd think.  It's freaking hard to get shading and detail right with only 15 colors to work with.  It's why I suck at items.

@Tyrfing and Meltdown:  Tyrfing was on the left, so I had Meltdown on the right.  I kinda liked how it looked off-center.

[Caledor]

i know, but currently it's the best options i have. i'm currently making minor changes to ker but for the most part i consider it done.

@Tyrfing & Meltdown. Oh, got it. well instead i actually tried making tyrfing also centered with particles on both sides but it didn't really look good.

@Clotho. roger that. I even tried making it gba style by recoloring the blessed ankh. Turned out i can't stand the original ankh look too. so, unless i redo all 3 ankhs things will stay like this.

Edit:
current ker
x3 zoom with xbrz filter

[Salanewt]

Just to add to the Tyrfing/Meltdown thing, they probably look better being off-centre when you compare them to icons like Death Plunge & Leap. Although those also had tiny additions to them on the left side. Meltdown in particular could probably go either way without something like that, although Tyrfing off-centre is cool.

Nice work with the icons again, Role!


Clotho: I sort of agree, but I have to admit that I do like that icon; it would probably look better with some slight edits as a different weapon.

Ker: Is it supposed to be cursed? If so, then I think it looks cool enough. Maybe even cooler with a yellow or dark green pixel rather than grey on the orb?

[Caledor]

@Squirtle
Yes Ker's Weight is cursed and is now the strongest staff (venus element). I'm trying slightly different designs, i'll upload them all when they're done

Edit:
another version. less evil aura, longer and slightly more detailed handle, brown mark

[Rolina]

Also... could you do me a favor and show it without the filter?  I think you're relying on it too much, considering not everyone's gonna be using it.  It'll need to look good without the filter too.

[VardenSalad]

Could you try upping the contrast on the part of the staff in front that wraps up the orb? I dunno what to call it, like the "fingers." It's just barely visible unless you zoom in hard.

[Caledor]

full aura made it seem too plain. also varden's suggestion was spot on and i think it looks better now.
@Squirtle. i tried every pixel the palette has to offer but imho dark grey looks best cause i don't want to be too noticeable.

[Salanewt]

That makes sense; in all honesty too, I really like the grey pixel now following Varden's suggestion. Nice work!

[Caledor]

Good then, i'll start working on the Dark Robe. ;)

Edit:
First attempt


Suggestions? Like about anything?