Golden Sun Hacking Community

I thought up an idea.

A Mario Bros themed hack of GS.

Now, using the elements established in SMRPG, and the characters from NSMBWii...

The elements are:

Jump, Fire, Ice, Shock

You don't have djinn, you have powerup sets.  They are:

Propeller Shroom (Jump)
Fire Flower (Fire)
Ice Flower (Ice)
Thunder Flower (Shock)

These determine your class, and ultimately, what skills you use.

Innate elements are:

Mario:  Fire
Luigi: Jump
Blue Toad:  Ice
Yellow Toad:  Shock

"But Role, what about 1 Ups and Super Mushrooms?!"

1 Ups replace the Water of Life.  Mushrooms, Super Mushrooms, and Mega Mushrooms are recovery items.

"What about stuff like the Tanooki Suit and Penguin Suit?"

What do you expect to use as armor?  Those are artifacts, totally.  Tanooki boosts Jump affinity, Penguin boosts Ice.  Also, where's your love for the Hammer Bros suit?  It was the best of all of them, you know!

"And Yoshi?"

Yoshi is your transport.  You can move faster on land with Yoshi while riding him.  Blue Yoshi is used to traverse water.  Or something.  Basically, Yoshis are Yoshis, and do what Yoshis do best!~

"Enemies?  Not Vermin, right?"

...Goombas?  Hello, it's a Mario hack.  Hell, just go look at Mario RPG!  Or heck, even paper mario!  There's your basic for foes!  And many, many, MANY game mechanics and thematics...

So... Sala... Wanna add on to this?  I thought it up randomly over in ToK, and guess it made me come back here.  Guess I'll be more active here, huh?

 :happy:

I love this idea, and will definitely add on to it. Not fully sure if we should have two Toads though. Also, Yoshis for transport will be fine, as long as they are pretty much the main mode of transport (other than walking of course).

If this is for the Lost Age, then we could probably include another team of people, though an idea for a full team currently eludes me. I do have an idea for how we could include Peach, except that she does not really have an element affiliation, so it would be hard to include her.

QuotePropeller Shroom (Jump)
Fire Flower (Fire)
Ice Flower (Ice)
Thunder Flower (Shock)

This is good, but instead of Thunder Flower, we could use the Volt Shroom from Paper Mario. Alternatively, we could also use common enemies to take these roles, but then it might feel slightly less like a Mario game, so... I like using items for this. As for a battle system, I agree that we could use mechanics from the other Mario RPG games. We should try to stay away from the Mario and Luigi games for battle system though, since it is possible to never take any damage during battle (time jumps and countering are in it).

Anyway, thanks for coming up with this idea, since I really like it. I will definitely add more to it in the future when I have more ideas.

Have a nice day.

There's a Volt Shroom?  Perfect!  Okay, let's do that, then!

Also, no need for two parties.  One is enough.  I mean, just because we have space for it, doesn't mean we have to use it, you know?  And if you want, we can swap out Blue Toad for Geno, and Yellow Toad for Mallow...

Peach is the damsel in distress, of course.  The goal is to save her.  And Bowser's the big bad.  And of course, you'll have to take out every last Koopaling!

Now, how do you battle items?  Well, you don't, of course!  No, they'll be guarded by Hammer Bros, Fire Bros, Ice Bros... you know, the appropriate elemental bro doods.


Also, this is a golden sun hack.  Meaning, Golden Sun's battle system.  Modified, of course, to be a bit more balanced.

Anywho, I thought this up as a comparative example for a game that uses merely the system of a game, but abandons pretty much everything else.  But the scenario?  A Mario game in every truest since, using the Golden Sun engine?  Naturally, I thought of you.  I mean, you've been wanting to do this from the get go, right?  Story, characters, thematics, all different.  It's not djinn, it's power ups!  There's no elemental stars or mention of Weyard, this is the Mushroom Kingdom, and we've got Koopa King's shell to kick!  It's basically using the Golden Sun engine to make a totally different game.  We could use the community hack to show an example of how to make a GS based game with the system, but this game to show that we can make a drastically different game, too.

Now, instead of Treasure Chests, we'd have the ? blocks, of course.  We'd need a treasure opening animation, though.  A jump, of course.  And we'd need to mark that these are in the air... so there's gonna be a shadow to notate where to jump.  You know, because floating things casts shadows.  For "element bros" you fight, if it's on the world map, they'll drop the item after battle, so it'll be an automatic obtain.

If we use Geno and Mallow... that means Mario and Luigi are the fighters, and Geno and Mallow are the mage-types.  At least, in their base classes.  I don't want to have 'fighter' and 'mage' elements, per se, though.  So instead, mixing different items has effects independent of who's naturally what element.  So you can make Mario a mage if you want, and Geno a fighter.  You just have to give them the right combo of powerups!

Your thoughts so far?

The original Mario RPG graphical style may even blend fairly well with Golden Sun's if you wanted to base it off of that, and use Mallow & Geno.  It's only unfortunate that the battle sprites only face one direction, and it's kinda at an awkward overhead angle for GS's battle system.

That's what artists are for.  But I was thinking that either that, or maybe a paper mario-esque style would do well.  Also, aren't the battle sprites just... normal sprites, until they move to attack?  We'd have to lower the angle anyways, so... we should have at least 4 directions for all three characters... save for luigi.

For Super Mario RPG, I think that is how the sprites are. For Paper Mario, I do not think they are (well, they are two separate sets of sprites). For the Mario and Luigi games, both battle and overworld use different sprites about 95% of the time (during tutorials, overworld sprites might be used to change angles or if there are NPCs present, but that is about it).

Hammer Bro. variants? Sounds good, but I have a slight addition to your idea (though I think you already thought of this).

Hammer Bro. = Earth/Venus/Jump
Fire Bro. = Fire/Mars
Ice Bro. = Water/Mercury/Ice
Boomerang Bro = Wind/Jupiter/Shock

We could probably use Piranha Plants at times if we really wanted to (so one does not always expect a Bro.), but we would me missing a Jump type (some can spit Fireballs, some can spew Ice breath, and there is a variant from Superstar Saga that can spit Shockballs).

Also, Geno and Mallow would be perfect, and I could work on battle sprites, as well as portraits. First though, I want to get stuff for Yoshi in Superstar Saga out of the way, then I would like to work on Yoshi stuff for Golden Sun (using some of the Superstar Saga overworld stuff that I would have finished). As for battle system, what I had meant before was to adopt minor things, but still stick with the Golden Sun system. Had little time this morning, since I had to get ready for school, so I summarized it too quickly.

Blocks with shadows? I could try to search for what happens in Superstar Saga, since that game has the blocks with the shadows you described (better graphics are needed though). I can copy and edit those blocks tonight when I finish my work, then post them somewhere here (I even have some Mario cameo blocks to work with, so I will post each of them).

I would like to try to give as many ideas for this as possible, so you can expect many more ideas from me in the future.

Have a nice day.

Heh, you and me had the same idea there!

Piranha Plants... Sound like Mad Plants to me!  Or would that be a Smalix?


GS can do floating objects with shadows, GS1 showed this with the invisi-platform, for example.  We just need to make sure they can jump!

Don't try to match an art style yet, we've not settled on one.  I'll let you come up with the sprites, and we'll take that art direction from there, flesh it out into the world, etc...

Now for weapons, we need a set of melee weapons.  Which means Geno's gonna be a pain.  I do know that Geno will have Finger Shot in his base class, which will become Arm Canon.  It'll be an EPA for him, I figure.  But for the others...

Mario:  Gloves, Hammers, something else w/geno
Luigi:  Gloves, Cymbals, Hammers
Mallow:  Gloves, Sticks, Cymbals
Geno:  Gloves (might as well...), Sticks, something else/mario...

I figure everyone can use gloves, then two use sticks, two use Cymbals, two use something else, and Mario and Luigi share another weapon.

Mallow and Geno share Sticks, Mallow and Luigi share Cymbols, Geno and Mario share something, and the Bros share hammers (of course!)

I figure you'd be able to figure out the other two weapon types better than me, though.  Only Mario RPG I've played is... well, Super Mario RPG... I've had a grudge against Paper Mario ever since it replaced SMRPG2, and I've not gotten a hold of the first superstar saga game (won't play the others out of order!).  Got some ideas?

Ooh! An awesome idea!

What we really need is something with multiple chapters or something, so at first it seems that the Koopa King is the big bad, but then somebody pulls an X-Nauts, and then maybe someone else pulls an X-Nauts on the previous X-Nauts?

I think the absolute hardest part of this will be allowing characters to jump, honestly.

So basically... it's a Mario Game with the GS engine? I love it!

Well, there are a couple of things I might add, but keep in mind I've only ever played Superstar Saga and Partners in Time.

Mimics could easily become Thwomps, building up on the "?" block idea.

There could be a bit of a problem with the puzzle like dungeons, as a whole new series of sprites would be made, and, seeing a jump element, one would likely wonder- "Why don't I just jump onto the pillar?"

Well, here are my two cents on utility psynergies:

Reveal:Torch (Fire)

I can't see much allocation for a reveal psynerg, other than causing the surrounding dark and using a "Torch " psynergy as a light and giving the surroundings a redd hue. I think it's possible.

Whirlwind: Burn (Fire)

Simple. You burn grass instead of blowing it away, as we have no wind element. Unless I'm mistaken. Which is quite likely.

Hand Set Psynergies (Move, Catch, Lift, etc): Variety of Names (Jump)

A Luigi sprite, or whoever, replaces the hand image and jumps to the object, doing whatever the psynergy normally does.

Naturally, some can be kept like Frost or Burst, but yeah, most of them won't make much sense.

Whirlwind could also easily become Wither (Ice): Instead of blowing grass away, you expose it to cold temperatures causing it to wither and die.

Why don't you jump to the pillar? Easy: Make it too tall. Maybe the characters have high enough jump to get on top of a Carry block, but not anything taller, so you'd have a LOT more jump-based puzzles. And a lot more spikes like in GS1.

Maybe include a cameo of Echo the Djinni if you look in just the right place? Maybe he promises not to eat your chips, but Mario doesn't trust him? (I'm honestly surprised that the "I promise I'm not going to eat your chips or anything!" line hasn't become a Meme. Especially considering it's pretty much a blatant example of Breaking the Fourth Wall.)

And are Hammer-based "psys" going to be Jump or non-elemental?

And are we going to scrap the whole "silent protagonist" thing and let Mario and Luigi talk?

And maybe after/if Bowser turns out to not be the true bad guy, he (along with some friendlies I guess) plays as the second party in the game? Kind of like the Bowser sections in Paper Mario: TTYD?

What if the Koopalings rebel against Bowser and try to take over the world themselves or something, so Mario and Bowser end up both trying to take them down without teaming up?

Before I reply to your posts, I will add one or two notes...

We actually do have a jumping Piranha Plant, from Super Mario World. It would jump out of a pipe before landing back in. Some would even spit two fireballs, so we could use this variant for the Jump Piranha Plant.

Don't worry, I am not going for an art style (in fact, I would rather avoid using them (especially Superstar Saga), since I prefer the graphics in Golden Sun (we could alter it if we want). One thing that did help make Superstar Saga successful was not only its similarity to the other Mario RPGs (more specifically Paper Mario), but also for some of its mild humour (eg. Luigi in a dress).

As for floating objects, Superstar Saga (and the other Mario and Luigi games) also have something similar, and they even create chadows (except that this also happens for NPCs and any other sprite based object if they are not on the ground, unless a script is unactive (no idea which one though, but it seems to be assigned to an object on the map)).

Oh yeah, "non-elemental" should become "other", so we can include abilities related to elements not used [often] by the protagonists, like Earth (Monty Mole could use something like 'Rock Throw', or 'Dig').

Jamie:

Interesting ideas about antagonist confusion, but I doubt it should be done with Koopalings (though maybe from a different angle, like Baby Bowser vs. Bowser?). We could make Luigi talk, but it might be a bit odd for one game to have Mario able to talk. Luigi is fine though, since he can speak in some games, and ends up doing so in at least three of the Mario RPGs (Paper Mario 1+2, and Superstar Saga (he never talks unless he is disguised as Peach though... ... ...)). Bowser not being the final boss seems like an idea, since almost every other Mario RPG does this. However, who would we have as our villain? Every Mario RPG game has had an original antagonist (except for Paper Mario 1, which did have Bowser (he had the Star Rod)).

Insularity:

Torch; I like this idea, but I also seem to remember Luigi having a flashlight. We could make it a bestowable item for a move which illuminates areas.

Burn; This works. What we could probably do as an alternative is to have a second type of Fire Flower (difference between Super Mario World and Super Mario Bros., for example). The other one could act like an item to be used either inside or outside of battle (I forget, can items also be used outside of battle for their effects, besides healing items?).

Hand Set; Naturally, but renamed. We should however try to make it so all characters have the same animations, just in case we want the same animations for a cutscene, or even to change who can be seen on the overworld.

Also, I have another idea... If we do only have one team, the sprites for the missing 4 could also have all 8 directions, so they can be used as really important characters (like Peach or Yoshi, for example).

Have a nice day.

Now the question is what weapon should Mario share with Geno?

Maybe a Tennis Racket or Home-Run Bat? (lol Mario Tennis/Mario Baseball references)

No idea for a new weapon, but I do have one or two other ideas, which I could not say before due to how long the post was (and screen twitchiness). Also, not even sure of Geno can use a bat or racket, since his weapons normally consist of gun-like equipment, which seem to be attached to his hand.

How about we include Shoes and Badges? Shoes would act like Gloves when wearing them (but as boots obviously), while Badges would be like Undergarments (or something so only one can be work at a time). I will go into detail with my Badge ideas later, but a part of them would be based off of Superstar Saga and Partners in Time (Bowser's Inside Story used them differently).

I have an idea for Yoshi's Island, even for including a mini-game. However, I would prefer to wait for now before giving too many ideas about it (one of them involves allowing Mario and co. to ride a Yoshi in the area though).

Have a nice day.

Another idea: In keeping with Mario RPG tradition, perhaps it would be possible to add Team Attack moves?

For example maybe a Glove that bestows an ability that damages the enemy and increase Attack for all other Glove wielders on the field?

Basically, what I'm getting at here is that all weapons would bestow a "combo" skill that gives some sort of bonus to all other wielders of that weapon type on the field.

Gloves would provide all manner of effects, but have weaker combos because everyone could wear gloves at the same time.

Hammers would focus on Attack and Crit boosts.

Cymbals could focus on restoration effects (HP/FP (Flower Power, replaces PP) restoration) or offensive status bestowing if possible (basically, gives allies a chance to inflict an offensive status when they attack)

Sticks would focus on Mage-type combos (boosts to EP and ER, etc.).

Whatever is shared between Mario and Geno would be defensive maybe?

For the Hand Psynergies, maybe use Stuffwell? I mean, come on, a little guy who goes off to help do stuff, he'd fit perfectly!

...This would make Geno Ice, wouldn't it? I haven't played Super Mario RPG, but I always thought Geno would be better as Shock elemental. Then again, I have no idea who Mallow is.

I like some of those ideas, but not every weapon should bestow a combo (in fact, we should limit it to a few weapons at most for unlocking combos).

Stuffwell... The suitcase from Partners in Time? Well, I suppose we could try to add a script to the game that makes each character only able to carry 10 or so items until he joins you.

Oh yeah, slightly new idea. This weapon would be an extremely rare artefact, but can be used by any party member. The Star Rod! Of course, it would be hard to get to make up for how powerful it could be. The only question is how we could implement it without making it too broken, as well as making it difficult to get (I am thinking Dullahan style, but multiplied). Alternatively, we could edit how the code system works. You beat the game, which gives you a code you could use, and you get access to new items next time you start a new file (that is, if you copy the code).

Well, I think I will start working on getting some of my custom Superstar Saga sprites done (since we can edit some of the sprites), and then I will work on sprites which could be used for Golden Sun, in Golden Sun style (which reminds me, maybe I want to add portraits in Superstar Saga if we ever find out how).

Have a nice day.

No, I was talking about using Stuffwell for the Hand Psys like Move and Catch and whatnot. We'd probably need something else for Carry though.

I honestly think at least most weapons should bestow a combo ability of some sort.

Odd idea. Suitcase acting as psynergy? It has potential, but it seems a bit too much for a suitcase to do, when Mallow could probably move something with his storm power, which reminds me...

Gust = Move?

If you explain your reasoning for weapons, then I am more likely to agree, or come up with a more reasonable response. I agree that at least half of the artefacts could bestow a regular ability, but you should explain for combo abilities.

Have a nice day.

For Combos, I want to do something similar to the Bros. Attacks in Superstar Saga, but available for any characters, since we have a four-character party. However, Bros. Attacks would be rather difficult to do, so this is my substitution.

I figure Stuffwell could easily grab an apple off a tree (catch) or flick a switch in a location the main party can't get at it (Force), due to being smaller and more agile.

That could work. As for combo, what I would have in mind something similar to the effect that one of the djinn has, I think a Jupiter? It can allow two people to attack at once. Anyway, when possible, we could try to implement other abilities to work like this if we want (I think?). I will have to do some research on it when we can edit Djinni.

Also, I have a Yoshi portrait ready, and will upload it soon. I have a feeling that we should have a different portrait for each Yoshi (or at least different colours), but this should work for now. Please keep in mind that it is still a work in progress, and I will likely update it a bit more in the future (I made it as close to Golden Sun style as I could). I would start a new topic for Mario based sprites, but I do not have enough for a topic. As for overworld sprites, I will end up basing them on what I have for Superstar Saga (well, at least for my Golden Sun hack which brings the worlds of Nintendo together), since Yoshi's Palette will be compatible, and has a nice selection of colours.

(http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/7924/yoshiportraitgoldensun.png)

So, does anyone like my Yoshi portrait? I am going to work on more Yoshi stuff for Golden Sun, but I would not mind having different head angles for different Yoshis (does not matter, but I might as well to make them seem a bit different).

Have a nice day.

Edit: Notice how similar it is to my avatar?

It looks pretty good for the most part, although you're not making the best use of the limited palette space.  I count 7 colors used for the red 'spikes' on the back of his head.  That's nearly half the palette used on something that makes up only around 10% of the portrait.  I recommend cutting back on the amount of colors used there so that you can add more shades of green and white to smooth out the more important parts of his face.

Also as far as overworld sprites for him go, depending on the graphical style you finally decide on I can get you his sprites from Mario Golf for GBA which greatly resemble GS style.

It was a Venus Djinni, named Meld if I recall correctly.

The real question is can we make combination abilities, say using Spin Jump with Mario's Fireball to result in a Bros. Fire Tornado or something.

Overall I do think that's a pretty good portrait.

Okay, thanks for the advice, it is just that I have no idea which other shades to use for the rest of Yoshi (I tried using others, but I could not get it to blend in well). I will try a bit more though, since I know where I can add another shade near his nostrils. Also, thanks Jamie, but I made a slight update.

Well, I somehow ended up with 16 colours for the portrait, but the transparent colour does not have to be transparent, right?

(http://img297.imageshack.us/img297/7924/yoshiportraitgoldensun.png)

Changes since last portrait: Less lighting on spikes, more on face (mainly nostril region).

I have counted:
5 shades of green,
4 shades of grays (one of which is white)
4 shades of orange (just removed one),
black,
blue.

Have a nice day.

Also, Spinfire? Reminds me of Super Mario World, when you would perform a Spin Jump while using a Fire Flower.

That's not quite what I meant...  The new shade of green you added is too similar to the the previously brightest one to make much of a difference.  Here, I made a couple edits to your portrait to better show what I was talking about with smoothing out the shading:

(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v698/AtriusV/Random%20Screens/Yoshi.gif)

I don't really recommend a dithering style of shading for something like this, if necessary plain old cell shading lends itself better to the existing art style anyway.  I also made a couple minor modifications to areas of the face that I thought could be shaped just a little better, and desaturated the green just a hair.

EDIT: I stand corrected, Golden Sun does seem to favor dithering in some ways...  Personally I still don't like it very much though.

Another thing I thought of looking at the portrait again, the red in his spikes could use a bit more contrast.

Interesting ideas!

The combo thing seems impractical, though...

For elements, imo: Fire (Mario), Jump (Weegee), Ice (Mallow), Star (Geno)
Fire/Ice are opposing, and Jump/Star are opposing.

If there was a second party, I'd imagine it being something like Bowser (fire), Yoshi (jump), ??? (ice), and Peach (star). Dunno who could fill in the ice role... Truth is ice doesn't seem to be something that would be all that common in the mario universe for a character attribute, except for enemies that you would specifically find in a slippy slidey ice world...

Role was basing it off the elements found in Super Mario RPG.

Combos are only impractical if the combo isn't more powerful than the moves being combo'd.

To be honest, I dislike dithering as well, but I noticed that several of the other Golden Sun portraits seem to use it, so I was trying to make it closer to Golden Sun style. I do prefer the smoother looking one though, so I am just adapting the semi-original to look more like that. I also missed that one shade of green... Thanks!

Yeah, I ran into a similar problem in a different topic a while ago for having another Mario based Mercury character, so I made Yoshi the first one and decided to make it a Nintendo hack instead of Mario. I mean, almost any Mario character could be a Jump type character, it is just that Mario is better at it than most others (well, according to residents of the Mushroom Kingdom, but Yoshi can also Flutter Jump, so he is practically the King of Jumping).

Okay, here is the most modern version, including some improvisions from Atrius' version, as well as one or two slight modifications, and a slightly darker outline.

(http://img695.imageshack.us/img695/7924/yoshiportraitgoldensun.png)

Have a nice day.

Replacement for whirlwind?  Mario version of reveal?


What's wrong with you people?  Stop putting Golden Sun puzzles in my Mario game.  We need MARIO style puzzles!  Stop thinking with GS field psys, and try to figure out what we can do that makes this uniquely Mario.  Jump, obviously, is one of them.  I figure so is Fireball, Iceball, and Thunderbolt.  Jump works like you recommended - you jump about as high as a carry block.  Fireball burns down bushes.  Iceball works like Cryo.  Thunderbolt... we'll have to figure out.

Now, I can't believe nobody mentioned this:  We can keep Mind Read.  It's Mallow's Psychopath!

Leaf:  Hmm... the reason I had thunder is because we have precident with SMRPG, so we can do a lot of plug-and-play there.  When you think Stars in mario, what do you think of?  Me?  Starman.  So, that would mean that his abilities involve insta-kills and invulnerability. ...Maybe we should stick with thunder. ^-^;  Besides, only one of Mallow's moves was ice elemental, and he's a freaking cloud - wind and thunder just fit.  Heck, Mallow's most well known attacks are thunder based.  Thunderbolt and Shocker are shock, Snowy was Ice, Star Jump was non-elemental, and HP Rain and Psychopath were supplemental.

Sala, remember - this is a Mario game, so... shouldn't we make it more Mario style?  I'm surprised that you'd try to make it in a GS style... if it's to try and make me happy though... sorry...

Anywho, Mario and Luigi have two signature moves - Jump and Shoot fireballs.  Mario 2 established Luigi as being able to jump higher, and that stuck - often times, he can jump higher, but has less traction.  Thus, he's the Jump elemental.  Mario's the Fire elemental as a result.  And since Jump is the new Move, both can use the field version of Jump on the map.

Though Mallow could use any element except for Fire, he had two Shock elemental attack as opposed to the single ice element one.  Thus, Mallow is the Thunder dood.

Geno, though all his attacks were non-elemental, at least can easily be converted to Ice, if nothing else than for "color coded for your convenience".  Besides, there was what, all of TWO ice elemental attacks in the whole of Mario RPG?  Snowy and Ice Bomb, iirc, are the only ones you can actually use.  Besides, I imagine it's pretty cold way up there in the star road. :P

Anywho, I've got an EPA for mario:


Shell Striker → Lazy Shell
Shell Striker - a small green Koopa Shell fall from the sky, and Mario does a Mario Strikers-style kick on it, turning it all flamey.
Lazy Shell - ditto as above, only instead of the Koopa Shell, it's the Lazy Shell from SMRPG.

For Luigi:

Ground Pound → Sky Pound

Ground Pound - Exactly what it says on the tin.
Sky Pound - Jumps way off screen.  You hear him falling for a while until BAM! He shakes the ground upon landing.

These are base class ones, of course.  For Mallow and Geno, their base classes are mage ones, so we'll need to come up with some for their alt classes.


Mallow should be an average of Spells and Heals.

Geno I figure is Spells and Buffs.


Also... Charon, you out there?  Or someone else gifted in musical talent?  What would Mario RPG's battle theme sound like when done with GS instruments?

QuoteSala, remember - this is a Mario game, so... shouldn't we make it more Mario style?  I'm surprised that you'd try to make it in a GS style... if it's to try and make me happy though... sorry...

Not quite. I was trying to make it partially in Golden Sun style, just so the artistic part of it would be universally compatible with both Mario and Golden Sun games (and since I also want it in my Superstar Saga hack when I can add portraits, I do not want to go through the work of making multiple portraits for different games). Besides, as for Mario style, it would be a good idea to get the style from any of the Mario RPGs (not Paper Mario games) and enhance it. In fact, I grabbed that Yoshi head from an image of a cover image for Yoshi's Island (one image with several Yoshis from Japan), and greatly altered the colours. I can not find that image again, but I want to make some more Yoshi portraits with different angles and palettes (since, if we will have at least two or three different Yoshis, we might need a different portrait for each one, and also to be more creative than just a palette swap for each).

There are some neat puzzles in Superstar Saga that I could reference you to, but most would not be very compatible with this type of RPG... That is, unless we can allow the team to split up while on the map (so a full party of four could split up, Mario and Mallow go left, and Luigi and Geno go right, for example). This would be a bit harder to implement into Golden Sun, but the Mario and Luigi games work sort of like this at times. This would mean that one half of the team can go to a room, pull a switch, and open a room for the other team. Things would be changed as well so the game understands that the other party members have left the team. However, you would not be able to separate them whenever you want. It would only happen either during cutscenes, or if a script is activated somewhere on the map (so you also have to have your team when you leave the area).

I think nobody mentioned Mind Read, possibly because of Mallow's Psychopath? Hard to say.

Those sounds good for Mario's EPAs. I also have an idea from Super Mario RPG... Remember Yoshi Cookies? If one is used, it can summon Yoshi in battle. We could probably have something like this, using a summon psynergy as a base. Autokill, and perhaps a script for it, so you also automatically get the item that the enemy holds (not guaranteed to kill for some enemies, and will not kill bosses unless it removes enough HP).

I would try making some music, but I am still not very good at it. I will try it out later, maybe around March Break? Full week to try to work on things.

Have a nice day.

Edit: I just remembered that portraits for Superstar Saga would not be ideal, because it uses direct speech bubbles for when characters talk, think, etc. It does also use a similar text box format to Golden Sun at times though, but only for graphics (and even then, they are not quite like Golden Sun, other than for not coming from a specific character). I will try to alter it in the future though, so portraits might be usable... This is not the place to discuss this though.

We could probably keep the Beam series as well as the Fireball series, meaning two Fire series out of the way.

Weegee stuff, since we need more than 1 combat ability:

Jump: Weegee jumps on a target's head and lands back on his side of the battlefield. 30 power, range 1. This would probably be his level one ability, costing about 4 FP. (unless in Mario style, in which case this ability would cost 1 FP.

Double Jump: Weegee jumps, lands on a target's head, footstool jumps, and then lands on the target again creating a large Superstar Saga-style burst of stars. 60 power, range 3. Probably would cost about 9 FP. (Unless in Mario style, in which case it would probably cost 2 FP.

Triple Jump: This may be a case of Exactly What it Says on the Tin, but Luigi jumps, lands, does a double jump, lands, then does a triple jump and lands on a target, creating a massive Superstar Saga-style star burst. 120 Power, range 5. Would probably cost about 20 FP. (remember I'm measuring costs in Flower Power, not Psynergy Points. However, I'm still basing the costs in GS style. In Mario terms, this ability would probably cost 3 FP.)

Mario stuff:

He'd get Fire of course, possibly Beam, but as for original stuff:

Fire Jump: Like Luigi's Jump, but he doesn't go as high and his boots are on fire. Eat that suckers!

Super Fire Jump: Mario jumps with his BOOTS ON FIRE, lands on a target and creates a small Blast (Mad)-like explosion on impact. Basically same as Luigi's Double Jump.

Hyper Fire Jump: Mario jumps ridiculously high straight off the screen with his boots acting like Jump-Jets, and comes back down on a target with a large Nova-like explosion. Basically the same as Luigi's Triple Jump. Eat that!


As for actual game mechanics, we need to pull a Superstar Saga by allowing one character to get places others can't. For example, with Luigi's Jump being slightly higher than Mario's, there could be areas he could get to that Mario just barely can't. And of course Mallow, being a cloud, can fly, so no problems there. Either that, or we need to pull a Paper Mario with ridiculously well-hidden passageways. I mean, there were times when the only way to go farther was just to have Flurry or whatever her name was blow her windy breath everywhere in hopes of revealing a secret location. And Koops the Koopa was just fun. I mean, shell kick FTW! It was largely like an offensive version of Catch.

@Sala: She was talking about the puzzle styles.

Quote from: Salanewt on 20, February, 2010, 01:02:13 PM
There are some neat puzzles in Superstar Saga that I could reference you to, but most would not be very compatible with this type of RPG... That is, unless we can allow the team to split up while on the map (so a full party of four could split up, Mario and Mallow go left, and Luigi and Geno go right, for example). This would be a bit harder to implement into Golden Sun, but the Mario and Luigi games work sort of like this at times. This would mean that one half of the team can go to a room, pull a switch, and open a room for the other team. Things would be changed as well so the game understands that the other party members have left the team. However, you would not be able to separate them whenever you want. It would only happen either during cutscenes, or if a script is activated somewhere on the map (so you also have to have your team when you leave the area).

I don't know about Golden sun 2, but this could be possible in golden sun 1. Remember the coliseum? You could switch to other party members to help Issac along the stage.

@Role: Stars have been used in many other ways, though. I was actually thinking star would be a sort of catch-all element for enemies that don't fit in one of the others. Like I said about ice, though... it doesn't really fit in the mario world that well to have a whole ice element all to itself, unless you're going to have a 6 element or 8 element system or something, so I think finding a replacement for ice would be a good idea, here.

Anyway, I'm actually not a big fan of using mallow/geno here, mostly because they're strictly from SMRPG, rather than the mario universe as a whole. I could see any of yoshi, peach, or even bowser filling in the last two spots. Actually... perhaps all three... Start off with just mario/luigi, who quickly get into a routine encounter with bowser, but get interrupted by some third party (fawful?), causing all three of them to be sent flying into some forest/sanctuary or something. The puzzles here are too much for bowser and the enemies are too much for the mario bros, so the three are forced to team up to get out. During this segment, bowser can't be given or use items and such, and acts more or less like a jeigen to get you through enemies that have gobs of HP compared to your damage output. When you get out of the situation you're in and finally make it back to peach's castle, after finding some strange object where you were sent to, bowser betrays you (cue hopeless boss fight), steals the object, kidnaps peach, and flees. Yoshi joins you after seeing what happened with bowser, and you have a party of three for the next quarter or so of the game until you reach bowser's castle, defeat him, and rescue peach, who joins you as your fourth character. Fawful briefly takes bowser's place as the primary antagonist, using bowser's defeat as his chance to set up his own evil plan by taking the strange object before the bros can get it. Using this object, fawful summons some new dark being that taints the land, springing up seven new bosses, each guarding a major area. However, he quickly loses control of it and becomes a far less significant character. This necessitates the party to traverse the entirety of the mushroom kingdom (including areas they had already been through but couldn't get to the deeper parts of them due to a lack of abilities) to defeat the bosses and obtain their macguffins (dark essence?), which when united allow the heroes to reach the dark being's realm and defeat it.

Pretty standard fare RPG plot, but w/e.

For enemies who don't fit any of the other things, remember that there's still non-elemental, which could easily be called "star" if we wanted.

Personally, I think Mario needs MORE ice. Remember, we have freedom of creativity here. We could design our own enemies. I think Geno and Mallow should be there for at least part of the game, and we might actually want to use both teams so we can include them, as well as perhaps Goombella and Koops. Madam Flurries or whatever was a really lame Large Ham sort of character, and we can just scrap her. For second party, we need:

Goombella: Jump
Mallow: Shock
Geno: Ice or Fire
??? (Koops maybe? Yoshi?): Whatever Geno isn't

Well of course we can design our own enemies. We should be designing our own enemies... at least based on already existing ones, anyway. Every mario rpg to date has added new enemies to the franchise, even though a lot were based on already existing enemies (ie. troopeas in M+L:SS being based on koopa troopas or the many variants of piranha plants seen in the paper mario games).

By why use such one-off characters like the partners from the paper mario games? Every mario rpg has kept the standard hero(es), usually adding a few one-off heroes, while making bowser a foe, but making some new enemy the real big bad. They never bring back old partners unless it's a main hero (ie. mario and luigi), and so far, fawful is the only recurring villain besides bowser and his minions. This is why I think we should stick with the well-established characters, rather than using chars like mallow and geno, or goombella and koops. The latter two aren't even from the mushroom kingdom.

True enough about "star" element.

Yes, but Fawful only appears in one particular series. If you want to argue that we should use fawful, you're essentially arguing that we should use Goombella and those others as well.

Why do you not like cameo appearances? I mean, why not use anyone from the Mario universe? I honestly don't see why not.

Honestly, Goombella was also one of my favourite characters, and Koops was one of the most useful.

If it ain't broken, don't mess with it, I say.

No, a recurring character =! a non-recurring character. Although I'm not actually that fond of the idea of using fawful to begin with. He's just the only recurring character I could think of that would serve as an enabler for a plot I drafted out in about five minutes.

And when did I say cameos were bad? I said that making a one-off character one of the main protagonists was a bad idea, but I never said anything about cameos.

Well, initially, the idea was to use the blue and yellow Toads instead of Geno and Mallow. However, two Toads is like having both Ivan and Sheba on your team.

QuoteWe could probably keep the Beam series as well as the Fireball series, meaning two Fire series out of the way.

We could probably keep Fireball with a different animation. As for Beam, this seems like a good idea, but its element should be changed. After all, Geno can use beam abilities too, so a palette swap of Beam and element change should suffice.

QuoteEvery mario rpg has kept the standard hero(es), usually adding a few one-off heroes

True, except for Paper Mario, for Nintendo 64. That game had Bowser as the main villain. It was also apparently gave inspiration to the creation of Superstar Saga (you should see some of the beta stuff, it looks like Superstar Saga was at one point planned to be a direct sequel). According to some sources, Rogueport is a poorer part of the Mushroom Kingdom, which means that all of those characters are from the Mushroom Kingdom. However, I kind of have doubts about the credibility of those sources (Mariowiki).

QuoteWhy do you not like cameo appearances? I mean, why not use anyone from the Mario universe? I honestly don't see why not.

Depends on the character. I mean, Geno was used as a cameo in Superstar Saga. However, that game practically had a reference to every Mario game, as well as some of the other main Nintendo games (though most of them were beta cameos, they still existed). As for Paper Mario partners... It really depends on who it is and where they are from. For example, I would never expect to see Vivian again after Paper Mario 2, but why not meet Goombario in a Library?

QuoteWell of course we can design our own enemies. We should be designing our own enemies...

I agree. In fact, if Mario RPGs have taught us anything, it means that we can practically have anything. It would be best to base new creations off of existing ones though, like Cheep Cheep and Puffer Cheep, or Goomba and Tanoomba.

QuoteI could see any of yoshi, peach, or even bowser filling in the last two spots. Actually... perhaps all three...

Technically, I could see this as well, especially since each character has either been a main character, or has helped Mario and Luigi (and all of them except for Yoshi are in Paper Mario Wii, but that is more like a Platform than an RPG). The only problem with this is that this makes a team of 5... Who are our other 3 (easier to stick with four characters, certainly not Daisy, Wario and Waluigi, blech!)?

QuoteHonestly, Goombella was also one of my favourite characters, and Koops was one of the most useful.

I prefer Kooper over Koops, but everyone has freedom to their own opinions. In Paper Mario (N64), I would normally have Kooper follow me as a replacement for Yoshi (too bad, since I want to get a copy of the game again). In the Thousand Year Door, I would have Yoshiro follow me (what I named the Yoshi). We should have a different topic for Mario RPG conversations though.

QuoteI don't know about Golden sun 2, but this could be possible in golden sun 1. Remember the coliseum?

Well, from what I have learned, anything is possible with hacking (as long as you do not exceed hardware limitations). If it has been done in the first Golden Sun, then it most likely can be done in the second. The thing about the first though is that only Isaac fought enemies, and that was a scripted enemy. For the hack, all characters should be able to fight random enemies, and sometimes scripted as well.

QuoteYes, but Fawful only appears in one particular series.

True. He seems to be dead now, or else he could possess Bowser. That should preferably happen in a new sequel of the game though, not a hack.


Now, to stop answering quotes (though I have read most of your posts, and they do have good statements), I would like to offer a few of my ideas.

We could probably include items that change a character's appearance if we want. What I would like to suggest, if we only have the four characters, are items that could transform one character to look similar to another, and even use different animations (this would work like Isaac using a Machete in the first Golden Sun).


Still a bit unsure on the details though, but these are my ideas so far (and I happened to make icons for two of them a while ago, what a coincidence!).


Yoshi Mask: Wear this to look like Yoshi! Remember, you will only look like a Yoshi, so travel will still be limited unless you travel with an actual Yoshi.

Peach's Dress: Wear this to look like Peach! After sinking into Teehee Valley, Luigi picked this up and hid it in Mario's house (right in the hidden basement, with his diary)!

Bowser Suit: Wear this to look like Bowser! You do not gain his strength or fiery breath, and Bowser's minions do not follow you due to confusion.


If these items were to be included, they would not give any stat bonuses, nor would they change any other aspect of a character than their appearance. The Yoshi Mask is an original idea, but the other two have appeared as items in other Mario games (the dress in Superstar Saga, and the suit in one or two of the Mario Party games).

Well, these are the last of my ideas for now, but more are coming.

Have a nice day.

Quote from: Role on 20, February, 2010, 12:05:04 PMAlso... Charon, you out there?  Or someone else gifted in musical talent?  What would Mario RPG's battle theme sound like when done with GS instruments?

I tried my hand at it.  I had to replace a couple instruments since Golden Sun didn't have some of what they were originally supposed to be, hopefully it doesn't make too big a difference though.  There are still some problems with the drum kit though.

QuoteTechnically, I could see this as well, especially since each character has either been a main character, or has helped Mario and Luigi (and all of them except for Yoshi are in Paper Mario Wii, but that is more like a Platform than an RPG). The only problem with this is that this makes a team of 5... Who are our other 3 (easier to stick with four characters, certainly not Daisy, Wario and Waluigi, blech!)?

Well, in my (very rough) scenario, there was no second team. Bowser just joins you for a little while and leaves again, sorta like what would've happened had alex joined your team in the beginning of GS2 then left again before you got piers. Defeat does not mean friendship, so only peach joins you when you defeat bowser a quarter of the way through the game, not both peach and bowser (perhaps peach would join you before you beat bowser if she was held in another part of the castle or something, but either way bowser isn't rejoining...).

We could still add a bunch of partner characters and have a second party. That would allow for much better puzzles than the lame kinds in GS.

Ah, good old Super Mario RPG music, how I missed thee so much! This sounds nice, but perhaps we should try a remix of the original theme (considering the difference for instruments) using Golden Sun instruments. I would try it out, but I have not done much work with audio.

I am making a Princess Peach portrait now, since I can not find any suitable images with other Yoshi head angles to work with (I found the best image possible, but I can not find it again). She is mainly based on her artwork for Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time, since that was her best face angle for a cartoonized version of her (while also staying away from her Paper selves). I shall also post images of my progress tonight, but I just started (and she now needs a face job, as well as some make-up).

Have a nice day.

Leaf? Seems like a good idea, since they are both usable in at least three games or more. I wonder if Role will agree? That way, Yoshi could double as both a character and as transportation.

Jamie? True, but don't forget that this hack will no longer be Golden Sun, so we could alter the game enough to add new puzzles (like dividing the team).

We could always pull a zelda and make it so you find a new item in each dungeon that you need for that dungeon. It's not that much different from how the paper mario games did it, except there instead of an item you got a new character.

@Atrius: Nice. We should prob do a remixed song, though. I think I have a new project! (Which isn't a good thing... I have too many projects, already.)

We could do a similar thing.

Maybe use Shine Sprites or something similar as a sort of "currency" for buying utility psys or battle psys for partners perhaps, then where you go at what time depends on how many Shine Sprites you can find, and they should also be story/treasure based, meaning you can't just grind Shine Sprites and then go straight to the ending area of the game.

Good news, Peach is done! Of course, I do plan on making minor graphical updates to it, similar to how I worked on Yoshi like this. Also, would this portrait be suitable for this hack (or any Mario-based Golden Sun hack)?

(http://img24.imageshack.us/img24/526/peachportraitgoldensun.png)

Now, who of the main Mario 5 do I do next, Mario, Luigi, or Bowser? I would work on other portraits, like for Toad, but I figure that I should get most of the protagonists/antagonists done first, then go on to creating anything else (like NPCs, shopkeepers, etc.).

Have a nice day.

P.S. I seem to be a fan of blue backgrounds... If I do go with Bowser, he might have a red or yellow background (most likely red). Anyway, I can not tell if Peach will remain my second favourite of the portraits (depending on which other characters I make).


Edit: Sorry, I forgot to post about that idea of yours Jamie. I myself like it, but it should not work like that for every location, and we should also use Stars (since they are more common than Shines). However, we could still use Shine Sprites and someone who gives enormous stat boosts depending on how many you have (for example, 10 Shine Sprites gives a boost of 40 in any stat for one character). What Stars could do though, is either unlock minor areas/optional dungeons, or there can be "Star Doors" in several locations. Each door could require a different amount of Stars to open.

Now, how does everyone feel about those ideas?

My idea was that the partners would have a lot of possible psys that stay with them no matter their class. Then you'd have someone (probably a distant relative of Merlin) who would give them new Psys when you pay them Shines.

Stars could work for opening doors, but Shines should be used for when you need a new ability. Or maybe Stars are used to purchase new abilities for Mario and Luigi, while Shines are used to purchase partner abilities. Thus, you can use Shines/Stars to get the next ability in a character's moveset. So basically, however they do the thing in GS for the Elemental Rocks, we'd be using that a LOT more often.

Seems interesting enough. If it were to be done, then Shine Sprites should just work for any character (since I am not sure if this hack will consider the other characters as "partners").

Also, for Yoshis for transportation...

Green: Can walk on open terrain and forest (not desert, which we could try to give a script similar to forested areas).
Blue: Can walk on open terrain, but can also swim in water (not on desert either).
Red: Can walk on open terrain and desert/sand, but can not go through forests.

Winged Yoshi: Acts just like the Lemurian Ship from Golden Sun, except it can also go through forest.

So, does anybody like my ideas for Yoshis as transportation (keeping in mind that items like Yoshi Cookies could probably be implemented as well). Also, Role, how do you like all of these ideas, since you are the one who came up with the idea for the hack?


Have a nice day.

As long as it's only in-battle effects that the shines grant I like that idea. There could be like 16 shines in the game, and each character gets four powerups (or if we're going with a two-party idea, then there would be 32 shines).

Anything that's needed for solving puzzles should be obtained through an event, though. And it seems kinda weird to have both stars (as in the traditional power stars from SM64) and shines in the same game.

As for using yoshi as transport... you've gotta remember that you're trying to stick four (possibly eight) characters on a single yoshi... that poor yoshi's back. Not to mention how messy it would be with the different colors and having to backtrack to get the right yoshi for a certain area or how difficult it would make it to incorporate yoshi into the party as a fighter (if we decided we wanted to do that).

Well, another idea though:

Stars grant puzzle-related abilities, simply to encourage exploration. We may not want to make these necessary to advance the storyline, but we could use them for side quests.

Shines grant battle-related skills. In fact, we could make it so the more you upgrade, the more shines it takes to upgrade again, which would result in like a total of 60 Shines if there are 4 upgrades. Or if we're going to use both parties, we'd probably just use your system, meaning 32 Shines for four upgrades.

I do see your point though, but why not have both? It just lets you do two things at once, especially when you have an obvious Star in a room and a very difficult-to-find Shine in the same area.

That is true. They are both in the Mario Universe though, so it could be neat to see them side by side in the same game. They are two different things though. Generally, in newer Mario games (excluding Mario Bros. related games, and not often in RPGs), stars unlock areas, and out of most of the games with Shine Sprites (like three games with them?), they are used for stats (Super Mario Sunshine uses them as a replacement for Stars, but that is pretty much the only time). If Stars and Shines are used, they should both do different things to contrast them.

Speaking of Super Mario 64, some other minor ideas... The Caps! Remember them? Well, I have some ideas for them, but they will not work in battle.

Invisible Cap: Acts like the counterpart to Cloak, except that it also works in the light. However, all it really does is to allow one to walk through certain types of walls/floors/areas on a map.

Metal Cap: Perhaps it could allow one to go underwater, or sink through sand to go to a different part of a dungeon?

Wing Cap: No idea for this, but it could serve as a teleport?

I have more ideas, and will continue to post them in the future.

Have a nice day.

They would be headgear. Metal Cap increases Defence greatly at the expense of speed and Jump Power, but increases Shock Power.

Invisible Cap greatly increases resist to all types, but lowers your Attack to 0.

Wing Cap increases Jump Power greatly at the expense of Shock and Ice Resist.

Seems interesting. Of course, we need to wait until we know more about how the battle mechanics will be handled with the new elements (surely, Ice should not beat Fire as Mercury beat Mars).

Also, a slight update to the Peach of my eye...

(http://img693.imageshack.us/img693/526/peachportraitgoldensun.png)

Of course, Yoshi is still the apple of my eye!

Have a nice day.

Oh, I forgot to comment earlier... She looks... sorta surprised in that portrait.

As for the caps, I think they could go either way for equip items vs puzzle items. Regardless of what we do with them, there should be some sort of teleport in the game, preferably done via some buyable item early on and through an ability later. If the wing cap gave the teleport ability, then some sort of feather could be the buyable teleport item.

That seems like a good idea. Unfortunately, there are some things that I forget from the Mario games in regards of teleports, so I will do a bit more research. I do have a Paper Mario (N64) website that I could reference whenever I need to though. In case we can get minor ideas from it, I shall post a link here...

Edit: Perhaps it would be best for one to research a database on their own, in case they get a more reliable one? If others want me to post the link again, I can easily do so.

I would like to suggest Warp Pipes as an alternate mode of transportation, but only make a limited number of them (maybe like 9-10 of them?).

Also, she does look a bit surprised, doesn't she? Well, better than the boring face from Super Princess Peach (and also better than Mood Swinging Peach as well). I decided to work on Bowser now, but it is not the best portrait... Remember when Bowser would look at the screen while holding the Star Rod in the first Paper Mario? He has his mouth open, and he looks happy? That is what I am using as a base (just copied it, so it will take a while, might not be done until tomorrow).

Have a nice day.

Less mouth, and more blue in the eyes among other minor things.
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v698/AtriusV/Random%20Screens/Peach.gif)

Okay, thanks Atrius.

Upgraded Peach:

(http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/526/peachportraitgoldensun.png)

Bowser: (http://img685.imageshack.us/img685/8854/bowserportraitgoldensun.png)

I decided that for Bowser, he should appear more menacing (almost like the first games with Bowser), yet look like the newer Bowser. I used as a base an image from Bowser's Inside Story, and it actually turned out well, in my opinion. I hope everyone else likes it (since these are for free use in this hack, and also my hack that I started a while ago, but never finished (and permission can be granted to others, if it is so desired))!

Next: Mario, Luigi, or Toad?

Have a nice day.

Edit: Toad! He is not done yet, but I have his basic shape done, as well as most of the palette/shading work. I know that I need to fix his outlines in some areas, as well as try to correct those eyes of his, but this will work for now... Right?

(http://img8.imageshack.us/img8/488/toadportraitgoldensun.png)

Edit 2: Changed background, more work to be done... Later (I have to go now).

Edit 3: This is my last post in this topic for putting portraits for the hack, since I shall create a new topic for more images.

Peach is OK, Bowser is awesome but completely the wrong style for GS.

And Toad has a cool face XD. Still needs edits though.

Are you going to make one for Toadette?

Hmm... Here's an idea I just thought of.  How about if we approach it like in Yoshi's Island?  So you get the original Yoshi, then eventually you'll find a powerup that'll last a certain part of the game, than you'll have the option of another one for a while, and eventually he'll turn into Star Yoshi, with full on teleporation powers.

Caps are good, but for armor.  They're equippable by Mario and Luigi.

Yeah, I suppose that works.

And I just realized why I like that Toad pic: he has the same expression as that one bit of art for Ivan! you know, this one? (http://www.freewebs.com/goldensunblackout/ivan.jpg)

Quote from: JamietheFlameUser on 21, February, 2010, 12:47:23 PM
Peach is OK, Bowser is awesome but completely the wrong style for GS.
And Toad has a cool face XD. Still needs edits though.
Are you going to make one for Toadette?

Yeah. However, I decided to only have similarities to some parts of Golden Sun style. I will switch between them for some characters (like I did for Yoshi), but some characters like Bowser have difficult faces to match Golden Sun with, so I decided to go with an altered version). Thanks for Bowser's compliment! I know that there is room for improvement for Peach, I am just not sure where to improve right now.

Toad is not quite done yet, but thanks!. There might be one for Toadette, but I would rather get some other characters out of the way first.


Yoshi's Island? That seems like a good idea. That way, we only really need one Yoshi... Which reminds me. What are your thoughts of having a small Yoshi's Island like area, which can be the combined land mass of Apoji Isles and the area near Chile/Ankohl Ruins? One destination could be Yoshi Village, and the others (if there are any more) are undecided? There should definitely be a dungeon there, even if it is optional.

Have a nice day.

You're last portrait of Peach has 21 colors, although I'd taken it down to 15 in my version. Bowser has 27, and Toad has 20.

They do? Oops, I will have to double check, since I even drew boxes with their palettes in them. Well, I assure you that extra colours are an accident, and are suppose to best match other near matching colours (they are supposed to be the same colour, but it can be hard to tell the difference with the naked eye). In fact, I only count 15 colours in Peach. If I do start a new topic for these Nintendo portraits, I will definitely make the colours match perfectly.

Of course, if you could suggest a different image host (and one that does not convert to .jpeg), then I will try that host.

Now, which portrait should be next?

Oh yes, how about we bring a newer version of Monstro Town into this hack? Just a suggestion.

Have a nice day.

Toad could possibly be fixed by removing that odd spot of pink before the red circles on his head. Yeah, Bowser has too many colours as well. I count 2 shades of grey just for the visible bit of his shell, and two other shades of grey for the horns. Hint: Use the same greys for the shell and the horns. I think there might be yet another grey for the eyes. Just recycle the same greys in various areas and you could end up with 15 colours! I also think there might be yet ANOTHER grey for the teeth. I think you may have used too many shades of green.

Yeah, I'll swear there are like 7 shades of grey in this thing. And two or three shades of green. Basically, remove 4 of those shades of grey and a few other duplicate shades. I think there are also two shades of dark beige.

Well, I did notice some extra shades of gray on Bowser, but his shell and horns should use the same shades (I even double checked by applying pixels on top). However, I did notice that there were a few similar shades of extremely dark gray. I suppose I aught to fix these up first, but some of these duplicate colours are difficult to see. Basically, it comes down to this: Please ignore shades that seem to be nearly identical (especially since I fixed almost all of the dark shades of gray, if not all). This is because I will make a new topic for portraits and sprites for Mario based hacks.

I did notice an extra pixel on Toad's left spot (his right), and that was an extra colour. I just removed it though, but I have yet to reupload any of the edits.

Have a nice day.

Yeah, with the whole colors thing... this is why I said to try and be more true to Mario than to GS for the art.  It'd probably be easier on you, while at the same time keeping more true to the series we're working with.  Keep up the good job with the face portraits, though!  They look really nice.

Anywho, have we decided on the elements?

I still see that the SMRPG elements is the direction to go here.  Not only do we have precedent, to me it'd be hard as heck to pull off a Star Element proper.  If nothing else, we could say that non-elemental attacks are star element, though.  I figure that'd work well for that.

I mean, to counter you, leaf:  What element do you think pretty much all aquatic enemies are?  Cheep Cheeps, Bloopers, Boss Bass, etc...?  I'd assume Water/Ice.  Since, you know... it just fits for them.  Then you have all the flying enemies that'd work pretty well for Wind/Lightning...

However, remember that this isn't golden sun - not everything has an elemental affinity.  Goombas are WEAK to the Jump element, but not necessarily anything else (you could say their resists are 50 for Jump, 100 for everything else or something).  The brilliance that comes with GS's battle system is that you can pick and choose what elemental power and resistances each thing has.  So it's not as simple as 'this thing is that element, that thing is this'.  Cheep Cheeps resist Ice, and possibly Fire.  But for Lightning?  Weak as heck.  You know, stuff like that.

Quote from: Role on 21, February, 2010, 05:35:49 PMYeah, with the whole colors thing... this is why I said to try and be more true to Mario than to GS for the art.  It'd probably be easier on you, while at the same time keeping more true to the series we're working with.  Keep up the good job with the face portraits, though!  They look really nice.

Regardless of what style is used, if it's going to be a GS hack the data format's limitation is still 15 colors you choose, and 1 transparent one if you want to use it.

@Sala: No, I mean, I didn't use a program to count colours, I used my EYES!

@Role: Yeah, and a Cheep Cheep's attacks would probably be non-elemental, or "star" if you want.

@leaf: You're thinking in Pokemon terms. Don't. This isn't Pokemon or GS, this is Mario, remember?

Role: Yeah, I already conceded on the star element thing. Assuming we keep those other elements, it would prob be best as the non-elemental. But... it just doesn't make much sense for mario characters to have elemental affinities in the first place >_>

If using a party of say... mario/luigi/yoshi/peach, what would yoshi and peach be? Neither ice nor shock really have healing connotations, which is gonna be peach's specialty, and neither really work for yoshi, either. I think we're gonna have to stray from traditional elements a bit here to fit within the mario universe. Fire and jump elementals are fine, but we're gonna need something else for the last two. What about hammers? In this system, what would they be? Non-elemental? So much for doing super damage to spiky foes. So... here's my new suggestion:

Mario - Fire
Luigi - Jump
Yoshi - Coin
Peach - Heart/Star

Yes, I just added coin and heart elementals, and I'm still throwing star out there as a possible element. Hear me out here. "Coin" elemental would do superdamage against spiky foes, but generally do poor damage against flying foes. Essentially, it's the hammer element, but since yoshi has been established to be able to eat spiky foes, it also makes sense for him to have it. "Heart/Star" elemental would be what most healing attacks are based in, but it's also for generic magic attacks that aren't fire-based. Non-magic attacks would generally be either jump or coin elemental. Each character would be able to have some attacks of other elements in their base class (ie. the mario bros each getting a coin elemental in the form of hammers, as well as a jump elemental, even though luigi would have stronger jumps). Given this system, we would need a lot of fire attacks to justify having a whole fire element, but given how many things in the mario universe have fire, that doesn't seem too far fetched.

The main problem I see is that the mario universe just doesn't lend itself well to having elements like this. They have attacks that have certain "elemental" properties, like hammers being unable to hit fliers but doing a lot of damage against spiky foes, or jumps causing the bros to hurt themselves if done against a spiky foe. They even do have fire, ice, shock, or other elements with certain foes taking reduced or negated damage, or healing from these types of attacks. But, the playable characters never explicitly have these inherent properties. In fact, without equippable items, the bros are entirely unaffected by the element system when being attacked in any game. It's usually their own attacks that have the elemental properties, and anything that isn't either jump or hammer elemental is usually a result of some badge or something, that you wouldn't normally see in gameplay without it.

@Jamie: I'm not thinking in pokemon terms at all. I'm just trying to find a way to fit the mario system in the GS system, here.

Problem: Mario has a LOT of Shock attacks in it's RPGs.

Healing moves could quite possibly be Shock elemental, or non-elemental. Heck, even Ice or Fire could work for healing. Mario RPGs, or at least Paper Mario 2, also have a good number of Ice moves, so I think they're still in. For Jump magic abilities, we'd probably have to resort to Chi-style attacks or Shadow Clone Jutsu-style moves. As is, with the SMRPG system, most elements have the possibility of having Magic attacks, and as Role said, we don't want to end up with Mage Elements and Fighter Elements. Every element needs to be as close to even as possible between Magic/Fighting. I'm still not sure how to do Jump healing though. Maybe a Chi-based healing move, or would that be non-elemental?

Thanks Role, but I still have to try to fix up the palettes a bit more, since there are some extra colours that are difficult for me to see. Also, I might make Luigi's portrait soon.

I know Jamie, but that was just generally to anybody.

QuoteMario - Fire
Luigi - Jump
Yoshi - Coin
Peach - Heart/Star

Some minor modifications. If this were to be the final selection for characters, Luigi would be Hammer instead of Jump because Yoshi can get an even better range while jumping (especially with Flutter Jump, which can get him around twice as far as a regular jump), and also because Coin is currency... It would be a bit odd to have an affinity based on a currency. As for Peach, she should at most be Heart, since Star not only reminds me of Starman, but also reminds me of Mario saving Peach by collecting stars himself. Nice idea anyway.

Mario - Fire
Luigi - Hammer/Shock
Yoshi - Jump
Peach - Heart


I do like the idea of including Ice/Water though, and Luigi to Shock comes from Superstar Saga.

Have a nice day.

Ah, good point. I could see that, actually. Fire, shock, jump, and heart. Although yoshi isn't really that much of a jumper... he can go far, but not high. Maybe something else for yoshi? Cloud elemental? Or something like that, anyway... We could always use attack flags to make jump/hammer work right.

@leaf: You're forgetting that in Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga, the bros. get Fire/Shock attacks, and in Paper Mario, all the partners have various other attacks. I'd like to point to Madame Flurries again, for an Ice elemental.

Remember that we have to at least somewhat adopt GS's system to work it right.

Another ability idea for Luigi, which at least some people here should recognise:

Missile: Luigi fires himself like a missile at a target, burning the target. 50 power, range 1, 10 FP (probably more like 3 FP if it were in Paper Mario), may do double damage. If double damage occurs, Luigi has an explosive launch and flies through the air twice as fast.

Green Missile: Luigi fires himself like a missile at a faster speed than Missile, creating a Blast (Nova)-like explosion on impact. 100 Power, range 3 (diminishing), 21 FP (probably more like 7 FP if it were in a Mario game), may do double damage. If double damage occurs, Luigi has an explosive launch and flies through the air twice as fast.

Super L Missile: Luigi fires himself like a missile at a faster speed than Green Missile, creating a Nova-like explosion on impact. 200 Power, range 5 (diminishing), 43 FP (probably more like 14 FP if it were in a Mario game), may do double damage. If double damage occurs, Luigi has an explosive launch and flies through the air twice as fast.

The Missile series is Jump elemental, because it's available in his base class.

I'd also suggest colourswapping the Beam series to be yellow and changing it to Shock elemental.

Also, leaf, we have power-ups available to give them abilities of other elements.

Mario's strongest Shine upgrade ability:

Mario Finale: Remember Mario's Final Smash? Well, this is it. 2300 Power, range 11, 500 FP (probably more like 165 FP if it were in Paper Mario). Basically, it does massive damage at the cost of his entire FP meter.

How about instead of Jump we have Air? it doesn't sound as cool, but it works for guys who don't jump as much.

Quote from: leafgreen386 on 21, February, 2010, 08:03:19 PM
Ah, good point. I could see that, actually. Fire, shock, jump, and heart. Although yoshi isn't really that much of a jumper... he can go far, but not high. Maybe something else for yoshi? Cloud elemental? Or something like that, anyway... We could always use attack flags to make jump/hammer work right.

Technically, in some games, he can jump higher than Mario, like in Super Mario World, Super Mario 64, and even in Super Mario Sunshine. However, Egg/Shell could go for Yoshi, although he is a very good jumper too (pretty much rivals Mario, although Mario is better for things like Spin Jump). He is also speedy, as is seen in the Olympic games with him (never played one, but one of my friends own the games). Are we using Yoshi as a usable character in this hack? I thought he was transportation, but I suppose it could go either way (hard to say).

Jamie... Interesting ideas, but some of these animations could be more difficuly to implement. Also, for Mario's finale at that much power? Unless we play around with the formula, that would probably be strong enough to take a head off of Doom Dragon right away (something like that could be around 300-400 power(?), but I am not fully sure if we are using Golden Sun's damage formulas). As for range, there can rarely be more than 4-5 enemies on the opposite team, due to hardware limitations. I know that the limit for Superstar Saga seems to be 8 sprites, excluding all of the menus and block sprite to hit, etc., but I am not sure of Golden Sun can handle it (I seem to remember a glitched fight with 4-5 Slayers...).

Well, have a nice day.

@Jamie: Uh... no... I'm not forgetting that. I think I very obviously acknowledged that the mario bros do attack with elemental attacks in their games, but it's only through new skills or items. But when elemental attacks are used against them, it's never "critical" damage, and it's never reduced damage, either. In fact, I think the fact that I just agreed with making luigi shock elemental should make that doubly obvious that I acknowledge they can use elemental attacks.

Anyway...

Mario: Fire
Luigi: Shock
Yoshi: ???
Peach: Heart

Jump and Hammer as attack flags.

QuoteAre we using Yoshi as a usable character in this hack? I thought he was transportation, but I suppose it could go either way (hard to say).

That's still to be decided. I haven't seen a more compelling group, though. Bowser could just as easily take the place of yoshi, although it'd be hard to not have a carbon copy of the SMRPG plot with a team like that.

Quote from: leafgreen386 on 21, February, 2010, 08:37:37 PM
That's still to be decided. I haven't seen a more compelling group, though. Bowser could just as easily take the place of yoshi, although it'd be hard to not have a carbon copy of the SMRPG plot with a team like that.

Not to mention Super Paper Mario (Wii), since all of those characters make up a full team of four. However, that is more like a platform than it is an RPG.

If it still have to be decided whether he is a character or transportation... He could be both. Of course, there are some other things to think about if he is both... Such as making his travel limited in certain ways, so one does not go through the rest of the game riding him everywhere. Something to affect Special Points/Flower Points?

Have a nice day.

@Sala (earlier): Yes, but there are still abilities with range 11. It helps hit all enemies when you've killed off the middle one(s) and the two on the sides are still alive. Also, the Mario final smash I designed is INCREDIBLY inefficient. 5 power for 1 PP? That's a horrible rate, actually. And it costs like 500 PP. Come on, that's kinda hard to come up with if you plan on using Mario at all later. It's actually also designed to help bosses be quicker, yet with still the same difficulty. And don't be surprised if bosses just drain your FP before you can use it.

@leaf: Huh, I still kinda like Role's system, but I guess that works too. And honestly, if we're gonna include Peach and Yoshi, then we need a second party of partner characters, you know, people with some actual personality. Remember we have powerups for classes, and editing GS's system to remove classes would be rather difficult, so we're going to end up with elemental power and resist coming into play for the main characters anyway.

@Sala: You mean kinda like Hover for the Winged Boat?

That could be done, but since Role thought of this hack, she should decide which ideas she likes (unless we decide to make a spin-off with these ideas).

QuoteYou mean kinda like Hover for the Winged Boat?

Sort of... Basically, Yoshi would only lose his own PP, since the others are riding him. Flying Yoshi would drain all of their PP, since Yoshi need it, and the others can help him stay in the air.

As for your ability idea... I guess that works. You might want to nerf it just a tiny bit though?

Oh yeah, how does everyone like my Luigi portrait? I made a new topic so focus would not be taken from the topic of this conversation.

Have a nice day.

Quote from: JamietheFlameUser on 21, February, 2010, 05:57:18 PM
@Sala: No, I mean, I didn't use a program to count colours, I used my EYES!

@Role: Yeah, and a Cheep Cheep's attacks would probably be non-elemental, or "star" if you want.

@leaf: You're thinking in Pokemon terms. Don't. This isn't Pokemon or GS, this is Mario, remember?

I figure the attacks would mostly be physical, and the occasional 'ice' elemental "water squirt" attack or something.  I could SWEAR there's a Mario game where they spit out water.  Anyone wanna back me up/correct me?

QuoteMario: Fire
Luigi: Shock
Yoshi: ???
Peach: Heart

Wait... When did the player characters change?!

I mean, my original idea was to take it from NSMB Wii, and go Mario, Luigi, Blue Toad, and Yellow Toad (Fire, Jump, Ice, and Shock respectively, all nice and color coded for your convenience.)

Then Sala said he didn't like the toads (who does?), so I suggested taking it purely from Mario RPG along with the elements - this led to:

Mario, Luigi, Mallow, Geno (Fire, Jump, Shock, and Ice).

Peach was the person you were having to save (we can say Geno's on vacation, and that Mallow somehow got involved or was visiting as a Prince from the Cloud Kingdom when the kidnapping happened), Bowser's the bad guy, you've got the Koopalings and Bowser Jr being the bosses sent to stop you along the way, and with Bowser ultimately being the Final Boss, Yoshi is your main source of Transport and/or Kraden (there, talks, doesn't fight)...

The whole reason I'm using the system I am is because it's been used before, and with great success.  NSMBWii had the general scenerio, SMRPG had the Elements and the Characters...

So... where'd the other guys come from?

Or are we actually doing the 8-person party thing?  I figured we'd be fine with just 4...  Hmm... If we do 8 member party, then...

Mario and Luigi are the party leaders, and are Jump Element.
Mallow and Geno remain on a party, probably Mario's due to their familiarity.
Yoshi is known to shoot fireballs in several games, so He'd be Fire Element.  Again, probably Mario's team.  There's also the fact that he's the a member of the most awesome dragon species ever...
And now we need three more characters...
Perhaps one is a Toad, but what of the other two?  Wario and Waluigi are out, if anything, you fight them... Perhaps Daisy or Rosalina could be one of them...  Sala, you know more about Mario, who else could we have?

@Sala:  Oh!  Nice call on calling it Flower Points!  We totally have to use that terminology.  Also, could you make a centralized place for your portraits?  How about your first post in the topic? HAHA DISREGARD THAT I DIDN'T SEE THE NEW TOPIC!

Quote from: JamietheFlameUser on 21, February, 2010, 12:47:23 PM
Bowser is awesome but completely the wrong style for GS.

PERFECT!  The whole point of this idea was to have something so NOT GS that you'd not even think it was, yet using the battle system and the like flawlessly.  How'd I not notice that comment earlier?

Well, I think there was a conversation between Leaf and Jamie about having 1-off characters to either be usable or only cameo, so I think one of them came up with that idea (for the characters).

Thanks, but technically, someone else first used FP, as those are Flower Points from the Paper Mario games.

As for the second party of four...

We could throw Donkey Kong in there, since his universe coexists with Mario's universe (in fact, I think they would both be on the same planet). Do not know what element he would be, but there is a chance that he could go in with Jump (though I do know of better jumpers). I will have to think about it though, since my Lunch break is almost over.

Water Squirt? Well, I know that some Cheep Cheep variants use it in Yoshi's Story and Yoshi's Island, to try to move Yoshi. The do not damage though, but they are powerful for moving him/her (at least in Yoshi's Story, and there are multiple Yoshis in both).

Have a nice day.

Yeah!  Only, given that this is an RPG, they'd do damage.

Now, first thing is first...

Are we going to have 4 characters, or 8?  We are not going to do any 'one shot' characters or anything like that, simply because it wouldn't work with GS's system due to how the elemental nature of things works.

If we do 4 characters, we have to choose which Mario brother is Jump, and which is Fire.  If we do 8, we should make them both Jump elemental, and then come up with the rest of the characters.

Role: Those characters came from here:

Quote from: me on page 3Anyway, I'm actually not a big fan of using mallow/geno here, mostly because they're strictly from SMRPG, rather than the mario universe as a whole. I could see any of yoshi, peach, or even bowser filling in the last two spots. Actually... perhaps all three... Start off with just mario/luigi, who quickly get into a routine encounter with bowser, but get interrupted by some third party (fawful?), causing all three of them to be sent flying into some forest/sanctuary or something. The puzzles here are too much for bowser and the enemies are too much for the mario bros, so the three are forced to team up to get out. During this segment, bowser can't be given or use items and such, and acts more or less like a jeigen to get you through enemies that have gobs of HP compared to your damage output. When you get out of the situation you're in and finally make it back to peach's castle, after finding some strange object where you were sent to, bowser betrays you (cue hopeless boss fight), steals the object, kidnaps peach, and flees. Yoshi joins you after seeing what happened with bowser, and you have a party of three for the next quarter or so of the game until you reach bowser's castle, defeat him, and rescue peach, who joins you as your fourth character. Fawful briefly takes bowser's place as the primary antagonist, using bowser's defeat as his chance to set up his own evil plan by taking the strange object before the bros can get it. Using this object, fawful summons some new dark being that taints the land, springing up seven new bosses, each guarding a major area. However, he quickly loses control of it and becomes a far less significant character. This necessitates the party to traverse the entirety of the mushroom kingdom (including areas they had already been through but couldn't get to the deeper parts of them due to a lack of abilities) to defeat the bosses and obtain their macguffins (dark essence?), which when united allow the heroes to reach the dark being's realm and defeat it.

Pretty standard fare RPG plot, but w/e.

Threw the plot together in about 5 min just as a plausible scenario in which you'd end up with this party. The main point I wanted to make was that we shouldn't use characters that have only been in one mario RPG as main characters, like geno or goombella; the main characters should all be recurring characters, and non-recurring characters should only be included as cameos, maybe with a side-quest devoted to them or something. These are just the four characters that stood out the most to me for being playable, so if you have any better ideas, feel free to share.

I'm really not a fan of using a "jump" element, either. Especially if we're not also using a "hammer" element. I think they'd be better off as attack flags. We (will) have complete control over the GS system, which includes both what its stats do and the battle formulas. We could change luck to be a whole new stat that works as a special modifier when certain attack types are used, and the attack flags would determine if this gets applied in the damage formula (things that previously depended on luck would now have fixed probabilities of working). Not to mention that saying "this character hurts you if you jump on it and takes no damage in the process" would probably be a lot easier to do with attack flags than some sort of element>200 thing.

As for not using Geno and Mallow, that's why I suggested we keep Peach and Yoshi, and add a second party entirely consisting of "partner characters" created specifically for this game. Partner character party would probably consist of:

a Goomba: Jump
one of those thundercloud enemies from Paper Mario: Shock
a Fairy, like the one in Super Paper Mario: Fire
a Penguin-enemy thing, whatever the Mario universe calls them: Ice

Of course, they'd need personalities too. Maybe the thundercloud could be mister sarcasm, filling the role of Goombella in the second Paper Mario. The fairy could be a sort of high and mighty-type character, for the fun of killing stereotypes. Not sure what to do with the Goomba or Penguin though. We could have the Goomba be a Large ham, also for the fun of destroying stereotypes.

Also, leaf, remember that the characters have to have elemental preferences, otherwise everyone would have the same base class, and we do NOT want that. Remember that GS still has the class system, removing it would be really difficult, and probably not worth our time. And besides, we want our Mario game to be unique compared to other Mario RPGs.

Can you please stop trying to tell me what I'm thinking? I'm pretty sure I know what I'm thinking well enough, thanks. This is the third time you've reminded me not to think along some track or whatever, even when I haven't been thinking along that track at all. I'm not talking about completely removing elements. We would still have the four elemental affinities, but jump moves would be special attacks that work off of another stat in addition to attack. Hammers would be based off of the regular attack stat, and could have FP variants that work as elemental physicals, while jumps would use both the attack stat and this new stat to calculate their damage (thus, they're more powerful) but cost FP to execute even the basic version (thus, more expensive than hammers). Jumps would also be able to have an element, turning them into elemental physicals as well. Perhaps there could be a 0 FP version for jump that's stronger than the basic hammer but lacks the ability to crit, whereas the basic hammers have a decent chance to crit.

Of course this hammer/jump stuff only concerns the two bros, and the other characters would have their own specialties that use this stat.

As for a second party... yeah, if we were gonna go that route that'd be good. Perhaps instead of all joining at once, though, they should each join separately. If we're using two parties we could actually include bowser in the second group as a legit playable character.

Quote from: JamietheFlameUser on 22, February, 2010, 03:14:52 PM
As for not using Geno and Mallow, that's why I suggested we keep Peach and Yoshi, and add a second party entirely consisting of "partner characters" created specifically for this game. Partner character party would probably consist of:

a Goomba: Jump
one of those thundercloud enemies from Paper Mario: Shock
a Fairy, like the one in Super Paper Mario: Fire
a Penguin-enemy thing, whatever the Mario universe calls them: Ice

Um... This is how I see it. We should either have a full team of heros, or a full team of partners (or characters with multiple versions, like Toad). I can see where you are going with this idea though, so I have an idea for how we could technically have "partners". Remember Kraden? Well, partners could be like him, but they also unlock a special ability or something. Fairy? What the? Oh, you mean the Pixls? They are one time only occurences though. As for "Pengun-enemy thing", do you mean actual Penguins from Mario, or Bumpties (and are also from Yoshi's Island (pretty cute enemies actually))?

Have a nice day.

Also, Jump/Hammer would be fine as attack flags. Something like "Float" can be used as an alternative affinity, since this could include things like jumping or flying.

@Sala: That's what I said, the entire second party consists of partner characters.

Main problem with having Yoshi as a party member is that then you have 1 Yoshi... and three (or Seven!) people riding him. Really, to be realistic, you'd need 4 Yoshis, one for each party member to ride. And once you get the second party, you'd need 8 Yoshis, and you wouldn't be able to have any as a party member.

Also, another idea for a partner character: Toadette. I mean come on, she looks cool. She'd probably either be Jump or Shock, despite the fact that Toads don't shock people. However, we don't have a Poison element, which I'd be inclined to give to a Toad. (I mean, they DO shoot spores at people.)

@leaf: Well, earlier you kept arguing that the characters shouldn't be only one element.

Also, Hammers are equip types, Jumps would end up being abilities, under your "psynergy" list, which the icon would probably be replaced with a flower with the initials "FP" written on it, and the "attack" option would probably show a hammer pounding stuff.

I'd be inclined to go the opposite way with attack types, though: Jumps have higher crit chance, as measured in Mario games by how easy it is to pull of the required Action Commands. Hammers have a lower crit chance, but are stronger. Keep in mind, however, (and I'm not trying to tell you how you're thinking) that we've got 1 universal attack animation, meaning that for Jumps, they'd have to be FP abilities, and we'd have to use the secondary effect "May cause double damage" and edit the chance of it happening.

@Role: I was the one to first come up with the idea for using the term "Flower Points" instead of Psynergy Points. I mean, I'm not trying to take all the credit or anything, but we can't use Bros. Points because there are more than just the Bros. involved, we can't use Psynergy Points because this isn't Golden Sun, and we can't use Mana Points because the Mario universe isn't really magic based as such. And since we had precedence for Flower Points, that's what I used.

You're also right that most attacks would be physicals. Are we going to follow on Mario RPG tradition with lower attack values and attacks doing like 1 damage at the start? I don't think that'd work well though, because the GS system wouldn't really support Action Commands.

Well, for partner characters, I did not mean that they would join you (or is that not what you said either?). I love the idea of 4 or more Yoshis, but then the plot would stagnate quickly. What could happen is that Yoshi calls some of his friends (who also travel with you), and each character rides one of those Yoshis. Alternatively, Yoshi could just convert everyone into eggs with one person riding him, and then the eggs hatch when you are not riding him. This could actually allow for some funny text to be said, like...

Lets go Yoshi!

Yoshi: Okay!

Luigi: Oh no! Not again!


They shoot spores at people?

There are SP points too, from the later Mario and Luigi games. However, I think Flower Points would definitely be better.

Now, what else... ? Considering how much space we have on the Weyard (and even near Prox as a second map), we could probably have a large Mushroom Kingdom, and Prox area can be changed to the Dark World, where Bowser lives.

Have a nice day.

QuoteAlso, Hammers are equip types, Jumps would end up being abilities, under your "psynergy" list, which the icon would probably be replaced with a flower with the initials "FP" written on it, and the "attack" option would probably show a hammer pounding stuff.

I'd be inclined to go the opposite way with attack types, though: Jumps have higher crit chance, as measured in Mario games by how easy it is to pull of the required Action Commands. Hammers have a lower crit chance, but are stronger. Keep in mind, however, (and I'm not trying to tell you how you're thinking) that we've got 1 universal attack animation, meaning that for Jumps, they'd have to be FP abilities, and we'd have to use the secondary effect "May cause double damage" and edit the chance of it happening.

Hm... that works.

Also, I don't think it's very accurate to say we have a "universal" attack animation. Each character has a regular attacking animation, but afaik it's a unique anim for each character. So we could have the bros' default attack animation be a hammer swipe, while peach's could be something like a slap.

---

Now... if we're using golden sun's battle system, we're gonna need some sort of djinn/summon replacement... which is where things get tricky. Typically, mario games have two normal attacks (only exception is SMRPG afaik), an item command, a special meter (flower/bros/special points), sometimes a super meter (star power in paper mario), and a miscellaneous command menu that includes defend, run, and others. In the M&L games, the specials and supers more or less were merged. GS only has one normal attack command, splits the miscellaneous menu into multiple commands, and most importantly replaces the super meter with djinn and summons. Unless we're gonna completely rewrite the game's code, we would need to use something similar to that. Of course, what I have in mind still involves hacking this system to shreds... just not as much as completely rewriting the code... maybe. >_>

Regardless, this is what I had in mind:

Greatly limit the number of "djinn" in the game, down to something like four per character (so either 4 or 8 of each element depending on the number of chars in the party). Rename djinn to something having to do with stars (I'm kinda at a loss for names here, so I'll just call them "stars" for now >_>). Since only having 16 stars to collect (if it's a single party game) would have you finding stars only occasionally, you could make it so you have to find three or four matching "star fragments" in order to obtain them. It would probably also make sense if they were essential to completing the storyline. Regardless of how you get them, they act similar to djinn in how they're equipped to characters, altering stats and class. The class system would have to be somewhat simpler due to only being able to have up to four stars equipped, but that's probably for the better here. We shouldn't be making a carbon copy of the GS battle system with this. Therefore, I propose a slight change to the way stars/djinn work.

First off, what will be kept the same: Stars will grant stats and class changes to characters, and can be unleashed in battle for various effects. When in "standby," the stars will be able to be used to perform supers, the same way djinn are used to bring forth summons. After this, the stars will be placed in a form of "recovery" state where they cannot be used for anything.

Now, for the changes: Stars would always have their class changes in effect, even when in "standby" or "recovery." Classes in this system should in general not be good or bad, just different, so there's no reason to punish a player by changing their characters' class. However, the stat boosts given by stars would be far greater than those given by djinn, and those would be lost when placed in "standby" or "recovery."

Second, note the quotes placed around "standby" and "recovery." Obviously, these terms would not be kept, and neither would their original effects. The new "standby" would place the star on a three turn timer (where the turn the star is used counts as turn 1) in which it could be used for a "summon." If it is not used within those three turns, it's returned to "set" at the end of turn 3. A star in "standby" can still have its effect be used, which will reset the three turn timer, but its effect of unleash will be weaker than if it was used normally (note, however, they cannot be used for anything when in "recovery," except for class changes, which are always active). When a star is used for a "summon," it is then placed in "recovery" for twice as many turns as was remaining on its counter minus 2, before finally being placed back in "set." If more than one star is used in a "summon," the number of turns spent in "recovery" increases by 1 for each star used after the first. Stars that are used earlier in this timer will contribute more power to the "summon." A quick example of what I'm talking about (ratios are subject to change):
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" this turn, it will have a power of 100 and will have to wait in "recovery" for 4 turns. Total turns spent is 5.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" the following turn, it will have a power of 75 and have to wait in "recovery" for 2 turns. Total turns spent is 4.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" two turns later, it will have a power of 50 and have to wait in "recovery" for 0 turns. Total turns spent is 3.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is never used for a "summon," it will return to "set" after the end of turn 3. Total turns spent is 3.

Note that the "power" ratings are simply a percentage of their original power they would contribute, not necessarily the direct power of the "summon." Also note that if two stars were used on turn 1, and they were each used on the "summon," that each turn count would increase by 1, if three stars were used, the turn count would increase by 2, and if four were used (the maximum, of course), the turn count would increase by 3. Higher level "summons" would thusly be much more powerful, as they require much more set up. It may look like it would be dumb to not use a "summon" on turn 3 if you hadn't already used it, since you get the star back the next turn no matter what you do, but since it's only a level 1 "summon" and the damage has been scaled so harshly by that point, it may actually end up doing less than if you had just attacked, depending on the foe. If you were to use that star in a multi-star "summon" then its number of turns spent in "recovery" would increase.

I'm not sure how plausible this system would be to implement, or even how much I really like it (I'd have to think about it some more), but eh... may as well throw it out there.

edit: You wouldn't be able to set a star's status outside of battle with this system. Once battle ends, they're automatically placed back to "set" and cannot be changed to "standby," so you can't just rush in there with four lv4 summons on the first turn and win. Bosses would be designed with this in mind, and would be able to withstand several turns of assault.

Rename djinn to something having to do with stars (I'm kinda at a loss for names here, so I'll just call them "stars" for now >_>).

How do Star Spirits sound, or even Star Sprites (though they are more often around to help grant wishes). "Summon" could be renamed to "Wish" or something like that, and Star Spirits/Sprites could help with using different Wishes.

Quote- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" this turn, it will have a power of 100 and will have to wait in "recovery" for 4 turns. Total turns spent is 5.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" the following turn, it will have a power of 75 and have to wait in "recovery" for 2 turns. Total turns spent is 4.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is used for a "summon" two turns later, it will have a power of 50 and have to wait in "recovery" for 0 turns. Total turns spent is 3.
- On turn 1, a star is used. If this star is never used for a "summon," it will return to "set" after the end of turn 3. Total turns spent is 3.

Seems like a good idea, but then people will be encouraged to use them all near the start of battle. What if we reverse the order, so it is less powerful for about 3-4 turns (50 power), then the next 5-6 turns are a bit stronger (75 power), and then 8 or more turns have about 100 power. Of course, the power should be raised a bit more, or else people will just use regular abilities instead (maybe add 50 power to the first level, 75 to the second, and 100 to the third?). Of course, the values should range a little bit for different summons, as well as whether it increases or decreases with time. Your set-up will probably be more useful for combat summons, and this modified idea will be more useful for healing (though maybe without adding too much more power).

Ah, I knew I forgot something. You wouldn't be able to set a star's status outside of battle with this system. Once battle ends, they're automatically placed back to "set" and cannot be changed to "standby," so you can't just rush in there with four lv4 summons on the first turn and win. Bosses would be designed with this in mind, and would be able to withstand several turns of assault.

The reason it's more powerful the earlier you use it is because the wait time until you can use it again is made longer. Should you go for the more powerful versions earlier and have to wait longer before you can use the stars again? Or should you wait until the last moment to use it so that you spend as little time without the stars as possible? Star management is further emphasized by something I just edited into my previous post that allows you to use a star that has been put in "standby," but with a reduced effect, and doing so would reset the timer.

I'm not sure how much I like the sound of "wishes," although I'm sure we'll come up with something >_>

QuoteYou wouldn't be able to set a star's status outside of battle with this system.

Perfect!

No Wishes? That is fine, but I can think of some more ideas.

Star Power, Special Power, Special Attack, Star Attack, Wish Power, Starshine... This is all that I can think about right now.

As for Yoshi's Island... I figure that we could mix several areas where Yoshis live together, like Yoshi's Island, Lavalava Island, and Yo'ster Isle. Of course, this should mostly be an optional area, although we could probably include something here related to the quest (and also where you unlock Yoshi as a character/mode of transportation?).

Have a nice day.

Hm... how about Star Crash? And the recovery state could be called Crashed.

We already have a system (as proposed by Role):

Jump elemental powerups are Propeller Shrooms.
Fire elemental is Fire Flower.
Ice elemental is Ice Flower.
Shock elemental is Volt Shroom.

Using them in battle would still result in various effects, and we'd still have to name them individually.

A basic idea: Volt Shroom: Electro: Protects allies with a laser barricade.

And a basic "super" move: Jump type: Twin Tornado, cost: 2 Props Standby: Two allies (whoever were the ones to use the prop shrooms) team up for a doubled-up spin-jumping attack. If one person used both prop shrooms, the person in the party with the highest Jump affinity joins in.

In this case, we don't need Weapon combos anymore, because these moves would be the sort of combination attack supermoves I'd intended for weapon combos.

I'm gonna put this bluntly: I think a "jump" element is dumb. It isn't true to the mario games at all to have a "jump" element, and isn't something that can be ambiguously applied to both physical and non-physical attacks. "Jump" is just as much of an element as "hammer" is. And either can be given (other) elemental properties. This is why I suggested that the jump/hammer effects be attack flags instead of their own element. Admittedly, my idea for one of the elements was pretty dumb, too: "heart" elemental. But at least it stays with the general theme of the "element" being a secondary property of the attack, rather than the type of the attack it is.

For the purposes of this hack, I wouldn't think of them so much as elements since those don't play much of a role in the Mario universe anyway.  Representing types of attacks works well enough.

It's kinda like in Fire Emblem where you basically have Lances, Swords, Axes & Bows.

Swords are weak against Lances, Axes are weak against Swords, and Lances are weak against Axes.  Bows are kinda their own thing though, since they're ranged and the others don't get to counter attack since they're too far away.


EDIT:
Actually though, in Golden Sun's code "elements" don't have to be linked like Mars is weak against Mercury.  They could just be their own thing where resistance against one attack attribute is arbitrary compared to the others.

Basically you could have a Spiky enemy that has high resistance to jump style attacks, but weak against any other style of attack.  Maybe he's made of ice, and weak against fire, or made of fire and weak against Ice.  Even then you could have an ice enemy like a snow man that is weak against jump style attacks.

That's the point Role was making as well. It's not so much an "element" as it is a "type". I mean, how is Bug an "element" in Pokemon? That's why they refer to them as "types". And in the GS system, as Atrius mentioned, type resistances are completely unrelated to what type you use. Think the Seabird enemies for instance. Hundred-and-something Wind power, and 25 Wind Resistance. Then there's also the Fire worm. Uses the Fire element, but is resistant to everything other than Fire, and is seriously weak against fire.

And having a mushroom with a propeller on it would make you better at jumping. I think for purposes of this hack we should change to the term "elemental power" to "type affinity", and "elemental resistance" to "type defence" (defence has an S in it for you American types).

@Atrius: Yeah, I think we already established that elemental resistances don't have to align with the opposing elements theory.

Although I think there's a rather large amount of confusion among... er... everyone, about how much we're going to be using this element system, or how we're going to be using it. I don't think any of us are on the same page right now, which is why there's so much arguing >_>

I suspect many enemies will end up being type-less, as will several player attacks.

As for being on the same page, I'm basing my ideas mostly off what Role said. Most of her ideas were pretty good actually. But I do think that if we actually understood what everyone else was actually thinking, there would be a lot less fighting going on.

...Maybe everyone should just post a giant wall-of-text sort of thing where we state our entire idea, and then we compare?

Sounds like a good idea to me. I'll post my wall of text tomorrow probably. It's starting to get late here. And maybe I'll be able to get around to feeling like replying to role in the enemy topic by wednesday... which is gonna be another wall of text >_>

Well, Jump as a type is a good idea, but I can think of other things to go in there (later, since I just woke up). Anyway, I do not quite have a wall of text, because I agree with Role for the elements for the most part, although Ice could probably be used as an enemy only attribute (and replaced with wither Heart or Flower (and if Flower is done, we could probably have two characters, since there are not many Mario characters who are related to Ice, unless they are enemies)). However, Jump is a good idea, as was pointed out for jumping on certain enemies who should take less damage for Jump.

Oh, Atrius? Would it be possible to add a script to a specific type of enemy that damages you instead of the enemy if a specific attack flag is used (in case Jump and Hammer will be made into different attack flags)? I am thinking about this because in at least 6 of the RPG Mario games, you get damaged when jumping onto a Spiny enemy.

Have a nice day.

@Leaf on Characters:  That's why I originally had Blue Toad and Yellow Toad, you know. Also, I think we should stick with Bowser being the bad guy, and Peach being the one you've gotta save.  The traditional Mario formula.  We should keep that.

@Leaf on Jump element:  First - we have precedent already.  We have no precedent for star.  Second - Hammers are not an element, they're a WEAPON type.  Look at mario games.  Notice how many different types of jumps they've come up with?  We've got plenty to work with.  Heart won't work as an element, because not only is there really only one person who'd be using it, there's no powerups for it.  For jump, we have:  Kuribo's Shoe, Racoon Leaf, Tanuki Suit, Propeller Shroom, Super Cape, Winged Cap, etc...

@Enemies:  Remember that Golden Sun's system allows us to make power and resistance independently, guys.  Nobody really has a focus other than the Main Characters.  Just as Atrius pointed out above, and I've mentioned many, many times.  Goombas should be WEAK TO JUMP.  Because, you know... GOOMBAS.  Flying enemies for the most part as well - Paratroopas, for example.  Meanwhile, you'd have things like Piranha Plants could be weak to fire.  Aquatic foes could be weak to Shock.  Fiery foes, obviously, are weak to water.  But then you've got guys like Shysters, which I doubt have a real weakness.  Others would be quite resistant to attacks - Spineys resist the crap out of Jump, for example.  But does this mean they're weak/strong to the opposite?  Not really.  For starters, there really isn't an opposite element for this.  Goombas are weak to jump, but they're not strong to anything else.  I mean... they're GOOMBAS.  Read:  Koopa canon fodder.

@Bowser is playable idea:  NO.  This has been done at least twice already.  Stop making the Bad guy a good guy.  I know you like the dood, but this really should just have Bowser as the big bad and the Princess as they damsel.  I've said this many times.  We don't want some crazy story, we want a traditional Mario story for this hack.

@Yoshi as playable:  Again, NO.  I said that he's transport for a reason that was pointed out - one person per yoshi.  You'll have the main one, then his buddies will carry the other 3.  OR, if y'all REALLY, REALLY hate the advice I gave to keep the party at 4 members, then 7 Yoshis.  But trust me, there's not enough mario characters to pull off an 8 member party.

@Attack types:  Well, we could have a different animation for "Attack", "Defend", "Cast", "Jump", "Shoot", "Hit", and "Downed".  Attack works just like in GS, and if you equip Gloves, it's unarmed, if you equip hammers, it uses the hammer sprite, etc...  "Defend" sets them up in a defensive pose, if we can do it.  "Cast" works like in SMRPG - they start their abilities with it. "Jump" is exactly what it says on the tin.  "Shoot" is for Fireballs, Iceballs, Beam attacks, etc... "Hit" is when they get hit, "Downed" is KO-ed.

@Leaf's Djinn idea:  WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK MY POWERUP IDEA WAS?!  Go back and read the first post, facepalm, and apologize for totally ignoring me.  Stop totally blowing my ideas off - they all have precedent, which is why I use them.  That 'star' idea of yours has none, while my powerup idea has a basis in RECENT Mario games.

@Summons:  ...That's gonna be a problem.  How can we put summons in a Mario game?  Anyone know how we can do this?  Or should we remove summons?  I think we should have them, but I'll need ideas on how to pull it off, since we'll have NO precedent here.  And Leaf... don't just come up with stuff on your own while totally ignoring other people's ideas.

I'm going to be making a couple of topics.  These are where we can decide certain things, such as what elements we use.

Role, overdone plot is overdone. Screw tradition, this is an RPG. In an RPG, plot is the whole point. And "save the damsel" isn't really a "plot", it's a pointless excuse to send you on an adventure. Without discovering more of the plot as you go along, there would be no motive for cutscenes, meaning characters wouldn't have any personality. Personality is what makes people play RPGs.

For summons, we could use Bros. Attacks-style supermoves.

And Role, "Jump" isn't really an "element", just the same way "Bug" isn't an "element" in Pokemon, it's a "type". Remember we don't have water, we've got Ice. Piranha Plants would be weak to both Fire AND Ice, but near impervious to Jump and strong against Shock.

Some minor things...

Technically, we could pull of an 8 person party, but we would have to include some characters like Wario or Bowser, and they are better as opponents than they are as protagonists. Or, I could work on a list of 8 members, since I do know of some which could work (in fact, I can already think of about 6-7 if we were to include Yoshi, and not include Bowser, Wario, or Waluigi (I kind of hate the last two anyway, and Bowser turned Yoshi's Island into a book once)). Also, you are right about Heart...

Quote@Yoshi as playable:

I have a nice suggestion, since I think we generally agree that Yoshi should not be usable (unless everyone changes their mind). Not only is he transport, but there could also be an item to summon him in battle, and attack. Of course, it would not be a super attack or anything, but it could be like using a Bramble Seed, except with the power of Kirin or something.

QuotePrincess as they damsel.

True, but thou mustn't forget about Super Mario RPG (though she is a good damsel in distress too). We also have at least two other princesses/princess-like characters to choose from if we wish, or we could use all of them at certain points of the game. We could throw Pauline in there, but she seems pretty outdated to me, and might not be the best idea.

Quote@Leaf's Djinn idea:

Oops, sorry Role, it is just that so much has been said, I had forgotten some of the more important posts. I do agree that we should use items (and I am aware that you did not address me with this, but I did add to it).

Have a nice day.

Quote from: Role on 23, February, 2010, 01:03:23 PM
@Leaf on Characters:  That's why I originally had Blue Toad and Yellow Toad, you know. Also, I think we should stick with Bowser being the bad guy, and Peach being the one you've gotta save.  The traditional Mario formula.  We should keep that.

Boring. No one would like having two toads as their party members. One toad would be cool if s/he had some actual personality, but two would just be total overkill. And no one cares about an overly simplistic damsel in distress plot. It's trite and overused, and isn't meant to be a plot for a full-blown RPG. The damsel in distress plot is an excuse to send mario collecting 120 stars or going through a bunch of worlds. It is not a plot you should base an RPG on. If you've been following the mario series RPGs at all, you'd notice that bowser is almost never the big bad. There's always some new foe. You almost always have to fight bowser at some point, but there's always something more. There has been all of one mario RPG where bowser has been the big bad, because there just isn't that much you can do story-wise with that plot.

Quote@Leaf on Jump element:  First - we have precedent already.  We have no precedent for star.  Second - Hammers are not an element, they're a WEAPON type.  Look at mario games.  Notice how many different types of jumps they've come up with?  We've got plenty to work with.  Heart won't work as an element, because not only is there really only one person who'd be using it, there's no powerups for it.  For jump, we have:  Kuribo's Shoe, Racoon Leaf, Tanuki Suit, Propeller Shroom, Super Cape, Winged Cap, etc...

Fine. I've more or less come to terms with "jump" as an element. I've seen convincing enough arguments for it. However, the djinn replacement is one I entirely disagree with. You're replacing something that's supposed to be a reusable special ability... with a common single-use item. We can include fire flowers as items, but under no conditions should a fire flower be one of the djinn replacements.

And I already admitted that "heart" was a dumb element.

Quote@Enemies:  Remember that Golden Sun's system allows us to make power and resistance independently, guys.  Nobody really has a focus other than the Main Characters.  Just as Atrius pointed out above, and I've mentioned many, many times.  Goombas should be WEAK TO JUMP.  Because, you know... GOOMBAS.  Flying enemies for the most part as well - Paratroopas, for example.  Meanwhile, you'd have things like Piranha Plants could be weak to fire.  Aquatic foes could be weak to Shock.  Fiery foes, obviously, are weak to water.  But then you've got guys like Shysters, which I doubt have a real weakness.  Others would be quite resistant to attacks - Spineys resist the crap out of Jump, for example.  But does this mean they're weak/strong to the opposite?  Not really.  For starters, there really isn't an opposite element for this.  Goombas are weak to jump, but they're not strong to anything else.  I mean... they're GOOMBAS.  Read:  Koopa canon fodder.

Yeah.

Quote@Bowser is playable idea:  NO.  This has been done at least twice already.  Stop making the Bad guy a good guy.  I know you like the dood, but this really should just have Bowser as the big bad and the Princess as they damsel.  I've said this many times.  We don't want some crazy story, we want a traditional Mario story for this hack.

Who says we don't want a crazy story? The whole point of mario RPGs is that they have a non-traditional (yet ironically formulaic) story. My suggestion was actually for him to be playable but only briefly, not as a permanent party member.

Quote@Yoshi as playable:  Again, NO.  I said that he's transport for a reason that was pointed out - one person per yoshi.  You'll have the main one, then his buddies will carry the other 3.  OR, if y'all REALLY, REALLY hate the advice I gave to keep the party at 4 members, then 7 Yoshis.  But trust me, there's not enough mario characters to pull off an 8 member party.

Who says we even need transport? The only transport GS ever had was the boat. Otherwise, the heroes were all on foot. The only transport any mario RPG has ever had has been mario traveling on the back of yoshi in the paper mario games... where mario only has a single active partner at a time. The only time a non-walking method of transportation has been used is in the case of warp pipes or when a specific storyline event requires it (ie. the mine cart rides in superstar saga or the train in paper mario).

I'm actually not sure where I stand as far as the number of characters go. On the one hand, only four characters would be a lot easier to manage, but if we bumped it up to eight, we'd probably be able to provide a much more interesting plot since we'd be able to use some original characters with actual personality.

Quote@Attack types:  Well, we could have a different animation for "Attack", "Defend", "Cast", "Jump", "Shoot", "Hit", and "Downed".  Attack works just like in GS, and if you equip Gloves, it's unarmed, if you equip hammers, it uses the hammer sprite, etc...  "Defend" sets them up in a defensive pose, if we can do it.  "Cast" works like in SMRPG - they start their abilities with it. "Jump" is exactly what it says on the tin.  "Shoot" is for Fireballs, Iceballs, Beam attacks, etc... "Hit" is when they get hit, "Downed" is KO-ed.

Well that works.

Quote@Leaf's Djinn idea:  WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK MY POWERUP IDEA WAS?!  Go back and read the first post, facepalm, and apologize for totally ignoring me.  Stop totally blowing my ideas off - they all have precedent, which is why I use them.  That 'star' idea of yours has none, while my powerup idea has a basis in RECENT Mario games.

@Summons:  ...That's gonna be a problem.  How can we put summons in a Mario game?  Anyone know how we can do this?  Or should we remove summons?  I think we should have them, but I'll need ideas on how to pull it off, since we'll have NO precedent here.  And Leaf... don't just come up with stuff on your own while totally ignoring other people's ideas.

K. I did that. And I facepalmed. No offense, but it was at that idea. Like I said, we should under no circumstances use something so generic for a supposedly rare item, especially when the generic item has already had a well-established effect in the mario RPG universe.

You actually have less precedent than I do. Fire flowers have been traditionally used as items in SMRPG and the paper mario games. M&L is a bit different... they don't appear at all in superstar saga, appear as bros items in partners in time, and then since all bros items were turned into bros attacks again, they appeared as one of the bros attacks in bowser's inside story. That said, there is absolutely no precedent for using fire flowers as a powerup. Or any of the items you suggested for that matter. Anytime mario games have given some kind of special power, it's been with stars. Where's my precedent? SMRPG and the paper mario games, of course! Whenever you obtained a new star (or star crystal) you would get a new "special move" that utilizes star power. These "special moves" were for all intents and purposes equivalent to supers in fighting games, while FP consuming moves were the equivalent to specials. To continue this comparison, in GS, psynergy is comparable to specials, while summons are supers. The way GS activates its supers and the way the paper mario activates its supers are quite different, though, so I tried to bridge a gap between them with this new system. If you wanna try to code a whole new meter into the game and combine djinn and summons into a single command that somehow uses this meter, be my guest. It'd be a whole lot more true to the mario games, anyway. Oh, and let's code in a way to do action commands, too, while we're at it. That's not sarcasm, btw. If we can do it, we should, because there has not been a single mario RPG that has lacked action commands (even if they were called "timed hits" at one point).

Furthermore, class changing is a very foreign mechanic to the mario games to begin with. How you can say my ideas have no precedent when they're based on the concept of combining mario and GS aspects, something you suggested to begin with, while saying your own ideas have precedents is just beyond me. No matter what we do (unless we completely scrap the system GS has, which AFAICT, was not the idea), the end result is gonna be a little bit of mario, a little bit of GS, and a little bit of freestyle.

As for what mario aspects we take... Basically, it all boils down to this: SMRPG was the founder of mario RPGs. It then split into two different series that take certain elements from it but change others. Those two series are of course the paper mario and M&L series. Since we're not really making a paper mario game, and we're not really making an M&L game, either, it seems most appropriate to combine the two again for our "GSMRPG."

QuotePiranha Plants could be weak to fire

I just noticed this. For some Piranha Plant variants, this could work. However, there are some that even heal when they are hit with Fire (just wanted to get this out of the way).

Edit: Forgot this before...

QuoteThe only transport any mario game has ever had has been mario traveling on the back of yoshi in the paper mario games...

Incorrect. The first game to actually introduce Yoshi was Super Mario World, and Mario rode on Yoshi's (or any of his friend Yoshis') backs. Then came Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Although you would control the Yoshis, the whole game really consisted of Baby Mario riding Yoshi's back.

Bowser had Chakra in Bowser's Inside Story to allow him to teleport.

Edit 2: Removed some information after reading the rest of that comment.

QuoteBoring. No one would like having two toads as their party members.

Yeah, I agree (which is why I posted so earlier on). I do have an idea for one Toad though... Toadsworth? No idea how to make him worthy of being playable, but he could go with the Shock type, since he does go into shock in some games when Peach is kidnapped.

QuoteHowever, the djinn replacement is one I entirely disagree with.

I do have an alternative to this. In the Mario & Luigi games, when you unlock an ability for use on the overworld, you can use it in battle (of course, it has to be an actual ability, not caused by a script on the map). For example, when you unlock Fire and Thunder in Superstar Saga, you can use them both in battle. Similar thing with the Bros. moves. If you learn for example, High Jump, you will unlock "Bounce Bros." as a Bros. Attack. What we could do that is different is to give the player the ability to turn these on or off at the cost of even better abilities (and the better abilities are the summons). To gain these abilities in the first place, there could be a sort of spirit like person to bestow them to somebody (they would mostly bestow an ability based on the character). The only problem with this is that you would have to disable being able to trade them to other people, which could disable getting multiple classes.

Eg; cancel Spin Jump and Fireball, and you can use Spin-flame, or even to cancel any other Jump or Fire abilities to get this (as well as a few other related ones). How we make the special "x-djinn" abilities usable out of battle, is that we make it so enabling one of them is like bestowing the ability, and you can use it in the old psynergy interface (of course, this should only be done with a few of them, just so it is not too difficult to decide when they should be used in puzzles).

Well, this is my idea on an alternative to x-djinn items. If you like it, that if fine. If not, then "oh well", but at least I put it out on the drawing board.

Have a nice day.

QuoteIncorrect. The first game to actually introduce Yoshi was Super Mario World, and Mario rode on Yoshi's (or any of his friend Yoshis') backs. Then came Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. Although you would control the Yoshis, the whole game really consisted of Baby Mario riding Yoshi's back.

Not to mention the train from Paper Mario 2 (and also Paper Mario for N64, both of which you would ride but not control), and Warp Pipes... Although that is more of a teleportation. Oh, and Bowser had Chakra in Bowser's Inside Story to allow him to teleport. There is also the plane in Super Mario Sunshine and in Superstar Saga, although that is more or less a story thing, since you can never actually use them yourself.

If you reread my post, you'll see I've already covered all those points.... except the first one. That was a typo. It was supposed to say "The only transport any mario RPG has ever had has been mario traveling on the back of yoshi in the paper mario games..." Gonna go edit that. Anyway, I then went on to explain that storyline travel or stuff like the train in paper mario don't count, and I mentioned warp pipes, too. My point was that there is no form of transportation outside of yoshi that mario just gets on and rides wherever, and the only time he's done that is in the paper mario games where he can swap partners out, so there doesn't need to be more than one yoshi. Other than that, mario and whoever he's traveling with is always on foot.

QuoteI do have an alternative to this. In the Mario & Luigi games, when you unlock an ability for use on the overworld, you can use it in battle (of course, it has to be an actual ability, not caused by a script on the map). For example, when you unlock Fire and Thunder in Superstar Saga, you can use them both in battle. Similar thing with the Bros. moves. If you learn for example, High Jump, you will unlock "Bounce Bros." as a Bros. Attack. What we could do that is different is to give the player the ability to turn these on or off at the cost of even better abilities (and the better abilities are the summons). To gain these abilities in the first place, there could be a sort of spirit like person to bestow them to somebody (they would mostly bestow an ability based on the character). The only problem with this is that you would have to disable being able to trade them to other people, which could disable getting multiple classes.

Eg; cancel Spin Jump and Fireball, and you can use Spin-flame, or even to cancel any other Jump or Fire abilities to get this (as well as a few other related ones). How we make the special "x-djinn" abilities usable out of battle, is that we make it so enabling one of them is like bestowing the ability, and you can use it in the old psynergy interface (of course, this should only be done with a few of them, just so it is not too difficult to decide when they should be used in puzzles).

Well, this is my idea on an alternative to x-djinn items. If you like it, that if fine. If not, then "oh well", but at least I put it out on the drawing board.

Well, I think this would be the best method to do it if we were gonna say "screw it" to classes. If we're going to keep classes, though, it wouldn't make much sense to have someone teach a character some specific move and then suddenly it changes to something completely different when you change classes. And I'm not entirely sure much I like the idea of disabling something you know how to do so you can do a more complex move. If you're an ice skater and you're practicing a triple axle and get it down pat, you don't suddenly forget how to do a double axle, even though the triple is more complicated.

I'mma post my wall-of-text idea now:

We have four attack types: Jump, Shock, Fire, and Ice. We also have Role's powerup sets, instead of Djinn. Guarding the power ups, since you can't fight an item, we have: Hammer Bros. (Jump), Fire Bros. (Exactly What it Says on the Tin), Ice Bros. (again Exactly What it Says on the Tin), Boomerang Bros. (Shock). Powerups boost the Type Level for their type, increasing Affinity and Type Defence as well.

For the party, we have a total of 8 party members, starting with just 2, Mario (Fire) and Luigi (Jump). We'd then get our first one-off partner character we create for this game, probably either the Ice or Shock one, leaving us with 3 party members. After a bit more adventuring, we get another one-off partner character (Shock if the first was Ice, Ice if the first was Shock), leaving us with 4 party members. If we decide that Peach getting captured isn't the main point (and that we can find good attacks for her), we'd get her around now if she were to be a party member (Jump, probably, perhaps Shock). Otherwise, we'd get someone else, like maybe DK (Jump maybe also? I'd prefer Fire, but then we'd have too many Fire party members). Now we'd have 5 party members. Over a while we'd get another two partners, (Jump and Fire), and then after them we'd get the last two "storyline" characters, right near the end of the game. Technically, we could have Bowser as a temporary party member while still having 8 permanent ones: Just create a trigger that causes switch in sprite and name, while storing the previous name in memory, and changes their type affinity so they have a massive Fire element level, like 20 or something, and create a class specifically for Bowser that has massively powerful stats and skills.

Basically, at the beginning the Bros. and Bowser end up about to fight each other, like leaf said, then cue epic interruption by a third party, and Bowser and the Bros. being forced to team up. (Bowser'd actually be the Fire partner character, except with a name swap, type affinity change, and sprite swap caused by a storyline flag), and then once they get out of that area, Bowser turns on them, (he'd have like, 1999 HP), cue hopeless boss fight, Bowser crushes them in like, one hit, steals some important object and runs off. Then, someone else steals it off of him, does some evil stuff with it, making you fight a ton of bosses to get their macguffin thingies, and loses it. Then in the middle of this nonsense, Bowser steals Peach or something (Princess with magical powers excuse again), and then at the end gets the important item again, and starts using it to terrorise the landscape and the people on it. The player's party gets to Bowser, and they discover that Peach is captured, and try to get her back, cue fight against Bowser (still with his old 1999 HP) (false final battle), then Bowser uses the important item and all of Peach's magic to transform into Giga Bowser, and then you have to blow him up.

Ability shops: Across your travels through the Mushroom Kingdom and the surrounding lands, you'll find Shine Sprites and Stars in treasure chests and other similar locations. There are also magicians who'll use Stars and Shine Sprites to give characters new abilities. Of particular note, however, is that all these magicians will mention being a relative of Merline (Paper Mario 2 reference). Shine give battle abilities, and there are 32 Shines in the game. Stars give utility skills, and there'd be, say, 15 of them?

Well, then they do not have to be disabled. Either that, or like being an ice skater. You start out with those abilities, then finish with the upgraded move after having used the previous ones. Of course, it would be like that one idea you suggested, where they can't be changed out of battle.

Also, I did reread that comment, and I removed some of what I said. However, it looks like the edit did not show until after you posted.

Have a nice day.

Jamie... A lot of that seems good, but I am not a big fan of one-off characters, even if we are creating new ones (unless that is what every usable character is, and mostly based on already existing Mario enemies/characters (like having Gombert and Toadrielle, as two examples)).

Still not sure, if both Shines and Stars are included, that they should at all be related. In my opinion, Shines can give abilities, but Stars should unlock other things, like areas (which can include shops that have abilities for sale, requiring the Shines).


Have a nice day.

I essentially did make it unlock areas, but through new utility skills, which are used to get to new areas.

Hello. Atrius mentioned something about not requiring a full team of 8 members if you do have more than four, so I have an idea...

We can have less than 8 characters (or up to 8, but picking characters might get tricky). A maximum of four characters can go in the first team, and the rest are on a reserve team, similar to how it is in Golden Sun. However, if your main team dies, it is Game Over (your other partners will not come in), and only the participating members can get experience. This way, players will be encouraged to go to previous areas to train on their new characters (and they can also go ahead and do some mini-quests when they get a new member too).

As for the "teams should be balanced, two of each type affinity total" rule... Who not alter it? For example, Mario can have a Jump level of 3 and a Fire of 2, or Luigi can have Jump 4 and Shock 1. This is the nice thing about those element levels. The way they are built, they can easily be changed so their affinity is not always 5 (right Atrius?).

Have a nice day.

Sala... that's brilliant. It's so simple, but none of us thought of it. Not having characters being strictly aligned with a single element in their base class is an idea of pure genius.

I also agree with the game over thing, although I disagree with the part about experience.

Quote from: Salanewt on 23, February, 2010, 09:50:10 PMAs for the "teams should be balanced, two of each type affinity total" rule... Who not alter it? For example, Mario can have a Jump level of 3 and a Fire of 2, or Luigi can have Jump 4 and Shock 1. This is the nice thing about those element levels. The way they are built, they can easily be changed so their affinity is not always 5 (right Atrius?).

Absolutely, don't limit yourselves to thinking you have to do everything the same way Golden Sun did.

Quote from: leafgreen386 on 23, February, 2010, 10:04:30 PM
I also agree with the game over thing, although I disagree with the part about experience.

You might be right about the experience thing. However, it should be less than those who actually participate in the battle (maybe the other characters only gain 1/3 of the experience, while those participating get a full reward). This way, they gain experience, but will make players more likely to train on them if they want a balanced team. Thanks!

Sounds good Atrius, thanks.

Now, any more ideas? Lets see... Nope, not yet. More ideas will probably come soon though.

Have a nice day.

I think I have a solid idea on how I would do this battle system now. I'll have to post it sometime that I'm not procrastinating on an essay, though.

Sounds good.

Oh yes, I have some ideas for music that can be included in the hack, both from Mario & Luigi games. One of the battle themes could possibly give Golden Sun's Doom Dragon theme a run for its money (though that is only because I like the instruments used).

Links to some songs... Later, I will try to redo them in Golden Sun's instruments, although I need to practice first, probably with some of the unused audio in Mario Bros.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87Lzd724YcY = Final Boss theme of Bowser's Inside Story. This would be neat for this hack, wouldn't it?

Have a nice day.

Wait wait... Did leaf just say that I have no precedent... with Fire Flowers?

Weren't they there since the original Super Mario Bros?

Not only that, but the Volt Shroom is specifically a power-up, it renders characters electrified, causing enemies to be damaged on contact.

Quote from: Role on 24, February, 2010, 12:46:07 AM
Wait wait... Did leaf just say that I have no precedent... with Fire Flowers?

Weren't they there since the original Super Mario Bros?

Doesn't matter where they're originally from when they've been used as generic items in every mario RPG they've been in so far with the exception of bowser's inside story (again, because bros items were returned to being bros attacks). Precedent within a sub-series overrides precedent in the overarching series when you're making a game for the sub-series.

QuoteDoesn't matter where they're originally from when they've been used as generic items in every mario RPG they've been in so far with the exception of bowser's inside story (again, because bros items were returned to being bros attacks).

They were not used in Super Mario RPG, or Super Paper Mario (not so much an RPG, but it did have some of the same concepts and items from its prequels), and not in Superstar Saga.

Edit: Sorry, I misread that part of the comment.

Anyway, powerups seem like a good idea, but it may get boring if the player only finds one item type, with the same name and effect (at least with djinn, they had different names and effects).

Edit: Some character ideas...

If anyone else agrees to this list...

Mario > Luigi > Peach > Yoshi > DK > Daisy > Toadsworth > Rosalina

Basically, depending on how many characters there are, you can use this list (obviously, the last three are the most interchangeable). As you go down, you remove the character furthest to the right (meaning that generally, the characters closer to the left would be more likely than the ones on the right). I do agree that Yoshi should be transport, but he has played some pretty neat roles which Mario has not done (like being able to tilt the terrain to make things move). DK makes a good cameo, but I do seem to remember things like the Golden Bananas, and the Banana Fairies (I have not played many of the newer DK games, but I would like to try at least one).

We should try something new than stealing Bananas though... Perhaps one or two of DK's friends or family (it would be a funny twist if his girlfriend were kidnapped, instead of Peach)? Then again, if he is only a cameo, something similar to this could happen (which would be the cause of him appearing as a cameo in the first place).

Have a nice day.

Quote from: leafgreen386 on 24, February, 2010, 06:34:46 AM

Quote from: Role on 24, February, 2010, 12:46:07 AM
Wait wait... Did leaf just say that I have no precedent... with Fire Flowers?

Weren't they there since the original Super Mario Bros?

Doesn't matter where they're originally from when they've been used as generic items in every mario RPG they've been in so far with the exception of bowser's inside story (again, because bros items were returned to being bros attacks). Precedent within a sub-series overrides precedent in the overarching series when you're making a game for the sub-series.

As I said before:  You need to not look only at Mario RPGs.  Instead, look at all Mario games.  Like how I mixed the Mario Strikers with the SMRPG earlier.  Any powerup ever gained is something we can look at.  Any character ever introduced is a character we can look at.  Anything and everything is something we can consider.  I'm NOT saying we have to use everything, but we shouldn't limit ourselves to just the RPGs.  If we do that, this game will suffer as a result.

That's why I've said that we should have a classic Mario scenario:  Bowser kidnaps Peach, Mario goes to kick his @#$% and get her back.  We want to make a traditional Mario Game here, only use the Classic RPG genre instead of the Platformer genre (OR, in the case of paper mario games, Action RPG).  A scenario that's traditionally Mario, characters that have the Mario feel, terms, power ups, and weapons that are reminiscent of Mario...  Any Mario Game is up for grabs.

Now... If we do 5 or 6 characters, rather than having one or two of each element/type/whatever you wanna call it, then we need to find out how to do them.  Perhaps one has no element, or one is pure physical or something.

Quote from: Role on 24, February, 2010, 04:02:59 PM
Now... If we do 5 or 6 characters, rather than having one or two of each element/type/whatever you wanna call it, then we need to find out how to do them.  Perhaps one has no element, or one is pure physical or something.

Well, I already have some ideas for mixing elements, and possibly allowing the player to change them to get different classes (as opposed to items, power-ups, etc.). I made a more detailed post a while back explaining what we could do for a few things.

Mario, instead of being 5 Fire, should be something like 3 Jump and 2 Fire (after all, he is credited for being the best jumper, even better than Luigi).
Luigi can be 4 Jump, 1 Shock (yet has more of a "drift" effect than Mario, so I suppose he is really good (good enough to not be able to control it well)).

And... Until we can decide which other characters to have, I should not change any more (though for the heck of it, Yoshi can have 3 Jump, 1 Fire, and 1 Water/Ice).

Have a nice day.

Congratulations Role, you've just created an idea for the least popular RPG in the universe!

I mean, with a "story" like that, no one would play it, EVER!

My theory is that you're just crazy.

Quote from: Role on 24, February, 2010, 04:02:59 PM

Quote from: leafgreen386 on 24, February, 2010, 06:34:46 AM

Quote from: Role on 24, February, 2010, 12:46:07 AM
Wait wait... Did leaf just say that I have no precedent... with Fire Flowers?

Weren't they there since the original Super Mario Bros?

Doesn't matter where they're originally from when they've been used as generic items in every mario RPG they've been in so far with the exception of bowser's inside story (again, because bros items were returned to being bros attacks). Precedent within a sub-series overrides precedent in the overarching series when you're making a game for the sub-series.

As I said before:  You need to not look only at Mario RPGs.  Instead, look at all Mario games.  Like how I mixed the Mario Strikers with the SMRPG earlier.  Any powerup ever gained is something we can look at.  Any character ever introduced is a character we can look at.  Anything and everything is something we can consider.  I'm NOT saying we have to use everything, but we shouldn't limit ourselves to just the RPGs.  If we do that, this game will suffer as a result.

That's why I've said that we should have a classic Mario scenario:  Bowser kidnaps Peach, Mario goes to kick his @#$% and get her back.  We want to make a traditional Mario Game here, only use the Classic RPG genre instead of the Platformer genre (OR, in the case of paper mario games, Action RPG).  A scenario that's traditionally Mario, characters that have the Mario feel, terms, power ups, and weapons that are reminiscent of Mario...  Any Mario Game is up for grabs.

Now... If we do 5 or 6 characters, rather than having one or two of each element/type/whatever you wanna call it, then we need to find out how to do them.  Perhaps one has no element, or one is pure physical or something.

Sounds like we have a fundamental disagreement on what kind of game this should be. I was taking this as a mario RPG, done in the mario RPG style with mario RPG premises. Not as a mario game that just happens to have RPG elements. Like I said before, the classic mario scenario has been used repeatedly, and thus isn't interesting anymore. If I was an executive at nintendo, and you brought a full proposal for this whole new spin-off of the mario RPG series, the choice of plot (and choice of characters if you had somehow managed to keep the two toads as the partners for that long) would be a major point of contention that you'd be told to go back to the drawing boards for. Even if everything else was amazing, by ignoring such a key part of the medium your proposal would get denied.

An RPG has a lot more room to play around with its plot than traditional mario games do. There are already mario games that have no choice but to use that plot in order to remain seamless. Traditional 2D and traditional 3D mario both make liberal use of this plot because it's all they need to make a good game. Without having to worry about the tangles of plot, it allows the developers to focus entirely on the gameplay. The developers know that it's the gameplay in these games that matters, even if the plot is only loosely hinged together. When a person sits down to play one of these games, they expect a new take on and new challenges based in classic gameplay. They do not expect for any kind of significant plot development. In fact, if these games were to have a more involved plot, it would take away from the main draw of them - the gameplay.

But... when a person sits down to play a mario RPG, they expect more than just a new take on classic gameplay. They expect a new plot, too. In fact, if anything, they expect the gameplay to be more or less the same within a given spin-off series, where the focal difference is in the plot. What changes in M&L? In PiT, you had four characters instead of two. In BII, you could control bowser in addition to the bros. Oh, and the effects of equipment change from game to game. That's the extent of the new innovation in regard to gameplay. Bros items were introduced as a replacement to bros points in PiT, but that got reverted back to the original point system in BII, presumably due to bros items being received poorly. PiT also changed from having a world to explore to having a sort of hub, which was also reverted back to a full world to explore in BII. Then we have the paper mario series. The original paper mario and paper mario TTYD used more or less identical battle systems, with the only major innovation introduced in TTYD being the addition of superguarding. New equipment was introduced and you gained some new abilities, but the biggest change to the gameplay actually came in the form of the type of puzzles you solved, due to having a different selection of partner powers. And naturally, every game has had different enemies to give new experiences without having to change the way battle works. Then we get to paper mario wii. People were thrown off by paper mario wii so much because the developers completely threw away the gameplay formula that had defined the paper mario games and replaced it with a platformer. What it did not throw away, however, was the storyline and plot we've come to expect from a mario RPG. Even though in gameplay it was a platformer, it told the story as if it was a true mario RPG. Had it used the same old generic plot used in NSMBW, the game would not have been anywhere near as interesting, because while players expect consistent gameplay, they demand a storyline that is characteristic of a mario RPG, which while somewhat formulaic, is what truly offers the sense of the game feeling fresh.

If you actually care about making a good game, you'll stop insisting we use such a basic premise.

---

As far as taking inspiration from the mario series as a whole... well duh! Of course we should be taking inspiration for stuff from everywhere we can get. But we can't ignore already established foundations of the mario RPGs. In fact, now that I think about it, if we can't implement some kind of action commands system, this should be scrapped entirely, because it won't feel like a mario RPG if there aren't action commands.

Which type of Action Commands are you talking about, field or battle? We have an alternative for field actions, which is already in Golden Sun. For battle, we could probably add something like in Super Mario RPG, where you press a button at a certain time to take less damage. We would have to completely change how the Golden Sun battle system works to implement something like in the Mario & Luigi games though (like being able to go as far as dodging and countering attacks), so I do not suggest this.

Needles to say, I agree with adopting some concepts from the other Mario RPG games... However, we should definitely NOT make the player feel like they ARE playing one of those games, or a sequel to them. Of course, we do need a new plot than "Oh no! Mario! The princess has been kidnapped again! Go stop Bowser again!", but new ideas need to be made, and can borrow some things from the older games. For example, why can't Princess Peach get kidnapped again? I mean, she does have the ability to escape (not to mention her enormous power when she is having her mood swings). In fact, if Peach is placed on the team, I have a new idea for an ability, but it is only for the overworld.

Copy: Makes you look like the nearest animate object. You can easily blend in when in certain areas (and this allows us for some new puzzles immediately).

As for how to initiate a battle, I think we should remove random encounters when on a map. After all, every other Mario RPG lets you see the enemies on the map so you can choose who to fight. Of course, random encounters on the World Map is still a good idea and will help make this game different from the others.

Have a nice day.

We need action commands for things like attacking, but not to the extent of M&L. Paper Mario would probably be a better example.

@Sala: Battle. I forgot that field commands were even called action commands tbqh.

I agree that the player should not feel like they are playing a paper mario or M&L game. They should feel like they're playing another mario RPG spin-off.

And making encounters more like the mario RPGs will be difficult... there's already code in the game for making characters move around an area, so it's probably doable to make encounters work like the other mario RPGs, causing an encounter to trigger when your character's collision box overlaps with the NPC's. Another problem is that would require a ton of different room states, if it even would work like that >_>

@Jamie: Yeah. That's what I was thinking. Action commands for dealing extra damage and for reducing damage, but not completely dodging and countering like the M&L games.

For sprite collision? This would be the best way to handle it, yes. I recall that because of sprite collision, you can press the "A" button to speak to a character, or to do other things with them. Using this, one could also make a character that talks when you approach them. The problem with this is that if the appropriate flags are not set, that character will talk forever... Unless you hold a directional button to walk away very slowly (not before they repeat what they said a few more times though). Using this concept, it should be possible to replace the talking script with a battle script which locates an enemy group (like the ones in the enemy editor). When the battle is won, the enemy sprite vanishes from the map (good example includes the Chestbeaters). If you lose, it is Game-over, and you can go back to a Sanctuary (which can be made into a Toad House for the hack). Of course, most objects use multiple scripts (for moving around, for what they do, and some other minor details for how they relate to the map).

This is pretty much how it works in Superstar Saga, though there was little need to explain it (except to those who are unaware of how it works). This type of scripting is probably similar to other games though, mainly RPGs.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. It seems that the maps used in battle are separate from those used for actual level maps and scripts (like cutscenes, map on wall, etc.). Not sure if we could create a new map bank in Golden Sun which is built differently, but I figure that it would be similar to what is used for the battle backgrounds already.

Have a nice day.

Okay... I just realized something I could do:

The plot starts off like this:  Bowser tells a bunch of goombas/troopas to go kidnap the princess, and sends the Koopa Kids (and Jr) to go and stop Mario's inevitable chase.  Well, the Goombas get there, and kidnap the princess...

The WRONG Princess... they nab Daisy in the confusion, and since it's too late to go back...

The basic journey is Mario, Luigi, and their party chasing after Daisy until finally they get to Bowser.  An ongoing joke will probably be that they try to stop Mario from rescuing Peach when Peach is RIGHT THERE.

This keeps the "saving the princess" theme, it makes Peach Playable, and it has quite a bit of mario-esque humor in it.

You can have 6 people on the party I figure, but it's gonna take some testing to figure out how to do the last 2 - they'd need to be element neutral, or rather, have no innate 'element' or 'type'.  I figure we could make Peach this, and depending on what powerup you give her for the 9th (and final) powerup, it would make her Psyche Bomb one of the four elements, along with other minor tweaks to the skillset.

What are your thoughts on this?

If we do this, we still need three more characters.  I don't think DK would be one, though.

DK is awesome though! I mean, doesn't he have, like, a coconut bazooka or something?

Overall, though, that is a fairly decent plot idea. Problem is, with that we can't really have partner characters, and neither Peach nor Luigi have much of a personality for us to go by, and Mario is a Silent Protagonist.

Well, if we were to have DK, then it would be Mario, Luigi, Yoshi, Peach, DK, and possibly... A Toad (or Toadsworth)? The only problem with DK is that he is much more detached from the Mario series than Yoshi, who even appears in regular Mario adventures. Both have their own series, but Yoshi is strongly tied in with Mario and DK is practically by himself (similar with having the Wario series).

Anyway, I like having the wrong princess captured, it would be quite amusing in the end (but maybe Bowser should not see Daisy until the end (at least to not see her face completely), because he should be able to recognise Peach considering how often he has kidnapped her).

Quoteneither Peach nor Luigi have much of a personality for us to go by

You have played the Paper Mario games, right? Even the Mario & Luigi games add a tiny bit. We can also give Mario some personality through his actions, and what others say about him.

Luigi is the younger (twin) brother who wants to be alongside Mario in his adventures and looks up to Mario, even though he also tends to be afraid of things more often. Peach is kind of like Mia, except she actually can show other emotions, which she sometimes does quite well (basically, she is a "pure soul", but not an isolated soul).

As for element neutral, I figure that we should spread the elements around with each character, so one character is not solely one element. I mean, Mario can jump and use fire, why should he be limited to Fire element? Luigi can also use Shock in some games, so why only Jump? If there is a completely neutral character, it would most likely be Peach (though she is good at floating, as seen in Super Mario Bros. 2).

Have a nice day.

Yeah... I don't think we should use toadsworth, at least not as a PC. He's always filled a kraden-like role, there for advice, but not ever really doing anything else. He isn't even playable in the mario sports games!

@Role: I like that. It actually does sound like a pretty plausible situation for a mario RPG, with the minions thinking they have peach the whole time but actually having daisy. Although if peach joined the party for that, it'd sorta be pretty :fridgelogic:. "Why are we taking peach along when the minions' goal was to kidnap her?" Especially since in these situations peach usually just asks the mario bros to go do their thing, while she hangs back at the castle. The other problem is that if something like this happened, you'd expect for there to be a whole other part of the game after bowser found out.

Maybe combine our ideas? Like, for the first part of the game, you're chasing bowser's minions back to the castle because they took daisy, and along the way, they find some object of power, and one of them picks it up because it's "ooh, shiny." When bowser finds out about the minions' screw-up, he begins roasting the minions, and the one that picked it up asks if he can be spared if he gives the object to bowser. In typical bowser fashion, he considers it, then roasts the minion extra hard when he learns that it's just some shiny rock. After getting roasted, the minion drops the object, where kamek flies in to pick it up and realizes what it is. Bowser then uses it as the party heads back to peach's castle, setting up the second part of the game.

Oh, and definitely gonna echo what sala's saying about the elements. I'd expect most characters to be multi-elemental in their base class.

@Sala on DK:  EXACTLY!  This is why I said Cameo or NPC at best, not a player character.  Keep the established Mario Characters as the PCs.

@Leaf on Story Premise: Nah, Peach comes along to save her fellow princess/sister if they're related (dunno about that...).  As for the kidnapping, my idea was that they tried to kindnap peach, but typical mario bros' style chaos happens and when they get out of it, they realize that they grabbed the wrong princess.  They KNOW they got the wrong one, but it's too late to go back and get the right one, so they more or less go "meh, good enough".  Which, of course, draws ire from their damsel ("what am I, a second rate princess to you?!" Or something.)

@Leaf on Dual Elemental bases:  Huh... let's try and see if we can manipulate the code to do that.  If we do it that way, it could be that the djinn system doesn't work by elements so much as 'character essence' or something - giving a Mario essence to Peach gives her a more Mario-like class, etc...  Sure, I may suck at explaining it, and am probably using the totally wrong terms, but... I'm sure someone will figure out what I tried to say.

To try and cut out the oddness:  The djinn system isn't done by element, but by character basis.

I'm inclined to agree with leaf in terms of story.

So, what you're trying to say, Role, is that you don't want any new characters to be created if you can possibly avoid it?

And I thought you were the one to NOT base things on just one type of Mario game. DK is a Mario series too, technically. Besides, he's the only good Mario character with a gun, aside from Diddy Kong, but Diddy's a more of a "minor" character. It's also because otherwise, we wouldn't have a character with the "brute force always works" style. Having DK playable would open up MANY puzzle opportunities, ones involving the ability to strike a switch from a distance, and puzzles involving sheer strength.

No, I'm saying that Player Characters shouldn't be new, but others are fine.  For example, the kidnapping party would be un-genericified goombas and koopa troopas.  Names and 'tude and all.  They'd have their own face icons to match, and are as much as important as Daisy in this story.  Heck, I imagine cutscenes where they're dealing with Daisy and worrying what Bowser's gonna do to them...

Quote from: Role@Sala on DK:  EXACTLY!  This is why I said Cameo or NPC at best, not a player character.  Keep the established Mario Characters as the PCs.

@Leaf on Story Premise: Nah, Peach comes along to save her fellow princess/sister if they're related (dunno about that...).  As for the kidnapping, my idea was that they tried to kindnap peach, but typical mario bros' style chaos happens and when they get out of it, they realize that they grabbed the wrong princess.  They KNOW they got the wrong one, but it's too late to go back and get the right one, so they more or less go "meh, good enough".  Which, of course, draws ire from their damsel ("what am I, a second rate princess to you?!" Or something.)

@Leaf on Dual Elemental bases:  Huh... let's try and see if we can manipulate the code to do that.  If we do it that way, it could be that the djinn system doesn't work by elements so much as 'character essence' or something - giving a Mario essence to Peach gives her a more Mario-like class, etc...  Sure, I may suck at explaining it, and am probably using the totally wrong terms, but... I'm sure someone will figure out what I tried to say.

To try and cut out the oddness:  The djinn system isn't done by element, but by character basis.

Oh, so they realize they have the wrong princess? Even better. That would be pretty hilarious, actually, if done well.

The dual elemental bases was actually sala's idea, one that I really like. Gotta give credit where credit is due.

What I was thinking for the djinn replacement would be to make it more similar to ToS's EXspheres, except without the different levels and stuff, and you'd be able to switch them around freely. So each character gets a certain number of "djinn" (I still think they should be called stars or something based on stars), and they can choose which element to align them to, similar to how you could choose which upgrade EXspheres gave in ToS. These "djinn" can be switched from character to character. Not sure exactly how you would code the "djinn" to be able to change elements, though, especially if they give different attacks depending on what element they are.

So currently, the star ("djinn") system I'm thinking of would be something like this: Each star grants a specific ability as well as some stat boosts. Stars can be equipped to anyone, similar to djinn. When equipped, you can change their element to change your class (only outside of battle). Changing elements outside of battle would replace the set/standby/recovery selections there. Additionally, changing elements will result in changing the element of the star's attack in battle, along with possibly some other small changes to the attack in question. Changing elements could adjust the stat boosts given as well (not sure how I feel about this). When in battle, using a star will cause it to be eligible for use in a Star Crash ("summon") for a certain number of turns before being returned to the player, similar to being in a "standby" phase. The sooner it's used, the more powerful the star crash will be, but using it sooner will result in longer waits before getting the star back to be used again (this would act similar to the "recovery" phase in that the star cannot be used for anything in this phase). When "set," a star can only have its ability used, and it cannot be used for a star crash. If a star is put into "standby," it can still be used to reset its turn counter, but it will be substantially weaker than if it was used when "set." Most stars' default attacks would be slightly stronger versions of attacks that you would normally have to expend FP for, but the "standby" versions would be drastically weaker. Stat boosts given by stars are always present in battle, and are not lost when a star's ability is used or when a star is used for a star crash.

Although what do you think about having a second part to the story after you fight bowser?

I'd be inclined, rather than having a "star crash", to have team attacks similar in style to the M&L games, although I suppose doing it more in Paper Mario 2 style COULD work...

Well, team attacks could be pretty cool, but it'd require adding a lot of different attacks, since we'd have to make one for every character combination. That could get especially messy if we use more than four characters.

Double/Triple/Quad Techs would require an EFoC, so... no.  Cool, yes, which is why CT was awesome, but the system wouldn't support it.

@Leaf:  See my essences idea in the elements thread.  We can use Story to give the excuse to use it.  That's how most mario mcguffins are done, anyways...

Not really, since it's sprite based, and most would probably be physical. That's kind of like saying you need another animation for every character combination for the Djinni Meld.

...You'd have to code it so that they become disabled when the target character is downed, or stunned, or other...

Basically, the animation is the EASY part.  It's actually CODING the ability to do it that's not.  You're just thinking in animations.  Gotta remember:  How is the game supposed to know who to use?  Or which ones you can and cannot use do two who's combat ready and not?  How are you supposed to drain FP from everyone when you use it?  How are you gonna remove other people's turns when you use it?

EFoC, my friend.  EFoC.

Bros. Attacks in M&L don't take up both characters' turns. Easy to choose who: the user, and the character with the highest Affinity in that type (We can do a check for Attack (Meld), why not for Affinity (Elemental Power)?

Well, I can imagine it would work something like this...

Team Super comes in the turn order:
Set ValueA = 0
Character 1's HP is checked, If HP>0, ValueA = ValueA + 1
Character 2's HP is checked, If HP>0, ValueA = ValueA + 2
Character 3's HP is checked, If HP>0, ValueA = ValueA + 4
Character 4's HP is checked, If HP>0, ValueA = ValueA + 8
If ValueA is not equal to 1, 2, 4, or 8: (if all characters are alive, ValueA = 15, or 0xF; if only certain characters are alive, it will be apparent which ones)
- If ValueB>=X: (ValueB is the measurement used for the amount of Super meter the team currently has, Team Super costs X amount of Super meter)
-- ValueB = ValueB - X
-- Select appropriate formula and animation based on ValueA (an If statement for each possible value of ValueA)
- Else: Super fails due to lack of Super meter
Else: Super fails due to lack of characters

Pardon my pseudo-code. You could switch the order of the checks if you wanted failure due to lack of characters to have priority. As for the super meter itself, you should be able to add a line at the end of each attack command to increase the super meter by a certain amount, which would probably be stored in a float. I think the biggest hurdle would actually be the graphical side of this, adding in a whole new meter for it.

This doesn't prevent the other characters from choosing actions that turn, but as long as supers take up at least half of the super meter (I'm actually partial to making it take up all of it, a la unison attacks in ToS), it shouldn't be too big of a problem. And note that while I've been referring to this as a generic super meter, it'd prob be named something else in the game.

I was saying replace Summons with those, using "Stars" or whatever you're gonna make them.

Stars can have personalities too. It's heavily implied in Super Mario Galaxy that Stars are alive as well.

I wonder what it would be like to have a Star eating your chips?

You assume we're using stars.  Please take a look at my 'essences' idea first.  The only thing that it looks like we're not using for sure is the Powerup Idea I originally had.

Only question is, what's our excuse to include them? We still have to stay somewhat true to the Mario universe.

Why not use the star characters from the paper mario games? Or the Crystal Stars from PM2?
Something like those.

Before I go to do my assignment, and then afterwards start those portraits over again (sorry Lishy, my computer restarted before I saved them), could I please ask some of you to not think so much of Paper Mario when talking about this hack? I know that the Paper Mario games are really fun and I like where you are going with these ideas, but we need to come up with entirely new systems for almost every aspect of the game, aside from characters and locations of course (and by locations, I mean those which have appeared in more than one game, despite how much it may have changed (like Bowser's Castle, or Mario's House)). Well, if we want this to seem like a new series anyway.

For example... The Star Spirits are done with. One Paper Mario and a Mario Party is good enough for them. They should at most make a cameo appearance, or even just as an image seen in a remote area of the game. This means that we should stay away from Stars (or at least use them differently), and definitely not 7 (more or less, but not 7).

Leaf? Yeah, that formula is pretty good actually, and can probably be used or altered in another type of special attack.

Edit: Pressed an incorrect key, never managed to finish my post.

Have a nice day.

Well the reason I keep bringing up the 7 macguffins thing is because that whole trend started in SMRPG. If it was something that was specific to the paper mario series, I'd completely agree with you.

Quote from: leafgreen386 on 01, March, 2010, 04:59:58 PM
Well the reason I keep bringing up the 7 macguffins thing is because that whole trend started in SMRPG. If it was something that was specific to the paper mario series, I'd completely agree with you.

Oh yeah, it did start in Super Mario RPG, didn't it? Well, I still think that for a new spin-off hack, it should have a new system (one series and one other game used 7 as a significant number (4 out of 7 games), I think this hack should be a bit different (like five, or three?)). After all, the Paper Mario series were heavily imspired by Super Mario RPG, and the first Paper Mario was going to be named Super Mario RPG 2, but I think Square Enix made them change the name.

Have a nice day.

Yeah, it did.  I figure that the Koopa Kids are guarding the McGuffins you'll wind up needing to get into bowser's castle.

You don't know you'll need it, but you'll get more and more hints along the way that these are going to be needed to get in.  ...Heck, it could be their wands!

...Actually... You DO get the 7 wands... all the way back in SMB3.  So the 7 McGuffins is older than SMRPG... Even if it's a wee bit different than in the RPGs.


I'll edit in a comment about the Spirits if nothing is talked about in the Elements thread, haven't checked yet.  But remember, nobody said we couldn't add storyline specific things to this.  Hell, every Mario RPG has its own unique storyline things...

Edit:  Geez, nobody said a thing.  I'll post it here:

QuoteWe'll have new characters, but not new Player Characters.  Heck, the kidnapping party in the story premise is made up of un-genericified Goombas and Koopa Troopas.  So... yeah, right there you've got new characters.

Anywho, Leaf seemed to suggest this in another thread:

Separate the Element System from the Djinn System.  That is to say:  Characters can use many different elemental attacks in all their classes.  The Djinn, however, will have a different function - powering up certain elements, and changing classes.  However, rather than having them be actual Elements, how about this:

Essences.  There'd be four essences, each responding to a type of classic RPG build.  Add more of that essence to make the character more like that build.  You could focus purely on one build type, or you could mix it up.  What element skills they know are independent of the essences, but some essences grant more of one element than another in the classes.

For the Essences, I've got Fighter, Defender, Magician, and Healer.  The four base classes of RPGs.

For classes, Fighter would have many different physical oriented skills of a variety of elements. Personalities of these types are often 'Fiery'
Defenders are mostly defensive, and have many buffs and stuff.  Defenders are typically the type to "Jump" to the rescue.
Magicians use mostly attack magic of many different elements.  Magicians are well known for their ability to "Zap" their opponents.
Healers use mostly healing, with some other stuff mixed in, of course.  Healers are known to be "Cool", calm, and collective...

So for it to work with GS's Element Level-based Class System, Fighters boost Fire, Defenders boost Jump, Magicians boost Shock, and Healers boost Ice - but none are restricted to said elements.  Many of the Defender's skills are non-elemental, for example.  Read:  I don't think buffs/debuffs should have an element... not like their effected by it, y'know?

Now, we could easily have this be the spirits of the Ancient Mushroom Kingdom that Mario and the others come across.  That is, the Mushroom Kingdom way back many thousands of years ago, before the Mushroom Kingdom had Mario and Luigi to help them.  It'd be little toad-doods with different gear reflecting their class. Or something.  The spirits of the ancient warriors who once protected the Mushroom Kingdom...  We could have some way that causes them to become unleashed upon the land, and want to help once again.  They can't affect the world and save a princess as spirits, though, so they lend their power to Mario and the others.

That is true about getting seven wands, but wasn't it optional if you got a Warp Whistle? With them, I think you only had to complete a few worlds. If you get two of these, you can jump all the way to world 7 (warp past World 1, then warp to World 7). This means that only three worlds were actually required (unless you decide to complete a fraction of World 2, then you only have to do 2.5 Worlds), unlike in the Mario RPGs. I do finally agree with the rest of you about using 7.

Storyline specific things seem like a good idea as well. After all, this is like a new hack/series... Which just gave me a good idea.

Will there be a sequel, and how long will this hack be? I figure that if the first Golden Sun can be combined with the second one, then we could have data/space for thousands of new ideas, as well as old concepts (not to mention just adding stuff as well, but then we get many more maps, and characters which are already prepared for us to edit, instead of making new ones). If this is too hard to do/will not be done for a while, then we could just hack both the first and second games. Not sure how we would be able to make the characters' stats guaranteed to carry over though.

Have a nice day.

Do we really wanna be thinking about a sequel before we've even started the first one? >_>

I think the answer to that is a resounding "no."

And role, I actually really like your idea about the essences, but it feels slightly out of place without a more sinister plot. Like... at least something as bad as the shadow queen in PM:TTYD or the dark star in BII, both of which involve ancient cataclysms (TTYD even goes so far as to have 4 heroes that were cursed when they sealed away the shadow queen). They need something that was relevant to them in the past for it to make sense for them to be helping you in the present. You still haven't answered me what you think of having two parts to the game, though. The first part being your minion plot, and the second part involving some item of great power, like how I outlined a few posts ago.

Hmmm... Touche.  How about this then:  The whole issue with bowser gets resolved about 1/3-1/2 way through.  But, similar to SMRPG, a bunch of stuff happens and bowser's no longer the final boss.  Sort of.  And how did this happen?  Well, when they unsealed the spirits, they unsealed an evil one too.  Looks like those 'essences' were actually using themselves to seal away the great evil!

For lulz:  There's two evil spirits.  One possesses Daisy.  The other... Hmm... Maybe Bowser Jr. or something.  Bowser winds up on the other end of the stick - that is, the end he's not used to: Forced into doing their dirty work.  And since it's a Mario game, the punishment if he doesn't do it isn't death - it's something far worse, they've got dirt on him so bad, so unspeakable, that we can't even say what it is in the game (ongoing gag)!

This would also kill two birds with one stone - the essences would need to seal in the spirit again, so it'd give a good storyline excuse for them to poof away.

That seems like a good idea. When I get around to making a Daisy portrait, do you also want to see what a possessed Daisy might look like (probably a bit of a different outfit too though)? Not fully sure if it should be Bowser Jr. unless he looks like Dark Bowser from Bowser's Inside Story (then he would be awesome).

By the way, how many Kraden-like characters will there be? Basically, the ones who join you, even if they seem relatively useless.

Another new idea... We have established that some characters will get new abilities, and other characters might be able to learn the same abilities (like both Mario and Luigi can learn a Jump ability, for example). What if we can write scripts for abilities that make it so if a certain character uses said ability, then it is enhanced? For example, if both Mario and Luigi know Jump, then it will be enhanced for one of them, so the other character jumps higher or something?

Have a nice day.

Edit: Of course, that is just an example, since both Mario and Luigi normally jump the same height.

What do you think elemental power does, Sala?

True, but I was also talking about the overworld. I suppose elemental affinity can be made to empower certain abilities on the overworld, but perhaps only at certain points during the story.

And... I currently have no more ideas (though I might think of one if I can find Scoot Bloop).

Have a nice day.

Well, Defenders boost the power of jumps, Attackers boost Fire, Mages boost Shock, and Healers boost Ice... however, I figure that equipment would have a larger effect on the boosts.

Tanooki Suit (armor) - boosts Jump Power and Resist by 25 each, bestows Stone Guardian ability (raises DEF)
Penguin Suit (armor) - boosts Ice Power and Resist by 25 each, boosts AGL by 1.2x, bestows Ice Ball ability
Fire Flower (psy tool) - boosts Fire Power by 20, bestows Fire Ball ability
Propeller Hat (helm) - Boosts Jump Power by 20, bestows Spin Drop

Something like that.  I figure, given how pretty much any powerup can be equipped, those that can will boost elemental power and bestow something.  And why not include all known powerups?

I like that idea. We can even grab single use attack items if we want as well I suppose. Some more minor ideas for items...

Equip:

Cape (accessory) - boosts Jump Power by 20, bestows Glide.
Wing Cap (helmet) - boosts Jump Power and Restance by 15, bestows Fly.

Combat Item:

Koopa Shell - kicked at enemy for minor damage (similar attack to what a Koopa might have*).
Music Box - makes all opponents fall asleep (40-75% chance of working, either has to be decided or coded into the game).
Volt Shroom (edible) - enemies who attack you take damage, while you only take half (since they did not finish attacking you, but they did make contact*).

I also have another minor idea. Items can be combined to make other items (similar to the chefs from the Paper Mario games). For example, the Koopa Shell and the Volt Shroom can be combined for a Shell Shocker? Basically, this can be kicked, and it also deals Shock damage to the target (not to mention being a tiny bit stronger as well).

*1: If a Koopa uses this, there are two alternatives. A Koopa could either launch itself while in the shell so it can keep the shell, or it can kick its shell at the target (so it would not be vulnerable to things like Volt Shroom). The problem with the second one would be that the Koopa could lose the shell if it does this, so it will become a much more vulnerable Beach Koopa.

*2: This would not work for some enemies, mainly those with Shock affinity, as well as some enemies like Lava Drops or Podoboos (fire enemies who are compose almost entirely of Fire). This would also not work for ranged attacks, since the actual enemy is not touching you.


Have a nice day.

Well, in (almost?) all of the mario games where a koopa shell is used as an attacking item, it always bounces back after hitting an enemy. There's no reason a koopa shell has to be consumable.

That is true, and another reason why I type the two alterations of it (kick and come back + kick without coming back).

As for consumable or not... True enough. It could probably be a multiple use item, which reminds me... What happens again if an enemy uses a multiple use item? They can also use it again, right?

Alternatively, Green shell can go away (if player uses it), and Red shell can come back.

Have a nice day.

Koopa shell is a psynergy for me.  Thus my EPA ideas for mario.  Think about it... it makes an excellent epa.  Don't think it should be a consumable item or weapon, though.

I agree that it should not be a consumable item (since I changed my mind about that), but it would either be a reusable item, or an enemy only psynergy (or a bestowable psynergy, since Koopa Shell could work like a faraway hammer on the overworld).

Some ideas for abilities, and how they can be used on the overworld:

Grab/Pull: Grab or pull objects, such as a rope or a box. Can also be used to pick up smaller objects.
*Koopa Shell: Acts like Hammer, except it is ranged. Can only hit switches on the sides of an object (not on the ground) and hit low blocks.
*Fire (/Firehand/Fireball): Burn shrubs to reveal items/passageways, light candles to illuminate dark areas, can melt some ice structures.

* = Can also be used to initiate a battle, similar to Jump or Hammer.

I have ideas for more abilities, it is just that I can not quite think of how they could be used on the overworld over other abilities yet.

Have a nice day.

Sala... I just said it's an EPA.  Shell Strike is the koopa shell attack.  Lazy Shell is the Giant Koopa Shell attack.

Oops, forgot to modify my attack to include EPA, sorry. Anyway, Shell Strike and Lazy Shell sounds good. How about Wing Shell, for when a Paratroopa attacks (neither Koopa or Giant Koopa)?

Have a nice day.

Oh, yeah, I see no problem adding a lot more, but I was just giving you examples there.  Of course, Koopas themselves should naturally be able to use the EPA that involves their shell.