Best engine for a massive 2D sprite based jRPG?

[Phage]

Hi.

A couple friends and I want to make a retarded jRPG mashup up all of our favorite SNES characters.

Two of them have some computer science training, so coding isn't too much of an issue. I was just wondering if there is an engine out there that can handle the following:

- Graphics can be simple, mostly ripped sprites. (game is going to be totally free)

- LOTs of content, like 50+ characters, hundreds of enemies/bosses, lots of music

- Customizable stat system, we're thinking something like WoW's talent trees

- Customizable combat system, we want to be able to have stuff like threat to make tanks actually work, combo attacks for certain characters, unique abilities for each character, etc.

In addition, we were throwing around having varying party sizes. Base party size would be 5 people, but we'd like certain bosses to be fought by 10, 20, and maybe all characters at once.

- Cut scenes, which of course would still be with with the ingame sprites.



Anyways, are we going to have to make our own engine, or is there something out there that can do all of this? I know that RPG maker is pretty easy to use, but I'm not sure if it can properly handle the sheer amount of content we want, or if it can be customized enough to implement all these ideas.

 

[CreamySpinach]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=51773

 

[Zed]

Multimedia Fusion 2 would work.

 

[Phage]

http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=51773

That thread itself says

"Target audience: NetGore is intended for online multiplayer 2D games only. Although the focus is towards platformer RPGs, most any kind of 2D game that is not twitch-based (such as fast-paced shooters) is fine. You can also switch to a top-down perspective easily enough."

Game is not online multiplayer or a platformer...

Multimedia Fusion 2 would work.

I took a look. Seems like a pretty decent piece of software, I'll look into it.

I guess I was mostly wondering if anyone with RPGmaker experience can testify if it's flexible enough to put in the things we'd like to, and if not, if there are any programs similar to RPGmaker that are flexible enough.

Thanks for the suggestion though

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

I guess I was mostly wondering if anyone with RPGmaker experience can testify if it's flexible enough to put in the things we'd like to, and if not, if there are any programs similar to RPGmaker that are flexible enough.

If the game is turn based RPGMaker will be able to handle it easy enough. I remember seeing all kinds of custom battle systems when I was messing around with RPGMaker 2000 and XP.

 

[Phage]

Sounds great

Do you happen to know from your experience if it's possible to change the battle system itself for certain encounters? For example, would it be possible to change the party size from 5 to 10 for a few specific encounters?

Also, how does RPGmaker handle large amounts of files? Like... 200B. I remember MUGEN tried to load fucking everything at startup which was a disaster for giant packages.

 

[Sovy Kurosei]

You will need to make a custom battle system from the ground up. You will also need to track the party members yourself instead of getting the game to do it for you. You are pretty much gonna have to ignore a third of the game engine and implement some clever scripts and hacky work arounds to get it doing what you want it to do.

RPGMaker should be loading the files on the fly. The only time I had a problem was when I made a massive world map which took a hit on my FPS.

 

[Awor Szurkrarz]

Is it going to feature stat-based dialogues? And tastefully done rape?

 

[Phage]

Sovy - Thanks for the heads up. After researching more I think I'll settle for RPGmaker VX or XP and split the game up into chapters.


Awor - As much as I would love to make a real RPG, this is just gong to be a derp jRPG crossovers. I will try to avoid too many cliches, and if possible include a bit of CnC though