Thursday, October 20, 2011

Shi Kong Xing Shou. One of few Chinese games to be decent.

Hey everyone. I don't think I've done much in the past few weeks, just preparing for Halloween and things. Nothing special. I don't feel like discussing school since it's all for me to discover and not for the people whom follow me to worry about. The artwork I'm doing of OC Shinobou is looking strong, so expect it sometime by later this month or earlier next month (not making any promises).

So before I dive into the topic at hand, let me state the following; Any game that I say I want to make in future years are only concept ideas and are not actually in production. And when they do begin production and eventually are released, they will all be freeware/non-profit games. Some of these range from original, to semi-original, to blant remake, with the final step being what I plan to do with a number of titles, mostly puzzle games. For me, I envy games with a lot of features, and being able to tweak them in many ways to suit my nature. The gigantic Super Mario clone I want to develop featuring my characters, Aozora's Adventure, will have a sister game released much later, subtitled Under Construction. This version will instead focus on players being able to create levels using an editor bundled with the game, and can also easily adjust the graphics and create new skins, characters, and tilesets, as well as add additional songs to the game. Custom levels can then be submitted onto the official server, where they can be played and/or downloaded by other players.

I'll go on with that later. Now, it's time for the main event.
Allow me to introduce goodness from China; Shi Kong Xing Shou.
shikongxingshouposter.png
A rarity agmonst Chinese bootleg games, Shi Kong Xing Shou (also known by English speakers as "Space-Time Star Beast" is a Pokemon clone that was made by the now defunct company Vast Fame. Various people the specialize in pirate/unlicsened games, one being the RX Community, have taken a liking to this title because of it's playability in comparison to many other pirate games released on outdated consoles over the years, which usually suffer from countless glitches, terrible controls and physics, and are just all-around terrible. This one however, has a number of original concepts despite being a complete clone of Pokemon, like a darker plotline (five characters legit die, including one of the later party members), some creative character designs (and what I mean are the human characters, not the beasts/monsters) and so on. I can go on all day over what this game accomplishes. But like all games, it has it's share of flaws. For one thing, it's in Chinese (pointless thing to argue on), some of the monsters have stolen/unoriginal designs, one-hit kills are common, some moves are cheap , having little to no effect, and there are some game-wiping/freezing glitches. If you're going to play this, use savestates often, because you never know when it's going to screw up.

Why I state this is because I want to re-create this game from scratch with faith to the original game, while also incorporating my suggestions and improvements (aside form bug-fixes and other miscellaneous changes). Though I know some people don't like how the game and gameplay is very similar to Pokemon, this remake will probably add a few things to make Shi Kong Xing Shou seem closer to a basic Pokemon game. Such changes are shown below:

*Routes are now numbered accordingly, and (along with some mountainside areas) are extended, with the traditional "wild monster in tall grass" routine as per the real Pokemon games. There also exist other people to battle on both routes and in buildings, and routes that take place on sea or in space are also named accordingly as sea routes and space routes.
*In Shi Kong Xing Shou, completing parts of the game will disallow re-entry into specific areas, such as prohibiting re-entry to the first three towns once the player arrives in the fourth. This remake will keep all areas re-accessible following their completion, the only parts that will remain inaccessible are areas keen to the storyline, like Ballot's father's lab being destroyed following the prologue, and the airplane boarded between Chapters Six and Seven.
*Furthermore, a special character is present in specific areas to backwarp the player to certain areas following scenarios when the player would get stuck in one area and is unable to escape until it is completed, like when the player enters an underwater region of the game, he/she cannot escape it until it is secured (The remake will allow re-entry to and from the underwater village/pathway once the fifth party member, Helen, joins the team.
*The maximum level a Beast can reach is raised from 70 to 100. Evolutions for several species are also added, with the "dex" updated to sport this. The "dex" will include several boss Beasts not in the original's Dex. (Correction: The max level limit in the original Shi Kong Xing Shou was never 70. It was just suggested in a guide that all main beasts and preferred sub-beasts be at Level 70 before confronting the game's final boss.)
*Items in shops are given mugshot images, and the different variations of Capture Balls are colored from weakest to strongest: blue (default), green, red, and magenta.
*The ratio of one-hit kill moves are much lower than in the original game.
*Only one status effect can occur at one time.
*Move order re-arrangement is possible.
*The maximum amount of cash you can hold is raised to 999,999.
*Cheaper moves are weakened or changed to make them more balanced (but that doesn't mean they can't cause high damage).
*Every possible beast can be captured, some of the later ones that you confront at the end becoming capturable following the completion of the game.
*The "Flight" and Avian Strike moves are combined into one.
*A bonus Gijinka mode for those that want to play with the Beasts as human characters.

There are more, but I cannot be bothered to listing them all. ;P


The only assistance I require are sprite rips of all the characters, mug-shots, beast graphics, and tilesets that I can use to base the remake on.

That's all for now, foks. Since we're (sort of) on topic with Pokemon; Who. Drew. This. Why can't they make a game based off of this?