RA3 Paradox VX Thread - Red Alert 3 Paradox mod for C&C: Red Alert 3

In a small Confederate village in Texas, the Peacekeepers went too far. The only survivors are 17-year old Tunnel Rat Mallie and her brother, 23-year old Stuart. With no family left, they decide to take revenge on the Allies. How? Blow up Los Angeles, of course!

Chapter One of another never-to-be-finished project of mine is underway. It's a Japanese-style RPG made in RPGMaker VX, featuring really bad gameplay lasting like 20 minutes maximum, a tacky weirdly scaled world map and out-of-tune medieval graphics.

For the lulz. I'll try to add some humor to it so it won't be a complete waste of time.

If you like it, maybe there'll be more chapters. Since it's medieval-based, expect the Talon. (I should have made it Talon-only from the beginning, but now there are a bunch of Texico maps made already.)

If you wondered what the heck I was talking about, Gamefront.com is the place to go. Download and hate me. Feedback obviously appreciated.

DLing now. Am interested to see. Not a huge fan of the JRPG style but I am curious...

EDIT : The complete lack of 4th wall makes this absolute win. The potential for a JRPG in the Paradox universe is strong, particularly if you took the J parts of the JRPG and just ran with it into hilarious clicheville. I would gladly provide renders for spritework. I love style parodies like that (a long, long time ago I half-wrote a JRPG/anime style version of Warhammer 40k with all the cliches from both...)

Also, the random defenders wandering the cave made me lulz, as did the Defender's battle cry of "rolflmao"

EDITEDIT : Got lost in the cave. Quit in frustration. Will go back later and try again.

Edited by: open_sketchbook

I'll download it when I'm home from school. Its a video I'm guessing right?

Edited by: Protroid

@Sketch: Hehe, glad to see I'm doing something right. The sprites for the Defenders and Peacekeepers are made from an online sprite generator (google "famitsu sprite rpgmaker vx", it's in Japanese but easy to use) and the rest are from the game itself. By running with the JRPG into the ground, do you mean setting it in the Empire then?

@Protroid: Nope, it's an actual game that you play.

I'm sorry, but its not working for me (literally). For some reason, my computer isn't extracting the file right.

Hmm. I might get around to put it in a .rar file as well, including access to modify the game itself if you have the program. But not today and not tomorrow.

I don't think you'd need to set it in the Empire to basically run the JRPG tropes into hilariousville. Over the top melodramatic pretty-boy hero, female characters religated to healing, summoning, and crying over random events, doomed hometown, overly clumsy cute girl breaking everything, shallow philosphy being espoused by everyone, hilariously telegraphed betrayals, you and your enemy teaming up to take down the big bad, a reoccuring rival villain with a heart of gold all along, and that's just the stuff I've picked up from pop culture knowledge of Final Fantasy!

Someone wrote: Over the top melodramatic pretty-boy hero, female characters religated to healing, summoning, and crying over random events, doomed hometown, overly clumsy cute girl breaking everything, shallow philosphy being espoused by everyone, hilariously telegraphed betrayals, you and your enemy teaming up to take down the big bad, a reoccuring rival villain with a heart of gold all along

To be fair, all of the above except the things striked out also apply to western RPGs, and then some.

So, let's begin conceptualizing a potential Paradox JRPG with a bit more effort made...

Some parts of me want to do a somewhat serious game, and some parts want to go bonkers. It'd be going to satirize JRPGs and Paradox either way, but it can be made with finesse or by punching it in the face of the player. I would actually suggest the former, since it can comment more things than just getting a laugh out of Final Fantasy and Red Alert Paradox.

The big thing that has to be decided is the main setting (yeah, Earth, but then?) aka which conflict that is to be portrayed. The Paradox setting has a lot of potential for this - the RPGMaker doesn't always comply. There is an older maker which is far more flexible with map graphics, and is also a bit more realistic, but there is no functioning sprite generator available and the battlers need drawings for the players, which means that placeholder graphics have to be used unless Sketch wants to draw stuff and I learn to Frankensprite better. The battles are also a bit worse, but honestly, let's not care. Opinions wanted, please. (Adapting magic-esque skills and summoning to 1969 Paradox will also be... interesting.)

I am not to assume this will be urban fantasy, right? But if you think about it, we have plenty of abilities and then some. Summoning? Not really needed, calling in artillery strikes and the such should work fine.

SorataZ wrote: I am not to assume this will be urban fantasy, right? But if you think about it, we have plenty of abilities and then some. Summoning? Not really needed, calling in artillery strikes and the such should work fine.

I like the idea of calling in Artillery strikes on certain areas. I can also see a lot of ideas for the game, but it depends on which faction's POV it will be from. Perhaps its all 8 factions except the Protectorate, whose the main enemy?

The urban part depends on which resources I can find on the internet. Obviously the settings that work best are outdoors since things don't change as much from medieval times to 1969. Tanks and such are very limited, I have found one tank that cannot move up until now, so we'll see what we can do. I'd like to keep the scale somewhat limited, to make it somewhat plausible, but there will probably be spices of most factions. Travelling around the world freely requires, like, an airship (idea! They somehow acquire an Alexander Private Jet as an airship! lol). Still, the party will probably focus on one faction - there won't be more than 7 main characters, that's for sure. Probably less.

In a proper JRPG pastiche, all the "evil" factions will ultimately team up with you against the main threat (with absolutely no consequences for their prior evil actions of course), whose existence is teased at in the first third and ultimately revealed towards the halfway/two thirds point. Optimally, you'd have a growing party made up from the other factions, Defeat Means Friendshipping your way into a diverse party. While the Protectorate could be the overall villain, I'd honestly make up some kind of generic super bad evil for the end, just for the hilarious of a protectorate party member.

You'd have the hero, the girl from his hometown who is his sister/like a sister to him as the starting characters (she of course only exists to die partway through for melodrama.) An Allied character could be a multitalent, an Empire character as a rogue-sort (dodges attacks like crazy, lots of disruption skills), a Soviet bruiser, a Talon damage tank/white mage, the Chinese character would be the red mage, and protectorate summoner?

I actually don't have a good grasp of how many characters a JRPG should have...

I like the character list, but wouldn't the confederate character be a rogue?

Oh, and your right, an Alexander MUST be present

Edited by: Protroid

Admittedly, the idea of the evil guys always joining you is a bit overestimated - they do tend to show up, just not as permanent characters but as guests. If we are spoofing I guess we can turn it up to eleven, but I believe that crafting an entire party out of DmFing won't work. Most of the bad guys who do a heel face turn are pretty obviously portrayed as good guys stuck in the bad camp, and that's a bit hard to do with China for example. (Obviously, I have a more JRPG-defending PoV than Sketch and is a bit hesitant to go all out). Making up an evil might fit the best since we can use the included monster resources and not having to fight Conscripts or Aggressors all the time. Screwing with the Black Hand and making them crazy monster-summoners maybe? If you want to, we might be able to discuss this further by MSN or something, because the forum isn't an ideal... forum... for throwing out ideas like this.

The Final Fantasies, which I'm the most familiar with and will use as base, have everything from four (by far the easiest) to like fourteen characters, with most ending up at seven permanent ones.

I am utterly unable to help here; my only real suggestion would be at the end of an enemy base to meet Eva McKenna there who somehow snuck in through all the enemy troops.

Your average JRPG has the following character archetypes and items:
Team Hero:
The hero (remember, heroes prefer swords, except they are girls -> naginata or a gun of sorts or both OR a combination)
The boy-/girlfriend of the hero (usually summoning powers or white magic) - 9 of 10 cases dies randomly half-way in the story
Old mentor (always dies heroically or turns out to be for team evil all along)
Boisterious bruiser (usually melee, high attack value)
White mage (healing)
Red mage (combat magic and physical attacks)
Black mage (attack magic up to world annihilating spells)
Blue Mage (learns enemy spells)
Fragile speedster (speed, doging and attack but very bad def)
Ranger (high attack range, slow RoF, weak def, usually some special effects)
Thief (various abilities, may overlap with any fighter type)
Any of the above may be a princess
Any of the above may be a robot girl (but usually the fighter types, less so the mage types)
Any of the above may be neither human nor artificial
Team Evil:
The big bad
Big bad's dragon (his right hand, number 1, most trusted adjutant etc etc)
Big bad's pet (usually a literal dragon because everything's better with dragons)
The man behind the man (if the big bad is not the true boss, usually a bonus boss)
The Evil Inc with:
Various bosses
Lots and lots of elite mooks
Even more normal mooks
Weapons and armour:
-Guns, missile launchers, swords, staffs, blades on sticks, fists and gloves, arm cannons (usually for robots), claws, -insert strange non-weapon weapon here-, cool too great to use weapon (one time use 99999 damage weapons are this)
-casual clothes, knight armour, SWAT armour, chainmail bikinis, clothes typical for each archetype
-dozens of shoes with varying effects
-accessoirs (necklaces, mp3 players, ear rings, rings etc)
Items:
Potions, stats buffers, revives, MP refill and various spell items

Ideas for the paradox JRPG:
Hero Type - should be a girl (since we have way too many male heroes in those games) - female Peacekeeper
White mage - medic of sorts - Allied Engineer
Blue Mage - Tsukumogami Proto-Suit - includes arm cannons and is totally a robot girl
Thief - Confederate person, can sabtage enemy formations, steal their stuff (duh) and sneak around backstabbing enemies
Boisterous bruiser - Flak Trooper or some Talon guy - uses heavy weapons like flak cannons, missile launchers and the such
Ranger - Syndicate guy
Fragile speedster - Chinese person (Courtesan?)
Any of the above may be a psychic super hobo
I think 7 people is the limit? If so, there
Enemies:
Obviously mooks from the Protecorate, China, Soviets and occasionally the good guy factions when needed.
Bosses:
Big units like Mantis War-Walkers, Apocs, VIP units
Big bad:
W/e
Weapons, armour:
Various rifles, missile launchers, western swords, katana, the aforementioned arm modules, and one single athena sat-pointer that deals 99999 damage against all enemies
Peacekeeper armour, taon steel clockwork armour and what not
IR googles, music players, and everything else that doesnt take much space
Items:
Med kits, food pills, energy cells, weapon mods, keys, credit cards

Edited by: SоrataZ

One use 99999 damage weapon...

Nuke?

Eh, those Blue Mages are pains to code, so we'll see. It's the Empire, we'll work something out.

That list and the Grand List of RPG clichés that is somewhere on the net will be useful.

Tanya as the heroine?

meh, call her Tayya, for the lulz xD

...no.

Okay, I'll start throwing a few character ideas more or less based on Sorata's and Sketch's ideas...

Name: Colleen Due (tentative)
Class: Peacekeeper ("Warrior"/"Paladin")
Faction: Allies
Age: 26
Home: I dunno, preferrably somewhere outside the US. Australia?
Weapons: Rifles, Shotguns
Armour: Heavy
Skillset: Defensive
Personality: Cloud Strife + Squall Lionheart goes female.

Name: Jacob Du Muit (tentative)
Class: Engineer ("Red Mage"/"Alchemist")
Faction: Allies
Age: 22
Home: Europe; currently the Netherlands
Weapons: Handguns
Armour: Not that heavy
Skillset: Tools
Personality: Either shy-girl or camp gay.

Name: Burukaze-60
Class: Proto-Suit ("Blue Mage")
Faction: Imperial
Age: 2
Home: Japan
Weapons: Pea gun, weapons acquired
Armour: Medium
Skillset: Being a Tsukokogugglegami
Personality: Deadpan Snarker

We'll also have a Confederate, a Soviet and a Talon, with the last one up for grabs. Dunno about the beginning plot, it'll probably be somewhere in Asia.

Last one should be AKC. Only fitting they take the Black Mage spot

Would be hilarious if there was an understanding between the Allied PK and Confederate... whoever it may be.

Edited by: go123452

Warning: Detour Ahead!

New completely unrelated idea: Dragon-based minor faction.

Eeeeeeeeeeh. We'll see about dragons and let's leave it there.

I admit that I haven't touched this. We'll see if I get time and inspiration to get around. It is me we're talking about after all and I'm not Sketch.

Yeah, one Sketch is enough. Think about it, two Sketches constantly babbling what should be in the mod and what not (then again, that would double the work speed).