The Benza RPG
Ver. 3.5 is released!
-Ability balancing
-Weapon and armor balancing
-Enemy balancing
-Level progression balancing
-Additional side quest and non-main story line content added
3.5.2 is here!
3.5.2 is Here!
3.5.1 is here!
General text fixes and small bug corrections.
3.5 is here!
The Benza RPG Version 3.0 is here in our last major update to the main story!
1000 hours. At times it feels like it was a lot shorter than that. Gui and I laugh a lot while we work. I talk to him about plot points for episodes I’m still writing for The Benza. He tells me about what it’s like being a full-time programmer. We’re quite the odd couple when you think about it!
At times it feels a lot longer than that. There have been times we really wanted RPG MAKER MV to do something that it just can’t do. There have been times we had to sacrifice things because of memory limitations. Being an odd couple leads to misunderstandings and communication break downs that must be overcome.
Having said that, The Benza overall is a rag tag team made up of the ODDEST couples you’ve ever seen. I think that is what makes our team work. Looking back at this game, it’s the mix of what each individual member of the team brings to the table that has sailed us through the rough waters and got us laughing into the harbor.
When we started this, it really was just Gui and I working on what we thought would take us a couple of months to finish. As we round the two year point and our team stands at about twenty people, it feels really good to have made it this far without giving up.
Looking forward, Gui and I foresee making one more large update in the coming months with finished art work and additional assets. It took about a year and a half, but we both feel very comfortable with where our party members and abilities are at. Unless we get some large feedback from players about something feeling unbalanced, we will be moving forward to Nintendo Switch development.
As we near the end of The Benza RPG’s development, I just want to take a moment to say thank you to all of the people who have messaged me directly over The Benza’s official account on Twitter or via email. We were able to nip some bugs in the butt and handle some balancing issues thanks to your time and support. My favorite message up to now has just been one sentence long. I will sign this blog off with that sentence below.
“Help, how do I kill Bob?”
Heh.
-Chris
The Benza RPG Version 3.0 is here in our last major update to the main story!
-A new area has been added to the Shadow Circus that is only playable by Hamilton’s “Call” magic. This area is accessible after Hamilton joins the party.
-Extensive additions have been made to the voice acting cast including Bob Werley (Bob), Shizuka Anderson (Carol), Hiro Ono (Hiro), and many more characters from Benza English!
-Over 200 lines of new spoken dialog have been added to the game!
-All character’s stats have been balanced to reflect their roles at the end of the game.
-“Callable” characters now gain levels easier and have increased stats to make them more viable throughout the entire game.
-5th tier weapons and armor have been added.
-New monster art has been added to various points of the game.
-Additional moves have been added to many of the “callable” characters and to main party members including Chris and Tamura.
Back to the Beginning
As we move closer and closer towards the end of the main game scenario, Gui and I realized that this would be a good time to take a step back and update some of the events that take place at the beginning of the game. Before we hand things off to Nintendo, we want to make sure this game launches as smoothly as possible, and that means cleaning off some of the dust that’s settled on the start of our game.
When we first started making this game, we really weren’t sure about what we could and couldn’t do within the limitations of the RPG Maker MV engine. A year later we have a really good idea and know a lot more about what the end of our game looks like. That means we are now able to go back in to the very first steps of Chris and Kyle’s adventure and smooth some things out for the player to further equip them to succeed.
A few examples: Canned Coffee now heals for 500HP, not 250. Fruit Juice now heals for 1000HP instead of 500. We went into all of the monster’s programming on floors 1-25 and updated it so that monster’s no longer spam one move. Chris’ ability “Step Forward Again” is now learned at a much lower level and prevents negative status effects instead of healing them to help with the David boss fight. Stephanie has a lot more MP to work with and her magic can now critical hit. Even the first quest to find weapons in Higashi Nakano has a lot more hints and has been made a lot easier to solve.
Essentially, we wanted to help each character lean into their roles in combat more and streamline the user’s experience overall so that a new player’s entry into our world feels…fun. This is a game we’re talking about after all.
To top it off, for players waiting for additional end game content, we have finished off Boss Rush mode at the battle arena and have added in some cool new accessories we’d been holding off on.
Expect another large update on the second half of version one content later this month. Then we will be moving on to the end of the game and the release of Version 3 of The Benza RPG.
Chris, Gui, and Masa
General Quality of Life Improvements
-Character balance
-Redesigned several floors of the Japanese school
-Redesigned several locations in Higashi Nakano
-Added additional monster graphics