Below is the essential information on the Breath of Fire IV - 2 project. Scroll down for information on joining in.
When the game begins, we see Yuna standing on the roof of his quarters, just like at the end of the original game. He's writing in one of his books.
His assistant is standing behind him. Yuna asks if they've found their new sacrifice yet.
"Not yet, Lord Yuna. Easterners have been hesitant to visit the empire lately."
"Hmm ... Then send some more troops to the East. There are still plenty of options."
"We've ... tried."
Cut to the troops walking in formation, then cut back to Yuna.
"Well keep trying. I'm sure we'll find someone in Worent or Wyndia. I notice there is still one princess left. What about her?"
"We would, but they've been showing hostility toward our troops."
"Oh, come now. That shouldn't be a problem for the empirical military."
"Unfortunately ... some of the troops are no longer responding to our commands."
Yuna stops writing.
Cut to the troops marching again. In front of them, the general loads a shell into her gun. Cut back to Yuna. He looks back at his assistant.
"No longer responding?"
"A few generals seem to have turned against us."
Yuna pauses for a moment, looks forward, then smiles, and walks confidently past the assistant. "Let's not concern ourselves. We can still find our new sacrifice without their help. Just do what needs to be done."
He looks out over the town of Astana. After a pause, something seems to get his attention.
The roof explodes where he was standing. Sparks and smoke everywhere. We can't see him among the wreckage.
At the foot of Astana, Ursula is aiming upward and her gun is smoking. She lets it down and begins to reload. Around her, soldiers are rushing toward Astana, weapons drawn, apparently ready to attack. Among them, General Rhun is commanding the troops.
"Block off all exits! Tell Yuna's troops to stand down! Shut down all operations and bring him out. Alive! We have to follow protocol."
The first fight starts as Yuna's troops (in blue armor) guard Astana against Ursula, Rhun, and their soldiers (in red armor). You control Ursula and fight through Yuna's troops to get to the entrance of Astana.
Once you get to the entrance, Ursula fires another magic bullet at the already-destroyed roof of Yuna's quarters.
We cut to Yuna amidst the wreckage, and see his assistant pulling him out of the hole in the roof. He looks back and sees the bullet Ursula fired, and ducks as it shoots very swiftly overhead. He gets to his feet.
"What is this? What's going on?" He sees the troops at the entrance, and only stares at them as they fight off the last of Astana's guards. He looks annoyed, but then shrugs and smiles lightly. Yuna looks at the book he's holding. It's singed a little. He hands it to his assistant, looks at Astana, and teleports into the air.
He lands amidst the troops at the front of Astana. The Carronade is behind him. The troops noisily surround him. One soldier puts his weapon close to Yuna's face, and Yuna doesn't like this. "You shouldn't point your weapon at an authority like that. And besides..."
He takes a vial out of his pocket and splashes the soldier. The soldier morphs into a deformed creature that lashes out at Ursula and Rhun's troops and strangely doesn't harm Yuna, who stands under the demon perfectly calm. The second fight starts between you and the mutated soldier. You have the option of firing at Yuna because he's standing right there, but the demon will stop the bullet. it seems to be Yuna's unwilling servant.
Once it's defeated, parts of it fall all over the ground. The other soldiers are acting disturbed and are now backing away from Yuna as he calmly approaches Rhun.
Ursula is reloading her gun. Rhun notices. "Ursula, do not kill him yet. We need to follow protocol." But she continues and cocks the gun. "Ursula, do not fire." She aims at Yuna. "That's an order!"
She freezes in that position, still aiming at Yuna.
Yuna sees that she isn't going to shoot, and steps forward. "General Rhun. What is the meaning of this attack on our town?"
A soldier is carrying a belt of some kind. Rhun yells "Get him!" The soldiers tackle Yuna and put the belt around his neck. In the panic, he tries to teleport away but cannot. The belt has a spell on it.
Amidst the struggle, Rhun steps forward. "Yuna, you are under arrest." Yuna is struggling but looks at Rhun, as though he's surprised. "... for creating unnecessary tension with the Eastern Alliance, hexing friendly territory, committing.war crimes..." Rhun's hand moves toward his sword. "And other ... abominable acts I will not mention here." Yuna is no longer struggling, but appears genuinely shocked. Rhun continues. "With generals Rasso and Yohm deceased, you no longer have any support. The emperor is gone and the military is the only order in this empire. As the remaining general with the highest rank, I'm bringing Astana under my control."
Yuna remains shock. "But... what have I done to deserve this? Why are you doing this?!"
Rhun continues. "Your rank has been revoked." We see troops raiding the cannon's exterior. "Your experiments are are coming to an end." We see the troops raiding the torture chambers. One opens a door, and backs off in shock. "Your operations are being shut down." Soldiers enter a dark room where they see a set of gigantic bones. "It's over. You will submit to our custody." Yuna is frozen. "At dawn, you will be executed."
Yuna jerks against the soldiers. "No! Get off!"
Solders are raiding more buildings and leading civilians away. Back on the rooftop, soldiers are closing in on Yuna's assistant. He looks around for an exit but sees none. In a panic, he opens Yuna's book and flips a few pages, and appears to be reading something. He closes the book. As the soldiers get near, he teleports off in the same manner Yuna would.
On the ground, Yuna is still struggling against the soldiers. It's hopeless. But then his assistant reappears in front of them, and reaches his hand out to Yuna, who reaches out and barely manages to grab his assistant's hand. The assistant teleports and takes Yuna with him. The belt drops to the ground.
Yuna and his assistant vanish into the sky.
Ursula fires at them but hits nothing. They're gone.
Ursula reloads her gun. Rhun lets out a long breath and puts his hand on his head. The soldiers are all looking up. Ursula fires into the air, again hitting nothing. She throws her gun into the dust, breathing heavily. "We have to find him." She starts yelling. "Search everywhere! He can't go too far!"
Rhun is just running his hand through his hair while soldiers rush in different directions.
You go to free-roaming mode where you can wander around Astana while the troops raid everything.
When you exit Astana, we cut to a dark room where Rhun is setting and Ursula is pacing back and forth.
Rhun is scratching his beard. "Oh, what do we do. The empire is in shambles, the Eastern Alliance is still restless, we have no emperor."
Ursula stops. "Shouldn't we pay more attention to Yuna?"
"Yuna is just a drop in the bucket right now. Without access to the Carronade, and without his military control, he's not a threat to us just yet." He thinks for a second. "That... dragon boy we captured. He was the true emperor, wasn't he?"
"Foulu was the real emperor." We flash back to when Ryu combined with Foulu. "When Ryu combined with him, Ryu was the dominant half." We see Ryu casting the gods out of the heavens. "After that, he just... left. He didn't want to rule the empire for some reason. Nobody knew why." We see Ursula returning to her town while the others leave. "I heard that he lives in the East right now, somewhere in Wyndia."
Rhun is scratching his beard. "I wonder if we can still find him."
We then go to the East where we'll see Ryu and Nina travelling along the dry land. We'll continue to follow them as the story unfolds.
Here are the other major plot points:
- You meet all the dragon gods who are now mortal. All having their own back-stories of what they've been doing as humans.
- The god from the Dragon Slayer sword is unleashed. He's still incomplete, and stuck in his hybrid dragon form (which resembles Ryu and Foulu's hybrid form) and his energy depletes quickly. As a result, he has to consume humans' life forces to stay alive. His personality is very erratic and he's determined to consume a dragon's life force (Ryu of course) to become complete.
- Yuna is hiding in an abandoned building out in the desert, and still has some soldiers at his command. (the remaining soldiers who hate the Eastern Alliance) He also has a thief working for him. The thief is a young lady who has a terminal condition, and needs Yuna's potions to continue living. The potions grant her immortality for a few days but don't cure her condition entirely, so she needs a steady supply. Her standpoint is neutral, but she defends Yuna because she needs the potions. We first see her when she goes after Ryu to steal the jewel he wears around his neck. it has some significance and Yuna wants it.
- The prince of Ludia has a role as a sneaky and troublesome person, warping political forces as he did in the game. In Wyndia, there's a peace ceremony between the Eastern Alliance and the Western Empire. The prince swaps the would-be peace gift with an explosive in hopes of creating more tension.
- Ryu has been living in Wyndia. He's a resourceful defender, so everyone mostly welcomes him, although there is one general who dislikes him. This general is aware that Ryu was once Foulu, who started the empire of the West. Ryu's history with the Empire means he's one of the reasons the war erupted in the first place. Naturally the general hates this and feels like everyone is against him because they all welcome Ryu.
No lengthy attacks. Attack sequences will take a maximum of about one second except for boss-only attacks.
Riding dragons - One of the things they wanted to add in the original game was the ability to ride dragons alongside the wind dragons. It sounds fun to add this in.
One experimental idea: Having a universal HP amount. For example everyone has 500 HP all the time, but defense and offense vary. I'm considering this because it seems redundant to have varying HP if you also have varying defense.
Another experimental idea: Replace character levels with straightfoward EXP amounts. For instance someone with 500 strength EXP (STR) is stronger than someone with 450 STR. Levels could be kept, but only as a sum-up of all your skill points. Every time you punch someone, your STR goes up a little.
Menus will be kept at a minimum. I want to set it up so you can acquire lots of items, similar to Ragnarok Online where you get items from every little thing, but you can combine items to create stronger items, thereby shortening the item list. For instance 10 fire orbs plus a piece of iron can create a level 2 fire orb. Stuff like that. Every little item should be able to combine with others, and you'll get combining skills as you go. This will give you a good reason to go back and fight low-level creatures to get small items.
Fast-fight mode: When fighting small enemies, the whole 'fight setup' can be a pain. Sometimes you want to slash things in real-time or plow through a bunch of small enemies. So I think there should be a fast-fight mode. I don't want to make all fights real-time because that would take down the tactical element (it's fun to plot every move vs a tough enemy) so an optional fast-fight mode would help.
Exploration: I want more freedom to move around and jump on things. We're all tired of being blocked by a small fence or boulder that keeps us away from some places. So I think we should find other ways to block off-limits areas and let people jump and climb and get into things to find stuff like hidden items. All the characters could have their own ways of getting into stuff - Nina can fly a little, Ryu can cut things like shrubs, Cray smashes things, Ursula shoots things (should have a first-person option so she can shoot anything). Players could go to the classic towns and find new places.
- 3d modeling
- Untiy3d
- Programming in Unity3d's Javascript or C#
- Sounds (effects, voices, songs)
- Texturing
- General design skills (making towns, side-characters, buildings)
Even people with minor skills can help with smaller details, and I can send you the software and tutorials needed to improve if need be.
There are other ways you can help, such as contacting other artists, telling us about people who can help, or donating. E-mail savian2@hotmail.com for donation details.
