[Released] PS: Fated Epistle - Episode 2

[looneyman1]

Oh hey I ment to ask this sooner but are there ability capsules at all in this? I know this game is story focused primarilly but an ability capsule or two can go a long way to helping with the story I think. Especially since some abilities are better than others even for a game like this. Case in point I love roserade with Natural Cure since it works so well with Aromatherapy to cure not just itself but team mates of status afflictions, but if one ends up getting a poison point budew in the budew event that can be a bit of an issue.

Also something that'd be cool to apply is to make some abilities work different to overcome how useless they tend to be in the main games, such as Run Away for example. I reccomended this for Pokemon Uranium years back and they actually implimented it but if you take Run Away and allow a pokemon to escape from Shadow Tag and moves like Warp/Bind, Mean Look/Spider Web that'd be a very handy buff for Raticate and other pokemon who have Run Away for example. Both scenarios work well in this story IMO but what do you think?

 

[AenaonDusky]

Oh hey I ment to ask this sooner but are there ability capsules at all in this? I know this game is story focused primarilly but an ability capsule or two can go a long way to helping with the story I think. Especially since some abilities are better than others even for a game like this. Case in point I love roserade with Natural Cure since it works so well with Aromatherapy to cure not just itself but team mates of status afflictions, but if one ends up getting a poison point budew in the budew event that can be a bit of an issue.

Also something that'd be cool to apply is to make some abilities work different to overcome how useless they tend to be in the main games, such as Run Away for example. I reccomended this for Pokemon Uranium years back and they actually implimented it but if you take Run Away and allow a pokemon to escape from Shadow Tag and moves like Warp/Bind, Mean Look/Spider Web that'd be a very handy buff for Raticate and other pokemon who have Run Away for example. Both scenarios work well in this story IMO but what do you think?

The Ability Capsule is a cool idea! We'll need to see how it can be implemented in a way that befits the game's general approach to things. Any ideas?

Abilities working differently is also good, however as you already know

Spoiler:

the obtainable pokemon are really limited. Well, you can theoretically catch one of the usual random encounters, but you shouldn't really do that due to the importance of that particular segment you already know about

However, having different abilities on the

Spoiler:

already available story mons

and tying them to the story in some way would be awesome. It's a bit difficult to do it right so we'll need to give it some thought. Ring me up if you have any further ideas.

 

[looneyman1]

well for the ability capsule concept an NPC who regrets having association with the orphanage could assist with that. He or she can offer an ability change service. And dont worry I get what you're going for with the pokemon selection, I was only mentioning raticate for the case with Run Away in particular as an example.

 

[AenaonDusky]

well for the ability capsule concept an NPC who regrets having association with the orphanage could assist with that. He or she can offer an ability change service. And dont worry I get what you're going for with the pokemon selection, I was only mentioning raticate for the case with Run Away in particular as an example.

Something along those lines sounds fine! We'll see how we can implement these satisfyingly enough, given the particularities of the next update and the amount of things that need to be done.

 

[TalonMelon]

Hi! After finishing the current latest episode, ep 3, I've decided to write a review about the game. It contains minor spoilers:

Spoiler:

The protagonist
Our protagonist's main defining feature is that he hasn't really found his place in the world. He's never shown a particular talent in anything, been popular nor was he accepted to college and has never even managed to land a job until now. So naturally, he has low self-esteem and feels tremendous guilt for being a burden on his mother who adores him regardless. One of the key aspects of the story is him finally getting his life together. I like this approach to storytelling, I always favored stories where we follow the adventures of an underdog until he finally picks himself up and succeds.


The setting and atmosphere
You spend the vast majority of your playtime in Artemisia, the city, which the story is centered around. The difference between the living standards of the rich and the poor is one of the main focuspoint of the story, or rather the suffering of the lowerclass. The people are starving, don't even have access to clean water and generally live a miserable life. I think the whole concept was handled quite well. The literally hundreds of NPCs that you can talk to all have unique dialogue and give you different examples of the city's harshness. Some of them directly states that they barely scrape by but on others, you see the effects of starvation and hoplesness differently. They are either hostile, mocking you for no reason or show signs of madness.

On top of all this, the main character's boss is a colossal jerk who treats everyone like trash and doesn't even pay our hero properly for his well done work. However, the boss is not the only one who likes to take it out on our guy. As I wrote earlier, some of the city's residents and also different kinds of villains, minor or greater, like to insult and belittle him. So he has to take a lot and yet he keeps on going because he has to.

The constant reminder of both the populace's suffering and the not so ideal working conditons of our protagonist create a dark, gritty atmosphere that I am a fan of. It reminds me of another one of my favorite fan games, Reborn. Artemisia and Reborn city both share the same vibe, both citites were once thought to be beautiful, shining beacons of light but now they are shadows of their former selves. However, the awful living conditions in the city and the social strife is explored more deeply in this game. So, it's a dark story and yet it also heavily implies that our hero must never give up, no matter how bad it might seem, which I feel is a nice little touch of optimism to balance out the dark tone.

Pokémon
The main focus of this pokemon fan game is not actually pokémon. It sounds weird, right? Well, it doesn't feel like it. Pokémon merely assist people in achiving their goals which don't necessarily center around pokémon. It feels more natural to me, like how it might be in real life. The main character doesn't battle because he wants the be the very best, but because he has to in order to get to where he needs to be, to do his job. Those residents who have pokémon don't train because they want to become champions, they do it because they think they have a chance to escape poverty and get to the upper districts.

In other games, there's usually a huge variety of pokémon you can catch, you can pick and choose your team, but not in this one. In Postscriptum you don't get a lot of pokémon, in fact, I've only got 7 so far. It may sound strange as well, but I enjoyed that I haven't got a lot of options. It makes you appreciate your team even more, because pokémon feel like rare, hidden treasures instead of easily replace objects.

Lastly, both a pre- and a post-evolution have been created for your starter to make him feel more complete, which is a nice addition to the game.

Music
I liked the music in this game. I think it's varied enough and fits well with the game's atmosphere mentioned above.

Things that I'd change
There are only minor things that bother me, but I thought I'd mention them anyway to keep the review fair.

Firstly, I think the pacing could be a bit different at certain points of the story. What I mean by that is that the game involves a lot of running around, backtracing and talking to others, which are all fine by me. However, sometimes it can get a little too much. If there were to be one or two battles during such parts, it would make a difference in my opinion.

An other thing is that - since there are no pokémon centers in the city, only certain NPCs that heal your party - the game might need more places where you can heal your pokémon. It's not a huge deal, because if you black out, your party gets healed anyway and you don't lose any money, because you probably didn't have a single dollar anyway. So, the reason why I've decided to mention this, is just that there was an area in the game where I had to continue losing battles in order to heal my party, because the only medic was behind enemy trainers.

Overall, I've come to love this game very much. It's got good storytelling, interesting characters and was just so different from the other pokemon games, but in a good way. It's obvious that a lot of time was spent making this and it shows. It's incredibly detailed and well thought out. I look forward to playing the next episode when it comes out.

 

[WhoaImHere]

First of all, I just wanna say this is one of the most underrated games I've ever played. The description seemed kinda cool and unique so I wanted to give it a try. I admit I was pretty confused and I didn't know what to do for the first two hours of playing, but after talking to people and visiting various places everything started to click together, playing this game without a guide is so much fun. The amount of detail and effort that went through this game is impressive, unlike most games where you just have to go from town to town this game needs you to talk to as many NPCs as possible to progress. The dialogue and plot are amazing, you must be one hell of a writer.
Now let's talk about my issue,

Spoiler:

I've finally gotten to the eastern part of the city after 8 hours of gameplay and decided to once again talk to NPCs before progressing, one NPC told me that they are looking for a Pidgey that they lost or something and the protagonist mentioned that one Pidgey in Route 0 which I thought was a catchable Pokemon, anyway I made my way back to Route 0 and interacted with that Pidgey, one thing leads to another and I climbed that tree which made me fall into the other side of the fence, I entered that cave and there was a bunch of rocks in there, I interacted with all the rocks but nothing happened, I left the cave and made my way to the boulder in the left side, it said it was too heavy so I guess I need an HM or something, anyway I thought that the quest was unbeatable yet so I wanted to leave the area but there wasn't a way out. Tried interacting with the fence but nothing happened. And instead of loading the previous save file I overwrote it like the idiot I'm. Am I stuck? Did I miss something. Please help! I'll be waiting for an answer.

 

[Ray2064]

Game great at the first gym right now quick question about the eeveelutions how do we get each one and does the baby pokemon at the mansion changed depending on the starter .

First of all, I just wanna say this is one of the most underrated games I've ever played. The description seemed kinda cool and unique so I wanted to give it a try. I admit I was pretty confused and I didn't know what to do for the first two hours of playing, but after talking to people and visiting various places everything started to click together, playing this game without a guide is so much fun. The amount of detail and effort that went through this game is impressive, unlike most games where you just have to go from town to town this game needs you to talk to as many NPCs as possible to progress. The dialogue and plot are amazing, you must be one hell of a writer.
Now let's talk about my issue,

Spoiler:

I've finally gotten to the eastern part of the city after 8 hours of gameplay and decided to once again talk to NPCs before progressing, one NPC told me that they are looking for a Pidgey that they lost or something and the protagonist mentioned that one Pidgey in Route 0 which I thought was a catchable Pokemon, anyway I made my way back to Route 0 and interacted with that Pidgey, one thing leads to another and I climbed that tree which made me fall into the other side of the fence, I entered that cave and there was a bunch of rocks in there, I interacted with all the rocks but nothing happened, I left the cave and made my way to the boulder in the left side, it said it was too heavy so I guess I need an HM or something, anyway I thought that the quest was unbeatable yet so I wanted to leave the area but there wasn't a way out. Tried interacting with the fence but nothing happened. And instead of loading the previous save file I overwrote it like the idiot I'm. Am I stuck? Did I miss something. Please help! I'll be waiting for an answer.

There's a fence you can interact with

 

[WhoaImHere]

There's a fence you can interact with

Turns out there indeed was a fence I can interact with, thanks! What about the quest tho? Do I just abandon it or is there something I can do? nvm just figured it out.

 

[AenaonDusky]

Hi! After finishing the current latest episode, ep 3, I've decided to write a review about the game. It contains minor spoilers:

Spoiler:

The protagonist
Our protagonist's main defining feature is that he hasn't really found his place in the world. He's never shown a particular talent in anything, been popular nor was he accepted to college and has never even managed to land a job until now. So naturally, he has low self-esteem and feels tremendous guilt for being a burden on his mother who adores him regardless. One of the key aspects of the story is him finally getting his life together. I like this approach to storytelling, I always favored stories where we follow the adventures of an underdog until he finally picks himself up and succeds.


The setting and atmosphere
You spend the vast majority of your playtime in Artemisia, the city, which the story is centered around. The difference between the living standards of the rich and the poor is one of the main focuspoint of the story, or rather the suffering of the lowerclass. The people are starving, don't even have access to clean water and generally live a miserable life. I think the whole concept was handled quite well. The literally hundreds of NPCs that you can talk to all have unique dialogue and give you different examples of the city's harshness. Some of them directly states that they barely scrape by but on others, you see the effects of starvation and hoplesness differently. They are either hostile, mocking you for no reason or show signs of madness.

On top of all this, the main character's boss is a colossal jerk who treats everyone like trash and doesn't even pay our hero properly for his well done work. However, the boss is not the only one who likes to take it out on our guy. As I wrote earlier, some of the city's residents and also different kinds of villains, minor or greater, like to insult and belittle him. So he has to take a lot and yet he keeps on going because he has to.

The constant reminder of both the populace's suffering and the not so ideal working conditons of our protagonist create a dark, gritty atmosphere that I am a fan of. It reminds me of another one of my favorite fan games, Reborn. Artemisia and Reborn city both share the same vibe, both citites were once thought to be beautiful, shining beacons of light but now they are shadows of their former selves. However, the awful living conditions in the city and the social strife is explored more deeply in this game. So, it's a dark story and yet it also heavily implies that our hero must never give up, no matter how bad it might seem, which I feel is a nice little touch of optimism to balance out the dark tone.

Pokémon
The main focus of this pokemon fan game is not actually pokémon. It sounds weird, right? Well, it doesn't feel like it. Pokémon merely assist people in achiving their goals which don't necessarily center around pokémon. It feels more natural to me, like how it might be in real life. The main character doesn't battle because he wants the be the very best, but because he has to in order to get to where he needs to be, to do his job. Those residents who have pokémon don't train because they want to become champions, they do it because they think they have a chance to escape poverty and get to the upper districts.

In other games, there's usually a huge variety of pokémon you can catch, you can pick and choose your team, but not in this one. In Postscriptum you don't get a lot of pokémon, in fact, I've only got 7 so far. It may sound strange as well, but I enjoyed that I haven't got a lot of options. It makes you appreciate your team even more, because pokémon feel like rare, hidden treasures instead of easily replace objects.

Lastly, both a pre- and a post-evolution have been created for your starter to make him feel more complete, which is a nice addition to the game.

Music
I liked the music in this game. I think it's varied enough and fits well with the game's atmosphere mentioned above.

Things that I'd change
There are only minor things that bother me, but I thought I'd mention them anyway to keep the review fair.

Firstly, I think the pacing could be a bit different at certain points of the story. What I mean by that is that the game involves a lot of running around, backtracing and talking to others, which are all fine by me. However, sometimes it can get a little too much. If there were to be one or two battles during such parts, it would make a difference in my opinion.

An other thing is that - since there are no pokémon centers in the city, only certain NPCs that heal your party - the game might need more places where you can heal your pokémon. It's not a huge deal, because if you black out, your party gets healed anyway and you don't lose any money, because you probably didn't have a single dollar anyway. So, the reason why I've decided to mention this, is just that there was an area in the game where I had to continue losing battles in order to heal my party, because the only medic was behind enemy trainers.

Overall, I've come to love this game very much. It's got good storytelling, interesting characters and was just so different from the other pokemon games, but in a good way. It's obvious that a lot of time was spent making this and it shows. It's incredibly detailed and well thought out. I look forward to playing the next episode when it comes out.

Thanks a ton for your review! We'll do our best to

Spoiler:

make the pacing better and find a story-appropriate way to have a medic available before the gauntlet right after you enter the city again.

First of all, I just wanna say this is one of the most underrated games I've ever played. The description seemed kinda cool and unique so I wanted to give it a try. I admit I was pretty confused and I didn't know what to do for the first two hours of playing, but after talking to people and visiting various places everything started to click together, playing this game without a guide is so much fun. The amount of detail and effort that went through this game is impressive, unlike most games where you just have to go from town to town this game needs you to talk to as many NPCs as possible to progress. The dialogue and plot are amazing, you must be one hell of a writer.
Now let's talk about my issue,

Spoiler:

I've finally gotten to the eastern part of the city after 8 hours of gameplay and decided to once again talk to NPCs before progressing, one NPC told me that they are looking for a Pidgey that they lost or something and the protagonist mentioned that one Pidgey in Route 0 which I thought was a catchable Pokemon, anyway I made my way back to Route 0 and interacted with that Pidgey, one thing leads to another and I climbed that tree which made me fall into the other side of the fence, I entered that cave and there was a bunch of rocks in there, I interacted with all the rocks but nothing happened, I left the cave and made my way to the boulder in the left side, it said it was too heavy so I guess I need an HM or something, anyway I thought that the quest was unbeatable yet so I wanted to leave the area but there wasn't a way out. Tried interacting with the fence but nothing happened. And instead of loading the previous save file I overwrote it like the idiot I'm. Am I stuck? Did I miss something. Please help! I'll be waiting for an answer.

We're honored that you find the writing good and are grateful for your good words. Although it isn't anything special per se, as it wouldn't stand on its own due to the way it's handled (not to mention the strange vernacular and the way speech and text is shown throughout the first half of the game), we tried our best to make it match the perception of the MC( and not the other way around.). What does that mean? You'll see. Can I ask you to please leave a review when you're done with the episode?

Turns out there indeed was a fence I can interact with, thanks! What about the quest tho? Do I just abandon it or is there something I can do? nvm just figured it out.

You'll need to get back to this cave once more, if you choose to do another sidequest.

Spoiler:

The sidequest is called "Fishing Rod for Grandma". There's also a Book there if I'm not mistaken.

 

[blackbeak99]

So I may have made a fatal mistake in my game, once getting the great ball from the guy from Johto, I went and caught a Houndor, except now when I try to start the game I get an error stating that the filename is nil. I know this comes from the houndor image not being in the icons folder for startup because I am fairly certain I wasn't supposed to catch a pokemon of my choice, any ideas on how to help me fix this problem? I would really like to try to fix the error instead of starting a new save file, but I'm not sure if it is possible. I might be able to fix it myself, which icon pack for pokemon essentials did you use to make this? Thanks in advanced! :)

 

[AenaonDusky]

So I may have made a fatal mistake in my game, once getting the great ball from the guy from Johto, I went and caught a Houndor, except now when I try to start the game I get an error stating that the filename is nil. I know this comes from the houndor image not being in the icons folder for startup because I am fairly certain I wasn't supposed to catch a pokemon of my choice, any ideas on how to help me fix this problem? I would really like to try to fix the error instead of starting a new save file, but I'm not sure if it is possible. I might be able to fix it myself, which icon pack for pokemon essentials did you use to make this? Thanks in advanced! :)

Thanks for reporting the bug! It's been fixed.

Version c 2.4 is up. This is a small update fixing some recently reported stuff. A bigger update is on the horizon.
Changelog:

Spoiler:

27. Added a healer in Western Artemisia, can be interacted with before getting through the Museum. She's located in one of the big buildings on the eastern part of the map.
28. Fixed proper enemy movement not restarting during the infiltration mission
29. Save prompt now informs the player of the multiple savefile feature
30. Fixed a pokemon catching related error due to missing icons
31. Fixed late-game ID card not showing properly
32. Fixed some of Barry's gangsters battling you after talking to Barry
33. minor fixes

 

[looneyman1]

A big update is on the horizon

Sweet~. I will have to restart my game as I somehow failed to do the optional quests before the big war following the trip to Cianwood City. After my recent playthrough I'm now aware of all the necessary stuff asides, I just need to locate where I got to go for the optional quests.

 

[AenaonDusky]

Sweet~. I will have to restart my game as I somehow failed to do the optional quests before the big war following the trip to Cianwood City. After my recent playthrough I'm now aware of all the necessary stuff asides, I just need to locate where I got to go for the optional quests.

Yeah, they're a bit obscure, but I can provide you with a guide if you want. I think there's like 13 of them, some aren't missions, so they don't show up on the PDA.


Hello everyone, a side episode, "Mission Alyssa", is out. This is a mini episode that compliments the main game. It goes without saying that it is highly recommended that you finish PSFE first before you play PSFE: MA. The thread's download section has been updated. Since this is a standalone game, it might warrant its own thread - but for now it will be merged with this one. Have fun!

 

[looneyman1]

Yeah, they're a bit obscure, but I can provide you with a guide if you want. I think there's like 13 of them, some aren't missions, so they don't show up on the PDA.

That might help, PM me it when you can.

Hello everyone, a side episode, "Mission Alyssa", is out. This is a mini episode that compliments the main game. It goes without saying that it is highly recommended that you finish PSFE first before you play PSFE: MA. The thread's download section has been updated. Since this is a standalone game, it might warrant its own thread - but for now it will be merged with this one. Have fun!

Oh cool. Is it a cmplete game? I doubt it but its worth asking at any rate so we know whats up.

 

[AenaonDusky]

That might help, PM me it when you can.



Oh cool. Is it a cmplete game? I doubt it but its worth asking at any rate so we know whats up.

Yes it is! It is a mini-episode, fairly short, but complete.

 

[TalonMelon]

Yes it is! It is a mini-episode, fairly short, but complete.

I've played it, it was good. Even though there was not a single battle in this side episode, I stil enjoyed it. Besides, I have a feeling that the main reason it was made is to showcase the new features anyway: a map, quality of life changes to the quest system(you're reminded where you're supposed to go for example) and to also experiment with Mystery dungeon style character portraits during dialogues.

I think all of these were well done. Looking forward to the next "normal" ep.

 

[AenaonDusky]

I've played it, it was good. Even though there was not a single battle in this side episode, I stil enjoyed it. Besides, I have a feeling that the main reason it was made is to showcase the new features anyway: a map, quality of life changes to the quest system(you're reminded where you're supposed to go for example) and to also experiment with Mystery dungeon style character portraits during dialogues.

I think all of these were well done. Looking forward to the next "normal" ep.

Thank you for your review! While the idea wasn't for these features to be implemented in the main chapters (each side story is supposed to be unique in both features and storytelling, and the MC's confusion has to be built-in from a feature standpoint, you know what I mean), they might actually find their way in, in the future. (depending on how many resources can be spent).

 

[TalonMelon]

Thank you for your review! While the idea wasn't for these features to be implemented in the main chapters (each side story is supposed to be unique in both features and storytelling, and the MC's confusion has to be built-in from a feature standpoint, you know what I mean), they might actually find their way in, in the future. (depending on how many resources can be spent).

Oh ok, I see. Well, the main game's great anyway.

 

[AenaonDusky]

Oh ok, I see. Well, the main game's great anyway.

Thank you! Another little surprise is coming.


Other than that, version 2.6 is up.
Changelog:

Spoiler:

- fixed infinite scrap glitch
- fixed getting stuck in the under by losing to Plok before talking to Modesto (right after dealing with Tyson) and then re-entering. If you got stuck before 2.6, simply talk to Modesto again. Plok will now appear AFTER your last conversation with Modesto before you exit the Under.
- version display is now in text
- first encounter with Sig will not activate if the player has started the city-leaving mission
- fixed pink tile bugs in a late game map

Version 2.7
Changelog:

Spoiler:

- "Diamond" mission takes into account prior Sigfried encounter
- Sigfried interactions vary depending on Diamond quest completion
- fixed book interaction in Western Artemisia after completion of the Farm sidequest
- fixed an NPC in SE Artemisia preventing you from rebattlling them if you lost

 

[Kurouma]

I need a little help. I'm lost regarding the quest that need me to deliver a package in Northeast Artemisa. I have talk to everyone and have not encounter a single clue of what to do. The University and Gang quest where completed. Also, i have not been able to find the person to deliver de MooMoo Shake so far.