Star Ocean Blue Sphere analysis.

[Conzeit]

Once upon the time we had a Challenge thread about making a GBC rpg tileset and a rpg character battle scene, then out of the blue (PUN!!!11!1) someone reccomended STAR OCEAN BLUE for a GBC game with great examples of both.

http://www.rpgfan.com/pics/so-bs/index2.html

Such impressive screenshots were posted that I downloaded it for analyzing it almost right away, and indeed it has not only very impressive but very varied tiling, and the animations are amazingly charming and of low frame count.



For example the fact that all the tree-scape of this forest is done.....
Only with these tiles...............(I'm not that good with tiles so that might be a DUUUUUUUUH for many tilers around :p)
This is the full tileset...it gets switched betweem...4 palletes to make for the full spectrum of the area, they use multiple palletes in one screen to make details of alternate colors (stupid gray sign takes a whole pallete)in some tiles you can even tell from incorrectly colored squared blotches.

EDIT:WHOA! these RPGFAN guys now have animated screenshots!

(timing is SO MUCH better in game) I love the inscriptions on the temple floor
I dont even know what these panoramic views are, note how the first is planometric

despite how cool all that is, I think to truly understand it you need to play each area, so you can use VBA9's TILE VIEWER and MAP VIEWER to dissect every tileset.Not that I'd mind if people all of a sudden started contributing their own map and sprite rips  so I posted hoping SOMEONE may have some advanced savestates.

This is a really really great game to learn from IMO, it does everything a (GAMEART...just for helm :p) pixelartist could want in scales of just 4 shades, they pull off wonderful landscapes (even ocasional PLNAOMETRIC scenes) with just a few tiles, and the animation is equally conservatively charming (take it from me!)
The gameplay itself is also very good, even for a RPG hater like myself it's got quite a bit of action to make it enjoyable, too bad it's in japanese.





The animations are BASIC, whitout excessive amount of frames they imply sub-pixel animation, and they achieve all sorts of diferent actions with mostly keyframes and good timing.

[goat]

fine job, sir. stimulating discussion to ensuee pending class release.

[Conzeit]

.........huh?

[Ryumaru]

its very odd that some of these screens definitely are less awesome than the great looking forest.
id LOVE to see more of those battle anims, they look absolutely positively awesome.

[Q.K.]

Unfortunately I can't offer much except to say that this game is amazing. Both graphically and gameplay wise. I haven't seen much past this forest place and the temple, however I will say that the battle sequences are absolutely amazing for a gameboy color.

[crab2selout.png]

The tiling is fantastic on those trees. Wonderfully bushy, and tileage hidden very well.

For a second I thougt you were talking about one of the other games taht Pep posted, Lufia. It is also an excellently done GBA games, athough a little rougher around the edges than SO. One screenshot in particular Pep posted was deliciously moody. It's surprsing how much punch can be packed with so few colours.

Does anyone know if the single hue of each tile is a limitation of hte GBC or was done on purpose?

[Conzeit]

From what I've seen in SOB you can use as many hues as you want, the limit is 4 colors per tile. So you could have more than one hue but it'll be harder to figure out a way to do smooth shading.

I dont know if there's a limit for the amount of palletes per screen, there probably is...SOB pushes it as far as 4, from what I've seen.

 yeah Crabs, I wasnt really interested in lufia and the like so much because the tiling isnt as bright in this one, I really admire games that manage to create an organic feel with little tiles, and when I D/L ed it and the animations were so kickass I was just in love :p btw, it seems that much of the sprite animation is done with tile destined for background, so this is kind of high end in GBC respect. In general terms it's still pretty amazingly economic yet snappy energetic animation. right up my alley =D

Here's that topic btw:http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=94.0 http://www.wayofthepixel.net/pixelation/index.php?topic=179.0

Crabs, maybe you could get lufia and do your own findings with VBA, looking at this stuff in it's TILE VIEWER and MAP VIEWER is pretty intensive because these high end GBC games use techniques very useful for DS or GBA projects, yet keep it very simple beacuse of the high restrictions.

[crab2selout.png]

I'm a little busy at the moment but I get off for holidays in a week so i might give a try. Perfect timing cause I just got my SmartJoy and I've been meaning to put to good use.