Titans of Illumia
A downloadable game
Explore the mysterious island of Illumia with it's many secrets and treasures. Non linear interactive gameplay allows you to choose how you play with different routes and endings. Progress is determined by the treasure you collect allowing you to clear obstacles and beat bosses without grinding. Summon abilities of fallen heroes by embracing the power of the contracts and possibly even brave the dark depths beneath the island!
Story:
Four strangers are brought together and given a second chance when the borders between life and death are tampered with. In doing so the world they knew now seems unfamiliar to them and they must overcome themselves in order to find the man responsible for their shared misfortune. This man with dark ambitions betrayed his kingdom and released four powerful titans that had enslaved humanity in times past. In the ensuing chaos he plans to rebuild the world for his own sake, one without death or suffering. Will you decide to confront the titans, prevent the dawn of a new world, or explore the island to uncover it's dark secrets?
Features:
Inspired by the early Zelda and Final Fantasy games, this game has a heavy emphasis on exploration and strategy. Your strategy in battle including whether to run or fight will determine the outcome of each battle and being unprepared for difficult encounters could be costly.
Buy, craft or scavenge for equipment to keep upgrading your party. Collect recipe books and rare minerals to create equipment from the menu. Visit different stores across Illumia to find the best deals and exclusive items.
Keep track of quests and achievements from the menu to track your progress. Over 40 quests to complete including a mark system for tracking challenging foes.
Uses Yanfly's Charge Turn Battle plugin inspired from Final Fantasy 10 as a departure from typical turn based battles. Manipulate ally and enemy turns to create advantage in combat.
Clear obstacles with swords, bombs, pickaxe, shovel, ocarina, lantern, and zephyr boots to explore dungeons and the overworld. You may even find random loot or new dungeons as a result!
Each character has their own good and bad ending, completing each character arc grants a powerful exclusive accessory as well as several story changes.
Link to community page: https://itch.io/t/161900/titans-of-illumia-community-page
Download
Install instructions
.ZIP file included as download. Just download, right click and extract file. Game is inside!
Development log
- V1.0.2Nov 12, 2017
Comments
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gotta remember to download this in my browser later, since the itch.io desktop app doesn't seem to support .rar
I edited the walkthrough to make the hunter skills locations more convenient.
Indeed, the way you listed them was not convenient because you didn't order them by location so I was doing a lot of backtracking from a location to another to follow your list until I realized I would be more efficient if I was hunting the skills by location instead so I re-organized your list by location and I also edited some locations to make them clearer and added some because I knew of more convenient locations to go for the skills . :-)
Here, I share the edited list so you can update the walkthrough for everyone. ;-)
-Lucky Punch: Bandit/ Thug enemies (West Mountains)
-Sandstorm: Antlion (West Mountains Coast)
-Pollen: Spora/ Uzu (Woodland Plains/Dark Woods)
-Silk: Spider enemies (Woodland Plains/Mines)
-Scald: Water Elemental (Abyss Temple/Icy Peak)
-Brutal Strike: Segha'an/Segha'an Elite (Abyss Temple)
-Ice Prison: Icicle Jelly (Icy Peak)
-Cold Wave: Icicle Jelly (Icy Peak)
-Gaze: Cockatrice (Sky Castle)/Catermoth (Dark Woods)
-Toxic Breath: Chimera (Sky Castle)
-Siphon: Sapping Ooze (Volcano)
-Pillar of flames: Dragon enemies (Volcano)
-Flare: Warlock (Galadria Castle)
-Aqua Breath: Abomination (aquatic caves in The Depths)
What the Depths?!? I entered into a room in the Abyss Temple and I instantly died and got revived in Elfheim church with half my currency gone!
Hmm... I wonder if this is the room where I fought the Sentient? It might be that the countdown for this battle is broken and upon re-entering the room after quitting it, it instantly kills us as if the countdown reached zero? I can see a slime at the center of the room when I enter it just before I instantly die so I think it might be indeed the Sentient room and this room is definitely broken, the Sentient is in the room when we re-enter it even though we destroyed it and the room instantly kills us, definitely a broken room...
You know what is missing in your game? The ability to warp.
Indeed, wherever I want to go, I have to walk aaaaaaaaall the way there and avoid all monsters on the way, even if I am at the other corner of the island!
I wish the hermit gave me a warp stone at the beginning of the adventure and when I reach an important location like the 4 main towns, there would be a warp mark in the center of the town, like the ones in the dungeons, then I would need to walk on each warp mark one time to register their coordinates into my stone then I could freely warp to all warp marks that I registered into my stone instead of having to walk and avoid monsters from a corner of the island to the other corner, that grows really tedious to have to walk and avoid monsters all of the time, I would enjoy the game more if I could warp from a town to another, can you do it?
Oh, there IS a warping system, though it was really not obvious, I easily missed it when I explored the Grave of the Hero because I didn't know where was the jumping tool at this time and I forgot to re-explore the grave once I got the zephyr boots until I read about a "dark mirror in the Grave of the Hero" in the walkthrough.
My point is: This is an important tool and it is easily missed, you should make sure that everyone finds it, you could make the hermit give a side quest "Find the Dark Mirror" at the same time as he gives the quest about the 4 titans, after he talks about the titans, he could add that there is a tool which might help the heroes in their travels, he could talk about a fabled mysterious mirror which was said to allow its user to fast travel from a place to another which was rumored to be in the legendary Grave of the Hero.
Oh wait, I can't use the Dark Mirror to warp into the Hall of Mirrors?
I have to walk to the Grave of the Hero to warp somewhere else?
What's the point if I am away from the Grave and I have to walk there to warp somewhere else?
Might as well walk all the way where I want to go if I have to walk all the way through the island to warp anyway.
Why can't I use the Dark Mirror in my inventory to warp to the Hall of Mirrors from wherever I am?
I really thought that I could FINALLY avoid all the tedious walking and avoiding monsters to fast travel where I want, I am disappointed that the Dark Mirror is useless after all, that was a false hope...
Oh okay, I can use my Dark Mirror from any church?
Sheesh, this is such an important ability in open worlds, the ability to fast travel, and yet the game says nothing about it and the walkthrough isn't clear either, I wasted so much time walking all around Illumia, I grew so frustrated to have to avoid all monsters in my travels because I am fed up of fighting the same monsters again and again at every travel, all because I didn't know about the Dark Mirror and how to use it because the game itself doesn't even mention it and the walkthrough, which is kinda the game manual, doesn't explain much either.
Oh yeah, the game has become a lot more fun now that I learned how to fast travel, no more tedious walking and avoiding monsters on the same paths again and again, go straight to the point, this changes the experience significantly now that I finally am able to focus on the tasks at hand, I enjoy it a lot more! :-D
You really REALLY should introduce the Dark Mirror and teach how it works in-game, I think my idea of introducing it through a side quest given by the hermit at the start of the adventure could work out and the stranger who welcomes the party in the Mirror Kingdom could teach how it works, mention that it is connected to holy places (I wonder why that is so by the way?) as a hint that it is usable in churches?
Where are the 6 entrances to the Depths?
I found some while exploring Illumia but I am not motivated to re-explore all of the island again just to re-find them so could you please mark their locations on the spoiler map in the game folder?
Also, is it me or the world map really doesn't correspond to the actual game world layout?
There is an achievement to obtain all 7 tools.
However the walkthrough tells only about 6: the bombs, the lantern, the pick-axe, the shovel, the zephyr boots and the ocarina, which I all already obtained.
What is the 7th tool?
So I've finally finished your game, I was playing nonstop for 3 days and I have to tell you that it was an amazing experience. Kinda surprised that there are no reviews or comments on this so I'll leave my own because I can see that you have put tremendous amounts of effort in this game.
Story and Areas
The plot resolves around 4 main heroes that have lost their memories and the struggles to find their path to regaining them and defeating the main villain and the 4 titans that are the cause of the problems. You can choose any route to explore and clear, each city has it's individual story and mechanics, there are massive amounts of content to explore and tons of secrets around the map.
For me, funnily enough I managed to find the Underground Depths as my first dungeon because of my curiosity to crack that wall on the south beach. I got spooked immediately because of the eerie super dark environment, and then someone attacked me from the dark. It was a demon and he casted a doomsday spell on me on the first turn. I was like "what the actual fuck". That thing scared the shit out of me, and later on I found out that you are not suposed to go there until the ends of the game :D
Then I did the wrong thing again and cleared the Deep Forest first while being underfarmed. It was a very tough and challenging boss fight and I had to reset it like 13 times because I thought you couldn't dispell the mana drain and healing mechanics of the boss. But I managed to clear it by spamming bombs until there was only the boss and the rest was easy. The game from there was very chill and entertaining. There are TONS of secret dungeons, secret areas and even secret bosses like that Behemoth creature roaming around that also scared me with its instakilling abilities early on. The game has a very endearing Final Fantasy vibe and I can see that you have drawn a lot of inspirations from it.
Combat, Mechanics and Bosses.
If there is one thing that I love about an JRPG it is the combat system. Your game could be great, but if I'm disliking the combat mechanics, then I'm dropping it right away. In this game, the combat uses an Turn-based SPEED mechanic inspired from FF as you said before, and it is GREAT. The animations are amazing, the Sprites looks great and the Bosses are really challenging and entertaining.
The only problems I have with this is the scaling. It looks kinda weird because there are no levels and you can only get stronger by gathering items or by finding Lucky Stars or Heart Containers to boost your stats early on. So sometimes I felt like I was wondering around dodging monsters just to enter a new city and buy the new equipments, then I would have a giant boost in strength and everything else would be super easy. There are also some items that are unusable from the Synthesis menu like the Demon Lord Cloak.
Another thing I forgot to mention that was also very annoying for me, Its the fact that you can't dodge enemies and they will aggro onto you even if you are interacting with an object or moving very far away. This pretty much forces you to be ultra careful every time you see an enemy and you'll have to dodge everything everytime you want to get to another city. And since you have very little space to walk on, this could be very frustrating some times. Imagine you having the best gear and everything to one shot even late game mobs, but you have to run away and dodge some bees in the beginning areas because they chase you from very far away and can delay you a lot since the escape mechanisms are also very hard to pull off (something like 20% chance as far as I can tell) and also you lose like 10% of your gold if you escape. If you had added a way to avoid those enemies it would be great for future experiences.
Another big problem I have involves the "boss" Fear that spawns in the Depths dungeon. The first time I encountered him, he spooked me really hard because I could not run away or avoid him, he was really fast :D, then Alice immediately pops up and warns me that we should run away because that monster was very strong and dangerous. He had his own theme song and it was super eerie and disturbing. This instantly gave me a flashback of the Persona 3 game where the Grim Reaper would roam around if you wandered around long enough, and the Grim Reaper was an INSANELY strong boss. For a second I actually thought about running but I manned up and faced him, even though I was underleved on everybody except Karena, since I went to the Depths again to explore before clearing the main quests, but I went on with it. He started off by draining my mana and then casting life siphon on the next turns. I started to maul at him with my Karena that was hitting for 5k 5 times and even critting for 16k. Then he started casting death here and there, more life siphons, and after a while I started wondering "Is that it? Aren't you going to wipe out the party or something?" then the fight keep going for more 2 Karena turns and I just nuked him down with my DPS, he didn't even scratch my party. Now really? That was very disappointing to say the least; he was by far the easiest fight IN THE ENTIRE GAME. On top of that, he drops the most broken item in the game “Heart of Darkness” that you can farm from him. This item completely breaks the game because it allows you to vastly increase your stats permanently and it can go up to the max, making you invincible even to the final boss of the game. I got 3 of those hearts and my characters were already ridiculously strong, and since the fight is so easy, he is just tanky, then I could have farmed it all and it would have removed all the fun from the game. I get it that you are not supposed to be there so early, but if the boss that holds a gamebreaking item is so weak, then I could honestly have skipped all the other fights, sat there for some minutes and farmed full stats from him since the beginning of the game, since I’m pretty sure you could kill him very early, it only takes patience since he has no aoe abilities and deals no damage. This fight definitely needs to be rescaled or buffed, because right now it is very underwhelming.
Other than that I loved many mechanics like the Karena swords hitting multiple times, later Elric with Power Staff being super broken with Rogue's contract to spam mass haste on the party and such, and of course the Merchant upgrading his store every time you buy some items from him, that was really clever and it does make a lot of sense for the guy that you are spending massive amounts of money to upgrade his store and provide better items, that was a really nice touch. The fact that you get a different exclusive partner for many different dungeons was also a really incredible touch. Also loved that you wrote down a Walkthrough to the game, that was very helpful to find the tools and the Marks, and it shows a massive amount of effort to make this game as pleasant as possible for all sorts of players, well done.
Another thing that I discovered by accident is that there are many endings and a lot of undiscovered content that I passed through. I decided to clear the Depths before the main boss so I could have some challenging fights, and the last fight with Illumia was really amazing. But then the game suddenly stops and I see that the main villain was left without magic because I destroyed the source of his powers, then he got fuckin arrested before I could fight him LMFAO that was one of the most hilarious endings I have ever seen to a game, really good stuff :D
Sadly I didn’t manage to find Elric or Lauriett’s endings, I explored most of the map and it says that you need to go to “West Cliffs” and “Shipwreck” locations, where exactly are they? I will go back and play it again until I find them but I would gladly accept some help. Also where are the “5 elites”? I didn’t find them either and it’s an achievement that I want to complete the game.
Sounds, Ambients and Puzzles
Were all amazing choices, nothing much to say about it here. Personally loved the eerie Depths soundtrack and the Spirit's fight soundtrack. The puzzles were also very charming and relaxing, with tons of hidden treasures around, great stuff once again.
Final score:
9/10
Total time playing 11:22:40
Really glad to hear you enjoyed the game! It's been a couple years since I posted it and I'm honestly pleasantly surprised people are still interested in playing it. The version I've posted on itch is a little older than the version posted on rpgmaker.net partly because there was less interest here and I genuinely forgot to update it here.
It's only 1 version ahead so you won't have missed much, just a few balance tweaks (https://rpgmaker.net/games/10161/). I've been meaning to come back and fix a few things/ add a few quality of life updates for the longest time now so I'll be putting together something in a few days likely. Just want to do some testing first for a mobile app version along with some re-balancing. The fear encounter especially is a little underwhelming and some of the superbosses are probably a little drawn out I would imagine. The current escape formula is a bit wonky too.
Both of the character side missions are on the west side of the map. There's a tile on the beach map north of Hopoki town that leads to the shipwreck and to trigger Lauriett's you need to stay at the old lady's house by the graveyard.
Thanks for playing my game, it's always nice to hear feedback.
-HD
Oh, I had no idea that there was another version, thats cool, I'll check it out. Right now I already found the ending locations, found the "Hall of Mirrors" that I didn't found before and even the "Catasthrope" superboss that wiped my ass the first time because I was not careful. Still I didn't find the "5 elites" or the enemy that drops the staff that allows you to cast Doomsday. Also another thing I discovered is that you cannot get the hunter achievment after you cleared Aquaria because the enemies that have the skill that you need to steal despawn and you can't fight them. It was a pleasure to play your game, really great experience. Do you have any other JRPG games released that I can check out? I would gladly play them. Cheers!