[Developing] (Pokemon) Xenoverse: Ordem Et Chaos [DEMO 1] - The first step towards a remake of (Pokemon) Xenoverse: Per Aspera Ad Astra

[DiegoBenda]

Order is born from Chaos, but this is merely the start of its gestation.​

Premise:

The original Xenoverse holds a very special place in my heart, as the first fangame project I have been actively following for years finally coming to fruition. Over the years since its release, me and a lot of other passionate fans have had time to assess this charming, flawed, uneven game, and we felt like it deserved a second shot, to become the best version of itself it could possibly be.

With the formation of Beehive Studios and the former developers moving onto an original IP, our as-of-now-unnamed Team has taken the opportunity, with the permission of said original developers, to retool this game while preserving as much of its original identity as possible.

This is going to be a remake of Xenoverse, using Essentials v21.1, and this demo covers the first couple Gyms of the game, plus a little bit beyond that (everything before the Galvantula Boss + new stuff we added)

What's new?

The original Pokemon Xenoverse took place in an original region, featured Fakemon and Mega Evolutions and had a heavy focus on the story. None of this is going to change, but a lot of things around this framework have, and let's start off with a bang with:

Rewrites

While putting a lot of focus on the story, especially in the later half, this game seems to have never gotten the privilege of a second draft, and all sorts of creative turmoils behind the scenes have led to the overall story feeling very... unfocused and non cohesive.

This is where this whole project started, my rewrites of the story that tried to tie together concepts introduced later into the very start, ensuring a more solid foundation from which the game itself could be built upon in terms of narrative. While the characters will be largely the same, outside of a few exceptions, I hope you find them more fleshed out and compelling than their original counterparts, especially since, as I said, the story is still going to be one of the main focal points of this game.

Re-Balanced

Many Pokemon from the original game have been rebalanced, that comes with the fangame territory a lot of the time, and some need it more than most (Looks at... all of Gen 2), but usually you don't really need that many powerful Pokemon if the trainers are as easy as they normally are...

But not anymore! Because now the Trainers are (hopefully) gonna pose a real challenge, mostly in the important battles. Said battles are also mostly going to be double battles, as to spice up the gameplay experience, showcase potential strategies that help make bosses stand out from one another and allow more playstyle variety.

Speaking of battles, however, one of Xenoverse's biggest claims to fame was the X Pokemon Boss Battles, which sees you fighting a Pokemon with boosted stats and multiple health bars, and while that has remained, the boss battle mechanics have been remade to add more variety. You use 2 of your Pokemon to fight 1 Boss, like a reverse Totem Battle, but aside from the Pokemon you fight being stronger, they also possess multiple phases, where upon triggering the phase change all status and stat drops vanish, and something else happens to shake up the battle and make one boss more distinct from another.

When I mean that important trainers and bosses are more powerful, however, I don't just mean their movesets and items (although they are), but they will also, after a certain stage, have fully realised IVs and EVs! Don't panic, because there's two other factors you need to consider:

1) We have a plug in that allows you to customize your own EVs from the very start! The EV Pool scales up with your level, so if you want to, you can try tailoring your mons to your needs.

2) ...A lot of these tougher buffs are reserved for the new Hard mode, and while Normal Mode is also gonna be harder, stuff like EVs and IVs and incredible items and moves is something that will be introduced more gradually later on.

In short, your Pokemon are stronger, your enemies are stronger, and you are gonna have all the tools you need to face them and then some!

Even more Fakemons

We couldn't resist this one, this is what Pokemon is all about, creating creatures you can play with, and we wanted to stretch our creativity too! We mostly added more regional variants, so as to not leave Eldiwian Meowth completely alone, some Convergent Pokemon because those are just fun to design and come up with, and a few special scrapped Gen 2 Pokemon that have been given new life and new places in the world.

There are plans for more regional forms and some brand new X Species Pokemon too, but those are best for locales that are beyond this demo's reach... for now.

Gotta Catch them All

Xenoverse's original Pokedex was by no means small, but since this franchise is all about monster collecting, I have decided to expand it even more, but to incentivse the player to actually CATCH the Pokemon, another fangame has shown me how to cater to that design philosophy.

Pokemon Tectonic is a game entirely revolving around catching Pokemon to reap rewards in the form of EXP Candy and other items, so you can get any wild Pokemon into fighting shape (up to a level cap). The feedback loop of catching pokemon to get rewards so you can beat bosses to then unlock the ability to catch more Pokemon to reap more rewards is one that I find to be pretty engaging and satisfying, as such it has been applied to this game, with the addition of it being integrated with the Achievement system of the original Xenoverse too!

Dens

Dens were a really neat idea, exploring mini dungeons with your Starter to obtain some loot and engage in puzzles really helps both fleshing out both your connection to the Starter the world the Pokemon live in, since it is a den and all.

This game also had some great puzzles... in the postgame. Yeah, it took them time to get good and most of the dens just... aren't. Most of the original dens puzzles rely on trial and error, and all for loot that is not worth it at all.
Well, not anymore! Now there's more loot then ever, the loot is (hopefully) more worthwhile, and the puzzles have been diversified! This demo has 3 real dens to show that off, but there's gonna be way more in the future.

Screenshots

Can I try this out?

Sure you can! Direct Link to download is right over here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LCyeH4tvJXaGHBnPGe0a9PERlLcXcv9t/view?usp=drive_link

There is also a link to our Discord Server, from which you can give us all feedback on your experience.


Invite Link: https://discord.gg/ByJUbQQ7


This is the first step of a journey, where we try to make this game into the best version of itself it could possibly be, and we hope that you will provide all the feedback needed to get to that point. Thank you for your time, and hope you enjoy this Demo.

Per Aspera Ad Astra.

 

[ARCEUS493ZELDA]

so apparently when walking into the pokemon center in the first town, the entire mapping of it is gone, like the collision is there for everything and all but its just a black void

this is what i mean in terms of specifics, im currently unsure if other pokemon centers also have this issue or not however, tho do note it doesnt seem to have a negative impact on gameplay (i.e no crashes or anything of that sort)

 

[DiegoBenda]

NEW VERSION AVAILABLE:

Xeno EX v1.0.1.zip

drive.google.com

Notable changes:

Fixed the F12 crash bug
Fixed numerous events coming from old Xenoverse, incompatible with our version.
Addressed some notable visual bugs.
Added a new option in the menu that allows to turn off EXP All. We wanna specify, this'll not affect the game in any way, and it's not encouraged by the dev team since the game is not balanced around that, but we also understand it's up to the player to choose their experience, so this's an harmless addition!
Some balance changes (notable from the side of move reminder moves and the Sharpedo X boss on hard mode).
Miscellaneous stuff

Warning of bugs that are still present:
Pressing the Enter button too many times on game launch will crash the game

The remap of the keybinds seems to reset itself when relaunching the game

 

[DiegoBenda]

so apparently when walking into the pokemon center in the first town, the entire mapping of it is gone, like the collision is there for everything and all but its just a black void
View attachment 174742
this is what i mean in terms of specifics, im currently unsure if other pokemon centers also have this issue or not however, tho do note it doesnt seem to have a negative impact on gameplay (i.e no crashes or anything of that sort)

idk how this happened, but there is a new version up

 

[Kenobi123]

Does this demo go all the way? Like i get it that new features that were mentioned above might not be in game yet due to this being a demo and all. But since (i assume) you gus are basing this remake on the original Xenoverse game, does this demo goes rom the beginning to the end of DLC 5, i didnt see this mention in the information page so i figure i ask.