Almost fourteen years ago to the day, I completed Blackmoon Prophecy.

As the years rolled by, it ended up doing really well online. It ended up becoming one of the most downloaded and viewed games of all time on rpgmaker.net when it was a functional website. Even just a few years later though, I was deeply unsatisfied with the way the game turned out. It had taken the better part of ten years to finish (there were A LOT of lengthy breaks that were several months long), and much of the game had been made during the first half of that period. Because of this, a good bulk of the game was made when my eventing, mapping, and writing weren’t as good as they are now, or even a few years later when I had started work on Blackmoon Prophecy II (a game I still feel some pride towards).

For most of the past week, I’ve been thinking about my “game dev legacy” and how I am most known for a game that I currently do not take any pride in being affiliated with. It’s not because it’s a fan game, I absolutely adore fan games. It’s because I feel like Blackmoon Prophecy, which I had started work on shortly after RPG Maker 2003’s release, is a product of its time, a time when I was less skilled, much more immature, and still trying to figure out my place in the world. I am more confident in myself and my abilities these days with RPG Maker, and I feel that, in order to be proud of what seems to be my game dev legacy (Blackmoon Prophecy), I need to make it into something I can be proud of.

I’ve tried to address things I don’t like in the game over the years by doing little updates to clean up bits of dialogue that felt too juvenile, or just too poorly worded. I also didn’t know what to do with the uneven game balance, especially with magic damage, because it had become such a disjointed mess from the ten years of development. After taking 6-12 months off from working on the game at times, I usually had to relearn my own game and what I was doing with it. A shitty task when you’re a solo dev working on a 40-50 (or more) hour long RPG over the span of ten years.

So, I’m remaking it from the ground up. Blackmoon Prophecy is being fully remade in RPG Maker MV.

I’ve already started work on the game, and will share progress over time and even link to my Discord server again when I feel the remake’s development has progressed enough to warrant discussion. For now though, I’m going to share everything that I plan on doing with this remake.

Ability/Command Overhaul: Abilities will be reworked. Any abilities, skills, and spells that I feel don’t add any value to the game are not coming back. I’ll also be making sure that the game has more traditional Final Fantasy abilities and commands. Vahn will actually be able to jump properly, and someone’s going to be getting a steal command.

Fewer Caves: The original Blackmoon Prophecy was basically “Cave Walking Simulator”. Seriously, too many god damn caves. I’ll be straight up removing some of the caves in the game and replacing others with new dungeons that, well, aren’t caves!

Full Script Rewrite: I’ll be replaying the game alongside the development of the remake so that I can observe the dialogue of the original and read it as it would naturally be presented to a player. I’ll be rewriting huge swathes of the game’s dialogue, because a lot of it was written in the early 2000s when I was a very different person. Some of the dialogue will survive, and the spirit of the original’s dialogue will remain intact, but almost every major cutscene will be fully rewritten.

Graphical Fidelity: Many overworld sprites are going to receive additional colours and shading. I won’t be using any new sprites, and instead am opting to just breathe additional life into the FF4 edits and rips that the game currently uses. A fresh coat of paint never hurts! As for tiles, many of them will be from various ports of FF4, FF5, and FF6. I willl also use graphics from the pixel remasters when I am able to do so (not full tilesets, but individual objects and tiles here and there). Additionally, all playable characters will receive new menu portraits.

“Legacy” Version: When the remake is completed, it will fully replace the main download on this Itch page, and the original RPG Maker 2003 download will be removed because the new version will be the optimal and superior way to experience Blackmoon Prophecy. I will keep the original version available on my Google Drive, or on Mediafire, and will provide a link to it in some form or another when the time comes to replace it with the remake.

Location Name Changes: Some locations are being renamed just because I don’t want the location names to sound too repetitive. There were too many locations with “Branch” in the name, so a lot of them are being renamed. Other places such as the Cave of Surt, are being renamed just because I’m unhappy with their names. The Cave of Surt being a good example, who is Surt? Well, traditionally, a giant in Norse mythology - NOT a dragon. The Cave of Surt is now going to be called the Cave of Yiazmat. Mount Branch is now the Ardele Mountains. The Trei Catacombs are now the Trei Overgrowth. Lots of little name changes here and there will be present throughout the game.

Main Character Relatability: Vahn will no longer wear a helmet. Main characters need to be identifiable and relatable, and I don’t think that works with Vahn when he’s running around in a full suit of dragoon armor for dozens of hours. He’ll still be heavily armored, but he’ll now have a wonderful head of hair to showcase. Yes, his hair is still green!

New Content: The amount of legitimately new content will be pretty minimal. I’ll add new things that I think might benefit the game here and there, but as a whole, the remake will probably be light on brand new content.

Overworld Revisions: In RPG Maker 2003, the maximum map size was 500x500, and Blackmoon Prophecy’s world map took advantage of that size limit. In RPG Maker MV, the maximum size is 256x256. Because of this, the overworld map will be downscaled a little bit. This is hardly a bad thing though, as the Blackmoon Prophecy world map was simply too large in a lot of ways. The amount of empty land, with no locations to visit or visible landmarks, that you could actually visit and explore after getting the airship was obscene. There were also portions of the game where you had to walk and walk and walk miles to get from one location to the next. The original Blackmoon Prophecy had too many “Kohlingen to Zozo” walks in it. FF6 players will exactly what I mean by that. So, the map is being made smaller! I am removing landmasses and locations that served little (or no) purpose. I’m trying to streamline the overworld so that getting from one place to another makes sense and doesn’t take forever. I’ve only mapped about half of the Branch Kingdom so far, and the differences are already massive.

Rewritten Ending: I’m not happy with the game’s ending. A slideshow? What I attempted was a poor man’s version of the FF6 ending. I will make the ending feel more engaging and fleshed out, like the one in Blackmoon Prophecy II.

I’ve just started working on this remake and am a long way from showing some solid gameplay beyond sprites moving around on a partially created world map. I’ll have updates over the next several months that I’ll share here. I will also be posting updates on my Discord server (which I will relink to soon) and on Twitch when I do game dev streams.

EDIT: Let’s just throw the invite back up now!