2020 Spring Showcase/Presentations/Stardust Citadel

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Tale of the Falling Star Phantom
Starting off with an existing project, Chronicles of Ascerth, the first game of Stardust Citadel's currently untitled reboot of Ghostverse content. This was a project long in the making -- concepts were being first thought up from the moment of the acquisition of Ghostrealm's propreties. The Ghostrealm universe was an amibitious project and it left a mark in the bigger lore of the Fantendoverse and as such the original Ghostrealm will continue to exist as it did before the acquisition as to prevent any conflict with any existing content that utilizes stuff originating from this universe.
That being said, Stardust's Ghostrealm will seek to bring a whole different take to the existing Ghostrealm content. Chronicles provides a similar story to its original counterpart, Champions of Ascerth, but with some pieces put in different places to make the narrative feel unique on its own. The main protagonist Kaiden is no longer the idealistic, self-doubting hero that he once was, now he is a more hardened, pragmatic and emotionally isolated protagonist, one that doesn't necessarily have the most admirable of qualities but has their right in the right place.
These elements will be showcased in the story mode for Chronicles of Ascerth, which will be hopefully updated at some kind of regular frequency. I've had trouble trying to write full stories before but hopefully I can get into some kind of rhythm for Ascerth to create a more concrete version of the worlds setup by their original creator. But once the story and the main page are fully completed, Stardust's Ghostrealm will be moving to its next production: a reboot of Vyrus, with its main protagonist Volta being rebooted in a similar manner to Kaiden and in order to fit her into the Ghostverse more easily. Vyrus will explore more of the intergalactic conflict first established in Chronicles, with Volta being a cadet for a intergalactic space force that participated in the aforementioned war. This will be the goal of Stardust's Ghostverse content, seeking to congregate different propreties into a more coherent storyline.
I apologize there isn't much new to talk about in regards to Chronicles of Ascerth, but I hope that you take a look at what is currently on the page right now after reading this presentation, feedback would be greatly appreciated as I tackle a project just as ambitious as the original creator's plans for the whole original Ghostrealm.
 
The Citadel's New Legacy
There's a lot of scattershot ideas that comes to my mind when I think about creating new projects and I decided that it would be more productive to create a platform that would allow me to easily publish these ideas. The result of this thinking process is Heroes of the Citadel, a gacha game in the vein of Fire Emblem Heroes and Granblue Fantasy, that features all new original characters whom share a base of operations known as the Citadel. The players take control of the commander of one of these squads, in charge of training units and preparing them for combat. You will be able to create squads of five as you explore different locations in search of baddies, treasures or to rescue captured heroes.
The gameplay is meant to be more involved than most traditional gachas. It is an role-playing game with randomly generated dungeons and the general objective is to reach the lowest floor of each dungeon. Each character comes with a set of skills and fit in different roles, thus creating different playstyles depending of which party set-up you choose. Additionally, characters have elemental affinities - allowing them to follow up with an attack of their own if the player previously used an attack of the same elemental affinity.
Heroes of the Citadel is meant to be a way to share new character ideas and to test their potential to be protagonists of their own adventures. As such, each hero you acquire will be different from one another, each coming from a different background and setting. Here's a few couple of examples:
:Vulcan - A pyrokinetic who specializes in forging weapons and armors. He is accompained by a giant piece of armor that is not fit for any traditional humans, in fact, the armor is how Vulcan fends off against his foes. With a series of different machinations, Vulcan is able to manipulate flames to control each part of the armor like a marionette.
:Fungal - A mushroom-like entity that has a parastic relationship with a human girl, turning her body green and giving her a giant mushroom cap. Despite this parastic relation, the two co-operate with the human girl being capable of utilizing the entity's ability to create spores and manipulate nature, by creating roots and vines for many different purposes.
:Kalyna - A witch-in-training who wants to utilize her knowledge to solve mysteries around her town, with her goal of being the first witch detective. As such, she has learned spells that allows her to gain glimpses of others thoughts as well as to be able to trace senses such as smell and sight.
This is just a small semple of the characters of Heroes of the Citadel, with more hopefully coming by the time of the article's creation. While this idea may seem a bit orthodox, I hope you enjoyed what you've seen of it so far. Fun fact, this is a reboot of a previous attempt at a gacha game that I tried making before, that one was called Stardust Heroes.
A Clash of All-Stars
Another reboot of a previously attempted idea, Capcom's Versus Universe is a crossover fighting game between many different Capcom propreties, as the title probably already implies. This is a project that has been sitting in my sandbox for a while and this is the first... "official"? reveal of it. Capcom has a large library of original projects and this game will hopefully cover a lot that the company has to offer.
Different Capcom franchises will be represented in the game as "Universes". Each of these Universes will come with their own story mode, so for example if you have a character from the Street Fighter universe, they will be playable in the Street Fighter universe's story mode. Basically, you don't play on a character's story mode but rather a story mode that involves all characters from the same universe. Each story involves a small piece of a larger narrative and by the time the player completes each universe's story, they unlock the Final Universe, where they come in conflict against the game's main antagonist, which for now will be a surprise.
The base roster of Capcom's Versus Universe will feature a roster of thirty characters. Here's how that roster looks like:
Although the number of characters may seem a bit odd, the goal is to start off with a smaller, more focused cast of characters that covers most of Capcom's hard hitters and more of the cult classics. There will be more additional characters coming after the base roster is completed, some from already existing universes in the game, some new ones too and hey, maybe even some guest universes. Some of the more out-there choices will probably come as additional characters later down the line.
Each playable character is being designed as if they are the "Greatest Hits" version of each character, so they possess a majority of the abilities of their most popular games but that doesn't mean there won't be surprises. For example, for the first time, Ryu can transform into Evil Ryu during combat, exchanging defensive capabilities for pure strength and giving him an additional set of abilities. Such mechanics are being thought upon for each character, to allow them to have recognizable abilities but also have unique twists of their own.
A feature of Capcom's Versus Universe is the return of the Assist Character from Marvel vs. Capcom 1. Like Infinite, matches are 2v2 but each player gets an option for an additional assist character that can be summoned during the battle with a command input. Each character possess an unique skill they perform once they are summoned for combat and the different combinations of teams and assists allows for different strategies and combinations. Additionally, these assists are used to represent characters that wouldn't normally appear in the game as a playable character. Some of these assist characters include: Sean from Street Fighter III, Elec Man from Mega Man and V from Devil May Cry 5.
The game will follow on a similar model from Street Fighter V, with additional characters and content coming in seasons and them being able to be purchased with in-game currency instead of real life currency. I am a big fan of Capcom's IPs and I hope to do them justice in this project.
Universal Conflict
Originally for this section, I was gonna reveal a Fantendo fighting game but one that was more in the style of Guilty Gear than in Smash, but I saw others planning to reveal their own Fantendo crossovers and there's already Erictom's Fantendo Smash Bros. Combat, which is a good article that you should check out, so I decided at basically the last minute to shelve it and replace it with another project. The reason I'm putting this here is in case that you find this idea interesting and want to see it anyway, I could change my mind on said project.
Anyway. If Heroes of the Citadel is a project where I put the original stuff that I don't know how to fit into smaller little projects, Vicious Vypers is the same but for existing stuff. This is a little more self-indugent project, as it tends to be with umbrella games but hey, it's good to have a project that is exactly a place where I put my favorite toys in. Vicious Vypers is another one of the reboot projects and it won't be the last.
Vicious Vypers is a 3D arena fighter based on an incredibly fake rumor for a PlayStation All-Stars Battle Royale sequel. The game has a third-person perspective and every character has a playstyle that fits the mold of a behind-the-shoulder perspective. The players will be able to lock onto a single opponent and focus on the conflict or choose to free-roam the area instead, for power-ups, items or secrets to give an additional advantage.
These arenas will feature events through out, something similar to Kirby Air Ride's City Trial where the focus of the battle will shift focus from the conflict between players to a different objective, such as a boss fight or to activate a series of triggers to prevent a disaster from striking the arena.
Like other umbrellas, the roster will feature a big variation of characters from a lot of different series. If you know me, you will know what to expect but hopefully I will throw in some curveballs to make the roster more interesting and make it less similar from my previous attempts. This is more of a stress relief project, something I update whenever I just want to gush or think about how cool it would be to put something in this 3D arena brawler envoirnment.
Freedom Fighters
I'm gonna be honest, I decided to reboot this project because I recently rediscovered Infinite's Theme and that slaps. Sonic Forces is a game that had a lot of missed potential and it is something that I've been meaning to give my own take on for sometime and now is the time. This project is now called Sonic Forces V, for no other reason than my username starts with a V.
Sonic Forces V has a similar premise to its original counterpart, with Eggman being successful in defeating Sonic and taking over the world. Now, the remaining cast has to defend themselves from Eggman's onslaught and his newest ally: the mysterious Infinite. Unlike Forces, Sonic won't be playable until the mid-point of the game - instead the focus will be on the resistance who take on the name Freedom Fighters, like in the Archie's Sonic the Hedgehog comics.
The traditional zone structure is replaced with a world map where the player can choose where to go next and with which character. The characters that were previously NPCs in Sonic Forces, such as Tails, Knuckles, Amy, etc. are now fully playable characters that the player can choose from, as well as their own player created character. Classic Sonic is relegated to a unlockable character and no longer has an involvement with the story.
Each character has one of three classes, similar to Sonic Heroes. Speed characters specialize in movement and have weaker attacks, Flight characters have better vertical movement and rely on projectiles for attacks and Power characters are the slowest but are the best suited for combat. Each class goes through a different path in each zone, allowing for more replayability for each level. Each location in the game is divided into six areas and each area has a number of zones and an Egg Boss, a commander of Eggman's forces for each area. As the player frees each zone from Eggman's control, they eventually come in conflict with the Egg Boss and upon their eventual defeat, the area is fully liberated.
Similar to Sonic CD, the player is able to revisit areas after they were liberated. These zones are easier than they were when Eggman was in control and these revisits can be utilized to acquire coins, that can be utilized in the game's Item Shop, allowing players to buy temporary power-ups for their next area. Additionally, they can purchase upgrades. The upgrades are divided into the three characters classes, so that every character in that class gets that upgrade.
That's all for now in regards of Sonic Forces V. If this ends up well recieved once the article is finished, I might take a shot at doing my own take on other games. *cough*detroit become human*cough*
One More Attempt
I've tried doing a lot of Smash projects over the years and here's me trying another one! This will be a brief one because Smash isn't really a complicated thing to explain, by this point you probably know Smash like you know the back of your hand. There's not a lot yet to my take of Smash but I want to share some ideas for the singleplayer campaign of Project Smash.
One of my previous Smash games featured a character called the Dragon Royal, a player-made character that would serve as the main protagonist for the game's story mode, being a reference to the original name for Smash 64: Dragon King. This character would be able to have a fully customizable moveset and appearance, allowing the player to create character that more fits their playstyle.
The story mode of Project Smash would play differently from the traditional Smash gameplay and it instead it would be more of a traditional RPG experience, with the players being able to traverse an overworld known as the Convergence, named that because different Nintendo universes got mixed up together. The players would be able to interact with other members of the cast, NPCs, accept side-quests and the sort, and then move on to the next area.
Enemy encounters would be played in the traditional Smash gameplay style. Each character the player acquires starts out at Level 1 and only has the most basic of attacks available to them, but as they level up, they eventually gain their special attacks. Like in Pokémon, everyone in your party gains a portion of EXP upon winning a battle, so you don't have to worry about your characters staying behind in terms of levelling.
Additionally, you also have access to a level up tree. Everytime you gain a level, you gain an Ability Coin and you can put them in the level up tree, allowing you to choose whatever upgrade, attack or ability you want for your character to have. Say if instead of wanting to have Mario's Fireball, you could pursue the branch of Mario's level tree that unlocks the Iceball instead or even both if you have enough ability coins. The degree of customization and abilities is left to the player to decide.
Every place the player goes through has an unique boss fight to be fought at the end, being a representation of the two universes that were combined to create that area. The area's combinations are decided upon a common factor of two different series, for example Persona and Splatoon have a shared universe thanks to their commonalities in being series that takes place in a large, Japan-esque setting and predominantly features teenagers.
That's all I have to share for Project Smash and honestly I was thinking to spin this project as a standalone singleplayer game instead of being another Smash game with an intricate singleplayer campaign. Nothing's set in stone yet but I hope you liked what you saw.
Ashes to Ashes
Eternika was probably the first original project that I made here and man I've tried a lot of times making it time and time again. There's a lot about the project that I kept being unsatisfied about and it ended with me deleting the original article. This time, I want to make a definitive version of the project, one that combines the half-formed ideas I had over the years into a single package instead of trying to spin out into four different projects. So here we go, here's the definitive version of probably my most infamous project on this website.
If you never heard about Eternika before let me explain to you what it is about: In a world that once used to be full of magical creatures, an ancient being is released during an archelogical search - a creature with primal instincts to destroy everything in its path. The beast was once defeated by a group warriors who were all blessed with a latent power within them during the aftermath, this power would pass down their descendants and when great trouble arised, their descendants would be able to use those powers, should they be considered worthy to do as such.
The modern day descendants of these warriors are transported into a pocket dimension created by the deities that gave those latent powers. There, they are challenged by their own fears and tested by the gods to see if they are worth of utilizing these latent powers. Those who prove their worth are released from the dimension to face the ancient beast and save the world from destruction.
Previous incarnations of Eternika were traditional 2D fighting games but this time, the game will be instead a stylish action game in the vein of Devil May Cry and Bayonetta with a sidemode fighting game. This is in order to spice up my project output, since I have a lot of fighting games. Plus, the story set-up is more fitting for a singleplayer game than a fighting game, that tends to have a more broad setup to justify its characters fighting.
Rise from the Ashes has three playable characters: 
:Hinata von Brandt, better known by her birth name Hama. A member of a species known as Draconians, shapeshifters who have the body of a dragon who can easily morph into a human one. She believes to be the sole survivor of her kind, who were wiped out during the war with their aquatic rivals, the Clepsydrians. Living in hiding, she became an assassin for hire after being taught by an elder Japanese samurai known as Hinata, whom she took the name from after his passing.
:Lynna Mercury, a British rockstar with an interest in the occult. After incessantly looking for a real supernatural creature, she came across a real demon summoning book that brought Thellia to the human world. Bound to their summoner, Thellia goes instead their mission of torturing those who ask too much and instead seeks to answer why demons must be antagonistic towards human, developing a bond with Lynna as both discover more about the world and themselves.
:Mihaela Eleanor, a cyborg police officer. Mihaela was created as a robot that could take on dangerous police tasks with better judgement and removing unnecessary deaths. Despite being a robot, her creator Archil Eleanor considers Mihaela to be his daughter. Archil serves as Mihaela's command control and assists her on directions and where to go next. Mihaela struggles with her expanding conciousness, as each day she gradually gains more human conciousness, which confuses Archil to no end but he fullfills his parental role by answering the questions Mihaela has.
Each character has their own different playstyles. Hinata is a half-dragon assassin, being able to morph her body parts into draconic parts for extra damage, she's capable of forging weapons made out of flames, as she is immune to her own flames. This allows her to create a set of temporary weapons for whatever situation she needs, such as Flame Grenades, a series of fireballs with delayed explosions, which allows her to setup situations where she can followup with additional attacks. As an assassin, Hinata is capable of defeating opponents should they be unaware of her existence.
Lynna is the weakest of the three and she mainly fights by strumming her guitar and giving out instructions to Thellia. Thellia is the fastest of all the characters and this allows Lynna to make Thellia warp instantly towards another enemy that might be closer to her. Lynna additionally gains other instruments that allows her to summon other demons to fight for her, with each of them giving her an additional edge in combat.
Mihaela can dish out a lot of damage at once, but her attacks tend to be weak. She's the fastest (outside of Thellia) of the three playable characters, able to dash out of combat and slow down her own perception of time to dodge incoming enemy attacks or even slow down enemies themselves. She can morph her robotic limps into weapons, with the left arm being reserved for melee weaons and the right one being reserved for guns. She starts out with an electric baton and a pistol and eventually gains more options as the game progresses.
This take on Eternika is a tad drastic from the previous installments and it is more to give the game a more focused experience than the originals that were all over the places with characters, settings and storylines. That is not saying that everything from the original games will be scratched, but they will be readapted to fit this new mold. Think of Rise of the Ashes as the Chronicles of Ascerth version of Eternika.
And that's all I have to present. Sorry for this abrupt ending, I really didn't preplanned this presentation as I should've. Thanks for reading!
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