Version 0.93 March 2026

=NEW GRAPHICS!

-All four members of the main party have unique sprites in battles, drawn and animated by my own hand!

As a bonus, I'm also releasing the SV spritesheets of Raleno, Regen, Rena, and Rock as premium downloads in the Paragon-R folder, just in case you might want to include them for your own projects!

-Battles now have a new typeface for damage numbers, including notifications for weaknesses.

-Certain battle backgrounds have gotten a visual upgrade to match their environments more closely, courtesy of some new backgrounds provided by Robert Pinero:

https://robertpinero.itch.io/rpg-battle-backgrounds

The graphics aren't the only thing to get a new coat of paint, however...

=NEW AREAS!

-At long last, Act 2 kicks off with the introduction of Noaveil Desert! After clearing Zephyra Coast, Raleno and his friends are tasked with exploring both the harsh, windy sands of the surface and the strange maze-like passages underground, all in search of a certain artifact...

-From the beginning of Act 2 onward, you can now challenge both Yggdraline and Leviathan to special Trial rematches at any time. Are you prepared to handle their new skills?

-The Hall of Transference has gotten a unique redesign, now featuring specific portals to the various places on Mystiel instead of one where you choose from a menu. More interactivity never hurts!

-Granta Cave and Zephyra Coast have been expanded and redesigned with brand-new areas!

-Granta Cave now has new sections which introduce you to both combat and the Smart Jump mechanic, teaching the player how to make use of their abilities (and also to add a bit of explanation as to why Raleno can't just fly anywhere he wants).

-Zephyra Coast has had a redesign to move the Understream's entrance to a newly added section of the beach: Zephyra Cove, which is where you'll also get to experience a new encounter with Rock and the Crimzon Pirates!

-Zephyra Understream itself has been redesigned to remove some of the more unnecessary pathways, cutting down on travel time and searching for all three Siren Guards. Rock's recruitment scene has been moved from here to Zephyra Cove as mentioned above.

=NEW SKILLS!

Everyone's been doing a bit of training in the downtime between updates, and have now gotten the hang of a set of new Skills...

-In the same vein as his Wind-elemental skill chain of Ventus Circlet, Exalted Tempest, and Regna Storm, Raleno now has a new Water-elemental skill chain: Dolphin Slash, Crescent Cross, and Majestic Tide! His evasion rate has also been buffed slightly from 20% to 25%.

-Regen's learned a few new skills to aid in his role as the party's debuffer/tank: Eruption Wave, which can remove defensive states such as Steelskin and Counter (more on those later), and Gigan Crash, an Overdrive-only attack skill that deals damage to all enemies based on Regen's current HP!

-Rena's expanded her Magician's Fist skill somewhat; her advanced elemental attacks such as Firaga Blast and Aeroga Pulse can now be used both individually and as part of the Active Chain skillset!

-Rock's added quite a few new abilities to take advantage of inflicting status ailments, such as Holotrick Projector to hit enemies with Illusion and Soundwave Disruptor to confuse them!

=NEW BATTLE MECHANICS!

-Many enemies now have one or two different types of weaknesses: Elemental and Impact!

Impact weakness is based on the type of weapon used to attack enemies; Raleno and Regen deal Slash damage, Rena deals Strike damage, and Rock deals Shot damage.

In most cases, hitting an enemy with its Impact weakness will deal 1.2 times the damage.

Elemental weaknesses are based on, well, the Element used against them; Wind, Fire, Ice, Thunder, Water, Earth, Light, and Darkness.

In most cases, hitting an enemy's Elemental weakness will deal anywhere from 1.5 to even double the damage!

-To cut down on constant LP recharges, Rena and Rock now naturally gain more LP with their regular attacks, making it much easier to wield Rena's chains or Rock's aresenal efficiently.

To further cut down on constantly having to charge their LP gauges with Photon Charge and Magician's Fist* respectively, Rock and Rena (and ONLY those two) now have the "Preserve TP" flag, meaning they now start battles with whatever LP they ended the last one with. This also means Limit Charges can be used on them outside of battle to much greater effect!

*(By the way, here's a cool little exploit: When using Magician's Fist on an empty LP gauge, there's a VERY brief input window between when the gauge fills and when the animation ends, allowing you to input a direction and start a chain immediately afterward. Try mashing the directional buttons during Magician's Fist to see if you can pull it off!)

=NEW QUALITY OF LIFE!

-All characters have had their starting levels re-adjusted; they now start/join the party at levels relative to the difficulty of the areas you find them.

(TL;DR, Raleno and Regen now start at level 5, Rena at level 10, and Rock at level 20)

-Certain items and attacks that either inflict status effects on enemies (Such as Stun Buster or Holotrick Projector) or grant special states to allies (Like Shining Wings and Overdrive Surge) now have tooltip windows that describe their effects.

-Enemies that once had the Counter status effect (Such as Sahagins and their Rough Skin) have now had those effects replaced, to avoid repeatedly getting Countered to death when there's no other way to avoid it (For example, Rough Skin has been replaced with Tough Skin, nullifying elemental weaknesses).

-Since there's no real need to switch anyone around or change positions, The Row/Formation options have been removed from the menu screen.

This may change in a far-off update...

=NEW BUGFIXES (from Version 0.9)!

-Currently, the Jump Markers Option in the Menu is OFF by default. If this is your first time playing, I recommend going into the Options menu on the title screen and turning it back on. Future updates will have the Jump Markers ON by default.

-Adjusted a few plugins regarding Selection Control for items and skills, meaning items and skills meant for allies will now ONLY target allies, and items and skills meant for enemies will now ONLY target enemies. No more friendly fire/healing enemy incidents due to misclicks!

-The south exit from Deep Verda Forest back to the first area actually brought you to the original beta version. The exit will now properly take you back to the current version instead.

-Also fixed a few other pathfinding errors when moving between maps. Always keep in mind, though, if you're ever stuck somewhere you shouldn't be, the Sky Beacon will get you out!

-Fixed an issue where some of Regen's skills were able to be used in the menu, leading to wasted SP.

-Tweaking dialogue to fix typos and naming errors.

-The Credits menu on the title screen has been updated with all the names and providers of assets, along with links to their relevant websites.

It's got its own icon now, too!

Seeing as this is my first public release of an RPG Maker game, I should also disclaim that there may still be a few bugs or graphical oversights our playtesting may have missed. If you come across any, feel free to inform me about those too!