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Wow, that's awesome to hear! Glad my post was good for something! Generally I considered bosses with multiple enemies harder than single bosses unless they were very fast (Horror, the boss giving one of the Golden Keys in the last dungeon, was really tough for a single-target boss and gave me way more trouble than Nash or Baramon, though of course he also went down faster). The trolls and Azatel were so hard because one of them had a powerful hit-all magic and the minions can then often kill characters before Doren has a chance to heal. Both the vampire minions and the trolls have powerful single-target skills, so that and a hit-all magic usually managed to kill my characters. On top of that, my single-target strategy (bleed, expose, silence, mark) doesn't work well on multiple targets. I only finally beat the trolls when I got lucky with Seri's hit-all magic since they can be stunned. The Star Witch was so easy because not only did she use single-target spells most of the time, she also is so slow that Doren can comfortably heal off a multitarget spell, too. The vampire bounty with her spiders has a better chance to kill at least one character because again, multi-target-boss and if they all end up attacking the same character it can be problematic (especially if it's Doren and he goes down and I have to revive him and then spend another turn when I get attacked until he can heal again). It's also the reason why Zi'am was harder than Maranda since he had those orbs first. But really, Maranda was just a pushover since she never even used anything that hit super-hard against me. I think I had her in her "easy" first form for much longer than in her second form. =/

Then again, it might have been luck or my stat distribution.

Being able to silence Baramon was still funny, though. He's the last boss and so many other bosses resisted Silence!

I think one of the bosses who had really big potential was the Sky Guardian (was that the name? The last boss in Holy Land). Granted, the boss chickens had already been so much of an annoyance that I was happy the thing died quickly, but its gimmick was that poison effect thing which couldn't be removed. But thanks to bleed, the boss died like one round after applying the poison for the first time. It was actually a bit sad I never got to experience the gimmick more but then again, it also wasn't an easy battle so I was happy it was over.

I also found the mimic enemy in the orchard quest impossible with only Lita and Adrian (full stun immediately and permanently until they died thanks to the earth spell of that thing getting repeated over and over). Seri cleared it quickly later, though, and I dunno what level it was intended to be for.

The smugglers were also really tough! I had trouble even with a full party (I took them on after getting a full party for the first time, even though I had already looted their chests while the stone curse was there). So yeah, the bounties and extra quests were all over the place. The Spirit (Seremai side quest) was another of those easy bosses; I was three levels under recommendation and wrecked that thing.

Thumbs up for being able to actually get the autograph from the smuggler bounty boss, though! I kept it in my inventory all the time until the item loss bug took it from me because I found that hilarious! :D

Oh yeah, another thing I forgot to comment on: I was a tiny bit disappointed that Orlian didn't offer even half the sidequests Aloria did because I had really looked forward to more of them. I enjoyed the quests in Aloria a lot - the letter, the apple catching (my favourite quest!), the harvest collection, the errands to the bazaar... all of that was so different and unique and Orlian only had the whole "clear out the spirits by fighting" and "visit the shrine in the Holy Lands" thing. Unless I forgot some. Actually, because of me losing items, I don't think I ever used my cake and possibly bread I bought at the bazaar! Why did I even buy them? Did I miss quests? ...I probably missed them.

Another thing I really liked, by the way, were the little extra conversations Seri and Lita had during Blood Forest and the ruins. For example when Lita climbed into that blood pit to get the Life Potion III. Those were great fun! =D

So, I just beat the game and watched the ending and just wanted to write down my personal impressions I had while playing. I wrote so many bug reports during the last few days that I feel I should write about the overall feel of the game in a separate place. =P I finished the whole thing in four days, which shows how addictive I found it, so that's something!

- I absolutely loved the way the world looked. The towns seemed really "organic" and natural, there are so many RPG Maker - and also professional - games where the town is just like a big square with the houses lined up in rows. Here everything seemed much more "real". The areas also had so many things to explore and look at! I really enjoyed the feeling that the people of Ara Fell really used every bit of their limited space to fill their floating world with what they needed.

- My favourite character was, by far, Seri. I also was absolutely stunned how very well the game handled her "I am a powerful sorceress"-thing. Normally in games, when you recruit a new character who is apparently super-powerful, I find it hard to believe when said character is then the same level as the little hero from the farm village. But despite being near Lita's level, the way how Seri handles magic so differently, how much Mana she has, how it refills after battle, how her status effects are 100% hit on non-bosses with the single target ones... I totally could believe it. Just because of that. In the end, something as simple as her spells costing more and therefore her having more Mana as well - balancing out again, so it being more an optical thing - completely made her look like the powerful sorceress she is. I really, really liked that! (Especially compared to Adrian, who seriously claimed to have explored the Holy Land before when I arrived there for the first time. Suuuure, Adrian, you handled all those enemies at Level 1 since that was your level when you joined my party! =P Silly guy!)

- Of course I also really enjoyed the storyline and especially the fact that the game actually included the story mode to almost get rid of battles. I've never seen anything like it before and found it a great addition when I checked story mode out for a bit today. I really loved how everything came together at the end (I thought I would never find out why Talani wasn't affected by the stone curse until then). I also loved how the story gave me so many opportunities to explore in between (I looted Castle Atana during the stone curse, haha). The side quests also tied in really, really nicely with the main storyline and besides maybe that really weird "plot" in the Cave of Life (who was that guy?), the whole story was consistent, everything NPCs said mattered in the end, there were no plot holes I can remember and I just had a lot of fun! Meeting Dian at the end was really cool!

- The fighting system in itself was awesome. I liked the HP recovery outside of battle and the MP recovery inside of battle. Buying items was never really necessary, I usually got by with what I found after I got my full party. I also found all skills really well balanced between the party; everyone was needed in their own way.

- My maybe main complaint are the bosses and semi-bosses. While they all were truly unique, the way to beat them was, in the end, pretty much the same (Apply bleed, apply expose, when needed apply Mark, when doable apply silence, then just hit. Bleed alone usually took 50% of the HP of every boss for me). Also the difficulty of the bosses was crazy different. Maranda, for all the hype she got plotwise, was probably the easiest boss in the game for me. Arger, on the other hand - so the very first boss - completely wrecked me since I was unable to get through his shield he put on the pets and I blew through every single item I had while being three levels above the recommended. Then again, maybe it was just my level distribution. Still, after him and Nash (who was also rather difficult) I thought I was in for one hell of a ride, but I wasn't. The difficulty of the bosses was so crazy different. The last boss and the second Nash encounter were easy and just mildly annoying because I had to reapply the status effects with every new form. You knew what the hardest bosses for me were? Azatel (who wrecked me with hit-all magic, I needed like four tries) and - I don't even dare say it - the trolls on the bridge. They weren't even a real boss and yes, I'm talking about the time when I was supposed to fight them. I died nine times. Nine. To a bunch of trolls. The storyline bosses after them? Pushovers. Same with the bounties - I fought the Star Witch and the Vampire Stalker literally right after another since they both become available after defeating the trolls. Given the bounty reward I expected the Star Witch to be horrible, but she was so weak it was unbelieveable. The vampire, however, gave me a pretty good fight, I had to have Lita on revive/heal duty for a few rounds, even. Damn spiders. So yeah, why are a bunch of trolls stronger than the final boss? I dunno. =P Should have hired them!

- The fact that grinding was never really necessary since bosses gave so much exp was really nice! The fact that the monsters therefore also moved so slowly also was. I also enjoyed that leveling up didn't scale much, so exp gain was pretty much even and only coins became more plentiful later. It helped when I wanted to stay in one area for whatever reason.

- Now bear with me, I might be an idiot, but the absolutely worst part was when I was supposed to find Lita's dad in the Hunting Range. I needed 40(!) minutes until I found those three spots I needed to visit. I was so. totally. lost. When running and testing story mode today... I stopped after getting to that point again and being lost for ten minutes again with me unable to find the third spot once more. Keep in mind, I've explored the hunting range enough by now. I still find it one of the most difficult areas to travel through, though (together with the Cave of Life - damn those sprites! - and the Holy Land) because of all the narrow paths and ledges and stuff.

- I will forever wonder if the final form of the final boss (with the consecutive attacks) is beatable. I saw Ice II doing 27 damage, so my guess is "No", but maybe with enough grinding to level 99 (or story mode?) and then applying bleed and defending until the HP run out or something.

- I honestly expected there to be a way to learn Level III skills and was sad when Orlian didn't offer the possibility (unless I'm blind, but I searched town and temple like thrice while looking for a library because an NPC had said something about big libraries in Atana and Orlian). Level II carried me well through the game, but still... the enemy casting higher level spells was sad. =P

- I really hope there will be a sequel - I'd buy it at once! - because otherwise the ending is a bit unsatisfactory. I wanted to see Lita reunited with her family and to see where Doren ends up (probably a new girl altogether, lol). Also the game simply shutting down on me after the credits was a bit sudden, haha. Also I keep wondering now if Talani escaped or got killed.

- I REALLY wanted to read more of Adrian's diary and not just the last entry because I'm horrible like that! =D

There's probably more but I can't think of it right now. Anyway, I am really happy I invested the money to buy this game! I had a TON of fun and even though there's no timer to show me how long I played, I suspect I got around 20-25 hours of gameplay in the end, so well worth it! Thanks so much for making it! <3

Awesome, thank you so much! :D Now I can finish my game! And who knows, I might just do a speedrun to see how quickly it's doable to investigate that "invisible" elf. While waiting for your reply I checked how quickly stuff could be done and I got to looking for LIta's dad in the hunting range (where I'm now stumbling around again since like ten minutes, finding these three spots where the cutscenes occur is like the hardest quest in the game. xD)

Really, it's awesome how helpful you are and how quickly you fix bugs! Thanks so much for the awesome customer service!

Thanks so much! I gotta ask though: Was it really needed that my characters all got set back to level 1 and got their starting equipment put back on? Lita now is equipped with "Artifact of Power+1" and has "Artifact of Power+6" in the inventory and I have no way of switching it back since it's bound. Also of course at level 1 everything in the last dungeon one-shots me. If I really need to level up to around 30 again I guess I'll have to do it, but yeah, not my favourite activity.

Dropbox sadly doesn't work well for me, I'm currently stuck on 64kbit/sec internet and have no access to DSL in the region where I live, so Dropbox - which I once used - is not very ideal for me right now.

Stuff I can say for the flying error even though it's probably unrelated: I play in windowed mode. When the previous game session has been closed via the x in the corner (so not with a crash), I can be 90% sure the first grass circle in the next gaming session WILL crash my game.

Hm, running a story mode run and skipping all cutscenes SHOULD make another run to the last dungeon doable in an okay amount of time, but given how much I played in the last three days (showing by how I basically am at the end of the game), I don't really feel like doing it just for the elf. :P Though I do have to admit I'm intrigued if it would happen to me again, haha.

Thank you so much for responding to everything!

About index -1 errors:

What I noticed is that it's very likely that it happens if it's the first time I'm doing it during my game session and the last game session wasn't shut down because of the error. Which sounds weird, but that's really how it is. If the game shut down because of the error, I can be basically sure that it won't happen again when I start the game once more and use the same circle again right away then. Also if it works, I can be sure that every other grass circle on the same map will work fine as well until I switch screens. If during a gaming session I successfully used grass circles on any map before, the chance of the crash happening during the same session on any other map seems to be very low as well, but it happened before. But generally, the first grass circle during each game session when the game session before has been ended normally and not with a crash by this error is the "dangerous one".

About the game lockup:

I remember Lita saying something along the lines of "Everyone, we need to talk", everyone else stepped closer to her but then Lita never talked. I believe it was the first thing she said when she came down the stairs after her father went to sleep.

About the last dungeon:

The elf was invisible. Absolutely, totally invisible. I know that for sure because I checked literally everything in that room when I discovered that I could get a "all you can see behind the gate is a pile of rubble" (or something like that) message when I checked the cracked gate and I was desperately looking for clues where the elf could be. I wanted to see if I could check out the other gates and blocked places in the room and for the first time went above the pond and literally bumped into the elf who appeared right that second.

I tried uploading my save file, I hope this works, I never needed to upload anything like that before so I had to google a random website to host stuff like that: Link

I think (not sure) I saved on the screen south of the dragon encounter (which is finished and over); that way you can also see how the message about the Point of No Return keeps popping up there for no reason when I try to switch screens.

Also, since you just said something about items disappearing: That happened to me today before, I had totally forgotten to report that as well over my shock of losing my gold key. It must have happened somewhere in the Holy Land, I believe; I found a Magic Elixir in a chest and when I wanted to use an item in battle I suddenly only had that Elixir and all other healing items were gone! I normally really rarely use items, though, so I might have lost them much earlier and only noticed then. At first I didn't even think much about it since I thought it was actually a plot thing (like the fairy teleporting me but leaving my items behind) and only later noticed they were all gone for good. But yeah, I had been swimming in money so much that I didn't even really care.

(EDIT: Unless you lose all stuff except for the healing items when you enter the last dungeon, the item loss actually affected my whole stuff, not just the healing items and/or gold key. I just checked. I usually sell my unneeded equipment, but there had been things I've kept - like the Ring from the Well+3 since I still hadn't decided if I should give it to the NPC or not. My inventory is VERY empty - I check that thing so rarely - I don't even have my crafting stuff anymore except for an Essence I probably got from a boss encounter. Maybe I lost much more than just my gold key, uggh. I suppose it's okay, but still. Maybe that's also the reason for the small bug I mentioned below, about the quest person in hunting range giving me her quest again. Maybe I literally lose the quest since it's stored in my inventory.)

Thank you so much for helping me out so quickly! As for when I downloaded my version, that was Monday the 6th on 3:30am German time (it's 5am on the 9th right now here.).

More Bugs:

Also another, super-small bug: Once I've done the quest for the old man wanting to see the elven shrine in the Holy Land and he gave me my reward, he just stands there and doesn't talk to me anymore. Also he was totally gone during the vampire assault and afterwards until I returned from the Holy Land and I had already been scared he wouldn't come back.

Oh, and the person with the bugged hunting quest keeps giving me the quest anew ever so often for a reason. Not that it matters anymore since all my quests have disappeared when I entered the last dungeon (probably intended, even though I can backtrack).

Aaaand another small bug which was weird: After the big cutscene at the beginning of the final dungeon (trying not to write too many spoilers here for people who read this...) when all the NPC allies first come and then retreat, I can go out of the front door of the dungeon for the first time and use the crystal to warp around. But all places are suddenly "stuck", as in the screen doesn't scroll anymore, so I can't move around much. I can still go into doors and all when they are on screen (like in the Bazaar, the upper door to the armory). Things worked again when I progressed a very tiny bit and saw another small cutscene (about Lita sending a certain dwarf back because she wants to handle things alone) and the dungeon began for real. Then the screen scrolling worked everywhere again.

EDIT: More bugs I remembered! There were several sprite errors during the Orlian time. The first time it happened after I had been told in the temple to stay at the Inn for free. When I talked to the Innkeeper, Doren started to talk to her and for some reason, the Innkeeper walked left a step and then faced an empty space while talking. I suspect Doren was supposed to appear when he started talking, but never did. This continued during the next scene when Doren and Seri talked while Lita and Adrian played cards. Durng the whole scene, Seri's sprite was missing. Which was really sad, since it's obviously an important scene. I actually reloaded and watched the scene again because I wanted to see if that fixed matters, but it didn't.

Also after the vampire attack on the temple, when I am supposed to go to the Holy Land and some normal temple NPCs have returned, but the dead NPCs are still around, the nun in the temple basement who was yelling at the man sleeping on the floor is still there, yelling... except that the man sleeping is gone, so she's yelling at no one, lol. After the Holy Land, once the dead bodies disappeared from the temple, the sleeping man was back.

Aaaand... it appears I encountered a game-breaking bug and am stuck for good. Unless I'm dumb. But I don't think I am. Because I can't figure out where things went wrong, I'll describe what I did.

I'm in the last dungeon and had/have to find two gold keys. Because I couldn't figure out the lever puzzle in the left building, I went to the right one first and got a normal key. Didn't see the door because I'm blind, so I took the normal key to the normal lock in the left building and fought the three dragons. The game told me I got a gold key from them, I teleported out and went back to the lever puzzle. I figured it out and freed two elves but couldn't find the third one, so I took a break, saved and closed the game.

I tried again a few hours later and then found the last of the elves being invisible by the pond in the entrance area (another bug?) by helplessly running around and trying to examine things and so got the next normal key, which I took to the building on the right. Unlocked the door, fought Horror, used the grass circle, got the chest with the second golden key.

Except when I went to the door with the golden lock, the game still told me I need two keys. Checking my inventory, it says I only have one. =/ My guess is that I maybe never had the one from the dragons or "lost" it because while looking around for elves I went back to the dragon fighting spot, went to the screen south of it and when I wanted to go up again the game asked me again if I want to save and then proceed even though the dragons were dead. The fight didn't trigger again or anything, there's the teleport spot there and that's that. But yeah, I should have two golden keys but only have one and am therefore 100% stuck and unable to proceed. Reloading didn't help.

Any help? What do I do now?

More bugs:

- I seem to be unable to do anything with the "Vermin" quest in the Hunting Grounds where I am supposed to kill ten groups of enemies. The normal enemies running around aren't the needed type of enemy anymore; they upgraded when I got a full party. Once a group of weak, needed enemies jumped at me out of a bush in a small cutscene and I thought I was supposed to find ten of these encounters now, but when I checked in the item menu again, the quest still said I had killed 0 groups and I couldn't find another encounter like that one, either. Is the quest undoable?

- Very, very often when I want to turn Lita into a spirit at the grass circles, the game crashes with an error message (something about exceeding something at -1). I've lost a ton of progress because of that before, which is sad.

EDIT: The complete error message is "List index has exeeded its valid range (-1)".

- I keep seeing a sprite of a small girl with green hair who seems to be a placeholder or something? The first time I saw her in the Blood Forest Ruins in the screen where you get the melody for your flute. She appeared in the doorway at the very far right after I've gone through the door and then immediately back out. She stood in the doorway and didn't move and I couldn't talk to her. She stayed even after walking in and out of the door (therefore changing screens) a few times. The second time I saw her when I uncursed the statue in the Grand Bazaar. The soldier walked towards the exit, I tried to catch him to talk to him again and above the entrance he suddenly turned into the green-haired girl. Again I couldn't talk to her and just walk through her.

- No clue what was up with that, but the game softlocked on me after defeating Nash and returning to un-cursed Aloria. After visiting her father and walking downstairs, Lita called everyone to talk to them and after that first dialogue box I got nothing more. The new music started and all, but I just didn't get the next textbox. Redoing the whole thing went fine, though.

Now that the game works for me, I stumbled upon a big bug (unless it's intended): In the castle's library, the refund for already-bought skills seems to be wonky. Lita's Multishot I costs 15 coins. If I already have it and buy it again, I get a refund of 250 coins. This is stackable, so I can puchase two at once for 500 coins and so on. It's very easy unlimited money, but kind of game-breaking.

Heya!

Thank you so much for trying to help me! I downloaded the file you sent me, unzipped it and started it, but it just tells me "RPG Maker 2003 not found" in an error message and shuts down.

However, I tried some other things: After confirming that my other RPG maker games were not made with RPG Maker 2003 but other versions, I downloaded a free RPG Maker 2003 game and that game indeed suffers from the same/similiar problems as Ara Fell (besides the Alt key, in that game the z key works as if it's the menu key, but that's all - no arrow keys or anything). Meaning it's a problem on my end and I started checking what it could be.

What I found: When I restart my computer with my mouse and my Internet device (some mobile internet webstick) unplugged and then start the game, it works! :D But as soon as I plug any of the two devices back in, it stops working immediately. Even if I have it open. Having Ara Fell open and plugging the USB-device(s) in also causes my laptop to go into CPU-eating frenzy for a few seconds while normally it doesn't care at all when I plug my mouse or webstick in. When I unplug the USB-device(s) again, the game still remains unresponsive. Meaning that I can play the game - which I am extremely happy about - but I cannot use my internet or my mouse or I will have to reboot to play again. Which is very inconvenient since I'm 100% a person who likes walkthroughs to get every single thing in video games and I also am bad with a touchpad, so both internet and a mouse would be helpful.

Right now I'm happy that the game works and I hope it will continue to do so and that I won't run into the "sticky key" issue on top of the hassle I already have. Thank you very much that you guys look into fixing these issues for good! I would love to not have to reboot my computer every time I want to play. ;) But right now I can work with this and I have a lot of fun exploring Aloria at the moment. :D

Hello, I just signed up here just to purchase and download this game. :) Unfortunately I'm encountering control problems and it's not the kind listed in the ReadMe.

Basically the game starts perfectly fine, but then I'm stuck in the main menu when I want to select to start a new game. The arrow keys don't work at all, the only key which actually does something is, for some reason, the 'alt' key which lets me select the different options, acting like an 'up' key, but there's no way to confirm anything. Besides the 'alt' key, only the keys for resizing the window work (and they do as intended, meaning no strange key remapping there), as is F12. But none of the keys listed in the manual do anything and when I pressed every other letter and number to see if some odd remapping was going on, I found no other key doing anything, either. The game otherwise seems to run normally, music and everything is there.

Thing I checked:

- Followed the troubleshooting problems in the ReadMe despite my problem being a bit different. I restarted my computer = no change. I unplugged every USB device and restarted again (I have no controller of any kind, but a mouse since I'm using a laptop) = no change. I then also disabled my WLAN and restarted again. Again, no luck.

- I changed my language setting of the keyboard back to German (I'm from Germany and had changed it to English because of the y/z switch of the keyboard). Nothing.

- I tested all my other RPG maker games to see if they have the same issues, which would clearly indicate a hardware problem on my end. But they all work fine. I'm not sure with which RPG maker version they were made, though; I think this is the first RPG Maker 2003 game I own.

Things which might be important: My laptop uses Windows 7 Home Premium 32-bit, my graphic card (is it called that in English? I'm sorry, since I'm not a native speaker I really struggle sometimes) is called ATI Mobility Radeon HD 565v. The game is unzipped into a folder on my desktop, but moving it to a different location didn't help. I also tried deleting and unzipping it again, but that also didn't change a thing.

I also noticed that, compared to the Let's Play I watched, the screens in the beginning of the game (the two logos which appear before the main menu appears) disappear for me at a much faster rate, I see each only for a split second.

Any help would be really appreciated! I decided to buy this game after seeing the beginning of a Let's Play on Youtube and it looked so amazing that I decided to buy and experience it myself instead of just watching a Let's Play. So I really hope this problem can be resolved!