modern setting, at the start anyway
set at the start of the second age of magic, when all manners of monster and magical entity's return to the earth. you would play a girl who has the 'honor' of being one of the lucky humans you 'suddenly' gain magical powers
(less sudden then it sounds it'd be explained some time later the humans who got magical power where descended from ether humans with said ability's, or a cross breed with a magical being of some sort) who decides to hit the road
in order to explore her new ability's. and the games main story would pretty much center around her and what amounts to a quest for power that's more exploratory then evil in nature. no rebellion to take part in, no world ending cataclysm to stop, just you, a rapidly changing world and getting a grip on your place in it.
the side quests however, would function differently, they would be on an unseen timer that starts when you collect it. the quests would change depending on how long it takes you to complete or even get around to it. for instance say you've been enlisted to deal with a demon summoning cult. if you get right on it, you'd only have the cultists and a handful of weaker demons, say you stick it on the back burner cause your in the middle of another quest and come back a few hours later, now you might have to deal with more powerful demons, and cultists and in greater number, and say you just forget you have it, and come back WAY later, well, now you have to not only clear the cultists lair of demons(which would be infested with very powerful demons), but the town that you got the quest from as well. every side quest
would have this function, since its a natural progression kinda thing, but you'd easily be able to tell what quests would have to take priority.
dungeons/caves/towns/anywhere but the world map, would fallow after the Valkyrie profile series, IE 2D plain, with several layers to explore, and graphically would look similar to Odin Sphere, or Muramasa: The Demon Blade. combat would fallow more after Xenogears, with a stamina bar and normal attack combos, with the addition of being able to throw a
spell in the middle (if you have the feat for it) and this would result in there being lots of hidden combos to find. (which would be compiled into a list to make finding them easier if you did one on accident) leveling up would have you staring down skill trees and setting stats your self, for all party member's, every body would have a set 'class' but enough options in those classes to support numerous different builds, with the main character being the only one with no set 'race', you'd have to pick what kinda thing she's descended from fairly early on, but not right when you roll her.
moral choice would exist, but would more or less tie to the side quest timer, IE the longer you take to do things the less people will like you, and there will be plenty of reason to procrastinate, dungeons would be all over the map, opening up as you progress through the game, or find a map detailing locations, most tied to side quests but many more just there to explore and pillage for loot and EXP. which leads to 'power creep' enemy's would level up with but have a max level, (meaning a level 1 enemy would have a level cap of 6 or so) this is so there's still some challenge, but your still making real progress as you level up.
old idea from a prior thread, still like it, still think its a grand idea, and still would like Vanillaware to handle the art, though, under my supervision
