Really dynamic gameplay, and not something I think I would find in an MZ game (in a good way!). That said, things feel a little TOO frantic. I couldn't get past the second stage boss, and when I played the arcade mode I was able to nearly defeat the 3rd easily (a few more tires and I would have gotten it). The difficulty ramp is very VERY steep. Perhaps TOO steep. Also, I feel that with the engine it might be able to handle the multiple precise inputs for a game like this, so with things going as fast as they were, I was reacting, but getting hit with something else, like a random projectile that came out of nowhere.

Suggestion: It doesn’t have to be so frantic, and it can still SEEM like it is, especially with damage taken stun locking the character. Give them invulnerability frames. Also, definitely tone down the difficulty. While it’s a boss rush mode, that second boss was NO JOKE.

Right off the bat this kind of looks like a Unity game, decent music and customized splash/title screen. Not a bad first 30 seconds.

I love that you let the player rebind their keys and you even give the option for the gamepad. Very cool!

Quick note for your tutorial mode, even if you select controller it gives you the information for keyboard commands only. The tutorial should reflect which mode the control scheme is set in, or just add both controls to the text pop ups.

Valiesk stage(one) doesn't appear to have any risk/challenge. You just hit the floating thing without taking any damage. Not sure if that was intentional, Maybe have it shoot a projectile every now and then.

The charged up special move looks cool and all but it doesn't really seem to do much damage.

The green spike things on the terrain that damage the player are VERY hard to see. Make them less transparent and more obvious that a collide-able object is on the screen and about to hit the player. It took me getting hit by it like ten time to even realize what was hitting me. I think it would be less frustrating if it was telegraphed better and making it not blend into the background soo much. They fly by sooooooooo fast, that it's almost impossible to react in time to dodge them unless you're a 13 year old Korean Star Craft Master.

I don't know if you can beat your own game, but it would be impressive to see someone beat this. It's unfair at times. You get hit by the green see-through spikes that blend into the background which triggers a 'knockback' phase and before you can even recover you get hit by another one then another one. I mean did DJ Khalid help you make this game? "Another one!" "Another one!" There were times when I was hit four times in a row by that and no matter what I did (except by dodging the first one) I was stun locked. 

Here's the thing, that last section IS THE EASY PART! Phase two of this boss has a cluster bomb move that you have to doge while at the same time staying on a platform and if you fall off into the green lava you explode. It's hard enough to try to dodge and stay on a platform, how are you supposed to deal damage at all? The monster stays out of reach in the top right of the screen mostly. This is truly a painful experience. 

I like what you've tried to do here and there's a lot that you've got right here, so let's get that out of the way. However you went from stage one with absolutely NO challenge, into stage two, which is insanely challenging. I think you have to find a middle ground and ramp up the difficulty slowly. It really missed the mark.

The controls are not terrible, but they're not as good as you would want them to be in a game like this. It's impressive to make any type of game like this in RPG Maker and for RPG Maker it may control well, but the casual player won't care at all that it was made in RPG Maker and will hold you to the same industry standards compared to games made with other engines. Resulting in what some people would say are 'bad controls.' 

If you entered into this competition to test yourself and see what you could do with this engine with no intentions of winning then I can understand it's a personal challenge to see how far you could push an engine designed to show text and run turn based combat, however you're using an RPG Maker engine to make a platformer game which is like going to a Steakhouse and ordering the pizza. :)

At the end of the day you have to ask yourself "Is the gameplay fun?", and I'm going to have to say that it's not. It's grueling and unfair. I think you've done something impressive and even taking on a task like this deserves some props. I think you made a 'cool' game, but not a 'fun' one. I really like what you tried to do, but you have to playtest your game more. You want to include as many people as possible and the harder your game jam entry is, the less people will stick with it. It's better to be on the easy side for a game jam. I bet most people who play this game don't even see all the stages. They get to stage two and give up, because it's too hard for the majority of people. 

Good job submitting a project to this game jam and I look forward to seeing what you put out in the future. I like your style, but keep difficulty in mind for the next one. I'm sure that you've honed your abilities in this game making process. Keep up the good work! :)

Good day, Syphyous!

I have played this game and here are some of my feedbacks:

• Congratulations on bringing the game engine to the next level!
• Arcade and 80s vibes with easy to learn controls.
• Gameplay can be improved especially on the response time.
• Interesting art styles and graphics.
• Music and sounds were nice but I had to lower the volume.
• I really wish I had a very creative mind like you!

Forced fullscreen wasn't that fun. The spider boss was just needlessly difficult. If you are on the right side of the screen, you can attack backwards, but have no time to react to the pillars.

You can end up hitting a pillar just due to bad luck if you are trying to kill the enemies or if you get an unexpected pillar popping up. Didn't see any way to break the pillars.

The platforming part was a bit of a pain after the pillar phase. Not much time to react to the fireballs jumping out of the pool.

You can only attack forward and can never attack/face backwards even if enemies are behind you. This was kind of annoying.

Felt like this game was designed for a gamepad, not a keyboard.

Other than that, it was smooth. I just think you should have ramped up the difficulty gradually, not spiked the difficulty.

So kudos out of the way first, this is probably the most impressive use of the RPGmaker I've ever seen. Not only does it look superb, but the controls are nearly flawless. Most sidescroller/platformers made in rpgmaker feel very janky. I have no idea how you made this feel so smooth. Stellar work.

However, as others have mentioned, it's brutally difficult. Figuring out the key to damaging the boss in each phase take a bit to work out. I made it to the 3rd phase of the spider boss, but never figured out how to damage it. And it took a while each time to get back to that (if I even made it), so it eventually became frustrating enough that I decided to stop. I don't mind a challenge, but having to replay all the phases just to try to guess how to hurt the third one was a bit of burn out.

I think adding some way to restore health along the way would help a lot. Maybe just some healing item that pops up on screen from time to time and gives the player something else to jump at. Perhaps tone down some of the damage of the environmental hazards too (especially the purple bubbles, which wrecked me a lot).  And give a few clearer clues to what hurts the boss (breaking the web string was a very good example of an intuitive damage mechanic).

That said, this game is so great that I'm sure I'll have the itch to go back and try some more (I'm already thinking about it). I'm completely amazed at what you've produced here, especially since you say you did it with just eventing!

Edit: finally got the first impression video of me playing this uploaded, should you want to see precisely how I struggled: https://youtu.be/s50C5GXeQl4?t=3287

In terms of looks, this is amazing!  It's crazy to think it's even possible to do all this without plugins, but I suppose that someone with enough scripting knowledge could pull off practically anything.

I didn't make it very far as I'm not very good at platformers, but I didn't see any reference to stars, either literally or figuratively.    Perhaps it's later in the game?

The visuals are really amazing and polished! I love it so much! It's hard to believe you made this on RPG Maker because it doesn't feel like a typical RPG Maker game. Some feedback:

• Hazards and attacks don't feel consistent because some things damage you while others don't. Btw, the hazard in the second boss fight was unfair. I felt that it moved too fast for me to avoid it.
• The controls are hard to get used to. I don't normally play games that use Up to jump. I think you could benefit from having an input displayed on the screen
• I couldn't beat the second boss and the control issue kept me from trying. It felt like I was spamming buttons hoping for something to work

Great job with the game! I hope you continue to develop it with platform levels in addition to the boss fights.

I love the concept of this, it's pretty insane what you where able to pull off! and Full controller support as well. Few things

1. I think the First Proper boss is a little TOO hard, It was pretty hellish, It took me a bit to figure out how to damage it, and trying to keep track of the small adds, as well as dodge the Way too fast spikes was frustrating, then to be trolled into a Phase 2 when I have no health what so ever was a bit much. So maybe tweaking it down would be a bit better, or swapping it in for a more boss with a bit more ease, that or cut Phase 2 all together.

2. I know Boss 1 is suppose to be a damage sponge to get use to the controls, but giving it an attack or two would help teach the player to dodge and such.

3. This is an absolute Flex, and I love it! Keep it up! Might want to add a Quit option to the Stylish Menu.

That's it, Would love to see this Balanced and expanded upon. Insane you where able to do this in RPG Maker MZ, you guys took that Challenge and ran with it!