For context, I already played the first two "chapters" that were available at the last FBQ.
It seemed like they didn't change that much, so I loaded my old save file and continued chapter 3 to see where the adventures of space-Flora, space-Angel, space-Edwin and the new space-Fabiana are going.
🧚What I liked in this game:
-The absurdish writing
-The new bgms
-The fairies are still there!
-There are now treasure chests for the fairies, too!
-The new direction of the combat. In the previous version, combats were slow and grindy with the elements having no noticeable impact and ailments having a key role to victory. However in v42 chapter 3 the battles were way too hard, as enemies were too bulky to use this approach. The additional of bigger elemental weaknesses, new equipments among which the busted healing staff or the ones who give the part a full strength/magic buff, and stat boosting items allow to break the enemies' bulkiness.
🧚What I think could be improved upon:
-The game need more polish (see the bug section)
-The moon, void, sun and plasma sector are either very easy if you have the right magic or extremely tedious if you don't. Given it isn't immediately obvious you need to ask the glasses for that info, it is very likely a player will have to experience at least one tedious version. I did for the moon sector (the fire ring not working against the ice traps let me think that clue was for enemies elemental weaknesses), and let me say you that this experience was horrible. I should the game would benefit a lot from having a more balanced approach (more challenge if you have the good magic, but less tedious if you don't). In the moon sector for example, you could add 'checkpoints' were you would be teleported to instead than at the start.
-The spaceship sprite is in a very different art style than the rest of the game
-The timer for enemy to respawn is still way too short. I could argue than for the enemies of chapter 3, they should not respawn at all if defeated until you change map. There are already enough battles as it is.
-I had to play with a keyboard as selecting enemies with the mouse is nearly impossible.
-It would be nice to see the icon of the lot you get in treasure chests, as sometimes it isn't obvious if it is an item, a weapon or an armour.
🧚Random bugs I noted:
-The fire ring doesn't help you as the moon sector contrary to what the student says you.
-Volley fire hit the party twice for some reason
-The ion ring gives you spark as skill instead of Tonitru
-Space-Fabiana doesn’t enter the party with full life
-Multiple offensive skills like spark or tsunami can be used in the main menu (for no effect)
-Force field can be used outside of battle, allowing the party to start with magic defence buffed at max.
-Ice traps from the moon sector teleport you on a student
-The text of the clue for the genetically modified alien web is cut
-Using the flurry skill (or any other one who hides the interface) to kill an enemy with a death trigger (like during the gates battles) is... interestingly bugged.
-Buff/debuff seem to sometimes fail now?
-Some passabilities in the moon sector seems badly set
-There are some inaccessible building on the space map that have an animation suggesting they can be visited.
-...
🧚Random thoughts (neither negative nor positive):
-There is really a secret Pretty Pyro season 2?
-The final gate boss is really easy as you can either stall the fight by not attacking him (which gives you the time to full buff your party and accumulate a lot TP).
-I tested briefly the start of the game, and it seemed quite easier, which is a guess a good thing I guess, given it was quite grindy before.
Viewing post in Starlight Destiny jam comments
Seems like I forgot to speak about the hack terminal battles:
-I like the settings of them
-I like the fact that the enemies get stronger as their allies are defeated.
-They are also very big difficulty spikes which wasn't a real problem for me, but I can easily imagine some being blocked by them.
-They can become unwinnable if you kill the enemies in the "wrong order" and end up with a single very tanky enemy who is buffed by most of the 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 stars buffs at once and has a good aoe physical skill (Angelus Aegis is probably the worst in that regard).
-It isn't exactly obvious which enemy must be killed first, as the buff they give on their death seems to be arbitrary assigned to each enemy. One won't know the correct kill streak unless they try the battle at least once before.
Thank you very much for the in-depth review, glad to hear you're enjoying it and that the combat system updates are working better, I've been thinking and working on the numerous details you brought up and released an hotfix dealing with the main bugs! Some clarifications:
-For the sun/moon/void/plasma, I'll need some more time to think how to balance the terrain obstacles better (your suggestion for the moon sounds nice, but need to figure how to implement it in an efficient way code-wise), although I did fix the "warping on top of student" and expanded the NPC advice to point out that fire magic will help deal with the local enemies but not the local terrain.
-Replaced the ship sprites, hopefully new ones will fit better.
-Also increased the respawn timer and enemies in chapter 3 should not respawn if defeated until the player changes maps (or rests at the central space spot).
-The selecting with mouse is something I still need to work on because I'm using a lot of code to change sprite sizes and that seems to conflict with the mouse selection.
-Went around adding icons to the treasure chest item rewards.
-Fixed volley fire and Flurry, the combat animation plugin works in funny ways.
-4th party member now gets a full heal before joining just in case.
-Went around making the battle skills and temporary buff items useable only in actual battle (there's no Force Field skill/item, I assume you meant one that has the shield animation?)
-Suspect the buff/debuff missing was due to some hidden combat code that wasn't working properly, should be fixed now.
-Moon movement should be working more properly now too.
-The inaccessible space buildings should be accessible now, really need to improve mapping skills.
-Oh, nice of you to notice Pretty Pyro's in there, but that's mostly just a cameo (still plan to go back and finish that one, season 2 will be real to complete the cycle!)
-Still need to think of a way of making the gate boss battle more challenging.
-Early game feeling easier is definitely working as intended!
-Speaking of boss battles, the hack terminal ones ended up bugged in that the enemy buffing should've been the same regardless of which order you take them out (also removing weaker buffs when applying the stronger ones). Should be fixed now, but "arbirtrary buff stacking so that final enemy can end up too powerful if you take them out in the wrong order" sounds like something fun that could be implemented for later/extra bosses.
Thanks once more!