*breathe deeply* Hi. So... your game LOOK nice, obviously you've put a lot of work and... a lot of your heart into this. But... I am going straight up there and say it: aside from the fact your game is probably going to be disqualified (for breaking the RTP only and no NSFW rules), ... I have... a LOT of problems with this game. This is the story of A Memory Lost, the game that has gone too far.
Being an RPG enthusiast, I played with Expert mode (then, I went on Easy for a reason I'll explain later in the review).
- Big numbers make things harder to keep track of. When you see a game using big numbers usually, there is enough space and enough time for them to be displayed and be readable by the player. Here, when popping after an effect affecting a group, the damage popups struggle for the player's attention making them unreadable. For big numbers, you want to use them to convey a feeling of power to the player. But when it's the usual, you're better of using much smaller number which are much more player friendly and eventually use big number for power trip moments.
- Stacking status turns make some situations ridiculous (like an over 20-turns confusion). That's kind of funny, but you should be careful for situations where the player doesn't have ways to fight it.
- Basic attacks are ridiculously underpowered due to much more efficient skills. Because of that, you're better of defending to restore your PP than doing a basic attack to save them instead.
- Inserting the damage formula in the description doesn't help. You can put a number to estimate the power of a move like in Pokémon, but putting the entire damage formula is unnecessary and even risk to lose an inexperienced player even more. What's even weird is that you're not even consistent with your presentation: some skill descriptions doesn't have a damage formula in it.
- The number of skills we have access to is ridiculously high. That's like drowning the player with info. I ended up focusing on a few skills of each characters and ignored the rest. This is a number of skills you'd like to have... when you became familiar with your character. Not at the start of the game where you have everything to learn. A way to mitigate that, is to have simple skills like spells that simply deal damage on a element and no complex skills at all until later in the game.
- By far the biggest problem of this game: the battles draaaaaag... This is not even funny! You easily spend entire minutes on one fight! One! Random! Encounter! When your random battles are starting to become boss material, you have to say STOP! It's too much! Most groups of enemies are about 5 and each of them attack in turn slowing down the game by a TON. You're probably going to tell me you didn't encountered that problem while playtesting - because I'm sure there must be a way to rush out of them, but I'm asking you: have you playtested your gaming by putting yourself in the shoes of a new, inexperienced player? During a boss fight, I KID YOU NOT, I felt the need to go take a break numerous times! I NEVER did that before! This is unprecedented! The battles of this game are NOT fun! Monsters take way too long to kill and as long as you're being at least a bit careful, you won't see anything like a game over because the enemy will NEVER kill you. Battles are not difficult, they're easy as shit, but they are so long that I would secretly beg the enemy to finish me off... or just for the enemy to miraculously die with a finger snap just so I can see the end of the game.
- Now, why do you ever go into battles? Gain experience? Money? Loots? Well... You already start the game with a good load of items, there is a limited number for each of them you can carry and just in case there is chests everywhere with said items. About money... You don't need money in this game. Yes, there is shops, but it is very likely you will never have to buy from them. Experience? HAH! That's the best part! Arrived at the door of the last dungeon, guess how many levels my character has gained since the beginning of the game. ... 0. Nada. The void. Bascially random encounters are absolutely worthless because nothing that you gain from them have a significative impact on the game. You're better off running from every fight and just do the mandatory ones. You will gain a lot of time and you won't lose anything in the process.
- Why have you put a limit on running? What gameplay purpose does that serve? I don't understand. Encounters are random, there is no on-map encounter, no thing to escape from or to catch, what is the point?
- There is a MASSIVE gap of power between Noir and Kris. Noir is much more powerful for some reason dealing tens of thousands of damage where Kris only do hundreds to around four thousand at best with one move. Well... There is a way to increase Kris damage output, but it requires a lot more setup than Noir does.
- There is a lack of info for one of the states. One of the things this game does that is kind of neat is that you can use your mouse and fly over a state icon to see details about it. However, I noticed one of the mimics had a state, but I couldn't see what it does.
- Oof! I just got out of a long boss fight. Before I go forward with this, I will fall back a little to make sure I didn't miss anything in the dungeon... ... ... *internal screaming* Hm-hm... There is an oversight. After the boss fight, I wanted to step back to make sure I didn't miss anything and the trigger to the cutscene for the boss fight was still there and I had to do it all over again!
- Also, typos...
- When I buy stuff in the store, it shows me it increases the stats of the character, but when I try to put it on, the stats actually worsen... compared to base equipment. Why does shopkeepers sell equipment which are actually worse than what they have at the very beginning of the game?
- Also I bought chips, but I can't equip my characters with them?
- When you use the teleporter to return to the forest dungeon, you return at the very beginning of the dungeon, instead of the teleporter that brought you to the 80th floor safe zone in the first place! The Forest dungeon is massive with random encounters all over. Now, would be a good time to talk about the dungeon design, because even if the game tells you where to go, you can lose yourself very VERY easily and most places in the forest look like over places of the dungeon you already visited with no way to differentiate them. My only way to tell myself I've passed there were the chests I opened. It's almost as if the game wanted you to stop playing every X seconds to draw a map of the place.
- About mapping, avoid misleading paths and... other weird stuff that aren't supposed to be.
- Something cool: the appearance of the chests on the map convey an information to the player, so after opening a few, he knows what to expect from these chests.
- I like the idea of other adventurers attacking the group, it's an open door to so much potentially interesting enemies.
- Some of the music feels new while slowed down. Nice use of resources!
- Considering the passive regeneration for the characters, damaging tiles and the poison state are close to worthless.
- If you flee against the mimics, they keep their items. This is an interesting mechanic, but it can bring frustration to the player because the chest remains open and he just lost his only opportunity to get the treasure. How about making so the chest closes back if the mimics are not defeated so the player can try again later?
- Kris can still Shout despite being Silenced. I just found it worth mentioning. ^^
- So I beat the boss of the third dungeon and I get the choice to destroy the fragment or not. I choose to destroy it. The game then tells me to take the teleporter. But the event where Kris asks me to destroy it keeps looping. I had no choice, but to take it. Why does this choice exist if I HAVE to pick the item to continue?
- When you destroy crystals, it would be nice you show to the player which path opened so he doesn't have to roam the castle corridors looking for which path he need to take to proceed.
So... When I got in front of that red dragon in the castle, and I realized it was dodging 3/4 of my attacks (again, I'm not exaggerating here), I said "Fuck it!" and decided to start a new game in Easy mode to rush through the story. Because, let's give credit where credit is due: the story intrigued me. I liked it.
Now... My final rating for this game is a plane crash out of 10.
The story is intriguing at first, but as I played the game, I noticed a conflict in tone. On one side, you have a serious story with a man looking to save her sister from the big bad evil guy. On another side, you have real life references of influencers on tombstones as well as a Legend of Zelda reference, and a demon called Tiffany. And again, on another side, you have characters basically fucking each other at the beginning of the game and you steal hentai tomes from a grave. It's like struggling between heroic fantasy, comedy and porn (not graphic, but still pretty clear in what it's trying to achieve). You can make the three together, sure, but here it just look awkward and out of place. There is also some world-building behind the scenes! It is like their world is inside a giant tower or something, they have a religion, that's intriguing! That makes me want to know more! ... And I don't get to know more...
The forest dungeon is awfully confusing and hard to navigate through, easily the worst dungeon of the game. The characters do not grow at all, gaining experience for nothing. I hate the battles the absolute most! Random battles and Expert mode has been designed as a complete waste of time! Skills are neat to look at and have interesting effects inviting to strategize and decide what to do and in which order, but they are drown in a massive amount right at the start and are not enough to save the game.
In the end, this is a bit like a plane you've been loading with too much stuff. It might fly a little, but it will likely crash and burn. At least, this is the image I'm making myself of the game.
If your idea of difficulty is actively trying to kill the player of boredom, you have a lot to learn. When I go in Expert mode, I'm expecting the game to be an imposing threat to the characters an facing fun and difficult challenges. ... I'm not expecting the game to be a threat to ME, the player. OwO;
I do hope you won't take my review too poorly and that you will use it to make better experiences for everyone to enjoy. With that said, good luck with your future projects!