I don't recall seeing this in any of the progress threads, so it kind of came out of nowhere and surprised me. It makes an incredibly good first impression! It's very polished and the art is quite good. I'm not sure if I'm a fan of the style, but it's very well executed.
I thought there was a bug where the music didn't loop, but it turned out to just be my browser.
Okay, so I didn't actually say I was going to come back with more detailed comments, but I always did intend to.
While the game makes a great first impression and looks very polished up front, the longer I look at it, the more it feels like an asset flip. I don't want to sound like I'm accusing you of anything, and I don't know if it actually is, but it just has that feel about it. The animations look familiar, I feel like I've seen some of the characters before, the backgrounds give me deja vu, a lot of things don't quite match and others feel like they came out of a kit. Again, I'm not saying it is an asset flip, but it has that feel to it. It doesn't ruin the game or anything, but it's not a positive impression either.
The game does feel a bit thin in places which I noticed more the second time around. The text-only flashback and ending and lack of any sort of dungeon overworld stand out. It is a game jam game, though, so you have to pick your battles and I would agree that focusing on the battles and dialogue that made it in was the right choice.
The battle system is fine- it's not my favourite in the world but it works well enough- but I hate the way the battles are balanced. It feels incredibly railroaded. There's only one path through the battle, no randomness, and zero room for error. With the tutorial battles it's not so bad, especially since you'd expect tutorial battles to be somewhat railroaded, but the final battle was a chore. It took me something like 20 times to find the one exact sequence that won the battle. It wasn't intuitive; the effectiveness of each attack felt arbitrary and the summoning mechanic came out of nowhere. It wasn't satisfying or fun, it just felt like tedious artificial difficulty. It does feel intentional, and I know some people like this sort of battle, but I hated it and it really soured my overall experience with the game.
I do like the way the tutorial battles ease you into the mechanics, but the final boss battle feels like a letdown.
The story... eh, I'd take it or leave it. It fits well enough for the themes of the jam, and it's uplifting which is a nice change in pace from a lot of the cynical stories these days, but at the same time it feels a little thin and very cliched. The music choices were fantastic, though.
I enjoyed the game overall and I think it was pretty good aside from that boss battle.
Sorry for the late reply,
Thanks man for your very detailed comment!
I did use the assets from asset store and other sources, so yeah, maybe you have seen them elsewhere and sorry if they don't quite match up together :/
About the boss battle, I wanted to make it as hard as possible, and ended up with this mechanic. But you're right, I guess not everyone enjoy figuring this out. However, despite hating this system, you tried to win this. I just want to say to you, congratulation and thanks man!
I will definitely look and play your game later :)
I think the boss battle is really going to be a love it or hate it thing. You're either going to love the challenge and puzzle aspect of it, or hate the tedium and perceived unfairness of it. It looks basically split down the middle judging by the current comments.
I kept at it because I wanted to see the ending and didn't want to replay the whole thing to get there. And then I ended up playing it through again the next day. So make of that what you will.
