My thoughts while playing the game.
+ = I liked it
- = I didn't like it
* = Neutral/suggestion
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+ Beautiful title screen. I love how the background is animated and the options are arranged nicely.
+ Lovely art, as always
+ No text; the story is told entirely in pictures. Fascinating.
+ The battles are even a simple "Simon Says" game. Creative!
+ You don't kill enemies; you transform them into "good" creatures. Cool!
+ Huh, so the battle commands can be literally any combination of keys on the keyboard, whether they're directions, numbers, etc.
+ Later discovered it's limited to just arrows and 1-4, which makes it manageable
+ No on-map movement and no text makes this a very VISUAL novel. I still think it's cool.
+ In fact, no on-map movement means the plot keeps moving instead of having to figure out where to go and potentially getting stuck or confused.
- This looks like a stage select screen, but pressing a number key doesn't seem to do anything, and pressing the arrows didn't seem to do anything either. How do I navigate it?
+ At least you did add menu tooltips that indicate how to open the menu so I can save the game and adjust audio options if I wanted.
+ I noticed that the battle backgrounds scroll. That's pretty cool. Especially since they aren't too distracting. I guess they make up for the fact that the battlers are static; it adds motion that would otherwise be missing.
+ Also, they're not TOO busy, so they don't distract from the action that I'm trying to see and pay attention to.
* I see 2 icons at the bottom center of the battle UI; what do they mean?
+ Oh NOW I can choose a different stage with the number keys
* The game is so linear and I can't tell what the advantage of doing the stages in a different order would be, so I don't see the point in having the stage select.
- The last boss seems to be hard for the wrong reasons
- Much longer than the other enemies, requiring I remember for a short time a random sequences of arrows and numbers
- Getting even 1 wrong character means I take damage; nothing mitigates it
- There's no decision making involved or strategy, making the process kinda monotonous, especially when retrying
- There's no way to replay the prompt, so if I wasn't paying attention then I get to just eat damage
- There appears to be a revive mechanic if I lose, but it gets thrown at me suddenly so it took me off guard and I failed
+ Cool little epilogue at the end
+ I haven't remarked much on it, but the music fits the mood of the game well
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Summary
This is a simple game with some creative mechanical concepts and beautiful art. The final battle served to highlight the problems with the system, but overall I think this is an impressive entry. Nice job, Berry!