(After update 3)
Cool! I'm not going to do another whole play-through right now, but I tried out the new outfit system for a bit.
Hooray, I can finally tell what an item is doing for me! No complaints here.
I see the monsters have their own classes now, which is neat.
More important than any of this feedback: Have fun! If you'd rather write another chapter than tweak monster stats, go ahead and write the chapter.
I started having some pretty weird issues when I reloaded my save from the end of Chapter 2 so I ended up starting a new save.
New(?) actual bugs:
- Cancelling out of the teleporter's (St. Sayuri, Vess Cemetary) menu leaves the tower picture up.
- I think the map after the locker room re-locks after being cleared, but I don't have a save in the right place to verify this.
- I traded in the bronze star, but I don't think I got the item. Work in progress?
- Shizuka is invisible in the hub level, if you skip the first cutscene of Chapter 3 (at least when loading an old save).
- Hellhounds aren't immune to the terrain effect of hot rocks, so you could in theory just hang back having everyone kiss each other (...which sounded less weird in my head) and wait for them to run out of health. If nothing else, you could just give them 10% natural BDY regen to balance it out...
- Aika's formal clothing portrait is a yuki musume costume?...
- The following skills can be used out of combat, while other similar ones can't:
- Bujin's Blessing
- Flash Slash (no effect)
- Please Don't Hurt Me!
- Fliers can move through the wall here and outside the map, which doesn't break anything but is silly:
I have lots of items I don't remember ever earning (gems and stuff - probably just things with the same item number as the removed cosplay items).
New outfit system comments:
I like the bonuses outfits and outfit accessories give now. They used to make fights easier; now they make them more complex, but still easier if you're smart. I feel a bit silly cosplaying as a pirat, because it means I have waterwalk twice when I could have regeneration, flight or +1 move. Which brings me to the negative: the way outfits work now is cool from a RPG point of view (you can freely mix and match, and it makes sense that, well, swimsuit+pirat ears=pirat swimsuit), but it feels a little bit strange from a dress-up point of view (perhaps it's the fact that some accessories don't have any effect on some base outfits, and there's no real bonus for picking a combination that makes sense or creates a specific outfit). I'm not saying you should change it back, just... it feels weird, where the old system was immediately intuitive and always had visible results.
(Edit: After playing a bit more with it, it's not that weird, just takes some getting used to. And the lack of outfit stat power creep DOES mean more outfit variety, so I still like that part...)
It confused me for a while that equipping a monster's outfit accessory lets you use weapons as if you were that monster, and I actually thought it was a bug for a bit, but I get it now. Seeing the relative stats on meteor hammers made me wince though. Pompoms are better than the steel one.
Obligatory subjective balance comments:
Enemies, at least the chapter 1 ones, are probably a bit too strong now, maybe as a result of their stats being the same (increased base stats) while the heroes are weaker (no primary stat bonuses from outfits). Aika took 21 damage from a kitchen pirat backstab, and 24 from an underground lake pirat backstab (both being at least her max health at the time). Thunder gems (x2 damage dealt) and pirat ears (50% less damage taken) do a lot to balance this out in the case of catfish (actually, Shizuka can deal 90 damage when backstabbing catfish. At level 2. On a non-critical. Beautiful), but there's no physical gem or accessory to protect me from pirats and no way to quickly kill them (they have good DEF and gems don't seem to apply to magical attacks, so you can't exploit their lightning weakness without hitting their physical strength. Where's Amara when you need her?). And yuki musume are really powerful now, because you can't buy scarves any more and the ice gem (the only way to reduce the damage you're taking) also reduces the damage you deal. Which is already not very much, because their DEF and MDF are awesome. I'm getting hit for 10-15 (20-30 without an ice gem) and hitting for 4 (Aika with ice gem)-10 (Shizuka with talisman) (or 20 on a backstab with Shizuka's talisman equipped, but that's not easy to make happen) Can't really comment on the balance past that, because that's as far as I managed to get on my new save, suffering repeated crushing defeats in the freezer, but I imagine it's similar.
I could deal with it being hard in chapter 3, but this early on it's a problem because there's no extra characters or equipment upgrades to provide room for error.
(Edit: I'm not complaining, because these numbers are okay, just curious: the difference between backstab damage and normal damage seems really huge sometimes. Is it based on speed/agility or something? Does it act as a defense divisor? On my old save file, demon butlers do 0 front damage to Shizuka, and ~15 backstab damage. Shizuka has 59 health and 43 DEF.)
Adding or removing an outfit accessory (upper clothing slot) doesn't reset the displayed outfit. For example:
Open the menu, equip a scarf, then equip casual clothes.Close the menu, then reopen the menu.Whoever you equipped is now wearing a yuki musume cosplay.Unequip the scarf.Close the menu, reopen the menu.Observe that she's still dressed as a yuki musume.Equip casual clothes (yes, I know she's already wearing them, but humor me).Close the menu, open the menu.She's now wearing her casual clothes.
I think this is only on my imported (11/28/2016) save, and it's not happening even there now...
P.S. I actually really like the casual outfits without an accessory - don't think I ever wore them before.