This is really tough, I wish I could *always* see where the pieces will end up... I like the art and music, at least! The characters (I've been able to reach) are all really charming..!
Oh HECK yes, I'm really glad to see those changes to companion distance. Always nice to see another mutation become feasible for companions (and clones). Thank you!
I was really happy about how compassionately both Cassia and Senna are treated... having read Starry Flowers, it's nice to know Cassia finds happiness..! I hope Senna does, too - she struck me as the "gifted kid burnout" type, so I got really worried by the last day! (And the epilogue!)
The puzzles are really fun, too! To think that this is all renpy... that's amazing... The patterns are cute, and the difficulty curve is really gentle. I was really happy to see more of them in the gallery afterwards!
I skipped the tutorial, so I can't speak to that, but even without the verbal explanation ahead of time, it's easy to find a nice starting point in the early ones, and it felt like some of the intermediate concepts are just kind of naturally taught through the puzzles themselves..? And then it really ramps up for the bonus ones! Oh, and I liked the short thoughts in the music gallery, too... so much charm in such a short VN!
It's the roughest ending, and you get it if Chloe has so little confidence in you that you skip right past the first choice of recommendations, then make the joke about rubbing one out.
So it's pretty hard to get by accident! Qmin is too good at her job. That specific option is perfectly fine if Chloe is already comfortable around you, but it's the straw that breaks the camel's back if she isn't!
The very top one is the roughest ending - you get it if she has so little confidence in you that you skip right past the first choice of recommendations, and then make an overfamiliar joke.
It's pretty specific! Qmin is too good at her job to mess up like this unless you reeeaaally lean into it, bless her.
Aaahh, I remember reading and enjoying this in 2019... I really wanted to show it to some friends and acquaintances that like robots, but I can't access the game's page anymore (it's "restricted" now?) and I don't have it downloaded ;_;
I think part of what bothers me is how noncommittal it is for such a strong option - unlike Lightning Slice, it's barely punisheable even on parry in most situations. It's such a universally strong move, and any space it doesn't cover, Tome Slap now covers with only 4f startup. Pommel used to at least be a faster jab, but no more - since the update that reduced its startup, they clash.
The zoning character is incredibly good at every range now.
Jumping it is even worse than blocking it, though? At least when blocking it, some attacks (new Horizontal Slash) can actually punish it. Ninja's just kind of out of luck on block, there's not much they can really do before the recovery ends. Same when you evade it. In most situations, for most responses, the move is completely safe.
I'm not sure what you mean by it being predictable because of range - Wizard has a lot of other options at any given range, and the range of the attack itself can be adjusted in a pretty huge window to preempt a lot of possible responses.
Out of curiousity - I'm not in the Discord (since I don't want to give Discord my phone number), how many people entered with each character?
I'm not sure how good of a metric for balance the top 8 distribution really is, since it samples from a small number of players (willing to join the discord + willing to enter a tournament). And even in that small group, it takes neither character popularity nor player skill into account.
I still can't believe Mana Strike is as fast as it is.
It beats out stuff like Lightning Slice easily, including on Whiff Cancel, with a much more versatile range. And you can position it to knock your opponent towards you for a combo. Even with the startup increase in 0.3.0, it was still just about the fastest move in the game besides a jab or two, and then the startup was decreased again in 0.3.3 - along with the startup for Tome Slap, y'know, just in case someone got in past Mana Strike range.
As a neutral or whiff cancel option, it's incredibly strong - is there some counterplay I'm forgetting about?
