Hello!
I had been aware of Blade Sight from your art posts of the characters for a while now, and played a prior released demo. (I also said hi on Cohost once, hehe). The characterization and dialogue, style and tone drew me in and charmed me quickly - however I had a fair bit of trouble with the gameplay itself, perhaps owing in part to my relative inexperience with fighting games.
I downloaded the present latest release (11.4.01) a bit ago, and this time after a few fights and mixed-in study of the skill listings, I could start to feel my learning/progress? Like you get with Dark Souls kinda.
I'm sorry if this is sort of weird and rambly, but I had a lot of fun just now and I wanted to show my appreciation
I do have a couple likely-bugs, and some notes and thoughts -
If you go into the pause menu, visit collections, and then exit out by pressing escape while still viewing a collection, the pause menu will be 'stuck' and not respond to inputs. As far as I can tell this state persists until exiting the game.
When being held by Momiji, the prompt to further interact with her appears, but pressing the appropriate key doesn't seem to work for me. It lights up on the button-display in the lower right as normal, but no new dialogue options show up.
Selecting collection items, like swapping weapons or playing music tracks, doesn't work for me. I'm pressing 'K'/Jump, which works as a menu confirm otherwise, with a card highlighted, but it just shakes a bit without an effect. This might be intentional? I'm unsure what is or isn't "allowed" from this menu.
Notes! I'm just jotting down my thoughts so please don't take these as y'know complaints or criticism, even where I say "xyz was difficult," just observations.
As I mentioned I think I'm getting better at the gameplay, at least in terms of the terminology and command inputs for Suu's moves, but I still take a kind of excessive amount of hits and tend to fall back on the "push me harder" knockout-averting option in arena duels. (Oh, I should mention I've played everything I can find in the "regular world" but haven't gone through the Road that is noted to have dev test encounters yet.) Again I'm not "good at this," but...
Samurai are pretty tough, but like in a "clearly designed to be this tough" way. When I play next imma put focus on learning to implement cancels consistently.
I genuinely just don't know how I'm meant to fight the Gashadokuro. Maybe it will come to me with more attempts, or maybe they're just intended to be quite hard as a "going out at night is quite risky" thing. Also, they don't look to have a lot of actively approaching Suu in their AI, which can lead them to gradually drift close to screen transitions. This is tricky especially for trying to use a short-ranged light move when it's their card weakness, and accidentally going to the next room over because I got too close.
I occasionally get some sort of special hit where both Suu and the enemy turn yellow for a moment. The visual and sound FX make me think this is extra-powerful or significant some other way, but I can't tell how or what causes it.
Game mechanics notes aside, some lighter thoughts:
I'm very curious about the story and world, what you've written and shown so far is quite intriguing. The natures and roles of dolls and curses; the implications that Momiji and Gaji had some sort of falling-out; the broader social context that these characters live under.
come to think of it why is Gaji so pissed off in general? you've mentioned she's considered a Girlfriend - how much is she Playing Games vs. has actual issues with Suu?
numpad-7 scene hits hard. i want her to be okay
I could probably write a good few more paragraphs but it would largely be guessing at or pondering things that you as the creator prolly already know. You've got me fair hooked, tho.
Thank you so much for the hard work, creativity, and passion that you have put and are putting into the project! As a weird online trans gal(s) who's no stranger to dollposting, it's really nice to experience works like this where the themes and moods being explored are... "of us" smh. You've got my support; believe in yourself and take breaks when you need to. See ya round.