itch.io

There was a fix posted here if you want to apply it directly: https://itch.io/t/3359879/cant-compile-source-fails-at-the-command-dotnet-exited...

I have a fork here with that and a few other fixes: https://github.com/ihm-tswow/Links-Awakening-DX-HD

This worked great, seems to have fixed most of the issues I had when just building the packages.config directly and does seem to correctly invoke mgcb. All I had to do was recreate the config/dotnet-tools.json manually as visual studio would not accept it when being downloaded from elsewhere.

Do note that if you run the game in debug mode it will frequently crash when trying to load a save file, probably a race condition for initializing render targets that doesn't seem to happen in release builds.

There's a lot of potential here. It's a completely different game from the older demo, the bartering and exploration stands out in a very good way and the art is very polished at this point. I played it with some friends and we had a blast!

A few observations:

•  The starter town was a bit overwhelming on my first stroll, maybe some central shops can be closed at the very start of the game.

• For the amount of exploration/trading/loot I could work with in the dungeon, the monsters and especially boss were a bit easy. I think I'd expect those two things to balance out more.

• The high-contrast style is part of the appeal for me, but on some maps it's hard to make out the difference between floor, walls and objects.

•  Both me and my friend found conversations a little straining to read with the font, but for menus it was fine.

Some bugs:

• I don't think you're supposed to be able to jump to this ledge, it allows you to bypass that entire area.

• Picking up items (especially flowers) while running or jumping seems to cause the picked up sprite to glitch out. Not sure exactly how it triggered.