Heya guys! Just wanted to start off by saying that I was super psyched to see the alpha invite in my email today, and super bummed that I had to work all day before I could play. I've been following the game since the first TIG Forums devlogs posts. That art immediately hooked me, and then when I saw that you were combining three of my favorite genres: cinematic platformer, RPG, and adventure game, in a cool sci-fi setting, I was all over it!

I guess I'll get my biggest gripe out of the way first. Combat is kicking my ass. Specifically melee. I think I had to do the first tutorial fight four or five times, and I am actually stuck on the second fight with the two droids. I must've reloaded a dozen times so far. I get the combat system, color outline determines which attack/defense will succeed/fail, but it feels like the window of opportunity is way too small. I'm an old school turn based combat guy, and I'm familiar with similar timed combat systems, Legend of Dragoon, Shadow Hearts, but Wanderer is way to fast for me. So, your attack phase is timed, which is cool because you can get in as many attacks as colors you can match up during that time, but the problem is with the enemy's counterattacks. The enemy lights up with a counterattack color immediately after your swing animation, and from there you have like, one second to react. By the time my brain has registered that I messed it up and got hit, another enemy attack has already started. Perhaps I was going about it wrong and trying to jam too many attacks in there before the timer ran out, but it still feels like, "What the hell just happened there?" I do kind of like that enemies aren't static during your attack phase, but I hate reloading the same battle over and over, haha. Possible solutions that I see are:

1) Have distinct attack and defense phases similar to Ar Tonelico 1+2. I was able to keep up with defense after using a healing item, and it still didn't seem too easy because the window is small. This might take away from the combat dynamic though and require more code changes than

2) Slow the whole thing down a tad. Increase the delay between the player's attack animation and the enemy counterattacking as well.  Maybe increase the window for hitting the correct button too. This could be tweaked witouht major code and design changes, I'm assuming.

Side note: As it stands, I feel that the gameplay is kind of disparate between the moderately paced exploration, thoughtful puzzle solving, heavy dialog (love the dialog btw!), and the "What the hell just hit me" combat. I do like the combat design! I just find the pace frustrating.

Ok, negative done. I still love the art and the presentation is awesome. The world is beautiful and feels alive. I really like the multiple levels of camera zoom, it really helps keep things fresh. I love the old school adventure game gameplay. Puzzles so far are tricky but not frustrating. "How in the hell am I supposed to.......ohhhhhhhh." The characters are really awesome so far and I enjoy the dialog. I like that action buttons are each mapped to a gamepad button rather than the normal selecting with the stick/dpad and confirming with a button. It took some getting used to but it really streamlines things. Music is awesome! Really dig that harmonica part during the opening cutscene.

Thanks for opening the alpha up to us! Looking forward to more! Good luck guys!

Really glad to hear you're into the game overall Archendrus, and thank you for your useful input on combat! :)

Combat is very difficult, you're definitely not alone on that. Even I still lose a battle sometimes, and I designed the attack patterns myself, hehe. I agree it's too punishing at the moment for the tutorial area of the game and we'll do a major rebalancing for the next build to continue trying to find the sweetspot.

In addition, since all enemies have each of their attacks and overall patterns totally customizable by swapping around some variables, ultimately we'd like to have an assortment of difficulties, with higher difficulties keeping shorter windows of reaction to maintain super challenging combat for those that like it.

In addition, since all enemies have each of their attacks and overall
patterns totally customizable by swapping around some variables,
ultimately we'd like to have an assortment of difficulties, with higher
difficulties keeping shorter windows of reaction to maintain super
challenging combat for those that like it.

I am glad to hear this! While I have to agree that the average person who buys this will feel that the current difficulty is way too hard, I would be disappointed to see the difficulty thrown out entirely.

Cool! Yeah I'd hate to have the difficulty nerfed too much, as it is cool and makes me wanna master it. But like you said, it is pretty harsh for the tutorial area. It does occur to me that I might have too much previous turn based combat biases, and that I need to approach it differently.

I like the fighting system, I just feel like the timing on the attacks are waaaaaay too unforgiving for a combat system introduction. It would really be an adjustment of 10-40ms extra, I think. On fight #1, at least five separate things get introduced (bad timing on flash=miss, quick/fierce have different timings, color match to block specific attacks, confirm action with right shoulder button, enemies can attack during your attack) and players have no clue how it all works together yet. Once someone's figured it out, it's fine, but as a very first tutorial fight, I feel like right now it's more liable to frustrate a good number of players into not playing more. There's even a reason to slightly ease it up built-in since the first guy's all drugged up.

UPDATE: Just finished the alpha build. I think that once you can use the specials, some of the crucial ones that differ from the regular combat systme should be given there own mini tutorial. Not every one of them, but stuff like "maintenance" should have a little "hey, this is a new type of mechanic" notice right before. That one is epsecially confusing when the "up, down, left, right" simon says game starts, since the text made me pause for a split-second, thinking it meant the directional buttons. By that point, everyone should know what color is for what button. If it's to accomodate colorblind players, I'd suggest instead displaying "Y, A, X, B" respectively. Actually, I'd suggest that anyway.

The one thing I am not digging about combat is the Flash mechanic for melee attacks. It feels too much like a 'Press X to not die' mechanic and I feel it can be improved upon. Instead of being surprised by a flash, I feel a shrinking white ring around your character could accomplish the same thing without feeling like a surprise each time. It would allow players to anticipate the right moment to press the proper action button (though again, be a little more forgiving on that score in general) with a visual cue. You could vary the speed of the shrinking ring for various attacks, but always ensure that the 'Flash' occurs at the same ring size each time.