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I may be missing something, but it doesn't appear that it's actually possible to beat the first combat. She just does way too much damage and you do basically nothing. I even tried buying some equipment first, which kept me alive 1 turn longer, but that's it. Still saw no difference in her health bar even when I *did* deal damage.
It may be, and I may just be missing something. I don't think her dealing more damage than I heal is necessarily a balance issue. The balance issue I see is that whatever her health is, the bar doesn't appear to move regardless of how much damage you deal to her, which means either the bar is visually bugged or her health is insanely high.
While I get that the first combat is meant to be a challenge, it's frustrating that (1) every time I try to heal she kills me before I get the chance and (2) that the game won't let me save after the first save in my house. Every time I die I have to go through all the dialogue, buy my items, and then talk to the mage, etc. If the first combat is meant to be so challenging, it would be at least nice if I could save right before it starts.
Unless the game has been updated since the previous comments, I disagree. I got to the end of that fight on the first try, by choosing to heal every odd turn. The enemy plays before you and hits for a bit less than half of your HP, so the strategy was obvious.
Now for my personal comments about the game...
MZ's faceset generator is really bad, so there isn't much you could do about it except for finding faces somewhere else, which you did with one of the characters, however that made him clash visually with the others. Look into getting more facesets from outside sources, I think that's the right way to handle this. The town is decent, you've put in some details and I really appreciate that you've put some work into that. You did a really good job with the interiors as well, they were nice to look at.
The passage rules for street lamps weren't set up as well as they could've been, so the player can walk over the middle part but the top part doesn't allow passage at all. I'm only familiar with MV, but MZ is very similar and there should be a way for you to make both parts be displayed over characters. The top part of both types of trees has the same issue. There's a few tiles that should allow passage over them (patch of grass, mushrooms, flowers on the ground), instead they completely block it. Also, for some reason, pots can be walked over? This issue also happens with some houses, you can walk over the bottom part of the windows that don't have their blinds closed.
The passage options on MV are an O when passage is allowed, X when it isn't, and there's a 3rd option (a star) to say that a tile is to be displayed over characters and inherits the passage rules of the tiles below it. Otherwise, it could be that you've placed the elements on the same layers, if I remember correctly they brought back the layering from RPG Maker XP. If that's the case, you just have to pay attention to which layer gets which elements and the passage rules will apply as they should.
Also, here's a tip for placing tiles that automatically adjust to the same tile next to them: if you hold SHIFT while placing them, they won't change automatically. Instead, it places the tile as if all 8 cells around it were the same tile, and that will only update partially if you place something on one of those 8 cells without holding SHIFT. This way, you'll be able to keep the hedge wall around the house on the North-West of the town and have it surrounded by grass instead of being outlined by dirt, and the wall to the South of the town won't have the awkward outline of dirt around the parts that are 1 cell taller than usual.
If you can't pull it off that way, you can reproduce what you're trying to do on individual tiles somewhere else on the map, then right-click to copy them (hold to copy an area). Then, go where you want to paste what you made, hold SHIFT, and place it as if it was a tile.
Overall, playing around with the layer system will make your map prettier and cause less issues with passage. On XP, it was layer 1 for things that are below characters, layer 2 for the same level, and layer 3 for elements that are above. For the elements I noted above and some interior stuff:
| Element | Layer |
|---|---|
| Street lamp | 2 (bottom), 3 (middle and top) |
| Trees, weapon racks | 2 (bottom), 3 (top) |
| Grass, mushrooms, flowers | 1 |
| Pot, anvil, crates, some clothes mannequins | 2 |
| House wall | 2 (wall), 3 (windows, black tiles for when the door opens) |
What I really appreciated from the fight in this demo is that you couldn't get by with just spamming the Attack command. I don't know what the previous post is talking about, once of the first things you learn about in the game is the ability to save using the journal in your inventory, so there's absolutely a way to save before you start the event where you got beat before. You've got some solid dialogue going on, and you highlight what there is to find, which is a good thing because many makers forget that they know their game and its hidden stuff but other players just get lost because it's actually not obvious at all.