Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 7! My name's Hythrain and I'm one of the hosts and one of the streamers for this event! This feedback is being written live as I stream your game! If you're interested in seeing my live reaction, let me know and I can send you a link to the VOD once it's posted to YouTube!

So my normal approach for any game in these events is simple: I get the game, make sure it's not a virus, then play it with as little information on how to play as possible. This way, I can judge how intuitively someone can figure out the game. Only if it's obvious that I need to read more will I do so. I note this so you can get a sense where some of these feedback comes from. In addition, I want to note that feedback and rating are different; don't use this feedback to gauge what I'll rate, nor should you view my rating as entirely indicative of my feedback.

So, I love me some RPGs. This caught my eye when I first booted it up and saw sprites I wasn't used to seeing. This got me into it... well, until folks in my chat pointed out how it was still a common RPG Maker set. After that, I began looking for what made this stand out from other RPG Maker games (because if it doesn't have anything to stand out besides a story, it's not really a game that needs feedback on the game part of it). While there was one thing in the idea of front and back rows, these rows ultimately meant nothing as it seemed that those in the back row could deal and take damage the same as those in the front.

The reason I'm noting all this is because, right now, the game offers nothing beyond its story. If that's all it offers, this demo really doesn't give enough to give feedback on it. I've had RPG Maker games with 3+ hours worth of content in a demo because they knew how important selling that story was.

That said, I'm not going to give you nothing at all. Along with feedback on the small bit of story you presented, I'm going to give you some feedback regarding combat (and how to make yourself more unique) as well as comment on other elements you may want looked at. But first, some general notes that I hit on as I played that I felt I should note.

To start, if you're going to have voice acting, your opening screen with the narration text should also be voice acted. It'll just make that screen nicer. Next, give an option for people to change the volume for voices in combat. Some players don't like hearing "CROSS SLASH" over and over. Thirdly, don't make every battle screen be the same enemies in the same layout. Create different layouts with more variety in enemies in them. You can then create different scenarios for combat.

Okay, with that done, let's talk story!

So the story I've gathered so far is that these two guys, Bastien and Killian, are childhood friends who trained under someone named Master Duncan. Killian was older than Bastien, though, and when he came of age to become a knight or something he chose to do so, leaving Bastien behind. In between then and when they'd meet again, Master Duncan passes away and Killian doesn't show at the funeral. Years later, Killian returns on business for the King but goes to see his old friend first. After a trip to the place where they swore to remain friends, Killian asks Bastien to aid him in this mission, willing to split the money for the mission while also noting that the King gave specific orders about who to let know about the mission. Bastien agrees as they go after a local goblin king. After taking him down, they discover that the secret to keep was a missive for the king about seeing Gaia Sect people. From here, the two friends set off to ensure the missive gets to the king.

So this is pretty cookie cutter so far. Childhood friends, trained under amazing mentor, one took a different path in life, now they reunite to do stuff. So is the story of the Gaia Sect so far, which is "once guardians became bad, were banished by current ruling body that has led to peace." So right now, nothing about the story gives ANYTHING to it about the twist. In fact, a guess I was making to the game's twist was that the Gaia Sect would actually turn out to NOT be the bad guys and that the current rule was bad for the health of the world. This would lead Bastien to side with the Gaia Sect. However, Killian would stay loyal to the king and the two would be forced to fight one another for most the story until they would reunite as allies towards the end to fight the big bad. My basis was on the opening sequence being all about showing the backstory of these two characters and the change of paths to help explain their different thinking when things go crazy soon.

Yet when I watched that trailer at the end of the demo... Killian was always with Bastien. They never parted ways, meaning there isn't any specific reason to do the backstory scene at that time instead of any other part of the story. The way I see it, the story has nothing unique to it save for one thing.. the style of your world. It's only teased at us, but this set up of a fantasy world yet somewhere exists a futuristic world in the same planet to allow something like a flying mech to exist. I like this concept a lot. I want to see it work. I want to see it stand out. So if my feedback on the story feels rough, I want you to keep this in mind. I'd be happy to help you work on it, too.

Speaking of help, let's look at your combat. One thing I noted above was how I look to see what makes the game unique in its gameplay. Right now, the one thing you have going are "rows." Not only do you have a front row and a back row for enemies, but these rows are used as columns for another set of rows. However, despite having a HUGE area for their sprites behind Bastien and Killian, it doesn't seem like you're doing this for the player. So first, that is something you should look into. Second, when you do you can then make these rows mean something! For example, enemies in the front row can deal more damage with melee weapons and attacks but take more physical damage while enemies in the back row (until the front row is destroyed) take reduced physical damage and deal less as well. But I got a better idea than that. How about if you try to melee attack something in the backrow while there's something in the front row, you get counter attacked by what remains in the front line. You can then develop your combat around this to make it more unique, where there are times you NEED to melee attack the back row before the front is gone. Though I would say that those in the back row should absolutely not be able to use melee weapons, instead employing "ranged" attacks. Just makes more sense.

Lastly - while I typically don't judge custom artwork and animation for a project, if something stands out that just looks not good at all and could be something people judge the game for I tend to make a note of it. You do have one such instance. In the animation for when Bastien wakes up from his dream in a fright, the heavy breathing looks... I'm sorry, just painfully bad. That is something that you should work to improve ASAP.