Howdy. I've finished the game up to it's current conclusion (chapter 11, chapter 12 homebase+supports have happened) and I've got some thoughts! I'm writing this mainly as feedback to the devs, not as a review for someone who's looking into playing this game.
Overall, it's fun but not amazing, kinda the thing you'd expect from a free, in-development game on itch.io That being said, I put ~13 hours into the game if you go by save (and add some extra time, less than an hour for reloads).
In terms of plot, I'm most interested in the non-NSFW parts of the story—the drama, the character interactions, and Pup's identity. Hell, if there's 1 thing I want to see by the time the game is done, it's some kind of option near the end of the game (or just, somewhere) to let the player choose whether Pup WANTS to be a woman, or WANTS to be a man, or some other option. And then ideally there might some varying dialogue or supports (or even just ending text crawls a;la paired endings in FE) based on that.
Admittedly this is because I am a trans woman and as such, I sought out this game first and foremost bc transgender stories are fun and cute to me! I love seeing an egg get cracked. In fact I think a lot of my feelings around the story kinda circle back to this, to wanting these kinds of transformations to be embraced as a positive thing, rather than overcome as a negative or value-neutral thing. That kind of thing is what I sought out in other stories, and it's kinda the thing that, once I realized it wasn't happening, made me realize I am prolly not the exact audience for this game. But! That doesn't mean I disliked the story on concept, just means I gotta adjust my mentality on it (even if I spend the entire game thinking "god i wish *I* got hit by the Forcefem Sword) and start seeing these cast members as transmasc/trans men having some fun with their identities.
Also, I will admit that this was the first time I played basically a porn fan game of a series I'm intimately (heh) familiar with: Fire Emblem. So the fact that I'm here for the SFW stuff and not the kink stuff is prolly just a "why are you looking for clothes in the soup store?" kinda deal. I don't dislike that stuff but there's some crazy tonal whiplash between the Castel supports with Pup and the main story. My favorite part of the WHOLE GAME was Norde berating Pup to hell and back in their C support together whereas the next support I read is like "Mariel thinks Charlotte and Pup are crushing on each other that's it". Hell, Norde was a super fun character to read about!
That being said, Norde's fem TF seems forced, and the non-human/lizard-y/draconic TF was way more satisfying to me. It felt like that kind of identity shift wasn't as built-up to and wasn't given enough focus to be as impactful/interesting as Pup's. Maybe that's just bc the kind of TF content I'm interested in is, again, more "I'm changing into something I kinda like/come to accept" rather than "I'm changing and it's uncomfortable but I'm still me underneath this". Plus I'll keep it real, I liked the art of Draconic Norde more than Fem Norde by like a lot. Again, maybe that's clothes in the soup store.
Anyways, gameplay feedback. I've played Too Much FE, and I think it gives me some insight into the game's balance and gameplay! In particular I've even been a part of an online community of TTRPG nerds recreating the FE system with a bunch of people taking control of 1 unit in the army towards some grander story, building the units and telling unique stories etc. This is all to say, I have some experience in FE and some experience building FE-esque SRPG games/stories.
First off: DEAR GOD PLEASE LOWER THE CRIT RATE FORMULA. I'm serious, lower crit rates by changing it so Crit=1/2 of Skill instead of just Crit=Skill like it is now. Because the only way to mitigate crit is with luck, and most weapons have like 1-5 crit, if you don't have a ton of luck, you're gonna be facing a non-zero crit chance against all enemies. Even my overleveled units were facing non-zero crit rates starting in like chapter 4 and that never went away. This made Def/Res tanks super valuable and made trying to defeat enemy mages with my own mages or archers a nightmare, because any of my more fragile units taking a counter would mean like a 6% chance of an instant death.
If you want to keep crit rates high, consider a formula like Crit=1/2 skill+1/4 luck, or make it so player units have higher luck (imo this is the least good choice), or make it so longer range weapons (tomes, bows, throwing weapons) have negative crit so they're less threatening to the player's own longer range units.
Maybe this is just me deploying units with bad luck. My A-Team army was Pup, Charlotte, Rowan, Satia, Norde, Flynn, Castel, Mariel, Reagyn, and some rotating final slots for Jude, Kara, Otis, or the new funny easter egg characters. All throughout the campaign, most of my units (barring Pup) had a non-zero chance to get crit on any given attack against them. If Pup's medallion didn't give them immunity to being crit, I'm fairly certain that 8-3 would've been absolutely miserable (but honestly the fact that it DOES give them crit immunity means I think that the map and boss is fine).
Second off: general character balance. I'm mostly fine with character balance as it is, but I just wanna bring to attention the fact that most of the time a new unit joined, their stats were high enough that they were Better than my already trained units of those same (or similar) classes, and the high growth rates meant that any unit that I left behind for so much as 1 map would suddenly fall IMMENSELY behind the curve. I left Otis behind for 1 map and then next map I try deploying him and he was barely contributing, same with Kara (though that may just be a case of those two inparticular not being very good units overall lol).
Specifically, Jenny and Jude both felt way ahead of the curve for when they joined. Flynn kinda felt the same, but because he's a thief, he had unique uses outside of just being "higher stat-ed Bennet". Even if you lowered Flynn's stats, Steal is a unique thing, so he was GONNA be deployed by me.
Now, this note of "there are some new units are stronger than the ones I spent all those maps training" isn't a SUPER bad thing—see FE7 with Isadora, Harken, and Pent—but it does mean that ever STOPPING to not deploy someone for 1 map made ever re-deploying them a real hard sell, and some units just got comically outclassed.
While PoR or RD's BEXP system might have let them catch up somewhat, the fact that BEXP is flat (meaning 100 BEXP is 1 level, no matter WHAT) means that spending it on lower level units (or units with higher EXP gain like Eve and Pup) was just much worse than taking some unit you already had overleveled and dumping more free levels into them. Maybe look into changing the BEXP formulas so lower level units get more exp per BEXP? wow that sentence makes no sense lol.
And maybe buff Bennet and nerf Jude inparticular. I know Bennet is the protag of another game in this universe so you'd prolly rather Oathbreaker be Pup's Game, but still, they felt underpowered, unable to hit a lot of doubling thresholds even in their joining map, and without ANY res they exploded to any Mage (which is made worse by, again, Crit Rates). That being said, Bennet's Lck was so high that maybe they could've been fine fighting some units without facing any Crit. But still, my level 12 Bennet was WAAAY behind Jude's level 15 stats when Jude joined. Hell, by the end of chapter 11, my max level (20) Pup only had 2 Mag (irrelevant for now), 10 Lck (pretty much irrelevant thanks to taking 0 crits with the locket), 1 Str (useful), 3 Def (solid), and 8 HP more than Jude, who was still base level—15—and ALSO still had 7 more Skill and 2 more Spd. Pup was probably the better unit (because, again, nulling crits is Crazy) but Jude being comparable to a Capped Level Lord with 5 more of his own levels to go is maybe a sign that Jude might be too strong at least in the current build. Maybe his growths are really bad so he falls off, idk, that could be interesting! OR you could add some B and A rank weapons so that Pup and Bennet's higher weapon levels (if you trained them during the many maps they had) would give them something over Jude.
To pull the unit balance stuff together: One option for overall balance might be tuning down stats of units overall (player units and enemies to a lesser extent) so that new arrivals aren't Instantly Stronger Than My Trained Units In Similar Classes, and such that one map of missed EXP doesn't mean my units are suddenly not reasonably able to contribute. And also do the BEXP thing.
Anyways that's all my thoughts. Fun game tho, prolly will come back with more updates. Hope this game keeps getting made!
