Hello! Welcome to Feedback Quest 8! My name's Hythrain, a co-host 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.
For an RPG, the design of this caught my interest. At first I wasn't a fan of the artstyle, but around the time of the party it was working its charm on me. Pauline and Alina are so freakin' cute. I also like the stat system you have going on as well as how items work. That said, I also have a bunch of issues. I'm going to go over this full list in the order I wrote it in my notes.
First, before the game starts up, you should have a title screen where the player has a chance to go into the Options and make changes like volume or control changes before they start. I found the initial game volume a bit loud and had to turn it down through my hardware instead of via the game as I prefer.
Second, I caught a typo early on. What I have written down is "You told be the day before..." I assume that "be" should be "me."
Third, I wasn't happy about the gambling NPC who tries to force me to gamble. This could've been a bug, but he kept trying to force me to gamble when I said no. Then when I finally said yes, I still couldn't gamble but he still wouldn't leave me alone. I ended up moving away and it broke the loop, but that seems unintended. Since he's an optional-to-interact character, there shouldn't even be a thing where he forces my choice should I choose to interact.
Next on my list, the party. In particular, I wasn't happy that I couldn't talk to Alina ever. Had no drinks? Ilya won't do it. Have one drink? He still won't do it. Have two drinks? Now he's too drunk to do it. On a personal level, the fact that he was considered "very drunk" from just two drinks felt like BS to me. I know some people have very low tolerances, as I'm a bit of a lightweight myself and I have friends who are even more of a lightweight than me. However, I still think there should be an ability to talk to Alina in there somewhere. Maybe instead make it three drinks, and if you happen to forget to talk to her after the second then too bad? Of course, I say this while guessing that you likely did this for a reason and are saving getting to know Alina until later, but I still think it'd be a good idea to have her say something. After all, I didn't see her anywhere during events prior to this moment and I do wish we had an idea of her personality and why Ilya is shocked that she's there. I'm assuming Ilya has a crush on her, in which case I really want to see a little early interaction to help set that up better and to let the player get to know Alina sooner. For the record, here's the exact thing I wrote in my notes... "Are you kidding me? You wouldn't let me talk to Alina in the beginning nor after one drink, but then when I have a second one I get so drunk that I still refuse? Maaaaaaan, robbing me of talking to her!"
Fifth, this one could be an issue of me not checking the options so maybe this is dealt with. However, I noticed that when I'm doing fights, not only will the game default to an enemy in the back (who I may not be able to attack depending on the fight) but that it doesn't remember my input and ALWAYS puts me on using abilities over my normal attack. I do get that the game is designed to let you use all your energy for abilities first, but as an RPG player I sometimes just like to do regular attacks.
Speaking of fights, there are some things I want to say here. First, I feel like starting enemies are too strong. So not including the very first fight, which felt more tutorial than anything, every fight I did prior to getting a party of three was way too hard. First was just against a single guy to the right of the college, then it was the robots and then the two guys outside the store and then the Obaman guy. Not only does each enemy have way more HP than the player does, but they're also able to hit more often (as some enemies have multi-hit attacks). There's also the timing system, but I'll get into that in a moment. For now, I feel like these early fights should be toned down and the player given a stronger advantage to start off. For example, all of these starting enemies should have far less HP (from what I saw, you are able to change the HP for each enemy dynamically). There also shouldn't be any fights with multiple opponents (robots, dudes outside the store) to give the player a better chance to win, as any fight where it's 2v1 is almost guaranteed to be a loss for the player.
Ok, moving onto the timing system. This reminds me a lot of timed attacks in Super Mario RPG and I'm not against the idea. However, I am against the current execution. For starters, a lot of these feel really fast, where you get less than a second before you need to press the button; there's not even enough time to register when the timing starts. As such, I'd like to suggest a bunch of things: first, that the timing circles and shields always start much sooner. Second, that there is always consistency with the first time. Third, that there's no multiple timings; just make it one timing based on the first move (if concerned about missing the timing on a multi-hit, just make the attacks after the first one always weaker than the first hit. That way, even if the player misses, it doesn't hit too hard. However, if they time it then it does a lot better reduction). Lastly, I recommend using the Nintendo philosophy of visually telegraphing the timing, where there's a visual cue besides the circle to tell the player that this is the best moment to click. This would make it easier to see when to do the timing. For example, when Ilya is doing a punch, he'll do a very quick movement to prep his attack right before you'd want the player to do the timing. So the draw back is slow, then it speeds and stops right before the perfect timing. Doing this for all attacks could even let you remove the timing circle. My last recommendation is to not have attacks completely fail if you don't get the timing. Let them still hit and still do damage. That way, an attack is completely wasted.
That was a long part. Don't worry, only two notes left and they're both short.
Of the last two, the first one is this: PP. I feel like if I say this, you should understand what I'm getting at. I'm sure it's short for Power Points, but I'd say rename it entirely. Maybe Energy Points, aka EP?
Lastly, I noticed that when describing Danila, you used the pronoun "their" twice for them. However, you also described them as "he."If this is because he/they is their choice in pronouns, no big deal. I'd just say maybe make a note of it for people who may not be used to someone using a mix of gendered and neutral pronouns. Perhaps when you first add someone to your contacts but it's someone Ilya is supposed to already know, you have a brief moment of Ilya being all "This is so-and-so. Here's some info about them." Otherwise, if it's not a pronoun choice thing... I think you'd want the uses of "their" to be "him" or "his."
That's it! Okay, gotta go! I played this far longer than I was supposed to! Got really into it! Eeep!