Overall, a good game has promise, but there's a lot that can be improved. My friend & I were confused on what a lot of the mechanics were/did. While we were able to figure most of the core mechanics, the game could definitely benefit from more tooltips & more detailed descriptions, particularly around Guardian Usage & the Revive system.
We didn't feel particularly compelled by the story & it sometimes felt like things were added haphazardly:
- Starting Point & Training Grounds w/ the dummy enemies felt empty & unnecessary. A proper forced tutorial, I feel, would enhance the experience a lot. As it stands, we basically enter the game into a "dead", empty area. Get us straight into the action!
- Fighting felt "flighty". We skated around the map, which isn't a bad thing... but, there's no weight to attacks to make fighting feel satisying.
- Please give us the manual ability to decide WHEN to revive. So many times, my friend revived me AS AN ENEMY attacked above my body & would instant kill me.
- Ambient noise was nice & Boss music was a BANGER! However, I didn't feel like the sounds matched the tone during regular battle or moving between areas.
- Speaking to NPCs felt tedious & the objectives didn't seem worthwhile: No stakes, no rewards, no new dialogue per cycle & since we weren't already invested in the story, it felt like just another extra step.
- The game was pretty unforgiving (in a frustrating way) because of the lack of worthwhile items or heals. There's a lot of terrain to work through & destroy. Even if temporary boosters or healing items were 5% drops from terrain/enemies, that'd feel better for morale than nothing at all & wouldn't affect our desire to utilize Merchant/Guardians.
- Wormi is AMAZING. The Guardian System was pretty fun once we "figured" it out. I say it with quotes because a lot of it was guesswork. I do think this feature should be fleshed out/buffed.
For our initial reaction to the game, you can find the VOD here. You'll have to forgive me, as I played the game during a 24hr Charity Stream. Timestamps are available, though: