What would I change about the difficulty of Nowhere Prophet?
Revert it back to the release version! When NP came out, it was my game of the year for 2019. I played it so much on release. But then the difficulty was adjusted and it honestly just never really gripped me the same way again. Fights felt trivial and food was abundant. I think what I disliked the most was the “charges” to boss mechanics, as it meant after a couple of turns the boss had no identity to their battle anymore.
That is coming from me, a player obsessed with deckbuilders and roguelikes, so I came into the game with a level skill maybe a lot of players didn’t have? But I would also imagine a lot of the players looking for a deckbuilder roguelike would already be fans of the genre and have some skill already too?
I liked the grueling pilgrimage, but then I felt at the final boss I was either dead on arrival or it’d be easy and I’d find myself wishing for a third phase to the final boss fight. It was a tough balance!
I think my biggest dislike to the run lengths was meeting The Tower but failing to unlock them as a character, and then being stuck having to try another run just to hopefully find them all over again.
Maybe the new easier difficulty for mobile is the right move, but I would love to see higher difficulty options too!
Also, I absolutely loved the world of SOMA!! I loved all the towns and the peoples that called each area home. I would have loved more of that exploration into the world, perhaps in the style of Sunless Sea/Sky. I remember the giant walker that had a whole town of people living on it that was never fully explained. But I think you’re right that most fanart is of characters rather than places.
I hope Crownbreakers has as much lore as SOMA did! I’d still love to see a NP 2 or another game on SOMA.