itch.io

So, played the demo yesterday, and gotta say, I was pretty much hooked on it all day. For almost 8 hours straight, I was playing your game, cause I was enjoying it that much. From the story, to the characters, to the lore of the world.... It was all good.

Pros: 
Story:  The story is already a strong point going for. I was hooked pretty quickly as I got my self oriented with the world and controls, and quickly found the story of the up-an-coming knight vuu a very good jumping off point. I'm already anticipating what you might have cooking up in the future with Nightmare and why everything is going down. Rose being a human and referring to the magics as mana is also a nice mystery that can be explored.

Art: The character art for the over world are all adorable and cute (and a little sexy) in all the right ways. The background art is also pleasing, relatively easy on the eyes, and very interesting depending on the location your at, giving every current zone a nice set up. It's easy to tell where Vuu's beach was compared to sky temple or the forest. As for the 'battle art/shop art', the characters look very nice and well detailed. It's pretty good to see the difference in chest sizes too..... (More on this later..)

Gameplay: The mix of the overworld puzzle solving, mix with the battle puzzle games makes this a good game to have a story with. The battles aren't TOO frequent, but pretty good. Having a battle puzzle game is also a nice idea, and I haven't seen any other games quite like this one that mix a battle aspect with the puzzles. I honestly could probably do better with making a better deck of spells when in fights, but that's on me.

Cons:
Story: A bit of a nitpick, but a small bit of confusion for the sky temple is why vuu get's crystalized, and the leader get's.....Let's say poked, is a bit strange to me. I know for story reasons and drama, getting the big tripple poke sets up the tear jerking conclusion to the beach area, but it also makes me wonder why? Why wouldn't she be just getting covered in crystal too? This is probably the only small nitpick I have over all in story.

Art: So given this game is namely about B.E., I already know you've talked about the lack of content with this. And although it's good to work for the B.E. when leveling up, tying it to exploration to gain powers from finding power spheres can both feel a little bit like it's robbing of the chance to get them. (I only found 8 power spheres, and although I'd rather not do a replay to find the rest since the demo doesn't allow back tracking to the beach zone, I still had vuu at least at level 4, which she was already fairly large then! Makes me wonder if there will be ways to go past the size 6 in the future that you announced.) Over all, there isn't really a gripe about the art, but I will put a suggestion of ideas (probably some you've already considered), at the end of this post.

Gameplay: So here's where my actual gripes are coming in. Now, for all intents and purposes, most of the gameplay is solid. I like the quirky inventory system, but I'm sure some improvements could be made to finding things in certain area's of the map. I know that the characters will react (looking depressed) if we're in an area with a secret, but sometimes those secrets are just THAT elusive. I'd come to one room, they'd react, and I don't know what I'd need to find. I'll make a suggestion for 'secrets' down below. As for world puzzles, most of them are pretty easy, though the color matching stuff still makes my brain hurt. (But in a good way). The biggest annoyance was actually in Nightmares zone, when you'd have to use your mouse to scroll three different turbines. I manged to BARELY make them, but they are VERY unforgiving... I'd say out of everything in the game, this was one thing that almost made me stop. I'd maybe give a little more leeway with the reverse turbines in nightmare's zone. Finally, there's a noticeable difficulty spike right after the plains when you fight...Celistine? (Lightning Cow). Where kitsune was hard but manageable, Celistine definitely upped the difficulty. I lost to her almost eight times before finally managing to overcome her.

Suggestions: First, for overworld puzzles, may I suggest something you could buy from a shop that's called a 'secret tracker'? Something that makes it so if people want an easier time finding secrets on the map, it'll mark it when you come to a room with a secret. This way it's optional for players and it doesn't take away from the game play too much. Secondly, with said secret tracker, it marks on the map something similar to that of the Metroid series. In each square, a open circle will appear when there's treasure or a secret. And once the secret or treasure is found, the circle is replaced with a dot? Something easy for players to identify.

B.E. suggestions: So with the biggest gripe being a lack of B.E. content, I can suggest maybe two ideas. In the battle games where you fight an enemy, perhaps they 'swell' with magic the closer they get to losing. Sorta like they're getting that fae magic over-flow before exploding. The other is a simple thing in shops, purchasable items that give small enhancements, be they temporary (for one fight), or have some gradual stuff. Heck, these could be even used for fun over-world puzzles, like flotation raft boobs.... Silly stuff.

OVERALL: Loved the game, can't wait for more!