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Dragon's Isle Software5 days ago

I played to the start of Probis Castle. The game had some neat mechanics. I like the different defense abilities to deal with different types of attacks. The timeline system worked well, and made the actions you chose have a bit more weight. The story was decent, though felt a bit too familiar to so many others & over using classic cliches.

It would be nice to have more details on the various stats related to abilities, and combat mechanics in general. How does Speed/Wait work? I'm guessing that wait means you slow down and wait that long before the next move, while speed is how fast you will move down the timeline, but it would be nice to have it a bit more clear. How much do the number mean? Similarly, the infinity symbol next to TP, implies that it drains all remaining TP. Does the amount of TP affect the power? It seems like it does not. When first seeing it I questioned if I should save it to be my last attack when TP is low if it would be the same power, or save my TP to use it at full power for a boss? The Ground Cleave does not seem to accumulate Beats. It is showing as 0 and a different color, but it was not clear to me that it also would not accumulate any, and I had used it a few times without being hit, then noticed I had 0 Beats. With it being at 0, is that because it is always using the Finisher? It seems a bit odd, and would be nice to have it clarified, or maybe show it as no Finisher, but also does not accumulate Beats being listed. Initially I wasn't using TP abilities as I didn't want to waste power on weak things. Only in the first boss fight did I realize I would regain some during combat.

The enemy bars have what looks like 2 bars, with one more faded than the other. It is not clear what that is meant to show.

At the campfire it says HP/MP, but in combat it is called TP.

Some of the music choice felt a bit odd to me. The Boarcupine fight really stood out as not fitting with the theme/setting of the game, at least to me. The title screen as well, but not as much as during the boss fight.

At the start of Probis Castle I got the message about the Boarcupine DNA drop. That should really show up earlier, before all the cut scenes.

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AnonymousRPGDeveloper5 days ago(+1)

Heya, this is useful feedback, thank you!

In terms of the story, what would you like to see for it to be more interesting and fresh?

In regards to the music, this was all composed for the game with the intent of having a similar musical style. Does the rest of the music feel equally out of place, or is it only those two tracks you mentioned? 

As for your thoughts about combat and UI, here are thorough explanations of each of those elements.

Speed/Wait are percentages of the gauge. If the skill Speed is 50, then after using the skill your action gauge automatically fills up 50%. If the Wait is 50, then after selecting the skill the character will wait an additional 50% of their gauge before the skill executes.

You are correct about skills that cost Infinity TP; they always have the same power and cost your entire gauge, so ideally you want to use them when your TP is as low as possible.

Infinity Beat means that this skill has no Finisher and (in theory) builds up Beat infinitely. Of course, since the only skills with that feature in this build are non-damaging, they don't build Beat at all. In contrast, a skill with 0 Beat always meets the criteria for its Finisher, which means that the skill is effectively always a Finisher no matter how much Beat you have.

The darker, faded portion of an enemy HP bar is displaying how much HP they had before the most recent attack used against them (in other words, illustrating the relative amount of damage that attack dealt).

These aspects aren't all explained right away, in part because we trust the player to pay attention and make educated guesses about certain mechanics (you were pretty spot on with your inferences!) but also because many of these mechanics will be explained more thoroughly when the time comes. Most of Matsumoto's abilities are intended as a sort of "preview" of what's to come, as the game slowly introduces these abilities to the other party members in a slow and natural manner.

With that said, it's not at all the intent to confuse players, so this feedback leaves a difficult balance for tutorialization between overloading the player with too much information, and not providing crucial info they'll need to enjoy the game. I'll have another look at these elements and consider if there are other ways to hint at the mechanics during this prologue section.

Thanks a lot for playing, this was very useful data!

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Dragon's Isle Software4 days ago(+1)

For the story, I can't really say anything specific. It just felt like so many others. The reluctant ex-soldier, accepting a new young student, who does better than any before and could be the one true partner... The villain burning down your home and forcing you onto the task they want you to complete. I didn't play far enough, but the tragic death of your master feels likely to be coming up... though on that note, for such a legendary and powerful fighter, he felt rather under-powered. For gameplay reasons it is understandable, but it is something I look at when a supposedly great hero joins your party. If he is going to only be a short term character, then you have more room to boost his stats to feel legendary, even if it does make balancing things so the young one true hero doesn't feel useless. I enjoy RPGs and grew up playing them, with a fondness for SNES/PS1 era. Maybe I've just played too many.

None of the music really fit the setting, in my opinion. The look made me think this was set in a fantasy feudal Japan. I would have expected more of an East Asian sound to the game music. To me, the music sounded modern, and more like an urban setting, not out in the woods.

I fully understand not overloading players with too much at once. Personally, I do like a bit of exploring and learning, but I also want to know everything. I like when there is a way to confirm that I understand a mechanic, even if I initially learn it through using it. I think the biggest one for me was the Speed/Wait. I think if you added % next to the numbers that would help as it would give some definition to what these numbers without a unit mean. I saw the indicators jumping around, but there was a lot of quick movement, so I did not acknowledge it was % based. Maybe if I played more I would have connected it to being a percentage.

While I missed how the HP bar worked, it also wasn't a major issue. They took damage, and it showed progress, so it worked. I just didn't acknowledge how the fainter section was working. Again, given more play time, it probably would have been clearer. I suppose many of my questions probably would have been answered over time. I'd say that adding the % to the Speed/Wait would be the main thing I'd change on these, and the rest probably are fine for people who play long enough and get invested. When I hit the second camp fire I did a bit of testing on the infinite TP ability so I'd know how it worked for the clearly upcoming boss fight. I could have spent more time testing the other things, but I just wasn't drawn in enough. I was thinking the boss would be the end of the demo, so I'd play that far, and just wanted to be prepared to beat it and not need to retry. Eventually explaining things would be nice just to confirm, but is probably not needed. You could add something to the menu that explains mechanics in more detail, possibly unlocking as they are meant to be revealed, if you feel it is worth the effort. It could be styled after the paper manuals that used to come with games.

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