Wow. This is one heck of a game!
I'm going to start with the star of the show: flying. It rocks! It feels great, it looks super cool, and the game makes it a genuinely important first-class mechanic rather than an afterthought. Taking off was a bit awkward but once I figured that it out it was quite a wow moment.
Though the flying more than makes up for it, ground movement is kinda bad. The way the camera and movement controls work or don't work together just makes changing directions really unintuitive. I did mostly get used to it after a while, but it still didn't feel great. Some of the awkwardness of both comes from how different they are: movement on the ground is entirely controlled with the keyboard, with the mouse for camera only, while movement in the air is all mouse.
Combat also does not work well, though I think it just needs some tweaking. You have to stop to aim, which is fine, but I found it impossible to aim quickly because the sensitivity is so high, even when turned down. There might be something weird with the motion itself, too. I think if there was (stronger?) autoaim or bullet magnetism it would help a lot, but as it stands trying to quickly stop, aim precisely, and unleash a barrage is incredibly frustrating. When it works it feels great, but it's very hard to pull off.
Weirdly, though sensitivity is usually too high (and maybe the motion a bit "grainy"), sometimes it's really low, too. Same for movement speed, which is usually okay, but sometimes faster and sometimes slower. I do wonder if those are related to framerate...
I wouldn't say this game has performance issues, but it's pretty demanding to the point of pushing my laptop to the ragged edge of what it can do. There were noticeable dips and spike here and there, and some parts were definitely smoother than others.
In fact, that's why I only got as far as I did. I stopped after the first flying+combat mission because my laptop started to overheat and thermal throttle. If I have time I'll be sure to give this another shot on my gaming machine.
Technically, this is probably the most impressive game in the jam, with maybe Chromagicka Girl in the same league. I almost squeed when I dropped into the game world and watched an NPC walk into view, stop, turn around and leave as a car rolled on by. I did witness a few cars flying in the air, but it doesn't really take away from the sandboxy feel at all.
I understand that it was a deliberate choice, but I still wish this game had more narrative than a text blurb here or there. I'd really love if it had cinematic storytelling like newer sandboxes- but of course, then it would be a very different game.
I don't like the trash picking mission; it gets by on style, but it's conceptually really not a good mission and it feels kind of half-baked. It's not so tedious as to ruin the whole game but it could be shortened up.
I do like the graphics. I can see how they would be divisive, but they worked really well for me. I'm talking mostly about the comic book look and RWBY-ish solidly coloured NPCs. There was some clipping and weirdness with the models and some minor blemishes with the UI that I'd firmly file in "it's an issue but I stopped noticing after 30 seconds" category.
I've had a bit of a hard time categorizing this one mentally, because on one hand it feels like a very professional, polished game, but on the other hand it feels like a janky concept project. Upon further reflection, I don't think there's a conflict there. It's both. It feels above all like an alpha version of a professional, polished game- it's absolutely there in some ways but there are still some kinks to work out.
Finally, are upskirts some kind of mahou shoujo trope I wasn't aware of? I commented on another game thinking that was a bit WTF and they mentioned something about nostalgia.