So uh... I appreciate what you have going on here and there are some interesting ideas here, but I just had to give up after dying (three times) to the Scarlet Devil Mansion section. That is a massive difficulty spike you have going on, I think having 30-40 enemies is fine for a challenge but... uh... 80-120 enemies per room is... kind of pushing it....
I'll try my best to list all the pros and cons I have of the game here.
Pros/Advantages
- The art and music is very neat and cute.
- The pixel art was quite well-done, I particularly liked the enemy designs.
- Energy gain is quite lenient in this game, a good run can get you enough energy to purchase 3-4 upgrades from the shop (early on at least).
- The roguelike feel with the randomized room maps, treasure chests, and enemy formations was captured nicely.
- Many of the items are designed with clear intention in mind - the weapons all have meaningful uses and you are encouraged to switch between them during turns for optimal attacks. Bind Snake is extremely strong but requires some careful planning so you don't accidentally kill it, the potions are meant to be used when you're in an enemy's face and you can't stack their effects, etc.
Cons/Weaknesses
- Despite their strategic nature above, the weapons and spells are too weak...! Khakkhara and Bind Snake have good synergy sure but it's weird having those two items only work with each other and nowhere else. I can't see the significance of wooden smacker (I forgot its name, sorry)'s Stunned-inflicting status, the final weapon (I forgot its name too) is strong but can only be used once (so it may as well be just a spell??) and overall Katakana and Naginata are the only ones worth using. The ranges are extremely underwhelming in particular - so many enemies can hit you from afar, and yet you're stuck with the same 5/10 damage and 1/2 range attacks, it's really discouraging.
- There's barely any feedback for damage or healing. No enemy HP counts, no indicator for Sanae's HP, damage numbers are ridiculously small, there are barely any sound effects... Using cool attacks with good feedback is a big part of roguelikes and I think you didn't accomplish that, sorry.
- Potions can miss. Why can they miss?????? I had a health potion and an invincibility potion miss, giving me neither HP nor invincibility and making me lose two precious potions, why???? Please fix this immediately, thank you.
- The partner mechanic doesn't work. Teaming up with Reimu just defaults to Aya instead, and they don't seem to assist you in any way at all.
- The story is... bugged? I died while doing Aya's quest in the second area and when I respawned, the quest was no longer there and there was simply no story from the Forest area onwards.
- Easy Mode is not very well-implemented, it only changes your maximum HP and nothing else. It's not very helpful.
I'm sorry for being harsh, I think this has potential to be a great game! It's just that I didn't see much of that potential being explored at all, both in story and gameplay. I was left unsatisfied, but regardless I'll be interested to see a post-jam update flesh it out into something amazing.