I overdid it and hit the comment length limit of 10240 chars...
I made it to the end of Chapter 2! That was really fun! The game feels less stressful, now that I can freely hop back and forth between levels, and more tactical now that I have four girls to manage in combat. Also: Wow. I just now realized, thanks to the underground pool conversation, that the wing in the top left of Aika's portrait represents flying and not a hair accessory. I feel so dumb now. The heart really is an accessory, right?...
I assumed "President" was the student council president. I guess not. The plot thickens.
Noting this just in case it was accidental, though I'm guessing it wasn't: Status effect curing items can only be used on the user.
I'm going to come back to this in a little while, when chapter 3 is out, but if you want to ask me anything I think you can reply to this comment; it emailed me the first time, though I didn't get an email for the game update.
Bugs (nothing game breaking in chapter 2):
- Tall Girl (NPC) has very different (weaker, despite being 2 levels higher. Not updated since an older version?) stats from Xing Mei. Weaker than the individual enemies even. And her class is Slacker (like all NPCs?) instead of Giant.
- Everyone except Shizuka is invisible during the scene after the Vess Cemetery Underground Pool fight.
- I think this is a sRPG quirk, but: Displayed current-terrain carries over to the start of the next battle. That's not water.
- Minor obstacle/not-obstacle issue in the lab. Shizuka can climb on tables too, but only if there are bottles on them.
- The undead cosplay outfits don't have menu backgrounds, aside from a grey gradient.
- The Jumping Dead Cosplay book makes Swimming Dead cosplay outfits. It even says so on the crafting confirmation screen.
- All the costume recipe books, even the one for Chapter 3, are available at the start of Chapter 2.
- Did you leave access to chapter 3 enabled in this version on purpose?
- I ran into this while leaving the book shop in Chapter 3, after the locker room. I believe that's the formal clothes (drop, not cosplay) portrait for Mei. I assume you're just still working on this area, so I think I'll wait until you've playtested a bit further ahead to play any more. :P
- Some of the chapter 3 weapons are cheaper than the chapter 2 ones, but I assume you just didn't get to that yet.
Suggestions (some of these are probably kinda vague and hard, though I haven't played with RPG Maker enough to know for sure):
- Rename 'My First Spell' to 'My First Earth Spell', if it doesn't lose the comedic impact?
- If you don't feel strongly about it, consider sorting teleport destinations by chapter rather than location. The locker room is a lot harder than the tower, not that replaying previous levels is a major focus of this game. If you do prefer by-location - and I'm not really sure either way myself - perhaps the list could indicate map level and/or whether it's newly unlocked?
- I was kinda hoping that the bronze star was an accessory or a crafting material or something... I had a lot of HRT by the time I got it. 50 HRT would be a pretty good amount in Chapter 1, but...
- I'd really like some way to know how an item affects my resistances without having to craft and equip it. I didn't even realize the undead cosplay outfits gave you light weakness and... stuff, because it only shows how they affect the main 6 stats. Maybe this is a job for a walkthrough written when the game is complete, though, rather than spending weeks tinkering with the interface.
- I can puzzle it out, but it would be good if you could change the displayed names of all the stats (on bars and the status screen) to the same ones you're using in skill and item descriptions. Or vice versa. Or create a short manual. Or... something. It's not urgent. It'd just be nice.
- BDY: HP
- MND: MP
- WPN: ATK
- ARM: DEF
- SWF: AGI?
- HTR: MAT, apparently (I assumed it was LUK)
- Someone could warn the party that undead monsters are sometimes poisonous, though I demonstrated an extreme lack of genre-savvy-iness by not considering that myself the first time, considering the number of RPGs I've played.
- HRT economy stuff: Healing is really expensive, but I have a ton of money. It would be nice if the cost of healing large amounts of HP was a bit cheaper? I just decided to go replay the kitchens so I could use healing magic, reducing the cost of a nurse's office visit from 90 HRT to 45 thanks to Aika and Mei. On the other hand, about midway through Vess Cemetery you seem to suddenly have more money than you can possibly spend because of all the Bloody Bandages (100% drop from every enemy and 35 sell value is a pretty potent combination)... I have 799 HRT (Edit: 1474 now, after upgrading to equipment from Chapter 3 and selling ~20 bandages) and nothing to spend it on.
- I'd like to have an option to return to title / give up from the battle screen, if possible... I keep losing people and when it happens on turn 1-2 it's often easier to just close the game and reload than very slowly win/lose with whoever's left.
- While I love the outfit system and think it's really cool, and the outfit design is pretty good,
I'm starting to slightly wish there was a way to get the stat benefits from an outfit (the running dead outfit gives huuuge offensive bonuses) without displaying it during conversations (Shizuka looks a little creepy in it). Maybe a menu option to always show default outfits...? - Actually, what about a way to upgrade the store-bought outfits to roughly keep up in stats with the cosplay ones? Even if it's just expensive improved versions bought from the armor shop or something... Alternatively, making better armor and weapons available earlier (heck, make them craftable) could make it easier to advance without grinding or equipping an outfit you don't particularly like, though it wouldn't help min-maxing addicts like me that much.
- Aika's Flash Slash seems quite weak for the cost. It's not much stronger than a normal attack, it doesn't get support from nearby allies, and it doesn't do magic damage. It's not even ranged or an AoE. Am I missing some very useful feature?
- There's no automatic healing between Chapter 1 and Chapter 2... which is not what I expected, but is probably okay.
- It'd be nice if the book shop actually sold grimoires. I'm not just saying that because I want to teach everyone Blow Kiss (which I do... can't have too many healers); it'd be nice to have a few more customization options for each character beyond what to cosplay as, even if each book is only useful for one specific girl (since everyone has a different weapon and magical element). I guess this is time-consuming since skill books are not easy to just throw together like healing items, and require you to mess with scripts?
Obligatory typo list (All from Chapter 2):
- 'But you sleep class': Uhh... through? Slept through?
- 'Well, I can't help it I': needs punctuation (semicolon?) after it
- 'The tower's been flat on top': Lose the 'been'
- 'before I turn cut you down like a beanstock': remove 'turn'; beanstalk?
- 'Why I have to have the': why do I
- 'She's we;come to try.'
- 'I rather her not.' I'd; rather she didn't?
- 'calling upon in the middle of class': upon you'
- 'this is a truly urgent matter at hand': replace this with there; or remove 'at hand'
- 'overran by undead': overrun
- 'to wander if': wonder
- 'Somebody these zombies in this': put
- 'breeze passing through this masoleum': mausoleum
- 'might some more clues': be some
- 'Let me give a try': give it
- 'I stay outside and': I'll
- Masoleum (teleporter option): mausoleum
- 'This masoleum is swarming': You get the idea
- 'more inside the masoleum': Is this actually an alternate spelling? I apologize if it is
- 'to the resque': rescue
- 'underneath a masoleum'
- 'Haun, no is going to': nobody
- 'I volunteer myself, but I....can't swim': I'd?; and that's one dot too many
- 'the fact both of their parents being woman': women; parents are (or 'fact of both (of) their')
- 'a nuber of risks with this method': number
- 'Theoritically, yes': theoretically
- 'an ice witch on us': with us?
- 'defense proceedure put in place': procedure
- 'Is their invitation?' is this their?
- 'I'm destroyed her when she tried' I destroyed
- 'you've been buisy': busy
- 'While we at class, you': we were
- 'Don't jealous, Fredriika': don't be (the second part of that line, 'to which you failed', isn't quite right either, but not sure how to fix it)
- 'not the worse part': worst?
- 'So it is. I perish': so they are? (from the context)
- 'how to survive in wild': in the wild?
- 'what may caused them': may have caused
- 'won't come to our aid': her aid (I think??)
- 'quite disasterous': disastrous
- 'you girls had done what I asked while you gone': you were gone; have done?
- 'without permission of a teacher': from a teacher?
- 'responsibilities and privelages': privileges
- 'my fault your getting': you're
- 'that have went missing': gone missing?
- 'notify them of their lost': loss
- 'their daughters t(o) this island': I don't think there's a typo here but the line wraps one character too late.