Finally got around to playing the whole demo, I really enjoyed it!
Bugs & Issues:
First, getting these out of the way... (there probably aren't as many written here as it may seem, i go into a fair amount of detail)
- In most apps that hide your mouse pointer, you can see your mouse if you navigate it out of the window in windowed mode; however, when trying the demo in windowed mode, I had to alt+tab to a different window to get my mouse pointer back.
- A notification popped up when I was playing an earlier build a while back (1.0.4 I think), and the game broke. Not sure if this issue happens in the current build, as I didn't bother figuring out how to cause a notification pop up, but it's worth looking into. (I'm talking about the Windows notification popups that appear in the bottom right corner.)
- Not sure if any of this is a bug or if it's all just a consequence of features not yet being implemented, but there are multiple issues related to erasing save data. First of all, Zee remains in the party after a save reset if you already have them (leading to a funny awakening cutscene, if Zee is at the front of the party at least), and items in the world don't respawn, except for items in presents (assuming that hasn't been changed since 1.0.4 or so). Also, unless this has been changed since I saw it happen a patch or two ago, the player's inventory isn't cleared on save erasure. I managed to do a full reset by deleting the Zephyr Star user folder, AppData\Local\ZephyrStar. Again, I know all this might just be features not yet implemented, but I thought I'd mention it just in case.
- When loading a save, the player's camera can be rotated what is presumably the wrong way. For example, loading from the first save cat puts the camera on the opposite side of the player, compared to where it would normally be in that area. Moving around some brings the camera back to normal.
- Once or twice, the little description at the start of the battle went away too fast to read. Can't remember if this happened consistently with specific encounters, or if it happened randomly. Very small issue, but thought it was maybe worth mentioning?
- When I fell into water near the first Llewellyn grapple jelly, I got respawned in the same spot Bat spawns at the beginning of the game, leading to a bit of an inconvenient trek back.
- The Verevi fruit present at the box puzzle was empty when I found it.
- The depth of field blurring messed with me, I'm not used to seeing such strong blur in a 3d game. Some of this might not be noticeable with a small monitor, but the characters are a little blurry with normal camera angles, and the blur issue becomes more clear when the camera pulls back for the box puzzle. At the very least, it'd be nice to see a setting to adjust the blur; I felt like the blur messed with my eyes more than the bright and flashy colors. Perhaps it'd work better if it only applied in the far distance?
- After playing the demo yesterday, I continued the game today, and... all my consumable items seemed to be gone...? Llewellyn left the inventory, too, though the Llewellyn rope still works. Notably, all my materials are still here. Not sure when this bug happened, or if the items will return.
Other Stuff
Those issues aside, I really liked the demo! I hope that bugs & issues list didn't suggest otherwise.
The rhythm-based combat was great and left me wanting to fight new enemies just to see what their patterns are like. I've struggled a lot on Galaxy Guardian (I gave it several attempts but haven't gotten past its set of giant TPK lasers; I still plan to beat it eventually), but I enjoyed all the enemies I managed to beat. I also loved the dialogue and descriptions, it's the kind of witty stuff I've come to expect from Earthbound-inspired RPGs. The characters' overworld abilities were fun, and I liked their different attacks, be it their default attacks, Bat's special, or the Fizzy Bomb. I appreciate the inclusion of the battle area at the end; it was a cool way to try out extra battles that weren't found elsewhere in the demo. The swing rhythm battle is hard!
(An update on Galaxy Guardian: I did a lot better today and managed to get past its TPK lasers; furthest I've gotten is the octahedrons. I probably could have beat it if I still had items; perhaps I'll still manage to beat it regardless, though that'd be quite a feat. It's a fun battle, if not a rather difficult one for me!)
Thanks for putting out this demo, I'm glad I got to play it. I'm excited to see where this game goes!