The tutorials kind of suck ass and they really feel like they only appeal to those who are willing to play around with tools. While the first level being risk free is totally fine (also they should have been training dummies or targets instead of chickens), it’s a bit of a slog as there’s too many targets to kill and there’s not a lot of mechanics to play with. Each successive tutorial gets more interesting solely due to the additional tools the player is given. I appreciate the attempt to start demonstrating Line-of-Sight mechanics starting the second tutorial, however I think it’s a little too open that a lot of people could miss that.
I don’t really remember if the other tutorials had any teaching gimmicks, so I will not talk about them other than to say that if they had a point, it should have been more obvious as to be memorable. I will admit I still had fun during the tutorials because of the addition of tools as I mentioned before.
No complaints about the controls, they follow conventional JP indie game and Newgrounds Flash game standards. Extra mouse control is also pretty cool, however I barely used them.
The setpiece (Cloud Strive from Final Fantasy 7) was very fun, I think it took me many minutes to send him back to Sephitoth because he hit Luckyfer for like a billion damage in one hit and I got real scared and started playing careful. That setpiece also drove in the importance of the movement skills, mainly using Redondo’s Capture skill to stick Cloud in a bush and lock him in with Octopus’s Ice Wall which is definitely unintentional but very, very cool.
Do not like being unable to pass through my teammates. I understand not being able to occupy the same space at the same time, but it’s a little too restrictive.
The menus covering the battlefield constantly was also quite frustrating. I understand that this is most likely a limitation of the engine, but it still kind of sucks.
I think the overworld was unnecessary. I feel like the team could have avoided breaking the “only two levels” rule by just putting all the tutorials in one mega-long fight joined by dialogue boxes, and just having the second level be the final boss with a screen saying “level 2”.
Some issues feel like they’re engine or plugin level, and if this game becomes final project material (which I think it has MASSIVE potential for), I think that they would be better off writing their own extensions to RPG Maker to give them more control over the battle system.
also maybe make the grid a little bit bigger so warp has more relevance, the grid doesn’t necessarily have to be a square either (they could rock a 6x5 grid or something)
good game