yeah, i really loved the chase. i did realize pretty quickly it was easy, especially since I had found the library secret earlier, but the music and tone were still spot-on. i did freak myself out on the castle entrance being like, wait, he's RIGHT THERE, but then i remembered he can only see in a straight line lol. i'm too gay for that, LeStack!
i will say, one of the best hallmarks of these sorts of games are "finding a secret you don't know how to use" like the library and the hole behind the throne. then, when it all clicks together in the final couple minutes, it feels sooooo good.
i liked the ideas here. i think the high encounter rate and kinda wonky default skills did a disservice to those ideas, but i did beat it. neat jam game.
less of a criticism cuz possibly intentional, but i thought it was interesting that you fought so many other monsters before slaughtering the humans by the end. hm!
edit: also for future collab concept at some point, after Harold Gacha (vesengir saga ii) (I JUST REALIZED I FORGOT TO MENTION MY YURI GAME ONCE DURING ALL OF JUNE??) i have a lot of experience forcing visustella plugins into autobattler A-I which could be... pretty funny for a game like this or killing fools etc lol
actual edit: why the fuck did i start this with "edit"
i think the most interesting textural thing for me with jusztina is that sorcelleons barely take damage from her but she won't basic them unless they're really low, BUT they're also dangerous, so you have to spend a lot of mp to give marie-louise time to attack them or just hope you've finished them off with the attack that turn
I do think you did a great job with the character differentiation on this, and in how you chose to work around evasion/accuracy due to 2k's limited access to those. Lament's "hit twice" is technically more accurate when everything has 1 hp, and so on. Fun!
i liked the idea of this one, though i have to admit....... i did not get the waking up sequence. defintiely has vibes though
first try, i went a ways through and died to a tick. i did go off the path a bit, got attacked by a game warden and assumed the forest was off limits, but got one on the road so... lol
second try, i just fucking booked it through the woods south and followed the river until i found the rest stop. but i only had 56 gold so i couldn't spend the night. still, was good talking to all the npcs. i liked that. poor pig
yeah, i can tell you had fun with this one. i think this jumped to the top of the list for me.
i do want to push back on:
"This latter limitation accounts for a number of smaller balance gripes I have: buffs and debuffs suck, the impacts of elemental access are muted, status ailments never get their moment, enemy movepools are all small and samey (most just have one regular attack + one offensive skill)..."
1) i got a lot out of buffing Boxos
2) i did at least -notice- elements in the dragon horde
3) Thrast was great at doing area ailments in the cave. I think that was worth
4) The enemies had a little texture, like I always ran from Soldiers because Provoke was scary on anyone but Boxos
oddly this feels similar to the hounds of hell just in terms of "what the fuck do i do with these guys" lol, so that was fun. having to deal with death and swapping out for mp was absolutely the way to flex into the end product i think. clap clap
here's my rankings, in order of memory and not bestness:
Boxos: Well, he is the best actually. Just pure, unmitigated damage. Being uncontrollable just makes my life easier. He and Ullar were in my party the entire game.
Soron: Big fan. Basically infinite MP and can do most things you need. I used him a lot, but ultimately ditched him to make space to grab Jorkon, since the ice queen was more helpful in clearing the cave dungeon.
Thast: Quite liked them. (I tipped 1k.) The infinite area heal spam was great, but I did wind up kicking them out for Edelith because Soron had healing covered as long as I was careful.
Edelith: She was fine in the cave dungeon because she has strong AOE. That's all she's got goin' for her. Worth the price of admission if you get her before the caves.
Jorkon: Unironically quite good, despite... yeah. Cure III was really important for keeping Kudelpha active in the Demon God fight. DPS was great too.
Drakellion: Fine, but died early. Buffing Boxo's attack and healing him was 80% of what I had him do.
Stefq: Dead. Whatever. All the other healers were more interesting or self-sufficient.
Ullar: I figured that was what I was getting into, but I played the entire game with him and beat it so whatever. He was tanky enough to stay in the game and take hits off of Jorkon, so thanks Ullar. I did accidentally get him below 10 MP because I kept using the MP drain on enemies without MP... lol...
Kudelpha: Amazing healer concept. I grabbed her for Demon God thinking she was gonna be a buffer, then saw Recovery III and was like... hell yeah! She and Jorkon were incredible for the fight.
Cool concept, and gives me ideas for future jam games ~
"Second, fixed encounters are a much more practical way to explore a large roster of enemies. Does this claim make sense?" I really agree with everything in this paragraph (and immediately thought of FF13, which for all the jokes about corridors, is very much this concept). I do agree that you need more familiarity in a random encounter dungeon where you ideally are meeting the enemy in many different states.
I tried twice and could not get very far but I can see myself coming back to chew on this one more, it's very neat!
