Dun dun DUUUUUN!
Man have I been out for too long. Looks like I missed the party, the afterparty, AND the hangover that follows. Well, now to crawl out from under the rock which I've been using for shelter and take a look at this game I remember being awesome from long ago. And hooey have I missed a lot of patches and updates. Almost like someone replaced a gold watch with a platinum one while I wasn't looking.
Oh, before we get started though...
Well done. Here come the test results.
You are a horrible person.
...That's what it says; a Horrible person.
We weren't even testing for that.
And now onto business.
Man have I forgotten how awesome this game is. Right off the bat the memories start flooding back: the chocobo song, the great training exercises, the peeping Alraune in the north, the- oh, was that secret beach always there?
So yes, it's taken me a while but I've finally started to take notice of all the extra goodies you've been putting into this. When I played through the demo I was sort of breezing past all the side quests that were out of the way or I couldn't figure out or wasn't patient enough to grind and beat. A shame that I missed a whole lot of content, but at least now I can see it all.
It's kind of funny really. I started reading the posts here after my last one (took a good two hours as well) feeling good at having found the Ancestral Fly and the secret beach and the underground wolves, but as I continued to read... well, saying that there was a growing pit in my stomach was an understatement. I apparently missed a lot of good stuff this time around too, and I was
trying to go for 100% completion. I was even dedicated enough to reach the escape tunnel only to reload a save from before the centaur raid because I noticed that one of the guards we saved had a face and name unlike the others. Good thing too, because that's how I found the Ancestral Fly.
God, can't even remember all the things mentioned in this thread I apparently missed. Guardian of Souls? Zombie thief? Cameo Ring? Idiotic game over in oni cave? Wut? Only reason I found the frog at all is because someone explicitly said that it would be missed as soon as you left the starting area, and I already knew where it would be (btw, curse you for putting an awesome drop at the
BEGINNING of the damn game so I have to start ALL OVER AGAI-). I even spent ten minutes running around the cabin pressing z for good measure because someone somewhere dropped a hint about the cabin in relation to the zombie event - of which there are two apparently. What the hell have I been missing!?!
If I sound pissed, I'm no- well, it's because I am, but for the right reasons. Replayability is always excellent (even if this method is a little frustrating) and believe me when I say this is a game worth replaying. It's also making me consider trying a different class, which is another plus because I wasn't planning on doing so. I'd already made saves just before about every major boss fight or turning point with my Pally, so I was all set to hunker down and bide my time for chapter 2 while reliving the best the isles had to offer. But the knowledge that there's a missable at the beginning of the game has urged me to try something new, just to shake it up. So kudos to you there AW, whether that was intentional or not you achieved a great change in habit through your missables.
(Still bloody annoying that it's at the BEGINNING OF THE DAMN-)
Now onto some technical things before I dive into some story feedback (and oh ho yes I have some story- well, content feedback at least). Playing through as a Pally again after you've made your adjustments to the class, it's certainly different than how I remember last time going. First of all, I am incredibly grateful for the Holy Fingers ability, since its high hit chance and disregard for debuffs has saved me on a number of occasions. It's not a game-breaking offensive ability, about as strong as a regular attack, but it's a good lifeline for a low-damage like the Pally when we come up against some enemies that just like to dwindle our ATK stat.
And for balance, the DEF is as good as I remember it. It still feels good to just wade through a sea of monsters and leave barely-conscious, half-delirious giggling bodies in my wake. Actually, it's a bit better than I remember it, as I was able to speed out of the starting village and nearly bulldoze the Alraune with a substantial amount of hp left - with no heals or potions. That's something I distinctly remember being unable to do in my demo playthrough because it was one of the things I'd skipped over in my search for an exit. During my romp through Cave of Whispers, I was laughing of any damage (haha) and just breaking my way through walls of onis. I also feel like I used fewer heals during my fight with Tula than I did last time, though I might have been a level higher this time around; I don't know, it's been six months and a whole laptop ago.
However, even the highest of defenses can't save you from getting mobbed...
I bring this up because one fight that gave me a hellish time was the fight with the Ancestral Ticklefly. Now, I haven't seen any other Pally's complain about this, so maybe I tackled this a level lower than I should have, but it's still something I want to mention. The fight was going fine until she called all her little damn helpers, and which point I would almost unfailingly slowly get tickled into madness, outracing even my heals. At that point, a normal attack wouldn't even damage my Nadya, but when coupled with the Ancestral wiggling her toes at her she would be forced under an onslaught of tickles at full-force. I did beat her, eventually, but only by using 3 hi-potions in exchange for one in return. Well, I know now Nadya could have tickled the Ancestral for longer to get more rewards, but at the time it wasn't a very fair cost-reward ratio. In the big picture, I'd essentially spent two hi-potions on some experience and shards, neither of which were overwhelmingly impressive.
I'm not entirely sure what the Ancestral wiggling her toes does, since the icon isn't as handy as the ATK with a down arrow is, but I'm beggining to suspect that it nullifies or at least seriously dampens Nadya's defense. If that were the case, then I'd beg you to spare a nickel for us Pallys who hate to use items because we're minimalists like that.
😛
Another change I liked from my demo playthrough is that I found myself using items more for boss fights, which I mentioned I did with the Ancestral, the most notable of which were Necrobitch and Arachne in the caves. As mentioned previously, I'm a minimalist who hates to use anything that's not a given ability, like I'd sooner use heal than a potion (so what if I'm frugal?). I like to sink my money into more passive investments like better armour or weapons, but even I admit there needs to be some reason to have consumables otherwise it just breaks the economy of the game. So congrats for coaxing me out of my bad habits and getting me to use a potion here and there - and a shit-ton of antidotes. There's a pattern forming here...
Actually, on the topic of those two bosses, I want to point out something I found in the escape tunnels. I've mentioned already that my Nadya was brushing off most normal attacks pretty quickly, and even the centaurs did really low damage. As soon as I stepped in the caves though, I was taking 20s and 30s and upwards. Not that it's a bad thing, but it's a) a bit of a shocker and b) a helluva bitch to be fighting against two or more of 'em. I could leave the bed fully refreshed, enter the next cave and then get eaten down to about 40 health when I encountered two specters. It might be that they use MATK instead of ATK, it might be that place is just supposed to be that hard. Just letting you know, because as a tank it was pretty disheartening to see my Nadya's health get chewed up like that.
And you, sir, deserve another round of applause for your mining cart minigame. Bravo. Kudos. Well done. And also for your zombie child encounter, but mostly your minigame. Being somewhat accustomed to RPGMaker at this point, I know how difficult or at least off the rails it is to program something like that (OFF THE RAILS LOL). If you did it the way I think you did it, then I ache for you thinking of all the time you must have had to invest in it. But hey, it was most definitely worth it, or at least I think so.
🙂
That said, I am just a tad disappointed that we didn't get to see another rare npc-to-npc encounter like we did with the Scared Ticklefly on the surface. Not just something like the Tula-Necrobitch interaction either, like a proper encounter interaction. I'm not crying for it in every single dungeon and area, but, well, it wouldn't go amiss. >.> And with all those undead flying around, there was prime opportunity for it...
Anyhoo, I also noticed a few typos and mistakes and such, but nothing game-breaking like it appears to have been for other people. Although, unlike everyone else it seems, I wasn't
trying to break the game. Those N[1] instead of \N[1] errors in the caves are still there, though you probably already know that, and there's a few other text things I've noticed wrong. One thing that I know for sure stuck out at me was that item descriptions would often if not always go off the side of the screen, making reading what exactly the effects do slightly difficult sometimes. As for anything else... I... can't... remember.
I swear, one of these days I'm going to find the time to sit down for a an evening with your game and an open doc and jot down everything I come across. Helpful notes are coming, I promise. Sometime. Hopefully.
Oh right, one more thing before we move on.
AnimeWatcher said:
This, good sir, is a beautiful sight. I bow down to you, oh mighty Creator. Please don't postpone the release of chapter 2 for too long, else we weak-willed culls will die from anticipation.
Let me open this final part of my post with a quote. Well, another one.
Yes, the shy mage girl is indeed making her debut. In fact, she has already appeared in version 1.
:whistling:
Oh you cheeky bastard.
But seriously, this will, I think, be one of if not the most awesome part of the game for me. See, whether you think you're a good writer or not (and I think you are, just for the record) there is one thing that you do undeniably well, and that is laying little nuggets for us to find. Secret scenes like those ones I haven't found yet, secret items like those life ups you have hiding in the corners of the maps behind seemingly impassable barriers, secret places like that beach and the underground cave. But what has me hooked is your master plan, and it's quite obvious that you have one.
It's not uncommon for the main accompanying characters to be introduced in the opening bits of course, but what has me excited that I didn't even see this coming. Tula was obvious (perhaps bordering on a little too obvious if it doesn't pay off soon, though it sounds like it will), but honestly she was the only one from this first section that I thought would make it to become a party member, aside from maybe Worynn down the line eventually. Well, that was a lie, I'm suspecting the harpy too, but that's beside the point. Perhaps I'm making too big of a deal out of this, but things like this are really clever and it's really such a thrill for me to be surprised with a familiar face. Could be speaking to the inner fanboy deep down. Whatever the case, the idea that you'll be throwing out twists and turns along the way is certainly an exciting prospect.
Another part of your grand scheme that I'm loving the idea of is all these missable opportunities and branching paths for the character (love the introduction of the straightforward morality meter; or immorality meter, if you prefer). Even though it does seal of content during the first playthrough, if the game is worth replaying (and this one is definitely shaping up to be) it can be painless or even downright pleasurable to revisit all the fond memories that you maybe didn't capture with your saves. Which is where the missables come in: with a second playthrough I'm doing for the other paths, there's the chance I'll stumble across something I missed the first time around in the shared areas between the two. Extra incentive, and something to chew on while proceeding.
So yes, carry on you mad, mad schemer.
Alright, it's getting really late here, so I'm going to wrap up quickly. The last note I wanted to mention was that I really like your tease for chapter two. That monster girl was very scary, even though I sort of knew what was coming. I didn't even suspect that she was a big monster until that last part. I hope we don't have to kill her later, though she has eaten a few people... Ah well, we're all just different shades of gray anyway.
That's it, done for today, need to get some shut-eye. Nighty-night.
