I really enjoyed this, felt really tense and tactical. I did give up on the final boss though, I was too demoralized after spending a couple of attempts and quite a long time fighting my way through one king, I lost it when I wiped after that.
Random assortment of thoughts:
Every single fight I died and picked "restart with full HP/MP"
I didn't like trying to figure out how to close out a fight with high HP/MP and just felt frustrated that I could heal after battle, but not restore MP
There were a couple of fights that I felt like bad luck would just spell defeat even if I planned really well- e.g one fight where there were two fast air wizards and if they both targeted the character with low magic defence, she'd just die and the fight would be a lot harder. I think I only cleared those fights when I had the luck for that not to happen
I had great difficulty telling what was happening when Spite was involved
I really enjoyed "The Kings suffer Insolvency"
I think the trick to the Kings fight was tracking which one had MP (and how much) and mitigating properly, but it felt quite difficult to do so without busting out a pad and pencil and watching the text notifications like a hawk
Awesome game! Took a while to beat the game without resetting HP/MP between battles. The third battle was the hardest for me, you definitely have to top your party's HP and MP going in.
The party's skillset is great. The Refresh skill is brilliant, definitely makes the combat fast-paced but still tactical. The healing spells restoring max HP feels impactful but not at all overpowered. The single target nukes offer distinct roles between burst and sustain damage. And Disruptor's skillset provides a clear distinction between physical and magical damage: magical attacks' damage can't be reduced like with physical attacks, but you can reduce the frequency of it occurring by draining MP.
The battles are memorable, and makes you fully utilize all those skills to the fullest. Definitely feels like solved puzzle after a while though, but it doesn't matter because this is intended to be a very short game anyway!
the begining was pretty frustrating, had to try the first level or two for a few times until it sort of clicked and I finished the rest in a seating. this bashing repeatedly against the wall until I get it and then I can manage de enemies pretty smoothly I guess is how people's experiences with soulslike's are?? although I never played those. it was cool to experience that here.
I like that the difference between doing it wrong and right is getting wrecked or managing the situation pretty well. I much prefer that style of combat, of fully countering big threats, to slowly chipping off damage.
it was really cool to have this very dense compact experience of getting to know this system and the dynamic between the characters and going from a very naive and reluctant play style to feeling I could actually control the situation.
I wrote some mechanics feedback in a pastebin: https://pastebin.com/0Dc61Qw9 (Not posting them inline this comment because I realized they could spoil the mechanical learning for anyone who hasn't played it yet.)
Have you played Etrian Odyssey 2 by any chance? This reminded me a bit of it, since that game has a really cool debuff class: https://etrian.fandom.com/wiki/Hexer
that's some valuable feedback! thank you for playing both games and sharing your thoughts. i think you're right about the physical/magical split - i think it's kinda like the black mage problem where if one character can do it all, the complexity is collapsed to "just use the right one". if i revisit the concept in a future game (and i'd like to) i'll have to do some things differently.
i haven't played any etrian odyssey games in earnest yet, but folks are always pointing me toward them, so it'll happen one of these days. i'll be curious to see how the hexer plays - i generally find "debuff specialist" as a class concept doesn't click with me, but from what i know of EO, i trust the series to execute on it in an interesting way. i'll keep an eye out for it.
That was dope as hell!! Just a good punchy set of battles that explore some very good player verbs. I love how these games explore super-specialized character roles, I think that adds a lot to the rpg combat experience.
ah, if you press F5 you can switch between two resolutions. that should make the game fill the entire screen in fullscreen mode and make it not-tiny in windowed. (unfortunately i don't know any solution for the blurriness in fullscreen mode - that seems to be unavoidable for rpg maker 2000 games on modern OSes.)
that was really fun! figuring out which enemy to prioritise and stopping them from dealing enough damage to take out the team was sooo satisfying. one thing id say that sort of bothered me was that there was no indication when Magic Wall's effect was going to run out so it i had to just pray that it would still be up in future turns.
overall, this game was sweet and short enough for me to enjoy the whole experience :)
← Return to game
Comments
Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.
I really enjoyed this, felt really tense and tactical. I did give up on the final boss though, I was too demoralized after spending a couple of attempts and quite a long time fighting my way through one king, I lost it when I wiped after that.
Random assortment of thoughts:
Thank you for a really interesting game
Awesome game! Took a while to beat the game without resetting HP/MP between battles. The third battle was the hardest for me, you definitely have to top your party's HP and MP going in.
The party's skillset is great. The Refresh skill is brilliant, definitely makes the combat fast-paced but still tactical. The healing spells restoring max HP feels impactful but not at all overpowered. The single target nukes offer distinct roles between burst and sustain damage. And Disruptor's skillset provides a clear distinction between physical and magical damage: magical attacks' damage can't be reduced like with physical attacks, but you can reduce the frequency of it occurring by draining MP.
The battles are memorable, and makes you fully utilize all those skills to the fullest. Definitely feels like solved puzzle after a while though, but it doesn't matter because this is intended to be a very short game anyway!
I highly liked this!
the begining was pretty frustrating, had to try the first level or two for a few times until it sort of clicked and I finished the rest in a seating. this bashing repeatedly against the wall until I get it and then I can manage de enemies pretty smoothly I guess is how people's experiences with soulslike's are?? although I never played those. it was cool to experience that here.
I like that the difference between doing it wrong and right is getting wrecked or managing the situation pretty well. I much prefer that style of combat, of fully countering big threats, to slowly chipping off damage.
it was really cool to have this very dense compact experience of getting to know this system and the dynamic between the characters and going from a very naive and reluctant play style to feeling I could actually control the situation.
Cool game!
I wrote some mechanics feedback in a pastebin: https://pastebin.com/0Dc61Qw9 (Not posting them inline this comment because I realized they could spoil the mechanical learning for anyone who hasn't played it yet.)
Have you played Etrian Odyssey 2 by any chance? This reminded me a bit of it, since that game has a really cool debuff class: https://etrian.fandom.com/wiki/Hexer
that's some valuable feedback! thank you for playing both games and sharing your thoughts. i think you're right about the physical/magical split - i think it's kinda like the black mage problem where if one character can do it all, the complexity is collapsed to "just use the right one". if i revisit the concept in a future game (and i'd like to) i'll have to do some things differently.
i haven't played any etrian odyssey games in earnest yet, but folks are always pointing me toward them, so it'll happen one of these days. i'll be curious to see how the hexer plays - i generally find "debuff specialist" as a class concept doesn't click with me, but from what i know of EO, i trust the series to execute on it in an interesting way. i'll keep an eye out for it.
That was dope as hell!! Just a good punchy set of battles that explore some very good player verbs. I love how these games explore super-specialized character roles, I think that adds a lot to the rpg combat experience.
The fullscreen feature is messed up and otherwise it's tiny. When I go into full screen, it doesn't go all the way and it gets very blurry.
ah, if you press F5 you can switch between two resolutions. that should make the game fill the entire screen in fullscreen mode and make it not-tiny in windowed. (unfortunately i don't know any solution for the blurriness in fullscreen mode - that seems to be unavoidable for rpg maker 2000 games on modern OSes.)
thanks for the note!
that was really fun! figuring out which enemy to prioritise and stopping them from dealing enough damage to take out the team was sooo satisfying. one thing id say that sort of bothered me was that there was no indication when Magic Wall's effect was going to run out so it i had to just pray that it would still be up in future turns.
overall, this game was sweet and short enough for me to enjoy the whole experience :)
thanks for the feedback, i'm honored that you liked it! i'll remember your words on magic wall the next time i make a status ailment like that.
word, looking forward to playing this one < 3