Hey everyone,
So, I’ve played the game for about 5h30, I’ve done two dungeon so far (Iron Fortress and Lyceros Arena, “Sentier des Crocs” in the French version), and I’ve done the two Sewer quest, with the spiders and the slimes. I’m about to do the Fire Cave hunt, and after that I’ll head East as I’ve shut down the canon. I’m level 10 and have unlocked the 2nd Charge gauge. I’ve done every dungeon in Hard / Expert mode the first time, haven’t tried normal or Heroic so far. I think that’s all.
Before going on with my list, a bit of a disclaimer.
I know that I’m a bit (just a bit) critical, but that’s because I care about the game, really. I’m not going to list every positive thing I think about the game, as it would take some time and this post is already quite lengthy, but I’m not just bashing the game, really. I overall quite like it actually, but where feedback is asked, feedback is due 
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Translation
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Like some other have said, in the French version at least, there’s some Hexadecimal Code in Dialogue (I get that it’s supposed to be a color for the text), and even some good ol’ HTML balise, like the bold one.
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There was a sentence not translated at all in the French version. T’was the one coming from the Lyceros that ask you to kill his brother, Stevie, in the Lyceros Arena Dungeon ; precisely, he’s in the spider room, on the left side of the dungeon.
Balance
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Just my opinion obviously (as is the rest of this post), but I think the game is a bit easy. I played the dungeon in Hard / Expert mode each time, and while there was a bit of challenge, it wasn’t that hard either, just enough to make me think a bit. I haven’t test the normal difficulty, but I fear it would be pretty brainless. I think Hard difficulty would be fine for a Medium Difficulty, but it can get subjective quite fast. Just my 2 cents !
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The last bit was specifically about the dungeon, but of course, the overword fight are a bit easy too, imo. Maybe add a difficulty select when starting the game, as you do before entering a dungeon ?
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Movement is really slow, be it on the World Map or the Exploration phase. I’m not asking for Sonic’s speed, of course, but a bit faster would be better.
Combat
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When there’s only ONE enemy, if he’s in stealth, you lose time taking a turn just selecting defense for everyone. If you start a battle with only one stealth enemy, make him have a preemptive turn / attack or something, it would be a lot faster imo.
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It’s mixed with Exploration but, I think there’s too many “Solo opponent” fight. The game is a lot better when you have to deal with 2 to 3 “tough” opponent, but those Solo enemy fight are quite boring. There’s not much strategy you can do, often you can end the fight by just “auto attacking”.
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With such a combat system, more option / skills / systems allowing to manipulate the turn’s order would be a must.
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I saw that, when there’s too big of a gap between your level and the level of a monster on the overword, the game allows you to skip the combat. That’s nice, but that’s for a really big gap. For smaller gaps, the battle are still one-sided, but you don’t have much choice but to do them (Ex: When you’re done with the Iron Fortress, you still encounter the same Overword monsters you did before entering, but you’re a lot more powerful). Maybe there could be, I don’t know, something like a auto battle mode just for this situation ? Or a Turbo Mode.
UI / Settings
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There no menu in settings to reassign key. I had to play in QWERTY (I’m french so I use AZERTY)
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Related to this, it’s pretty “hard” to find the key shortcuts if you can’t even check them in the menu
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On Key Shortcuts, unless I didn’t find some of them, there should be a bit more in Battle to make them go faster, like selecting the opponent, quickly choosing the attack you want to use, etc.
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There should be some way to track enemy life when they took some damage with the trap before engaging them. It’s pretty hard to evaluate how much life they could have lost, especially if you didn’t walk in the trap yourself to see the damage it can deal.
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Having the Skill Description on Mouse Over would be nice
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The Inventory UI could be a bit more clean. Like for example, when you’re learning recipe, you have to “use” the book and select your characters, the same as if you were using a potion. I get it, and it works, but it’s pretty unintuitive. IMO, it would be best if you learned the recipe automatically when you buy the book.
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When you level up, it would be nice to have a little window telling you if some of your current equipped Talent have been buffed too. Like for example the Talent that allow Calibretto to heal everyone at the end of the fight, the value healed is different for each level.
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At the end of the fight, it would be nice to have something to track the progression on the bestiary. Like, you’ve killed X monster that you don’t know quite well, and you can see how much “XP” you got and how much left there is before knowing the monster’s HP, etc.
Exploration
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I think the game lacks a “normal” combat opener, similar to what you can find in other games that have on map enemy ; a simple attack, or just entering the fight by taking the opponent by surprise, etc.
- It’s pretty “frustrating” right now to see the monster on the map and just bump with them, as you have to keep your skills for bigger monster
- That and the buff / bonus given by starting battle with the skills aren’t that good imo, they could really need a improvement
- I think you should allow the player to attack on the map, and get in a fight with a little bonus (initiative, or a preemptive attack with a % damage), and buff the effect you get when you use the skills so that they really make a difference.
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There’s some interaction on the map that aren’t relevant at all. Like, on the Lyceros Arena dungeon (sorry, I only know the French name :)), there’s a room where you can push a button to make an elevator go up and form a path…So, yeah, it does a path, but it’s pretty much not needed, the button is just beside the gap, there’s nothing hidden, nothing hard, it’s pretty much pointless, you don’t think much more than if there was a normal path here.
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It’s pretty linear so far, with maybe one or two intersection in the dungeon, and it’s pretty often that they lead to the same place anyway. You don’t get to explore much, you just follow the path there is, and that’s all there is to it. It’s still the beginning of the game so it might open up later, but yeah.
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As said before, you move quite slowly, and when you add the fact that TP are sometimes, uh, misplaced, it can become quite a chore to backtrack the dungeon (Lyceros Arena is a good example of this, with the right side of the dungeon not having any teleport to come back quickly after you’re done)
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There’s some cloned map that are really obvious. Example : Lyceros Arena, the map on the far left, and the map just up from the first room are the exact same, with the same fishing spot, same (useless) elevator, etc.
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I guess it’s a given, but having a mini map with a accurate representation of the room you’re in would be nice too. It’s not like you’re going to get lost, but still !
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Overall, Exploration feels a bit lacking. You have skills, but they don’t do much / are pretty limited and there’s not much reason to use them outside of starting a battle. It feels slow overall, traps are slow too so there’s not much to worry about those so far. I feel like it’s lacking more obstacle, more puzzle, more traps, or even platforming, something like that. More meaningful interaction at least.
Fishing
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I didn’t feel the need to update my material / gear so far ; I could catch every fish I met in all the different Fishing spot with the starting gear ; it still early game so that might be normal, but I figured I’d say it
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I’m having a hard time figuring the purpose of fishing. All right, it’s a mini game and it gives you fish’s meat, but by itself, it’s pretty much no brain. There’s no difficulty, not that much interaction (Press E, press Backward, sometimes up or down and voila), to be blunt, it’s not something I look forward to as it’s pretty boring so far. I think it could be much more interesting with a few tweak.
Nitpick / Others
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In Lyceros Arena, you find the same book on either side of the dungeon. It’s pretty redundant, and you have to do the two sides anyway.
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A little nitpick but it’s pretty funny to see you can apply the Bleed debuff on machine enemy ; maybe there could be something done for that ?
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The way you unlock the second charge gauge is…unintuitive, to say the least. I’d prefer it if the Beast Mistress (I guess that’s her name ?) told you what’s the charge gauge is / did a tutorial about that topic, and that the second (and I guess the third) gauge would unlock when you reach the level needed. From my experience, I got level 10 while I was exploring the Lyceros Arena, and as such, I unlocked the 2 Charge Ultimate while I didn’t have the 2nd Gauge unlocked. I think it could be better.
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When crafting, or anytime you have to hold a button to progress (namely, the E key on keyboard), it’s really, really lengthy. It could be at least 2x faster, without losing it’s “take the time to think and be sure of your choice” purpose, imo.
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A nitpick in the nitpick : The “Battle Fanfare” is a bit too loud imo, especially since it’s quite a contrast from the other music in the game.
And, that’s it !
I’ll update this post if something comes to my mind when I’ll continue the beta
Have fun with the game !
(Source: Gamescom Demo)
I want to do that, too!