The demo of this game looks very promising!
The graphics are great and they really made me want to see more of the environment of the game. Not really much more to say about it, it's some really well made pixel art and I really like that so it's great for me.
The battle interface, although it seems overwhelming at first, is actually extremely intuitive. The game doesn't have an actual tutorial to teach you how to play, but you discover it as you go and that's pretty amazing.
I love it when games don't need to explicitly explain gameplay for you to understand it. The "support skill" system is really well made, it feels luck-based but very fair and it's really satisfying when you take a risk (e.g. attacking without having any shield left) and get exactly the support skill you need (i.e. a free shield).
The avoidance system and the different inputs you need to do that vary for each attack in order to deal extra damage is also well designed. Battle seems very satisfying and the "battle rank" at the end of each fight really encourages you to NOT get hit even once. The battles are still pretty easy imo (even the "secret" EX one), but it's the first chapter so it makes sense. The items, in particular, seem very OP because it doesn't use your turn to use them. If the battles get harder in later chapters it's most likely gonna be useful though.
The writing is really fun! I liked the personality given to the main duo and the interactions between them, but the writing of the NPCs and the board messages is also really filled to the brim with great dialogue and humour (love the rocks secret dialogue btw it was amazing).
The music now. Well, it's one of the strongest points about the game in my opinion. The music is amazing, all the tracks fit perfectly in their context and they are really good. My favorite track being, by far, the final boss theme. Sooo epic!!! It's one of those boss battle themes that makes you pause for a few seconds before you start fighting, just to listen to it.
As for the exploration and puzzle aspect, it was really fun to play! There were lots of secrets, including items, money to buy some new skills, or even skills directly. There were also a few side-quests, and despite the fact that they are quite short and easy they were still good.
Finally, the little teaser of Chapter 2 after the end of the demo really gets you hyped for the full game!
Overall, this demo is really amazing and I'm definitely looking forward to this game's full release. This game would really need to be seen by more people, even though it's still only a demo I would still say it's a hidden gem. I expected the game to be cool from the itch.io page description and screenshots, but it was even better than I thought!!
Really, huge "congrats" to everyone who worked on the game, even though it's still a demo it's still really polished!!
