I can see myself enjoying the uncanny visuals and its otherworldly vibes, it feels like some eldritch Yume Nikki, but honestly, the game is just not very functional, it might be the most broken JRPG(ish) game I ever played. If anything, it feels like 80% of the playtime you fighting the game, not really playing, and realistically, you working with a very simple template, it's an exploration game where you go around and interact with characters, should be a pretty straightforward game to make, but you somehow made it nearly impossible to accomplish anything. I don't know how this compares to the first game, people seem to like it, but this does not feel finished to me.
Honestly, I can't tell if these FPS segments even work properly, the bullets don't seem to do anything, but not the enemies, the range on their attacks is legendary. Then you die in a few seconds and like, why I can't press anything, you press every key on the keyboard until something happens, and I guess you have to exit to the menu. You might want to just show any control buttons on the screen.
I get that the world is meant to feel disjointed, but that does not mean you can't color code the walkable tiles, I can't tell where I can and cannot walk, the entire time I am playing the game I just hope the character can find a path, so all I do is click on the screen and wait until something happens. The interaction have no consistency to them, sometimes it looks like you found something on the map, you try to interact with it, and it just does not do anything, then you find something else, and it does not do anything too. You need to at least make it clear for the player when something is meant to be interacted with or not, and if you need something to do so, there needs to be some visual feedback for the player.
It seems like it would be an interesting narrative experience, I like the overall aesthetic and those random videos you injected into the game, but you know, if you gate me with the game being mostly unplayable, I will play something else, does not matter if the game is free, it's just not worth my time. You trying to add some unique elements to the game like FPS combat in JRPG, but it feels like you don't know how to program it? It feels like it's not working the way it should.
[h1]Pros: [/h1]
(+) If the game wasn't such a pain to play, the world-building feels immersive, I like the eldritch feel of the game, and just the randomness of the aesthetics and the story.
[h1]Feedback: [/h1]
[u]Gameplay issues: [/u]
- You should color code anything that you can interact with on the overworld, and make sure you can interact with it from any direction, and the same button, and if you need something to interact with it, there should be some feedback for it. I often find myself walking up to something, and trying to press buttons over and over, but nothing happens, I don't know if you not meant to interact with it, or it's not working.
- You need to color code the tiles so the player knows which of them can be navigated, maybe you did it intentionally because "the world has no pattern", but it's absolutely pain in the butt to do anything in this game now.
- The FPS combat right now is either not working, or the objective is so convoluted, it makes no sense. Why bullets don't do anything, why is AOE on enemy attacks so huge, why you die almost instantly, why is it so hard to tell what to press when you die
- Does the weapon have to cover a third of the screen?
[b]Overall Thoughts: Interesting but barely playable [/b]
Even if you make a weird game, there needs to me some sense of interactive consistency, I feel like the entire time I play the game it's a gamble, I see something interesting, I barely find a way to get there, and it does not work. I am not playing your game, I am fighting it because nothing works, and if somethings does work, it's only because I trial and error it. Don't ignore basic functionality of JRPG games, tiles should visually have some pattern, interactive spots should make sense, and so do the controls. I get it's a free game, but I am not reviewing the price, this is not finished.
[code]Niche, obscure and underrated games: http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31294838-Hidden-Gem-Discovery/ [/code]
