So, after 30 minutes my first impression is: It’s OK, good even. I enjoyed it. There’s a lot of potential. All the ingredients for a great game are there, but there are issues. The menu is good, everything you want in a game, A+. The controls, however, feel awkward because we’re using the arrow keys instead of WASD. Even thought I’m right handed I’d still feel more comfortable controlling these characters with my left hand and having dungeon tools (which are a great idea) selected with the arrows. Combat is good but it runs too fast, I feel rushed in a fight which while not a major problem in the early dungeons or battles will become problematic in later battles where we’ll need to strategize and take time to think things through. Perhaps lower combat speed by 10-12% and add a pause button, unless there already was one in which case, I’m an idiot. The enemy random spawn is a classic and works well here. Finally, the biggest problem was the pacing of the opening. *SPOILER WARNINGS BELOW, DO NOT READ IF YOU DON’T WANT IT SPOILED FOR YOU*. So the game starts with Sophie breaking out of her cell and trying to find her brother, and thus I was mentally prepared for anything but being pulled out of that opening quest to fight the “Dark Lord”. Draw it out a bit. Explain somethings to us, the uninformed audience, specifically: “why are we here?”. That doesn’t mean I want you to go overboard with exposition but there it is a little hard to get pulled into the story. Also, maybe instead of the “Dark Lord” we fight his enforcer or lieutenant instead, because it dilutes his impact if we just fight him. Then Sophie wakes up in her house and that’s it, no reaction from her upon doing so as if this is a day that ends in “Y” for her as if the previous events were totally normal. She doesn’t even ask herself “wait, what, was that a dream?” That’s not how you’d react in that situation. Also, I wouldn’t have even known to recruit Jesse if I didn’t know to look in every house after playing so many RPGs, which could be a real problem for newbs. Possibly, it might be beneficial to have her enter Sophie's house and explain stuff to her like “Hey, I found you passed out and brought you to your house, what the hell happened to you?” It would flow better. I’m nit picking I realize, especially for an early access game but I really wanna enjoy it more and I love stories and this one has a lot of potential. Really it’s good but it could be way better.
