I played this game on stream; a link to the VOD will be below.
Overall, I think this game has potential, as it has a really cool concept and the combat is fun (and a little mindless), but the execution is not good.
The main conceit of the game is the body swap mechanic. A chatter of mine brought up a good comparison in that it is similar to Kirby's copy ability.
This is pretty cool allowing you to hop from one skill set to another. I do not envy the dev in having to come up with combos for every enemy. This seems like bloated scope that can easily get away from the dev.
That being said, the execution of the copy ability is...not great. The game really encourages you to find and stay with a single favorite body, which seems like the opposite of the design concept.
For example: You can level up each body, and the level up path for each body is quite long, so obviously the more you progress down a specific body's progression path, the more you are going to want to only use that body since the others would not match the level.
Secondly, the body shares the same health pool as your main character. Draining your health pool while in the body doesn't kick you out of the body, but instead just game overs you. Basically, once you find the best body, there is no reason to leave the current body.
There are other minor things, such as learning combos, that also contribute in minor ways to the psychology of never wanting to change bodies (why change to a body I don't know the combos to when I can use the body I know how to pilot?)
My suggestion to the dev is to revise this system entirely.
1: It doesn't make sense for your main character's body to disappear completely. When you copy an ability, your body should be left behind defenseless. This provides a choice for the player to consider their main body's positioning when absorbing another body.
2: Bodies that are absorbed should have their own health pool. The health pool should be limited so the body is quickly defeated, pushing you back into your main body. (Ideally, the health pool of the body would be the exact same as the normal enemy's health pool.)
3: The skill for absorbing bodies should be limited. As far as I could tell when playing, you can absorb a body at almost any time. I feel like there should be some sort of limit. I would suggest a combination of all of these for absorbing: Countering an attack opens the enemy up to being absorbed instantly. Reducing the enemies health by over half would allow absorbing the body instantly. The absorb body skill can be performed at any time, but the skill itself has a long wind up time that can easily be interrupted - this encourages skillful absorption with the counter attack method or lowered health method, but still allows you to absorb at any time.
With changes like this to the combat system, it would bring the body snatching ability to the forefront of the game and make it far more interesting and compelling.
The game also features a semi-rogue-like mechanic of having randomly generated paths and upgrades. Overall, I feel like this doesn't contribute anything of value to the game, and it also makes the game feel more dependent on luck rather than skillful play. This game, and it's genre and move sets are almost entirely about skillful play, so the luck based part feels counter-productive to the game's identity. With a lack of stage hazards, every room feels the same, so there is no reason to randomly generate a path.
I would outright remove these elements from the game because they contribute nothing of value to it, they only hurt the game's identity.
Finally is the story:
It is utter nonsense. Part of this is due to a language barrier, and that is totally understandable. But even if I spoke Chinese, I am certain the story is incomprehensible because the visuals do not accurately reflect what is being told in the story, the story itself is all over the place, characters are not introduced properly, and everyone talks way too much.
I would recommend re-cutting the dialogue to be faster and get to the point quicker. I would also make sure events flow sensibly, and make sure characters have been introduced properly before they are getting stabbed through the chest and their daughters kidnapped.
I look forward to what the future of this game may hold, but it needs some serious reworking mechanically, systematically, and story-wise. I sincerely doubt there is only 9 - 12 months of dev time left on this game. I suspect it will be in EA much longer.
There is great potential here that is marred by poor execution. At this time, in this state, I cannot recommend this game.
If you'd like to watch my time playing the game, you can find the VOD here:
https://youtube.com/live/nqLYd-BLHpA?feature=share
