Blood Opera Crescendo

The Positives

The plot is compelling. The opening cut scene, the frequent use of videos, and the exposition where you explore the theatre is exciting. The main character has an interesting history, he's an unusual hero.

The art style is also very original. The game utilises parallax mapping to its full effect and the scenes are very beautiful. Original sprites also fit well into the world. There are some lovely animations and the lighting is very well done.

The use of music is very good. There are some excellent choices of classical music to compliment the scenes.

The Negatives

The game has programmed pauses between every dialogue box. This drove me mad. A conversation of several dialogue boxes takes ages because between each sentence the box disappears and the game waits a whole second before showing the next one.
This mechanic appears in both dialogue and examine options, including locked doors. It is incredibly frustrating and slows the whole game down.
There is a quick travel event that feels like a slow travel event because you have to click through several dialogue boxes just to choose a destination and the game makes you wait between each one.

There are a lot of errors in the writing. Grammar and spelling errors in every other dialogue box. I understand that the developer is not English, but they need to get an English proof reader before releasing this game.

The art style of the sprites and tilesets is very specific and beautiful, but some characters have busts and pictures which are not good at all. The art of the barmaid, the drunken man, and the gypsy, all do not fit with the rest of the art style at all. They are badly drawn and the colours don't match the rest of the art style.

There are several minor bugs involving shadows and errors with the pixel movement system that I hope will be ironed out before a full release.
When the character enters the coach station a pop up appears telling you it's the coach station that you have to click out of every time you enter the map. This event should not appear after the first time you've been there.

At the moment there are too many errors and bugs in this game for it to be acceptable as a commercial game. The major things that need to be fixed urgently are the dialogue box wait times and the writing errors.

There are a lot of positives so I'm looking forward to following this project to see it develop.