Just finished the demo. Here are my thoughts in no particular order of importance:
- The graphics are gorgeous, I think that's plain to see. The plate glass in the introduction was especially sublime. A really neat graphical effect.
- There's a bit of resolution clashing in the turn order which I did not like (I am especially annoyed by resolution clashing, but it wasn't too bad tbh)
- Talec is blonde Locke. I have NO problem with the homage, and I have a feeling he is something of a guest character, but with so much artistic talent I would thought something totally original was well within your grasp.
- I noticed you give credits to a music/sound guy, but 95% of the SFX are immediately recognizable as rips. I use many of the same ones in my own RPGMaker game. This is definitely no issue if you plan on keeping the game free, as they're used well, but it might not be quite so great if you're planning on releasing a commercial version in the future.
- I love the inclusion of monster damage sprites, and I noticed their skills changed too based on their sprite (I think? Broken Knife?). Very cool.
- Guard seems a bit weak. You have to guard multiple times to get enough Will to do anything, so fighting becomes a Guard-fest sometimes.
- The glowing statues are cool, but 10MP is barely enough to cover a single skill. They should definitely do more, even if it means they're more rare.
- I don't think Field Actions (at least the ones you must use to advance) should take Will. It doesn't serve as any kind of real cost to the player to use, but it could lead to situations where the player has to get into a fight to Guard to regenerate Will just to go back and light some debris up. The cost just doesn't seem like it serves any function.
And some bugs:
- I liked the on-screen monsters, although when they respawn their pathing is often messed up. For instance, I noticed one monster trying to walk its left-right path, but it got stuck on a tree because it respawned too far to the left.
- The text got royally borked when I loaded my save (both times). Half the letters in combat were missing, and all the text on the save screen disappeared. The regular text for speech bubbles loaded fine, but the Rage numbers and skill names were really wonky.
- The lighting overlays in the torch house caused serious lag on my computer. My laptop's not very good, but it's not THAT bad.
- Some of the pots in the torch house reappeared (while I was standing in the room), and I got extra balms when I broke them.
- The targeting system stopped functioning from time to time. I couldn't change target. It happened to me only once for using a skill on the enemy, but it happened several times when I was trying to use items on my party, which almost caused me to die.
Some very specific feedback about battle:I think the rage system is missing out on a lot of potential for one simple reason: as it stands, there's no way to manually build rage. Attacking drains it, and so does defending. Half your skills drain it, too. The only way to get rage is to wait for it to build up or use magic, which is so costly that it's not a viable way to accrue it. The only time I managed to get into the rage state was the last fight; good timing, sure, but I had absolutely nothing to do with that, it was just a long fight. It seems a waste to include a system and then not let the player have any real control over it- how are you supposed to strategize with a system that penalizes 3/4 of your actions? If it was just a matter of not using rage-based actions that would be one thing, but again, you don't have enough Will for that to be viable, and with a limit of four skills you're also heavily relying on what you have equipped. A system where you spend the whole game using the two Will-based skills you have, desperately trying to avoid using any rage-related so you can build it. The same two skills, over and over. Not a great use of the system. I would suggest upping the cost of rage-based skills, but giving some means of building it other than waiting and hoping you're attacked (I know Talec can taunt, but that costs Rage to activate, so, uh...). That way, the player could build a solid plan around it. I have some ideas on how you could do this, but I don't want to throw too many unsolicited game design ideas at you all at once when it's clear you've put a lot of love into this project. DM me if you'd like to hear them, although absolutely no hard feelings if you don't care that much about the opinions of some plonker from the internet.
All in all, I'd say the demo was quite good. Gorgeous to look at, well paced, nice to listen to. The writing was solid, even if it is a bit obvious with how clearly it wears its nostalgia on its sleeve. Even though you're constrained to a small forest each map has a little bit of something new, which is a nice touch. I had no trouble finding the herbs, personally. I thought they stood out quite well, and they're sort of bonus items, anyway. The combat was extremely easy, but for a starting area that's quite alright. The demo whet my appetite for more, and I'll be watching closely!