Sempiternal

This is a demo review.
This is a review for part 1 which is downloaded on January 1, 2022.
My playtime: 03:30:34

Intro
Sempiternal is an RPG Maker game that tells the story of a Hallowed Knight in a world where humans can turn into monsters from negative emotions. It has a unique battle system, ranging from elemental combo to chain encounters.

Graphics
The town might be too vast for its own good. The FPS will drop from time to time when you navigate these areas due to its size. Moreover, the first town has 3+ maps of similar size with having nothing of interest apart from NPCs that you can talk to. While I appreciate the depth and detail spent for the town and NPCs that have their story and backgrounds, it feels useless, especially since I won't come back to it later.

On the other hand, both dungeons and the world map are good. There are a lot of details being put in to make the world map to be as detailed and beautiful as possible, while dungeons look unique and varied enough from each other.

Story
The story can be hard to take at the beginning. You need to understand the worldbuilding before you can understand the main story, but the game won't tell you about it until later in the game. People will talk as if you already know everything, and it's hard to understand the story because of it. Moreover, I found it hard to understand the dialogues, especially the beginning, without rereading the dialogues several times. The quality improved as you play though, which might be caused due to the informal use of words in the dialogues. There are still some typos and odd sentences from time to time, but I could understand the context just fine.

Cutscenes take a long time to finish. This is mainly caused by the delay and slow walking speed on the cutscenes. I wished that there is a way to make them faster.

The Game
Gameplay
The game is mostly linear - you'll have to explore the area and initiate cutscenes from time to time to progress the game. Some optional areas and side quests will also be able to be explored later on, giving you more chances to level up. However, these side quests are mostly time-limited since you won't be able to backtrack to the previously visited places. The game hinted at some other ways to backtrack in the future though.

Combat
There seems to be a lot of thought put into the battle mechanic. You can inflict status ailment to an enemy by using a certain elemental skill, modifying your skill to give varied bonus effects, and even upgrading your class to have certain perks. It helps to give some color to the battle, especially since you can't beat enemies just by spamming normal attacks.



The other thing that I liked about the combat is its encounter system. There is a certain number of enemies in each dungeon, and you can choose to deal with it either one by one from random encounters or all at once. Doing the latter will initiate the chain battle system, putting you into consecutive battles that depend on the number of the enemy that is available in that area. This makes it easier to focus on exploring the dungeons later on - I would always try to defeat all enemies first before doing exploration, although doing the other way is also alright since the encounter rate is very low. Moreover, you can always grind for levels by resetting the enemy.

Bosses can be challenging to beat. I only remembered 3 boss fights in the current demo, and the second one really gave me trouble. It can deal more damage than I can heal and kill my party members without a problem. I had to reset it a few times before I beat it since I refuse to use potions, but strangely, the same thing doesn't happen on the third boss. I don't mind having to deal with easier bosses, although I still find it strange that bosses become weaker with time.



Puzzles
Puzzles require trial and error to solve. You need to choose one between two or three options and hope that you choose the right one, or risk having to reset the puzzle and do it from the beginning again. I didn't like doing them since they tend to have no logical reasoning to it.

Length and Difficulty
The current demo build lasts for 3.5h. There might be more playtime spent on it since it doesn't record the time when I reset the game to beat one of the bosses. The game offers 2 difficulties, with the harder one giving more rewards. I chose the normal difficulty and didn't have much trouble finishing the game. There is one boss that I needed to save scum several times to beat, but that's the only thing that I had trouble with.

Problems
The game seems to favor mouse input at some menus. It's annoying to switch between keyboard and mouse whenever this happens. I also don't know how Alchemy works.

Pros:
- 2 difficulties
- A lot of side quests

Cons:
- FPS drop in town
- Puzzles mostly require trial and error

Final Rating: 3/5
The game has good potential. A lot of thought was put into the worldbuilding and the combat system. Some dialogues, especially at the beginning of the game, might confuse you with the wording, but they will be better as you play. It was nice to see the unique combat system that the game use, and although puzzles can rely too much on trial and error, you won't spend much time with it.

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Typo:
- When talking to Bernald: "One of the princess's handmaidens." should be "One of the princess' handmaidens."
- When talking to Hunter in Deep Clearing: "The adventurer's have arrived." should be "The adventurers have arrived."

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Bugs:
- In Mountain Pass, if you push the boulder outside the cave to break it and enter the cave, you still can't exit the cave.

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Suggestion:
- Enable full keyboard input. Some menu like choosing skills and scrolling quest log requires a mouse and it's quite bothersome to switch to it when you play with arrow keys.
- Remove or use the same background image for the in-game menu. Seeing the different background images on each menu distract me a lot.
- You might want to proofread some texts.

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1. Was normal mode accessible enough? The design goal was to make it somewhat challenging to the average RPG player, but not grueling. You should be able to win battles without min/maxing (as in, using whatever Alter setups you want), though you should not be able to mindlessly spam attack and win.

Kinda. It's quite challenging but the second boss requires me several restarts because the boss can hit my party members over and over without giving me a chance to heal them. I'm not sure if using potions is intended, but I usually don't use potions whenever possible so it's kinda bothering me. Just ignore it if it's intended.

2. Should I give a reward for completing a chain battle from max value to 0? Just on hard mode, or both?
Pro: It's another incentive to do harder content (doing 7-8 battles straight on hard mode without rest was difficult even for me unless I stocked up on potions).
Con: It essentially forces players to chain battle to seek maximum reward, diminishing choices.

Yes. Since I'm not a hardcore player, I'd prefer both so I also could experience it, but again, it's your choice.

3. Did the numbers seem fairly balanced (MP/FP costs, exp gained, money earned to cost of shops, etc)?

Yes. I had a lack of FP on Aarlin, but that's mainly because I used him for healing and not attacking.

4. Any audio balancing issues (too loud, quiet, etc)? I know in some places you can barely hear footsteps over BGM, but it's seldom enough that I'm ok with it unless I get feedback that says it's detrimental/not good.

I don't think so.

5. Is the lack of open homes/shops bothersome? I know some like to explore, but I find most indoor tilesets to be extremely repetitive. The current plan is every town/city will have 2-3 explorable homes plus a pub that you can talk to your party.

Yes, but the first town has too many buildings tbh. Maybe just add a few that you can explore and ignore or remove the others?

5. Any thoughts on the elemental overload system as is? It's still heavily in beta right now. I'm going back and forth on it. The plan is to have a Manual that will be able to influence the overload gauge, as well as one that can influence which god appears at a heavy cost (except for the angelic aura, that will always be random).

Idk what this is. Is this the one that inflicts status ailment if you use other spells? If it is, it's already good as it is.

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STORY QUESTIONS

1. Did the central narrative pitch interest you? Did it make sense so far (with the understanding that it's still early in the game)?

I didn't understand the lore since it was hardly explained at the beginning. It was told in pieces as you play but it wasn't memorable enough for me to remember. The current plot is good enough though.

2. How was the pacing so far? I wanted to provide some engagement with the towns/cities but also keep the pace moving. The next major city, Hrelda, is where the players will take a longer pause.

The early town is quite slow because most NPC talks too much. I'd rather have NPC talk only 1 or 2 dialogues to make it brief, especially since we are never going to meet them again. You can put the longer ones into side quests if needed.

3. If you played the original version, was the change of introduction better in understanding who Aarlin is?

I don't think I played the original version.

4. Any off-sounding dialogue?

Not that I know of.

5. There is a lot of name dropping in the introduction. Does the map key item help to orient you to some of the places mentioned? I think I may add Hrelda, but I need to contact the artist who did it to find out what font he used.

I don't use the map, but I didn't see the mountains that were told in the prologue. If there is one on the map, it's not obvious enough to me. The map that showed up when you are sailing between continents helped a lot already.