Xelos: Sinner's Circle (Demo)

My feedback regarding battles including the system is not as comprehensive as the other one, since I didn't try to use all the Abilities available in battle. Also, I suspect it isn't as well organized, so I apologize in advance if any comment was placed in the wrong section. By the way, I forgot to mention that each playthrough took me just a little over 1.5 hours.

For anybody playing the demo, WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILERS!


Battle-related (non-system) comments:

- I found the information in the monster book very useful, particularly knowing the strengths and weaknesses which I used to plan my battles and beat enemies more quickly. Although at first, I didn't understand what “straight” meant. Eventually, I understood it as just a regular melee Attack
- I noticed that the party got completely healed after winning each fight, except for the first few fights before a bridge in either the second or third screen in the forest. If you ran away from the fight, you would not be healed and negative status afflictions remain.


Battle tutorial comments:

- A skill tutorial might be useful, perhaps explaining what type of skills each character will have available. I suggest you explain what choosing Taunt does either as a description when chosen during battle or within the tutorial.
- During the battle tutorial, you mention that the "Threats" status is in the left-hand side and CP is under HP, when they are now in the right-hand side and CP is next to HP.
- I think you could explain a little how the choices you make during each character's turn affect the "Threats" status. For example, I couldn't understand why one character's action could affect could sometimes affect the "Threat" status of the other members of the party as well. Also, I found using a battle card during a turn didn't change the status.
- Regarding how CP works, I would like to see a more detailed explanation of how the choice each character makes during their turn affect the CP regeneration after their turn. For example, I couldn't understand why you recovered double the normal CP if you defended and didn't recover any if you used medic skills.
- Regarding the time-based turn system, I think you need to explain how the current action, might make that character's next turn sooner or later. I couldn't quite figure out how it worked.
- It would also be useful to mention the negative and positive status that can be obtained in battle and describe their effects. In particular, at first, I couldn't figure out what zombie did. In other RPGs I have played it makes a character permanently berserk or confused, which is not the case in your game.


In-Battle related comments:

- Having all the skills available in the demo for the characters probably made the demo easier than you intend the actual game will probably be.
- The arrows to show which enemy you are targeting can lead confusion. Having the enemy sprite blink as you do for the active characters would work nicely.
- When battles started with fast enemies, particularly crawlers, they were already hitting my party members.
- Overdrive needs to be implemented.
- I found if you pressed the escape button accidentally when in the main menu of battle actions, you skipped your character's turn. I would have liked a warning to avoid doing it.
- I didn't find changing my stance useful, although I'm sure it would have made the boss battle easier.
- I found the Fiend Edge to be overpowered.
- I found that sometimes Til's spells (photo-, cryo-, tele- kinesis) and even Vusui's Azure Flame would be reflected to damage the caster, when attacking crawlers, slimes, zombies and the boss at the end. Did you really intend it to work this way?
- I used Phoenix Blood in battle to heal only if Matu didn't have enough CP in his turn or was stunned. Also, when someone was seriously hurt and I wanted to prevent being killed by one of the enemies' next turns, usually when HP after zombie or poisoned status.
- I found using the Flying Sword ability reduced the enemies' melee attack too much.
- When a character gets attacked with sludge he/she can get this purple ring status that heals him/her. Is this the way you intended this to work?
- From their descriptions , Jump and Aerial slash seem to do the same thing: lower hit rate. Perhaps you can change one of them to lower the enemy's agility.
- I didn't see the “Come On!” ability as a choice for Vusui. From description, it sounds similar to what Taunt does.
- I didn't using changing Stance useful, although it would probably have helped me beat the final boss more quickly.


Comments on Abilities Used (my strategies):

- For Vusui, used Flying Sword especially during first turn to weaken the attack of the enemy with strongest melee attack (zombie or crawler), when not using regular melee attack.
- For Matu, used regular melee Attack unless needing to heal somebody, in which case usually used Medkit, sometimes Injection. Liked using Frag Out since I found it to be the only multiple enemy attack and because it does a lot of damage. Its drawback is the amount of CP needed to use it.
- For Til, used Photokinesis in the first turn to try to blind the enemy with the strongest melee attack. If her CP was too low in to use an ability in the other turns, I did a melee attack, unless the only enemies remaining were slimes. In that case, I defended to recover CP. If her CP was high enough, I would use either photo-, cryo- or tele- kinesis depending on the enemy's weakness and what I wanted to accomplish for that turn. Because of this strategy and being the fastest character in the party, she was also the most targeted for enemy attacks. She was at risk of dying in battle especially if she got inflicted with the zombie status.


Comments on Enemies Encountered:

- Of the regular enemies encountered, I found slimes to be the hardest and most damaging, since it's hard to do regular melee damage (at least until getting the Fiend Edge, which gave Vusui the ability to kill them with 1 regular melee attack) and because of the different status ailments their attacks can produce.
- I found zombies to cause quite some damage with regular attacks, especially if critical. Thus, I tried to either blind them or weaken their attack in the first turn of my characters.
- I found the only ways crawlers are a threat is when they cause stun and because their regular melee Attack can do some moderate damage.
- I found the boss at the end to be quite challenging, as expected, obviously because of the high HP and because of having access to the skills of all the regular monsters. Also, because regular melee Attacks were useless against it.