Numina is an RPG that was made in German, and also translated to English. The translation is reasonably good, but obviously not done by a native English speaker. Therefore, it's really difficult to judge the story and characters fully, since the essence of the dialogue is sometimes lost.

Story/Characters:

One of the main features of the story is that you, the player, is a separate entity that talks to the protagonist, which is a pretty interesting concept. You will often get to choose from some verbal responses, which will influence the hero's dialogue, as well as your bond with him. Sometimes, the best/worst response will be obvious, but as mentioned, a better translation will be needed to fully get a more accurate "tone" of some of the responses.

The characters are hard to judge, once again, without a more precise translation of their dialogue. Nothing really stands out at first, and the main characters are your typical kids from a small village that somehow fight way above their pay grade. There does seem to be strong emotional bonds between them, and themes of dealing with loss was interesting. Sarah's reason for joining seemed a bit flimsy though. I did like Cassandra, and I think she brought a more interesting dynamic to the conversations.

The overall story does seem fairly intriguing, and does leave you curious to learn more about the true nature of the player's role in the story.

Gameplay:

The battle system is the standard turn based fighting, but with the added gimmick of some timed button presses for some skills. This was a pretty good feature, and made battles a little more interactive. Hopefully there will be a few more variety of actions/button presses in the final version. The battle menu looked nice as well. Characters also use a shared MP pool, which is tied in with part of the story.

The dungeons seemed appropriate in length and had a reasonable balance of monsters, loot, and small activities. However, there's a lot of passibility errors and it's often too dark (more on this later). The forest areas are also way too dense, and you can't tell where you can walk. It's often arbitrary if a same tree graphic can be walked under or blocks your path.

It's mentioned that the bond between the player and character will have an impact on gameplay. I saw only very little impact so far, but hopefully the finished version will have more. Most of the sidequests were fine and I liked the quest log with picture to remind you of the location. I didn't get the point of upgrading equipment though. Aren't they just wasted every time I find/buy new equipment?

The biggest problem with this demo is that it is full of errors and bugs. In general there are a lot of passibility errors with tiles that should/shouldn't be walked on. There's also a lot of visual errors when transitioning between maps. Often you'll find errors if you go back one screen or explore off the main path. The game even crashes just from using Escape in battle! This game needs a lot more testing before any more releases.

Extensive Bug Report Below (mostly in order):


Graphics/Audio:

I haven't really played RMXP games, so I can't fully tell which resources are RTP or custom. For the most part, it has some nice looking mapping, what I assume are some custom weather effects, and some beautiful animations in cutsecenes, which all look very good. The indoor houses looked good as well. Some of the major scenes were especially cinematic, with custom anmiations of moving objects, like the last scene in Caelum. The main menus and the battle menus also look and feel very nice.

Some of the smaller cutscenes were a bit confusing through, like when people shoot spells at each other suddenly without "casting" so it's hard to see who's doing what. Some scenes are also cut weird though, like with people moving way faster than normal, or suddenly doing quick actions without focusing attention on them first, and like the first shot of the home village for 2 seconds before cutting away.

One problem is that the brightness differences are too extreme. Some places like dungeons and night scenes are WAY too dark, that you can barely see anything and strains the eyes to explore. Then there's the opposite, like the first Mountain full of white fog and clouds. It was ok at first, but when other things started glowing and flashing all over, it was just too much piercing white light filling up the screen. Some scenes also tend to flash to a blank white screen for too long, which is bad for the eyes. There also a huge contrast sometimes when the locations are so dark, but has a few objects emitting sharp white light, or some really bright animations on dark backgrounds.

I did pass the brightness test at the beginning, but even if I didn't, honestly no one wants to adjust their monitor settings every time they play the game.

The regular battle theme was good and music was pretty nice in some places, but I found some of them to be just atmospheric, but not melodic enough for this type of game. Along with the dark maps and eerie music, especially in the beginning, it feels like it's trying to be a horror game rather than a JRPG type of game. Maybe it's just my own preference, but I feel like some melodic/adventurous music would be better here.

Summary:

This demo so far looks visually beautiful, but has some issues with brightness/darkness. The story and characters are fairly good, with some unique 4th wall breaking, but needs a more precise English translation for a better experience. The battle system has a few interesting timed button press mechanics so far. However, the biggest concern is that there are way too many errors and bugs that need to be fixed, and much better testing needs to be done for future releases.

I will not be giving a score for this demo.