Nociel (After story)

author=Wishiyo
I'm from Malaysia. So, English isn't really my first language. For some reason, my grammar is off when I am doing anything else and my grammar is close to perfect during exams. XD

Well you'll have to consider game making as an exam :) Right now your grade is C+:)

Gave this game a short go. I kinda like how these characters get multiple actions in a combat turn, but, it also give me the impression that the game's balance would (or should) center around this fact. I dunno. I'm probably the absolute last person to give advice on game-balance, since my own games are really weird about that aspect.

This was submitted only 3 days after your first game!

I think you need to take more time to absorb the feedback
from your first game and spend more time in development.

Even a small game for me could take up to 3 months.

Your maps are better. They're still a mess, but they're better. Seriously, those tutorials I linked to in the review for your other game are absolute gold.

Your balance is also better, although now you've tipped it to the mega hard side of things. Remember, requiring grinding isn't the best idea for a game. Alot of games do it but only to pad out playing time. A better idea would be to go through each section, set your difficulty to where your characters strength is going to be, and determine their growth rate so that you don't have one dungeon with ridiculously easy creatures and the next one with impossibly hard. In your after story, your first dungeon is hard but playable. It's right where I usually like it to be as far as difficulty. It's still a button masher though, so you need to give some consideration to strategy and that boss guarding the chests should probably be lowered in strength a little. It's fine to have a boss that hard, but having such a hard one so early in the game might chase off potential players. I have personally bypassed those chests entirely. I may come back to them, unless the game is as linear as it seems to be, in which case, going back to them would be a huge waste of time. Moving on to your next dungeon...it's only your second dungeon. The enemies should be harder, but these are a couple of amplitudes higher in difficulty than is probably reasonable.

Item balance: Probably as important as battle balance. Items: you don't have enough of them. If you're not going to start your characters with set amount of basic potions, antidotes and whatnot, then you need to scatter chests where the player can find them. Remember, you want the game to be challenging, not impossible. Scarcity of resources is a good way to make it challenging, but those resources should at least be there to be found. "Oh my goodness, I've been ravaged by beasts and need a potion...it's a few steps to town but if I have another encounter, I'm done for. What's this? A chest? Could it be...? It is! It's a potion! I'm saved." That's what you want: few enough materials for the player to worry if he's going to make through, but just enough that if he plays his game right, he can. Then when you get to town, if your player has made enough coin he can stock up.

That brings me to another point: your weapons. In the first game, you gave the player an absurdly high amount of cash with which to buy moderately priced weapons. In this game, you're giving a low amount coin with which to buy ridiculously priced weapons. With this, it's safe to copy the methods of games like Final Fantasy, where you start out with weak weapons that are low priced and work your way up. It's all a part of balance. I'm going to play through this game, and I'm probably going to review it. It's shaping up to at least be better than the last one, but it still needs some TLC.

On that note, your previous game isn't unfixable, either. One thing that can be said for it is that it works, and that's more than can be said for a lot of games on this site.

author=Wishiyo
And in this game, you don't use potions. Instead, you use items such as a sausage, fish, etc. There aren't many, though.

Well. That's interesting to note, since, when I was in the food court (or whatever it was called), and saw those food items for sale, WITH NO DESCRIPTIONS, I completely ignored them. I seriously thought they were there for sheer "flavor text".

author=Wishiyo
I see. Well, I like to add the 'Try it out to find out' concept in my games. XD

I'm not going to say that experimentation does not have a place in games. It totally can! However, your descriptions of those items say literally nothing. I can't really talk about acquiring them from enemies, or from chests, but, if purchasing them is the only way players get them, then, I would have to argue that there is little to no impetus for players to purchase them in the first place.

Though, I dunno, maybe this is just me talking.

author=pianotm
Semantics. Potions restore 100 or 200 or whatever life depending on how you design them. Sausages restore a 100 or 200 or whatever life depending. If it's the thing that restores HP and MP, it needs to be available. There also needs to be a tag that tells us what these things do. Sausage, fish, bacon, whatever. I don't know which one restores health, cures poison, revives from KO and that's important information.

Well, after trying them out I can tell you a few things about them. None of them cure negative status effects. None of them will revive a character from KO. All of them restore either HP, MP, or both to some extent and it appears to be percentage based.

author=Marrend
I can't really talk about acquiring them from enemies, or from chests, but, if purchasing them is the only way players get them, then, I would have to argue that there is little to no impetus for players to purchase them in the first place.

There are one or two contained in chests when you get to the second dungeon, but to get there you'll need to realize that the secret to taking down the bosses is to have Yumi body slam opponent's until they fall down, blind and break their weapons with Rick, and then proceed to fireball them into submission with Yukina. Though even if you understand how to play the game you can still lose.

And you might want to go back for those early chests since one of them contains the Mythril Rod.