Bloody...

Well now I can say this.....I LOVED THIS GAME :)

Really, I can't get over how much I enjoyed playing this game.

Thank you uni and Ocean for a fun time.

author=shayoko
reynard constantly loses life when moving outside of battle and he isn't poisoned or bleeding (or any other status effect)
and i am not talking over damaging tiles
i noticed this while in the castle

This is probably because you equipped an accessory. It greatly increases Reynard's stats but it gives you HP Degen.

Awesome, thanks! I've been using Steam's add-on's for way too long, so it's definitely time to branch out.

Just to clarify, I was talking more from a story and characterization perspective than a gameplay perspective when criticizing Michelle. She was great as a party member.

EDIT: Also, where did you go to find music for this game? Did you just type in "Castlevania-like music" or something?

I don't think the balance was too bad. I mean you could not just attack-spam battles because you'd die, so it had that going for it at least. Maybe just making the enemies a bit beefier or force you to not use certain skills on all enemies - like making some that would absorb dark attacks or be made stronger if you used June Mermaid so that you had to be a bit more involved than 'use party wipe attacks only'. I mean, keep some of that in of course, because you want to have party-wide attacks be useful, but also mix it up.

For example, an enemy could buff the other enemies but couldn't be touched until you remove it's own buffs - so you'd have it's allies dealing damage while it kept them alive with heals and buffs, but you'd need to find a way to get rid of it by mitigating it's own defences.

Honestly, I though Michelle was the more rounded of the group. Priest dude was the most boring, really. His whole shtick was 'heal and use that one damage attack'. She had a better range of skills that were useful in various ways. The random skill was fun to play with because you knew it was going to be a beneficial random, but not what it would be - and some of them were really useful.

There was also June Mermaid, of course, and the one that bound the enemy which was great to use against hard-hitting foes so that your group could focus on taking it out before they got hurt too much. It'd be neat to see, like, a high evasion monster that that spell would freeze in place (and remove the evasion bonus), allowing allies to kill it. Little things like that to capitalise on the skills that were given and making them useful by making them necessary.

Like, the Priest's skill that beefed up his defences I used once, I think. I'd have probably used it more often if it had been a whole party dealio - and it wouldn't have been too OP, either. Just slap on some more MP cost. I mean, compared to some of the ones that Carmelita and Hunter dude got, it was practically naff.

His whole skillset was a bit meh - the healing was fine for the start but was pretty eh towards the end when your HP was much higher (maybe add some % based heal to it as well, so that it scales up with your health), the damage attack one was again, good at the start but began falling off towards the end. The shield one was eh, and I never died so the revive skill was basically an empty slot (I mean, it's nice to have on hand just in case but, welp). And the last skill was a bit underwhelming too, especially at the level you got it.

^.^;
He's just kinda there, I guess, and it's like "Oh, okay he's here let's use this skill because it's all he's good for even though it's not doing as much damage as it used to when I first got it. It's a bit of damage I guess." vs the other skill groups that were varied and useful in certain ways. (Even Michelle's Forest Heal was better for healing amounts than his one... and her random heals were beast in comparison, too.)

Also, le random spell is le best spell behind rock-to-face. I appreciate magical grab-bag shenanigans as long as you have other things to fall back on.

Oh my god that's right you could eat the keys.

That should have triggered a unique ending per key.

Carmelita wins over Michelle, or any character.

Tried it twice. Put one enemy to sleep (and killed him in the same turn) and then restored all my allies' health by 50.

I'd rather win the game.

God, I LOVE the music!

Yeah, of all the games I've played from this contest so far, this one might be my favorite. It started off REALLY strong, with tough enemies and a healthy variety of skills to use! Though I'll admit that I only used 1-2 skills per character by the time the game ended. I never spent enough time in battle to actually be able to use some of the later TP skills for Carmelita and Reynard, but just sticking with Silver Knives, Hell Mist, Rock Pummel (then later June Mermaid), Holy Water carried me through he whole game anyway.

But when you finally got to the castle, the hype kinda fizzled out. Not just because there was a lack of interesting new concepts, but because the AOE skills on the characters became all I needed to clear them all out. All the variety set up just wasn't utilized very well.

Then the way the villain was beaten just felt half-hearted, to be honest. I think there was an attempt to turn it into a comedic ending, but it just left me with the feeling of burn out rather than a great finale.

As a minor nitpick, Michelle felt like a rather boring character, at least when viewed next to the other three. Compared to them, Michelle just came off rather plain without any interesting backstory or personality to her. Perhaps if she wasn't a part of the game and the battles were focused around the remaining three, there would have been more cool moment with them.

Overall though, I really did enjoy it. I loved the Castlevania atmosphere and tone!