NEVERSILENT'S PROFILE

Hmm... maybe I really was just lucky. I'll try to fight the Guardian again and see if it's more difficult this time. It could be that he just never used his stronger skills on me or something similar.
(P.S.: I found it helps to debuff as many enemies as possible with Shara and by applying the "Pressure" status effect one of the mods enables.)

Edit: Update: I tried the fight against the Guardian again and actually got defeated this time, though it was a close call. The main difference was that this time, when Holly's Overload triggered, she kept hitting allies too often, while last time she mostly hit enemies. Also, Karin got defeated just at the point where I wanted to use her Angel powers, and when I revived her she had no EX left.
I also noticed that last time, I hit the Guardian with such an enormous barrage of attacks (Overload skills plus Shara's All In) that he didn't even have the chance to summon the Brute. This time, he actually came, which made the battle a lot more difficult.
So, I admit the Guardian could be slightly nerfed, especially the high damage his fire club deals. It is possible to win, but maybe it depends a bit too much on luck.

@horror: I'm sorry, but I have a hard time understanding what you say. I played the game on "Adventure" difficulty (two difficulty levels higher than "Vacation"). I didn't even attempt to grind and managed to defeat the first Guardian on my first try, with my characters at level 2. It wasn't exactly easy, but definitely not unbalanced. Did you actually try to use some sort of strategy?

Then again, if "Vacation" mode is supposed to be a breeze, then decreasing the difficulty a bit further is probably is not an entirely bad idea.


@Aegix_Drakan: Please don't fundamentally change or remove Holly's Overload. I think it is a very cool mechanic that enhances the gameplay and can be used in many great ways (especially by granting access to those extremely strong Overload spells), it just needs some fine-tuning. If I may make a suggestion, I'd say lower the damage done by the Overload side effects ("a rift opens..."), and I mean both the damage done to allies and enemies. That way it would still be a risky mechanic, but a bit less extreme in ist consequences, both positive and negative.

author=slashphoenix
whatever, nerd

That's actually a compliment, in my opinion. You just don't know how to be rude, slashphoenix.


Also, I agree with what Gourd_Clae said.

Alright, here we go. I finished the first "dungeon", the Storage Block. The difficulty level I chose was "Adventure", and I admit it's been quite challenging - but I like that. I also chose to be able to save anywhere since that's more useful for testplaying.
I can already say it's been an absolute blast so far, you've done an amazing job!

These are my notes:
- People who run around on the starting map (the harbour) can just move through the guy standing at the right in front of the notice board.
- The facesets are very nice and used well, especially May's.
- The streets of Stopover City look pretty bland. Consider adding some details or variation.
- Consider adding in a saving opportunity before the tutorial battles start. The intro is a bit on the longer side (it's not too long, though, I like it), and in case anything goes wrong, the player won't have to start the game from the beginning again.
- The battle mechanics are a lot of fun and very fascinating. They really remind me of Indra&Fomar games.
- The "unusable" skills in the skill choice menu that give instructions are a great idea and very helpful.
- After finishing reading any "History of the Tower" book, the menu opens itself.
- I like the game's sense of humour (May's insult "sonofalich")
- There's a word missing here, the sentence should be "As quick(ly?) as you can."

- The Warp room is both a great idea for a "party base" and has really cool effects.
- When a character performs multiple actions in one turn (for example when May uses "Mayhem Ex Machina"), it is slightly annoying that status effects are reported in the battle log after every single action.
- Currently, considering how much EX Holly gains when she is attacked, it is pretty difficult to prevent "Overload" from activating. The 5 EX she loses every turn can't make up for all the EX she gains from being hit, attacking and even guarding. Consider having her lose more EX per round, because right now she quickly becomes a liabiloty even if the player hardly uses her skills.
- It would be helpful if it were more clearly indicated which skills stack with which stat (ATK or MAT).
- Karin's "Attract" skill does not seem to have a very strong effect. Is it possible to increase its effectiveness?
- May's "Fang Trap" seems to be a little underpowered. It only deals very little damage.
- The description of May's "Potion Launcher" made me think it uses up actual potion items, which is why I didn't want to use it at first. Maybe I'm the only one who is dumb and thinks that way, but you could consider making it clearer the Launcher does not actually consume the player's potions.
- Passability error: It is possible to walk onto the organ in the first boss' room:

- I'm very glad I can choose to escape from nearly every battle if I'm so inclined, with a high chance of success. Considering how many enemy troops there are and how tough they are, it's nice to be able to choose when to fight and when not.



About your questions:

Do you find the plot, characters and dialogue interesting? Are the main characters' personalities different enough from one another? Are you interested at all in Cyrus' side of the story? Do I get you into the action quick enough? Are you curious to read more of the "history of the tower" items?

Yes, yes, yes, yes and yes (although I'm more interested in the characters and the rest of the plot than the tower's history - at least, until now.)

Are there any skills/Mods that you feel are useless or too powerful? (Aside from Angel's Veil. I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to replace that one)

Not that I noticed so far.

What do you think of Holly's Overload mechanic? Did it worry you enough to try to avoid it? Or did you deliberately try to Overload?

It's a very cool idea, although at this point, it runs the risk of making Holly close to unusable if you don't want Overload to trigger. I personally tried to prevent it from happening because it is so risky, but there were occasions where it actually helped.

What did you think of how Shara works? Did you find any ways to "break" her system? (I'm actually concerned about making sure you can't break it)

I didn't manage to break her system until now. I really like the balance between risk and reward you created with the Hate mechanic. The only possible issue right now is that she could eventually attract enemy attacks more effectively than Karin, so the player could just decide to give Shara lots of DEF Mods/buffs and make her some sort of super-tank. That's just hypothetical, though.

- Do you think the player should have access to more mods early on, or is the current distribution is fine? Do you feel the balance of Stat Mods is fine?

I think the Mod distribution is good the way it is. I'm not sure if the Mods that increase stats are balanced, as I'm not very good at noticing that sort of thing.


Overall, the game exceeded my expectations so far. If it weren't for the slightly different mapping style and the stronger enemies, had someone told me this game was made by Indra and Fomar I would have believed them. Great work, really.

G'day everyone. I have a rather simple request for an autotile edit for RPG Maker XP: I would like to ask if someone could edit this wall autotile for me to look like it is made of metal (specifically, something like bronze or copper, but not iron) instead of stone.




Thanks a lot in advance.