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Red_Nova
Sir Redd of Novus: He who made Prayer of the Faithless that one time, and that was pretty dang rad! :D
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Prayer of the Faithless
On the brink of the apocalypse, two friends struggle to find what is worth saving

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Uchioniko MZ

Hey Marrend, I played this on stream Friday because I wanted to see what you would do with a remake of this game. I don't remember much of the original and I didn't go back to read my review since I wanted to go in as blind as possible.

First off, it's great that you want to put emphasis on Ruri's classmates. I think the idea of making them more involved in Ruri's day to day life is a good one. However, in the hour and a half I played, I didn't glean too much insight into their personalities outside of what was already presented in their main dialogue. I'm not sure how much emphasis they will have on the main story (or even which ones will be party members), but the extra bond dialogue doesn't do much to make any of them stand out as distinct characters or make me interested in getting to know them more.

It really doesn't help that Ruri herself, despite being so full of energy and cheerfulness, doesn't do much to bounce off these characters. For example, her initial introduction was a single line and then a light bolt zip to her desk. Her speed is incredibly unusual, and I wish the rest of the cast had at least SOME kind of reaction to it. Without it, her being full of energy feels very mundane and a natural part of the world.

I'm fine with the long, lore-heavy intro because it's relevant to the eventual field trip to Iwayama. What I'm not fine with is that the field trip itself was over in about 5 minutes and there was no real payoff to the lore dump. We just went, got attacked, fought our first battle, then left. It's fine if you just wanted to share trivia on this location (assuming these are real Japanese legends about a real place), but it overpowers the narrative being told. If the classmates (or even Ruri herself) had more of a reaction to the trivia, that would make it more relevant to the player, but I can tell you that I've forgotten 90% of the lessons just because there was so much of it for no apparent reason.

What eventually got me to stop was Ruri going back to the mountains to investigate, and being stopped at the cave entrance. I don't understand the point of even being able to come here other than grinding, which isn't what I want to do since it won't move the story forward. I'm not sure if I'm missing something or if I played everything the current build has to offer, but I'm at a stopping point and there isn't a hook to keep me moving forward.

As for the battles, I like the flow of using basic attacks to power up your TP to cast spells. However, basic attacks usually defeat enemies in one hit, and so battles are over before I can really experiment with Ruri's skills and how they can be used. I think a magical girl RPG should put more emphasis on magic instead of clobbering enemies with your weapon (unless Ruri is meant to be a physical oriented magical girl).

All in all, I feel like the main emphasis of this game is Ruri's relationship with her classmates instead of battles or even the main plot. If that's the case, then the classmates need to be brought out a lot more than what is presented here. There needs to be more unique conversations with more reactions to what is going on in the world and the teacher's lessons, and more back and forth with Ruri herself. There needs to be more immediate rewards for forming and developing bonds with her classmates, and the overall objective of Ruri's investigation into Iwayama needs to be made clear to the player so they have a goal to work towards.

Luxaren Allure is Now on Steam!!!

Congratulations on the release!!

Steam Release coming April 14th!

Hyyyyyyyype!

Common Items in Rogue-likes

I know nothing about your game, so I can't list anything specific. Instead, I'll just take a step back and be a bit more broad. Since it's a roguelike, it's importantly that each run have slight variations to keep players from getting bored. Consumable items should be designed with the intent of adding variety to the moment-to-moment gameplay so that no two runs are exactly the same.

I've been playing RE4Remake and they added an interesting system in the form of equippable charms that grant a bonus to one of the player's existing skills, such as increasing returns for crafting certain types of ammo, increased healing with either herbs, eggs, etc. You could apply that effect to your roguelike by implementing consumable items that temporarily increases capabilities of one of the skill sets of your party, such as more physical damage, more magic damage, or increased pharmacology.

spriting is hard why didn't anyone tell me

Hey kentona!

spriting is hard

I hate white mages

Strak just spent a turn casting revive on this thread. The humiliation of a healer taking a turn to revive a thread about why I hate healers is palpable.

Anyway, I'm eager to see how the Crusader works out, too! The class sounds cool on paper, but balancing it sounds difficult depending on how much investment is needed before sharing half of a character's regen becomes viable.

I think there's nothing wrong with having a dedicated healer, but the question becomes, how do you prevent healing skills from being the optimal turn order?


Dropping the hyperbole that my original post implies, having healing skills being the optimal action for a turn isn't really a problem. The problem is when healing skills becomes the only option for a healer. Sounds like your Crusader fixes that problem!

spriting is fun why didn't anyone tell me

nah ur just da vp

Dev Log #4: The Second Half

Don't be too harsh on Progress Chart Lock. Otherwise it might come back with a vengeance and become a boss character later...

Great to see progress still going on in this game!

ScreenshotIzNew1.png

Looks great! I love the parallax work on the back. I can't wait to see this scene in motion.

spriting is fun why didn't anyone tell me

Hey kentona! Did you know that spriting is fun?