ALTEREGO'S PROFILE

Alright, let's get on with this...

Mapping. The mapping was definitively not the strong point of this game. Don't take me wrong, it was by no means horrible, but it was a bit bare and convoluted. The area that I liked the most was the swamp. It was open enough to fool me into exploring the surroundings without making me feel like I was trapped in a rat maze. Other areas weren't this fortunate though. Like the cherry forest, that was basically going back and forth the perimeter of the map a few times, through the same long, stretchy path. Not very fun...

The story... OMG. Well, it was good. But for me, most of the dialogue went in one ear and out the other. Not only because it was plagued with Japanese terms that I'm just not familiar with, but because it was mostly long-winded, flowery stuff. *Deep breath* Ok. you're developing your characters, I get that. But, for example, if I see a treasure chest, I want to take it and GTFO. I don't want a tiny cutscene shoved in there, specially if it's just pseudo-funny anime-ish banter; I also don't want things being repeated all the time. The game never tells you why exactly was Shiryu (Jirou) exiled, but it reminds you of his exile in every major cutscene... I don't mean to rag on the story. I just think that more succinct and opportune cutscenes would have improved its execution.

Battles... Normal battles were genuinely difficult, if not a little cheap. It was common for one single battle to take away 1/2 or at least 1/3 of my entire party's HP, but this was easily offset by going out and inside a dungeon. I would have preferred more balanced battles so they were still a challenge but that I didn't feel like I had to resort to cheap tactics myself to keep up with them. Also the rewards were minimal, so for the time they took to beat just to get to sell a few scraps, they weren't quite worth it. I pretty much stopped engaging in normal battles after the first castle (pagoda, whatever) and I'm not sure if that's something you want players to do. Because, well, it's just counterproductive. And they'll still have to deal with the random encounters, which is annoying.

Music and sound were there, I guess. For the most part it was just quiet, Japanese music if I recall correctly. But at times things got louder than usual. This was most noticeable during boss battles. In one hand it was a clever hint that I was making progress in battle, but in the other, the sudden change of the music was kind of jarring instead of building up the tension. Specially since boss battles tend to take long to beat and you'll listen to the music fade in and out a couple times, which ruins the immersion.

One last thing. After I defeated this guy, *Spoiler*, the screen went blank, there was some text and then that was it. That was it!?? Really? So, now I'm thinking that maybe I got the bad ending or something. Did I do something wrong? Was I supposed to collect the Dragon shards? Do I get to turn into a dragon myself? - Oh, wait. The game is not complete yet... Bummer. =/

Edit: I never said I didn't like it. You can like something and still criticize it. I thought you of all people would know that. xD

Welp! It seems like all wanted to say has already been said, but I'm gonna say it again just because I can. =P ...My first impression of this game was a very favorable one. I love how stylistic everything is. I guess there's no single thing in the visual and audio departments that you guys didn't customize, which brings the playing experience much closer together. As for the difficulty. Well, playing in normal is not too bad. It's just a matter of playing carefully. I even decided to sell my Star Pendants from the beginning to get a Lucky Coin and farm some money. So far I haven't had much trouble. Beat the Tree at Lv 9 and I'm currently at 19 with decent equipment in 5F.

The first few floors of the dungeon weren't so bad. While there were many dead end paths, and even those paths that did lead to a treasure weren't exactly rewarding; it was all beautifully mapped and of reasonable size, so I found it manageable... Sadly, the 5th floor of this dungeon is the epitome of what I consider bad dungeon design: 1.-It's a maze. 2.-It's a mess. 3.-It's gigantic! 4.-You field of vision is limited-- Well, it's nearly impossible to navigate, so despíte my best efforts and intentions, I had to call it quits. =(

I dunno if you guys will release another version in the future, but it would be great if you could address this. Maybe by adding some kind of clue, so finding the exit of that floor is not as difficult... Because is like shooting yourselves on the foot if you deliver such a polished gaming experience just to stopshort the players later on; They won't get to see the full extent of your work.

Hi there! Can I join the party? =)

Mapping: The town was beautifully mapped. I've played other games that couldn't really capture the 'magic' of towns, given Lite's event restrictions, but you did it... The dungeon is another story, though. It's a drag really. Pretty much every inch of it looks the same, and it doesn't help that you can't look too far ahead of you. And something tells me you did this on purpose... >_>; Bad, Liberty! BAD!

Characters: While the game is not exactly "HAHA" funny, is amusing enough. The characters were well written for what little you get to see of them. At least Dell and Tome were. Lise and Mel were more like noise in the background. I get Lise is a mute, but maybe Mel would have been funnier if he talked more like an artificial being; he mentions his 'prime directive' once and that's pretty much it.

Cutscenes: Hate them! Well, no the cutscenes per se, but how easy is to mess them up. I was getting stuck everywhere because some cutscene didn't trigger properly. Most of the time I could fix this by reloading and trying again, but I couldn't get past that one cutscene at the inn... Perhaps this was in part my fault because I have the habit of holding down the Shift key all the time, but still. xP

Battles: What battles? I just had to beat one spider and that was all. =/ ...Classes? Music? Yeah they were Ok too, I guess.

All in all, not bad for a game made in 24 hours. But it'd be cool if you could expand on it. =P

What Marrend mentioned is true as well, but what I was getting to is simpler than that... Say, do you phone your grandma every few hours to tell her how you're doing? (If you do that's a problem too. xD) Likewise, you don't have to post every few hours to tell us what are you doing with your game. We are not waiting impatiently for the next update. Just do what you have to do and maybe at the end of the week you can post a blog with all the highlights of your development process up to that point.

Edit: Also, keep in mind that multi-posting is frowned upon if not against the rules completely. But hey, do as you please... =B