ARGH'S PROFILE

I definitely think you only scratched the surface of the issue. The story only really explores one avenue of religious faith -- the idea of "absolute truth" -- but that's far from the only thing that attracts people to religion. As an atheist, pragmatist, and utilitarian, I'm far more concerned about the tangible effects religion has on people. You touch on the issue of holy war and different followers' interpretations of it, but it's relegated to the background and is never really a factor in the characters' own self-reflection. I think that's a far more pressing issue to address, and probably the one that most people are concerned about when they bring up the issue of religion. I don't really care about all the philosophical junk -- that's just personal opinion and I'm pretty okay with that. Whatever floats your boat etc. But once you start using that philosophy to influence the lives of other people, that's when I start my objections.

So, in that regard, the ending fell really flat for me. The big moral was supposed to be that we shouldn't argue just for the sake of being right, which, yes, good moral, but that's not my stake in the debate at all, so it couldn't do anything for me. In all honesty, it felt a bit strawman-y -- a lot of religious folks use that accusation to discredit atheists who disagree with them, which of course makes atheists look petty and ridiculous, but the reasons for skepticism are so much more varied than that. I would have liked to see an atheist character oppose the religion on more solid, moral grounds.

Speaking of that, you didn't at all address what I consider to be the most insidious part of religion: the way it negatively influences its adherents. Take Christianity for instance -- all that stuff about how even feeling the wrong emotions is a sin, as if that's something you can control? That really, really messes people up. That is one of my biggest personal objections to religion, especially the Abrahamic faiths: the doctrine teaches people to hate and punish themselves just for being human, and I find that inexcusably cruel and inhumane. In some ways, at least in my sheltered first-world experience, I'd even consider it a bigger problem than the xenophobia. Good people can always choose to only follow the nice verses, and bad people can always find other excuses for violence, but we lack the same safeguards when that darkness is directed at ourselves. I've talked to religious people who agree that oh no, their religion is a personal thing, of course they'd never hurt or judge someone else for going against the teachings of Christ -- but they still apply the doctrines to themselves, because they're such good Christians who want to have a good relationship with God! And it hurts me so much to see them destroy themselves like that. For me personally, this is the big moral battleground when it comes to religion -- and of course there's a lot of dubiousness and grey area there! Should I really be deciding whether another person is capable of making decisions for themselves? Is it right for me to be concerned that they're lying to themselves about being happy, or is that just patronizing? There's lots of room for philosophical exploration on this topic!

And, while I understand why you didn't want to go here, I'm still disappointed you didn't: religious treatment of women. Every religion I know about in any detail treats women absolutely terribly -- pushes them into very limited social roles, restricts their rights, forces them to be subservient to men, you see it over and over again. The details and the severity can change, but there's always a constant of misogyny in the major religions. This is another big issue that deserves to be a part of this discussion, yet despite both of the religious characters being nuns, it's not brought up at all. Is Platanism supposed to be egalitarian, sidestepping the whole issue? That's well-meaning, and in a story where the religion was a background element that would be very refreshing, but when you make religion the centerpiece, it feels kinda tacky to just say the issue doesn't exist in your world. From a very uncharitable perspective, it could look like you're pretending it doesn't exist in real life either.

And the ending... I expected it, but I was a little disappointed. Ending these kinds of stories with "but there is no real answer, you must decide for yourselves!" has become a cliche at this point. To be honest, I feel it leans a little too much in favor of the religious side, since religion is all about faith, ambiguity, and lack of evidence. The skeptic side needs evidence to work with, or it's nothing but conjecture, no better than its opponent. Religion can maintain its spiritual teachings and beliefs regardless of what the actual facts and teachings are -- just look at all the sects and schisms throughout religious history. I think it would have been a lot more interesting for them to find the book and have the skeptics turn out to be technically "right", leading the faithful to have an epiphany that this doesn't invalidate their faith because true spirituality is about coming to your own answer, with the literal scripture just being a tool. I believe that would be a more even-handed resolution, and possibly a happier ending for everyone, too.

So...hm. Those were a lot of rambly words. But that's my perspective. I will say that I think you handled the area you chose to tackle quite well; I'd just have preferred a bit more breadth.

...was overall pretty fun, and I liked the focus on singular encounters, but like Sunken Spire it was really easy and unbalanced, even on hard mode. Evvy and Alan were particularly gamebreaking. Evvy was immensely useful because indirect healing and damage seem like the most effective strategies; there's nothing enemies can really do to counter them, and they continue working even if everyone's incapacitated. (Elias is also useful because of this.) If you set up enough thorns, all you have to do is wait and the enemy will die eventually. Meanwhile Alan is practically invincible if he guards every turn, and at level 2 he can keep attacking even if he does that. Then at level 3 he gets amazing offense too! I honestly don't see how the hard mode final boss is possible without him.

Everyone else was pretty meh. I was sentimental towards Tira Misu since she was the first party member I got, but her need to replenish her stocks slows her down too much and she's way too fragile to make up for it. Ruby just doesn't seem very useful in general because she burns out too quickly and recharges too slowly, which runs counter to a system that incentivizes building up EX before unleashing strong attacks. Argos is in the wrong game. I never even used the royals, though Albert might be a possible substitute for Alan if you need defense I guess? Victoria just seems like a poor man's Elias, though, since her indirect damage can't accumulate. Garron is the only other one who's really decent and I used him a few times (that stun attack is particularly good), but with only three party slots he just can't compete with Evvy, Elias, and Alan.

The EX system was...hm. I presume you did it to discourage turtling and accelerate the pace of combat, which I'm generally in favor of, but I worry you might have overdone it. It kind of turns battles into a binary thing; everyone grows in power so quickly that either the fight is over almost as soon as it begins, or you're screwed because the enemies will oneshot you before you can strike back by virtue of their having more health. And there's no way to manage it outside of Carmen and Garron, and Carmen's skill never seemed to work for me. I think this would have worked better if you didn't have healing and gave the heroes comparable hit points to the monsters, or if the values didn't climb quite so fast. Or if you weren't constrained by the godawful default battle system and players could actually react to attacks properly instead of choosing someone to heal at random and praying they picked right grharaghgh why did Enterbrain ever think that was a good idea.

The zombie dragon was clever, though. I love it when RPGs do stuff that lets you use the full party like that. Even still, I beat him on hard mode before he was even halfway through my reserves.

Kiiiinda uncomfortable that you used the bog-standard "ice queen who thinks she's independent but finds ~true love~ after all" cliche. But, despite the trope's inherent issues, I think you handled it well: The focus is solidly on it being her choice, you have a man in the same situation, and it only happens if the player actually works towards a believable relationship rather than housewifery being her destiny. Plus her career still takes precedence over her relationship, making Gideon more of a "bonus prize", which is good because that's usually how the gender-flipped version works. But...it's still pretty awkward to have the whole story be about people trying to force her into marriage, her expressing disgust at the idea, and then realizing that's what she wants anyway. I get that people like true love stories and all, but as an aromantic person it's just unrelatable and cliche to me, no matter how technically well-written.

Elsa's character was also a lot more shallow than she was in Sunken Spire, even if that does make sense. In SS I felt she had more nuance to her; she was still the boisterous tough guy with a soft side, but I thought she was more confident and comfortable with herself -- just more mature in general, and having her soft side be motherly rather than romantic was a sensible outgrowth of that that's a bit different that what we normally see in the archetype. Here, her snarky side is just so incredibly over-the-top that she sounds like a child trying to compensate for her insecurities, which makes the contrast with her blushing girlfriend side even starker and weirder, like it's a completely different side of her rather than a logical facet of her personality. Well...the date scenes were actually pretty good, but the resolution where they're both blushing daintily and stumbling over their words was a bit much. It's possible that was the point, and taken together with SS it does make sense as a character progression, but I still felt she was weaker here.

Also, bratty princess + wise prince is similarly awkward, but I suppose it is counterbalanced by idiot king/competent queen. Still, might have worked better if Elias was a woman, to avoid the "willful emotional girl has to be kept in line by a man" implication, even if it was slight. (I did love the contrast in their equipment descriptions, though.)