Sk8rboyluv
New Member
- Mar 16, 2022
- 9
- 13
- 94
I played this for a good chunk of time the past couple days (plan on playing more) and like a lot of features and mechanics so far, despite the buggy state of the game, pacing issues, and clear balancing problems.
I like how the story's largely unintrusive/not bothersome while having some clear direction where it takes the player. The main goal is made evident early and a couple of options are made pretty clear to the player (e.g. can dance at inn, spend night at someone's house with enough money, get a loan to traverse the center of town.) I'm not a big fan of how you have to dance first to be able to start the quest with the inn's owner (though could be me being dumb, not realizing sooner), I wish there were more money-making options prior to crossing the bridge as a game with both H-content and RPG content (though this is of lesser importance), and of course the story overall is very early in its progression but that'll come with time.
I think the combat is fine on the player's end for the most part, having a variety of weaponry available, the attacks look and feel good, and being given some useful abilities (light and healing). The enemies however tend to be too easy or too difficult to take down. They tend to take a long time to defeat the tougher enemies too. Even the corrupted woman at the castle (who I no longer find challenging) takes a pretty long time of just spamming left-click with a sword, then waiting on my stamina to come back before doing so again. I think most enemies simply having less health would be good, or give us a Soulslike-backstab. Also as others have pointed out, the Breeding Flies' stunlock is just too annoying, should not be the hardest enemy in the game. In my opinion, the priority should be to give them fewer stuns rather than to have upgradeable stun-resist gear since they're in a very early area of the game (right beside Thalia). Speaking of early parts in the game, it's likely that you'll encounter slave traders and boar-looking enemies if you're just normally exploring, yet the "rank 1" quests give you enemies like corrupted knights and Arack Nest, which is a bit off. Stuns in general are a bit too pervasive imo, even the knights tend to just go straight for a grope thing instead of attacking even when you have good armor, and it interrupts your attack consistently. I'm not sure what the point of having this so frequently is since, as far as I'm aware, there are very few mid-combat sex animations right now.
Speaking of H-content, why is it that you can go to the Rotten Lands with zombies who start out with boners, but then don't use them? They only use their tongue, then if you die by them, you're... taken capture by the corrupted knights who aren't even in the zone. It doesn't really make any sense. From some of the posts I've read though it looks like being captured is often more an annoyance for a lot of players and I can certainly see why. For some reason there's no way to skip the lengthy "capture" cutscenes that have been complained about for literally years now if you look back at the posts. This contrasts quite a bit with the strange choice to have one of the few "normal" sex interactions (with the fat man) being extremely quick.
At times, the graphics can be strikingly good. Similar to other UE-based indie games that I've tried though, it's inconsistent; enough so that I use reshade at spots I think could use different levels or more postprocessing effects. There was even a moment last night I was playing (near where the corrupted knights spawn), it was night and with rain, and it looked surprisingly really good and atmospherically dark (which is an advantage for games that don't have a day/night cycle, they can force that type of atmosphere whenever they want). While player character animations are pretty good, the human enemy (particularly the knights, both corrupted and the ones at Thalia) running animations and standing stances are very goofy-looking (that's fine though). I'd like to see the upper-left UI (health, energy, stamina bars) be more vibrant and possibly bigger though; it can be tough to see how much health or stamina you have left sometimes against the darker backgrounds, particularly at night. Visual feedback for getting low on health would be nice too (as well as auditory feedback for both low health and getting hit).
A lot of the other gameplay that's included, like mining and crafting, is a really cool addition to help flesh out the world and gameplay a bit. Even so, the zones themselves are just too large for the content that's available. The overall pacing was already very slow due to the unskippable cutscenes and the 3-day arena (newbies will probably encounter quickly), higher enemy health, lengthy stamina regen time, and now you're asking the player to do quests in huge zones with no faster than running speed. It all adds up to being a bit too much.
And that's before mentioning any glitches that'll probably get in the way. I myself had to alt+f4 not just from unwanted gameplay sections, but also because if you go to the traders and click the button "equipment", it keeps the purchase window fullscreen without allowing you to close out of it. I found a workaround (press escape until you can move your character, then alt+tab out, then back in, then press esc and it should close the window), but menus can be very finnicky in general, especially when guards come up to you or when you are moving when you press a button to go into a menu (like crafting). Similarly finnicky are the quests, where sometimes they just won't progress despite me doing the action that's asked (Find a New Home isn't complete despite me having done this twice). While not a glitch, needing to drop equipment from your inventory before crafting or buying equipment to replace it is cumbersome and just seems unnecessary to me- I've got to ask (along with a few other design choices), what purpose does this serve?
That's a question that I think needs to asked and answered whenever you're making non-standard design choices. As an overall summary, I really like the core of what this game's trying to achieve with its Western RPG mechanics, willingness to stick to its H-content, house a surprising variety in enemies, zones, and gameplay offerings, and very much like how much potential a game like this has (though would many more years to reach going at this pace).
During this stage of development, I think it's fair to ask for some things that probably won't be implemented (dev hasn't even responded to anything since December) but would make the game so much nicer to play and likely wouldn't take up a ton of development time.
Also WTF is an Anglerox >:\
I like how the story's largely unintrusive/not bothersome while having some clear direction where it takes the player. The main goal is made evident early and a couple of options are made pretty clear to the player (e.g. can dance at inn, spend night at someone's house with enough money, get a loan to traverse the center of town.) I'm not a big fan of how you have to dance first to be able to start the quest with the inn's owner (though could be me being dumb, not realizing sooner), I wish there were more money-making options prior to crossing the bridge as a game with both H-content and RPG content (though this is of lesser importance), and of course the story overall is very early in its progression but that'll come with time.
I think the combat is fine on the player's end for the most part, having a variety of weaponry available, the attacks look and feel good, and being given some useful abilities (light and healing). The enemies however tend to be too easy or too difficult to take down. They tend to take a long time to defeat the tougher enemies too. Even the corrupted woman at the castle (who I no longer find challenging) takes a pretty long time of just spamming left-click with a sword, then waiting on my stamina to come back before doing so again. I think most enemies simply having less health would be good, or give us a Soulslike-backstab. Also as others have pointed out, the Breeding Flies' stunlock is just too annoying, should not be the hardest enemy in the game. In my opinion, the priority should be to give them fewer stuns rather than to have upgradeable stun-resist gear since they're in a very early area of the game (right beside Thalia). Speaking of early parts in the game, it's likely that you'll encounter slave traders and boar-looking enemies if you're just normally exploring, yet the "rank 1" quests give you enemies like corrupted knights and Arack Nest, which is a bit off. Stuns in general are a bit too pervasive imo, even the knights tend to just go straight for a grope thing instead of attacking even when you have good armor, and it interrupts your attack consistently. I'm not sure what the point of having this so frequently is since, as far as I'm aware, there are very few mid-combat sex animations right now.
Speaking of H-content, why is it that you can go to the Rotten Lands with zombies who start out with boners, but then don't use them? They only use their tongue, then if you die by them, you're... taken capture by the corrupted knights who aren't even in the zone. It doesn't really make any sense. From some of the posts I've read though it looks like being captured is often more an annoyance for a lot of players and I can certainly see why. For some reason there's no way to skip the lengthy "capture" cutscenes that have been complained about for literally years now if you look back at the posts. This contrasts quite a bit with the strange choice to have one of the few "normal" sex interactions (with the fat man) being extremely quick.
At times, the graphics can be strikingly good. Similar to other UE-based indie games that I've tried though, it's inconsistent; enough so that I use reshade at spots I think could use different levels or more postprocessing effects. There was even a moment last night I was playing (near where the corrupted knights spawn), it was night and with rain, and it looked surprisingly really good and atmospherically dark (which is an advantage for games that don't have a day/night cycle, they can force that type of atmosphere whenever they want). While player character animations are pretty good, the human enemy (particularly the knights, both corrupted and the ones at Thalia) running animations and standing stances are very goofy-looking (that's fine though). I'd like to see the upper-left UI (health, energy, stamina bars) be more vibrant and possibly bigger though; it can be tough to see how much health or stamina you have left sometimes against the darker backgrounds, particularly at night. Visual feedback for getting low on health would be nice too (as well as auditory feedback for both low health and getting hit).
A lot of the other gameplay that's included, like mining and crafting, is a really cool addition to help flesh out the world and gameplay a bit. Even so, the zones themselves are just too large for the content that's available. The overall pacing was already very slow due to the unskippable cutscenes and the 3-day arena (newbies will probably encounter quickly), higher enemy health, lengthy stamina regen time, and now you're asking the player to do quests in huge zones with no faster than running speed. It all adds up to being a bit too much.
And that's before mentioning any glitches that'll probably get in the way. I myself had to alt+f4 not just from unwanted gameplay sections, but also because if you go to the traders and click the button "equipment", it keeps the purchase window fullscreen without allowing you to close out of it. I found a workaround (press escape until you can move your character, then alt+tab out, then back in, then press esc and it should close the window), but menus can be very finnicky in general, especially when guards come up to you or when you are moving when you press a button to go into a menu (like crafting). Similarly finnicky are the quests, where sometimes they just won't progress despite me doing the action that's asked (Find a New Home isn't complete despite me having done this twice). While not a glitch, needing to drop equipment from your inventory before crafting or buying equipment to replace it is cumbersome and just seems unnecessary to me- I've got to ask (along with a few other design choices), what purpose does this serve?
That's a question that I think needs to asked and answered whenever you're making non-standard design choices. As an overall summary, I really like the core of what this game's trying to achieve with its Western RPG mechanics, willingness to stick to its H-content, house a surprising variety in enemies, zones, and gameplay offerings, and very much like how much potential a game like this has (though would many more years to reach going at this pace).
During this stage of development, I think it's fair to ask for some things that probably won't be implemented (dev hasn't even responded to anything since December) but would make the game so much nicer to play and likely wouldn't take up a ton of development time.
A save feature; if you're worried about savescumming you could always take it out later- besides, people are already doing that out of frustration by Alt+F4ing, may as well make it easier for now with how buggy and frustrating the game is for some people.
Make the sex scenes skippable, particularly the ones when you get captured.
Change Keybinds; there's not much reason not to have this, especially when the default controls are so unconventional for this type of game
Add visual vignette and sound effects when at low health; add sfx to being hit. Make health/energy/stamina bars more vibrant
Add Rank 1 quest to kill enemies in the Ruins area
Move quest board from where it is to around the inn area so players can earn money to cross the bridges
Prioritize refinements like the above as well as glitch-hunting. Make into a better and more refined experience first before adding a bunch of stuff. New features, scenes, enemies, customization, etc is all cool but right now there's too much to clean up with what's already there to worry about any of that.
If time allows, proper tutorials
Also WTF is an Anglerox >:\
