A couple of thoughts regarding this game up to meeting Wu-Kwon.
Positives
+ Florid writing and witty character dialogues
+ Interesting over-the-top characters (but possibly too much exposition).
Neutral
/ Too many unimportant NPCs populating the world - while they add a lot of atmosphere, I feel that too many of them (especially those that walk) obstruct the player's ability to navigate the map, leading to disrupted movement and frustration when being body-blocked or inadvertently initiating a conversation.
/ Action vs reading balance - I felt that there were huge spells where I spent 30 minutes or so reading, only to then play 20 seconds of combat. Having come into this expecting an action (is it supposed to be?) fighting game, I felt underwhelmed on that front.
/ RPG-elements and character-development - at the current time, it doesn't feel impactful for me to improve my character attributes. While they are just numbers on a sheet - which (yay) are necessary to open up new areas and story progression - it doesn't feel like the game-play element is made incrementally better or easier to complete. To me, favour should grant rewards, possibly in the form of new trainers and new skillsets. In contrast, better character attributes should be tied into fighting, by allowing me to beat progressively harder (hehe) opponents and climbing the rungs of Fightopia. So far, it seems that this loop is missing or needs refining, but I understand PaboBabo already knows this.
Negatives
- Quick time events - there's a huge reason why games moved away from these, and that's because they are extremely annoying to complete. As a design choice, you assume everyone has optimal physical capabilities, including reaction-speeds and even systems to run this smoothly but your audience simply do not. For example, if you are older or have some impediment then it might be impossible to complete. In contrast, if you don't have those problems then mastering them becomes tedious and repetitive very quickly.
Conclusion
It's very obvious that this game is a labour of love, and I'm greatly enjoying it so far.
My main concern, however, is that there's too much crammed into one segment (chapter). In the future, with presumably more h-content tied in, character development and story-lines, then pacing will become an even greater issue. With already so much present, I admittedly avoided unimportant NPCs after interacting with the first dozen or so, and those that I inadvertently interacted with I skipped their conversations because I felt overloaded by information.
Nevertheless, this is one of those few games that I'll be keeping track of, and I look forwards to future developments.