After sleeping off my original displeasure with this game, I deleted my original comment, and will try to present my case more amicably.
Within 5 minutes of playing, I immediately found the control layout to be - in my opinion - poorly considered. I am going to use the PlayStation layout to present my point, everyone knows X, □, O, △. In the present form, what these are is subject to how you hotkey them. Their default settings is X to attack, then □ and O pretty much don't matter. The Select button is your interaction button, and rest is nowhere to be seen, but it's hot-keyed to the Q key. R2 turns off your lantern and lets you run faster. What L1, L2, and R1 do, I'm still not sure. And the left thumb stick turns my character without moving, and off centers the camera. The control layout was tucked away under Notes, and it was not very helpful at all.
To summarize how I feel about this layout, I would say if this were my game I would be ashamed of this presentation, even if this is a Beta. I can't count how many times I've accidentally pressed X and hit a random person in town instead of the Select button. The standards of game design and controller layout are there because they've been discovered to be the most efficient. As the old saying goes, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."
This is how I think it would be better:
- X should be your interaction button. Japanese games are weird in that they use O to confirm selection, but this isn't a Japanese game. Everyone else in the world uses X.
- The □ button should be your basic attack button.
- The O button should be your cancel/back out button, and serve no other function.
- △ can be throwing rocks, rest, or cast magic? I guess? It should be another kind of action that is frequently used.
- The L1 and R1 buttons can be your extra hotkey sub zones if you really need eight of them, with the L1+□ and R1+□ your dodge and heavy attack by default. Resting should be within those hotkeys as well if it's not set to the △ button. The rest of L1/R1 + X, O, △ can be whatever.
- L2 should be "hold-to-look," so Lona stands still and looks in a direction instead of move. Switching between Switching between the d-pad and the thumb stick gets confusing (I frequently play shooters, which typically uses the left stick for moving). I'd also remove the off-center camera feature too. It's disorienting.
- The R2 button is fine being the sprint button.
- The Start button should be the game menu, for adjusting volume, turning on/off fetishes, saving and reloading, show the default controls and other similar functions.
- The Select button should be your Character Menu, where you can check Lona's status, put points into your abilities, check your current quests - a staple feature that seems to be absent in this game, equip gear, eat food, etc.
Other issues are related to the game balance. I think the game balance is severely busted. It's not even an issue of the game being "too hard," it's a matter of the game making sense. Why does it take 20 hits to kill a rat? A hungry child could kill a rat irl with two or three swipes of a stick. It's a rat.
- The use of stamina and passing of time while walking across the map makes sense, but it's too high to make sense. How big is this city? Is each block a square mile? That would be beyond enormous even for a sword and sorcery setting. Walking just one block eats up more stamina than fighting, which makes absolutely no sense. The use of stamina across the map could easily be taken down to anywhere from 50% to 75% of its current consumption.
- The passing of time suffers from a similar issue. I don't understand why sleeping at the Inn doesn't take me straight to the next morning. Bypassing the nighttime, when outside more dangerous, is usually the point of staying at an inn. Almost every time, it's still night time after resting. If I do leave town in the morning, it's already dark by the time I get to the nearest forest. Time doesn't pass that quickly. The average person can go about 20-25 miles before sundown.
- I am not too fond the encounters within the city, but I understand why they're there. I don't know why we care about the guard patrols though.
- Speaking of the encounters... I'm still not even sure what triggers them, but that aside, I think they force the player to fail too often. Almost every time, I am forced to use the "Kyaa!" option. It's usually the only way to get away, but even then, you can't get away half the time because you're crawling. An analogy of my point, it makes sense of combat is hard because the player is in control. It is up to them to overcome the challenge. In menu encounters like these, it's solitaire. You either win or you don't because the algorithm said so. That's what is called fake difficulty. The game isn't challenging if I lost because it decided to say so.
- I think the trading mechanics of the game are over engineered. I get that it's supposed to represent haggling, but still.
And that's my opinion, for whatever it's worth.
