Meh, the gameplay was never the strong suit of this game. The main things that were carrying the game for me came from the writing and the decent art (I dig the heavily stylized cartoony models, but let's not pretend they are super high-end art). For the writing, the budding relationship between Ana and Alex was great, the writing was funny, and the story had this very fun feeling of progression.
The gameplay was always a bit of a slog, I personally don't mind RPGmaker fetch quests and simple minigames being used as a bit of filler as long as they build up to something worthwhile, which this game frequently did since they pretty often delivered great humorous situations and they never overstayed their welcome. The thing that absolute KILLS any fun from the first 2 hours of gameplay is that the combat is just terribly balanced, you have to fight damage sponges that have non-threatening attacks with 2 characters that have low damage and 1 spell each. It is just a complete drag.
Honestly what sucks about the development of this game over the last year is that the dev decided to stagnate 2 of the things that were great about the writing: The relationship with Ana and the sense of progression. Apparently there's nothing else to be said about Ana and Alex fucking in the digital world in role-reversed avatar bodies, it is just a thing they do and doesn't add anything to them as people or to their relationship. And the fun of being on the road, learning new lore, finding new people and new places, all of that is gone and now we're stuck going from meaningless dungeon to meaningless dungeon, living in the same boring city seeing the same boring people, just bidding the time until the dev decides we can finally get the mcguffin and continue the story. At least the humor is still solid, although it has started doing some bad flanderization of the characters here and there.
Of course that contributing to that sense of stagnation is the fact that the game barely ever updates, and the updates are not long. I'm fine with the dev being a coding enthusiast and wanting to learn how to do all kinds of stuff all by himself, but goodness gracious, a convoluted gimmick that will only be used for one dungeon and then forgotten about is not what anyone wanted for the gameplay. This is not goddamn mario party, those things he insist on trying to do are not benefiting the product at all, because this is still an RPGmaker game, and the meat of the gameplay is still the combat, and the combat still kind of sucks. The new spells and party members are good to add a bit more complexity, but I just don't understand why this dev seems to like damage-sponge combat so much. If I learned how an enemy works, and figured out a strategy that lets my team beat it, why do you force me to do it like 4 times before the enemy actually dies, and why do I have to fight this same enemy over and over. The dev keeps diving into technically complex solutions for what he thinks will make RPGmaker gameplay fun, but he doesn't need more gimmicks, he just needs better design. Stop trying to make the game be good in SPITE of being an RPGmaker game and make it good FOR being an RPGmaker game, design to the strengths of the engine.
Sorry for the rant but I figure there's not much more to do in threads for games like this. I really got invested in this game and I just wish it would accept what made it good and run with it.
The gameplay was always a bit of a slog, I personally don't mind RPGmaker fetch quests and simple minigames being used as a bit of filler as long as they build up to something worthwhile, which this game frequently did since they pretty often delivered great humorous situations and they never overstayed their welcome. The thing that absolute KILLS any fun from the first 2 hours of gameplay is that the combat is just terribly balanced, you have to fight damage sponges that have non-threatening attacks with 2 characters that have low damage and 1 spell each. It is just a complete drag.
Honestly what sucks about the development of this game over the last year is that the dev decided to stagnate 2 of the things that were great about the writing: The relationship with Ana and the sense of progression. Apparently there's nothing else to be said about Ana and Alex fucking in the digital world in role-reversed avatar bodies, it is just a thing they do and doesn't add anything to them as people or to their relationship. And the fun of being on the road, learning new lore, finding new people and new places, all of that is gone and now we're stuck going from meaningless dungeon to meaningless dungeon, living in the same boring city seeing the same boring people, just bidding the time until the dev decides we can finally get the mcguffin and continue the story. At least the humor is still solid, although it has started doing some bad flanderization of the characters here and there.
Of course that contributing to that sense of stagnation is the fact that the game barely ever updates, and the updates are not long. I'm fine with the dev being a coding enthusiast and wanting to learn how to do all kinds of stuff all by himself, but goodness gracious, a convoluted gimmick that will only be used for one dungeon and then forgotten about is not what anyone wanted for the gameplay. This is not goddamn mario party, those things he insist on trying to do are not benefiting the product at all, because this is still an RPGmaker game, and the meat of the gameplay is still the combat, and the combat still kind of sucks. The new spells and party members are good to add a bit more complexity, but I just don't understand why this dev seems to like damage-sponge combat so much. If I learned how an enemy works, and figured out a strategy that lets my team beat it, why do you force me to do it like 4 times before the enemy actually dies, and why do I have to fight this same enemy over and over. The dev keeps diving into technically complex solutions for what he thinks will make RPGmaker gameplay fun, but he doesn't need more gimmicks, he just needs better design. Stop trying to make the game be good in SPITE of being an RPGmaker game and make it good FOR being an RPGmaker game, design to the strengths of the engine.
Sorry for the rant but I figure there's not much more to do in threads for games like this. I really got invested in this game and I just wish it would accept what made it good and run with it.
