My feedback about the game after playing it for 7 hours

[Nissa_Red]

Hello,

I would like to give you some feedback of the game, after playing it for about 7 to 8 hours now.


The GREAT

• The graphics. They are very pleasing to the eye, provided one likes the style (manga) : some characters are sweet looking, cute even, the environments gorgeous and colored with taste. I really, really like your style ^.^
  
• The setting. The game manages to blend an engaging story into a credible and interesting world. It really makes me want to go further, and explore. There are even consequences for my actions/decisions. Awesome work so far, I want more please!

The Good

• The companions. They come in a large panel of characters, each of them with their distinct personality, preferences and reactions about how I would lead the team. I admit I was surprised more than once by the "unexpected" result of my dialog choices while bantering with my companions. However, I believe it remains a very subjective matter as to what to expect in a discussion. I won't hold it against the game, as it is quite refreshing to be a bit... unsettled sometimes in video games. Routine can become boring after a while. I was a bit disappointed that either Tom or Michelle were so easy to fall to my charms however, and wouldn't mind some more fleshed out flirts / dates *hint hint pwetty please* ^.^
  
• The user-interface. Sure, it could use some polishing here and there (the inventory could do with a drag and drop feature, for example, icons and the numbers that come with them probably should be larger to gain in readability, etc.), but overall it remains functional, and rather satisfying to use.
  
• The sounds and music. If not totally groundbreaking, they're doing their job well. The background music is atmospheric, the combat sounds pretty convincing and the characters voiced with talent.

The Bad

• The resistance to psionic powers. In my humble opinion, too many creatures seem to have unwarranted resistances to psionic powers : droids, aliens, even some humans (rebels). I realize I am being given the tools to debuff enemies, but such powers do not seem to scale with the resistances (6 to 10 resistances are not uncommon, for a debuff of 3 maximum, I think), they are too short in duration, they are too expensive in PP and they fail quite frequently. Usually, I do not even bother casting them, as healing and buffing my own team seems a better strategy. All in all, I wish psionicists would be somewhat more... hmm, fun to play, with sparkles, glitters and that usual oomph about "casters" in other games!
  
• The spelling/grammatical mistakes. English isn't my mother tongue, and even I managed to find a couple of those distracting "your <-> you're" confusions in the game. No biggie as far as I'm concerned, but those spelling/grammatical mistakes probably shouldn't be left into a game, as other players may not show so lenient ^.^

The UGLY

• The skills system. I think this one really needs a rebuild from the ground up, or at least some serious tweaking. First, there are some of the existing skills which appeared as completely useless to me, since I was never given the chance to use them even once :
  
  
  • science
  • repair
  • lockpick
  • medicine
  
  Others may have a use in some situations, to avoid unnecessary fights (which is great!) :
  
  
  • sneak
  • charisma
  • survival
  • explosives
  
  Should they be as "expensive" as the combat/psionic skills though, which get used all the time ? I wonder.
  
  As it is, I feel the game mechanics really don't encourage me to spend my hard earned skill points on them. I even regret investing skill points into non-combat skills at the beginning of the game, because I feel I crippled my already reduced combat abilities. This is a shame, because I think these skills truly add to the "atmosphere" of the world, and the customization of our characters, and team.
  
  Finally, the thing that really, really bothers me is the constant "miss, miss, miss, ...".
  
  I don't mind *some* creatures being hard to hit, but if it happens as frequently as it is now, it is really too frustrating for me to keep at it -.-
  
  To give you an example, Michelle is a level 8 soldier. With my own level 8 psionicst, she is the best fighter in the team. She has 70 in light weapons, 31 in energy weapons, 70 in evasion and 40 in armor. Since about every creature comes stacked with a full array of resistances, she barely ever hits for single digits, when she doesn't miss, that is. Therefore, I feel that fights extend unnecessarily, in a very artificial fashion.
  
  I am not sure what explains that my team is not as efficient as I want it to be at this level, but with only 4 skill points per level, it seems like an impossible mission to me to conciliate a decent accuracy with the skill requested by better weapons, by each type of weapon needed to fight different creatures, and decent armors to be protected.

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All in all, I am happy that I found, and made the purchase this game. It has provided me with an enjoyable time so far, and I hope that the issue I am having above is due to my inexperience with the game mechanics. It sounds even more promising since you intend to give it a sequel. I would really appreciate if you could consider some of the feedback I tried to give you above, perhaps providing me with some advice, without hopefully coming out as too demanding.

I hope you will keep the good work up. Thank you.

[jack1974]

hi and welcome to the forums
Yes I agree with your observations. Some of the skills you mention (repair, science, lockpick) WILL be used later in the game, in some tough but high-rewarding side missions and in the final stages, so probably after 7 hours you didn't encounter them yet. Is true though that those skills aren't as important as the fighting ones.
About the inventory: I really wanted to use the drag&drop but it wasn't possible at the time I wrote the game with Ren'Py engine. Now, the coder added it, so I'm thinking to modify the inventory for the sequel to have that option.
The miss...miss... is really one major problem and I really will change this in the next small update. The problem is that pistols have low accuracy, so if you don't raise the accuracy skill you'll have hard time hitting the enemies indeed. You can "fix" this simply by spending some skills on accuracy for soldiers, but when I think more about it, was a mistake to make that skill have such a big impact on the game for the soldier class. I probably will do a fix where even soldiers start with a higher value of accuracy.
Apart this, did you find the game too hard to play? I'm considering changing the easy level, so that enemies doesn't regenerate HPs in that playing mode (would make many battles much more easier, especially the boss ones).

[jack1974]

By the way I just uploaded a new easier version: viewtopic.php?f=23&t=1647
If you want play it and let me know if is better. Soldiers should miss much less now

[Nissa_Red]

Thank you so much for this new version ^.^

I will try it, and tell you if it works better for me.

Should I start a new game to take advantage of the enhanced accuracy for soldiers ? It seems that loading my save game, Michelle keeps her old accuracy (at 10) ?

[jack1974]

No you can continue the game, since I changed the accuracy rating inside the battle: so in practice that 10 accuracy will impact MOSTLY the critical bonus, and not the % of hit (as should have been from the beginning probably).

[jack1974]

Was just wondering if you had the chance to play the game new version and found it easier after this change? thanks