- I'll admit, the combat system is very rough and inflexible in its current state:
> The fact that your normal attack is already locked onto a monster, so if you press attack by accident you can waste a turn.
> I don't like how the yellow stars don't show up when you attack normally or stay after you complete a fight.
If you don't want regular attacks to build the star meter, you could at least make them the one thing you carry over between fights since they can be a valuable part of your arsenal and be an extra layer of "oh man what should I use this on?".
Taking 2-3 hits from enemies should also give you a star too, just so they can be a comeback mechanic.
>> Psst. Mari's all-heal move should also restore some of her MP. And cost three stars if you revise the star meter to persist between battles.
> 25 MP is way too low for the start of every fight, especially since monsters have quite a lot of health and can swarm you - Mari in particular gets way too beat up since she's the slower one of the two and for some reason got targeted way more. 40 or 50 would work better, especially since you don't get to use items to help out or revive your party members.
>> For example: the move that boosts your attack by 2.5*? Only thing you can use it on at the start of a fight is a regular attack, making it kinda worthless unless you go out of your way to intentionally boost your MP by attacking over just saving it for something more convenient.
It's not even that particularly gamebreaking if you manage to get a super-effective hit with the stack on, as it's not even enough to oneshot a normal enemy and is very risky to build up.
> Normal attacks from your guys should do much more than what they're currently doing and also heal a tiny bit of HP - I can see why you didn't go for outright MP regeneration per turn, but at the same time I feel normal attacks should at least do moderate damage to make them worth using beyond the MP restoration aspect. Likewise, Guarding should also bring back more MP - 10 or so, just so Mari can heal in a pinch.
> The enemies, as mentioned above, have a lot of health and too much attack power - the slime in particular walls out Neil completely, so if Mari is dead the only option you have is the counterattack move... which feels very off. It feels like they should go down in less turns and not hit as hard as they do.
>> For reference, Defense Stance Neil while Guarding takes 33 as opposed to 49 from the cactus monster. He hits for 40+ with a super effective move, which does piddly against the cactus, incentivizing the more aggressive/less safe option of going Offense to do 80+ while also taking 70. I like the idea of the stances, but they feel like tools that have better use in boss fights with big epic super moves than regular encounters.
> I feel Counter would work better if the Star version was the default (minus the defense pierce of course), whereas the new star version costs 2 stars and does defense piercing * 1.5 damage on top of giving him 20 MP. The "one hit per enemy" thing of the original feels very limited - worse if they don't even target him.
- Oh hey, thanks Hawk Boss for doing 293 damage to Mari. That was cool of you. Also what's the point of giving Neil a super-effective move for flying enemies if it doesn't work on the one boss in the game that would otherwise be classified as "flying"? Why is he walled by the boss?
If his only role in that fight is to be a Provoke Bot, that's not good. Both characters should contribute in damage equally.
- Likewise, the shield enemies are genuinely poorly designed. I get that you have to use Counter to defeat them (which itself is a bad move since it's not intuitive), but that method feels very limiting and not fun at all. If the game were more optimized, you would have the Water attack rust it while Pierce similarly kills it. Versatility!
What's the point of a "does extra damage to armored enemies" move if the literal shield monster isn't crippled by it? I just don't get it.
- Neil you're kind of an ass. You take after your mother too much - at the very least be more clear with Mari since she's obviously not in the right headspace.
- As cool as the money puzzle is, it's just kind of a numbers game until you get it right. Also you should probably cut it after the first instance. It definitely overstayed its welcome.
- I don't really understand the employee fights? Are they the animals themselves or are these like, their pets fighting in their place? It kinda confuses me.
- I would add a conditional branch to a fight where, if you lose and retry, you don't get to see the dialogue again.
- ... So I didn't know you could just take the incubator without consequence. I legit thought you had to get money somewhere in the store, and then the game ended. If that lead to a new plot point with consequence, I would have missed it.
- I don't like Mari's incessant moralizing or the darker tone the game gets later on. It feels rather forced. I get that the former is meant to establish her character, but the tone at the beginning of the game didn't give me the indication that we would go down this route.
- The characters wind up dead weight if either one dies. If Mari dies (which WILL happen), you can't heal. If Neil dies, you lose damage options that might change the flow of the fight.
They should BOTH be able to heal each other AND revive each other, much like players in a multiplayer co-op game - the revive should cost nothing or at the very least 10 MP. Because the alternative is slowly dying and being put into a checkmate situation where you know you can't win.
The retry option is nice, but I've always felt that's better used as a way to bounce back from a bad situation with a new strategy as opposed to being a bandaid for being locked in a downward spiral where you have to hope everything goes right or you die.
