So, i have around 6 hours on my playtime clock.
The dialouges and story is nice, especially the journal.
The battles are nice (playing on normal).
However i find the game only decent, not really good. Still a nice accomplishment for a first game.
There are several things often small details that annoy me a bit.
First is the walking speed. Why can't i dash on the world map? Especially as the game encourages exploring and a lot of backtracking (as field-abilites get unlocked) the slow speed on the world map is a slight hindrance.
Another small thing are the save-points. There are two kind of save-points, the one that fully heal you and the one that don't. But it is impossible to distingush the two before entering one.
The balance.. it gets better, but i'm not sure wether this is only because i explore a lot and find a lot of goodies.
At the start of the game this was painfully obvious. I found it impossible to just venture to the first dungeon. No money for items and no free healing spot (why can't i rest in the heros house?) meant i had to do a bit of grinding at the start of the game. Coupled with the low encounter rate on the world map - not the best start for a game.
The boss in the woods (i think 3rd plot boss) i also had to try several times. All-party confusing or all-party-silencing spells can make the battle extremly hard. I found luck to play a major part in that battle.
Another nice thing to have would be visible clues about the "no encounter"-effects. I have no idea when the effect wears off and i have to renew it.
The divination-spell of the main hero is a nice idea. But regarding it i have two suggestions. First give the player the abilitiy to recheck information on known enemies, without having to cast the spell again in battle. A kind of a beast-book in the inventory. Especially if the player plays again after a longer break he will surely have forgotten the weaknesses of enemies he already have encountered.
Second, why does the spell not work against bosses? I mean that is the place where knowing weaknesses and strength really matters and the divination-spell would be really usefull. It's no fun to have wasting turns against the boss trying out the different elements to find the one he is weak against. (Especially as this has to be deducted from the damage, no visible clue if you hit an enemy with its weak element). Especially as a boss is a powerfull enemy and theses wasted turns could easily mean the difference between winning or losing the battle.
Also i found the intro to be quite long. I think some of the stuff of the intro (especially that part 8 years before the game) could have been put into flashbacks that occur a bit later in the game.
And last.. your maps can clearly be improved. Make the maps smaller if you have nothing to fill them with.
Now, that was a lot of negative points but i'm looking forward to your next game (if you make one) and after all finishing a game, especially a long one, is quite an accomplishment in itself. I'm pretty sure i will play Manifest to its end =).
