First Impressions 2.0
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The G-Meister
Giga Slime
I guess it's not gender, it's more sex. As far as I know, there are only male/female naturally occurring body types in real life. Another body shape is also an extra butt tonne of work for Fred to do 
Fair enough, it was just a thoughtI guess it's not gender, it's more sex. As far as I know, there are only male/female naturally occurring body types in real life. Another body shape is also an extra butt tonne of work for Fred to do
And I, just like most of us here I believe, would rather that the developers focus on continuing the story :3
General Impressions: As a whole it is a enjoyable experience. If it was longer I would most surely keep playing.
What you liked the most: The gameplay and skill system, they are really superb.
What you liked the least: Some skills feel underpowered making some fights irritating since you end up with a build that can't deal good dps.
Confusing elements: As of now none. (The statue puzzle in Tai Ming was the only one confusing for me, ever.But they added a hint now so its cool)
Optional Content: Done everything, it feels rewarding and enjoyable. No complains whatsoever here.
What you liked the most: The gameplay and skill system, they are really superb.
What you liked the least: Some skills feel underpowered making some fights irritating since you end up with a build that can't deal good dps.
Confusing elements: As of now none. (The statue puzzle in Tai Ming was the only one confusing for me, ever.But they added a hint now so its cool)
Optional Content: Done everything, it feels rewarding and enjoyable. No complains whatsoever here.
Hello! I just finished the game for the first time and got almost all the cards. Here are my impressions and suggestions. It is lenghty, but bear with it. I tried to be as concise as possible.
About grinding, the core system: it feels fluid, rewarding and fun to play. I personally HATE grinding, but this game got everything in place to make it feel less tedious and more dynamic (faster respawns, tons of enemies, elite enemies, multitude of attacks, etc). I'm pretty grateful for that. I do think there could be more variations to elite enemies, but so far, so good.
About mobility and guarding: by far one of the least polished aspects of the game. Using the shield, for example, is often a hindrance, since it can only guard in one direction and the fact that enemies spawn all over the place clashes directly with that. It only gets worse that the shield is essential to avoid some enemies attacks (Halloweed's burying attack) but most of the time I actually get hit because it makes me lose mobility. Also, attacking repeatedly makes one unable to change directions at times, exposing ourselves to danger. The game should harm us because we comit mistakes, not because combat is somewhat cranky. So I thought: maybe, instead of a shield, we could wield some sort of defensive trinket that creates a bubble all around us? It would solve the problem of getting attacked from behind all the time and although it might sound OP now, it would probably break fast because of spawning enemies. Give it some thought.
About spellcasting, melee skills and ep's: probably one of the most interesting parts of the game, spellcasting has but one big probem: cast speed. As in, it has no impact whatsoever in gameplay. Since spells cast so quickly from the get go, even when at gold level, having CSPD modifiers actually feels pointless. I can just summon this cute and fluffy lightning cloud that murders everything in its wake in less than 2 seconds (no, seriously, I LOVE THAT CLOUD ). So, I guess, there has to be changes to spell system so it feels unique (because we actually "cast" melee skills as well) and POWERFUL. Some spells (fireball, frost nova, earth pillar, etc) have no impact... They need to get a better start so it will make them seem relevant to us.
-Charge levels for spells is an interesting concept. For melee skills, not as much. The problem here is: why do we have to charge melee skills? I could understand that some spells have, rather than "weaker" effects, "different" on the varying charge levels (like summon plants). But melee ones are pretty straight forward. "Deal more damage, travel further, stun", etc. IMHO, this needs to be looked upon.
-Ep's regenerate fairly quickly so we shouldn't get ep's per level, right? Wrong. When new updates are released, we'll soon see ourselves surrounded by relentless enemies that could decimate a party in no time. So I think that having ample mana pools to allow for casting more and improved spells is essential. The talent that increases max ep alone won't suffice in later stages.
About quests, abilities and the world: all in all, most quests feel fun to complete, have somewhat decent prizes and funny scripts, but I think they could have slightly better rewards so as to make they more appealing.
-I know more permanent abilities like Phase Shift and Season Change will come in the future and they also they blend perfectly in the game's world, but I'd love to see some we could use in combat as well.
-Puzzles are neat, not too overly complicated or increadibly easy, they are in sync with the pacing set for each stage of the game (and the puzzle rooms in Mt Bloom, THOSE WERE CRAZY FUN and well thought! Could have a better reward than a cosmetic item, but meh).
-On another note, right now the world feels very constricted (yes, I'm aware it's a beta) and it needs more grinding fields, ones made just to grind to our hearts content get those extra cards and rare loot! I think that would make use of the games design very well, which, btw, is spot on.
About items, recipes and crafting: more recipes needed. The game has way too much materials and mostly no recipes... More variation is welcome as well, since we can't craft any wands or staves yet.
-By the point we got the materials needed to craft some of the equips, we already found better things to wield. I think it is worth taking a look through the starting recipes and the unlockables to adjust them to game progression and even some costs for early items. The crafting system in itself is very intuitive, even backed up by an enemy codex that allows us to look through loot drops and see what we lack and what we have. Bullseye. Also, I could be wrong, but I think that there are items not yet implemented in the game that are, however, required for some recipes... that made me search the whole map to no avail.
-Special effects should be properly listed. Sometimes they are effectively descripted and how they work, sometimes there are hints. It is inconsistent and in a game based on grinding and constant equipment changes, we have to know precisely what they do. The game telling me: SPECIAL EFFECT > SPECIAL EFFECT (when changing equips) doens't really helps.
About enemies and pets: not many complaints here. The main problem seems to be with some enemies animations sync with the actual damage window. Rabby damages the player whilst actually preparing the attack (when it moves back to bite you). I'll be honest, I don't remeber every single enemy that does that, but I'm pretty sure there are more. I've missed many perfect guards because of this. Aside from this matter, enemy A.I is very satisfying and animations smooth.
-This game would benefit extremely from having wandering boss monsters aside from the "main" bosses. The elite versions of most monsters don't really amount to a threat, even if clearly stronger. So I think that much like the MVPS in Ragnarok Online, having some ocasional boss monsters in fields would be very neat. They could also appear after defeating a X number of enemies. I know you guys built bosses around certain strategies and puzzles (much like Gun Dams phase pads and Winters ice spikes maze and blizzards) but sometimes the good ol' battle royale is very fun. Also, please make cards for boss monters.
-Pets, while certainly cute, stand out much more for their stats increase while in the party. However, even if having increased stats is a decent bonus, I think that those pets could use with a boost in XP gained from items. Currently, I've been fishing non stop to level my slime up, but it takes such a huge amount of fish to do so, and fishing isn't exactly fast to grind. Maybe speed the process up, request less XP by lv or increase xp gained by feeding. Also, certain pets could have passive abilities on top of the stat bonuses that every one of them gives?
That's all I can think of now. I'm sorry I wrote such a huge post, but after many years I've found a game worth playing so much again, which is nostalgic and yet refreshing and I'm extremely happy with what I've seen so far. Also, sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes, I'm from Brazil. Keep up the good work, devs.
About grinding, the core system: it feels fluid, rewarding and fun to play. I personally HATE grinding, but this game got everything in place to make it feel less tedious and more dynamic (faster respawns, tons of enemies, elite enemies, multitude of attacks, etc). I'm pretty grateful for that. I do think there could be more variations to elite enemies, but so far, so good.
About mobility and guarding: by far one of the least polished aspects of the game. Using the shield, for example, is often a hindrance, since it can only guard in one direction and the fact that enemies spawn all over the place clashes directly with that. It only gets worse that the shield is essential to avoid some enemies attacks (Halloweed's burying attack) but most of the time I actually get hit because it makes me lose mobility. Also, attacking repeatedly makes one unable to change directions at times, exposing ourselves to danger. The game should harm us because we comit mistakes, not because combat is somewhat cranky. So I thought: maybe, instead of a shield, we could wield some sort of defensive trinket that creates a bubble all around us? It would solve the problem of getting attacked from behind all the time and although it might sound OP now, it would probably break fast because of spawning enemies. Give it some thought.
About spellcasting, melee skills and ep's: probably one of the most interesting parts of the game, spellcasting has but one big probem: cast speed. As in, it has no impact whatsoever in gameplay. Since spells cast so quickly from the get go, even when at gold level, having CSPD modifiers actually feels pointless. I can just summon this cute and fluffy lightning cloud that murders everything in its wake in less than 2 seconds (no, seriously, I LOVE THAT CLOUD ). So, I guess, there has to be changes to spell system so it feels unique (because we actually "cast" melee skills as well) and POWERFUL. Some spells (fireball, frost nova, earth pillar, etc) have no impact... They need to get a better start so it will make them seem relevant to us.
-Charge levels for spells is an interesting concept. For melee skills, not as much. The problem here is: why do we have to charge melee skills? I could understand that some spells have, rather than "weaker" effects, "different" on the varying charge levels (like summon plants). But melee ones are pretty straight forward. "Deal more damage, travel further, stun", etc. IMHO, this needs to be looked upon.
-Ep's regenerate fairly quickly so we shouldn't get ep's per level, right? Wrong. When new updates are released, we'll soon see ourselves surrounded by relentless enemies that could decimate a party in no time. So I think that having ample mana pools to allow for casting more and improved spells is essential. The talent that increases max ep alone won't suffice in later stages.
About quests, abilities and the world: all in all, most quests feel fun to complete, have somewhat decent prizes and funny scripts, but I think they could have slightly better rewards so as to make they more appealing.
-I know more permanent abilities like Phase Shift and Season Change will come in the future and they also they blend perfectly in the game's world, but I'd love to see some we could use in combat as well.
-Puzzles are neat, not too overly complicated or increadibly easy, they are in sync with the pacing set for each stage of the game (and the puzzle rooms in Mt Bloom, THOSE WERE CRAZY FUN and well thought! Could have a better reward than a cosmetic item, but meh).
-On another note, right now the world feels very constricted (yes, I'm aware it's a beta) and it needs more grinding fields, ones made just to grind to our hearts content get those extra cards and rare loot! I think that would make use of the games design very well, which, btw, is spot on.
About items, recipes and crafting: more recipes needed. The game has way too much materials and mostly no recipes... More variation is welcome as well, since we can't craft any wands or staves yet.
-By the point we got the materials needed to craft some of the equips, we already found better things to wield. I think it is worth taking a look through the starting recipes and the unlockables to adjust them to game progression and even some costs for early items. The crafting system in itself is very intuitive, even backed up by an enemy codex that allows us to look through loot drops and see what we lack and what we have. Bullseye. Also, I could be wrong, but I think that there are items not yet implemented in the game that are, however, required for some recipes... that made me search the whole map to no avail.
-Special effects should be properly listed. Sometimes they are effectively descripted and how they work, sometimes there are hints. It is inconsistent and in a game based on grinding and constant equipment changes, we have to know precisely what they do. The game telling me: SPECIAL EFFECT > SPECIAL EFFECT (when changing equips) doens't really helps.
About enemies and pets: not many complaints here. The main problem seems to be with some enemies animations sync with the actual damage window. Rabby damages the player whilst actually preparing the attack (when it moves back to bite you). I'll be honest, I don't remeber every single enemy that does that, but I'm pretty sure there are more. I've missed many perfect guards because of this. Aside from this matter, enemy A.I is very satisfying and animations smooth.
-This game would benefit extremely from having wandering boss monsters aside from the "main" bosses. The elite versions of most monsters don't really amount to a threat, even if clearly stronger. So I think that much like the MVPS in Ragnarok Online, having some ocasional boss monsters in fields would be very neat. They could also appear after defeating a X number of enemies. I know you guys built bosses around certain strategies and puzzles (much like Gun Dams phase pads and Winters ice spikes maze and blizzards) but sometimes the good ol' battle royale is very fun. Also, please make cards for boss monters.
-Pets, while certainly cute, stand out much more for their stats increase while in the party. However, even if having increased stats is a decent bonus, I think that those pets could use with a boost in XP gained from items. Currently, I've been fishing non stop to level my slime up, but it takes such a huge amount of fish to do so, and fishing isn't exactly fast to grind. Maybe speed the process up, request less XP by lv or increase xp gained by feeding. Also, certain pets could have passive abilities on top of the stat bonuses that every one of them gives?
That's all I can think of now. I'm sorry I wrote such a huge post, but after many years I've found a game worth playing so much again, which is nostalgic and yet refreshing and I'm extremely happy with what I've seen so far. Also, sorry for any spelling and grammar mistakes, I'm from Brazil. Keep up the good work, devs.
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Zaitan
Green Slime
Hi there!
I'm Zaitan, and I'm from Switzerland, so be lenient with my english expression!
I'v played SoG for the last 4 days. I've discovered this game from an old post on a french forum about videogames and I love it!
In the past, I've created some games with RPGMaker and spent a lot of time with it. I've also used a lot the Worldeditor from Warcraft 3 to make a lot of scenarios. I love to create things and to have new ideas. SoG has nearly everything I ever wanted to do/see in a game! Once again, I love it!
One more thing about me: during the last 12 years, I've played a lot of different games and MMO (mostly on WoW). I had begin with a very oldschool 2D french game named 'Slayers Online'. This was amazing for me back in the days, but everything was so poor in this game! I had wish to find the same game but better. SoG is exactly what I wanted (no, it is better indeed), exept it's not a MMO. So, to finally find what I really wanted to find years ago helps me to really like the game. Idk if that makes sense...
Anyway, enough with me. Here is my feedback. There is so much I want to say about the game, I'll try my best to be accurate and complete.
General impressions:
I've already talk about some improvement that could take place in the game. Those are some others:
Well. I think that's all I want to tell at the moment. I hope that will be read and usefull. Thanks so much for working on a game like this: this is a really good project! If that is one day addapted to an MMO, that would be awesome!
Thanks for reading!
I'm Zaitan, and I'm from Switzerland, so be lenient with my english expression!
I'v played SoG for the last 4 days. I've discovered this game from an old post on a french forum about videogames and I love it!
In the past, I've created some games with RPGMaker and spent a lot of time with it. I've also used a lot the Worldeditor from Warcraft 3 to make a lot of scenarios. I love to create things and to have new ideas. SoG has nearly everything I ever wanted to do/see in a game! Once again, I love it!
One more thing about me: during the last 12 years, I've played a lot of different games and MMO (mostly on WoW). I had begin with a very oldschool 2D french game named 'Slayers Online'. This was amazing for me back in the days, but everything was so poor in this game! I had wish to find the same game but better. SoG is exactly what I wanted (no, it is better indeed), exept it's not a MMO. So, to finally find what I really wanted to find years ago helps me to really like the game. Idk if that makes sense...
Anyway, enough with me. Here is my feedback. There is so much I want to say about the game, I'll try my best to be accurate and complete.
General impressions:
- Very good. A lot of details are in the game. There is a variety of things to do, a good balance between action phase and searching, playing, doing some stuff phase.
- You can customize your character! This is obvious today when you speak of an RPG, but this is the first time I see that in a 2D old-school-style RPG.
- The system of skills and talent is great. It helps you to feel powerfull and rewarded as you progress.
- The crafting system is really great. It is rare that the item you can craft are really usefull. And this is not only one or two item you can have in late game! All the best items seems to be found in different ways: that's a good ballance between crafting, looting and questing. If that makes sense.
- However, for the crafting menue, I think that the player should be able to see all the required components, even if he never had one before. And I think it could be nice to be able to craft other things (why not potions?) with other stuff (with fishes for exemple)
- The possibility to choose a build for you character. It's nice to create the combo of ability you want to adapt to your style of game. I think the possibility to refound a point is good, but this is to expensive if you want to change all your character. It's just that you don't really know what is worth in the begining. In the one hand, maybe a training mode with all the best level everywhere could be a good thing but in the other hand, it could be kind of a 'spoiler' if we can already all the spells. I don't really know what could be best, but I was frustrated not to be able to change easily enough.
- The quest of santa when you have to find the hidden place with the Frostling. THIS IS SO COOL and so simple to do! We need more hidden place like this. I will develop this point in the section: "In my opinion, what else could be improved, added or changed?".
- The escorting quest in the halloween woods was GREAT. Need moore like this!
- I really like the humor of the game. Specially the bag. I didn't like him first, but then it became really funny. Specially between him and Spring (and later, Luke). Haha.
- By the way, Luke is AWESOME. Such a good example of temper: always helping other and seeing the positive. Thanks for making such a character. It also helps the player to feel less stupid with stuff he might have missed or not understand at first sight. Really, the choice of the Luke character is clever. And not only clever, but also really positive! Great job.
- The gaphics of the game are too flashy for me. I wished for a more realistic world. My favorite maps are the first one (mountain, plain and autumn map west of the town).
- Music is sometimes boring. I mean, it's great but... a bit to childich, to 'colorful' and not enough epic, like the graphics of the game.
- I maybe haven't play enough to really testify of this, but I really think that a melee character is stronger than a magic char. You are more mobile, you do damage faster and you don't have to avoid enemy to cast. I know that the ballance between melee and magic skill is the way to play, but I think that magic should be up. More damage? More mobility? More EP regen if you choose magic skills?
- I also think that some spells are funny but a bit useless. The lightning spell that boost your melee damage seems to slow and not worthy (2 usage only!!). The earth pilar seems useless as weel. I also tried a full 'flies' build to send mosquito everywhere, but, once again, it seems so week compare to the melee build!
- Like Macrollat said in the last post, the EP pool should change a little. First for the mage player: there is not enough mana. Then, because even if you regen kind of fast, it could be great to have a bigger pool when you are a higher level. Like 1 or 2 EP more every level could be really nice.
- The first thing that was awefull for me was not beeing allowed to use the 'ESC' button to navigate in the menu. For me, it's the 'call menu' button and also the 'back' button. There should have a shortkey for shield and another for going back in menu.
- In the begining, I didn't really understand the use of the gold points.
- The use of the charge with spells should be explained. With a quick tuto? A quest with the master in the dojo?
- The turkey quest. It's the only side quest that requires you to go to the opposite of the map to farm a mob that you only find on 2 maps. That was not obvious to me. I think there should be MORE pecko.
- I didn't understood where fo find Katarina after she broke the big crystal. Why is she back in Belmont's Cafe?? There is no logic to that, and she even say so herself! I think that need to be changed.
- I don't get the facegear and hat difference. And I also don't understand how to equip them sepetarly. I think this menu need to be tested more.
- That poor child Jonathan! He is still sick with his cold more than one year after he caught it! That's sad! xD
- I loved all the side activities (treasure hunting, fishing, pet taming, archery, puzzle solving, etc.). That's fresh, that's well done and that helps the player to avoid beeing bored. I just wish those system were more exploited:
- There should be more treasure maps! Not all at the same time, but later in the game! And not necessarily all the map should be found to the marchant, but some of them could be hidden in other places (like the one in the Halloween woods...).
- The use of fishes should be bigger. Why not with craft?
- The taming of the pet should be re-use. The little game associate to it is really cool, but I've done it only two times and it's seems to be finished. Moreover, I think the leveling of the pet should be a bit faster
- It could be awesome to see more archery challenge (and reward)!
I've already talk about some improvement that could take place in the game. Those are some others:
- Your character is faster when he walks diagonal. This is sometimes usefull to avoid ennemies, to run faster etc, but I think this should be fix. There is no logic in it.
- When you climb side-stairs (I mean, not the first ones you meet in the game, but the one on the pecko map, in the map to the right of the first map of the floating island temple). Your speed is improved. And if you climb those kind of stairs while moving diagonal, you rush faster than Usain Bolt. This is strange and should also be fixed.
- If you press the A button while a loading time after a zone in the arcade mode, you can sometimes see your character and the graphics of the map during a quarter of second, then it goes back to the black of the loading screen and then you see again the map and your character, but this time you can play. This is strange.
- Narratively speaking, the character of your father is incoherent. During the second festival, he says that we shouldn't speak of the Ivy stuff in front of everyone. But the morning after, he speaks with you about it in front of the two living artefacts. They can speak and understand, and also speak to Ivy! So... this is a strange place to talk quietly...
- It could be great to see training dummies in the game. Oh wait, there are already training dummies! But I mean, we should be able to fight them and see our damage.
- By the way, I think the 'dojo' can be more usefull. There is no training mode, no challenge with dummies, or doding things, or using spells cleverly... that should be implanted!
- There is this place for the melee combatant, but why not a building for mages? In both of the building, there can be side quest to improve or train your magic/melee skills.
- Speaking of quest, I think there could be way more side quest. Even simple ones! There was (I think) only one escort quest. But it was awesome! I wanted more of those. There could be more 'collecting' quest. Maybe a fishing quest? Some duels quest? Some quest like the Santa quest? Or the lost fairy in the temple? (That was a good idea! I have used that in one of my old games and it's a good way to re-use a place like temple where we never go back). Some side quests that sent you back in the temples could be great!
- The world should be bigger (specially if it were a MMO. But I think it can be bigger anyway). What I mean by that is more path, secret path, cliff you can climb, go around, shortcut, hidden place (like the Frostling things!). And this can be a way to add more hidden treasure (cave with chest containing treasure map?), hidden PNJ, other places to fish...
- The potions or the bonus from the support spells are to quick. Really, it disappears so fast! Even with the talent to extend their duration, this is to quick. By the way, this talent should be removed. The duration of those buffs really should be increased. Maybe by other potion, more expensive, but more durable?
- The use of money could be more interesting. You should buy more materials for crafting, or expensiver stuffs. I've never felt in a position where I have to commit to buy something. Or where I need to farm money to buy things. I think this should happend in the game, or money is just something you can use whenever you want.
Well. I think that's all I want to tell at the moment. I hope that will be read and usefull. Thanks so much for working on a game like this: this is a really good project! If that is one day addapted to an MMO, that would be awesome!
Thanks for reading!
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GingerCookie387
Green Slime
I want to help the development and sorry about the things I don't like.
the game play is amazing and I love the art style. Of course, i was sad when i realized this game is only in beta.
I loved all the quest I could do, and how this game is very challenging but not too frustrating.
i don't like how the spells seem not to important because of how weird the hot keys are, and giga slime is to hard
in the beginning i did not even know how to interact with an object so it was hard to get through the beginning.
I did the side things only at the end because they seem more like an end game thing.
hope this helped.
the game play is amazing and I love the art style. Of course, i was sad when i realized this game is only in beta.
I loved all the quest I could do, and how this game is very challenging but not too frustrating.
i don't like how the spells seem not to important because of how weird the hot keys are, and giga slime is to hard
in the beginning i did not even know how to interact with an object so it was hard to get through the beginning.
I did the side things only at the end because they seem more like an end game thing.
hope this helped.
- General impressions: Yes, absolutely and yes, absolutely. It was some great fun overall and I'm looking forward to see it getting finished.
- What you liked the most:
- The visual artstyle and the amount of details. Animations are fluid, there's always something going moving on your screen and the overall presentation is just lovely. It looks like a good mixture of Secret of Mana and Terranigma and that's definitely a compliment. I like the bright colours and overall somewhat 'childish' artstyle. As PC games tend to go for a more realistic and 'adult' artstyle and even Indie-games such as Hammerwatch use dark caves and dungeons, this game really feels like a much needed alternative. It sounds, looks and feels very Nintendo'ish to me and I haven't felt that for a long time.
- The script and well placed humour. The texts are well written and fun to read.
- The well executed combination of combat, quests, grinding and crafting. The game doesn't solemnly rely on one or two game mechanics but offers a nice mixture of different elements you'll know from other games. Fighting enemies gives you XP for your level progression as well as gold to re-skill your character and buy items but you also receive loot you can either use for crafting or for leveling up your pet to gain additional benefits. The way these systems interact is well throughout.
- Good pacing. There's a nice mixture of fighting enemies, solving riddles and dealing with bosses. I haven't felt any sort of downtime.
- Variety of options to skill your character and individualize him.
- Lots of neat little details. The possibility to use items as mere cosmetics, town portals, the very intuitive menu and, and, and.
- What you liked the least:
- The balancing felt somewhat off. While the first minutes offered an overall challenging experience, the game seems to offer little challenges aside from the boss fights. Normal enemies can get nasty and annoying but they usually don't offer any challenge. Thus I plenty of means to develop my character but seldomly feel like I need to make frequent us of all my abilities expect during boss fights. As the game already has stronger variations of normal enemies, I think they could to tuned somewhat better.
- Balancing again. The overall XP progression could need some tuning I think. You level up very fast for the first few hours, but after that it can take ages to reach a new level up. Especially as talents often give you some minimal benefits (+1 % attack here, +2% HP there) it can somewhat feel like a drag. Especially as quests don't seem to reward much XP. I think the overall leveling curve should be flattend a tad more.
- Again, balancing. I love the plentory of active skills, spells and abilities but some feel quite too strong (Frosty Friend) while others hardly seem viable at all. I understand that balancing isn't your top priority at the moment, but I wanted to point it out nevertheless.
- Talents. I like the differentiation between active skills and passive talents, yet I don't feel like most talents feel very rewarding. I don't meant to say they're too weak, but they often feel to insignificant given how long it takes to gain a new level later on. Many talents give bonuses of +1% or +2%, which is neat, but ... I don't really feel like this defines my character. Specialising your character is so far defined by your selection of active abilities, while talents seldomly give me anything "new" or "fun" or "meaningful". Good examples are Burning Weapon or Chillig Weapon for example, as both give you a flat 5% chance per level to cause a special effect. Thus one talent point equals a +5% chance - now that's something significant! - and grants you something new, e.g. now you can cause a burning or chill effect which you couldn't do before. I felt like talents would need a clear re-work, i.e. less insignificant increases of values, but new and interesting passive bonuses instead. In other words, means to specialize your character.
- Confusing elements: Yep, without any problems.
- Optional content:
- As mentioned above, more challenges in the story mode aside from boss fights. Maybe making variations of normal enemies stronger or maybe enemies could get stronger whenever they respawn while the rewards improve as well. So when you grind at a given location, enemies would slowly get stronger but would also drop more money, better loot and grant more XP and this would continue as long as you remain near the spawn location, like some sort of "kill streak". I think that would fit the overall game design quite well. In other words, including certain aspects of the arcade mode to the story mode. There's already the arena for that, but personally I'd love to see some good old "Try to survive as many waves of enemies as possible"-kind of stuff, even in the story mode.
- Housing. But as far as I know, it's already on its way.
- The world feels somewhat small'ish. What I mean is that it takes only one screen to get from the green and flourishing city to a cold winter scenery or creepy forest. The game world feels very dense and I think it would do some good to include a few more "fillers" in between to stretch the game a tad more.
- General impressions: When I first played the game back in the summer, I really loved the graphics and general tone of the game. That being the music, colour palettes, the way everything ties together. It just felt good to play, and still does (even though I've gotten rusty since playing to the end of the previous frontline patch).
- What you liked the most: I just liked the overall feel of the game, the world, and the design of it overall. It felt tight and easy to control, and the opening as you descend the mountain felt like the beginning of something big and amazing.
- What you liked the least: Music in some areas really needs to be longer. The loop in the flying fortress was too short, and I had a hard time getting some of the cards to drop. By the time I got them all, I just wanted to turn the music off.
- Confusing elements: I will say, I didn't know that you could teleport to a way point at any time for a long time. That could be worth mentioning somewhere.
- Optional content: I liked the fishing. The mechanic is simple enough to learn, and just challenging enough to enjoy without being frustrated. I've done a bit of the arena, but I find some of it a little too hard to score high. I'm not great at these kinds of games anymore (except Secret of Mana. I can finish that game in my sleep.), so I find I have to be a few levels higher than what was recommended to tough out some of the boss fights, and the arena was the same (I'm currently sitting at level 26, and got killed once on each of the latest boss fights after healing beforehand both times).
Arcade mode: I have a really hard time with arcade mode. I find it more frustrating than fun, tbh. I don't know anyone else that has the game, so I haven't tried multiplayer, but maybe that will make it easier?
Best Game Ever!!!
Green Slime
Hello my name is Sidney and i have as far as the Tai Ming update goes 100% completed the game on front line story mode (not to brag). As a beta tester of the game i feel kind of empty now just waiting to see what you will be implementing next. Over all GREAT GAME, but now that i have all the gear and all items i feel it gets a bit unbalanced.
You probably already know it but the melee vs magic ability's are kind of uneven in terms of power. You have also said that you will be giving magic users a bit of range which is a good buff.
I personally love all the magic effects and how you can adapt them as you go along in the story, like using the cloud summon at one part but switching to the bug swarm later just because it's fun. That is something that is incredibly good about the magic and melee skills.
But now even when i have a magic skill maxed out i don't really use it in combat, mostly because i keep getting hit by the enemy over and over again canceling my spell. Butt the sword can usually give more damage than the spell simply because it takes so long to charge your spell. The sword has both speed and damage but the spells are really fun to use because of the variety of moves. What I'm trying to say is please make the magic spells more usable in combat.
The spells are all very different so how it would be done is really up to what skill you use.
Most of the magic skills are only useful enough to me when they are maxed out. That gives me the problem of only being able to use a few and it also being really costly to switch between skills i want to use. I would also like to see all the spells latter forms buffed simply because i think they could be more useful in combat.
You probably already know it but the melee vs magic ability's are kind of uneven in terms of power. You have also said that you will be giving magic users a bit of range which is a good buff.
I personally love all the magic effects and how you can adapt them as you go along in the story, like using the cloud summon at one part but switching to the bug swarm later just because it's fun. That is something that is incredibly good about the magic and melee skills.
But now even when i have a magic skill maxed out i don't really use it in combat, mostly because i keep getting hit by the enemy over and over again canceling my spell. Butt the sword can usually give more damage than the spell simply because it takes so long to charge your spell. The sword has both speed and damage but the spells are really fun to use because of the variety of moves. What I'm trying to say is please make the magic spells more usable in combat.
The spells are all very different so how it would be done is really up to what skill you use.
Most of the magic skills are only useful enough to me when they are maxed out. That gives me the problem of only being able to use a few and it also being really costly to switch between skills i want to use. I would also like to see all the spells latter forms buffed simply because i think they could be more useful in combat.
Mordax Praetorian
Green Slime
General impressions:
My first impression was actually very mixed. I got the game hoping for a true successor to SD3 at long last and my first run lasted until just after the Giga Slime fight. There were 2 things putting me off
I didn't like the silly parody nature of the plot out of the gate, although the game scored points for explaining the infinitely large RPG inventory I felt that the setting, characters and plot were shallow and boring and that everything was being ruined for the sake of being a tongue in cheek parody
The second thing that did the run in were my build choices. I noticed all of the magic/attack synergy on my first visit to the levelling screen and decided to build a "fighter-mage" to take advantage of it all. I had invested in Shocking Touch, Frost Nova, Flurry and that dashing strike before I'd even hit Evergrind and everything felt clunky and bad
After about a week I picked the game back up again (I was really desperate for a successor to SD3) and started over with a focused 1-handed build. Things went a lot better and I started to really enjoy the gameplay a lot.
When I started reading the computer terminals inside the flying temple, I was hooked. That image that the game painted in my head of the 2 scientists flying alone above a burning world and wondering if there's anyone else left out there... that was really powerful and I think it was enhanced by how unexpected it was, as I had resigned to having to trudge through a plot that I didn't enjoy
Going on from there, every area just got better, to some extent the humor grew on me, but in other ways I can tell you guys got better at it, I enjoyed the gameplay gimmiks of each area and had fun experimenting with my build
Overall, I'm glad that SD3 finally has the successor it deserves, and I feel that even in it's unfinished state that Grindea is one of the best co-op games that mankind has ever produced.
What you liked the most:
Cavelings, oh god the Cavelings, that whole thing just got funnier and funnier, and then seeing their origin story in Tai Ming was a nice unexpected surprise
Speaking of Tai Ming, that whole area was art. The time jumping was well executed and your world was really enhanced by it being there, the puzzles were very clever and then there were the boss fights.
The Mimic boss fight warrants a paragraph of it's own, that was oh so very clever and you are total geniuses for making a boss fight like that. The entrance was great, that feeling after each time jump was... difficult to describe, and trying to imagine the fight from the Mimic's perspective was great.
The toy factory gets an honorable mention, it was really challenging to dodge bombs and laugh at Luke's puzzle solving skills simultaneously.
What you liked the least:
The first attempt at a run, as described above wins the award for this one
I never liked getting purely cosmetic items, especially the ones I really had to earn. Getting a painting or a cosmetic hat or whatever felt like a slap in the face. Maybe that will get better with the house building.
There were a few times that I got really bored trying to get specific cards, and no I do not have them all
That moment where I was told how much honey I was expected to get was agonizing, I fell for that one completely because I expected the grind-train to come into station at any moment. Don't change that bit though, it was superb.
Confusing elements:
ASPD and CSPD are not as obvious as they should be, it's easy to figure out what they are but hard to be confident because their effects aren't readily apparent and the game doesn't outright tell the player
The first time I got a gold point I didn't have a level 5 skill and had no idea what to do with it
I feel the game over-stresses the rarity of cards. I didn't even try to farm them for a long time because I thought it would take ages to do and wouldn't be worth it, when actually the farm for them really isn't bad at all
The pets are an issue on this front, I got confused feeding them because they still didn't do anything. Based on how the bars hardly filled at all when the pet was fed I wasn't expecting for them to fill multiple times.
The game needs to communicate what can and can't critical hit
Laslty I'm confused about Amalet, during Zhamla's rampage it is implied both that Zhamla had it, and that it was in the flying temple being studied by Pine
Optional content:
The side quests are very good, they're the right length and do not get repetitive at all
The fishing is a bit mixed, it's not bad if you do it as you go, but particularly in co-op with people who refuse to do it, it can be both a chore, and a point of tension
The arena needs serious work
My first impression was actually very mixed. I got the game hoping for a true successor to SD3 at long last and my first run lasted until just after the Giga Slime fight. There were 2 things putting me off
I didn't like the silly parody nature of the plot out of the gate, although the game scored points for explaining the infinitely large RPG inventory I felt that the setting, characters and plot were shallow and boring and that everything was being ruined for the sake of being a tongue in cheek parody
The second thing that did the run in were my build choices. I noticed all of the magic/attack synergy on my first visit to the levelling screen and decided to build a "fighter-mage" to take advantage of it all. I had invested in Shocking Touch, Frost Nova, Flurry and that dashing strike before I'd even hit Evergrind and everything felt clunky and bad
After about a week I picked the game back up again (I was really desperate for a successor to SD3) and started over with a focused 1-handed build. Things went a lot better and I started to really enjoy the gameplay a lot.
When I started reading the computer terminals inside the flying temple, I was hooked. That image that the game painted in my head of the 2 scientists flying alone above a burning world and wondering if there's anyone else left out there... that was really powerful and I think it was enhanced by how unexpected it was, as I had resigned to having to trudge through a plot that I didn't enjoy
Going on from there, every area just got better, to some extent the humor grew on me, but in other ways I can tell you guys got better at it, I enjoyed the gameplay gimmiks of each area and had fun experimenting with my build
Overall, I'm glad that SD3 finally has the successor it deserves, and I feel that even in it's unfinished state that Grindea is one of the best co-op games that mankind has ever produced.
What you liked the most:
Cavelings, oh god the Cavelings, that whole thing just got funnier and funnier, and then seeing their origin story in Tai Ming was a nice unexpected surprise
Speaking of Tai Ming, that whole area was art. The time jumping was well executed and your world was really enhanced by it being there, the puzzles were very clever and then there were the boss fights.
The Mimic boss fight warrants a paragraph of it's own, that was oh so very clever and you are total geniuses for making a boss fight like that. The entrance was great, that feeling after each time jump was... difficult to describe, and trying to imagine the fight from the Mimic's perspective was great.
The toy factory gets an honorable mention, it was really challenging to dodge bombs and laugh at Luke's puzzle solving skills simultaneously.
What you liked the least:
The first attempt at a run, as described above wins the award for this one
I never liked getting purely cosmetic items, especially the ones I really had to earn. Getting a painting or a cosmetic hat or whatever felt like a slap in the face. Maybe that will get better with the house building.
There were a few times that I got really bored trying to get specific cards, and no I do not have them all
That moment where I was told how much honey I was expected to get was agonizing, I fell for that one completely because I expected the grind-train to come into station at any moment. Don't change that bit though, it was superb.
Confusing elements:
ASPD and CSPD are not as obvious as they should be, it's easy to figure out what they are but hard to be confident because their effects aren't readily apparent and the game doesn't outright tell the player
The first time I got a gold point I didn't have a level 5 skill and had no idea what to do with it
I feel the game over-stresses the rarity of cards. I didn't even try to farm them for a long time because I thought it would take ages to do and wouldn't be worth it, when actually the farm for them really isn't bad at all
The pets are an issue on this front, I got confused feeding them because they still didn't do anything. Based on how the bars hardly filled at all when the pet was fed I wasn't expecting for them to fill multiple times.
The game needs to communicate what can and can't critical hit
Laslty I'm confused about Amalet, during Zhamla's rampage it is implied both that Zhamla had it, and that it was in the flying temple being studied by Pine
Optional content:
The side quests are very good, they're the right length and do not get repetitive at all
The fishing is a bit mixed, it's not bad if you do it as you go, but particularly in co-op with people who refuse to do it, it can be both a chore, and a point of tension
The arena needs serious work
Own
Moderator
Amalet was 'sealed away with the rest of our horrific inventions', as is written in the Flying Fortress, I think. There's a brief flash when beating Zhamla showing five artifacts floating above him. I think we're meant to infer each of the five were sealed across the world after Zhamla was sealed, which is why Amalet is gathering dust on a podium in front of Gundam.
My impressions are the best possibles. I love this game, I have played 15 hours already. i haven't had any issues with the game except i found a bug where i got stuck between a wall and a sphere you hit to change the season after using the first skill of the melee single hand talent. If you guys need help with dev, I will be glad to help as a hobby, I have experience with .net framework, C++, and some other web technologies. I have some suggestion as well, I will love that the game will save the state of the menu, let me explain myself sometimes I am looking for information in the quest tab into the enemies, and every time I have to look for an specific information of an enemy I have to go back, open the menu and scroll down all the way until I select the enemy information I want.
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scorpian3600
Green Slime
may i just say that the echo of madness enemy is absolutely genius (specifically the elite ones) such a small detail but its amazing none the less that its a spirit of insanity searching for the same thing Zhamla is. (even has the same sword)
Haribomann
Green Slime
Hi,
I really love the game and I've played it through twice now: Once single player and once with my friend on co-op.
I started on stable before Tai Ming was added and switched to frontline then.
I really love the game and I've played it through twice now: Once single player and once with my friend on co-op.
I started on stable before Tai Ming was added and switched to frontline then.
- General impressions: - The game is absolutely gorgeous! I love the feeling of Secret of Mana I get, when playing. It is bright and fun. The woods are as dark as it should be in my opinion. When I read about your idea of switching to a somewhat "ghost" world that would be much darker, I didn't like it very much and am quite happy that you didn't implement it (yet?).
- What you liked the most: - I really like all the little details. The funny descriptions of items ("Do you like fish sticks...?"), the dialogues and even the difficulty (on easy mode). At first I thought it was quite hard and I died a lot (I think I cried, when I finally beat GUN-D4M), but the last few bosses, I usually beat in the first or second try (depending on how much health I head when entering the fight).
- I have yet to try hard mode though, so I will not ask for a harder game! The difficulty is perfect for co-op, where sometimes there is latency and also my friend never uses the shield...
- Arcade mode is also too tough for me, but very challenging. I could only get to the pumpkin woods twice so far and I have played it for several hours.
- The German translation is also very good!
- The best implementation was the command to shut up Naniva!
- What you liked the least: - Hard to say. I have played one handed weapon and pure mage (co-op). I could go into spell balancing, but as I read you are very much into it already, so nothing really on the negative side.
- Maybe there are too many useless items. It would be nice to be able to use every item somehow for crafting or as pet food or just anything besides only selling it to a vendor. But that is really not a big issue.
- Confusing elements: - Navigation is pretty intuitive and self-explanatory. Nothing is really confusing.
- Optional content: - I did everything there is to do, except for a few cards I haven't found yet. I absolutely loved the phasing game! The puzzles in General are very enjoyable. For me there could be a lot more (optional) puzzles or more side quests in the big city. Also Hats! There can never be enough hats!
NegaNova
Green Slime
- General impressions: Was the game as a whole an enjoyable experience? If it was longer, would you continue playing?
YES. This game is amazing, holy shit. I was a huge fan of Link to the Past and Secret of Mana, and thus far, this game has already exceeded my expectations. The spells look bad-ass and are really fun to experiment with.
- What you liked the most: Was there some elements that stood out to you as really good?
MULTIPLAYER!!! It's crazy fun. It was the defining formula that had me buy the game.
The game is also extremely colourful and the combat is fluid. It's great to experiment with different skills and I love how bright the hair-choices were in colour and style.
- What you liked the least: Was there something which you felt weakened the experience?
It's unfortunate that the armor, gloves, and boots do not show on the player. Having your armor and accessories evolve as your character levels makes you feel as if you the player have grown with the character. I understand that this job would be crazy large and is probably impossible, but if it were done, the game quality would sky-rocket even higher than it already is. I also would appreciate seeing more weapon-types, such as bow or boomerang, implimented as Secret of Mana did it (shorter range, infinite arrows, less damage, but skills would increase the range and rapid-fire ability)
Also, the portraits of some characters seem a bit strange, almost unfinished?
- Confusing elements: Did you understand what to do and how? Could you navigate through the menus?
The game is straight forward.
- Optional content: Did you do any side activities, like side quests, fishing or the arena? If so, were the activities varied and enjoyable?
My partner and I did a bit of fishing, I think it could be enhanced in some way to make it more fun, but not sure how. It would be cool if you could get a house and expand it. Arcade Mode is amazing and increases the game's lifespan greatly.
Own
Moderator
Talk to the scientist in Evergrind City. Your house can be bigger than Evergrind itself.