Amazing game, nice art style, interesting story and decent level of difficulty ,oh and the music is a banger I can't wait for act 6. I would recommend this game to pass the time as currently it probably will take around an hour or two to complete
Edit: I forgot to mention no glitches happened while I was playing
I love the game is fun but somethings wrong... I'm stuck at act 5 there's a bug when I go talk to keine (also bring my friends wriggle kogasa and yoshika) the screen went all black and never show up while Maribel is mad and she was trying using her magic and then black screen that's how happen, waited for 5-15 minutes nothing show up, it all black screen but the music still play...
Thank you oh I forgot there is also had bug uh how to say... The pink tree in the magical forest... That uh, Maribel wriggle kogasa and yoshika was talking about the pink tree after the mystia appear and.... I forgot that green hair name... They was first meet again and after they repeat the same words again? And after they repeat the same words again 3 times, and the chat has end I'm stuck now all stopped... Is hard to explain that I hope you understand, I'm sorry it looks likes my comment hard to understand...
Hmm the game is very fascinating and fun to play with, I'm just gonna ask if the broswer part of the game has a long loading when heading to myouren temple.
Regrettably, the browser version has some glitches that are quite difficult to tackle. It is strongly recommended to play the downloaded version, as it saves all loading times altogether.
Additionally, an update with many fixes will be releasing soon.
My pleasure~ The downloaded version also has the benefit of having a secure copy in your storage of your save files, so that when the game updates, you won't lose your progress (this is still in the works).
First of all, I must thank you all for having developed this videogame, endowed with a beautiful soundtrack from which the great skills of the arranger can be felt.
Secondly, the purpose of this message is to list a series of bugs that I have encountered so far in Act 4, or otherwise things that should be fixed.
The bugs are as follows:
1. After receiving miss Keine's tutorial and help on how to fight using danmaku, the lightning of the human village changes from that of night to one of sunset, and the story prompts Maribel to leave the dream world. But if I leave the village by going to the forest and immediately return, the lightning is night again.
This must be a bug, since Maribel is supposed to return to reality because the Sun is setting, both in the dream world and in reality. But, as I mentioned, night seems to fall again on the human village if I go to the forest and then I return. Note that Keine's and Wriggle's dialogues are not affected by this.
2. To the East of the human village there is a path that is blocked by some sort of wooden object. But in fact you can trespass it, with much movement, and go beyond, reaching a zone that uses the same tileset as the human village, but it is mostly empty (although there is an entrance and a building with a person that cannot be talked to). I assume it is in development.
While this does not interfere with gameplay at all, and the player must be persistent with the movements to actually get through, once you get in there is no way to leave, restarting the game being the only option to resume gameplay.
3. You can easily access the Myouren Temple without fighting Yoshika, effectively skipping an important part of the story. In the cemetery, if you go through the graves located in the left of where you are supposed to fight her, you reach a path that leads to the Myouren Temple, where there is no one, and if you go South you cannot leave because a textbox (showing Kyoko) prevents you from it.
This must have been unintentional, since Maribel only decides to go to the Myouren Temple right after defeating Yoshika and becoming aware that she cannot leave the dream world.
Lastly, I must thank you all again for your efforts towards developing this RPG. Take care!
Greetings, and thank you very warmly for your input! Your encouragement is greatly appreciated, especially for your attention and for offering your time to help improve the game.
In fact, most of these bugs have been detected just recently (we had very little time for play-testing this once), but I was not aware of getting through to the Human Village section in development, I will see about that.
Regrettably, due to us renewing our soundtrack whole, we only have permission to use the current soundtrack in the current version, and if we were to update we'd have to publish a game without music (our new musician is still working on the tracks) even if it's just to fix these bugs.
The bugs themselves are mostly fixed, for the next version release which will surely come after New Years they will be no more~
If you'd like having a more direct response, don't hesitate asking through here: https://discord.gg/nYwkWR2Y
I am graciously thankful to all the recent reviews, it's sincerely encouraging, and we will proceed with the conception and production of Act 5, and beyond~
love how far the game has come! will definitely keep playing as it updates.
after the fight with yoshika, the chat was super buggy and repeated itself a lot- i held down shift to speed through it and then a fight with the nightmare came and the graphics for that was doubled over the scene where the three of them were fighting yoshika. nothing game breaking- just weird.
the concerning part- in the middle of the fight with the nightmare (following the yoshika fight) i got the spell card called dream sign ephemeral prescence and when i used it on the next turn the game crashed. i refreshed the page and it took me to the "run game" screen. i was able to start the game again and it kept my most recent save file.
when running it from the save file(saved right before the yoshika fight) a second time- i still had the glitch with the chats after the yoshika fight but its no big deal. when moving forward to the nightmare fight, the scenes/graphics was fine and it didnt overlap the yoshika fight like it did the first time. The game did not crash this time when I used the dream sign ephemeral presence card during the nightmare fight.
during the dialogue after the nightmare fight when she realizes shes trapped in gensokyou, theres no scene or graphics at all- just a black screen with a dialogue box (but that might just be because the game isnt finished yet)
overall its a really great game! i love the concept of it and the design is amazing. i cant wait to see where you take the storyline!
I'm very happy with the new changes and additions- the extra dialogue and interactivity was very welcome. Watering Merry's plants, talking to a few NPCs... the world feels more alive now, especially the human village.
Gameplay balancing feels much better now as well, the more powerful attacks felt like they did roughly the right amounts of damage. Mystia went down very quickly, but I think that's better than being too lengthy or difficult. Yoshika felt very well-balanced and was a fun fight. At first I thought Dream Boost was kind of underpowered considering its high cost and short duration... but then I used it in the final Nightmare fight, got a critical with Shattering Danmaku, and dealt over 1500 damage in one hit.
The only real critique I have would be the same issue Adhdweirdo mentioned, the dialogue after the Mystia (and Yoshika) fights are bugged, characters repeat themselves numerous times. It's hilarious but clearly not how those scenes played out in the older versions. (I'm playing using the offline, downloaded version.)
I tried downloading the zip version and playing it, but there's a pretty serious bug in battle- whenever a character tries to use Danmaku Shot, the game freezes up and gives a Loading Error: 'Failed To Load: img/animations/StateDown1.png'
This makes the first fight after Wriggle joins unbeatable, as far as I can tell. Even if you don't use Danmaku, the fairies will, and that causes the same error.
To begin with, I have high praise to give to most of the artwork and music. The character portraits not only look adorable, they have a unique art style that stands out from a lot of other fanart.
My main critiques involve certain characters lacking them, and a lack of variety in portraits (most notably with Merry, whose unchanging :< face doesn’t always fit the situation.)
Some of the overworld tiles look much more detailed than others, but that’s an understandable result of time. (The Human Village objects stood out as noticeably jaggy.) The ending fight with the Nightmare seems to be lacking graphics altogether. (The opening fight would benefit from having a background, like a seemingly endless void of eyes.)
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The music and sound design is probably the best part of the demo build in my opinion, as there isn’t really any of it that isn’t very well done.
The title screen music is wonderful, and I caught myself lingering there just to listen to all of it. I hope it returns later in the game instead of just being used there, because it’s just that good.
‘Mary the Magician’ serves as a perfect introduction to the darker side of the story, selling the hopeless fight against the nightmare. I also really like the transition to a more energetic and determined melody, but the song seems too long to fit in the scene unless the player lingers.
‘Let’s Live in a Lovely Cemetary!’ is super fun and energetic, very suitable for the introduction of Kogasa. The instruments sound reminiscent of classic horror, but it doesn’t overshadow the cheerful tone.
‘Deaf to All but the Song’ is really grandiose and intense, which I think is somewhat fitting. To us, it’s not that big of a deal, but to Merry and Wriggle, they’re fighting for their lives. (It does loop awkwardly with several seconds of silence before restarting.)
‘Greenwich in the Sky’ is… I like the lively energy which fits the random battles, but I also like the stage themes a lot too and having them interrupted bothered me a bit. I do like that Hakugyoukurou has the BGM override during the battles, it fits with the tone of the area very well.
It’s a fairly minor touch, but I also like how the menu sound effects are almost melodic. It adds a nice touch of personality to basic things. The text scrolling sound effect is fine at a normal speed, but it sounds a bit off when the text speeds up. (A minor thing for my wish list is if different characters have different sound effects for their dialogue.)
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Moving on to discussing the plot… I’ll begin by saying I really enjoy the concepts here. I like how we can see Merry grow from uncertain to resolved, through both the story and gameplay, as she’s willing to tell enemies to bring it on and to defeat her nightmares using her new power. (Her telling Yoshika to get in line is really good)
I like that Keine, Youmu and Yuyuko note Merry’s resemblance to… someone else. There’s a lot of potential plotlines that can be developed here.
I also like that Renko has secrets of her own (how she managed to get that doll into Merry’s room, what her ‘internship’ is really about, ect.) It wouldn’t surprise me if she ends up coming to Gensokyo and joining the party on her own. I like that the party seems to be composed of characters that are typically weak and overlooked in-universe, it feels like it sells their roles as the underdogs.
Several comments made throughout the story, most notably how Wriggle and Keine are surprised to learn Merry’s an outsider, make me wonder what other changes this Gensokyo has from canon. But I’m sure that’ll be a topic going forward.
Kogasa and Yoshika left great impressions on me despite not having much screentime, which is a great sign. I'm excited to see what happens with them next. I also like Renko's energy and cheerfulness expressed in a bunch of different ways. (hopping in excitement, spinning on her chair)
(I was a little shocked to see Renko saying ‘Maribel’ instead of ‘Merry’, but that’s just what I’ve been used to. I guess here she practiced more until she could say it correctly.)
The game’s amount of story isn’t an issue, but I think the fact that so much of it is in unbroken dialogue sequences is. The opening for example, not counting the hopeless Nightmare fight, is entirely dialogue interspersed with brief moments of walking from place to place until Merry makes it to Gensokyo. It does have a lot to accomplish, introducing the two primary characters and their relationship, but I think it’s a bit of a hard sell for someone who isn’t already familiar and invested with the club. (Also, speeding up dialogue seems to require mashing either Z or X repeatedly which gets quickly tiresome.)
The environments have very little that the player can interact with, be they objects or NPCs, which makes them feel empty. Using them to break up the amount of dialogue into more manageable chunks helps both issues and makes the pacing more controlled by the player.
There are several moments where something is explicitly explained when it can be more smoothly inferred by observing events- Merry thinking to herself early on about how Renko accepts her, when that can be made clear through their interactions. ‘Show, don’t tell’ isn’t an absolute rule, but considering it is important when dialogue sequences are already fairly lengthy.
The scene where Merry gets harrassed at school was uncomfortable- intentionally, I'm sure. It serves its purpose of undermining her other connections to the outside beyond Renko, but the bluntness and physicality of it remind me more of high school bullying instead of a slow, constant sense of being unwelcome.
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Gameplay’s core is interesting, the concept of Power being easily gained and spent on special attacks is more engaging than simply mashing attack, and a variety of Danmaku with different uses fits the series’s style.
The main issue I have is that because of this system, the more expensive moves don’t seem to deal nearly enough damage to make up for their high costs. (and Danmaku Curtain’s text goes off the screen and isn’t readable) Double and Triple Shot are too consistently useful to bother using much else. Danmaku Barrier is potentially useful, but it’d be more so if you could taunt enemies to draw aggro to a specific character- or if bosses gave you advance warning of their spellcards. (which barriers don’t stop anyway)
Secondarily, using basic Danmaku Shot or items is the only way to refill Power. It seems like a secondary method of refilling it would help encourage players to keep up the offensive and reward specific battle strategies- granting Power for hitting an enemy’s weakness, or for breaking a barrier with a melee attack.
Either way, the fight with Mystia is a real slog. It comes early enough that the player might not have Triple Shot learned yet (and Keine hasn’t taught Merry Double Shot), and she’s got a load of health to burn through.
She also likes to use Danmaku Barrier, which just means your attacks do nothing and the fight gets drawn out even more. You could hurt her with weak attacks, but you don’t know she’s using a barrier until after you’ve already input your commands to use Danmaku, so all it does is waste your time.
Her breaking out her spellcard when she’s low on HP after such a long fight seems somewhat cruel, because she used it twice in a row, leaving me at critical health. Having to redo it would have been painful.
In comparison, Yoshika is much easier and less frustrating. (although her bad puns are KILLING me) You have three characters with better stats and attacks, and she doesn’t bother using barriers. She also doesn’t seem to use any spellcards, despite the dialogue pre-fight.
The opening hopeless Nightmare fight is a great concept, and I love the music. But it opening on cryptic narration before the somewhat lengthy fight seems like it lets down some of the mood. If there was a bit of interactivity- say, walking down a corridor as the introductory narration plays, then the nightmare attacks at the end- it would have time to build up a mood. (and use the whole song in the scene) Again, with the fight against the Nightmare, streamlining it would show the story points better. Merry attacks to no effect twice, then it one-shots her, making it clear how hopeless it is without being too lengthy.
Hakugyoukurou has some really good atmosphere with the music and the difficult enemies fitting the current arc of the story. But the simplicity of the level kind of lets it down- climbing the stairs only to need to go all the way back down again. You don’t even get to see Yuyuko. But the player is likely low on healing items after Mystia, and if they didn’t buy more they might need to level grind by the rest point until they can make it up and down the stairs in one go. A resting point at the top of the stairs would help with that.
Before anything else, I very deeply appreciate your time taken analysing the noticeable faults that we could not fix on time. I very much agree with your points, where the gameplay was lacking, and the dialogue sequences (which we've received many critiques about), which was really just the way they worked by default.
I may reassure you, we are currently using most of the critiques to overhaul the areas that were lacking. The combat system is being completely reworked, from scratch. More sound effects, music, and portraits are being done for a more polished demo, after which we will move on to complete a post-demo version in the long term. Hopefully, you may still be interested then to experience it again.
You guys have done some excellent work. For being given two weeks to make a project, this is legitimately well done.
However, I have been asked to review this, and review it I shall!
Story
Pros: I really like the storyline you guys have going here. It kind of brings light to what happened with Sumireko, and I kind of hope I get to see her in here somewhere. The plot is engaging, and I can definitely see it going somewhere. The characters are well-written and their personalities bounce well off of each other.
Cons: I remember seeing this in a comment on the submission page, and I have to agree to a certain extent. The pacing is a bit off, I think specifically during the university section. For a game made in two-weeks, I think this amount of heavy-handedness is fine to get the point across, but for the full game, I would love to see this angle elongated and more subtle.
Music
Pros: I'm not gonna lie, I might be a bit biased here since I know the musician, but my god, the music is good. It fits the atmosphere perfectly and sets the tone for each scene. It doesn't completely overwhelm you or get annoying, but it does stand out enough to make an impact, and I like it.
Cons (I'll let you decide if these are truly cons or not): I would love to see MORE music, possibly a victory theme or other little themes (this is more for the full game, as I understand you are a limited team on a time crunch). The other nitpick is that the music almost sounds TOO grand for certain moments. It's almost as if it feels like there should be higher stakes here, but instead you're fighting Mystia.
Art:
Pros: I mean, it looks like a Touhou game, and Touhou games look great so...
Ok, in all seriousness, it looks great. The 8-bit overworld sprites look like they were ripped right out of the design style of Final Fantasy, and the battle sprites excellently convey each person's personality. Not only that, each persons character portrait looks like it was ripped right out of a Touhou game and digitized to fit in an 8-bit JRPG. Well done.
Cons: It's kind of the same thing with the music where I would love to see more. For a time crunch, what you have here is good. For the full game though, having the main character's portrait constantly appearing as though she has better things to do may disconnect the player from certain situations.
Gameplay
I saved this for last because I want to mention that I won't be mentioning any bugs here. Not just because of the time crunch, but also because I was a dumbo and didn't download the game. As such, your experience may change sightly.
That said...
Pros: The battle system is very unique. I love the fact that the game encourages you to vary your attacks in order to charge up one attack or another. With more time put into this system, I believe that it will become that much better and stand up that much more. I mean, I can't normally get into JRPGs, but unique battle systems like this one really help keep me engaged through each battle. For what I can say about glitches, I was expecting more, but other than a few hitches, the game worked perfectly fine. You guys might want to fix that stair thing though. Fortunately, I saw the comment first rather than running into the bug myself...
Cons: While the battle system was excellent, the overworld on the other hand feels a bit lackluster. What I would love to see in the future is the game rewarding you more for looking around. A hidden pathway that leads to a good item perhaps, or just something that makes me want to explore the areas more. However, this also ties in with another thing I would like to see, which is more dialogue. While the game already has a fair amount of dialogue that gets presented to the player (a bit too much at times), what would help with these sort of expositional chunks would be to break them up and give them to items around the world. Allow the player a view into the characters thoughts and emotions as they interact with the world around them. This will make them want to explore more, and combined with the secrets, would really help to alleviate the sort of bland feeling of the overworld sections and could help ease the burden of the exposition chunks.
Conclusion
All and all, what you all have here is a fine specimen that just needs a bit of tweaking. There is a good foundation for a great game here, and it just needs a little bit more polish in a few areas in order to truly make this diamond shine.
Congratulations on your achievements, and I can't wait to see how this game looks in the future!
As someone who has no idea what Touhou is, I found myself not very gripped by the story. I really enjoy the music, and the graphics were very well done. I reached about the fist time Maribel went to the dream world, which is not far. I think an RPGmaker game isn't great for a game jam, as they take to long. While playing the opening, there were a few things I would like to share:
If you open with a scripted battle scene, I would suggest it not take any longer then necessary. The fact that there were some 5 turns in wich all I could do was spam select, and nothing happend is not great for the pacing. And especially when the ''delusions'' missed was frustrating.
Lampshading that a charcter is able to do impossible things, like how Renko could hide something in Maribel's room in the beginning, can really take one out of the moment. It damages the coherenty of the world, especially for something that could have been given so differently.
Minor movement annoyance: the walls feel very sticky, and I think it comes because you can't move diagonally alongside walls. If I have a wall north of me, and press up and right, it would be nice if I moved right, instead of standing still.
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Comments
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Hello! How is the progress on this game going?
Halted, sadly, I wouldn't wait anymore for its completion. But thank you for asking
Hello! Is that meaning game will be completed one day?
Hello, it means the development is halted, and it's not likely that it will be completed, unfortunately
its working on joiplay guys. you don't even need a rpg maker plug in
What do you mean?
Is this game still in development? It's been a year since the last dev log and I'm concerned that this game's story might remain unfinished.
Greetings! Yes, it's still going. Slowed down, but it's closer to completion every month! Thank you for your patience
Amazing game, nice art style, interesting story and decent level of difficulty ,oh and the music is a banger I can't wait for act 6. I would recommend this game to pass the time as currently it probably will take around an hour or two to complete
Edit: I forgot to mention no glitches happened while I was playing
Thank you very fondly for your feedback!~
ehhh how do you go full screen
There currently isn't an option for fullscreen other than expanding the game window, apologies for the inconvenience!
I love the game is fun but somethings wrong... I'm stuck at act 5 there's a bug when I go talk to keine (also bring my friends wriggle kogasa and yoshika) the screen went all black and never show up while Maribel is mad and she was trying using her magic and then black screen that's how happen, waited for 5-15 minutes nothing show up, it all black screen but the music still play...
Oh, that's where the current script ends! I'm so sorry. I should make it clearer.
Thank you oh I forgot there is also had bug uh how to say... The pink tree in the magical forest... That uh, Maribel wriggle kogasa and yoshika was talking about the pink tree after the mystia appear and.... I forgot that green hair name... They was first meet again and after they repeat the same words again? And after they repeat the same words again 3 times, and the chat has end I'm stuck now all stopped... Is hard to explain that I hope you understand, I'm sorry it looks likes my comment hard to understand...
No, I understand very well what you mean! Don't worry. I am looking after the bugs to be fixed in the next release, thank you once more for your time!
Ah thank you! I will be patient to wait thank you very much😊
Hmm the game is very fascinating and fun to play with, I'm just gonna ask if the broswer part of the game has a long loading when heading to myouren temple.
Regrettably, the browser version has some glitches that are quite difficult to tackle. It is strongly recommended to play the downloaded version, as it saves all loading times altogether.
Additionally, an update with many fixes will be releasing soon.
Ah, I see. Thank you <3
My pleasure~
The downloaded version also has the benefit of having a secure copy in your storage of your save files, so that when the game updates, you won't lose your progress (this is still in the works).
Greetings,
First of all, I must thank you all for having developed this videogame, endowed with a beautiful soundtrack from which the great skills of the arranger can be felt.
Secondly, the purpose of this message is to list a series of bugs that I have encountered so far in Act 4, or otherwise things that should be fixed.
The bugs are as follows:
1. After receiving miss Keine's tutorial and help on how to fight using danmaku, the lightning of the human village changes from that of night to one of sunset, and the story prompts Maribel to leave the dream world. But if I leave the village by going to the forest and immediately return, the lightning is night again.
This must be a bug, since Maribel is supposed to return to reality because the Sun is setting, both in the dream world and in reality. But, as I mentioned, night seems to fall again on the human village if I go to the forest and then I return. Note that Keine's and Wriggle's dialogues are not affected by this.
2. To the East of the human village there is a path that is blocked by some sort of wooden object. But in fact you can trespass it, with much movement, and go beyond, reaching a zone that uses the same tileset as the human village, but it is mostly empty (although there is an entrance and a building with a person that cannot be talked to). I assume it is in development.
While this does not interfere with gameplay at all, and the player must be persistent with the movements to actually get through, once you get in there is no way to leave, restarting the game being the only option to resume gameplay.
3. You can easily access the Myouren Temple without fighting Yoshika, effectively skipping an important part of the story. In the cemetery, if you go through the graves located in the left of where you are supposed to fight her, you reach a path that leads to the Myouren Temple, where there is no one, and if you go South you cannot leave because a textbox (showing Kyoko) prevents you from it.
This must have been unintentional, since Maribel only decides to go to the Myouren Temple right after defeating Yoshika and becoming aware that she cannot leave the dream world.
Lastly, I must thank you all again for your efforts towards developing this RPG. Take care!
Yours,
(2020-12-15)
Greetings, and thank you very warmly for your input!
Your encouragement is greatly appreciated, especially for your attention and for offering your time to help improve the game.
In fact, most of these bugs have been detected just recently (we had very little time for play-testing this once), but I was not aware of getting through to the Human Village section in development, I will see about that.
Regrettably, due to us renewing our soundtrack whole, we only have permission to use the current soundtrack in the current version, and if we were to update we'd have to publish a game without music (our new musician is still working on the tracks) even if it's just to fix these bugs.
The bugs themselves are mostly fixed, for the next version release which will surely come after New Years they will be no more~
If you'd like having a more direct response, don't hesitate asking through here: https://discord.gg/nYwkWR2Y
both invites are invalid now btw
Oh, I'm so sorry! Here:
https://discord.gg/5XKXPeKxed
https://discord.gg/5XKXPeKxed (new link)
Here is a link to a server where you can share your feedback as well.
I am graciously thankful to all the recent reviews, it's sincerely encouraging, and we will proceed with the conception and production of Act 5, and beyond~
Act 5 has begun development. Although there is no release date as of yet, it's very likely to come after New Year~
im stuck at the loading page when i go to the myouren temple too
Are you getting any error message?
It would help us know fix it!
im not see error message
We will fix this as soon as possible. Don't worry, you'll be able to export your safe file.
thank you
It seems like this bug only occurs in browser version, downloading the game is very strongly recommended until we figure out the root issue.
It should be fixed now!
Please let us know if you encounter any further issues, we warmly welcome feedback~
im stuck at the loading page when im going to the myouren temple
Do you see any error message?
It should be fixed now~
im stuck on getting food when u wake up idk where lmao. (food 4 renko)
You may find a dispenser machine just outside in Kyoto!
Fear not exploring and interacting with the environment.
New release scheduled for October 31st.
thanks i cant wait!
love how far the game has come! will definitely keep playing as it updates.
after the fight with yoshika, the chat was super buggy and repeated itself a lot- i held down shift to speed through it and then a fight with the nightmare came and the graphics for that was doubled over the scene where the three of them were fighting yoshika. nothing game breaking- just weird.
the concerning part- in the middle of the fight with the nightmare (following the yoshika fight) i got the spell card called dream sign ephemeral prescence and when i used it on the next turn the game crashed. i refreshed the page and it took me to the "run game" screen. i was able to start the game again and it kept my most recent save file.
when running it from the save file(saved right before the yoshika fight) a second time- i still had the glitch with the chats after the yoshika fight but its no big deal. when moving forward to the nightmare fight, the scenes/graphics was fine and it didnt overlap the yoshika fight like it did the first time. The game did not crash this time when I used the dream sign ephemeral presence card during the nightmare fight.
during the dialogue after the nightmare fight when she realizes shes trapped in gensokyou, theres no scene or graphics at all- just a black screen with a dialogue box (but that might just be because the game isnt finished yet)
overall its a really great game! i love the concept of it and the design is amazing. i cant wait to see where you take the storyline!
The art is so pretty!
I'm very happy with the new changes and additions- the extra dialogue and interactivity was very welcome. Watering Merry's plants, talking to a few NPCs... the world feels more alive now, especially the human village.
Gameplay balancing feels much better now as well, the more powerful attacks felt like they did roughly the right amounts of damage. Mystia went down very quickly, but I think that's better than being too lengthy or difficult. Yoshika felt very well-balanced and was a fun fight. At first I thought Dream Boost was kind of underpowered considering its high cost and short duration... but then I used it in the final Nightmare fight, got a critical with Shattering Danmaku, and dealt over 1500 damage in one hit.
The only real critique I have would be the same issue Adhdweirdo mentioned, the dialogue after the Mystia (and Yoshika) fights are bugged, characters repeat themselves numerous times. It's hilarious but clearly not how those scenes played out in the older versions. (I'm playing using the offline, downloaded version.)
I just noticed about these today. And I will have it sorted out soon. I am just glad it's not "game-breaking". Still, it will be looked after.
The rest of your feedback is warmly welcome!
while looking in the void, it got laggy all of a sudden.
there's a bug after the battle with the bird girl, lots of diolouge repeats making it quite annoying to get through it. its really good tho!
I will see about it, thank you for the feedback~
I'm really excited about the updated demo.
I tried downloading the zip version and playing it, but there's a pretty serious bug in battle- whenever a character tries to use Danmaku Shot, the game freezes up and gives a Loading Error: 'Failed To Load: img/animations/StateDown1.png'
This makes the first fight after Wriggle joins unbeatable, as far as I can tell. Even if you don't use Danmaku, the fairies will, and that causes the same error.
In theory, it should be fixed... Excuse the issue. None of it was encountered by me when playtesting...
it also happened after defeating the ghost zombie girl boss fight, and who knows lol
This should be fixed now, sorry for the inconvenience.
To begin with, I have high praise to give to most of the artwork and music. The character portraits not only look adorable, they have a unique art style that stands out from a lot of other fanart.
My main critiques involve certain characters lacking them, and a lack of variety in portraits (most notably with Merry, whose unchanging :< face doesn’t always fit the situation.)
Some of the overworld tiles look much more detailed than others, but that’s an understandable result of time. (The Human Village objects stood out as noticeably jaggy.) The ending fight with the Nightmare seems to be lacking graphics altogether. (The opening fight would benefit from having a background, like a seemingly endless void of eyes.)
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The music and sound design is probably the best part of the demo build in my opinion, as there isn’t really any of it that isn’t very well done.
The title screen music is wonderful, and I caught myself lingering there just to listen to all of it. I hope it returns later in the game instead of just being used there, because it’s just that good.
‘Mary the Magician’ serves as a perfect introduction to the darker side of the story, selling the hopeless fight against the nightmare. I also really like the transition to a more energetic and determined melody, but the song seems too long to fit in the scene unless the player lingers.
‘Let’s Live in a Lovely Cemetary!’ is super fun and energetic, very suitable for the introduction of Kogasa. The instruments sound reminiscent of classic horror, but it doesn’t overshadow the cheerful tone.
‘Deaf to All but the Song’ is really grandiose and intense, which I think is somewhat fitting. To us, it’s not that big of a deal, but to Merry and Wriggle, they’re fighting for their lives. (It does loop awkwardly with several seconds of silence before restarting.)
‘Greenwich in the Sky’ is… I like the lively energy which fits the random battles, but I also like the stage themes a lot too and having them interrupted bothered me a bit. I do like that Hakugyoukurou has the BGM override during the battles, it fits with the tone of the area very well.
It’s a fairly minor touch, but I also like how the menu sound effects are almost melodic. It adds a nice touch of personality to basic things. The text scrolling sound effect is fine at a normal speed, but it sounds a bit off when the text speeds up. (A minor thing for my wish list is if different characters have different sound effects for their dialogue.)
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Moving on to discussing the plot… I’ll begin by saying I really enjoy the concepts here. I like how we can see Merry grow from uncertain to resolved, through both the story and gameplay, as she’s willing to tell enemies to bring it on and to defeat her nightmares using her new power. (Her telling Yoshika to get in line is really good)
I like that Keine, Youmu and Yuyuko note Merry’s resemblance to… someone else. There’s a lot of potential plotlines that can be developed here.
I also like that Renko has secrets of her own (how she managed to get that doll into Merry’s room, what her ‘internship’ is really about, ect.) It wouldn’t surprise me if she ends up coming to Gensokyo and joining the party on her own. I like that the party seems to be composed of characters that are typically weak and overlooked in-universe, it feels like it sells their roles as the underdogs.
Several comments made throughout the story, most notably how Wriggle and Keine are surprised to learn Merry’s an outsider, make me wonder what other changes this Gensokyo has from canon. But I’m sure that’ll be a topic going forward.
Kogasa and Yoshika left great impressions on me despite not having much screentime, which is a great sign. I'm excited to see what happens with them next. I also like Renko's energy and cheerfulness expressed in a bunch of different ways. (hopping in excitement, spinning on her chair)
(I was a little shocked to see Renko saying ‘Maribel’ instead of ‘Merry’, but that’s just what I’ve been used to. I guess here she practiced more until she could say it correctly.)
The game’s amount of story isn’t an issue, but I think the fact that so much of it is in unbroken dialogue sequences is. The opening for example, not counting the hopeless Nightmare fight, is entirely dialogue interspersed with brief moments of walking from place to place until Merry makes it to Gensokyo. It does have a lot to accomplish, introducing the two primary characters and their relationship, but I think it’s a bit of a hard sell for someone who isn’t already familiar and invested with the club. (Also, speeding up dialogue seems to require mashing either Z or X repeatedly which gets quickly tiresome.)
The environments have very little that the player can interact with, be they objects or NPCs, which makes them feel empty. Using them to break up the amount of dialogue into more manageable chunks helps both issues and makes the pacing more controlled by the player.
There are several moments where something is explicitly explained when it can be more smoothly inferred by observing events- Merry thinking to herself early on about how Renko accepts her, when that can be made clear through their interactions. ‘Show, don’t tell’ isn’t an absolute rule, but considering it is important when dialogue sequences are already fairly lengthy.
The scene where Merry gets harrassed at school was uncomfortable- intentionally, I'm sure. It serves its purpose of undermining her other connections to the outside beyond Renko, but the bluntness and physicality of it remind me more of high school bullying instead of a slow, constant sense of being unwelcome.
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Gameplay’s core is interesting, the concept of Power being easily gained and spent on special attacks is more engaging than simply mashing attack, and a variety of Danmaku with different uses fits the series’s style.
The main issue I have is that because of this system, the more expensive moves don’t seem to deal nearly enough damage to make up for their high costs. (and Danmaku Curtain’s text goes off the screen and isn’t readable) Double and Triple Shot are too consistently useful to bother using much else. Danmaku Barrier is potentially useful, but it’d be more so if you could taunt enemies to draw aggro to a specific character- or if bosses gave you advance warning of their spellcards. (which barriers don’t stop anyway)
Secondarily, using basic Danmaku Shot or items is the only way to refill Power. It seems like a secondary method of refilling it would help encourage players to keep up the offensive and reward specific battle strategies- granting Power for hitting an enemy’s weakness, or for breaking a barrier with a melee attack.
Either way, the fight with Mystia is a real slog. It comes early enough that the player might not have Triple Shot learned yet (and Keine hasn’t taught Merry Double Shot), and she’s got a load of health to burn through.
She also likes to use Danmaku Barrier, which just means your attacks do nothing and the fight gets drawn out even more. You could hurt her with weak attacks, but you don’t know she’s using a barrier until after you’ve already input your commands to use Danmaku, so all it does is waste your time.
Her breaking out her spellcard when she’s low on HP after such a long fight seems somewhat cruel, because she used it twice in a row, leaving me at critical health. Having to redo it would have been painful.
In comparison, Yoshika is much easier and less frustrating. (although her bad puns are KILLING me) You have three characters with better stats and attacks, and she doesn’t bother using barriers. She also doesn’t seem to use any spellcards, despite the dialogue pre-fight.
The opening hopeless Nightmare fight is a great concept, and I love the music. But it opening on cryptic narration before the somewhat lengthy fight seems like it lets down some of the mood. If there was a bit of interactivity- say, walking down a corridor as the introductory narration plays, then the nightmare attacks at the end- it would have time to build up a mood. (and use the whole song in the scene) Again, with the fight against the Nightmare, streamlining it would show the story points better. Merry attacks to no effect twice, then it one-shots her, making it clear how hopeless it is without being too lengthy.
Hakugyoukurou has some really good atmosphere with the music and the difficult enemies fitting the current arc of the story. But the simplicity of the level kind of lets it down- climbing the stairs only to need to go all the way back down again. You don’t even get to see Yuyuko. But the player is likely low on healing items after Mystia, and if they didn’t buy more they might need to level grind by the rest point until they can make it up and down the stairs in one go. A resting point at the top of the stairs would help with that.
Before anything else, I very deeply appreciate your time taken analysing the noticeable faults that we could not fix on time.
I very much agree with your points, where the gameplay was lacking, and the dialogue sequences (which we've received many critiques about), which was really just the way they worked by default.
I may reassure you, we are currently using most of the critiques to overhaul the areas that were lacking. The combat system is being completely reworked, from scratch. More sound effects, music, and portraits are being done for a more polished demo, after which we will move on to complete a post-demo version in the long term.
Hopefully, you may still be interested then to experience it again.
I'm definitely interested in seeing what comes next, yeah.
I'm afraid that I might have been a bit harsh in my review, but the general feeling I got of the game really impressed me.
We are nearly ready to deploy a more polished demo by next week. I hope you will find the improvements noticeable, and more immersive.
You guys have done some excellent work. For being given two weeks to make a project, this is legitimately well done.
However, I have been asked to review this, and review it I shall!
Story
Pros: I really like the storyline you guys have going here. It kind of brings light to what happened with Sumireko, and I kind of hope I get to see her in here somewhere. The plot is engaging, and I can definitely see it going somewhere. The characters are well-written and their personalities bounce well off of each other.
Cons: I remember seeing this in a comment on the submission page, and I have to agree to a certain extent. The pacing is a bit off, I think specifically during the university section. For a game made in two-weeks, I think this amount of heavy-handedness is fine to get the point across, but for the full game, I would love to see this angle elongated and more subtle.
Music
Pros: I'm not gonna lie, I might be a bit biased here since I know the musician, but my god, the music is good. It fits the atmosphere perfectly and sets the tone for each scene. It doesn't completely overwhelm you or get annoying, but it does stand out enough to make an impact, and I like it.
Cons (I'll let you decide if these are truly cons or not): I would love to see MORE music, possibly a victory theme or other little themes (this is more for the full game, as I understand you are a limited team on a time crunch). The other nitpick is that the music almost sounds TOO grand for certain moments. It's almost as if it feels like there should be higher stakes here, but instead you're fighting Mystia.
Art:
Pros: I mean, it looks like a Touhou game, and Touhou games look great so...
Ok, in all seriousness, it looks great. The 8-bit overworld sprites look like they were ripped right out of the design style of Final Fantasy, and the battle sprites excellently convey each person's personality. Not only that, each persons character portrait looks like it was ripped right out of a Touhou game and digitized to fit in an 8-bit JRPG. Well done.
Cons: It's kind of the same thing with the music where I would love to see more. For a time crunch, what you have here is good. For the full game though, having the main character's portrait constantly appearing as though she has better things to do may disconnect the player from certain situations.
Gameplay
I saved this for last because I want to mention that I won't be mentioning any bugs here. Not just because of the time crunch, but also because I was a dumbo and didn't download the game. As such, your experience may change sightly.
That said...
Pros: The battle system is very unique. I love the fact that the game encourages you to vary your attacks in order to charge up one attack or another. With more time put into this system, I believe that it will become that much better and stand up that much more. I mean, I can't normally get into JRPGs, but unique battle systems like this one really help keep me engaged through each battle. For what I can say about glitches, I was expecting more, but other than a few hitches, the game worked perfectly fine. You guys might want to fix that stair thing though. Fortunately, I saw the comment first rather than running into the bug myself...
Cons: While the battle system was excellent, the overworld on the other hand feels a bit lackluster. What I would love to see in the future is the game rewarding you more for looking around. A hidden pathway that leads to a good item perhaps, or just something that makes me want to explore the areas more. However, this also ties in with another thing I would like to see, which is more dialogue. While the game already has a fair amount of dialogue that gets presented to the player (a bit too much at times), what would help with these sort of expositional chunks would be to break them up and give them to items around the world. Allow the player a view into the characters thoughts and emotions as they interact with the world around them. This will make them want to explore more, and combined with the secrets, would really help to alleviate the sort of bland feeling of the overworld sections and could help ease the burden of the exposition chunks.
Conclusion
All and all, what you all have here is a fine specimen that just needs a bit of tweaking. There is a good foundation for a great game here, and it just needs a little bit more polish in a few areas in order to truly make this diamond shine.
Congratulations on your achievements, and I can't wait to see how this game looks in the future!
As someone who has no idea what Touhou is, I found myself not very gripped by the story. I really enjoy the music, and the graphics were very well done. I reached about the fist time Maribel went to the dream world, which is not far. I think an RPGmaker game isn't great for a game jam, as they take to long. While playing the opening, there were a few things I would like to share:
If you open with a scripted battle scene, I would suggest it not take any longer then necessary. The fact that there were some 5 turns in wich all I could do was spam select, and nothing happend is not great for the pacing. And especially when the ''delusions'' missed was frustrating.
Lampshading that a charcter is able to do impossible things, like how Renko could hide something in Maribel's room in the beginning, can really take one out of the moment. It damages the coherenty of the world, especially for something that could have been given so differently.
Minor movement annoyance: the walls feel very sticky, and I think it comes because you can't move diagonally alongside walls. If I have a wall north of me, and press up and right, it would be nice if I moved right, instead of standing still.