Stray ThoughtsThe new maps and missions were fantastic, I particularly liked the maps full of enemies that gave 1exp to encourage you to move quickly and follow the actual "just get to the end" objective! I tried on battle 3 to just fight the bats and was a bit surprised when I actually got overwhelmed!! Loaded a savestate and did it properly the second time without problems.
For changed maps, the highlight was the Kane battle.
I really liked what you did with the Rudo area storywise. I liked the changes to the story in general, very simple and not too out-there crazy. Of course the changes with the playable characters (e.g. Mae, Lyle and even like Torasu's places in the story) were very good and fleshed it out.
I feel like some characters (Lobo and Amon in particular) could have done with a bit more dialogue and maybe a personality quirk or two. They could have had some of Boken's spotlight moments, he started to feel like the main character mid-way through the game.
Mad disrespect to Alef making her a starting character, and then giving bolt to the other mage! Still, she felt generally more useful to me throughout the game than Astral did.
Gotta say, it was a bit awkward reading the implied intimacy on the night of the party - between the author insert and the mermaid. Definitely the most "yeah, it's a mod" part of the whole thing.
Hanzou's sister said "Oh, Hanzou didn't make it?" before you go out to the tower (after you talk to the Shogun but before you leave). Kinda gave the story away a bit, psychic little sister!
The MP-recovering staff (from Domingo's gem) at the end of the game was good but kinda put Astral on the bench for me. He basically became the MP-recoverer for the rest of the game. This also meant that Lowe was casting Aura4 literally every single turn since the MP had become infinite. Took away a lot of the challenge of the final maps!
Final stray thought; thanks for the random enemies who did give EXP on the Oddeye battle. I entered that battle at around level 12, and grinded my characters up to Level 15 on those.
My report on the characters!End-of-game, characters ranked by ATK;
Elliot<Boken<Xeno<Diane<Varios<Abel<Amon<Lobo<Maxine
End-of-game, characters ranked by survive-ability (DEF with halved HP added to take HP into account)
Boken<Lobo<Diane<Lowe<Amon<Varios<Maxine<Elliot<Abel<Xeno
Alef/Astral aren't included as they're at the bottom of both lists, but I'd say both felt very strong with their magics. Astral was, by design I assume, an extreme glass-cannon who never learnt how to take a hit.
Individual character thoughts:
Maxine - Felt consistently strong throughout. Basically became a magic caster when we got the Sword of Light (then Chaos Breaker). It was a tease that she kept gaining MP but never learnt any spells!
Alef - Great team member, could often take a single hit from non-boss enemies which is normally all you need. Lots of MP kept the Blaze/Freeze coming. She was normally leading my force in levels.
Diane - Fair team member, though she lagged a lot and refused to get ATK levelups in the early-mid game. She picked back up again towards the end.
Lowe - MVP. He basically spent every turn healing, but then his equipped staff gave him an infinite-use attack spell (basically making him better than Boken with Blast). After he got Aura, his levels exploded. 4MP for a cast is very cheap considering Lowe's huge MP pool. After he got Aura3 the game got extremely easy because I could full-heal my whole party every turn (with somebody else feeding Lowe's MP if needed). With Aura4, I didn't even need to worry about positioning anymore.
Varios - Okay, so in Chapter 1 Addington dropped the heat axe. Is this... supposed to happen!? Varios was a complete powerhouse throughout the early game and didn't change weapons until chapter 8! His DEF early-game was consistently amongst the highest too. He felt very much like a Fire Emblem Jeigan, with having to hold him back to stop him just dominating the maps alone.
Towards the end of the game, he stayed good - with pretty good survive-ability so he could take a front-row place and manoeuvre quickly to fill any gaps in the defensive line.
Boken - The weakest link. Early game he was a fine secondary healer. After Lowe got Aura, I barely needed his healing. He wasn't very defensive and didn't have very good offence either. His primary job was casting Slow and Quick, but he didn't have a huge MP bar so I had to limit when he did join in.
I found myself having to keep hurt enemies around to feed EXP to Boken, which wasn't worth it as he never had good levelups.
Astral - I was expecting Anri so got a surprise with Astral! At first he felt weak, low MP so he normally missed a turn of battle using items when things were getting hot. His range wasn't great, and he'd die in a single hit so positioning him safely was sometimes impossible (meaning he'd have to hang back for a bit). He started to pick up usefulness in the mid-game. In the late-game, I received the MP-recovery staff in chapter 7 and that was Astral's fate sealed. He just became the MP-recoverer (something he could do from 3-spaces behind his allies, securing his place hiding at the back of the team!)
Amon - Felt consistently average, 'Charge' was a very good move which definitely increased her usefulness. Looking at the end-of-game rankings, I'm surprised she came so high in the ATK since she never felt that strong in the mid-game. She must've got some good levelups (or her final weapon is high-powered).
Lobo - Another 'average' character! The lack of ranged options meant he just moved along with the flow. Move him behind Xeno/Varios, then he joins them in attacking. I was surprised to see him as my highest ATK character (after Maxine and her OP-weapon).
His ability to attack on a diagonal with his spell gave him a nice niche.
Xeno - A good character with a clear use. High DEF, and a ranged laser for when we needed a bit of extra chip-damage. He felt consistently useful and never overpowered.
Elliot - Mid-game he felt very good and useful, but I felt his usefulness go down after promotion. I found that, despite his huge HP, his low DEF meant he was still taking a lot of hurt on the front lines. And his lower ATK suggested he was meant to be tanky. I generally considered him as a slightly-worse Amon in the late game.
I don't know if I missed his final sword, but he was extremely weak at the endgame (Even weaker than Alef - only beating Astral!)**
Abel - He joined late-game and was a solid addition, felt good like pre-promotion Elliot was. He joined after Lowe learnt Aura which made the front lines a very safe place to be, so was consistently useful up here.
Aaand that's the end of my thoughts! Really, the game was fab, thank you so much for spending time making it!
**Edit: Re-reading the first post, yeah I missed Elliot's final weapon. I did read about keeping the Piece Maker before I started, but completely forgot by the time Elliot joined and sold it! What can I say, I was tight on inventory space (I liked to make sure everybody was holding only 3 items, in case we got another surprise drop like the Heat Axe).
But still, with his good manoeuvrability and high HP he still put in work during the final chapter despite being the weakest. Still had more to do than Boken!
by Runesamurai » Mon May 27 2019 10:47am 
