Hi!
I used to play an older version before of the hack, but didn’t play through fully back then. I know the project was halted before, and I know the why, roughly, and I don’t get it. While I haven’t really played other hacks much, I want to highlight how you did create an exceptional work! You did add a lot of custom features, have thought them through pretty well, and honestly, I feel your dialogues are really hitting the characters and the spirit!
Anyway, I registered here because right now I am playing the hack on the new version again (luckily I did check whether a new release happened…), and give back feedback.
Keep in mind my feedback are just notes and thoughts, and no demands are formed by them. I give the feedback and information, and what you decide to do with it is entirely your decision.
I want to note I am playing the hack on gpSP Kai on the Playstation Portable (the old one)
Here is the current feedback I have gathered so far - beware of WoT, I can be very acribic.
How does one earn the archievement with three ancient weapons/items? I assumed it was Pent’s first tale, but I think I gave him three weapons to study and got no archievement.
General bugs:
- Not sure if fixable, aircalibur seems to have a kinda laggy animation.
General suggestions:
- There is no progress in-between tales, I can understand why, because it is about very different characters. I wonder, if wanted, a simple progress system could be added, however. For instance, specific weapons characters carry could get like +1 (with a max?) could get bonuses depending of the number of different tales and/or plus archievements unlocked. You could consider to make unlockables in terms of “loadouts”, allowing to play/re-play tales with different starting equipment.
- You could consider to keep character progression in-between the different tales.
For either of them, you might want to consider the option to reset the progresses or bonuses then.
Pent’s Tale #1:
- Crash on chapter end if Louise is dead (ending scene, on Efta porting in), situation else: Efta unspoken to, only one weapon analyzed, Ephidel alive [Also, Erk is dead as well, but it only crashed if Louise was dead]
- I know the magic bow is supposed to be strong, but it is utterly overpowered. it would prob be broken still with 2-3 power less.
- I didn’t get the archievement for defeating Efta (Gorgon-something) on the run I did defeat him.
- Which weapons are required to be analyzed by Pent for the archievement? Or is it in another tale?
- Spare-Ephidel bonus content worked, however.
Dialogue with Efta (starting) is painfully slow and can’t be skipped.
Priest only has 4 movement vs at least 5 on all other units
Ephidel’s Gespenst description goes out of the text box.
Logical error: If Efta is alive (talked to before?) at end of the chapter, he will say he does not know his father’s name. Not only that Pent surprisingly does, albeit it can be concluded to be Nergal, it is even more surprising when talking to Efta, he actually says the name of his father was Nergal.
Pent’s Tale#2:
- Consider giving the general chest & door keys
- IMHO given the relationship there should be a special dialouge if Jaffer kills the assassin boss, or starts the fight with him.
Rath’s Tale (Cave):
-Toni seems to keep her (?) previous inventory.
-Bal: Lyn did get 1HKO in that level by a nomad/nomad trooper with full HP by a crit. So…basically totally out of nowhere. Do they carry crit weapons? Felt kinda unfair to get instantly killed, and even from running out of FoW.
–Is the chest-opening crash bug (own characters or thief) from a previous version fixed?
Legault Tale 1: Minor:
- Legault has B to Jan, but Jan doesn’t have B to Legault
- House (middle of the map) has a weirdly-phrased if not incorrect sentence (Early, mentioning the serpent wyverns first I believe)
- Might want to add a few hints that new chars are joining (albeit foreseeable), and weapons will carry over to next chapter.
- Cleave Bow’s description suggests it is ignoring the armor/defense stat: That’s not the case. Instead, it is effective against knights (etc.?). You might want to be more precise in the descr.
- Double Bow: Add description that it increases strength
Also: It feels that double bow and Gandiva are basically the same weapon, they don’t differ enough from each other.
Legault Tale 2:
Everett’s approaching speech for the boss is the dialogue of after the target is eliminated by the group instead of the default dialogue of the other fang’s members.
Zelot’s Tale:
Dying screen shows a support dialoge from original game, Rebecca x Louise [Pegasus, Sniper, maybe all without a unique dialouge?]
Villager talks about an item that cures wounds to give, but instead, 10 000 G are given.
Juno has a greyed out sprite, whether intended or not.
Raven’s Tale:
In Part 1, from a previous playthrough I remember an isolated fight of Raven vs someone else. This didn’t happen this time. Might be connected of having an altered pairing with Erk, or maybe I pressed start at the dialoge after defeating the first boss in part 1. I am not sure if this is also related to this, but I found out that on an old, other savestate with an old version of the hack I also had Heathen in the party in part 2. This wasn’t the case this time.
In Part 2, it is possible to release at least slaves on one fort. Is it possible on others? Also: Is it realitiscally possible, aka really doable?
In at least Part 2, at least Shen/Erk(?) doen’t have a die msg at all. Raven, Lucias and Gatz definitively do.
Suggestions: Insert Warp, maybe instead of rescue, for some fun in the second part, encourages players to try stuff out, especially given that some parts of the map are de facto unaccessible, in practice.
You could consider to make a little minigame post turn 14, where each surviving round a number of credits or items are given, or that enemies drop stuff.
I also felt kinda punished by being restricted to weapon usage. Consider to remove the durability stat/making it infinite after t14, or for simplicity sake, the whole chapter. Remember the unaccessible areas of the map I spoke about? Give people the chance to grind their chars to level 20 in 5 hours and then trying to reach them!
Long-range magic is extremely annoying on enemies. It is absolutely frustrating on respawning enemies because they might randomly go double or triple ranged magic vs a single character. good luck on that. I suggest to give them another magic instead.
Also consider given Raven a ranged sword.
Tale Select:
“Talk to me” specifies tale 1, part 2. However, the tales aren’t numbered, so nobody knows which it is. So either give each tale a visible number, or note the character’s name for the tale instead.
Balance:
Very Easy maps:
Karel
Legault 1
Pent #2
Normal:
Pent #1
Very Hard:
Legault 2 (suggested countermeasures to consider: Replacing Mend with Physics in the previous level, so maybe it becomes easier for Vaida to survive, place some reinforcements in prev level so the units are getting more exp (it seems the wyvern riders reinforcements don’t always appear?, swapping Vaida’s Potion with Elixir) [Nando could also need a few more defense points, IMHO]
[Could also help if Ortega starts to move later or giving him a weaker/non-ranged weapon]
[Replacing Tower Bow with another weapon or Long Bow for top archer, so he doesn’t instant kill Neido]
It feels you are getting punished if you don’t advance quickly but you aren’t really able to.
It feels the level is more won by RNG/luck than skill…