flep
/coloroI just played through the game on Newgrounds and felt that such a monumental amount must have gone into it that I should be obliged to give it some verbal credit :] I don't have much taste for the newgrounds review system, so toddled over here to do so. Don't feel obliged to read any of this, just passing on some of my thoughts to those that would like them.First of all, I loved the game. I've always had a soft spot for RPGs, but all too often free online rpgs tend to either over-complicate, or simply not invest enough thought into, their combat system. This sets itself out ahead of a great deal of these games with the positioning systems, broad range of characters and a nice simple elemental strength-weakness combat systems. The storyline was sufficiently interesting to keep me guessing, I certainly didn't see Gelyan's betrayal coming (but maybe that's just me not being very receptive). I also liked the Tarot mechanic, creating an interesting compromise between forcing a set party onto the player, and letting them customise their setup. The idea of giving you the key to the Dream World battles after defeating the Egg was also quite interesting, since nothing says RPG like toiling for ages for a mysterious item whose use only comes into play later.But there were a few things I would suggest for improvements. I wasn't overly impressed with the character art. The quality of the gameplay meant that it really doesn't matter, and in fact it's probably the best level of art for the format, since it really shouldn't be much more than a small detail, it just seems like something that could be easily polished up.I also felt that there was a bit of room for improvement in the dialogue writing. I know this is a common criticism since the game's creation, but I'm not flagging it as abysmally as others have; as I've said I approve of the writing in terms of the story. I just feel that the characters aren't coming across as well as they could.A final improvement I could think of is the layout of the side quests. In my play through, I only became aware of them when the message appeared alerting me to the fact that 'side quests are now available'. They seemed less of a series of side quests running along in tandem with the main quest, and more a string of optional Otherwise the game is quite flawless, and deserves more praise than sites like Newgrounds seem to be giving it. The only other thinks I disapprove of are small, trivial things like Gelyan's unique skipping of the action phase when he moves (which is a good balancing mechanic for his attacking, but kind of annoying when trying to summon/SoulBurst a Tarot. I also would have liked to choose the order in which the characters and Tarots moved. The Wait function complicates things quite a bit.Overall, a great game, which with a bit of fine-tuning could be absolutely fantastic :] I eagerly look forward to the follow upcolorc/co
EternalLurker
The Wait method, rather than full turn order control, does indeed complicate matters somewhat. It offers an additional strategic element, but one that's admittedly arbitrary. Personally, I too would prefer infinite Waiting rather than a single Wait per turn per character (which is identical to full turn order control without any need to alter the engine significantly), but as it is I don't particularly have any issues.Your side-quest paragraph is cut off :P But yes, the sidequest run is a pair of mission strings that does feel a little contrived due to the whole "lol hey you can do a couple sidequests now" notification. A much more informative and simultaneously less 4th-wall-shattering method of pointing out the existence of sidequests would be to have important quest characters flash red, or have an exclamation mark above their heads, or such. It'd reduce random running around, chatting with everyone in order to figure out who's important, and I think it'd feel much more natural.As for the other two points, I rather liked the dialogue (aside from a few awkward turns of phrase, as English isn't An's first language), and I thought the art was great -- and I'm not alone in that latter view, as it's been one of the more praised aspects of the game. Are you sure you've got the game on High Quality? If so, well, to each his/her own, I guess, but I'm not sure what improvements you'd w
