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Ai Usage
Human made
Genre
RPG
JRPG | CRPG | MMO| RPG
Rating
For 13+
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Quick little note while I am still playing: Is it intentional dialect that Mustor saying "yer" instead of "your"?
Yep, Matsumoto's got a particular dialect that translates to text with some unusual spelling. "Yer" is intended!
OK, I will keep calling him "Mustor" then.
I am having a great time this! Probably my favorite game I've played in the jam.
- Gameplay: A unique and well thought out turn based combat system. The depth is immediately apparent and I'm curious to see where it goes. I'm not totally certain how I'm supposed to predict the dodge type I need to do to dodge enemies that do multiple different types of attacks but maybe I'm just supposed to deal with getting hit sometimes (even though it feels bad to lose your beat). Though I do think the feedback for Finishers could also be a lot more clear, as I'm having trouble figuring out their requirements and when they trigger (I swear flaming slash triggered and only hit on enemy). I also love the various quality of life features the game already has, like autorun being default, and working save and controller support. I'm not sure if that's a pack in with the engine you use but it's impressive for a web player nontheless. Battle itself just feels really good and really fun, I could see myself playing this whole game.
- Story: Fun and snappy. Plays to all the samurai-in-training tropes but leaves me excited for more. The Samurai Champloo influence is apparent even outside the soundtrack.
- Art & Music: Both great! I can see why you have a music player built in, because this is some high quality stuff. For the art, I think you did a great job evoking the feel of Pokemon but with a kind of classical Japanese style, and all the attack and dialogue animations are great! My one complaint is that the character sprites are a bit muddy and blend in sometimes. The de-saturated backgrounds are a good style but I think you should probably utilize that by making the characters not as de-saturated so they're clearer in movement when on the overworld. But overall, very impressive, along with the rest of the package.
I have played and loved a lot of unique indie RPGs and this one evokes those in a great way, I'm very excited for a future release of this game!
Heya, thanks for playing!
The Finishers being unclear was likely due to an oversight with the tutorial; I made a balance patch that affects some enemy behaviours, and that caused the tutorial to conclude before Matsumoto could explain the Beat mechanic and how to trigger Finishers. The basic gist is that most skills have a Beat threshold that triggers the skill Finisher, and if you have enough Beat it'll automatically trigger. The feedback on that is the flashing effect and sound effect, so if you saw that for Flaming Slash then something else went wrong as well and I'll have to investigate.
When it comes to enemy attack types, there isn't much of a tell right now beyond enemies simply having rigid attack patterns. I've been debating how forgiving the game should be when it comes to taking damage, since enemy attacks being *theoretically* avoidable makes it feel way worse to take damage than it would in a typical RPG even if the damage scaling was similar. Do you suppose it's acceptable to expect players to take damage the first couple times encountering certain enemies before they learn their patterns, or does the theoretical dodge-ability of everything create too much of an expectation of better telegraphs?
The desaturated look is actually only during this prologue (this section of the game is sort of a flashback). Originally I had it in a full sepia tone, but I reduced that for visibility. Do you suppose I should remove this effect entirely for the prologue?
Anyway, I'm glad you liked it! This account is actually an anonymous account used for playtesting before the game is officially announced, but if you'd like to follow the project, I just gave you a follow with the main account that this game will eventually be announced on. Thanks a ton for playing, this feedback was very helpful!
I'm quite unfamiliar with this genre of games, but I still found it entertaining! It feels very professionally made. Not to mention: it runs entirely in the browser AND has proper controller support!
It's intuitive, but it wasn't super clear how the "beat" mechanic was affecting the battle.
Story was solid. For me personally, I was slightly confused at who Matsumoto was in the beginning. However, I understand the decision to reveal it over time.
It fits and it has a fitting Oriental instrumentation. Some sound effects were noticeably louder than the others.
Really well made. Also nice color palette work
Thanks for playing! This is very encouraging!
Regarding the Beat issue, that was an error on my part with a recent update. I rebalanced certain enemy skills which ended up altering the tutorial, causing the fight to end before Beat can be explained properly. That will be fixed in future builds, but the basic gist is that every skill has a finisher effect that triggers when you meet its Beat threshold. Hopefully when the tutorial is updated, there will be less confusion on that front.
Thank you again for playing, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
I played up to the point where, after battling several enemies in what looked like a castle, Kiro was struck down by a surprise attack during a cutscene.
Battle System
To be honest, I didn't really understand it at first — right up until around the fight with the boar. But once I got the general idea, I found the battle system had a really strategic kind of fun to it. I think the way to enjoy it is to think about two things: "what's the right action to counter the enemy's move?" and "how should I adjust my timing (using swap and so on)?" (apologies if I've misunderstood). I found myself playing while wondering things like, "What happens if I deliberately attack a guarding enemy to shift my action timing?" or "Wouldn't it be better to swap here and let Kiro act?" In other words, I felt it has real potential for puzzle-like play.
Story
The way the story unfolds was much to my taste. The scene where the dojo burns down, in particular, was sudden but a pleasant surprise. The developments after that let me feel the Master's sorrow and made me want to root for the characters. There was never a moment where the story's progression or a character's actions felt off to me. The scene where — at least as I understood it — Kiro thinks about their mother while the Master thinks about a child who can't return to their own mother felt very real, and it's one of my favorite moments. Since English isn't my native language, I apologize if I've misread anything.
Music
I thought it suited the game's atmosphere well, and I enjoyed it.
Sprites
I liked how the character sprites move and convey a little of the characters' emotions.
UI
I never had any trouble with the controls. I think it's a good UI.
Things I noticed
All in all, I had a great time playing. Thank you for making such an enjoyable game!
Thank you for playing! I'm glad the battle system eventually worked out for you, although I'd love to make it easier to learn before that first boss. If you have any suggestions for improving the tutorials, I would love to hear it!
(Side note, attacking a guarding enemy on purpose is very clever, I've never thought of that!)
I'm glad you enjoyed the story, especially since it isn't in your native language. That definitely gives me the confidence to move forward with that side of the project.
This is helpful feedback. Thanks again for playing!
I played to the start of Probis Castle. The game had some neat mechanics. I like the different defense abilities to deal with different types of attacks. The timeline system worked well, and made the actions you chose have a bit more weight. The story was decent, though felt a bit too familiar to so many others & over using classic cliches.
It would be nice to have more details on the various stats related to abilities, and combat mechanics in general. How does Speed/Wait work? I'm guessing that wait means you slow down and wait that long before the next move, while speed is how fast you will move down the timeline, but it would be nice to have it a bit more clear. How much do the number mean? Similarly, the infinity symbol next to TP, implies that it drains all remaining TP. Does the amount of TP affect the power? It seems like it does not. When first seeing it I questioned if I should save it to be my last attack when TP is low if it would be the same power, or save my TP to use it at full power for a boss? The Ground Cleave does not seem to accumulate Beats. It is showing as 0 and a different color, but it was not clear to me that it also would not accumulate any, and I had used it a few times without being hit, then noticed I had 0 Beats. With it being at 0, is that because it is always using the Finisher? It seems a bit odd, and would be nice to have it clarified, or maybe show it as no Finisher, but also does not accumulate Beats being listed. Initially I wasn't using TP abilities as I didn't want to waste power on weak things. Only in the first boss fight did I realize I would regain some during combat.
The enemy bars have what looks like 2 bars, with one more faded than the other. It is not clear what that is meant to show.
At the campfire it says HP/MP, but in combat it is called TP.
Some of the music choice felt a bit odd to me. The Boarcupine fight really stood out as not fitting with the theme/setting of the game, at least to me. The title screen as well, but not as much as during the boss fight.
At the start of Probis Castle I got the message about the Boarcupine DNA drop. That should really show up earlier, before all the cut scenes.
Heya, this is useful feedback, thank you!
In terms of the story, what would you like to see for it to be more interesting and fresh?
In regards to the music, this was all composed for the game with the intent of having a similar musical style. Does the rest of the music feel equally out of place, or is it only those two tracks you mentioned?
As for your thoughts about combat and UI, here are thorough explanations of each of those elements.
Speed/Wait are percentages of the gauge. If the skill Speed is 50, then after using the skill your action gauge automatically fills up 50%. If the Wait is 50, then after selecting the skill the character will wait an additional 50% of their gauge before the skill executes.
You are correct about skills that cost Infinity TP; they always have the same power and cost your entire gauge, so ideally you want to use them when your TP is as low as possible.
Infinity Beat means that this skill has no Finisher and (in theory) builds up Beat infinitely. Of course, since the only skills with that feature in this build are non-damaging, they don't build Beat at all. In contrast, a skill with 0 Beat always meets the criteria for its Finisher, which means that the skill is effectively always a Finisher no matter how much Beat you have.
The darker, faded portion of an enemy HP bar is displaying how much HP they had before the most recent attack used against them (in other words, illustrating the relative amount of damage that attack dealt).
These aspects aren't all explained right away, in part because we trust the player to pay attention and make educated guesses about certain mechanics (you were pretty spot on with your inferences!) but also because many of these mechanics will be explained more thoroughly when the time comes. Most of Matsumoto's abilities are intended as a sort of "preview" of what's to come, as the game slowly introduces these abilities to the other party members in a slow and natural manner.
With that said, it's not at all the intent to confuse players, so this feedback leaves a difficult balance for tutorialization between overloading the player with too much information, and not providing crucial info they'll need to enjoy the game. I'll have another look at these elements and consider if there are other ways to hint at the mechanics during this prologue section.
Thanks a lot for playing, this was very useful data!
For the story, I can't really say anything specific. It just felt like so many others. The reluctant ex-soldier, accepting a new young student, who does better than any before and could be the one true partner... The villain burning down your home and forcing you onto the task they want you to complete. I didn't play far enough, but the tragic death of your master feels likely to be coming up... though on that note, for such a legendary and powerful fighter, he felt rather under-powered. For gameplay reasons it is understandable, but it is something I look at when a supposedly great hero joins your party. If he is going to only be a short term character, then you have more room to boost his stats to feel legendary, even if it does make balancing things so the young one true hero doesn't feel useless. I enjoy RPGs and grew up playing them, with a fondness for SNES/PS1 era. Maybe I've just played too many.
None of the music really fit the setting, in my opinion. The look made me think this was set in a fantasy feudal Japan. I would have expected more of an East Asian sound to the game music. To me, the music sounded modern, and more like an urban setting, not out in the woods.
I fully understand not overloading players with too much at once. Personally, I do like a bit of exploring and learning, but I also want to know everything. I like when there is a way to confirm that I understand a mechanic, even if I initially learn it through using it. I think the biggest one for me was the Speed/Wait. I think if you added % next to the numbers that would help as it would give some definition to what these numbers without a unit mean. I saw the indicators jumping around, but there was a lot of quick movement, so I did not acknowledge it was % based. Maybe if I played more I would have connected it to being a percentage.
While I missed how the HP bar worked, it also wasn't a major issue. They took damage, and it showed progress, so it worked. I just didn't acknowledge how the fainter section was working. Again, given more play time, it probably would have been clearer. I suppose many of my questions probably would have been answered over time. I'd say that adding the % to the Speed/Wait would be the main thing I'd change on these, and the rest probably are fine for people who play long enough and get invested. When I hit the second camp fire I did a bit of testing on the infinite TP ability so I'd know how it worked for the clearly upcoming boss fight. I could have spent more time testing the other things, but I just wasn't drawn in enough. I was thinking the boss would be the end of the demo, so I'd play that far, and just wanted to be prepared to beat it and not need to retry. Eventually explaining things would be nice just to confirm, but is probably not needed. You could add something to the menu that explains mechanics in more detail, possibly unlocking as they are meant to be revealed, if you feel it is worth the effort. It could be styled after the paper manuals that used to come with games.
i love this! i find the art very endearing. in the exterior scenes i think the texture could be considered too noisy by some but i think it's unique, it gives the game a visual signature.
the idea of using hip hopis also great and distinct!
as for the gameplay, i really like the timing of the beats combined with turn based combat, it makes it more dynamic and fun.
very solid submission, congrats!
Hi AnonymousRPGDeveloper,
To say from the start, this is a very good RPG! Strong submission!
At the main menu screen, I felt a bit weird greeted with a lo-fi hip-hop beats, because I played lots of jRPGs. But after a while, it became normal, so no problem. The closest thing to existing media from what I can tell is Samurai Champloo. Did you happen to get inspiration from it? It is a bit nitpicky from me.. but currently the game settings and Characters exhibit traditional Japanese samurai. I don't see any character that fit with the lo-fi beats. Perhaps, there will be a new character (some character that is defying or outside of the traditional Japanese culture in the game) that fit exactly with theme in the next part of the game. In that case, introducing that character in the demo is a must.
Making enemies visible outside of battle do eliminate random encounters that you typically see in older RPGs, however the battles are mostly unavoidable. But the battle is easy to learn and I didn't feel them as hassles, yet. It would be better if there's progression for Kira? (Kiro?) So that it would make the battles more meaningful and it serves well narratively. Just having 1 or 2 tech unlocks for Kiro would be great. Currently every battle doesn't give you anything except occasional healing items and DNA samples. Speaking of DNA sample, why would human enemies also drop them? 🤔
I didn't really understand how you obtain beats to perform the techniques. I must have clicked on too fast to read all the tutorials.
Sprites, characters and the color palette is good! A minor thing that bug is Kiro being a disciple wearing a big field hat feels kinda disrespectful for me.
It took me around 45min to play the whole game. I feel the pacing is a little bit slow for a lot of the game. But I think the slow pacing really put a contrast to the ending. It was a really satisfying ending! Great job on the scenario staging!
Just my 2 cents.. if you want to demo the game, it would be better if the scene is mostly exciting. So I would shorten the first part with Kiro's intro up to the burning house. Not cutting it out entirely, just make the path towards a bit shorter and less enemy battles.
The game is quite polished for still being in early demo. I didn't find any difficulty in navigating all the UI and everything is readable and responsive. Great job!
This is a very strong submission and have the potential to be a great RPG! I hope you will continue on making it and good luck!
Thanks for playing! I'm glad you liked it!
The musical style choice is definitely a bit experimental. I selected it partially because I wanted to break out of my comfort zone and try producing a new musical style, but there is also indeed a heavy Nujabes influence there in general (the Samurai Champloo comparisons are hard to ignore!) There isn't any one particular character who serves that "defiant" role, but the narrative as a whole follows a theme of rebellion and deconstructing social norms that does slowly build through the events of the plot (with the ending of this prologue serving as a kind of catalyst for that).
There are a few roaming enemies that were designed to be intentionally unavoidable, mainly the ones related to tutorials, as well as a few others that ensure the player collects all the DNA Samples here, since you won't be able to return to this area in the final game. The other enemies typically have a random movement pattern which means they can usually be avoided, but since they are randomized I can imagine there are many situations where it isn't actually possible to maneuver around them. I could investigate a more consistent movement pattern for these enemies if you feel that would improve the game. As for human enemies dropping DNA, I guess that's just some of the weird "don't question it" type of RPG tropes.
When it comes to Beat, those go up every time you use a non-finisher skill, and they are spent altogether when you use a finisher. You also lose one Beat when you're hit by an enemy, incentivizing skillful deflection and Aggro. It doesn't sound like the game was too hard for you with this in mind, but I actually wonder if I may need to make the game a bit more difficult in order to ensure the player gets the hang of the Beat mechanic.
Regarding Kiro's design, could you elaborate on what feels disrespectful? I'm always open to making changes to the game if there is any perceived offense.
Right now, this game is unannounced, so I haven't actually put a ton of thought into how I want to go about making a demo for it. These characters in the prologue aren't the primary protagonists, so if I do make a demo I might opt for something further into the game that better represents the progression system and characters. I'll put some thought into that for sure.
Thank you for playing!
Definitely, Nujabes' beats also came up to my mind when playing your game, haha! With the theme you're aiming for, I am sure there'll lots of people who like it, I am one of them. Make sure to include the defiant character in the demo (sometime in the future builds) to make the game overall stronger!
I see.. so the beat decreases when you get hit.
Current game's difficulty is totally fine! I am playing the normal difficulty and it's manageable. I usually like to play on easier mode in a story-rich game. So, there isn't much necessary tweaking here.
What I meant by Kiro being disrespectful is just in general sense people are expected to take off their hats inside buildings (maybe it is only a me thing?). Especially here, Kiro is trying to learn from a master, wearing an especially wide hat just shows that he may be hiding something. So it just feels disrespectful to Matsumoto.
Good luck on the development!
OHHH you're right, that didn't even occur to me but yeah that's totally disrespectful hahaha.
I don't know if I'm gonna make a whole new sprite for that but I suppose it's a solid worldbuilding opportunity. Thanks again!
Hello,
I played the entire game and here is my review for it.
This was an amazing experience! I did not expect to e teleported back like that. It reminded me of the old Gameboy RPGs I used to enjoy. I was hooked for the entirety of the runtime!
Things I liked
Things to potentially improve.
While I really like the game here are a few nitpicks. You can take what you like and reject the rest.
That being said you have earned a follow! I will be following the progress of this game and recommending it to my friends.
Feel free to ask me any questions you might have.
Heya, thank you for playing! I'm glad you liked it!
You're like the fifth person to comment on that grass sound, so I'll definitely look into it and give that another pass. The capsule art was also just a quick placeholder I made for the jam; right now this game is unannounced, so I haven't gotten far into preparing promotional material yet. Since I posted this on an anonymous account made for the jam, it might not be fully up to date when the game is publicly announced, so keep an eye out for an announcement in case you miss it from my main account!
This is helpful feedback, I appreciate it. Thank you for playing!
Just curious, any reason for anonymity?
It isn't a huge deal or anything, but the development team for this game has a modest following and I like being able to give everyone a proper announcement for the title with a good first impression. That creates a catch 22 since I can't tell if a project is viable and worth announcing at all until it gets some testing in to make sure it's moving in the right direction, so joining Feedback Quest on anonymous accounts has been the compromise I've settled on. It looks like the reception for this title is very good though, so it's definitely going to get a proper announcement soon once we get some promo materials cooked up!
Damn are we among game dev royalty? 😮
Excited to see the release of the game! 😁