I really struggled with the controls at first. I'm not one to read tutorial because I like to figure things out on my own, but it took me a measurable amount of time to find what buttons did what. If anything, I would recommend standardizing the keyboard inputs or adding mouse support with on screen buttons. If I wasn't multiple Miller Lite deep on a Monday night I'd keep playing. I wish you the best! 

Pretty interesting combat system. But it can be pretty slow with all the missing and enemies' turns feel like they too long. Cool portraits.

The pixelated snow looks very out of place, and the shadows casting from it are very weird.

Enemies keep using their adrenaline move when they're full HP instead of hitting you which seems very weird.

Looks like the impale move keeps "gliding" off enemies and not hitting them - without a miss message.

Enemies need a lot better pathfinding, keep getting stuck on each other and even straight walls.

You and enemies can hit through walls.

Enemies can get obscured by walls in some situations, would be nice if they got outlines or something.

The enemies endlessly spawning in the doorways felt pretty "gamey" and off, especially when you got through to the other side and they kept spawning there.

The save system seems pretty odd, only saving when changing area? But maybe this is just a demo thing.

It crashed as I ran out of the building with one unit, a dialogue started (one was still in the house) and then it crashed right here:

I love the art style of the portraits, and the combat system is enjoyable. But the NPCs can't seem to tell where terrain obstacles are (the sides of a bridge, walls). Even the following character had difficulty going over the bridge; it seemed to be stuck navigating off the end of the bridge and rapidly walked back and forth in place, but it eventually worked itself out. 



In one battle, something happened during the Enemy turn that caused the camera to zoom out. I don't believe I touched Page Up, so I'm not entirely sure why the camera zoomed out. 

Also, I don't know if this is intended behavior for this release, but when you press Page Down you level up.

 

Linux pikaos:

Coudln't pass the main menu as I cannot press start game or quit. No log nor error when started with console. 

im running on i5-1030h capped at 2.5ghz with integrated graphics at 1080p which should explain the technical issues

in combat i keep moving then trying to scroll one option lower to attack but defend instead because of the option shifting down to attack automatically - im sure thats something to be used to, but being able to cancel a defense the same way you cancel a move would be nice to have

the ranger enemy keeps shooting at me through its teammates and the soldier keeps walking up in melee range just to heal himself
also, at one point the soldier enemy seemed to be stuck walking in place for a couple seconds but he snapped out of it eventually and the fight went on

at the gate fight vs 4 enemies my sword swing that covers two enemies would hit only one - spear attacks in the same fight hit both
i thought thats just the quirk of the sword but at the fight down south next to a horse the sword hit both too

after a fight ends it freezes for a moment - longest one was when i killed two enemies with a crit swing and the other guy leveled something up

when i walked inside the mansion the game fps dropped harshly and dialogue started to be delayed (was relatively smooth up to that point in all other areas)
during the fight that happens next all attacks stopped connecting, except for an enemy healing themselves once (it went through with the healing number showing up only once out of 5 heals) 

at some point when alt-tabbed the walls stopped being see-through? maybe it happened earlier or was caused by something in the game itself, not sure

i tried running it in windowed at the lowest resolution provided but that didnt help the delay, fight still didnt register any hits - it almost feels like it draws the game at full resolution first, then scales it down, saving no compute at all - just a hunch
also theres no way to option the settings menu during a fight or in the main menu

its fun overall though and i wish i could enjoy it fully 

This definitely starts differently to the last time I played, in medias res rather than just strolling around an encampment.

I really like the way the near-side wall fades out as you approach underground. Though in combat it didn’t work properly, I was trying to get the fellas through a doorway but there was a soldier in there that I couldn’t see and that seemed to stop the fadeout from kicking in.

Am I missing something or are Alexander and YellowJacket equipped with each other’s headgear?

When opening up the trait menu, the text from last time persists even though the options have moved around. It also really needs a full border to tie it in properly, maybe even a drop shadow too.

Character cycling doesn’t work in the Skill menu.

I did exactly what Alexander suggested and ran back into the room with the witch broom to use the door as a choke. Really disappointed then that enemies ignore the walls and can just hit through them anyway, but then I just abused that to have Yellow Jacket constantly use the silver breath weapon all the time.

Really not a fan of the parrying/critical stuff, I hope it’s not crucial to beating the game. Especially as the damage numbers show up like a tenth of a second before the animation actually connects meaning the timing has to be picked up through trial and error instead of intuition.

The pathfinding on the enemies could use some work, and they sometimes heal when I swear they should be attacking. But I didn’t get any softlocks like I did last time. Only thing I would add would maybe be a way to change your facing after moving, either by holding down like R2 or just using the right stick.

Some of the UI styling could use another polish and juice pass. The way the Square menu just splits its border up to open submenus doesn’t look too appealing. I think you’d still want to leave a thinner border behind like it’s a piece of machinery moving along a track.

Bitching aside, I quite like it. Pleased that the showcase combat encounter is actually quite tough. The respawning enemies made me think it was a supposed to lose fight and I was surprised that they eventually stopped.

To answer Mosca’s query: I figured out the controls the first time and this time did some experimentation with what was in the act menus. I thought it made sense but I often massively overestimate how much players can figure out just from trying to play because I’m thinking of the hardcore sweats that know the game better than the dev does and not the average silent majority type that doesn’t post on the internet.

I also think the scenario is a perfectly good set up for a demo. More is always better but this gives a very good taste of what the game is about. I say do it.

Really intuitive turn based tactics/strategy RPG. Interesting stuff, especially the aesthetic. I would appreciate having to confirm my defends as I accidentally triggered them a couple of times. Keen to see where you go with it next