Just finished playing the demo
Over all very good! the story is very interesting and dialogues are good. I liked the character art and the music. I think the sprites look good and I really like that each character have their own victory dance, little details like that are what helps define the characters from a visual point of view... Also I like that Taven "pushed her way into your party", instead of just joining you, that made me smile (
very Chrono Cross-ish).
Now some small observations:
I couldn't find any important bug, just some little details with collisions here and there, for example:
Here the characters can get behing the globe.
In this place there is an invisible barrier, you can't walk over it.
The floor texture in this area here was a little distracting visually, maybe too noisy...once I got used, it didn't bother me at all, but at first it was distracting. I know is based upon the Cursed Woods graphics, but I think in black and white the texture is
heavier on the eye (ugh, I don't know if I'm making any sense with that...>_> I'm not fluent in english)
I like the way the end of time graphics were used for the Zeal Falls scenary. The only thing that bothered me was this bridge, it looks good, but since the characters don't walk diagonally and it's very long, it's difficult to transit through it without stopping a couple of times.
In this part I actually clicked the switch like three times because I thought it didn't do anything, then I moved north and noticed the door. I think maybe after you press the switch, it could be good to add a sound of a door opening or something indicating that something had happened out of your range of vision.
On the battle sequences I think it should be more evident which enemy is attacking you, I know the enemy in question flashes briefly, but it is so briefly I didn't noticed it at first and during the first fight I didn't get who was attacking me. I'm not saying there need to be fully animated sequences for each enemy attack, but maybe a more evident effect? moving the sprite slightly or using an arrow to indicate the attacker.
The Golem was though(but not impossible) the first time I played it, but when i played the level again, and explored the whole woods and equiped all the tabs, the Golem was a piece of cake.
I really don't know anything about balancing battle stats and stuff like that, but are Earthbound characters going to gain some kind of technic equivalent to the aura eventually? Not having one could be a disadvantage for them compared with the other characters. I did not feel Rush was strong enough to compensate his lack of aura, but i may be wrong.
All of these are observations from my point of view, and from a first playthrough perspective
Frankly I think the game does work pretty well the way it is already, and it looks very promising. Very good work!
