Re: Paladin of the Sky, new full length audio game RPG
Well I admit I was a little late to the party on this one due to being very busy on Thursday, then leaving on friday for a weekend with my parents away and no laptop.
First, congratulations on making such a major and complex game with great locations and story, and an obviously well thought out world. I'm quite taken with the many areas to explore and items to find, and I definitely like the combo system for spells, particularly how it took getting used to.
On thoughts with the general game, the only mechanical matter I'd like to see added is a "have I visited here before" key, with the areas being so large it's often difficult to know where you've been especially with no coordinates While I appreciate that exploring is part of the game, knowing when you've been somewhere and when not would at least let players explore in a more focused way. I spent about five levels on one particular area, and I suspect part of that was retreading old groundd. While the wall function is great, it would be nice to have a little more to go on especially when things get complex and mazelike.
Other than that, things are great, I especially like the music and setup of characters who speak lines and things that happen, very much the feeling of games like the Ff series on that one.
Now, I'm afraid I do have some hopefully constructive comments to make, bare in mind I'm well impressed with the game, ---- heck with the amount of games I've played anything that holds my attention solidly for three hours definitely gets points.
First, the combat system.
i like the scrolls and combos and the fact that they're hard to learn, I also like the idea of needing to compensate to characters' strengths with buying upgrades. however I did get to a point where combat got a bit too grindy. Dragon strike scrolls always seemed the best option, so combat became an exercise in learning the combos for those scrolls. That was fine, however once my ceribrum grabbed what to do and I could pull off perfect oblivian dance or energy burst 9 times out of ten, I was doing exactly the same action each round, particularly sinse the spells I found didn't seem to have any other affects accept damage.
Some elemental damage, buffs or affect spells would be great, as would be some options to make weapon combat useful. one thing that made the ff games as complex as they were was an elemental weakness system and huge amounts of variable weapons, and items. I do gather from the different damage ranges I get when using the same spell on different monsters, that there is some degree of variation in enemies, however, I was never in a case where any other combat tactics were best than chucking in the best dragon strikes I had, once I learnt to use them efficiently. Likewise, sinse I had no other characters to chip away at the enemies in battle, or curses to take effect, the defensive actio n seemed pretty pointless, again it was a case of throw best spell at monster.
if bubuffs, elements, curses, extra weapons or the like come in later on in the game, sinse I have only just finished the demo, then fare enough, but given that when I finished one character was level 12 and the other level 13, I would've slightly expected to see something other than just chucking the best dragon strike as I said.
Secondly, (and more majorly), I really like the world, setting and story and it certainly has the feel of a console rpg. however, the one thing I didn't like was the descriptive language, ---- or lack there of.
I didn't know who any of the npcs were, get an idea what they looked like, same with the environments, indeed I'm still not sure whether the ""wing being a simulation of the outside" meant it was some sort of natural setting, or whether it was actually simulation of the ship in space with stars outside. same goe s for enemies, i'd have loved to know what "a scarlot thief" or "A fat murderer" actually were, (particularly when I ran into the weerder creatures later on
In many ways the game dialogue read more like a game script of a graphical game, than the descriptive text for a completely audio rpg, which to be honest I found slightly disappointing. Phrases like "flashback" or "our viewpoint is of a bloody battle ground" just didn't do much for atmosphere, and I'd love such a fascinating location as the paladin to get it's due in descriptive text, ditto with various characters.
I appologise if this sounds harsh, but if your going to include text in a game, you really should use it, especially sinse it can often provide extra atmosphere. Indeed with the awsomeness of the game's music highlighting locations, the text could be extremely effective.
I will confess I thought something the same in Adventure a t C, despite the good mechanics and editable levels, though I hoped this would be sorted for the next game.
I'm now going to buy the full version, and I really look forward to seeing where the story goes, how my characters progress etc, and of course getting the free gifts .
so, all in all very well done, this is certainly going to be on my favourites list.
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