Finished it ! Osman, we need to talk. O_O
(I'm going to be very thorough on this one. If you think I focus too much on details or that is starts to bore you openly, please do not mind)
(also spoiler)
During this playthrough, I've been up to :
-5 hours of playtime
-1 continue
-score : 598200 in Main story, 626900 in NG+
This one being pretty tough, arguably your Magnum Opus, let's divide it in four sections :
Gameplay :
There's a lot of potential, and you're close to reach it. The mechanic works even if OpenBOR wasn't intended for such a gameplay at all, and is pleasant to playthrough. The devil's in the details, however. Please keep in mind that this gameplay being really specifically scripted, I may suggests things to you that are not even possible. Disregard it then :
-the passive mod has no utility, and ends up being more of an hindrance having to switch back to battle mode each time I summon an unit
-more that anything, the strategic aspect of this strategy game is just too shallow ! There's no reliefs, barely any ways to place your units, your commander is a complete bullet sponge(each soldier could be nuking it using a LGM-118A Peacekeeper MIRV that it would still not budge) and potions drops like crazy(never once did my health turned red or did I cleared a level in less than 90 seconds), so I do not feel any tension while playing. They are a few thing that I would suggest to you in order to change that : add natural relief like barrier, flood slowing down your units, slopes, trees to the battleground. If possible, add a quick camera spanning all the level from right to left, so that the player attempts to memorize the level layouts and advance producing its units according to it. Allow orders to your units(most notably line with melee in front and range in back and square with range in the middle and melee around). Reduce greatly the health of your commander and modify the passive mode so that enemies doesn't target your commander but your units when you activate it. That way, the player balances his health/damage by fighting until his health runs lows, but not too low in order to avoid getting killed by an enemy shot while retreating. If you can't do that, at least add some decorations to the battlefield with items that drops when your commander is getting close in passive mode, making them "explore" the field in order to get some bonus. Finally, switch some potions items with items for your units, like general health/zone health or temporary attack/speed boost, and make them vanish over time, to put a little sense of urgency in picking them.
-saying the strategy is too shallow implies there is a hint of it, the game's not completely brainless : some levels have enemy often spawning behind your back so that's a good idea to have a bit of mana each time you move. But even that hint has its problems, as the units and bosses IA is incredibly dumb so many of them just focus on the first enemy they meet and doesn't turn even if there's a dozen pummelling it behind their back. I would consider making them target the weakest/most numerous enemy around them, that should turn out okay.
-Also, levelling up happen often, and that completely refills your mana and allow you to spam your units. However, as the score isn't marked, I have no idea when I'm about to level up or not, so there's no way I can plan a rush/retreat to go to the next level and spam my units. I would suggest giving the player a bar that grows as you're about to level up or making the score visible and telling them during the tutorial than once every ____ points they get to level up and spam their units.
-there's no strategy to choosing your units, while it doesn't even have to be this way : usually, every units has balanced damage/speed/health/cost, but they're basically uncontrollable separately, so specialized units aren't interesting. I've played the game and just spammed the most recent units obtained during levels and I was fine. And after trying with New Game +, I can assure you : the whole game is beatable with the base unit only. As balancing commander fight/loot is a important mechanic of the game, I suggest making units that influences the drops of your enemy or leave some when they die(i.e. peasants/bandits looting riches, alchemists looting potion, priestess looting bonus), that would add some variety.
-talking about thing that I didn't understand, I have no idea ho did my commander's special attack worked. Seems random to me.
-let's talk about the timer, because you struck gold with this thing : it actually put a spin on the RTS style by giving you a sense of urgency with a fix number of units, and I think that's something that can make your game special, and the most important mechanic of this game after the commander modes and the unit summon. However, you're being far too generous by completely restoring the timer with the clock bonus and make its collecting feels more like homework than an advantage because they are in plain sight. Please consider giving shorter bonus under different conditions, like a random drop or something obtainable by walking through the environment as I said earlier.
-I think that you tried to make your New Game + an arcade mode, a legacy mode with all the alpha sprites and a hard mode all in one. Turns out it doesn't works, and ends up feeling like a mess more than anything. I advise you to make that three distinct modes, with Arcade accessible from the beginning.
Long story short, of course I like your gameplay ! There's just a bit more to do with it and the game will be great. I particularly insist that you should be reworking the passive mode, the relief and the units placement if your want your game to be better.
Presentation :
-you art was born for this ! It feels so much at home, here ! There's some inconsistencies, most notably with the flashbacks, but not much more than that.
-the symphonic aspect of Symphonia Battalion's really light : there's a namedropping near the end and a clef in the HUD, but nothing more. I would suggest basing the game identity more around time, naming it "Time attackers" or "Blitz Battalion".
-the lifebars really are an improvement. However, having the damage appear in only one color makes the battlefield hard to read. If possible, coloring enemy damage in red would be welcome.
-we need to talk about copyrights, osman. So, around here, there seems to be a tolerance about ripped sprite usage even without credits when it comes from a big company(though Rescue Palooza's set up to say otherwise). However, using the character of Dracula as well as his level and legacy from Castlevania(can't believe you namedropped Transylvania in a cinematic as Symphonia's a fantasy world btw), and more importantly, the shovel knight by Sean Velasco without mentioning him or his studio in the module's description is not okay from my point of view. Did you ask him ? I know him to be a tolerant and pacific guy, but if he doesn't like it at all, I fear it will cause trouble for you as well as for all of us here ! Please be careful, about other but mostly yourself.
-Futhermore, there is a right amount to a parody in a video game. When I see recognizable item or character in the background, when characters namedrops other licenses and people react like "No, I'm not him/here, it's my cousin ! Me, I'm -" or softly attract attention to their mechanic like Ethyr doing the tutorial or that wolves are controlled by a little bell makes me smirk. However, when I'm playing along characters for a few levels(i.e. Dracula and Shovel Knight mentioned earlier) that are not jokes, not parodies with a silly name and redone sprite, that barely talk about themselves and doesn't even recognize they come from a different game or when your characters breaks the 4th wall using C4 like "If you want to do that, press the A button" "What A button ?" "The player will understand" or a dancing spanish Ganon arena appears out of nowhere, that just feels lazy and cringe.
-the game is done(twice), and I still have no clue what on earth are these blue and red spheres falling out of the sky as "bonus". Giving some context to that would be nice. If not, having chests would make more sense.
-the cave and rail mission are god tier though.
-some cinematic sprites aren't properly cleansed, there's still some with pixel around it.
Story :
-the story goes nicely
for the most part and follows a natural evolution. Your characters are okay. Back units(characters incarnating units) are poorly treated however, the priestess or the knight not being introduced and the "romance" between the knight and the archer not even being resolved at the end of the story are low points(what was the point of even introducing that romance then ? It lasted just one cutscene !)
-the cutscenes and the illustrations are good and sets up a good tone. There's a little weird choice when texts cannot be fastforwarded, just skipped, but some comic-likes cutscenes require to press enter in order to continue. Know what I mean? With how heavy on text is this game, I think it would be better if every dialogues could be fastforwarded like this last one.
-A huge problem that I have with your story is the night between Luna and Shion. Let's be clear, romance is pertinent here, and I would have been fine with an artwork of the two characters naked under a blanket holding each other(even the one currently there kissing each other is fine. The thing is..you already set up the mood pretty bad by showing Luna thinking out loud "the moon is beautiful tonight" and not showing the moon at all but Luna arching her back from behind(man, that's just demeaning to everyone involved). But you went ahead and
included in your supposedly GBA-feel like game an implicit sex scene by depicting the face of your main character as she reached orgasm in a special artwork ! You even recorded a woman screaming from pleasure alongside it ! Osman, that's just creepy ! No joke, I've seriously considered deleting the game here and never meeting you again after this because that's so out of place it becomes offensive. That's your art, alright, but I strongly urge to you to add "nudity" and "imagery implicitly depicting sexual content" as disclaimers to your post in order to be careful and attentionate. It just caught me off-guard and makes it a very bad moment overall.
-Luna being done dirty is also a problem I have with the ending ; the twist hasn't been foreshadowed enough to make an impact, Ethyr is wrong and Luna is right that's just obvious from the get-go but I still gota sit for more than ten minutes of her monologuing before the ultimate showdown(I started grabbing my smartphone and play some Gorilla Online waiting for the cutscene to be finished at that point), Luna saying "Why do you makes me suffer ? Is it because you're jealous of Shion and me ?" coming from a 19 years old wise paladin to a century and a half old elf erasing mankind from existence is just pathetic, demeaning and out of character, and it's impossible to take "Dracula's curse" seriously in the first place when it's not even from your game. I would suggest making a flashback level where you control only Ethyr with Elementals/Wisps/Golem fighting against knights/archers/catapults trying to claim the lagoons before fusing with it and placing here the seeds of her twist would be much smarter. Finally, off with Dracula and create your own generic demon lord, no one's gonna get angry if you do that !
-Naked Ethyr as a final boss..I like her design, although there's no reason for here to be naked, let's just say it doesn't matter. I'm fine with that.
Bugs & Issues :
-when your commander see a potion far from him he's gonna take it, sometime causing a good 5-seconds delay when you're wanting him to attack.
-your units are gonna focus the blue and red ball when they're falling on screen, not damaging it, even if they are enemies currently attacking them.
-the dragon challenge level has a bug when you rush it, a dragon not respawning inside the screen if you go too fast, preventing all following ennemies to spawn and the level to be completed.
View attachment 3876
-the boss bar health is cool, but some of them don't go up to the far right before heading back.
-units can be summoned during the first soul eraser cutscene against Dracula. I just had fun and filled the screen with dragons in consequence. :3
-your commander doesn't have their mana maxed out at the beggining of Dracula battles in New Game +, I have to wait for it to generate.
-finishing NG+ shows "You have unlocked the home cinema mode" again while it seems it should have been "you have unlocked Circus mode" instead. Although, after having played this mode, I still have no idea what it is about.
And that's all ! Thank you for your time, Osman. Hope those words will bear fruits. Having followed your work, I care to tell you that I would gladly help you translate your text in english, just ping me. Not from spanish to english(because I speak spanish like an italian cow), but from engrish to english ! x)
We'll have our differencies as I'm know sure I strongly dislike the way you represent women in your games(pm me if you want to talk about it), but I'll be gladly supporting you this way. I'm on Discord most often ! ^^
