Very good work. Though, there are issues. You have good graphics. I liked the sketch storyboard. Perhaps voiceactors would have been more enjoyable, though. As for the music, there really needed to be a mute button. Also, the movement lag and especially the AWFUL combat lag made this a fun game, but a chore to play. Also, the last 3 enemies didn't even attack me. Probably a glitch, but worth noting.
Reviews for "Relic"
First, I really enjoyed the game. In my review I will focus in details on the weak points I felt that you could improve greatly. I'll simplify by review by the following points:
Pros:
1. Pleasant artworks
2. Fast paced battle and storyline, no feeling of drag
3. customizable characters
4. dynamic battle system
Cons:
1. No inn. This may not be as bad as it sounds as one could still heal through potions. However, it is tedious to heal one by one, including mana, after taking damages, using skills, and after adding points to stamina and/or magic. Also, the rooks one receives after each battle is quite small (not sure if it's true in the late game as I'm only just done with the ruins).
2. Battle Animation. It seems, especially for Coal, that damages appear even before the character's attack animation hits the target, thus giving a sense of a lag of the attack animation.
3. Battle System. This reminds me of FF7 in which you could turn the battle into complete real time. However, this is definitely not for everyone, as player needs time to scroll to find magic or item or even target to attack. And while enemy attacks in real time, allies take turn-based attack! That kind of defeats of purpose of a real time battle mechanics since enemies have the advantage of attacking 2 times before you cycle through to your main attacker after wasting time with the weak physical attacker such as the alchemist. If you want a real time battle mechanics, then make it for your allies to and allow player to freely switch between characters who are ready to take actions. That gives player much more freedom in strategy.
4. No hot keys. Real time battle mechanics is not bad, but it's worse when the game is completely mouse based. As mentioned in the previous point, player has to waste time finding the right command and click. With hot keys, players could plan what he/she wanted to do and when character is ready just use the hotkey to execute the action.
5. Batlte menu. When character is ready to take turn, player will see the menu slowly scrolls up, wasting precious time as battle is in real time (this, along with many other cons, makes the whole real time mechanics really horrible choice). Get rid of it, just make it appear instead of rolling up.
6. Stats/Description. The statistics part of the menu is too simplified. There are other hidden stats such as evade rate, maybe hit rate (though I haven't seen my character missing), magic attack effectiveness/multiplier. And for the equipment description, player should be able to click on the currently equipped items to see its effects. Right now one has to take it off to the inventory to see its description.
7. Bestiary. It's a good idea to include a bestiary in the menu so one could check the ones that are scanned. You should check out matt-likes-swords' Epic Battle Fantasy 3 to get some inspirations. A good bestiary makes players exploit enemies weakness much easier. Also, if you want the players to use different equipments for diff enemies, allow them to freely switch equipments during a battle. Else how could one exploit certain special effects against certain enemies if one doesn't know who he/she will run into next.
8. Stat points. It is great to be able to customize characters, but each character seem to receive different amount of benefits for each addition stat point. Some are obvious or told in game: guardians receive extra HP for each stamina. But some are more hidden (like dex). Tell players what they're getting out of it, otherwise freedom of customization is just as blind as one without it.
Hope this helps and I look forward to your updates and future works.
Hyptosis responds:
Thanks for the detailed feedback, I'll try to do better next time.
Well.. the game itself is actually quite good but when i got to the shops there was only a potion shop and no armory shop which was really depressing, animation was also really good, i also got some armor in the chest but when i checked none of the characters had any of them which bugged me, so ill give this game a 4 star for good music, animation and story, keep it up with these kinds of games :)
Controls don't work. I try to move and the character will either run in one direction continously while i press keys unresponsively. or the character just run around wildy while i try to control the direction like a bucking bronco/bull. I wasn't able to play any of the game due to this
Wasn't really able to play the game...
I pressed the menu button (after I uncovered its existence!), and immediately after the game froze. At first I thought "Thank god I saved just before that!" (This is the first village's save point), but when I refreshed, my game had not been saved and was lost (unless I was supposed to press enter while on the circle to save, in which case I'm being kind of retarded, but upon which clarification would have been nice in-game). I can't rate the game since I did not play it all though, and it would be nice if you could fix the problem. i don't think I'll be playing it again though.