Re: Malise and the Machine - Public Demo Available Now!
Short version: It's amazing.
Long version: Despite my best intentions, my expectations for the demo were pretty high; I was sure I'd be disappointed... but it actually delivers on its promises. It's EXACTLY what I'm looking for in an HRPG game. Not everything's perfect, but I'm overall amazed. Here's my super exhaustive-and-way-too-big comment lists.
Positives:
- Production values are top notch. The graphics are AMAZING all the way. Enemy animations are magnificient, in a "man that thing is terrifying way". I can hardly believe that this is an RPG-Maker game. Oh, and I love Neon's design.
- I played with a controller. Works just fine.
- Interface is simply amazing. It's beautiful and works super fluidly. One of the nicest user interface I've ever seen in an RPG; better than the majority of full-price big budget retail games.
- I personally prefers the turn-based setting (thanks for making it an option!)
- Battles are actually interesting. The casting time of abilities and having an interrupt skill on Neon adds some strategy compared to the regular "bash and heal" format of most RPG Maker games; there's not much yet but it certainly bodes extremely well. Oh, and a Guard skill that's actually useful for once, yay!
- Kudos for the in-battle grapples. While at low lust they are basically ignorable as you can effortlessly break out in an instant, but it's an entirely different matter if at high lust. Do you use your free character to help out break free earlier, or do you use her to kill a low HP enemy instead or do some critical healing despite the grapple getting mighty disturbing and scary? Do you spam the hefty 30MP escape skill and leave yourself with no MP, or will she probably break free in time with the regular struggle? Pure awesome in theory, and exactly why I play H-games occasionally. That's one of the rare example of a game's mechanics being better because of the hentai elements.
- Can't comment on the story since there's really none in the demo, but the dialogs are pretty amusing, so kudos there.
- H-scene for WINNING! Hurray! I don't want to lose on purpose. My main goal in the vast majority of H-games is trying really hard in having my characters get out as intact as possible, especially when the monsters are as horrifying as in this game and it adds a lot of tension in my opinion. The problem with my approach is that it often ends up finishing an h-game and seeing 0 h-content. Here you get a detailed scene for winning and it makes sense storyline-wise. I'm definitively fine with that. Now, I'm not a fan of belly inflation or the writing during the scene, but that's just personal preference on my part and I can't in good conscience put that as a negative. Also not a fan of the "zoom-unzoom" thing in the H-scene; I understand why it's there but I don't like the effect (again, personal opinion).
- Puzzle on the map. Not an amazingly deep one of course, but I'm happy to see it. It points toward good things.
Negatives
- Part of the map is unclear. The dark part is really dark and visibility is extremely poor, especially when you add the foreground grid that blocks it even further at times. I'm also not sure how you are supposed to tell which is the 20 AMP stair and which is the 30 AMP one. The first doors states that the number and letter next to the door indicates which circuit needs to be powered (like A05). Simple enough. The problem is that the 20AMP stairs has no letter that I could see, and the 30 AMP stairs has also no letter either. I kind of randomly got it right the first try (B should come first and the color sort-of match), but still.
- While I did have a lengthy positive about the in-battle grapples, in the demo you kind of had to intentionally avoid the repair station (or intentionally delay fights I suppose) to have your lust level go up to the level where you can actually get grappled and not instant free yourself. When lust is high, you have that strategic layer to the combat that you have to deal with. The problem is that lust is never going to get high if you play normally (try to win fights efficiently, use the repair station when you pass by it). However, that's just value tweaking/stage design and that's an early game demo so I'm not really worried about this subject.
- Had 3 crashes. Didn't know about the address to e-mail you to however, and in all three cases I'm really not sure what went wrong since I redid the same thing and it didn't happen again. Sorry for being useless on that front, but I'll be doing another playthrough sometime and I'll be sure to make more notes.
- It's really short and I definitively wanted more. Ah well.
- Seeing how everything is so high quality makes me kind of worried about the game's potential length. The amount of work in getting even one completed enemy in must be astronomical. That includes absolutely terrifying background/feeling like the boss offers. The makers of this game are obviously super-talented, but it takes a lot of time and effort to make work of this quality.
With that said, I'm now a member of the Patreon at the 15$ range (I'm curious about the PDF). I'm not sure if we'll get a 100% completed version of this game one day: After seeing the quality of the game and the plans for it, it's a simply humongous undertaking and those rarely get completed... But I'm so impressed by what I've seen that I'm definitively willing to support it. It's exactly what I'm looking for in an H-game (Well... I'd like yuri elements too but I can't be too greedy), and if there's a project that deserves me taking a risk with my money, I'd say it's this one. And, well, I feel that paying by the release is a much better and safer option for us as customer than the "by month" format, so that's another plus there.
So in short, thanks for the amazing demo and take my money: you've well earned it
