Oh man, this demo is difficult, was struggling taking down one set of wolves for the sidequest, I feel id done the battle better if I actually worked up to all this job freedom
Nice. It's not as elegant as you still have to Brave first (which can be done in any submenu at least) and then ff through menus, but it's workable. Just bizarre to have a much of usability BACKTRACKS when the 3DS games flowed fairly quickly and well.
Haven't touched the demo yet but this is criticism after my own heart. Usability shit is SO IMPORTANT for JRPGs and I wish all devs of JRPGs put special attention to it.Huge fan of Bravely Default and FF in general. I spent about 4 hours leveling everything to max and completing the 3 sidequests. The optional boss did give me a fun challenge, but the battle system is definitely janky. I probably went a little overboard but here are the notes:
Equipment menu:
After equipping, don't make the player wait for the character animation to complete before allowing them to switch to another character.
Quick equip with recommended equipment should show the recommended equipment and stat changes before any confirmation/equipment swap is made. Also why is my Vanguard auto equipped with black mage staffs with an E rating? And don't let auto-equip modify the accessory setup.
Equipment menu needs to show stat summary at all times, not just when selecting a piece of equipment; maybe show most important stats summarized at bottom left corner. Item menu readily shows these stats and is clearer and better for equipping than equipment menu!
The weight mechanic debuff display needs some work. It's very difficult to figure out what the best equipment setup is when you're pushing the weight limit, as once you go overweight the stats reflect the overweight debuff so you can't tell if the equipment would be an increase/decrease if you were actually within the weight range. I'd recommend showing the normal stats at all times and if they're overweight showing the debuffed stats separately from the normal stats.
Equipment descriptive help text is disorganized with the stats listed in a run-on sentence. Consider stacking these in a list for easier reading.
Ability menu:
Why not summarize abilities the same as equipment instead of forcing an annoying "+" button press? Have the subtext appear automatically under the current selection.
Battles:
Selecting Default in the middle of a bunch of Braves immediately Defaults the entire turn and cancels everything, which is too easy to accidentally trigger (and is confusing). Either have the Default selection cancel the last Brave only, or have a confirmation box before cancelling all the Braves.
Why can't we see enemy info and status at all times and instead have to press the annoying "+" button? Seeing when an enemy is defaulting in their stats would be good too, not always easy to tell.
I'd prefer being able to see the turn order. I love the strategy it adds.
Overworld:
Camera in overworld is terrible! Always behind mountains, can't see anything. Rotating it while trying to surprise attack enemies is impossible and endlessly frustrating.
Enemies run up too quickly and my sword attack is unreliable and too short of a distance.
Enemies respawn on world map WAY too quickly! I would enjoy it more if they disappeared permanently after killing them until reloading the map.
I didn't enjoy exploring the world map in general until I leveled up enough for the enemies to run from me. Right now it's worse than having random battles, but it could be better with changes.
Towns:
Should be able to skip through NPC dialogue faster if desired.
They're very meta aware in a way that some people really hated cause it also bled into the gameplay. The first game stayed memorable with me for basically all these years despite agreeing with people about how that metaness was really rough gameplay wise but also disagreeing that without it the game would have been better. To me that was almost like a Death Stranding/Red Dead 2 kind of deal where the tedium was kind of the point.yooo the backgrounds look phenomenal!! But im more of a story person, how was the story of the first two games? Classic repetitive cliché rpg story?
Sorry, the artstyle is so ugly i can stand to play this demo.
I can't believe they thought this was ok, the first two games are among the best looking games in 3ds.
Also the performance it's not good at all.
I'm kind of sad, i was waiting to play this but didn't want to see the previews, maybe i should've, at least that way i would be less shocked by this.
You need to open the menu and save from it while standing on the glowing circle. It's just like the old-school Final Fantasy games.I stepped on the save and nothing happened, do I press something?
My prediction is that the actual game will release and people will complain about it being easy or something.
Mark my words.
Theres an optional boss???The optional boss did give me a fun challenge, but the battle system is definitely janky.
Just downloaded the demo, did I see E10+ on the Eshop though? That's worrying.
The demos for the previous games were insanely hard, too. I guess this is just something they like to do lol
Normal attacks for freelancer adds to the counter to their special skill. Some class skill like monk's default one has low hit rate but always crit if hit.Overall it seems better.
Playing each character one by one is much better than all at the same time and "see what happens".
I might get interested in the series again now.
Gonna play more of the demo.
The difficulty mostly seems to be about which areas/enemies you try to tackle too early. Pretty standard.
Btw, what's the point of normal attacks when skills are just stronger anyway and cost nothing ?
Thank you. I'd hope it has some use like in Xenoblades, to build something at least. It should always give a bit of MP back (more with skills added on top), to add some taste to it.Normal attacks for freelancer adds to the counter to their special skill. Some class skill like monk's default one has low hit rate but always crit if hit.
Sorry, the artstyle is so ugly i can stand to play this demo.
I can't believe they thought this was ok, the first two games are among the best looking games in 3ds.
Also the performance it's not good at all.
I'm kind of sad, i was waiting to play this but didn't want to see the previews, maybe i should've, at least that way i would be less shocked by this.
I'm guessing 7 wont be the max job level in the full game? Seeing as black mage doesn't have the -aga spells
My immediate impressions are that they need an option to have npc dialogue appear at once and that there's something I dont like about the character movement, it feels very imprecise.
Nice UI
I agree that it feels like you're operating blindly, but the old system was definitely not more strategic. The new system is more strategic because it is more reactive. There was no turn order in the old system either (you could guesstimate based on speed, but there was variance), so you'd just queue up your inputs and hoped your DEF debuff came before your massive attacks and so forth. For these scenarios, the new turn system is strictly better. It's slower, because you can't just queue everything up and watch, but you can adjust your strategy on the fly as the turns unfold.Also, what's up with the turn system? In the previous games, as has been said, you input commands for your entire party at once, allowing better strategizing that was less reactive. Here, you're forced to be reactive, because not only are turns individual, but there's no visible turn order, meaning you're operating blindly. Something's gotta be tweaked -- either make turn order visible, or command the party all at once.
The graphics really are a strange mix of good and bad. Some things look good, but others look too much like misshapen plastic. I don't know how much this might change before release, but I hope the graphics get some good adjustments.