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Cosmic Star Heroine for Nintendo Switch |OT| Three Planets. Fourth Platform.
- Thread starter SinCityAssassin
- Start date
Just bought the Switch version. Not sure when I'll get to it but the price was right and I like what I've seen so far.
Started this last night, good first impression. the combat system reminds me of the board game Concordia which uses the same mechanic where you can only do each thing once and have to take a turn off to refresh. It's a mechanic I like a lot, creates a good risk/reward between wanting to be efficient and not wanting to get stuck without options on an important turn.
Rise Dave's style to 100% (he has a specific skill that gives him +40 style)
Rise Dave's damage using Alyssa's magic
Debuff the boss's defense with the specific item (forgot the name) just before Dave's turn with Hyper mode
Dave in Hyper mode (third turn)
Use Dave's Dark magic (from his original shield)
Actually Sue, not long after that boss battle, netted an even higher damage lol ( > 2200)
Thanks for the info! The most I manged were 200-300.
I'll need to check the dark magic attack. I've been just using the electricity attack not sure what it is called.
Oh Zeboyd Games, I really disliked the boss battle after the escape from the base (the one with the drones that block your characters).
Those damn drones always targeted first Alyssa and Sue which were my major damage dealers, grrr!
(maybe I should have taunted them with Sue and Dave, Alyssa with her "water all" spell is a key character in that battle).
Of course it's typical boss battle where the real "pain in the ass" are the sidekick enemies instead of the big baddie so dispose them as fast as you can and you win but still "a pain in the ass" :-)
So it seems to make sense to equip Dave with a shield with better defensive stats since he is quite weak but at the same time he would lose a very powerful spell which then make you develop new strategies to offset Dave low defense (for instance using the Chahn's shield skill on Dave when in need).
Battle/skills system is really great in CSH!
Those damn drones always targeted first Alyssa and Sue which were my major damage dealers, grrr!
(maybe I should have taunted them with Sue and Dave, Alyssa with her "water all" spell is a key character in that battle).
Of course it's typical boss battle where the real "pain in the ass" are the sidekick enemies instead of the big baddie so dispose them as fast as you can and you win but still "a pain in the ass" :-)
I'm still early on but Sue skills are definitely overpowered.
What I find fascinating is that, at least early on, shields with lower defensive stats are often preferable because they have more useful tech associated.
So it seems to make sense to equip Dave with a shield with better defensive stats since he is quite weak but at the same time he would lose a very powerful spell which then make you develop new strategies to offset Dave low defense (for instance using the Chahn's shield skill on Dave when in need).
Battle/skills system is really great in CSH!
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My experience overall was great. I wish Zeboyd Games to develop more games like this! though to be very honest, I didn't like the writing style, it seemed to take everything for granted, and characters felt simplistic and one dimensional. also pacing was too fast.
but the gameplay is very fun, and the overall design is very smart.
but the gameplay is very fun, and the overall design is very smart.
Feel bad about never getting this on Vita despite looking forward to it. But I'm already playing a whole lotta RPGs this year and my backlog's big, so playing it right now's not viable either.
So I guess I'll just make sure I pick up that LRG release and play it then, hah. Hoping it does well on Switch between the digital and physical releases, though; it looks excellent.
So I guess I'll just make sure I pick up that LRG release and play it then, hah. Hoping it does well on Switch between the digital and physical releases, though; it looks excellent.
I want this soundtrack on vinyl !!!!
I know I know, probably not happening lol.
I did find the link you gave above though and gonna pay him for it if there's an option
LOL too bad I kinda like him but his kit is so mediocre when you get him.
I just know Dead Cells was up there like the day after it released. I get that CSH is probably more niche than that, but surely it should at least be in the top 30 for download-only? Really weird.
Reached New Rhomu and holy shit THAT MUSIC.
Amazing. I basically talked to literally everyone in there just to stay longer there.
One thing though, I got the voucher for the tailorbot, but I talk to him and nothing happens.
Amazing. I basically talked to literally everyone in there just to stay longer there.
One thing though, I got the voucher for the tailorbot, but I talk to him and nothing happens.
His main deal is providing cover for your other characters through taunts, making it easier to control which enemy attacks who, disarm, making the next attack for an enemy deal half damage, and later on, around lvl 33, get's a very effective physical attack. I love him right now, and find him a cornerstone of my party, but he takes a while before he does more then take damage.
Oh, and after Five turns, he gets his hyper Every TWO Turns. That means he's pretty much at double effectiveness half his turns, if you play him good.
I also LOVE Clarke, first character on the second planet. He's goofy, but also consistently Devastating, and has plenty of unique support options, like buffing everyone's defend actions, sprinkling a little extra style on everyone, blowing up and dying, healing everyone and dying, and my favourite, am electrical attack that get's better and better each use in battle until it's the most powerful attack you can possibly use! And a unique debuff that stacks it's damage!
I have to commend the whole team on this game, it's positively Breathtaking in all regards, music, art, Especially Gameplay, kudos!
He's the best target for the Hyperizer (an item that boosts one character to Hyper mode instantly) since after his first Hyper, he gets Hyper every 2 turns.
Oh cool. I get that he is a nice controller and tank early on so I guess I'll stick with him for now.
Thanks for the tip. I usually don't get him to go hyper mode so this will help a lot. I take it that all characters are pretty balanced and all of them are usable?
Not when there are better candidates for that item, plus he doesn't have any good skills :P (Actually I don't even use that item in my optimised party)
An optimised party end game will kill everything in 2 turns, and Finn doesn't make it in that team. So as I said earlier, don't bother with Finn.
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I picked up the game and really like the look and the music, but the combat is something that I just can't deal with. Enemies do a bunch of damage and there's no real way to mitigate that. I've died a couple of times so far. Maybe there's something fundamental I don't know which is making this more difficult. Having to burn a round to get abilities back is probably my hangup, but I'm a little disappointed, because I was so excited to play this. I might give it another go later this week, but right now I don't think it's a game for me.
What difficulty are you playing on? Sounds like Ike you aren't fully utizilizing all the Battle mechanics and finding it overly hard. I wish I knew specifically what you were struggling with... Did you upgrade your shield? Are you using your Items and Programs? Are you using your Hyper to strategize around hitting enemeis weakness on that turn?
I would say this is an offensive orientated strategy game, you need to be constantly prepping for what your going to do on your Hyper turn.
I don't fully understand that system and I feel like the game doesn't really explain what that's all about. I don't even know how to tell what that hyper is. Perhaps this system just isn't for me...and honestly, I'm okay with that. As long as I ended up supporting the game, then that's good enough for me.
I can't remember what difficulty. Might be the one up from the bottom.
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Just keep playing around with the system. They have something in the game that explains how different things work in battle like stats and status or what not. I believe it is somewhere in the menu.
Yeah man, if you're not understanding the Hyper/Style system, then game WILL be no fun and it will seem like enemies are damage sponges and yeah... it just won't be fun.
Let me break down this video I made:
0:01-0:10 -
If you look at the character portrait in the top left corner, you'll see My character right now has two blue boxes, out of three possible. When that 3rd box is lit (yellow) that means I will deal double damage on that turn. So in this turn, I DO not attack because I want my next attack to deal double damage. In the previous turn I used the FOCUS command on this character, and she will attack all enemies on her next turn. I want her to attack enemies while she is on her Hyper Turn, so I choose the guard command instead of attacking here.
You'll notice under my HP of "60", is the 35% number. That's your "style" percentage. From 1-100% it will deal additional damage accordingly. After 100% you won't get anymore additional damage. Later on in the game, the guard command will "level up" and you will also be able to build Style % when you guard. That doesn't happen in this video, since I am early in the game. But the point remains: Guard/Heal/Buff/Build Style is the best strategy when you're not in a Yellow Style turn. Usually.
0:11-0:20
Okay now it's Alyssa's (the main character) turn. You see she's glowing yellow. That means whatever attack I do will deal double damage. I dliberately make a bad move here and choose to Buff an additional character instead of attack. You DO NOT get additional buff or healing when you do a skill during your Hyper turn. I pretty much burned a Hyper Turn here by not attacking. You generally should NOT do this. It would've been better for me to attack, but I wanted to buff my dude for his next turn when he's going to Hyper.
0:20-0:30
Alright, now my dude is Hyper as well and I use a Lightning attack on a monster because his weakness is Lighting and I one shot him. That's generally what you should do. Think ahead and plan to use a Weakness attack on enemies when your character is in the Hyper Yellow turn.
It then goes back to my next character and she's in Hyper Turn now, and the video ends. I finish off the remaining enemies by using her general attack move because it deals double damage, and since I used Focus on an earlier turn, it will attack all enemies.
That's like the basic flow of battle. There is a Tutorial mode in the Menu that explains all of this, I just wanted to give you a visual. It took me a few hours before I really figured it all out. I didn't get into ITEMS and PROGS, but you'l want to use those too in battle, don't forget about them! It's all about setting up buff/debuff and attacking enemy Weakness on your Hyper turns.
... I hope that helps!
I've been checking every day and it doesn't look like we're going to break the top 30 unless something big changes.
Thanks for the information. Your video is great. Unfortunately, I'm not all that interested in a complicated combat system like this. No offense to anyone. I don't really have the time to delve into it like some folks and I'm not interested in doing so. I can't really get into Octopath Traveler for the same reason. Still, I'll let some friends know about this game and maybe a few of them will jump in since they're into classic RPGs with an interesting combat system. I'd like to see the game succeed even if it's not really something I want to commit to right now.
Octopath and Cosmic's battle systems are some of the funnest I've experienced in the genre in a long while. They both focus on the setup to exploit opportunities for maximum damage. If that's not your cup of tea, then they might not be for you. I think I got the hang of it after the first hour and have been having a ball so far; disappointed it's not doing better on the eshop.
What you dont like is what i love about the game. I love the challenge on hard mode. And it happens immediately. Not hours into the game.
I don't get it. This game should be killing it on the platform that Octopath sold so well on. It's only $15 too. Makes no sense.
Such a shame that this is not charting. Currently promoting it to my local FB community to at least convince some to buy it.
I understand that and that's great. I'm not trying to get the game changed because I'm not interested in that kind of gameplay. Glad you guys are having fun.
Because it's all about promotion specially for indies. If a game didn't get featured on a direct or a tweet from a million follower account then it's hard for it to get traction. Word of mouth of non famous users like us could only get you so far.
It's all about visibility. The game was on the top of the New Releases list for a day or two in the middle of the week & then a flood of new releases knocked it off the top. No mention or promotion of the game by the platform holder and we've only had one big (100k+ subscribers) youtube channel cover the Switch release so far.
In contrast, Octopath Traveler has been heavily promoted by Nintendo for months including 2 highly publicized free demos. I mean, it's literally a 1st party published title so of course, they're going to promote it, but it should be obvious that a small indie team like ours doesn't have that kind of marketing muscle unless a platform holder decides they want to promote us.
Dead Cells had already sold around a million copies on PC by the time the Switch version came out so it was very well known AND it was officially coming out of early access when the Switch version launched. Cosmic Star Heroine's combined sales across all platforms is well under 100k so it's much less known.
Nintendo promoted Hollow Knight heavily at E3 with a "It's out NOW!" announcement at their press conference.
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HK was on E3 direct, it doesn't get bigger than that. Plus it was on PC for a year where many big YouTubers like Joseph Anderson or Mark Brown featured it in videos. Funny enough if you check hollow Knight kickstarter it got like $60k which was not that impressive relatively speaking
I'm not too familiar with Dead Cells history but I know Dead Cells was on early access where it got plenty of visibility.
Off course I'm not discounting each game own appeal where Youtubers/influencers decide to pick a game and how that usually snowballs into popularity.
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Dead Cells is a long-running PC-famous indie, it doesn't need a direct to sell. Especially since it got major free advertising from leaving early access just as it launched on all consoles.
Not to mention that nearly every gaming podcast was discussing Dead Cells because it was out on everything at the same time, and has a long history already.
Getting promotion from certain outfits is good, but also I think the aesthetic and feel of the game is important too. It's something I've been trying to improve with my own game but I think I'm too far in at this point to do anything about it. I've been trying to get people to give the game a shot, but by looking at it doesn't draw people in like something like Dead Cells or Octopath. Not sure if it's nod to Phantasy Star is good enough of a draw for people. I don't know, man. I'll still promote it when I can, in any case. But I think I'll be in the same situation when my game releases next year....
I bought Stardew Valley instead of this and I instantly regret it, can't get into that game no matter how hard I try. Will be picking this up at some point this week. Fair to say that if I enjoyed Octopaths battle system I should enjoy this one's?
Aesthetics definitely matter, especially if they are striking (Dead Cells, Shovel Knight). But some games also just have a slow boil to success (Hollow Knight).
Hollow Knight was a very subdued initial craw (its a tiny kickstarter by most standards and its initial launch was very... small?) but it developed because of promotion/exposure from big channels, and slowly boiled on PC upward into fame. It's art style is, I'd say, actually something of a weakness on a first glance or even the first while with the game because its very subdued, bleak, and depressing.
I think getting a big voice on the game that gives it a lot more reach is very, very important in this day and age. I don't even know if promotion is going to really break a game's successes or not. Bomb Chicken and other indies were in multiple Directs or ads but Bomb Chicken doesn't seem to have succeeded (or at least not exceptionally so, and it didn't show up in the top 30 until a discount) because it kinda... didn't have any real pick-up from YouTubers or otherwise.
Being a well known indie dev also helps, of course. Once established the following of a fanbase is established and it propagates.
Well hopefully the little sales here and there can help you guys in the long run. CSH is very, very good and I hope to see more in the future!
Hollow Knight was a very subdued initial craw (its a tiny kickstarter by most standards and its initial launch was very... small?) but it developed because of promotion/exposure from big channels, and slowly boiled on PC upward into fame. It's art style is, I'd say, actually something of a weakness on a first glance or even the first while with the game because its very subdued, bleak, and depressing.
I think getting a big voice on the game that gives it a lot more reach is very, very important in this day and age. I don't even know if promotion is going to really break a game's successes or not. Bomb Chicken and other indies were in multiple Directs or ads but Bomb Chicken doesn't seem to have succeeded (or at least not exceptionally so, and it didn't show up in the top 30 until a discount) because it kinda... didn't have any real pick-up from YouTubers or otherwise.
Being a well known indie dev also helps, of course. Once established the following of a fanbase is established and it propagates.
Well hopefully the little sales here and there can help you guys in the long run. CSH is very, very good and I hope to see more in the future!
Yeah, ultimately I think our elevator pitch (game concept, title, first impressions, overall quality, etc.) just isn't strong enough for the game to be an indie blockbuster. It's a good game that some people love and many aspects are very strong, but getting people to check it out in the first place can be difficult. I'm still hopeful that the Switch version will sell enough to fund development of the next game. And I think our next game has a much better shot at grabbing people's attention: Rx Machina (Memorable title that's easy to remember) and the quick pitch "The doctor recommends more mechs" or the longer pitch "It's Persona crossed with Trauma Center crossed with Mechs crossed with original turn-based gameplay."
I'll support your game Edarkness. Good luck on getting it released.
Your next game sounds great. More mechs are always awesome. Will the battle system be the same as CSH?