Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Viewing most recent comments 1 to 3 of 174 · Next page · Last page
(2 edits)

Originally I had planned on writing my review after beating the tower of mist, but I’m not sure how long that’s going to take me. Thus, I’ve decided to Review what I’ve experienced in the game so far, which should be most of the content.

I also can’t let Kabooo00m be the only one to write a long form review for this game.

Graphics

The sprite work impressed me, and is  the main reason why I gave this game a shot despite it not being something I normally play. I’m still in disbelief that none of the characters (that I’ve closely looked at) have any real shading. It’s all line work and flat colors. The backgrounds are gorgeous and most of the effects look solid. The city fog and how Kotone drips with water when she comes out of a wet environment are neat little details. Graffiti magic is unique and one of the more stylish twists I’ve seen on elemental magic. It’s a small complaint, but the HUD could be better. Your health bar is really small and I could see weapon/item swapping becoming problematic if we get larger inventories. There’s also he low number of frames for some animations. I’ll get more into that later, but the game looks very polished already. 

Sound Design

All of the music is good. The best tracks (like the sewer) manage to stay in my head even after I turn the game off. Even the “worst” songs are pleasant to listen to, but I find myself forgetting them as soon as they stop playing. I think that more has to do with the nature of ambient, spooky songs. They may go better with the horror aesthetic, but Kotone doesn’t seem too worried about her situation and the music shouldn’t either. 

The sound effects are mostly there. I appreciate the practical sound effects like the wooshes of Kotone’s knife, fabric tearing, and the grunts and groans of monsters. I also liked that Kotone’s footsteps sounded different based on what she was stepping on. The beeps and buzzer-like sound effects kind of clash with them though. The bridge collapsing and the “criticality hit alarm” kind of take me out of it. 

Additionally, I think the game could play with it’s sound a lot more. The camera is zoomed in a lot, so it might be interesting if you could hear off screen threats or secrets before seeing them. I know I use my ears to decide if I need to run for cover when the harpy is out of screen. 

Controls/Movement

Kotone’s movement feels pretty good in a vacuum and has a decent number of techs. I love performing her backflip to access higher areas, or getting a running start to somersault over obstacles. She also has a variety of different attacks from sliding kicks and the ability to swing her knife upward. I see a lot of complaints about the controls “responsiveness,” but I think that has less to do with how the controls are coded and more with how animation canceling works, which I’ll cover shortly. The only two areas where the controls regularly fail is when I try to have Kotone run or grab onto a ledge. For running, I’ve seen some comments stating you need to be walking and then tap the direction again to actually run. If that’s still the case, I think it needs to be changed. If it’s a regular double tap, I think I’d make the time allowance to engage running just a little bit longer. Meanwhile, grabbing onto ledges just feels unreliable. I’m still not sure what button you need to push to grab hold of a ledge. Pushing into it seems to work most of the time, but I find myself automatically climbing up. Genuinely, I’m pressing left/right to move into a wall to make sure I stick the grab, which also seems to be the button you hold to make Kotone climb up. I think I’d rework that so that you need to tap the up button to make her climb a ledge. I’ve climbed into too many enemies or into wall hang spaces that Kotone’s not really suppose to climb into. 

As an aside, I prefer the gamepad controls to keyboard. On my PS4 controller, it’s automatically mapped the D pad for walking (with the option to run) while the joystick instantly makes you sprint. Additionally, you can aim Kotone’s magic anywhere inside a 90 degree cone with the joystick VS the few combinations you have with the keyboard. Some of the puzzles are much easier/possible because of this increased aiming fidelity, and I like it for hitting aerial opponents. It’s unfortunate there’s no way to replicate this for keyboard, or is there?

Also, being able to remap key bindings is really good, and more games should let you do it. I accidentally use much fewer potions now.

Combat

Kotone has an equally wide birth of Tech for her attacks. Even if her primary weapon is a dagger, she can supplement it with graffiti magic, numerous melee weapons, thrown weapons, and her feet should she decide to dive kick or slide into an enemy. The limited number of slots for weapons/items gives the player some choices in how to play, at least when they don’t need to solve a specific puzzle. But even that can present some interesting challenges. Turning into a Nekomata gives you even more versatility. I find that can’t remember everything Kotone can do. 

That said, a lot of the simpler moves Kotone can use feel useless, or like her kit just has better options.  I primarily use the knife as a tool for slaying overhead enemies such as bats, cockatrice, or an enemy on a platform. The knife’s range on the ground feels really short and sometimes doesn’t even register a hit when it passes through the enemy, though that may be a hitbox issue and not a knife issue. Regardless, It’s just a few pixles longer than a grab, which makes it too dangerous to use on many enemies. The small hooded figures or zombies can be taken out with a slide kick to avoid all the risk. If you slide kick from the right distance, it’s possible to score a “double tap” which will clear out any of the waker enemies. Even that becomes unnecessary once you get a few damage upgrades and you can take them out in a single hit. Tougher enemies like the oni (are the red horned guys oni? I’m calling them oni) could technically be taken out safely by doing some dive kicks and just bouncing back to safety. Though by this point in the demo, I have access to magic and can just blow them up at a safe distance. It’s slow and doesn’t feel very dynamic, but there’s not really a reason to engage them with a knife. 

I’m not a score seeker, but damn does it feel good to rack up a huge combo and watch enemies drop increasingly large sums of coins. I think the most fun I have with the game is to revisit old areas and see how much I can earn from clearing a single screen. But beefier enemies kind of get in the way of that. Many of them can’t be killed quick enough if you want to keep the combo going.

Maybe I would risk fighting more durable enemies with the knife if it was possible to know what they were doing. I mentioned it before, but the animations in this game are pretty “economic.” All of the enemies with telegraphic attacks do so by freezing in some “prepared” state before actually attacking. Though most of the time you get nothing, or the animation is so quick that you barely have time to register what’s going on. Seriously, I’m still not sure what the onis do to summon a shock wave. I assume they are slapping the ground with their clubs but it almost reads as a swing. In order to dodge most attacks you need to have encountered the enemy already and know their attacks through trial and error. This might sound like most games, but most games also have opponents do something to let the player know that something is coming. Fortunately, few enemies have ranged attacks that are especially punishing. That said, an actual wind up animation for attacks like a high speed dash/pounce or projectile would be appreciated. 

I’m also not sure what the point of back stepping is. It’s not going to help you avoid most attacks. You can’t cancel out of knife swings with it, so you have to be on the ground and not doing anything else to take advantage of it. This is another thing that makes me think responsiveness complaints about actually complaints about animation canceling. Knife attacks seem to cancel all other animations, even other knife attacks. Though once you attack you’re locked into it until the animation concludes. Additionally, I don’t see the merit of having thrown weapons. They might have higher DPS than magic, but they are too limited and aren’t nearly as useful as the potions I could be holding. It’s not like mana takes that long to recover.

Bosses

Combat section was getting a little long, so I decided to give the bosses their own section.

With an exception to the slime boss, all of the bosses look truly spectacular. When you look at them, you know that some wild stuff is about to go down. The exception to this is the blue skinned lady, but I feel like her turning out to be a boss/elite enemy is part of a surprise. 

Unfortunately, not many of them are particularly exhilarating to fight. The slime is just a giant HP sponge. You can pretty much win the fight by spamming graffiti magic from a safe distance and never get hit. Blue lady is hard until you realize you just have to time your slides right to avoid ambushes. Rottenjaw is another HP sponge, where the fight involves a gimmick with ranged attacks. The harpy is a challenge, but I’m not sure if that’s because I’ve only encountered her a handful of times or if it’s because all of her attacks hit like a truck. I know the trick is to bait her into whiffing an attack so that you can counter (with the knife!), but sometimes she’ll just patiently wait at the side of the screen. You can eat an arrow or take retaliation damage because you attacked her when the game didn’t want you to. I’ve fought the big guy exactly one time and can’t give any insights.

The reason why I keep bringing up the knife isn’t because I’m some knife fanatic, but it’s the one weapon you’re always going to have on you. Kicks are good too, but they feel inefficient and/or are just as ineffective as the knife is on most bosses, sans blue lady/harpy.

Tower of Mist

Taking the game and turning it into a rouge like was brilliant. This gives the game immense replay value, and I’m sure it’s only going to get better as more of the game’s zones and enemies fill the tower. I’m not sure if item durability is the best approach to getting players to conserve/switch out their items, but it works. 

It is the mode that really highlights all of the issues mentioned above, and does feel like the least polished part of the game. Enemy spawns can get pretty wild, where a single screen will have four different enemies in it and sometimes spawn them right on top of Kotone. Additionally, it feels like some of the floors are way longer than others. Sometimes I can clear a floor in seconds, while other times ten minutes will tick by while I struggle with the more labyrinthine levels. It makes me wish that there was a map to ensure that I don’t get lost. Is there a way to save your progress? The tower can take several hours to complete, and it’s only something I really have time for on the weekends. It would be nice to be able to temporarily save my progress so that I can resume a run and don’t need to marathon the whole thing in one sitting. Maybe have a checkpoint between floors? 

Also I really hate that one dangerous jump area. The fewest times I’ve fallen when encountering it is five, and I consider myself pretty good at platformers.

NSFW Content

This is actually my first lewd game like this, and my only exposure to this kind of content has been from curiosity and venturing too close to “that” part of the Internet. As a result, I don’t think I’m going to have many worthwhile things to say.

The h-scenes are serviceable. They could be better but they’re not as bad as a lot of other ones I’ve seen. The animations could use more frames at times, but that’s a complaint I could leverage at most of this game. They’re okay, probably. 

There’s a bit of tonal whiplash. I know that a lot of japanese-style games tend to mix cute and terrifying elements together, but sometimes it makes me wonder who the game is for. As an example, you have little dudes who throw sickles that bloodlessly wound Kotone and only manage to rip up her clothes. She also has a mostly comical reaction to being assaulted by ghost hands. Even some of the game over screens just have her eyes popping open with surprise, as if she’s aware of how absurd the situation is. Then you have the complete other end of the spectrum, where enemies like rotten jaw not only manage to draw blood, but do so violently. It caught me off guard ,if only because of how “tame” the rest of the game had been up to that point. 

Also, is this game against girl on girl action? I was a little surprised to see that the blue lady’s vitality stealing kiss didn’t lead to a special game over screen. In fact, it’s impossible to get killed by it. It just takes Kotone’s HP down to 1. Not all grapples lead to an h-scene, but this is the only one that can’t give you a game over. Rottenjaw gets an h-scene but we draw the line at blue ladies? 

Oh, and being able to cut the clothes off of female enemies is a nice touch. That was pretty funny the first time it happened.

Dialog

This is clearly not a story game, but I did want to talk a little bit about how the characters speak to each other because it’s in the game, so we might as well talk about it. 

The dialog is actually great. Even over just a few scenes I already get a pretty good indication of who all the characters are. I appreciate that the characters don’t regurgitate “porn dialog” when you talk to them but actually feel like characters who are part of a world. It was funny when Erie said she wanted to have an easy job “like Kotone.” If I were her, I might have strangled my friend. Lovingly, of course.

Miscellaneous 

Here are a few Points I couldn’t sneak into the other sections. 

-The arcade scoring system is interesting, even if I think it’s going to be ignored by most players. I feel like there should be a time/coin bonus for stage completion, but that might be a bit difficult to implement with being able to enter levels from any side you choose. 

-The hitboxes on some enemies feel off. Attacking some of the zombies from underneath will sometimes see the knife clip through the sprite without registering a hit, and the tall black guys in the tower can only be hit at the legs. If you launch a fireball too high it just flies through their torso. 

-Also related to the black guys, I don’t think enemies that are completely immune to normal attacks are a good idea. Magic is already way better than melee in a lot of ways, and most of these enemies can just be skipped by slide kicking through them anyway. 

-The graffiti duel mini game was fun, but maybe give us a second or two to look at the image before it fades away.

-In the upper floors of the tower, there are pools of water that sometimes have kappa in them. For some reason, they are very hard to climb out of. I think it has something to do with how jumping in water works along with climbing up so close to the water.

-It doesn’t seem like you can go back to the tutorial area once you’ve left it. I know it’s not really necessary, but I like to revisit old areas sometimes.

-The harpy is really cute. I mean she ticks me off sometimes but she’s still really cute. That’s all.

-I think the higher levels of the tower need more closets. There’s hardly any to be found, and I tend to enjoy taking normal damage from all attacks. Yea, I’m still not that good at the game.

-I would not complain if items were added to the game that made finding secrets easier. Maybe a map that notifies you if there’s a secret in an area, etc. 

-The harpy is not as cute as the blue lady.

-the floor plant is almost impossible to see in tall grass and I don’t have color blindness. 

Conclusion

The game looks and sounds great, despite some stiff/janky animations. Kotone has a wide birth of tech, but the combat needs to be tuned a bit more, and decisions need to be made about how the player is expected to progress through the game.  A lot of what’s here is underutilized and/or not clearly communicated to the player, and I might be playing the game "wrong" as a result. It’s an alright game at the moment, but I do hope the rest of the kinks get worked out of it before the full release.

Godspeed, Kosmic91!

I really love this game! However, as a Japanese player, I noticed something about the translation. The Japanese dialogue is not always accurate. In Japanese, the way people speak, including sentence endings and word choices, changes depending on gender and social position. If these could be adjusted, the game would be even easier to enjoy. Using AI writing tools or working with a native speaker might help improve the translation. Thank you for your hard work!

Thanks though I'm aware there's issues, despite spending much time in Japan I'm still very weak with the language.

(+1)

Can you bring a mobile version?? 

Viewing most recent comments 1 to 3 of 174 · Next page · Last page