Finally circled back to this! Remembered a surprising amount from the basic version but also made a bunch of the same mistakes. Someday I'll replay for the other route and side quests I missed, but mostly just to see finally what's in the Manor vault.
The full storyline and bonus bosses were a lot of fun / "fun"! Some thoughts after the spoiler break. Some parts were surprisingly challenging too - not that I was expecting an *easy* game, but even though I got fairly overpowered/wealthy before recruiting Jasper, I wasn't able to steamroll everything past there. Some of that was self-inflicted; I really didn't take the third strata Company Man variant seriously until I realized that their accumulated buffs were not going to reset between runs.
I don't think I ran into any bugs, either! The game did start to chug after an hour or so, but that's probably down to something getting caught in the gears between Proton, RPG Maker, and my graphics drivers. *Sometimes* I would run into events out-of-order and they'd explain things I already knew (the oracle received a call right AFTER I turned in the bonus boss bounty for example). But for something this sprawling that's hardly unexpected.
I did catch some dialogue typos but I didn't catalog them because I didn't want to make a bunch of homework for either of us, 1.5 years after you put this (mostly) down. If you *do* want help with those, I'd be willing to volunteer my weirdly fine-tuned typo senses.
SPOILERS BELOW -------
I kept the curse I got from the statue for the entirety of the rest of my playthrough, mostly because I'm a sucker for that kind of bonus dialogue. I wouldn't say it made a ton of things easier but it did help when I needed Ramona to draw aggro. I really liked how that played into the "pacifist" route for the Lighthouse mission (although I suspect there's a better ending available there). It was annoying to deflect the priest every time I wanted to check if anyone was ready for spiritual healing though. Aside from what that changed, I missed a bunch of mid-game bounties and a handful of side quests because I steamrolled the missions first (those were generally a lot easier than the Tower and bonus bosses).
I also didn't catch the new drawback to pills at first; I think Devon had something like 1/4 of Kyrie's health when she was recruited. I spent the rest of the game taking the party to meals at the harbor as often as I could and only started breathing easier once I got the final reward from the Rat King bounty sidequest. I *did* take as many mirage potions and stat drinks as I could manage before I locked myself out of the former. I recruited Jasper right before I did that, though, so they spent the entire late-game as the weakest team member. They didn't even get downed enough to unlock more than 1 spiritual healing skill, so they kind of became a dedicated item/artifact support. Felt a little uhh troubling to give them the Hanged Man artifact!
The other big change from my Basic playthrough was giving Devon the Black Cat Charm and Burner Phone. A basic attack can miss / be prevented in ways that Concentrate can't but generating 3-4x the MP with a chance to paralyze (and even damage, in some cases) was almost always a worthwhile tradeoff. Especially since getting even a little scuffed would leave him charged up for another multi-target attack next turn.
I saw your note about adding item stealing last... idk if being cursed or wealthy increases the rate but it was truly the bane of my playthrough. I spent every other bus ride having to check if some crucial item in my build was gone and kept losing artifacts that I barely got to use. I lost the Wrench right after getting the car parts (and my namesake achievement, love that) and thought I was softlocked out of the Rat King sidequest for a little while.
I think you did a great job with the scope of this - it doesn't *look* as big as it is but the maps are d e n s e and there's a lot of depth to plumb. I was a little surprised that, in a game "about capitalism", none of the necromancers were motivated by greed or labor relations! Certainly a game this large can be About More Than One Thing, but I was anticipating a punchline on exploitation/inhumanity/dehumanization that never happened.
Some unsolicited thoughts about late-game bonus bosses:
Your self-insert was kind of a steamroll, though making yourself immune to negative statuses did throw off a lot of my usual approach. Bonus moves weren't too harsh, almost every boss had those by then. I did miss the instructions on how to exit afterwards and almost got stuck in the hallway. Also I hope you're doing better on at least some of those fronts.
Melchom was a serious roadblock until I found a cheese strategy - locking him down with alternating True Silence and All Business + Business Talk. I could have optimized further (Kyrie wasn't the optimal user for the silence-immunity artifact) but I only game overed 2 or 3 times with 8 questions wrong on the test. If you're inclined to be meaner here, he should get immunity to Silence when he gets low on health. Love the design though I didn't read it as a vtuber?
Gacy was a great culmination for the bounty quests! Didn't game over here, but by her second revival I was mostly fighting to stay standing while everyone else / DOT effects kept up the pressure. I was thinking about your dev note that highlighted how negative statuses and debuffs were used in support of the games' themes and I really liked how the solidarity support of the AL inverted that for this fight! Also appreciated that the remainder of the game and the epilogue kept highlighting the win + profits lmao.
The Pugilist (I already forgot his name) was actually the hardest of the "optional" bosses and a satisfying capstone to beat down, particularly since you were thorough in never exposing A Single Redeemable Quality about him. Post-Gacy, I was rich enough that his assistant summons would 1-shot nearly any party member with their scales-with-wealth attack, but even when I was lucky enough to get through that, his Emperor-spam more than made up for it. My ultimate win took a Hidden Clear Mind Devon spamming magic attacks with nobody else standing. Worth it for the sprite without glasses alone.
All in all a great time! I hope your future work is a little saner in scope but this came together really well!
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Finally circled back to this! Remembered a surprising amount from the basic version but also made a bunch of the same mistakes. Someday I'll replay for the other route and side quests I missed, but mostly just to see finally what's in the Manor vault.
The full storyline and bonus bosses were a lot of fun / "fun"! Some thoughts after the spoiler break. Some parts were surprisingly challenging too - not that I was expecting an *easy* game, but even though I got fairly overpowered/wealthy before recruiting Jasper, I wasn't able to steamroll everything past there. Some of that was self-inflicted; I really didn't take the third strata Company Man variant seriously until I realized that their accumulated buffs were not going to reset between runs.
I don't think I ran into any bugs, either! The game did start to chug after an hour or so, but that's probably down to something getting caught in the gears between Proton, RPG Maker, and my graphics drivers. *Sometimes* I would run into events out-of-order and they'd explain things I already knew (the oracle received a call right AFTER I turned in the bonus boss bounty for example). But for something this sprawling that's hardly unexpected.
I did catch some dialogue typos but I didn't catalog them because I didn't want to make a bunch of homework for either of us, 1.5 years after you put this (mostly) down. If you *do* want help with those, I'd be willing to volunteer my weirdly fine-tuned typo senses.
SPOILERS BELOW
-------
I kept the curse I got from the statue for the entirety of the rest of my playthrough, mostly because I'm a sucker for that kind of bonus dialogue. I wouldn't say it made a ton of things easier but it did help when I needed Ramona to draw aggro. I really liked how that played into the "pacifist" route for the Lighthouse mission (although I suspect there's a better ending available there). It was annoying to deflect the priest every time I wanted to check if anyone was ready for spiritual healing though. Aside from what that changed, I missed a bunch of mid-game bounties and a handful of side quests because I steamrolled the missions first (those were generally a lot easier than the Tower and bonus bosses).
I also didn't catch the new drawback to pills at first; I think Devon had something like 1/4 of Kyrie's health when she was recruited. I spent the rest of the game taking the party to meals at the harbor as often as I could and only started breathing easier once I got the final reward from the Rat King bounty sidequest. I *did* take as many mirage potions and stat drinks as I could manage before I locked myself out of the former. I recruited Jasper right before I did that, though, so they spent the entire late-game as the weakest team member. They didn't even get downed enough to unlock more than 1 spiritual healing skill, so they kind of became a dedicated item/artifact support. Felt a little uhh troubling to give them the Hanged Man artifact!
The other big change from my Basic playthrough was giving Devon the Black Cat Charm and Burner Phone. A basic attack can miss / be prevented in ways that Concentrate can't but generating 3-4x the MP with a chance to paralyze (and even damage, in some cases) was almost always a worthwhile tradeoff. Especially since getting even a little scuffed would leave him charged up for another multi-target attack next turn.
I saw your note about adding item stealing last... idk if being cursed or wealthy increases the rate but it was truly the bane of my playthrough. I spent every other bus ride having to check if some crucial item in my build was gone and kept losing artifacts that I barely got to use. I lost the Wrench right after getting the car parts (and my namesake achievement, love that) and thought I was softlocked out of the Rat King sidequest for a little while.
I think you did a great job with the scope of this - it doesn't *look* as big as it is but the maps are d e n s e and there's a lot of depth to plumb. I was a little surprised that, in a game "about capitalism", none of the necromancers were motivated by greed or labor relations! Certainly a game this large can be About More Than One Thing, but I was anticipating a punchline on exploitation/inhumanity/dehumanization that never happened.
Some unsolicited thoughts about late-game bonus bosses:
Your self-insert was kind of a steamroll, though making yourself immune to negative statuses did throw off a lot of my usual approach. Bonus moves weren't too harsh, almost every boss had those by then. I did miss the instructions on how to exit afterwards and almost got stuck in the hallway. Also I hope you're doing better on at least some of those fronts.
Melchom was a serious roadblock until I found a cheese strategy - locking him down with alternating True Silence and All Business + Business Talk. I could have optimized further (Kyrie wasn't the optimal user for the silence-immunity artifact) but I only game overed 2 or 3 times with 8 questions wrong on the test. If you're inclined to be meaner here, he should get immunity to Silence when he gets low on health. Love the design though I didn't read it as a vtuber?
Gacy was a great culmination for the bounty quests! Didn't game over here, but by her second revival I was mostly fighting to stay standing while everyone else / DOT effects kept up the pressure. I was thinking about your dev note that highlighted how negative statuses and debuffs were used in support of the games' themes and I really liked how the solidarity support of the AL inverted that for this fight! Also appreciated that the remainder of the game and the epilogue kept highlighting the win + profits lmao.
The Pugilist (I already forgot his name) was actually the hardest of the "optional" bosses and a satisfying capstone to beat down, particularly since you were thorough in never exposing A Single Redeemable Quality about him. Post-Gacy, I was rich enough that his assistant summons would 1-shot nearly any party member with their scales-with-wealth attack, but even when I was lucky enough to get through that, his Emperor-spam more than made up for it. My ultimate win took a Hidden Clear Mind Devon spamming magic attacks with nobody else standing. Worth it for the sprite without glasses alone.
All in all a great time! I hope your future work is a little saner in scope but this came together really well!
I'm glad you finally found the time to truly enjoy this game!