As a base line I shall say that I have been enjoying the game, and indeed spent much of yesterday playing it. Once it has some flesh on it's bones I sense being addicted to it, frankly it reminds me of ActRaiser and that is not a bad thing.
I have a couple of specific complaints,
1) The camera should endeavour to keep your target on screen, it's irritating to be fighting a boss that you can't see just because you are walking away from it. This also extend to amoeba bosses, which are almost always off screen.
2) The level map (the top left corner one) can be stupidly large, I have had a few that covered 25% of the screen , when zoomed in they covered a good 45%, at very least they need transparency, as do most of the other UI elements actually, I have had occasion were all have got in the way.
That said here are my initial general criticisms though I shall try and avoid things attributable to being a beta (balance, lack of variation etc).
First is combat, or I suppose "Monster Interaction" as the game seems unsure how it wants to approach it, i note that this is about non-boss combat
The fact that many, if not the majority, of spells are combat related seems to imply that combat should be a major part of the game, as does both the quantity and existence of monster spawners (monster spawners generally being a mechanic to ensure you always have something to fight\have to fight something).
But on the other hand, there are no rewards for fighting any given enemy and with mana being a limited resource (consumables aside) the options are essentially
A) Kill monster, gain nothing, lose ammo and time
B) Jump over monster, gain nothing, lose nothing
Now as a general point I am fine with not gaining exp from non-boss enemies that would make it too easy to grind levels, but I would recommend that monsters become a source of resources. It's that or make mana regen so that shooting them doesn't feel like a waste of ammo.
My second criticism is with adventure level generation.
My personal feeling is that the levels are too big, and contain too many buildings, which are also too big.
Rather the level generator doesn't seem to take into account that there are a lot of levels to visit, I do not need 8 buildings in every screen for 4 screens, there are hundreds of levels, and I will probably visit a tiny fraction of them at best the way it stands, give me smaller levels and better variation, so that it feel less like drudgery walking through them.
The average level should be 1-2 screens tops, the longer ones should be reserved for being actually representative of something (major towns, forests, etc), the normal level should be empty, for want of a better word, with a chance of having a couple of small buildings (hamlets), or caves. Obviously chance exists so that sometimes an otherwise innocuous single screen could contain a link to a giant dungeon, I wish to the game to be more digestible not more repetitive.
What I wish to avoid is the sense, that I get at the moment, of your lone tiny settlement being inexplicably surrounded by towns.
hmm, I think that is probably enough ranting for now, I have some suggestions for settlement building as well, but will let it get fleshed out a bit more before levelling judgement.
Now back to playing
