Hi,
I just wanted to post my thoughts on the game after 150 hours of play and some things I’d hope to see in the future.
This game is a masterpiece in the making and its foundation is so strong. I’ve never been so excited for the future of a game as I am for this one.
Sorry for the long post, I understand if no one has time to read this lol. Just wanted to give some praise and feedback for the amazing Moon Studio developers.
I’ll start with the things I love:
- The Art Design: Probably the best looking game I’ve ever played, such a unique art style. I find myself stopping to take in the views constantly, even though I’ve seen everything countless times.
- The Camera: Even with a top down view, the game is extremely immersive thanks to the dynamic camera. It zooms in and out, sways back and forth at the perfect times to really pull you into the world.
- The World: The world is so atmospheric and beautiful. Love the dynamic weather and evolving zones. The NPC’s feel alive and the music is amazing. The zones are so well crafted, the way everything interconnects and how you unlock new ways to traverse the world is extremely well done. The world feels big but it doesn’t feel like it takes forever to get places once you piece together the areas.
- The Story (so far): Love how the story starts, all the characters are great and the voice acting is top notch. Already invested and can’t wait to continue the campaign.
- The Combat: Hands down the best combat in any ARPG. I feel like I’ve been playing the same game over and over in the ARPG genre. This is what I’ve always hoped for. Strategic, tactical and engaging combat, not just zooming around really fast spamming one button.
- The Bosses and Enemies: Great boss design, every one is unique and fun to fight. Same goes for the enemy variety. While I did die a lot during my first play through, once I got the hang of the combat, I found everything to be well telegraphed and fair. I never felt like I died to something stupid. (Except falling off a ledge) :).
- The Animations: Animations take everything to the next level, from combat to crafting. The unique animations for so many different weapons and spells look great but also force you to appraoch encounters differently. Also, watching my character craft is so satisfying. The tailoring animation with the cutting and folding of the cloth is pure quality.
- The Character Building and Gear: So many possibilities and the way gear is designed makes every piece have value. I hate being bombarded with so much useless loot in other ARPG’s and having to spend time sorting through it. This game nails it.
- Crafting and Harvesting: Crafting is engaging and worthwhile. Harvesting feels great thanks to the quality animations.
- The Crucible: While I am not a huge fan of Roguelike games because I fail to see the point of replaying the same thing over and over for no permanent progress, the foundation of the crucible is interesting. Taking a character you built into a Roguelike mode where you can benefit from improving your gear permanently solves my issue with these types of games. They can really expand on this idea as one of the endgame activities.
Things I’d like to see changed:
- Mouse Cursor: The small Windows arrow is hard to see especially during combat. I’m sure this will change though.
- Falling: Dying from falling is annoying especially in the Crucible. In the open world we need an animation of balancing on the edge if we are walking near a cliff and move too close. Falling is fine if you are being careless by running but there have been many times I walk towards a vine and my character just falls instead of climbing down.
- Timers: The timers for the most part are fine, I appreciate the realism they bring (Danos can’t build something in a second, that’s ridiculous). However, I would like more slots to deposit materials at the crafters. 8 is too little and it would be nice to at least be able to add a stack of something before logging off for the day.
- Enchanting: Some of this will probably be coming but I would like to be able to salvage gems as well and to be able to change or re-roll gear stats. At least have one shot to re-roll that plagued stat on an otherwise great piece.
- Housing and Storage: Storage chests for your house don’t hold enough. I am unable to decorate my house because I need all the space available just for chests and cabinets to hold all my materials, consumables and gear. Maybe this is intended to have the player purchase multiple houses but I don’t want to run around the city to different spots to get what I need.
- Whispers: I don’t care about fast travel, it’s fine to just be able to return to the last whisper you interacted with but at least let us respawn at the closest whisper when we die. Going out of your way to play touch the whisper just in case is needless busy-work.
- Mage Combat: Not a fan of having to smack things with a stick to build up my focus for my spells. As a mage I want to be ranged all the time. I know it’s safer at range but maybe have staves do a ranged attack that costs stamina like bows that allow you to build focus.
Things I’d love to see:
- Can’t wait for multiplayer and the fact that there will be friendly fire makes me so much more excited and adds even more depth to the combat.
- Would love to see healer specific builds especially since multiplayer is coming.
- Holy spells and Nature-themed spells need to happen. Would love to play a Paladin or a Druid type healer or shapeshifter.
- Oh and pet based classes, would be funny to see a wolf climb a latter (okay, that won’t work). At least Necromancers can have their minions float all creepily in the air around them.
- One way you could introduce pets would be with birds of prey. Having a falconer glove as a secondary weapon which would add some damage (or bleed) to your attacks with your bird attacking alongside you and have the rune attacks tied to the glove. Long bows could be a main hand weapon as well and allow you to build focus with your arrows.
- Mounts probably won’t work but ships could. Would be cool to be able to sail around the island, maybe ship combat and sea monsters.
- Would love some story based instanced dungeons. There’s something about going to and entering a dungeon that is exciting.
- I know farming is coming, more relaxing activities that can benefit your characters progress would be great.
- Talent trees would be a nice way to further customize your character as long as they are impactful.
- Different PvP modes would add a lot of replayability, not just an arena style mode but maybe objective based modes with more players on a large battlefield or a PvPvE extraction mode.
I’m sure I could go on and on as the possibilities are endless. I have all the faith in Moon and can’t wait until the next update.
Thanks for your time.
