I enjoy the game. Cute artstyle. Somewhat interesting story; doesn't have me screaming "what comes next!" but it at least doesn't keep me from skipping the dialogue. The gameplay loop is fun and has an intriguing system. Now onto the problems: First is that the i-frames system is utter garbage. When you get hit, it does this weird "pause" thing to emphasize you were hit, but there are almost zero i-frames so you can get hit multiple times in the same second. This heavily discourages any of the harder hitting attacks with the long wind-ups and really pushes the high-speed attacks or the ones that make you really mobile. Add on the fact that the high speed attacks also make stacking elemental effects much easier and you have a system that gives little reward to the "longer" attacks but almost all the risk. This also makes bosses like Nightmare Elione a massive pain to deal with, because her final phase endlessly spawns those tentacle shooters and they have a VERY high rate of fire and can spawn on opposite ends of the map or right next to you. So it again, just reinforces a high speed meta making any "long" attacks not worth it. It also makes Novu's dodge skill awkward because you can press it and it'll do the animation but still get hit sometimes which can make it very frustrating. It pushes a more "predictive" style combat as your reaction speed will almost never be quick enough to matter. Combine that with the fact that you can't choose what enemy you attack, so some skills will take you in the complete wrong direction you wanted to go and it will get annoying VERY quickly. The next problem is that the game is EXTREMELY grindy. The gameplay loop is fun but geez, I completed all 12 levels before I even hit level 7. You are almost ALWAYS going to be underleveled which means you have to spend an agonizing amount of time grinding for shards to try to catch up. This again, makes mobility the end all-be all as you won't really be able to put down the Nightmare enemies before they get enraged. This can be especially problematic with certain enemies that literally spawn projectiles inside you like those temple goop enemies that spawn that homing puddle. Sometimes while you're evading something else they always spawn behind you or very close to you which often spawns the projectile inside you so you can't really dodge it. Attacks SHOULD NOT be spawning inside you and putting you in a position you don't even get a chance to dodge, that just feels cheap and unfair. This problem is also compounded by the fact that certain enemies are impossible to dodge when enraged. Their attack animation is too quick for your movement speed to keep up. This just becomes a punishment for being underleveled because between the unfair hitboxes/dodge mechanics and the enraged enemies that punish you for not having enough damage output, you're forced to go back and grind the same level for the 300th time. It isn't a skill-check, it's a "did you grind for enough hours"-check. Crystals, pet snacks, and the golden equipment prisms are very hard to come by especially for all the stuff that uses crystals. I even bought the no ads thing and it STILL feels sluggish to grind through. I also don't particularly like the fact that the elemental stabilizers are locked behind a paywall or "daily ad", as it severely restricts the creativity behind theory crafting. I'm not saying you should ALWAYS be able to get the exact build you want, but it should definitely be easier to get elements you want or at least more variety than just 2 main elements available at any given time. I also REALLY need to be able to choose where my attacks go. The current system is insanely unpredictable. Frequently I'll use the leap attacks and it'll go for the enemy all the way across the map, and ignore the three enemies between me and that singular one. This obviously puts me in a bad spot AND i take damage from every single attack that I happen to travel through. The current "auto-choose the closest target" is very infuriating. i might actually drop the game because of this feature. way too annoying not being able to choose targets. Again, the game is very fun, but some of the mechanics leave a bad taste in my mouth as they feel restrictive or kindof annoying. I still very much enjoy the game though; a lot of effort has clearly been put into it and it has a lot of polish, there's just some intentional developmental decisions that I don't particularly like or agree with that reduces the fun a little.
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