First, something very important to tell you: in act 2 and later, using the same element as the enemy will heal them, and act 3 gets extremely very emotionally heavy with no warning. Okay. Very good. Proceed.
I’ve spent enough time thinking about this game to give it a proper review. This will be mostly positive! I enjoyed my 13 hour experience with the game.
The text and dialogue is awesome. The party members are written well. Their attitudes are consistent, interesting, and funny. I captured many screenshots of funny moments to send to my friends online. The story is linear, with just a few minor text choices along the way, and this isn’t a bad thing. The text from the enemies is equally consistent and interesting, and the not-so-subtle links between the cultists and real-world right-wing shitheads made me smirk at least once.
The other main part of the game is the combat, and this will definitely be polarising, as you’ll see from the other comments here (which do contain spoilers, though), but my experience with it was also extremely positive. When I first saw the combat I was extremely overwhelmed by the interface (perhaps because I hadn’t before played an RPG with multiple commandable allies in fights, but I think it was overwhelming in general). The tutorial freezing time was very much appreciated, but it was still a lot to deal with in the first part of act 1. By the time of the act 1 boss it didn’t feel as overwhelming.
[just after finishing act 1]
cadence: by the way I’m trying the lesbian car game and the combat is actually insane
cadence: it seems complex but I don’t know if it’s actually deep
k: i looked at the video and i could barely process the UI
m: watching okay this is scary
cadence: doing shit is complex, but I don’t know if it’s actually deep, if that makes any sense?
cadence: I’ll let you know how it goes, looks like I’m real early into it
At the start of act 2 after the initial shock had worn off I was doubting whether the combat would be deep enough to captivate me through to the end of the rest of the game. By the end of act 2 I was completely sold, and loving every second of it. The elements in act 2, and the ability variety in act 4 (as well as mostly dropping the elements at that point) were much more than I had hoped for.
My favourite part of the combat, by far, was how much the party members actually managed to fill their roles, which was hard to feel at first, but if one of them is defeated, you really feel their loss. If Sam [the healer] is defeated, the rest aren’t long for this world. If Valentin [tank] is down, their taunt ability ends, and the enemies start attacking the rest of you at a rate that’s too high for Sam to easily keep up with. This really makes you feel the dynamics and coherence of the party and this blew me away when it made me notice that DPS really isn’t everything, and keeping the party members active is. I LOVE THIS. GOOD JOB, CHRISTINE. THIS WAS AWESOME. I AM IMPRESSED.
[right at the end of act 2]
cadence: okay, the combat in get in the car loser is really good. I’m sold.
The music is also incredible and I am going to buy it. I took most optional battles and listened to Spirit of the Times for several hours in all. I am not even slightly tired of it. It did not start to become grating. I love this song.
I liked the diner sections. They’re just, nice, yknow?
So, now for the bad.
I found the pixelated text font a little hard to read at times, especially the “text log”. I reckon the text log could benefit from an opaque background, a smaller font, and a better layout. (A small portrait of the person’s face next to their text could be nice!)
There’s not that much enemy variety.
I’m really disappointed with the gameplay of the beach DLC. Like, the premise of the entire thing is that sword lady is really annoying and gives you really annoying challenges over and over. Everyone comments about how annoyed they are at the annoying challenges, which are annoying to play, on purpose.
Christine, here is some feedback directly for you: If a section is annoying and unfun, you can talk all day about how annoying it is, but it’s still annoying and unfun to play. You deliberately designed it this way, as evidenced by the dialogue. In the next 2 DLC chapters, please don’t make the game unfun on purpose, okay? You can do some really cool stuff, like the entire main game!
The DLC chapter took me 40 minutes to complete, and I was smiling until I reached the first of sword lady’s challenges.
The maze was not interesting. The “talk to everybody until you get keys” thing was not interesting. The random encounters section sucked. I didn’t mind the road at all because I knew when the next combat would be - adding random encounters to that area made things so much worse. Would it have killed you to add groups of enemies to the world, and to trigger combat when you step next to them, and to make them go away once you’ve defeated them? Seriously, I loved the road fights, and I hated the random encounters. Please don’t do random encounters again.
The final fight with the thief was fine. I don’t understand what causes them to heal, which was a little frustrating, but I got there in the end through the power of banishing her partner and then pressing the attack buttons. Thank you, Zantetsuken.
Christa once again bowls a perfect 300 on the soundtrack, thankfully; and hiring an outfit designer here was absolutely worth it.
CONCLUSION:
The good things about this game GREATLY outweigh the bad. The bad things I mentioned are either nitpicks or DLC-only issues.
Should you play this for free? Yes!
Is it good enough that you should give the authors $10 (and unlock the DLC?) Yes!
Is it worth playing the DLC that you just paid for? Not unless you REALLY like the beach outfits, or want a sword that can send enemies to the shadow realm.
Hope this was insightful to some of you, and I’ll return with a smile when the (spirit of the) time comes to get my DLC 2 travel stamp. Peace! <3
Holy fuck can we please get some sort of "I have absolutely zero interest in listening to repeated transphobic and fascist bullshit, let me skip to the part where we beat this scumbag into the ground." button for Gaius?
That dialogue drags on wellbeyond any reasonable degree of tolerance, and if the deadnaming is censored then why not censor the misgendering similarly? I get that it's hammering in "This is a bad person", but it's not fun, it's not interesting, it's wasting my time and presenting far-too-real bigotry that I would never willingly tolerate for such a duration.
1) The characters strength is very weak but the monster HP is a lot, how the hell am I suppose to kill them. Not to be rude but can you gains all the characters ATK
2) The BMG is wonderful, Is there the list of that?
You're meant to be leveling up your items like the tutorial demonstrated, and using Ravage to amplify your Exploit damage, along with Taunt and Heal for sustain. If you're struggling, make sure you're upgrading ALL your equipped items and then buying the next tier at the shop.
Been waiting for this for a long time and really like it so far! I hate to even ask this question because the game's aesthetic is so stylish but...is there a way to alter the in-game font to something less pixelated? I find the smaller text for item descriptions, weapon stories, etc., extremely difficult to read unless I take the resolution down to a pretty small window. If it's baked into the game I can make do, but just wanted to check, thanks!
The game runs fine on Linux in Wine. I have tried both 1.0.0.27 and 1.0.0.28 with and without the DLC on Ubuntu 20.04. I have not finished the game yet and will update if I run into any issues.
I really really enjoyed this game. the writing is excellent, and I fell in love with all of the characters; I think Valentin is probably my favorite, but it's a bit like choosing which of your comfort foods is "better" than the others. the combat system was really fun and engaging, and I liked it enough to play on Devil Clock and didn't regret it. I'm excited for the rest of the DLC, and I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone. love the art, love the writing, the soundtrack is a banger, A+ 10/10
the trick is to make sure that you're always leveling to the highest tier of gear available, which is fairly easy once you get access to the stickers—and on Devil Clock you get lots of stickers! otherwise, 5 Battle Energy and the consumable that gives you nuclear element are both extremely powerful, so much so that the game turns the latter one off for most boss fights.
for strategy, using Bleed on the last board, Sam set to Splash Heal, and using debuffs/taunt/Life on the preceding boards while you wait for Sword of Fate was my strategy. Bleed does ridiculous amounts of damage, so I had it on both Val and Grace, with Smite on board one literally just for Smite Only challenges. I used Angela exclusively to generate Ravage meter.
whatever your last board is, is what you'll spend the most time in naturally, so it's good to have it be consistent exploit damage + group healing. whatever your second board is should be buffs and heals, because until you get a Fast passive trinket you should always immediately advance to the second board. I put "situational powerhouse" moves on board one, since you use it the least; there's a combo with Fast passive skills and a tier IX trinket to get powerful staggers easily, but I think it's more fun to figure that out on your own.
How exactly do you defeat Deadname? I’ve tried multiple load outs with the 5 battle boost and radiation status items and still cannot seem to kill him.
There's a couple of important things about Deadname which should make the fight easier:
During his first phase, he won't actually attack you at all - he just counterattacks. That means that you can take the fight entirely at your own pace - if you're low on health, just stop hitting him and heal up.
Once you drop him to half health, he'll use an attack which will always wipe your whole party except for Sam. Make sure Sam has Life or Half-Life so she can revive the others!
Once you've got everyone back up, the second phase of the fight is much like the first. The difference now is that he'll start attacking even if you don't hit him first - but he still won't do it very often, so you should be able to get away with using similar tactics. (if you have the DLC, you can just skip this phase with Zantetsuken)
Also, Sam's Slow spell is very good in this fight (as it is in general in fights against a single enemy) - if you combine it with Illegal Fireworks to instantly stagger the boss, you can essentially cheese the fight.
Fate doesn't cause damage to the player—it sounds like someone probably just got attacked during the animation. The Sword of Fate in fact does increasing amounts of healing to the party each time you use it, to a maximum of your current rank * 10.
Rank disparities do increasing amounts of damage based on the gap. A Rank III ability attacking a Rank II enemy will do 1.5x damage, but a Rank III ability will do 2x damage.
I've tried with both the Xbox Series X (identified by macOS as "Xbox Wireless Controller" and PS5 controllers (identified by macOS as "DualSense Wireless Controller"). The only steps I've taken are to connect the controller via Bluetooth and start the game.
I'll look into this, but I think the controller library I use may not support either of those controllers wirelessly. If using a cable isn't an option, I've heard Steam's controller remapping is generally pretty successful, so that may also help.
This was so much fun until Chapter 2. The difficulty scales immensely and the combat becomes so incredibly dragged out and tedious even on Story mode. It definitely does not make the game more of a VN as promised.
The introduction of elemental typing in Ch. 2 would have been fine if A) there was some kind of warning that this was coming and B) there was a warning that you'd accidentally heal enemies if you attacked them with a certain element. There's no real way to plan ahead, you never know what you're fighting next and at a certain point, your strongest gear gives you elemental passives whether you want them or not.
Also, understanding your party strength is extremely difficult. Enemies do an incredible amount of damage which is doubled if someone has an elemental weakness. Yes, you can vary your gear with different elements but as you're scrolling through your moves, if you get caught with a weakness, you take so much damage. Staying on one gear set slows down your damage output, making the fights take even longer than they already are. And unless you're hitting the enemies with their elemental weakness, your party does so little damage even with the best gear you can get at the gas station (upgraded) which is always a rank or two below the monsters you encounter. It's discouraging.
And then there's (maybe spoiler?) Gaius. This boss shifts his element so at least one person in your party is going to be healing him at any given time. Not that it matters because your damage output is so incredibly low. You're hitting him for 2 or 3 damage while he hits you for a whopping 90 - 180! His attack speed is fast, so there's no way to outheal him with Sam before someone is face down. Having to pause, use a healing item, unpause and repeat every few seconds is not ideal. In JRPGs, this usually means that the party is supposed to lose, that it's scripted. Here, it's not, and I cannot figure out how to just get it over so I can get back to the charming, funny and fun story. I am literally stuck and no other fight before this was this impossible.
I genuinely do not understand what went wrong here, if I'm missing something about gear and combat or if it really is poor scaling, but I feel as though the frequency of the battles, the difficulty and tediousness of them and the confusing gear system are actively working to keep me from just enjoying an awesome gay quest to defeat evil. I want to finish the game.
If Gaius is doing over 90 damage to you, it sounds like you're trying to fight him with characters who are three ranks lower than him. My advice would be to focus on making sure all everyone's items are at least equivalent to Rank V before challenging him. Hope that helps!
Hi, thanks for your response. It doesn't help because at this point in the game, you only have access to rank 3+ gear from the gas station and upgrades which is rank 4 equivalent according to the menu. The only rank 4 gear I have (which I think I may have gotten from the sidequest bounties but there aren't any left to do) forces passive elements that actively heal enemies if their element is green/nature over every ability, so when Gaius switches his element they're rendered useless and take double damage from weakness. That's an issue that extends to all fights. Are players really expected to run from fights and switch around the gear every single time they encounter an enemy that they're disadvantaged against because of forced blanket passives? Every time?
So if Gaius requires rank 5 gear and rank 4 isn't available in the gas station at this point, how do I get it and do they all have forced passives?
You should have access to Rank V+ (Effectively VI) gear at this point. Chapter 1 caps you at Rank III. Chapter 2 caps you at Rank V. Remember that you unlock the next tier by having everyone wearing 3 trinkets of the previous rank+.
You can also load up everyone with 5 Battle Energy once you're using Rank V+ gear to get an effective Rank VII, which should really drop the damage you're taking if you're still having difficulty.
THANK YOU so much for saying how gear unlocks. I couldn't understand why I was getting rinsed in every fight, even though I was leveling up my gear.
I admit this has been frustrating to play, but that is because I have no familiarity with the FF13 style of battles and I have no idea where the game tells you that you NEED to level up your gear to unlock the next tier at the shop. Fingers crossed I can catch up enough to where I don't have to completely restart!
First - thank you for mentioning the elementals. Was just this morning stuck in a fight where I couldn't figure out why these two bozos (the vine guys) just weren't dying. I had thought that you got the best element out of all equipment you had, but maybe that's not true?
Anyway, I can return the favor - when you run away, the game puts you back right *before* the fight, so you can respec and go back in. (Just swapped my VI grass with a IV fire, and suddenly those two just went down like chumps.)
Only the passive ability "[element] Added " gives you that element on every ability. Otherwise, your element is determined by which ability is active at the time. If you're ever unsure, you can check the status page in the menu, or look next to the character's name in battle to see which elemental affinities they currently have at that particular moment.
i agree with you that things dont feel exactly balanced at chapter 2 and it could use clearer instruction on level up and elemental importance because if you do it wrong it is wayyyy harder than it needs to be even on easy lol.
went from cute and fun to very frustrating and upsetting. but i think i got it now maybe.
idk I think Bleed is probably the best exploit skill, and drastically overshadows any Destruction skills—especially since Destruction gets linked to elements, which perform very poorly; having bosses with multiple elements or the ability to change elements, without the player being able to change, makes them useless since they are effective for basically one phase and a liability for the others. Smite ends up being *okay* but you're actively incentivized to use it as little as possible, even with high stagger/re-stagger strats. Meanwhile, Bleed hits like a truck, is untyped, and the self-damage won't put you in danger if you are playing around it.
Taunt is also underwhelming, as long as I'm complaining, especially in fights with multiple strong enemies; getting the AI to spread out attacks is much safer than everyone hammering Valentin all at once; they don't benefit enough from the defense buff, in my opinion. going from 70% of their life per hit to 60% of their life per hit does not change the reality that they'll be two-shot.
the game was a ton of fun, but as far as the battle system goes I found much more success in playing against a lot of what is "expected" in the strategy, as far as what specific abilities to equip. the element system just isn't flexible enough to do anything helpful, again especially since the bosses are multi-element. there's no way to really know ahead of time what element is good against road enemies because you can't see what you're going to fight; it's really Nuclear or Bust, and with Control Rod you even lose that option too.
EDIT: I feel like this maybe sounds like I'm being really harsh on the battle system, but I have to reiterate that I really really enjoyed it and I loved the system that was presented. I think one small change—being able to hotswap element—would fix all of my concerns with the strategy. I think ravage stuff and the stagger meter was dope and I liked figuring out the re-stagger strategy, I am very satisfied with that; but changing the element issue would have made the "element trinket" quest rewards feel good instead of feeling like I got rewarded with 3 stickers.
Maybe a dumb question: if I want to support y'all here on itch but also am an achievements nerd sometimes and considering wanting to play the game on Steam for Steam achievements can you install the itch.io DLC on top of the Steam copy (and still get Steam achievements)?
Definitely a bug. Can you send more information about your platform and system specs in an email to support@loveconquersallgames.com? (If you're able to get a screen recording of the issue, that would be even more helpful.) Thanks!
hi!! super excited for this game! i was wondering if this game has any parts that require manual dexterity, like timing or platforming or stuff, in terms of accessibility? thanks for yr time, have a great day! :)
from what i have seen, the game plays with 6 keys/buttons total, and most of the time you'll have to press 4 of them one after the other. timing is important to get the best out of combos, but you can mostly plan ahead. there is no quick-time event, key smashing or super-tight timing. there are also multiple difficulty settings, so getting good combos might not be very important in the lowest ones
the bullet point says “Girls. Just... girls... you know...???” does this mean Val identifies as a girl (they’re described as a boyfriend), or are you just being unintentionally cis-normative?
The description for Angela has me curious from a game-design perspective – does "a completely average fighter by intent" mean (assuming generic JRPG-type combat mechanics):
- She's got less defense than the sturdy party members and more than the fragile ones, vice-versa for offense, and mechanically works in basically the same way as the other characters just with middle-of-the-road set of starting numbers and abilities?
- Instead of normal stat gains by levels/gear/whatever, she's always got her stats at exactly the average of the rest of the party?
- Purely narrative, and she's actually just as specialized as everyone else?
All the progression in the game is equipment-based! So stats-wise she's just locked to whatever items are available at that point in the game. However, her battle abilities are well-rounded by design, as opposed to being specialized—she's the only character who doesn't have any unique abilities, but she's also the only character who can both build the stagger bar _and_ exploit it.
Ah, okay. Option one, more or less; that makes sense. i don't know what the "stagger bar is" beyond reasonably inferences, but that sounds pretty neat.
I was just thinking in terms of "she's deliberately pulling her punches to stay average, so maybe that means she doesn't gain power like the other characters who presumably can't just decide to hit twice as hard if they feel like it." Speculation getting ahead of facts.
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This looks amazing !!!
No spoilers
I’ve spent enough time thinking about this game to give it a proper review. This will be mostly positive! I enjoyed my 13 hour experience with the game.
The text and dialogue is awesome. The party members are written well. Their attitudes are consistent, interesting, and funny. I captured many screenshots of funny moments to send to my friends online. The story is linear, with just a few minor text choices along the way, and this isn’t a bad thing. The text from the enemies is equally consistent and interesting, and the not-so-subtle links between the cultists and real-world right-wing shitheads made me smirk at least once.
The other main part of the game is the combat, and this will definitely be polarising, as you’ll see from the other comments here (which do contain spoilers, though), but my experience with it was also extremely positive. When I first saw the combat I was extremely overwhelmed by the interface (perhaps because I hadn’t before played an RPG with multiple commandable allies in fights, but I think it was overwhelming in general). The tutorial freezing time was very much appreciated, but it was still a lot to deal with in the first part of act 1. By the time of the act 1 boss it didn’t feel as overwhelming.
At the start of act 2 after the initial shock had worn off I was doubting whether the combat would be deep enough to captivate me through to the end of the rest of the game. By the end of act 2 I was completely sold, and loving every second of it. The elements in act 2, and the ability variety in act 4 (as well as mostly dropping the elements at that point) were much more than I had hoped for.
My favourite part of the combat, by far, was how much the party members actually managed to fill their roles, which was hard to feel at first, but if one of them is defeated, you really feel their loss. If Sam [the healer] is defeated, the rest aren’t long for this world. If Valentin [tank] is down, their taunt ability ends, and the enemies start attacking the rest of you at a rate that’s too high for Sam to easily keep up with. This really makes you feel the dynamics and coherence of the party and this blew me away when it made me notice that DPS really isn’t everything, and keeping the party members active is. I LOVE THIS. GOOD JOB, CHRISTINE. THIS WAS AWESOME. I AM IMPRESSED.
The music is also incredible and I am going to buy it. I took most optional battles and listened to Spirit of the Times for several hours in all. I am not even slightly tired of it. It did not start to become grating. I love this song.
I liked the diner sections. They’re just, nice, yknow?
So, now for the bad.
I found the pixelated text font a little hard to read at times, especially the “text log”. I reckon the text log could benefit from an opaque background, a smaller font, and a better layout. (A small portrait of the person’s face next to their text could be nice!)
There’s not that much enemy variety.
I’m really disappointed with the gameplay of the beach DLC. Like, the premise of the entire thing is that sword lady is really annoying and gives you really annoying challenges over and over. Everyone comments about how annoyed they are at the annoying challenges, which are annoying to play, on purpose.
Christine, here is some feedback directly for you: If a section is annoying and unfun, you can talk all day about how annoying it is, but it’s still annoying and unfun to play. You deliberately designed it this way, as evidenced by the dialogue. In the next 2 DLC chapters, please don’t make the game unfun on purpose, okay? You can do some really cool stuff, like the entire main game!
The DLC chapter took me 40 minutes to complete, and I was smiling until I reached the first of sword lady’s challenges.
The maze was not interesting. The “talk to everybody until you get keys” thing was not interesting. The random encounters section sucked. I didn’t mind the road at all because I knew when the next combat would be - adding random encounters to that area made things so much worse. Would it have killed you to add groups of enemies to the world, and to trigger combat when you step next to them, and to make them go away once you’ve defeated them? Seriously, I loved the road fights, and I hated the random encounters. Please don’t do random encounters again.
The final fight with the thief was fine. I don’t understand what causes them to heal, which was a little frustrating, but I got there in the end through the power of banishing her partner and then pressing the attack buttons. Thank you, Zantetsuken.
Christa once again bowls a perfect 300 on the soundtrack, thankfully; and hiring an outfit designer here was absolutely worth it.
CONCLUSION:
The good things about this game GREATLY outweigh the bad. The bad things I mentioned are either nitpicks or DLC-only issues.
Hope this was insightful to some of you, and I’ll return with a smile when the (spirit of the) time comes to get my DLC 2 travel stamp. Peace! <3
One major issue with a specific boss:
Holy fuck can we please get some sort of "I have absolutely zero interest in listening to repeated transphobic and fascist bullshit, let me skip to the part where we beat this scumbag into the ground." button for Gaius?
That dialogue drags on well beyond any reasonable degree of tolerance, and if the deadnaming is censored then why not censor the misgendering similarly?
I get that it's hammering in "This is a bad person", but it's not fun, it's not interesting, it's wasting my time and presenting far-too-real bigotry that I would never willingly tolerate for such a duration.
I think hold space to skip option like when you're redoing a battle post loss would be good, could have flavour text like "bigoted nonsense skipper"
This already exists in all pre-boss dialogue! Gaius included.
1) The characters strength is very weak but the monster HP is a lot, how the hell am I suppose to kill them. Not to be rude but can you gains all the characters ATK
2) The BMG is wonderful, Is there the list of that?
You're meant to be leveling up your items like the tutorial demonstrated, and using Ravage to amplify your Exploit damage, along with Taunt and Heal for sustain.
If you're struggling, make sure you're upgrading ALL your equipped items and then buying the next tier at the shop.
Been waiting for this for a long time and really like it so far! I hate to even ask this question because the game's aesthetic is so stylish but...is there a way to alter the in-game font to something less pixelated? I find the smaller text for item descriptions, weapon stories, etc., extremely difficult to read unless I take the resolution down to a pretty small window. If it's baked into the game I can make do, but just wanted to check, thanks!
Sorry, I'm afraid not!
does this game work with protonplay through steam? i hate running wine by myself. or is there a linux version planned for the future?
It works fine with Wine and Steam Proton.
The game runs fine on Linux in Wine. I have tried both 1.0.0.27 and 1.0.0.28 with and without the DLC on Ubuntu 20.04. I have not finished the game yet and will update if I run into any issues.
I have finished the game and didn’t experience any issues. Hurrah!
I really really enjoyed this game. the writing is excellent, and I fell in love with all of the characters; I think Valentin is probably my favorite, but it's a bit like choosing which of your comfort foods is "better" than the others. the combat system was really fun and engaging, and I liked it enough to play on Devil Clock and didn't regret it. I'm excited for the rest of the DLC, and I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone. love the art, love the writing, the soundtrack is a banger, A+ 10/10
How did you manage? The fights are so hard!
the trick is to make sure that you're always leveling to the highest tier of gear available, which is fairly easy once you get access to the stickers—and on Devil Clock you get lots of stickers! otherwise, 5 Battle Energy and the consumable that gives you nuclear element are both extremely powerful, so much so that the game turns the latter one off for most boss fights.
for strategy, using Bleed on the last board, Sam set to Splash Heal, and using debuffs/taunt/Life on the preceding boards while you wait for Sword of Fate was my strategy. Bleed does ridiculous amounts of damage, so I had it on both Val and Grace, with Smite on board one literally just for Smite Only challenges. I used Angela exclusively to generate Ravage meter.
whatever your last board is, is what you'll spend the most time in naturally, so it's good to have it be consistent exploit damage + group healing. whatever your second board is should be buffs and heals, because until you get a Fast passive trinket you should always immediately advance to the second board. I put "situational powerhouse" moves on board one, since you use it the least; there's a combo with Fast passive skills and a tier IX trinket to get powerful staggers easily, but I think it's more fun to figure that out on your own.
Such an amazing game. I just finished it and need to play it again I think!! thank you so much
How exactly do you defeat Deadname? I’ve tried multiple load outs with the 5 battle boost and radiation status items and still cannot seem to kill him.
There's a couple of important things about Deadname which should make the fight easier:
Also, Sam's Slow spell is very good in this fight (as it is in general in fights against a single enemy) - if you combine it with Illegal Fireworks to instantly stagger the boss, you can essentially cheese the fight.
thank you so much!! this is very helpful
Took a bit of getting used to the controls but was really enjoyable!
Fate doesn't cause damage to the player—it sounds like someone probably just got attacked during the animation. The Sword of Fate in fact does increasing amounts of healing to the party each time you use it, to a maximum of your current rank * 10.
Rank disparities do increasing amounts of damage based on the gap. A Rank III ability attacking a Rank II enemy will do 1.5x damage, but a Rank III ability will do 2x damage.
Are controllers supported on macOS version? If so, any guidance for getting one working?
Definitely supposed to be supported! Can you let me know more about the controller that isn't being detected?
I've tried with both the Xbox Series X (identified by macOS as "Xbox Wireless Controller" and PS5 controllers (identified by macOS as "DualSense Wireless Controller"). The only steps I've taken are to connect the controller via Bluetooth and start the game.
Thanks for the help. I love the game!
I'll look into this, but I think the controller library I use may not support either of those controllers wirelessly. If using a cable isn't an option, I've heard Steam's controller remapping is generally pretty successful, so that may also help.
Hello!
I have exactly this problem on macOS.
Controller (XSX) only works until I press any of ABXY buttons, after that it loses input until I press "Start" button - basically unplayable.
Same on Steam and itchio versions. Latest gamepad firmware. Latest game patch. Gamepad works perfectly fine on other titles.
lmk if more info needed!
Sorry about the trouble! Are you using the controller wirelessly or wired? And what happens if you use the Steam controller remapping?
This was so much fun until Chapter 2. The difficulty scales immensely and the combat becomes so incredibly dragged out and tedious even on Story mode. It definitely does not make the game more of a VN as promised.
The introduction of elemental typing in Ch. 2 would have been fine if A) there was some kind of warning that this was coming and B) there was a warning that you'd accidentally heal enemies if you attacked them with a certain element. There's no real way to plan ahead, you never know what you're fighting next and at a certain point, your strongest gear gives you elemental passives whether you want them or not.
Also, understanding your party strength is extremely difficult. Enemies do an incredible amount of damage which is doubled if someone has an elemental weakness. Yes, you can vary your gear with different elements but as you're scrolling through your moves, if you get caught with a weakness, you take so much damage. Staying on one gear set slows down your damage output, making the fights take even longer than they already are. And unless you're hitting the enemies with their elemental weakness, your party does so little damage even with the best gear you can get at the gas station (upgraded) which is always a rank or two below the monsters you encounter. It's discouraging.
And then there's (maybe spoiler?) Gaius. This boss shifts his element so at least one person in your party is going to be healing him at any given time. Not that it matters because your damage output is so incredibly low. You're hitting him for 2 or 3 damage while he hits you for a whopping 90 - 180! His attack speed is fast, so there's no way to outheal him with Sam before someone is face down. Having to pause, use a healing item, unpause and repeat every few seconds is not ideal. In JRPGs, this usually means that the party is supposed to lose, that it's scripted. Here, it's not, and I cannot figure out how to just get it over so I can get back to the charming, funny and fun story. I am literally stuck and no other fight before this was this impossible.
I genuinely do not understand what went wrong here, if I'm missing something about gear and combat or if it really is poor scaling, but I feel as though the frequency of the battles, the difficulty and tediousness of them and the confusing gear system are actively working to keep me from just enjoying an awesome gay quest to defeat evil. I want to finish the game.
If Gaius is doing over 90 damage to you, it sounds like you're trying to fight him with characters who are three ranks lower than him. My advice would be to focus on making sure all everyone's items are at least equivalent to Rank V before challenging him. Hope that helps!
Hi, thanks for your response. It doesn't help because at this point in the game, you only have access to rank 3+ gear from the gas station and upgrades which is rank 4 equivalent according to the menu. The only rank 4 gear I have (which I think I may have gotten from the sidequest bounties but there aren't any left to do) forces passive elements that actively heal enemies if their element is green/nature over every ability, so when Gaius switches his element they're rendered useless and take double damage from weakness. That's an issue that extends to all fights. Are players really expected to run from fights and switch around the gear every single time they encounter an enemy that they're disadvantaged against because of forced blanket passives? Every time?
So if Gaius requires rank 5 gear and rank 4 isn't available in the gas station at this point, how do I get it and do they all have forced passives?
You should have access to Rank V+ (Effectively VI) gear at this point. Chapter 1 caps you at Rank III. Chapter 2 caps you at Rank V. Remember that you unlock the next tier by having everyone wearing 3 trinkets of the previous rank+.
You can also load up everyone with 5 Battle Energy once you're using Rank V+ gear to get an effective Rank VII, which should really drop the damage you're taking if you're still having difficulty.
THANK YOU so much for saying how gear unlocks. I couldn't understand why I was getting rinsed in every fight, even though I was leveling up my gear.
I admit this has been frustrating to play, but that is because I have no familiarity with the FF13 style of battles and I have no idea where the game tells you that you NEED to level up your gear to unlock the next tier at the shop. Fingers crossed I can catch up enough to where I don't have to completely restart!
First - thank you for mentioning the elementals. Was just this morning stuck in a fight where I couldn't figure out why these two bozos (the vine guys) just weren't dying. I had thought that you got the best element out of all equipment you had, but maybe that's not true?
Anyway, I can return the favor - when you run away, the game puts you back right *before* the fight, so you can respec and go back in. (Just swapped my VI grass with a IV fire, and suddenly those two just went down like chumps.)
Only the passive ability "[element] Added " gives you that element on every ability. Otherwise, your element is determined by which ability is active at the time. If you're ever unsure, you can check the status page in the menu, or look next to the character's name in battle to see which elemental affinities they currently have at that particular moment.
That makes sense, thanks!
i agree with you that things dont feel exactly balanced at chapter 2 and it could use clearer instruction on level up and elemental importance because if you do it wrong it is wayyyy harder than it needs to be even on easy lol.
went from cute and fun to very frustrating and upsetting. but i think i got it now maybe.
Congratulations on the release! I saw the soundtrack is available on Steam; will it be available here on Itch too?
It won't be available on Itch—I recommend buying it directly from Christa on her bandcamp here! https://ohpoorpup.bandcamp.com/album/get-in-the-car-loser-original-sound-version...
Ah, fantastic! Thanks so much :)
Game is cool as hell so far in act I, but I think maybe I missed something but what is the difference between exploit and destruction?
The only difference is that Destruction abilities tend to be more powerful—or more specialized —than Exploit!
idk I think Bleed is probably the best exploit skill, and drastically overshadows any Destruction skills—especially since Destruction gets linked to elements, which perform very poorly; having bosses with multiple elements or the ability to change elements, without the player being able to change, makes them useless since they are effective for basically one phase and a liability for the others. Smite ends up being *okay* but you're actively incentivized to use it as little as possible, even with high stagger/re-stagger strats. Meanwhile, Bleed hits like a truck, is untyped, and the self-damage won't put you in danger if you are playing around it.
Taunt is also underwhelming, as long as I'm complaining, especially in fights with multiple strong enemies; getting the AI to spread out attacks is much safer than everyone hammering Valentin all at once; they don't benefit enough from the defense buff, in my opinion. going from 70% of their life per hit to 60% of their life per hit does not change the reality that they'll be two-shot.
the game was a ton of fun, but as far as the battle system goes I found much more success in playing against a lot of what is "expected" in the strategy, as far as what specific abilities to equip. the element system just isn't flexible enough to do anything helpful, again especially since the bosses are multi-element. there's no way to really know ahead of time what element is good against road enemies because you can't see what you're going to fight; it's really Nuclear or Bust, and with Control Rod you even lose that option too.
EDIT: I feel like this maybe sounds like I'm being really harsh on the battle system, but I have to reiterate that I really really enjoyed it and I loved the system that was presented. I think one small change—being able to hotswap element—would fix all of my concerns with the strategy. I think ravage stuff and the stagger meter was dope and I liked figuring out the re-stagger strategy, I am very satisfied with that; but changing the element issue would have made the "element trinket" quest rewards feel good instead of feeling like I got rewarded with 3 stickers.
This feel like the successor to ffxiii and megaman battle network, but way way gayer, so basically everything I ever wanted?
extremely lesbian reccommended!!!
Maybe a dumb question: if I want to support y'all here on itch but also am an achievements nerd sometimes and considering wanting to play the game on Steam for Steam achievements can you install the itch.io DLC on top of the Steam copy (and still get Steam achievements)?
Yeah, this should work just fine!
Is my walking speed at the rest stop meant to be uncontrollably fast?
Definitely a bug. Can you send more information about your platform and system specs in an email to support@loveconquersallgames.com? (If you're able to get a screen recording of the issue, that would be even more helpful.) Thanks!
I still remember playing this at PAX in 2019. Looking forward to its release!
hi!! super excited for this game! i was wondering if this game has any parts that require manual dexterity, like timing or platforming or stuff, in terms of accessibility? thanks for yr time, have a great day! :)
from what i have seen, the game plays with 6 keys/buttons total, and most of the time you'll have to press 4 of them one after the other. timing is important to get the best out of combos, but you can mostly plan ahead. there is no quick-time event, key smashing or super-tight timing. there are also multiple difficulty settings, so getting good combos might not be very important in the lowest ones
I am too gay to wait for this game.
I love Valentin and I want to be them
Yes, I know the game is not out yet.
so pumped for this game!!!!
please. i need this. i have waited so long
vibrating with disastrous sapphic energy in anticipation for this game
the bullet point says “Girls. Just... girls... you know...???” does this mean Val identifies as a girl (they’re described as a boyfriend), or are you just being unintentionally cis-normative?
No, Valentin is not a girl. They’re non-binary!
OOOOO THIS LOOKS SOOO GOOD !!! Can't wait!
I NEED IT
Woah that looks like new screenshots. Bio-synthetic TRex monster. Cool
so excited for this!
is this still coming
It's still in development, but we're very far along—it'll be out later this year!
Thanks for letting me know, im so pumped for the release!
gosh, girls really are great
The description for Angela has me curious from a game-design perspective – does "a completely average fighter by intent" mean (assuming generic JRPG-type combat mechanics):
- She's got less defense than the sturdy party members and more than the fragile ones, vice-versa for offense, and mechanically works in basically the same way as the other characters just with middle-of-the-road set of starting numbers and abilities?
- Instead of normal stat gains by levels/gear/whatever, she's always got her stats at exactly the average of the rest of the party?
- Purely narrative, and she's actually just as specialized as everyone else?
All the progression in the game is equipment-based! So stats-wise she's just locked to whatever items are available at that point in the game. However, her battle abilities are well-rounded by design, as opposed to being specialized—she's the only character who doesn't have any unique abilities, but she's also the only character who can both build the stagger bar _and_ exploit it.
Ah, okay. Option one, more or less; that makes sense. i don't know what the "stagger bar is" beyond reasonably inferences, but that sounds pretty neat.
I was just thinking in terms of "she's deliberately pulling her punches to stay average, so maybe that means she doesn't gain power like the other characters who presumably can't just decide to hit twice as hard if they feel like it." Speculation getting ahead of facts.
This disaster lesbian is excite af
Looks great, as ever!
Looks great!!! i'll look forward it 👌👀👀❤