VXAce - The N.E.X.U.S. Project (8.2.0)

Delta Origins:

• Intro with scrolling text. Font color is hard to read and it was a bit fast, so I couldn't read it all in time.
• Transition from intro to the spaceship was a little confusing, I didn’t even know they had gotten on the ship and left yet. Maybe add another little scene where they board the ship?
• Reaction to Earth blowing up felt a little flat/rushed. There is a lot of potential in that scene though.

Battle Tutorial

• I’d get rid of the “fight, escape” part of the tutorial, that sort of thing is a little redundant as most people can figure out what the two mean already :p
• Explaining the “gears” and how they effect turns was good though, I’d keep that part.

Battles

• Pandora and Andromeda are fairly useless compared to Nova in terms of damage and utility for the most part. 9 out of 10 times I just used Nova to attack and rarely ever used Pandora. Andromeda was useful sometimes because she could find items for the team, so she at least had some use. Until Pandora got headshot, I rarely used up a turn on her, even even after she got headshot, I only ever used her if she had the TP (or whatever the resource was called) to use it.
• Encounter rates in the cave are a little too high. There were times that I would get in a fight after only taking like 2-3 steps.

Misc

• Eggs. If you pick up any of the eggs while Nova and Pandora are sleeping, it still says “Pandora is furious” which doesn’t make much sense since she’s asleep :p
• Same deal, later on after Andromeda goes missing. If you pick up an egg, it says Andromeda is delighted even though she’s not there :p

Overall 1st impression:
+ Great music
+ Battles seem balanced well
+ Dialogue is pretty good.
+ Story is interesting enough.
+ I like the party dynamics and how they interact with each other.
- There are some grammatical errors, but I’m sure you’ll get to that eventually.
- A bit more fleshing out the intro can help you really feel the emotions of the characters when Earth gets blown up.
- Encounter rates in the cave were a little high, but, to be fair, your battles are quick and well-balanced, so kudos on that!

"Nova, you of all people should know you CAN'T decide someone's merit" - Typo I think?


The passability on this tile is a little weird


You said "where do we search?" twice.
'

Storyline: It's interesting. The characters go out to explore the galaxy, hopefully finding a suitable new place for earthlings to live. Well, that is they would be if the earth hadn't blown up minutes after they took off. Actually, we really don't know what actually happened to the earth, as it's never really presented on screen, save for a lone comment about how it isn't there.

Whatever the case, I think the storyline moves a bit too fast. There isn't too much of a build up between getting their orders and then flying in space. I would have like to have learned about the Commander a bit more, (Perhaps he will be included in future expansions).

The plotline though is pretty cool and I wonder what is in store for the characters.

The Characters: I have to say this off the bat: I really don't like Pandora. I don't anyone that stuck up that they demand to have someone move out of a chair when there is a perfectly empty seat right next to it. But she is also all talk and no show. For some reason, I thought Nova was a girl for a few moments, though I was quickly proven otherwise. I really don't have anything to say about Andromeda.

Can I say that I actually prefer the mysterious alien over them? He at least has some morals and some better dialogue. :hswt:

The Battle System

I just hit Enter repeatedly to speed up the fights. Worked on boss battles too. I did feed them a bandage every once in a while.

The Menu/User Interface

It feels Sci-Fi, which is definitely great. Though maybe I would ditch the high pitched noises, like when you make a selection, as it's kind of annoying. Maybe a lower volume will do it.

The Environment

I feel like there should actually be more parts to the actual spaceship. Unless they'll be spending most of their time on this planet. Consider adding a few more rooms- Crew Quarters, A mess hall and kitchen, and then the actual things like an Engine room and the Bridge. That being said, the Sci-Fi shown here is amazing. The lava planet is also nicely done, though I did feel like it was hard to avoid the lava tiles at times.

Conclusion: It's a great start to a promising game. I think if you draw the story out a bit more and maybe add some character development, it will be amazing. The Battle system can probably get better with additional skills (maybe a healing skill or some such). And man...Pandora sure does look different when starting Chapter 2.

Overall, I felt it was well done. It shows a lot of polish for the first chapter, which is good.

Bugs:
-When I searched the secret wall, the wrong bust showed for Pandora.
-When I fought the 2nd boss, they said something about Encyclopedia is still alive and then Andromedia went I am? Wrong name there, and the dialogue just didn't seem to make sense to me either.

Suggestions:
-The menu SE is way too loud compared to the rest of the game. I had to turn SE down to 80% just to hear the battle music over it. May want to lower the default volume of it.
-I'm not a fan of bosses getting 3 turns, as bad RNG on who they attack can end the battle in no time. Maybe drop the turns and power up the attacks a little instead?
-I did once get a random battle really soon after a random battle. You may want to script in a fix to that, as RPGMaker has nothing to stop it from having a battle 1 step after a previous battle. I think there is a fix already on the ACE script forums though I don't know where to find it off the top of my head.

Other:
Nice hud for the main map. How did you do that?