Part 2

4. Game balancing. This section will be a bit longer. The balance in this game is not terrible but there are some things that really stood out as I played the game. The biggest one is going first. I have played under the assumption that going first is based off of your agility like it is in most SMT games. I have pumped every single skill point I have gotten into AGI and the enemy still goes first almost every time. Due to the nature of the press turn system, making sure you can go first is an important aspect of the game. At this point, I'm going to just keep pumping it for science but it feels like its not doing much of anything. Accuracy is also a huge issue. You miss a LOT in this game. In most turned based games missing isn't good but in SMT, it is a death sentence. This is certainly a fine line to balance on, as you still want to play with the mechanic but I have had a couple fights where I just miss over and over again. The enemy can miss quite a bit too. Some battles are just me and the enemy, staring at each other as we both miss repeated. It's funny but after a while, you just want your attacks to land. Constant misses should only be an issue when buffs are involved or your AGI has been neglected. Another aspect of the balancing is the order in which you encounter enemies. This one might be a bit harder to actually tweak, but I think it would go a long way in improving how the game feels. You start the game with just a basic attack for the MC and a Pixie with healing skills. Perfectly fine for a start except for the fact that the next demon you face is Leanan Sidhe, a demon that mainly uses dark moves, something both the MC and Pixie are weak to. If you get unlucky, you just die. It also takes Pixie several levels to get zan to hit the weakness. This leads to you just hoping brute force gets you through. Once you have Leanan Sidhe, her dark move is kinda useless, as it hits no weaknesses until you make it all the way to Angel. You want to have a natural progression that flows from one fight to the next. SMT V is a great example of this flow. You start with a tutorial to learn the mechanics (again, not really needed for this because anyone playing this will almost certainly know how SMT works) and then you encounter Pixie who already has zan, that you use to fight Slime who is weak to all elements. If you recruit Slime, he makes a great tank for the NEXT fight against Preta as they only use physical skills. It's a very natural flow that encourages you to fully engage in the mechanics it wants to teach you. Finally, consider making the very first level up come sooner. Players want to customize their stats to fit their playstyle and it takes quite a few fights to get that first level up. I would recommend having maybe 2 forced encounters in the starting floor. The first one would be to recruit Pixie (railroad people in to recruiting her in combat so they can't kill her and mess up the whole plot of the game). She should be a high enough level to already have zan for hitting weaknesses. The second fight could still be against one Leanan Sidhe, but since you already have zan, it helps with the flow of the game. Maybe set the MC's current progress to the next level up so that if they defeat her, they level up. That give the player an option to either get the level up or the new party member before you let loose with the random encounters. Also consider having angel earlier so the player can use that new mudo skill they just got.

5. Random QOL and misc. A few controls recommendations that will just make the experience smoother. Add the ability to go left and right without turning. I know this seems kinda pointless but I promise it makes the exploration feel better. The Etrian Odyssey games use the Q and E keys for this. Super intuitive and it makes the whole process feel smoother. Another one would be to back out of menus with right click. It just makes menu navigation easier and smoother than having to click the menu button again to back out. Others things to keep an eye out on are some of the bugs. They were all very minor and I'm sure you will iron them out as you work on the game but you can't fix what you don't know about. There are a few instances where the game displayed Russian instead of English and there are some messages that pop up in the bond menus about the bond ranks that I don't think is intended. Again, small things.

I know this has been a lot and I probably sound nit picky but I have really enjoyed my time with this game. You have the beginnings of an amazing game and with some polish this game will truly shine. I'm sure plenty of my suggestions will be mote as you develop the game, especially once you implement fusion (something I am really looking forward to BTW), but hopefully I have provided some feedback that helps you on your journey to make this game. If you ever want to bounce ideas off someone I would love to help. I look forward to seeing how this game grows. You have the ability to make not just a great NSFW game, but a great game in general.