izigame.me

This game is a great pick up, I watched the Trailer back in 2023 and had been looking forward to it. Ive, put a little over two hours into it and here are some of my thoughts
Story:
It never takes it's self to seriously however I still feel as though I have a goal and it changes often enough to keep me interested. the characters don't have a ton of back story but are quirk enough to enjoy, the main rival made me giggle a few times and you can feel the love but also that the writer knows we want the meat of the game.
Combat: Player
Combat is super rewarding in this game allowing you to weave together quick combos that feel great due to it's 3 weapon system. Early on you do a satisfying jab combo that doesn't hit hard, but after the first story scene you are introduced quickly to a shield by doing a puzzle (this is important), this changes everything. The shield has a very short dash that is able to do (Might) Damage well also stunning the enemy for a moment and healing you if you manage to parry the enemy. This incentives watching how the creatures move and reflecting them. Right after that, a story moment happens, you enter combat and are given a Boomerang afterwards. This item is great for combos allowing you to throw the boomerang out to the side, where it can bounce off walls into you enemies to wrack up big numbers. Well comboing with shield bashes. However well throwing it out, it's button does nothing well the rang is is out of hand, because the shield is from a secret puzzle, it is possible to be missed and honestly without it my initial experience would have been much worse. I recommend that the Dev either swaps the positions of the weapons or has the player default to punching well the boomerang is out of hand, The Shield ads a lot to game player however and I believe it should be the first weapon in the game.
Combat: Creatures
Creature combat in this game is interesting. Each beast has its own damage type and can also have elements, and an additional "Skill" can be acquired through means. The tamed creatures have an energy bar that is indicated at the bottom right of the screen, as well as a white shell that wraps around the creatures heart above its head indicating it's health and energy levels. In the tutorial it teaches you that when this energy bar is full you will be able to press "LB" to collect a heal from the creature. However as you are not given a skill right away it never mentions that you also use this energy for a skill use, and also (this is the rough part) that you must be standing on directly on top of the creature to activate it skill (once you acquire one for it). I this is extremely painful as creatures often find themselves in positions you don't want to be in or totally surrounded. I assume the system is this way due to being able to have up to 3 creatures out at a time well controlling them all with 1 button (RB), I would recommend to the Dev to change this system into a radial wheel like the creature select screen and allow abilities to be called on at a distance. As currently its better for me to shield bash, sword slash, and boomerang bang my way through, then ever use my pets skills.
To note on the aggro issue, as soon as I attack something the pets should enter combat. Having it be based on me interacting with a mob (great) and also the range of my pet (not so great) is annoying at times.
Combat: Balance
Monsters feel great to fight and having the parry system really makes it feel good and fast.
The creatures are more of an assist to the player but I think that's how they should be in an action game like this, and the simple triangle of Might-Skill-Ranged feels great to learn which weapons and pets really work well for what.
The enemy creatures are pretty aggressive and do decent damage so the game isn't hard, but it is possible to die. However since most of the time you are spamming the creature heal I spoke of before, if you are paying attention and parrying as well you can live anything. there was a few darksouls esque moments that caught me off guard from a game like this (Getting jumped by 3 monsters walking into a zone lul) however all in all it feels fair and fun
Systems:
This is the juice for me. They throw these at you quick enough to feel like you get most of the game quickly but not so fast that you are trying to keep track of it all
Firstly Creature Taming:
In a zone there are bad monsters and friendly ones, after you clear out all the bads you can interact with the friendly ones (sometimes they even help fight the bads without being in your party, nice touch and chefs kiss :*) after you interact with them you are able to feed them berries to tame them as well as rack up "Points" with that certain species which can reward, skill points (once), skill gems, more berries for taming, and hats for all of your monsters. Each species has its own independent skill tree in your (lets just call it what it is) Pokedex, this skills range from stats for your main character, increased limits on how many creatures can be brought with you, seeds limits in your garden (more on this later) and also making life easier when fighting that exact monster (more stagger, easier taming, less damage taken). This system really incentives gathering up all the monster and trying to hit certain barter points with them for berries. Speaking of berries, at the start of the game the only way to get them is have them drop from monsters (very rare) or by bartering for more from monsters, so it may feel like you have to min max for berries in the beginning but don't stress it gets better.
Skills:
I spoke about this a bit before so I'll be brief, They are gathered or bartered for and can be swapped freely, you can trade in 3 not so good ones for a better one, this is great. They are elementally related and they have randomly rolled stats so you will find yourself hunting for the best one, I think all of this is great.
However they need to be buffed, combing that you need to waste a heal, well also running on top of your monster it is extremely underwhelming that they hit for like 20% more then your pets auto attacks even at blue quality, Right now or until late game when skills get much stronger (I hope) it is best to just spam heal, or some of the buff skills that also don't last long enough (I'm talking like 4 seconds, make it 15 or 20 for early game and like 2-3 minutes late game)
Garden:
This was a nice surprise, its one of the systems you will get later in the game, about 45 minutes to and hour and a half if you collect everything like me. Its basically a large skill tree for your whole team, It allows you to plant berry seeds that will make monsters in combat drop your planted seeds much more often allowing you to reasonably acquire them but also has the added buff of placing your active monsters on a grid board and surrounding them with flowers of different shapes and sizes to buff them, place things the right way and one flower can buff multiple pets. It feels good to play with and finding the big shiny flowers in the over world is great
Updated Note:
I almost forgot, Creature perks feel AWFUL they have a kiss/curse system but you have to pick one so having a choice of 50% move speed but lose 25% crit damage or 10% regen but lose 15% attack is TERRIBLE please change this and just buff the enemies
Final notes
Game so far is great with a few little bumps that stick out.
The music is great and the story is fun. The Npc's and zones have charm, and I enjoy the combat, mons and systems that keep me wanting more
However there are small changes that should be made such as the skills being on a radial wheel to make them actually part of the game as they currently feel awful to use. It may seem like it would slow the pace of the game but I think it would streamline it much more. as well as making the shield not a secret item. I think its too important in early gameplay to miss, for under $20 CAD a great game!