Vacant Sky Complete Edition: Act I+ Released!

[Thula]

I finished Act II yesterday, and I must say it was really beautful.
I was worried because some characters had been fleshed out less than others, but in the last part made up for that greatly. I wish this character development had happened a little earlier in the narration though.


I played Act III this evening, and so far it's living up to my expectations, providing many intersting dialogues and mysteries. I'm not that far into the story, but I can already see there are choices that could potentially influence the cutscenes.

Spoiler

I had my ass beaten by Darxinger lol. Poor Noe D=

Also, Archetype Auria is insanely hard, unless I'm using the wrong strategy ;;

 

[Sailerius]

I finished Act II yesterday, and I must say it was really beautful.
I was worried because some characters had been fleshed out less than others, but in the last part made up for that greatly. I wish this character development had happened a little earlier in the narration though.


I played Act III this evening, and so far it's living up to my expectations, providing many intersting dialogues and mysteries. I'm not that far into the story, but I can already see there are choices that could potentially influence the cutscenes.

Spoiler

I had my ass beaten by Darxinger lol. Poor Noe D=

Also, Archetype Auria is insanely hard, unless I'm using the wrong strategy ;;

Hurray! I'm glad you enjoyed Act II. A lot of blood, sweat, and tears went into that ending. 50 hours during Christmas week. X_x

Spoiler

Didn't Kasch teach you what happens when you try to brute force your way through tough choices? =P

Archetype Auria is very difficult on your first time through. I suggest giving it a second shot on a New Cycle.

 

[Voldo]

Finished Act III (two times actually). Great work, what can I say. I really liked the game, big thanks for it.
It may be the best rm game I ever played.
Here are some thoughts and questions:

Spoiler

Combat system is shining now. Battles became much more interesting with new vital hits, really nice improvement.

Lavir seems a bit weak for a three-turn move. Rend to Sorrow is extremly usefull, though.

The game seems to focus on replayability with extra ending, astral arena, Darxinger and so on, but during new cycle you have to skip all those dialog lines you've already read (and may be twice) one by one, which is annoying, time consuming and kills a big part of the fun (Maybe hard to fix).

Trial of anger and trial of bargain especially are a bit annoying, IMHO.

It's not clear how our party was able to beat Vastale. I mean first they are captured by some ordinary virads and then they beat all mighty villain even without Auria. (Just bitching)

Counter reaction does not seem to work right: when you fight one on one, you does not get extra turn after being hit (strange, as enemy gets his double turn in such situation)

Seri/binding knife seem a bit overpowered: she fairly often delivers 6k+ vitals to creeps and 3.5k vitals to Vel boss, which can make last battle awfully easy.

Ejaro seemed too weak: his hits dealt 150 damage to me which is less than healing from my regeneration spell (I was lv 23, I believe). I'd wanted to fight some tougher guy during such cool music

How do you get to the last boss in the astral Arena? I killed Vel and Weapon (the first one was really hard, I needed diamond diadem simply to hit her. Also her figure doesn't become dark after battle.) but tiles around last enemy are unpassible.

Is there anything you can do with that Yomi location? (Apart from watching interlude.)

What are those excert "letters" for?

How you get to Archetype Auria you are talking about? (Wasted about 40 minutes trying to find out.)

And sorry for my English)

 

[Thula]

Spoiler

Archetype Auria is in the Manor, behind the mirrors you'll find something new c:
I stumbled upon her in the very beginning and had my ass pwned, if you are at lv 23 it might be easier.

I agree on the fact Ejaro seemed weak and that the Binding Knife is a bit too much for Seri, considering she's already very fast and with a vast pool of tecniques and awakenings, being also a heavy physical damage dealer is overpowering.



And and and I love Weapon's Corner with mucho love.

New Cycle here I come *o*/

 

[Sailerius]

Finished Act III (two times actually). Great work, what can I say. I really liked the game, big thanks for it.
It may be the best rm game I ever played.
Here are some thoughts and questions:

Spoiler

Combat system is shining now. Battles became much more interesting with new vital hits, really nice improvement.

Lavir seems a bit weak for a three-turn move. Rend to Sorrow is extremly usefull, though.

The game seems to focus on replayability with extra ending, astral arena, Darxinger and so on, but during new cycle you have to skip all those dialog lines you've already read (and may be twice) one by one, which is annoying, time consuming and kills a big part of the fun (Maybe hard to fix).

Trial of anger and trial of bargain especially are a bit annoying, IMHO.

It's not clear how our party was able to beat Vastale. I mean first they are captured by some ordinary virads and then they beat all mighty villain even without Auria. (Just bitching)

Counter reaction does not seem to work right: when you fight one on one, you does not get extra turn after being hit (strange, as enemy gets his double turn in such situation)

Seri/binding knife seem a bit overpowered: she fairly often delivers 6k+ vitals to creeps and 3.5k vitals to Vel boss, which can make last battle awfully easy.

Ejaro seemed too weak: his hits dealt 150 damage to me which is less than healing from my regeneration spell (I was lv 23, I believe). I'd wanted to fight some tougher guy during such cool music

How do you get to the last boss in the astral Arena? I killed Vel and Weapon (the first one was really hard, I needed diamond diadem simply to hit her. Also her figure doesn't become dark after battle.) but tiles around last enemy are unpassible.

Is there anything you can do with that Yomi location? (Apart from watching interlude.)

What are those excert "letters" for?

How you get to Archetype Auria you are talking about? (Wasted about 40 minutes trying to find out.)

And sorry for my English)

Thanks for playing! I'm glad you enjoyed!

Spoiler

]Lavir only does slightly less damage than Rend to Sorrows. It's circumstantially useful, though, I agree.

I agree about the dialog, which is why a lot of the interlude cutscenes are different. Unfortunately, I don't really know what to do about the other dialog. Making a cutscene skip feature in RMXP is pretty difficult.

The only reason you were capable of beating Vastale is because of circumstantial luck. He's unbeatable because he has regenerative mana, but you just so happened to be fighting him near an enchantment which absorbs mana. Once he was knocked into it, his regenerative abilities were gone.

Ejaro was very hard to balance. The problem is that his difficulty is based upon your build. If you're a low-DEF build, Omanim will likely one-shot you. Period. So in favor of making him fair to all Aurias, I had to tone him down a little. There was one tester who took at least 10 tries to win.

I hate to admit it, but that's a bug. >_< Shadow Darxinger can't be fought because of a passability error. Yes, I'm a dumbass for not noticing that.

Examine the pillars in Yomi. Certain items can be used here.

The excerpts have no use but to provide information for future games.

Spoiler

Archetype Auria is in the Manor, behind the mirrors you'll find something new c:
I stumbled upon her in the very beginning and had my ass pwned, if you are at lv 23 it might be easier.

I agree on the fact Ejaro seemed weak and that the Binding Knife is a bit too much for Seri, considering she's already very fast and with a vast pool of tecniques and awakenings, being also a heavy physical damage dealer is overpowering.



And and and I love Weapon's Corner with mucho love.

New Cycle here I come *o*/

Glad you enjoyed! I'll look into toning Seri down, then. Which other endings have you gotten so far?

 

[Thula]

The main one (forgot the name, but Weapon said it was the main one iirc), and a bad ending which I believe was Resignation.

Spoiler

Spending eternity with Darxinger basically DDD:

 

[Sailerius]

The main one (forgot the name, but Weapon said it was the main one iirc), and a bad ending which I believe was Resignation.

Spoiler

Spending eternity with Darxinger basically DDD:

The main one is Return. And yes, that's Resignation.

Spoiler

Aw, come on. He's not that bad. I'm sure if you just give him a chance...

 

[danyo34]

About the error, I tried simply starting the game up again, and it worked completely fine. I really don't know what the problem was. Oh well. Have you considered adding a skip dialogue button?

Spoiler: Anyways, about the game

After I went inside the book in the Hall of Legends, I got into a fight, and lost terribly. Is this a bad thing, or are they supposed to be hard? It may have been that my Auria was a speed build, but without the amazing stat changes like Vel. Well I finished that, and was wandering around Svaneholm. The books in Mia's shack have a priority setting that's too high, because they are typically used on tables, so I went under them. During the Darxinger battle after I refused to give up Noe, Auria was hit with slash 6, and immediately died, with the attack doing more than twice her max HP. Rayonne was hit, and I was expecting the same, but it did only about 400 :blank: . Is my Auria really that bad, or is Rayonne supposed to be used by himself? Ugh.

I also realised that Laaik's portrait seemed different from the rest of the characters. It's more pastel-like, I think, with less contrast. Was he a practice drawing from before you decided to use now, or did you get a new artist for him, or...?

And yay, Rayonne finally got a skill. :biggrin:
But I think that with the dialogue in Night Zero, he was supposed to lack skills as part of the plot.

I found that the upgraded guard (defend?) had the same shield icon as its predecessor, but it looks different under the status screen portrait (a blue shield instead of grey). Speaking of which, I really like the menu.

 

[Sailerius]

About the error, I tried simply starting the game up again, and it worked completely fine. I really don't know what the problem was. Oh well. Have you considered adding a skip dialogue button?

Spoiler: Anyways, about the game

After I went inside the book in the Hall of Legends, I got into a fight, and lost terribly. Is this a bad thing, or are they supposed to be hard? It may have been that my Auria was a speed build, but without the amazing stat changes like Vel. Well I finished that, and was wandering around Svaneholm. The books in Mia's shack have a priority setting that's too high, because they are typically used on tables, so I went under them. During the Darxinger battle after I refused to give up Noe, Auria was hit with slash 6, and immediately died, with the attack doing more than twice her max HP. Rayonne was hit, and I was expecting the same, but it did only about 400 :blank: . Is my Auria really that bad, or is Rayonne supposed to be used by himself? Ugh.

I also realised that Laaik's portrait seemed different from the rest of the characters. It's more pastel-like, I think, with less contrast. Was he a practice drawing from before you decided to use now, or did you get a new artist for him, or...?

And yay, Rayonne finally got a skill. :biggrin:
But I think that with the dialogue in Night Zero, he was supposed to lack skills as part of the plot.

I found that the upgraded guard (defend?) had the same shield icon as its predecessor, but it looks different under the status screen portrait (a blue shield instead of grey). Speaking of which, I really like the menu.

Spoiler

The enemies in Mag Mell are supposed to be difficult, although they're worth revisiting later because the items they drop are extremely useful. Darxinger is supposed to be all but impossible on your first playthrough; you're not expected to defeat him. Rayonne is a pure striker build, so unless you built Auria with high ATK, it's to be expected that he'll outdamage her.

The Laaik portrait is different because the artist really didn't want to make another one and it kind of shows. >_>

 

[Crystalgate]

I've managed to get four endings so far. The game suggests I finish the arena, but can I even do that? I can only spot one more fight, but that one doesn't seem accessible.

Spoiler

I beat Shadow Vastale and shadow Ejaro. I heard a gate opening, but nothing seemed to have opened.

The reaction system seemed to be both more and less balanced than before. It's more balanced in the sense that speed characters now dodge enough to compensate for taking higher amount of damage. It's less balanced in that the damage differences are higher than ever. I've noticed speed character taking 4x the damage defense characters takes.

Something I've noticed from enemies is that those who dodges are easily negated. If you attack an enemy set to an evasive reaction with an accurate character, that enemy will rarely be able to dodge. However, enemies who guard will still take reduced damage even if you hit them with a high attack. This makes me wonder if a speed build is viable in the arena. Some enemies there had very high stats and a high accuracy will ruin speed builds. In particular, if any of the enemies there have enough accuracy to vital hit a speed build, that's it. I haven't tested making Auria into a speed build, but seeing her with 500+ defense and Endure take 2,400 damage from a nasty hit doesn't make me confident she will do well with her reaction set to anything else than Endure.

It seems that characters in general got a more useful skillset. I didn't test out the Attack/Accuracy characters, but all the other characters were more useful though.

BTW, only one of the characters is a Defense/Accuracy build and none is an Attack/Speed build. I think unconventional builds needs more love.

 

[Sailerius]

I've managed to get four endings so far. The game suggests I finish the arena, but can I even do that? I can only spot one more fight, but that one doesn't seem accessible.

Spoiler

I beat Shadow Vastale and shadow Ejaro. I heard a gate opening, but nothing seemed to have opened.

The reaction system seemed to be both more and less balanced than before. It's more balanced in the sense that speed characters now dodge enough to compensate for taking higher amount of damage. It's less balanced in that the damage differences are higher than ever. I've noticed speed character taking 4x the damage defense characters takes.

Something I've noticed from enemies is that those who dodges are easily negated. If you attack an enemy set to an evasive reaction with an accurate character, that enemy will rarely be able to dodge. However, enemies who guard will still take reduced damage even if you hit them with a high attack. This makes me wonder if a speed build is viable in the arena. Some enemies there had very high stats and a high accuracy will ruin speed builds. In particular, if any of the enemies there have enough accuracy to vital hit a speed build, that's it. I haven't tested making Auria into a speed build, but seeing her with 500+ defense and Endure take 2,400 damage from a nasty hit doesn't make me confident she will do well with her reaction set to anything else than Endure.

It seems that characters in general got a more useful skillset. I didn't test out the Attack/Accuracy characters, but all the other characters were more useful though.

BTW, only one of the characters is a Defense/Accuracy build and none is an Attack/Speed build. I think unconventional builds needs more love.

There's no story event for finishing the arena. Unfortunately, due to a retarded mapping error, the last enemy in the arena can't be fought. >_<

Spoiler

In Act III, especially in late game, being a speed build requires more than just pure speed. Celerity is a status effect that makes a huge difference. Someone with Celerity and well-trained speed will be virtually unhittable, especially if you have Lucky, as well.

 

[Crystalgate]

There's no story event for finishing the arena. Unfortunately, due to a retarded mapping error, the last enemy in the arena can't be fought. >_<

I have heard about the passability error, but in my playtrough the gate leading there didn't open and I think that's another error. Not that it matters if I can't fight it anyway.

This reminds me of another bug though.

Spoiler

If you enter the arena while you're forced to use only Auria and Ray, Ray will be ejected. He will not be added again when you leave the arena. Fortunately, defeating douche-bag is more a question of having the dispel item than number of characters.

 

[danyo34]

About the error, I tried simply starting the game up again, and it worked completely fine. I really don't know what the problem was. Oh well. Have you considered adding a skip dialogue button?

Spoiler: Anyways, about the game

After I went inside the book in the Hall of Legends, I got into a fight, and lost terribly. Is this a bad thing, or are they supposed to be hard? It may have been that my Auria was a speed build, but without the amazing stat changes like Vel. Well I finished that, and was wandering around Svaneholm. The books in Mia's shack have a priority setting that's too high, because they are typically used on tables, so I went under them. During the Darxinger battle after I refused to give up Noe, Auria was hit with slash 6, and immediately died, with the attack doing more than twice her max HP. Rayonne was hit, and I was expecting the same, but it did only about 400 :blank: . Is my Auria really that bad, or is Rayonne supposed to be used by himself? Ugh.

I also realised that Laaik's portrait seemed different from the rest of the characters. It's more pastel-like, I think, with less contrast. Was he a practice drawing from before you decided to use now, or did you get a new artist for him, or...?

And yay, Rayonne finally got a skill. :biggrin:
But I think that with the dialogue in Night Zero, he was supposed to lack skills as part of the plot.

I found that the upgraded guard (defend?) had the same shield icon as its predecessor, but it looks different under the status screen portrait (a blue shield instead of grey). Speaking of which, I really like the menu.

Spoiler

The enemies in Mag Mell are supposed to be difficult, although they're worth revisiting later because the items they drop are extremely useful. Darxinger is supposed to be all but impossible on your first playthrough; you're not expected to defeat him. Rayonne is a pure striker build, so unless you built Auria with high ATK, it's to be expected that he'll outdamage her.

The Laaik portrait is different because the artist really didn't want to make another one and it kind of shows. >_>

I wasn't saying that he outdamaged her, but that he outdefended her. I reran the battle, and he took 515, while she took 1677, and died.

Edit: AHA! I have found the reason for the bizarre error! I reset using F12 after Auria died, while Rayonne was still alive, and the same thing happened! The title screen took a while, and a little button pressing, to show up too.

Second Edit: Hey...were the ascension data carried over? I think I had put shards in during Act II...

 

[Sailerius]

About the error, I tried simply starting the game up again, and it worked completely fine. I really don't know what the problem was. Oh well. Have you considered adding a skip dialogue button?

Spoiler: Anyways, about the game

After I went inside the book in the Hall of Legends, I got into a fight, and lost terribly. Is this a bad thing, or are they supposed to be hard? It may have been that my Auria was a speed build, but without the amazing stat changes like Vel. Well I finished that, and was wandering around Svaneholm. The books in Mia's shack have a priority setting that's too high, because they are typically used on tables, so I went under them. During the Darxinger battle after I refused to give up Noe, Auria was hit with slash 6, and immediately died, with the attack doing more than twice her max HP. Rayonne was hit, and I was expecting the same, but it did only about 400 :blank: . Is my Auria really that bad, or is Rayonne supposed to be used by himself? Ugh.

I also realised that Laaik's portrait seemed different from the rest of the characters. It's more pastel-like, I think, with less contrast. Was he a practice drawing from before you decided to use now, or did you get a new artist for him, or...?

And yay, Rayonne finally got a skill. :biggrin:
But I think that with the dialogue in Night Zero, he was supposed to lack skills as part of the plot.

I found that the upgraded guard (defend?) had the same shield icon as its predecessor, but it looks different under the status screen portrait (a blue shield instead of grey). Speaking of which, I really like the menu.

Spoiler

The enemies in Mag Mell are supposed to be difficult, although they're worth revisiting later because the items they drop are extremely useful. Darxinger is supposed to be all but impossible on your first playthrough; you're not expected to defeat him. Rayonne is a pure striker build, so unless you built Auria with high ATK, it's to be expected that he'll outdamage her.

The Laaik portrait is different because the artist really didn't want to make another one and it kind of shows. >_>

I wasn't saying that he outdamaged her, but that he outdefended her. I reran the battle, and he took 515, while she took 1677, and died.

Edit: AHA! I have found the reason for the bizarre error! I reset using F12 after Auria died, while Rayonne was still alive, and the same thing happened! The title screen took a while, and a little button pressing, to show up too.

Second Edit: Hey...were the ascension data carried over? I think I had put shards in during Act II...

No, ascension data was reset since some of the shards were changed or removed.

 

[Einander]

I came across Act III by chance on the "new" section of the rpgmaker.net front page, and finished the game yesterday after playing through the series for the first time. I went through with a Speed-Strength-Accuracy build and enjoyed it quite a bit.

A few questions, for anyone who can answer:

Spoiler

After the Virad Mask, Hood, and Uniform, what do you need to complete that questline in Act II? I was able to find those three and a Cursed Knife, but he didn't comment on the Knife and the quest wasn't marked as complete. I'm assuming whatever it was is also in the same place.

In Act III, are there quests available beyond the recruitment of Laaik and saving Vel before heading to Halo Locks? I looked, but I couldn't find any. It did say "recruit allies," plural, so I was left feeling like I'd missed something before heading off.

Is there some way to dispel Regeneration with Auria other than consumables? There were a couple of bosses in the Void Arena which came down to "put a few points into Burst Rage skills and get lucky with Vital Hits on Rend to Sorrows," so I'm wondering if I missed some skill in the Training menu.

Balance thoughts, in no particular order:

Spoiler

The Virad Mask is really good. In the process of attempting to get the Virad artifacts for the quest, I acquired four, which then made the rest of the game much easier. MP Regen is a really, really powerful effect; less so here, because the only offensive "mage" character has a locked accessory slot (Zaqris doesn't really count), but a Virad Mask on the healers and Vel meant essentially infinite support magic. There's one exception, detailed below.

Vital Hits are powerful in this game. That's part of what makes Seri really, really good in Act III; she hits Vital Hits quite often and has enough strength to make "triple damage" matter. She does 2/3 of Rayonne or Vanquish normally, I've found. Vel, however, lands Vital Hits almost as often and has pitiful strength, so her Vital Hits do almost as much damage as a normal attack from someone else at end game. You should be balancing closer to Seri than Vel, I think. It's a shame you killed the Defense/Accuracy person right before the game where Vital Hits shined, though; with Vital Hits as they are, I think I'd take Zaqris over anyone other than Seri if he had the skills to back it up. "Below average strength + high accuracy + high defensive stat" is a good combination in Act III's engine.

I have no real problem with most of Seri's balance; however, Curse is absurd, and it's most of what makes her best-in-party. It's really good damage, cheap, hits all targets, and debuffs all four primary stats. The only other characters with attacks that hit all targets are Rien (who, even if she did more damage with her more expensive spell, can't use the Virad Mask and has auto-Poison) and Auria (who needs two turns to charge). And Blaise, I suppose. "Really good damage and debuffs" and "really good damage and hits all enemies" are both really powerful effects. Getting both in one spell on an offensively powerful character, one who dodges enough attacks to be durable, and at a cost where a MP-regen accessory can recoup most of it? That'd be really good even in a game with more commonly-available debuff abilities.

For reference, Seri killed every one of Vastale's minions with Curse over two spells, thanks to Vital Hits killing them outright from full health, and did ~60-70% of his lifebar herself through repeated castings of Curse, many of which landed as Vital Hits. Rayonne used Enrage->Attack to avoid counters and the other two characters played medic.

The fact almost everything can be hit by Poison, and that Rend to Sorrows has a really good to-Poison chance, means that Auria kind of steals the show in most boss fights; the damage from Poison does almost as much as any other character's damage contribution. Rend to Sorrows does really good damage as-is.

Character rankings (opinion only):

Auria > Seri >> Vanquish > Rien > Laaik > Vel > Rayonne > Blaise

The characters after Seri are all fairly close. Vanquish and Rien have their spots due to Mass First Aid and Quickening, respectively; party healing is essential and something only Vanquish and Auria seem to get, and the ability to buff the survivability of the two best characters is really good. Rien's durability is really lacking, though, which is why Blaise has the last spot; good damage, the ability to hit all targets is a great effect, but I don't think he can turn it off to avoid counters, he has no abilities worth noting, and his defenses need help. Vel gets better at support as the game goes on, but she also gets really bad at damage. Rayonne just doesn't have much that stands out. I used him quite a bit, especially for randoms, but he feels a bit like slot filler.

And a fairly significant Ascension glitch:

Spoiler

From testing, this only seems to apply to when Auria is solo; I discovered it in the Void Arena. Activate both Berserk and Pause on your Ascension, start a battle, and use Ascension as the first action of the battle. The enemy will freeze until your turn passes twice, at which point they all act, and when your turn comes back around you regain control and can act as normal. Regeneration and Rejuvenation, if present, still activate during this time.

This gives you two extra points to work with for essentially free; if you have the Virad Mask, then it's better than free, because you get two free activations of Rejuvenation immediately after you use Ascension. The two points are quite significant, as it's just enough to allow you activate Burst Agility, Burst Agility II, and Winter Breeze II, which, especially combined with the Auto-Haste of the Cat Ears, made Auria insanely evasive. As soon as I could buy a Runic Robe, I killed every Void Arena boss I could access. (Though the Shadow Guards actually made me use a 75% healing item...)

The one exception I noticed was Shadow Auria, who will, IIRC, repeatedly cast Angel on herself instead of freezing. Every other boss I've used this on reacts the same so long as I cast Ascension as the first action of the battle.

Honestly, I don't mind the balance issues much; none of them detracted from my experience playing the game, especially since they only really kicked in late-game, and they all tended towards "your party is awesome" territory instead of "this is frustrating." Watching she-who-Curses wreck face was particularly enjoyable; I'll be kind of sad if she's nerfed much, especially considering she shows up so late.

 

[Sailerius]

I came across Act III by chance on the "new" section of the rpgmaker.net front page, and finished the game yesterday after playing through the series for the first time. I went through with a Speed-Strength-Accuracy build and enjoyed it quite a bit.

A few questions, for anyone who can answer:

Spoiler

After the Virad Mask, Hood, and Uniform, what do you need to complete that questline in Act II? I was able to find those three and a Cursed Knife, but he didn't comment on the Knife and the quest wasn't marked as complete. I'm assuming whatever it was is also in the same place.

In Act III, are there quests available beyond the recruitment of Laaik and saving Vel before heading to Halo Locks? I looked, but I couldn't find any. It did say "recruit allies," plural, so I was left feeling like I'd missed something before heading off.

Is there some way to dispel Regeneration with Auria other than consumables? There were a couple of bosses in the Void Arena which came down to "put a few points into Burst Rage skills and get lucky with Vital Hits on Rend to Sorrows," so I'm wondering if I missed some skill in the Training menu.

Balance thoughts, in no particular order:

Spoiler

The Virad Mask is really good. In the process of attempting to get the Virad artifacts for the quest, I acquired four, which then made the rest of the game much easier. MP Regen is a really, really powerful effect; less so here, because the only offensive "mage" character has a locked accessory slot (Zaqris doesn't really count), but a Virad Mask on the healers and Vel meant essentially infinite support magic. There's one exception, detailed below.

Vital Hits are powerful in this game. That's part of what makes Seri really, really good in Act III; she hits Vital Hits quite often and has enough strength to make "triple damage" matter. She does 2/3 of Rayonne or Vanquish normally, I've found. Vel, however, lands Vital Hits almost as often and has pitiful strength, so her Vital Hits do almost as much damage as a normal attack from someone else at end game. You should be balancing closer to Seri than Vel, I think. It's a shame you killed the Defense/Accuracy person right before the game where Vital Hits shined, though; with Vital Hits as they are, I think I'd take Zaqris over anyone other than Seri if he had the skills to back it up. "Below average strength + high accuracy + high defensive stat" is a good combination in Act III's engine.

I have no real problem with most of Seri's balance; however, Curse is absurd, and it's most of what makes her best-in-party. It's really good damage, cheap, hits all targets, and debuffs all four primary stats. The only other characters with attacks that hit all targets are Rien (who, even if she did more damage with her more expensive spell, can't use the Virad Mask and has auto-Poison) and Auria (who needs two turns to charge). And Blaise, I suppose. "Really good damage and debuffs" and "really good damage and hits all enemies" are both really powerful effects. Getting both in one spell on an offensively powerful character, one who dodges enough attacks to be durable, and at a cost where a MP-regen accessory can recoup most of it? That'd be really good even in a game with more commonly-available debuff abilities.

For reference, Seri killed every one of Vastale's minions with Curse over two spells, thanks to Vital Hits killing them outright from full health, and did ~60-70% of his lifebar herself through repeated castings of Curse, many of which landed as Vital Hits. Rayonne used Enrage->Attack to avoid counters and the other two characters played medic.

The fact almost everything can be hit by Poison, and that Rend to Sorrows has a really good to-Poison chance, means that Auria kind of steals the show in most boss fights; the damage from Poison does almost as much as any other character's damage contribution. Rend to Sorrows does really good damage as-is.

Character rankings (opinion only):

Auria > Seri >> Vanquish > Rien > Laaik > Vel > Rayonne > Blaise

The characters after Seri are all fairly close. Vanquish and Rien have their spots due to Mass First Aid and Quickening, respectively; party healing is essential and something only Vanquish and Auria seem to get, and the ability to buff the survivability of the two best characters is really good. Rien's durability is really lacking, though, which is why Blaise has the last spot; good damage, the ability to hit all targets is a great effect, but I don't think he can turn it off to avoid counters, he has no abilities worth noting, and his defenses need help. Vel gets better at support as the game goes on, but she also gets really bad at damage. Rayonne just doesn't have much that stands out. I used him quite a bit, especially for randoms, but he feels a bit like slot filler.

And a fairly significant Ascension glitch:

Spoiler

From testing, this only seems to apply to when Auria is solo; I discovered it in the Void Arena. Activate both Berserk and Pause on your Ascension, start a battle, and use Ascension as the first action of the battle. The enemy will freeze until your turn passes twice, at which point they all act, and when your turn comes back around you regain control and can act as normal. Regeneration and Rejuvenation, if present, still activate during this time.

This gives you two extra points to work with for essentially free; if you have the Virad Mask, then it's better than free, because you get two free activations of Rejuvenation immediately after you use Ascension. The two points are quite significant, as it's just enough to allow you activate Burst Agility, Burst Agility II, and Winter Breeze II, which, especially combined with the Auto-Haste of the Cat Ears, made Auria insanely evasive. As soon as I could buy a Runic Robe, I killed every Void Arena boss I could access. (Though the Shadow Guards actually made me use a 75% healing item...)

The one exception I noticed was Shadow Auria, who will, IIRC, repeatedly cast Angel on herself instead of freezing. Every other boss I've used this on reacts the same so long as I cast Ascension as the first action of the battle.

Honestly, I don't mind the balance issues much; none of them detracted from my experience playing the game, especially since they only really kicked in late-game, and they all tended towards "your party is awesome" territory instead of "this is frustrating." Watching she-who-Curses wreck face was particularly enjoyable; I'll be kind of sad if she's nerfed much, especially considering she shows up so late.

Thanks for checking out the game and the in-depth response. I hope you enjoyed playing it.

With regards to your questions:

Spoiler

This was a bug in Act II. Those three are the items you need to complete the quest. You still got all the rewards, the quest just wasn't marked as complete.

There are quests after saving Vel on a New Cycle, but not on a first playthrough.

With Auria, you need to acquire an item called the Tear of Aneris from the Void Arena. This item can be used infinite times and has the same effect as Disenchant.

On balance:

Spoiler

Something should be said about Seri: her Vital Hits do x5 instead of x3 damage as a result of her Truth Perception effect. I might change her multiplier to x4 instead; that alone should bring her down from "exceptional" to just "very good." One of the implicit bonuses of Accuracy is that it lets you hit enemies who dodge. I erred on the side of not making too many speed-heavy enemies because I feared players would get too frustrated if they missed too often. That might contribute to Vel's not being so useful offensively, but she is intended to be a support character. With the Complete Edition, all three acts will use Act III's battle system, so Zaqris will be far more useful in the times that you have him.

I honestly never used Rend to Sorrows for poison unless I was in the Void Arena. Rien has the much more devastating Lapoisim, which not only hits all enemies but also lowers maximum HP while in effect. Rien's survivability issues make this dangerous, though. I often equip her with Runic Armor and that makes her far more durable.

Rayonne was originally meant to have tanking skills, but those proved very difficult to implement, so I made him a pure striker. His line of attacks is the only one which does better base damage than anyone else's. I found that Blaise was much better at crowd control than Seri with Curse. I typically used Seri for pure debuffing. Blaise's exceptional ATK makes his hit-alls devastating compared to Seri's.

And yeah, I recently became aware of the ascension glitch. The negative point elements are the cause of a lot of trouble, so I'm just going to remove them in the Complete Edition.

 

[Einander]

Thank you for the answers and response!

No wonder she's so devastating if it's a 5X multiplier. The 4X would probably be better, yes.

Acquired all main endings. Just need to find that fourth Sigil now; I found the ones in Raphael's Island, Halo Locks, and the Bellemont village, but the last eludes me. I'll track it down eventually.

Thank you for the additional cutscenes on New Cycle, the new content was refreshing while I was going for Relinquish and Remission. Remission makes me sad, though. You don't really get much time to play with the guest star party member (he's worse than Seri, but better than everyone else), and the endings remind me a bit of Drakengard: The harder it is to get the ending, the more depressing it is. Still enjoyable, though!

 

[Sailerius]

Thank you for the answers and response!

No wonder she's so devastating if it's a 5X multiplier. The 4X would probably be better, yes.

Acquired all main endings. Just need to find that fourth Sigil now; I found the ones in Raphael's Island, Halo Locks, and the Bellemont village, but the last eludes me. I'll track it down eventually.

Thank you for the additional cutscenes on New Cycle, the new content was refreshing while I was going for Relinquish and Remission. Remission makes me sad, though. You don't really get much time to play with the guest star party member (he's worse than Seri, but better than everyone else), and the endings remind me a bit of Drakengard: The harder it is to get the ending, the more depressing it is. Still enjoyable, though!

The last sigil is a place you probably haven't had a reason to return to yet. Beware, as there's a rather difficult optional boss lurking there, too. Though, it might not be too difficult for you.

Something I want to work on in the Complete Edition is a cutscene skip feature, but that's going to require redoing every cutscene and significant testing to make sure it doesn't break anything. The new interludes in the New Cycles break up the monotony of seeing old cutscenes again, but I wish I could make it less of an annoyance.

 

[leppy]

I finished Act III twice the day after it came out, and here I am finally giving comments!
I got the main end and remission, I think?

Spoiler

It's when you talk to Ray after saving Vel.
How do I get the other ends? I tried refusing to save Vel, which made everyone in the party refuse to go with Auria on her revenge mission. Then I tried going to Halo Locks all alone, but Auria really can't survive against the enemies there (which makes Anger and Bargaining impossible). How strong does she have to be to go through Halo Locks alone? Am I right in thinking that's one of the bad ends?
And it makes me super sad that none of the endings feel hopeful. But I suppose that's because Auria usually gets a bad end, while Vel lives happily ever after (despite her interesting backstory, Vel often feels flat to me).
One complaint I had was that on the second ending (remission?), Seri reunited with Auria, but she never mentioned Zaqris dying. I know the player understands that he died from the first playthrough, but why doesn't Auria get to find out on this ending? I also dislike the way he was offed. It made him feel unimportant to me, like "here's a character we never bothered developing. We really can't think of any more plot for him, so he's most useful if he's dead so he can help Seri's development." I wanted to find out more about Zaqris, and I dislike that he died as a flat character.
Do we ever find out why Rien has auto-poison?
I really love that Weapon joins the party. That made the game 200 times better. I hate the way he left, though!
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The vital hits were cool (except when the enemy gets them, then it's game over). There was way more character development in this game than the last two, but I wish we knew even more about these characters! :D Congrats on making your dream come true! It's so impressive that you completed this game so wonderfully. I want to go through all the endings!!

 

[Sailerius]

I finished Act III twice the day after it came out, and here I am finally giving comments!
I got the main end and remission, I think?

Spoiler

It's when you talk to Ray after saving Vel.
How do I get the other ends? I tried refusing to save Vel, which made everyone in the party refuse to go with Auria on her revenge mission. Then I tried going to Halo Locks all alone, but Auria really can't survive against the enemies there (which makes Anger and Bargaining impossible). How strong does she have to be to go through Halo Locks alone? Am I right in thinking that's one of the bad ends?
And it makes me super sad that none of the endings feel hopeful. But I suppose that's because Auria usually gets a bad end, while Vel lives happily ever after (despite her interesting backstory, Vel often feels flat to me).
One complaint I had was that on the second ending (remission?), Seri reunited with Auria, but she never mentioned Zaqris dying. I know the player understands that he died from the first playthrough, but why doesn't Auria get to find out on this ending? I also dislike the way he was offed. It made him feel unimportant to me, like "here's a character we never bothered developing. We really can't think of any more plot for him, so he's most useful if he's dead so he can help Seri's development." I wanted to find out more about Zaqris, and I dislike that he died as a flat character.
Do we ever find out why Rien has auto-poison?
I really love that Weapon joins the party. That made the game 200 times better. I hate the way he left, though!
Overall, I really enjoyed this game. The vital hits were cool (except when the enemy gets them, then it's game over). There was way more character development in this game than the last two, but I wish we knew even more about these characters! :D Congrats on making your dream come true! It's so impressive that you completed this game so wonderfully. I want to go through all the endings!!

Thanks for playing and I'm glad you enjoyed!

Spoiler

There are two bad ends, one which is obtained by going to Halo Locks without the Worldweaver and the other from attempting to take Darxinger and failing. The fifth ending is obtained by refusing to help Vel. This requires soloing Halo Locks and requires a significant amount of preparation. There is an item called the Diamond Diadem which is for sale in Farithe which makes this ending much easier -- in fact, it was designed to make this ending possible. However, it has a rather hefty price tag. Perhaps there's something valuable you can sell to afford it.

In Remission, several plot details from Return (Zaqris's death and Ejaro's plan) are implied rather than outright stated, since the player is guaranteed to already know what's happened and I didn't want to waste the player's time. Several people seemed to miss this, but Zaqris did die at the end of Act II. I thought putting Seri standing by a gravestone and a title screen of her holding his bloody body would give it away, but most people seemed to miss it. The game was originally planned to have five Acts and the story wasn't changed until after Act I came out. In this original version of the story, Zaqris wasn't intended to die, so his character development was going to take place later in the game. By the time the story was changed, Act I was already out, so I couldn't start developing his character sooner. This will be fixed in the Complete Edition.

The reason why Rien has auto-poison wasn't stated, but several clues have been lain in relation to this mystery, which will be explored in later works.

I also feel I should mention that Vel's and Vanquish's roles changed significantly from the original story. In the original story, Auria left the party after the end of Act II and you spent an act playing as Rayonne, where his relationships with the other characters, particularly Vel, became a prominent point. Vanquish originally played a much larger role, but the subplot in which he was a major factor was removed with the restructuring of the story since it was so tangential to the main plot (remnants of it are alluded to in conversations between Blaise and Vanquish).

I'm glad you enjoyed the game, though. Would you happen to have any suggestions for making Vel seem a more interesting character?