I got to our first dungeon delve - the eastern forest. The first two preds we encounter, MaBaa and Talonette, had cute designs but I didn't find their motivations too interesting ("You are a human, therefore food"). Between them and the neko shopkeeper who plans to eat the entire town, I'm wondering if this setting is going to have the vast majority of demis as innate preds - which is fine if that's the intention and all the more power to you, just not my cup of tea.
Tervagel seemed more of an interesting character - she held some sort of grudge and territoriality against humans as a result of their encroachment, which already makes things more compelling for me. Also a neat detail is that she ambushes you just as you're about to loot one of the chests that's laying around the forest. Kinda like, "Think you can just take anything you want, trespasser?" Humans in most fantasy settings claim something like 50% of the surface land so I can see her point. The angsty squirrel girl (it's a squirrel, I'm siding with Reona on this one) also wiped the floor with me in my first two tries, and I only beat her with a sliver of Reona's health on the third.
Speaking of difficulty, I'm finding myself backtracking to Reona's house over and over so I can use the bed and refill on health - the four potions I had on me at the beginning of the adventure were just enough to heal me and Ampelle from the first MaBaa fight. I could use the bloomshrooms since they respawn every time you re-enter an area, but the HP they heal is minimal - Reona could gulp down 20 of them and still be injured.
The combat itself is fun - I enjoy stacking Amped Up and Empower on Reona first turn then letting her spam double strike. When a boosted critical hit lands, it's a true nuke. One time I did 1200 damage on the second turn. At the same time, it's RNG dependent - one time I had Ampelle miss net shot three times in a row against the Mistress. Then again, hard to blame it on you, that's just the way RPGs go.
Also, I enjoy being greeted by that picture of Reona hugging a belly whenever I visit the title screen. Assuming Ampelle isn't a pred, I hope Reona gets a pred companion sometime down the line so that the title screen can come true. Speaking of Ampelle, I loved the way she assisted Reona should she choose to eat the first boss. I don't feel strongly about multiple preys, but if Ampelle got eaten together with Reona in some scenes, that would be fun too.
I liked both bosses. The captain was a bit of a hypocrite for calling Reona a ginger while being a redhead herself, hehe. I smiled at Reona's line about the most evil people digesting all the same. I also wouldn't have found the path to the pirates unless I had read your earlier reply about a buffalo jumpscare in the swamp.
...I also realized. Reona is wearing jeans despite living in a medieval fantasy world. Not too shocking, though - I saw a setting where druids had internet. Also lol at the neko scene where she's casually practicing Japanese.
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