Hi Banov,
I remember playing one of the earliest demos of this game and loving it. The final product, though, is even better, and I'm saying this after completing the whole thing. Great battles, some surprisingly good puzzles (especially in the treasure tower!) and excellent item variety really make this fun, and I was also impressed by the sailing minigame and its healthy range of enemies. This is a game everyone should try, especially since it offers so much playing time whilst maintaining great variety throughout. So yeah, I'm very happy to see this completed.
I could carry on with the praise for a lot longer, but I guess what you're most interested in is some constructive criticism, so I'll point out some of the (minor!) things that should be fixed or improved:
-The fetch parrot's animation can get a little messy. If you use it and then use it again before it's finished flying, you'll see two parrots on-screen at once. Also, there were a few occasions where I was forced to hit a switch that was off-screen, so I had to send the parrot halfway there to move the camera forward, and then quickly send it onto the switch before the camera shifted back to the crew. This was all pretty jerky and unreliable, so maybe you could let the camera move around whilst you're choosing the spot for the parrot to fly to?
-The boots that you get from the Frozen Ship’s captain are great, and in my opinion they're by far the best of the four items that you get from beating the quartet members. As a result, though, I was disappointed in the Sparkle Shield, which is the last item and therefore the most difficult to get. The random elemental attack that it gives you was pretty much useless for me--not only because it's luck-based, but also because the monkey can already attack with the three main elements (fire, ice and electricity). The boots, on the other hand, give you Cool Run, which is guaranteed to freeze any enemy. I found myself using Cool Run in every major battle towards the end of the game and having a much easier time because of it. I'm not saying that's bad, but I think you should swap the positions of the Frozen Ship and the Sparkle Oasis. That means that the Frozen Ship--not the Sparkle Oasis--should be the place that you can visit only when you've defeated the first three quartet members.
- I think the final boss would benefit from some status-related abilities, because right now the battle is a pretty straightforward test of strength. You just lower its stats and boost yours, and then destroy it with your most powerful attacks whilst using the boy to heal the crew. If your characters are over level 40 then you’re almost guaranteed to win, so some complexity needs to be added to force you to think more.
-I caught a few spelling errors. One: after you defeat the final boss, the woman says "Look like" instead of "Looks like". Two: I may have caught "existance" (for "existence") somewhere during the Navy Headquarters section. There are one or two more errors in the item descriptions, but I can't check them now because of...
-... a major bug. I tried both endings for fun, but when I loaded my file after getting the “selfish” ending, the remaining crew members were still gone and there was no way to get them back. They reappeared during the cutscene before the final boss, but once the battle started they were gone again. It’s extremely frustrating, because I finished with only 89% of the treasures and didn’t realize in time that you can go back to fight all four members of the quartet at once. I tried opening my .sav file with Notepad to take a look, but now the game can’t read it anymore and my data’s as good as wiped. Think you’d be able to do some tinkering to fix up my file?
Anyway, well done for completing this wonderful game. I know difficult it is to finish projects, so for you to have pulled such a huge one through is really impressive.
(By the way, is it possible to buy whatever that foreign merchant on the pirate island is selling? I’m surprised that there’s a whole 11% of treasure that I didn’t find!)
- Battle
![[Using a Battle item]](http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b136/BanovG/Dubloon%20Fin/0shakebomb.png){kind=link}
![[Sailing on the open seas]](http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b136/BanovG/Dubloon%20Fin/0sailing.png){kind=link}
![[A battle fought in a jail]](http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b136/BanovG/Dubloon%20Fin/0jail.png){kind=link}
![[A monkey explores a forest...]](http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b136/BanovG/Dubloon%20Fin/0forest.png){kind=link}