Hello Handish, poppin in to say loved the original CogDis, even beat it on hard mode! I posted in the original thread (somewhere) but I forgot my username/email (oops) so I re-registered to change my name to be more consistent with other accounts n stuff. Heads up, this is lengthy.

Some feedback on the original:

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1) And I cannot stress this enough: INCREASE THE WALK SPEED. Holy lord almighty does it take forever to walk around places. Perhaps an overall speed increase to both the player and enemies wandering around could help. Alternatively, maybe you could add a “fast forward” button similar to Mother 1 (in that it sped EVERYTHING up, including NPC’s walking around, etc., but letting it go would result in things returning to normal speed)

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2) Despite what some others have said, I did like some of the non-mother music (Smithy’s theme, Thundertown theme (I believe it’s a remix of “Lucky day in Hell”) and the Dr.Mario (in the swamp area) felt particularly well done and really not all that out of place), though some songs did seem a bit odd (such as theme for [spoiler]the rematch against Dan if you don’t take him with you [/spoiler]. For that battle in particular I thought the theme was way to repetitive for how long the battle lasts, so perhaps try to stick with remixes of boss themes for tough bosses/enemies.

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3) As others have said, perhaps adding “Mother” somewhere in the title will help people associate your game with the series and be able to find it a little better (As a psych major, it was hella annoying to google “Cognitive Dissonance game” and still get the psych definition haha).

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4) I have a huge gripe with PK reflect (I forget the skill name, so bear with me) over the fact that it would block attacks against the group entirely (as in nobody would take damage) even if the shield was only on one person, not to mention it would crash the game if you tried to reflect PK Flash (side note: I really wish you could get that power in game, it was one of my favorites ). I vaguely remember you mentioning something about it having to do with the battle engine and it wasn’t exactly fixable, so I don’t know if that has change or not but I figured I’d bring it up.

My other gripe with PK Reflect was that it either made things WAY too easy (despite not always working). On the flip side, Reflect was pretty much REQUIRED in order to beat some of the bosses (optional bosses mostly like Dr. Destructo and Fobbyigig, but still) which is incredibly ridiculous. Perhaps some of these bosses could be a bit toned down so that Reflect just makes things easier instead of being mandatory

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5) Somewhat related to the above, some of the status effects I felt were either redundant or completely broken.

For example, there is not much of a difference between “beamed”, “poison”, and “coughing”. “Insanity” was completely ridiculous as it pretty much guaranteed that somebody (if not the whole party) was going to die since there was no way of curing it. Perhaps toning down and giving some more distinction between the others? Some examples:

"Possible Status Effect Changes" hide spoiler

Beamed: Increased damage from PSI attacks for the duration, remove damage over time. Alternatively, have it deduct PSI instead of HP over time Coughing/Winded: Increased damage from physical attacks for the duration and have it deal low damage over time (perhaps by a small percentage like 1/20 of max health). Poison: Deal damage over time, but on a much higher percentage than coughing (1/10 of your max health maybe?) Insanity: Completely tone it down. I have no idea on the specifics, but good lord is it ever ridiculous even if only like 3 bosses use it. Diamondized: Is only temporary instead of permanent (otherwise what is the difference between it and instant death?). Diamonized people take 0 damage from PSI attacks but a physical attack will instantly kill them.

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6) This has to do with the optional dungeon on the moon, so some spoilers.

"Welcome to Moonside. Wecomel to Soonmide. Moonwel ot Cosidme" hide spoiler

It would be nice if there was some warning that if you leave the optional dungeon on the moon, you cannot return (or doing away with that stipulation altogether). Was super annoyed that happened to me the first time I played because I went there first (instead of doing the other side-quests) so I had to abuse the heck out of Reflect in order to even have a remote chance of beating the place. In addition, perhaps add something at the end of the chase sequence to stop people from just simply teleporting out. Why would you bother running for the ship and potentially dying when you can just leave right then and there?

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7) Perhaps find a way to make skills more useful as the game goes on? Alinivar and Col. Saturn’s skills are really only useful in the early game (with the exception of piercing jab and glare/eye beam which is meant to be unreliable but devastating when it works) but are replaced by PSI later on. In addition, Chimera Alinivar is really lacking in the skill department; perhaps he could use a couple extra?

(On a side note, it’d be super duper nifty but totally unnecessary if his guitar case went from the traditional rounded style in his normal form to a flying V style case when he is chimerized (example: http://rockstar150.webs.com/jackson_flying_V_by_skatedevil666.png ). Really unimportant but hey).

… I think that’s all I have to say for now. You seemed to have change most of the other things I had complaints with so that’s good. If I think of more things I’ll post em, so here’s some things I loved!

1) HARD MODE! It was nice touch that you gave all (or at least most) of the enemies a new pallet but new attacks as well. It actually compelled me to play through the game a second time and see all the neat little changes (I liked Dan’s new lines when he talks to you asking to join. Gave me a good laugh )

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2) SIDE QUESTS! I don’t know why everyone hates on side quests, they usually give the best stuff. that said, I loved the ones you put in and would like to see more if possible.

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3) Being able to chimera-ize yourself was one of the things I loved in the original. My only complaint was that you couldn’t do it to Col. Saturn as well (which is ironic seeing as how there is a boss that has this…), but i hope that stays. That said it would be neat if it had an impact on other parts of the game / dialogue (I know it changes up the magicant-esque area and the weapon Alinivar gets at the end, but maybe it could affect some other parts of the game as well?)

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4) Exploring space was another thing I loved despite it being a bit sparse (to be fair, I loved Wind Waker for that reason; being able to find all these cool little small islands with hidden stuff on it). You said you’ve revamped it, so I’m super excited to see that. Hopefully you fixed the infinite item bug from other UFO’s.

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Anyhow, that’s all I have to say for now. Keep on keepin on the good work Handish!