First full playthrough

[Macros]

Well, I've finished my first full playthrough of the game, and i thought I might as well talk about my general experience so far. Since I went for the Iris route during the demo, I decided to go through it 'til the end this time. Spoilers ahead, obviously.

Story's pretty good. The MC is very enjoyable, and delving into their backstory was great. It's too bad you don't get a lot of interactions with the other LIs, but the main route is pretty satisfying, and the supporting cast is solid. Wish we had more time with Shawn, but perhaps it is the case on other routes. Also, small bug, but Illyria never ceased to have her name displayed as "???" during conversations, well after you get her name.

Ended up getting the Iris Friendship ending. Not sure what I did to fail the love check - as far as I know I passed every other check involving her and did the optional mission with her in time - but here we are.

I feel like the stat checks are kind of infrequent and all over the place. You have a few ones at the start of the game - basically the demo portion - and I think that's the point where the difficult is at its best. After that, though it becomes both rare and incredibly hard. The Iris route will require basically a big Wind check (around 80+?) and a big Water check (120+? Maybe? I know 100 isn't enough, but 160 is), and that's it. You have no other checks beside those two, except if you decide to do some robbery. I didn't always pick that option, but the first time I did, it gave me a wood and darkness checks I had basically no chance to pass, and the other asked for nothing but low suspicion.

(by the way, I think the Lupine achievment is bugged, I got it despite choosing to supply magic on my own around half the time).

Still think social events are great and missions mostly a waste of time. You also get no new ones. Alchemy also feels undercooked, with only four items available that are only used early on.

The training of the LIs also feel underwhelming. I got one event early where it mattered for Iris, and then nothing for any of those three. Maybe it matters for the war readiness, but the mechanisms of that aren't really explained.

All in all, liking the narrative, not terribly impressed with the game mechanics. It feels like it has a surface veneer of raising sim, but doesn't really commit to it. At the end of the game, I had multiple moments where all I could do was a training session, yet ended up with zero checks to make. I'll have to try over routes or slight deviations to see if this holds true.

Anyway, thanks for game, I hope haven't come across as too harsh. And I'm curious about other people's experiences as well.

[Bloodonmoon]

I must say, your comment strikes me even more considering that this is their second game, and I found that the stats mechanism was better rounded in Royal Alchemist.

I remember in RA that you could often chose one element or another to get ou of one situation, making it worth to train all elements, whereas in Royal Order, I feel like after you've chosen a road (I took Emrys' for example), you really only need to focus on 2 elements and with insanely high checks : for Emrys you need to train only Darkness and wood for example, non other elemnt will be tested, and if you waste training others, you won't match the requirements. So, it's a first downgrade for me compared to RA.

Another downgrade to me is the fact that once you've chosen a road with one of the LIs you litteraly never get to see the 2 others, whereas in RA, even if you spent cleary more time with the LI you ahd chosen, the others where still part of the plot.

I also have the feeling ( I may be wrong) that we have less CG than in RA. I often found myself behind taken aback by some dialogues, expliciting an action between 2 characters, and not havinga CG at all. I didn't kept this impression from RA, in RoyalOrder I really feel like CGs are only to show the key moments of your romance (I'll moderate this just after) and not the world the action takes place in AT ALL.

For the action : having so many ship battles depicted and not a single CG to show it of, to see how the svals ships enruned looks like or something was really a disappointment, for example. Or when your MC gets dressed for a ball, and you don't even have CG to actually see the outfit. Or when you get to fight Nerifiel on the very begining of the game, we don't have a CG for the fight, nor to show at least the romm where the fights are taking place. But it's examples of the depicted moments that lack a CG (In my opinion).

For the romance it just feels the same : I was expecting regular CG (especially since in Emrys route there is whole courting display) but even key moments that should have had ones, didn't ! For example, there was a a dance with Emrys, you don't even get to see the two characters dancing, you only have a CG with a close up to Emrys face bitting your finger...

The story is really good, I enjoy reading it, the characters too, but the visual novel lacks some visuals, IMO. :/