A few thoughts after finishing demo

[Alex]

This game has potential.
What I disliked:
1) First few missions (aka "learn your basic controls") felt very slow-paced and boring, they could be compressed into much shorter sequence.
2) Fish pricing is absolutely ridiculous. I underestand that the idea is to get more gold for fish with more stars but it seems to be completely random until you actually catch the fish. Imagine the efforts to catch the "bite everything" fish from the bottom of the first lake and seeing it cost 1 gold - this makes absolutely no sence. Higher risk and more time spent should yield higher rewards.
3) Fish seem to have some kind of armor which mitigates partially your damage. Otherwise I don't understand why damage numbers vary from fish to fish. The relation between your attack level and the damage you do is unclear.
4) Fish deals damage even if you parry, albeit less. This makes catching fish heavily gated by your gear. Parries should negate damage and let me catch harder fish if I have skill to parry well.
5) Let us remap controls, my left hand almost cramps after demo

[Frenchie]

haha... Yes. I worked a few times to catch one of the fish and it was like "1 gold"
But this could be part of the humour of the game.

[JustAnotherPilgrim]

There's one point I disagree with here, being that parries should negate all damage. While I do understand wanting a parry to negate all damage I feel like it would undermine the progression. Yes, not everyone is going to be able to parry super consistently, but those that can wouldn't need to ever level up or upgrade their gear, which is part of the identity of the genre. For what it's worth, I managed to catch a 4 star catfish (bite everything fish) at level 9 using just the ancient rod (gives +10 health) and the first 2 spells, which was only possible because I parried it almost every attack. Parrying absolutely does reward skilled players, but it shouldn't be so rewarding as to completely undermine one of the game's core mechanics (especially because progression is satisfying).

Also, you can get an idea of whether or not a fish is higher tier once you hook it. You can see it's level next to it's health bar. You won't know on you first hook if it's good or bad, but you will be able to on subsequent hooks. That said, I do agree that it shouldn't affect the price as much as it does, because even hooking a specific fish can be tedious, be it due to currents, other fish, or just the time it takes your hook to descend. Or maybe add an item/ability that allows you to see the level/quality of the fish before you hook it.

One thing that I want to add, I wish the fishing cancel was just a press instead of a press and hold. If I send my hook down only to find out the thing I'm trying to get is beyond my reach, or I don't have the right bait, I'd like to be able to reel in immediately, instead of having to wait like 5 seconds. Maybe make it a toggle in settings.

[Gummiel]

Originally posted by JustAnotherPilgrim:

One thing that I want to add, I wish the fishing cancel was just a press instead of a press and hold. If I send my hook down only to find out the thing I'm trying to get is beyond my reach, or I don't have the right bait, I'd like to be able to reel in immediately, instead of having to wait like 5 seconds. Maybe make it a toggle in settings.

It is probably a hold, to prevent accidental presses, when you DON'T want to do it. Keep in mind in the full game, we are probably eventually able to go FAR further down than in the demo, so the time wasted, for accidently reeling it could be quite immense I would image in the late game of the full game