I enjoyed the summoning setup here. Having to keep myself alive while the fae handle the fighting is an interesting approach to combat. The pixel art is readable, the characters animate well, and the music fits the old-school presentation nicely.
I played the updated version and made it through several maps and fights. The dash worked and added a lot to moving around enemies, especially with such a simple control layout. It eventually got harder than I could manage, so I wasn’t able to finish.
The part I kept questioning was how the summoning restrictions work together. Between mana, the two-fae cap, and what appeared to be summon cooldowns, I felt quite limited in how I could approach a fight.
I’d be curious to try a version where mana carries more of that balancing. Spending heavily on a larger group could be a risk, because losing that group might leave me without enough mana to replace it. Alternatively, I could conserve mana and keep a smaller group going by carefully timing replacements. That seems like it could create some interesting choices about how much to commit to each encounter.
The archers felt noticeably less effective than the melee fae. Their range seemed to keep them alive, but I had trouble seeing their attacks make much impact. I couldn’t tell whether that was an intentional damage tradeoff or whether some shots weren’t connecting. I ended up using two melee summons because they cleared enemies much faster.
I also liked being able to click to direct the fae, but I struggled to get them onto the enemies I wanted to prioritize. They would stay occupied with a slow melee enemy I could outrun or dash away from while a dangerous ranged enemy kept shooting at me, even when I was trying to direct them toward it.
Since the fae are my only way to deal damage, I’d like clicking on an enemy to give it clearer priority. That would let me use the summons more deliberately while I’m dodging, especially when choosing which enemy needs to go down first.