Hello and welcome to Tower Song's first Early Access release! This update includes a handful of additional minor features and class tweaks, plus a true trove of bug fixes. Thanks to our fans and testers for their diligence in reporting problems to the development team!
Want to leave us feedback for this patch or the game in general? Head on over to feedback.
Now, on to the good stuff. What does Early Access Patch #1 bring us?
Major Changes
Neat's Adjustment
Adjustment now revives (and heals) dead allies when used at Stage 4-5.
This gives Neat additional benefit for holding onto his combo for longer and gives him more options to keep his team running in prolonged fights.
Crafting for Kiran and Akeno
Players can now craft lower tier weapons for Kiran and Akeno.
This allows players to better manage their loadout for late-game parties without having to choose between underpowered equipment and costly higher tier weapons.
Regen States
Regen states now provide immunity to Wounds.
It's too easy for enemies to wound regenerating allies, and regen effects are often costly to grant party members in the first place. This adjustment gives more value to classes with regen abilities.
Stun States
Removing stun effects now allies the party member to act during the round, if they haven't acted yet.
Stun is a punishing status effect to begin with and removing stun effects is not trivial. This gives increased incentive to actively remove the effect and rewards players who do so.
Boss Fight: Siege Beast
Boss' initiative greatly reduced and reinforcements now appear in stages.
The fight was nearly impossible on Hard mode, and the addition of phased reinforcements also adds additional tension to the fight. Players are now pressured to capitalize on their opportunity to damage the boss and are not punished for being unable to manage a large enemy party.
Side Quest: Missing Miners
Finding all of the miners (dead or alive) now results in a better reward.
This objective is now trackable in the quest log as well. This marks our first official side quest with many more to come!
Complete Patch Notes
Read on for a full list of changes made in this patch, both big and small!
Classes & Skills
- Akeno: Focused Attunement mod description improved for more clarity on what replacing Natural Attunement does.
- Kiran: Bastion animation now centered on target
- Kiran: Heal Wounds now properly cures Wounds
- Neat: Adjustment now revives (and heals) dead allies when used at Stage 4-5
- Phalanx now plays a separate animation on the user to signify Preparation: Parry
- Regen: Now grants immunity to wound
- Stance: Active stances are now visible to players, and gives a hint on how to remove
- Stun: Removing the stun before an actor's turn no longer skips their turn
- Thrash: Lowered volume
- Thrash: Wolves will no longer Thrash in early turns
- Wild Inferno: More distinct animation
Encounters
- Bridge Fight difficulty slightly increased
- Vistham siege beast fight difficulty decreased (boss is slower, and reinforcements appear in stages)
Bug Fixes: Equipment & Items
- Found journals are now identified as "Notes", and sorted to the front of the inventory menu
- You can now see how many of each crafting material you have in the Inventory
- Kiran and Akeno can now craft Tier 1-2 versions of their weapons with the appropriate stats
- Akeno now starts with a Tier 3 weapon, instead of Tier 1 (Note: Only takes effect with new save games.)
- Kiran now starts with a Tier 2 weapon, instead of Tier 3 (Note: Only takes effect with new save games.)
- Knight's Brooch ATK and MAG bonus increased from 5 to 10
- Mage's Contingency's tooltip has been updated to reflect that it does not, in fact, stop other blessings from happening.
Levels & Quests
- Side quest to find missing miners now shows in the quest log and has additional objectives; reward improved
- Added campfire to Riverbank
Scenes & Dialogue
- Tali's Campaign: Improved dialogue during Chapter 1 bridge scene
Bug Fixes: Classes & Skills
- Akeno: Elemental Mastery benefits should now properly trigger
- Neat: Footwork now usable when selected as a mod
- Kiran: Martyr correctly puts the state flag on the Martyr'd target
- Solace: Flashbang now usable even if out of rifle ammo
- Heat Sink will now only target Fireborn
- Maintain Pin properly ignores taunts and provocations
- Loose Arrow can now be evaded
- Pin reworked to behave more consistently
Bug Fixes: Encounters
- The right Fireborn now appears to be alerted when triggering the second fight in the Atrium
- Certain bereaved ents in Guhar no longer flicker when activated (some never did)
- Hornet no longer hides behind Cedarspur during the fight
- Souls no longer clip the screen during the boss fight
- Dundale's fight no longer causes a crash upon start
- The final boss now correctly performs their actions no matter when they are defeated
Equipment & Items
- Helmets now properly prevent enemies from triggering critical hits
Bug Fixes: Levels & Quests
- Updated objects and terrain to be more naturally passable
- Fixed terrain errors throughout the game
- Players can no longer get trapped in the Creche wall if exiting from the wrong place
- Creche Pool hitboxes have been adjusted to not allow unintended passage through them
- Players can no longer get softlocked by triggering fights with Animated Ephemera in a specific way
- Turbine now animates correctly
- Removed a misplaced chair in the Council Room
- Players can no longer clip behind buildings on the town map
- Players can no longer get stuck walking east through the Emerald River caverns
- Wolf Den edges now automatically moves players between maps without having to interact
- Cedarspur no longer reappears when examining its corpse
- Interaction icon no longer persists after collecting the last Emerald River journal
- All mine cart switches should now have interaction sprites on them and use the appropriate sprite/frame when flipped
- Miner no longer freed from fungi just by throwing a nearby switch
- Opening gates no longer plays an extra door sound effect
- Fixed a transition bug in the final dungeon that warped players through the entire Engine Room if they enter it from the west side
Bug Fixes: Scenes & Dialogue
- Neat now correctly directs the player one floor up to the turbine
- Scene now transitions smoothly from Prologue to Chapter 1
- Bridge fight scene now runs properly
- In Neat's campaign, Solace is no longer surprised by the existence of the miners after talking about them in the previous scene
- In Neat's campaign, the correct portrait speaks after defeating the forest boss
- Solace no longer references a confusing statement about the Kidonian Council when examining the Tower pillar
- Removed duplicate line of dialogue in Neat's mine scene
- Music no longer restarts after finding the Foundry
- Vistham camp dialogue now available when first making camp instead of having to leave the map and return
- In camp scenes, players no longer trigger more Akeno dialogue when hitting Cancel button in the mountains
- Vistham mid-boss scene now properly animated
Bug Fixes: UI/UX
- Fixed crash upon opening the menu with Kiran having no weapon equipped
- Audio settings now properly save between gaming sessions
- Players can no longer use Shift/Square/X to remove equipment, preventing menu UI errors
- Fixed word wrap errors and various typos throughout the game
- Proper line breaks in crafting material item descriptions
- Fixed bug where the enemies' state window, when Examining, covered names and state icons
- Fixed bug where mousing over certain parts of the map would pop up party state tooltips
- Fixed bug where Kaiyo Katanas said "Control" instead of "Counter"