The battle had already begun. On the player's side, only the protagonist and Morgana were available—other character models hadn't been implented yet. But it was enough to demonstrate a portion of the gaplay.
The enemies consisted of three monsters: two Jack-o'-Lanterns and one Pixie—all very low-level monsters that appear early in the ga, making them easy to deal with.
To better showcase the battle system, the enemies' defense stats had been boosted slightly, while their attack power was significantly reduced. This allowed the fight to last longer without putting the player characters in danger.
For now, the battle background music was only an instruntal version, since Ichin hadn't yet found a suitable vocalist for the full track. Still, even as an instruntal, the music was intense and exciting—more than enough to energize anyone watching.
Shinoda was watching the battle screen with wide eyes, utterly thrilled.
"Whoa! The visuals, UI, and music all coming together like this—it's amazing! Even though it's a turn-based ga, I think this will attract a lot of players!"
The biggest obstacle for turn-based gas had always been their slow pacing. It's fine if you can wipe out enemies in a single move, but once it drags into multiple turns or a stalemate, players start losing interest, especially when they have to strategize every little decision.
But here, everything—the stylish UI, the pulse-pounding music—worked together to build excitent. The entire presentation exuded a sense of flair and trendiness rarely seen in traditional RPGs. Even without knowing how it felt to actually play, just the visuals and music alone were captivating.
At the mont, Umiko was the one holding the controller. She had the protagonist use his Persona—Arsène—to finish off a Jack-o'-Lantern that was barely clinging to life.
Then she switched to Morgana and used the slingshot to hit the weakness of the second Jack-o'-Lantern.
Unfortunately, since only two characters were playable right now and the All-Out Attack system hadn't been implented yet, the demo couldn't show off the full flashiness of combat animations.
Still, even in this limited state, the current battle system already surpassed most of the turn-based RPGs on the market in terms of player experience.
And more importantly, it had a completely unique style—sothing truly one-of-a-kind.
But as Ichin watched, he suddenly noticed sothing: the characters actually had voices.
He listened more closely... The voices sounded _very_ familiar.
Ichin turned and looked at Yun Iijima and Umiko with suspicion.
"Did you two record the voices for the protagonist and Morgana yourselves?"
"Oh? You noticed? As expected of Ichin-kun," Umiko replied with a playful smile and a nod. "That's right. Since we were putting together a demo, we figured it wouldn't be complete without so voice acting. So after a bit of trial and error, Yun and I recorded the voices for the two characters. The result isn't perfect, but I think it turned out pretty decent."
And honestly, it really _was_ decent—especially Yun's Morgana. She nailed it so well it felt like a professional voice actor's work.
"That said... I wasn't exactly planning on Morgana having a Kansai accent."
"I _deeply_ apologize for the Kansai accent!" Umiko laughed.
While everyone joked around, the three enemies were eventually defeated. As the results screen played out, the protagonist was transported back to a castle-like setting. This was a custom environnt created for the demo—just a single room, but it let players experint with basic movent, jumping, and stealth chanics.
"Umiko, let give it a shot."
Ichin couldn't help it—he hadn't expected Umiko to secretly prepare a full mini-demo, and now his fingers were itching to play.
Umiko, of course, agreed imdiately. She stood up, stepped aside, and handed him the controller.
Controlling the protagonist, Ichin perford a series of actions. When he had the character take cover behind an obstacle, he raised an eyebrow, then moved the character out again and repeated the cover maneuver several more tis, falling into thought.
Umiko noticed sothing was up and walked over to ask, "Is there sothing wrong with how we did it?"
"It's not that it's wrong," Ichin replied as he made the character duck behind cover once more and pointed to the movent. "I don't think I ever talked to you or Shinoda about how the cover system should work, right? You two probably ca up with it on your own?"
Umiko and Shinoda exchanged a glance and nodded.
Ichin continued, "Since the protagonist is a Phantom Thief and the palaces aren't part of the real world, there's no need to make the cover chanics too realistic. In fact, you can lean more into the stylized animation. Especially when moving between cover points, the animation can be more exaggerated and dynamic. Yeah... I'll handle refining this part later. The priority's not too high, so it's already fine for a demo."
Hearing that, Shinoda nodded in realization. "Ahh, that explains it. When we were designing it, I felt like sothing was missing. Totally forgot that this part of the ga world isn't bound by realism, so we ended up overdoing the realistic feel."
Umiko crossed her arms and added, "Sa here. When I saw the cover chanic, I just instinctively had Shinoda make it the way I envisioned it."
"No worries. It's a small issue," Ichin said as he maneuvered the protagonist behind a waiting enemy and ripped off its mask, transitioning into the battle screen. "The movent itself is solid. We might actually be able to reuse it sowhere else in the future."
The battle UI was entirely designed by Ichin himself. He'd reviewed it inside and out multiple tis, but now that he was seeing it in action, he felt fully satisfied.
"Alright, no problems with the UI. The number of battle skills is still pretty limited, so let's take a look at the basic attacks for now."
The standard attack animations were well done—crisp and clean. Even the shooting chanics felt satisfying.
Since the entire combat system was designed by Ichin himself, he quickly wrapped up the battle after testing everything out.
Setting down the controller, Ichin smiled and said, "Finishing this demo before Christmas really is a great surprise. If any of you want to try it yourselves, go ahead—I've got other stuff to prep."
There was still a lot to do for the Christmas party that evening.
Ichin stood up from his chair—only to have the controller snatched by Kō Yagami.
"Let try! I didn't even know you guys were working on this. I can't believe you've already built sothing like this!"
The group was still buzzing with energy and excitent, while Ichin made his way over to the lounge area next door.
The Christmas tree had already been fully decorated, though it wasn't lit yet since it was still morning.
Utaha was sitting on the sofa, scrolling through her phone alone.
"Aren't you gonna join them and check out the new demo?"
"I already did," Utaha said, scooting over to lean against Ichin as he sat down. "I saw it while Umiko was making the final adjustnts. It really was a pleasant surprise. Hey, Ichin, is this ga going to launch on the Switch?"
"I'm considering it," Ichin replied. "So far, the performance requirents aren't too high. I think we can manage 1080p at 30 FPS in TV mode on the Switch."
He was already looking forward to presenting the demo to Nintendo next year.
Although... the original plan wasn't exactly this.
Things were definitely taking a weird turn.
Better not overthink it.
...
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