I am sorry to say this, but I'll be brutally honest: I think the re-doing of the GUI was the biggest single major decision I strongly disagree with as it significantly reduced the appeal of the user interface, in my opinion. Here is a list of the most bothersome things I've found just from a 2-3 minute glance at the new GUI:
-when the game itself is loading, we see a hand with some random symbols on it and in the background: they have no relation whatsoever to what happens in-game and add a very superficial layer of "mystique", the simple hand was a much more powerful graphical design, as it showed the essence of Psy abilities- natural, no need for any extra fancy stuff, in addendum, the hand looks as if the skin was removed off it and the blue lines are representations of deoygenated blood in veins- a very repulsive image, to say the least
-when I tried to load the game, I realised that I cannot read what on earth is written in the save files as a). the print was tiny b). the font of the text almost completely blended in with the surroundings
-the GUI in-game gives a much darker and much more cliche feel: not only has it been used many times before, but the associations with other games are not really postive at all, nor does it add to the professioanl feel of the game; the text now is very difficult to read, 'cause the contrast between the background and the font colour is significantly reduced, and this makes it a significantly less pleasing experience to read text, and given that the game is text-driven and there is a lot of it, this is one very major drawback
-the battle-GUI also completly clashes with the tileset and makes the screen look much more cramped visually because it's so much dareker; it also blends into the tileset as it is not as differnet from the light blue with the black border used before, so it really is a nuisance to have on the screen at all and it's much more difficult to see the buttons; the re-working of the attack icons- that's another issue area as now they look completely unappealing, hard to see on dark background, using the most generic images used practically in any half-serious amateur RPG, instaed of using the unique, easy-to-identify, simple, and not visually daunting attack-icons- simple doesn't mean unprofessional; in addition, losing the original icons means that a very strong connection to TRPG2 has been lost, and I think that's a big drawback, as many players will otherwise be familiar with the icons from other games in the series
-when the objectives screen comes up for the battle, the button looks completely out of place, making a very unpleasant impression as it completely doesn't fit in with the writing stile nor the background- what was used before was much, much better and more natural
-the way the in-game menu has been re-arranged, and with the new style, I find it labourious to switch through the submenus and look at them: the GUI is visually very heavy, the contrasts are small and it's simply unpleasant to use it, as well, with the dark colours used and low contrast, it, again, feels very crampt and it doesn't look comfortable to use at all
One postive feature- the GUI does manage to convey the arabic feel a bit in the load-up page... but that is more than balanced already by the in-game graphics.
Overall: I strongly, strongly feel that the game lost a lot of visual appeal from this GUI overhaul and I very strongly recommend that the old GUI is brought back, along with the old attack icons. 'Cause the feeling I get from seeing this is a failed attempt at making the game look "professionally" made, so that people buy it, but instead, it lost a lot of its simplicity in style and easy-on-the-eyes, no distracting from battle/reading text/concentrating on the game visuals. I am confident that people would not mind having a relatively simply-designed GUI, that has a distinct style, but which is easy to use and isn't too graphically simple.
