Feedback after finishing the game

[Yarden]

So this is my own opinion. I play every single action game that comes out. This one seemed very promising. Just at a quick glance I could tell it had what most indie action games lack. Good feedback. Feeling attack impact. Feeling your moveset etc...

I really wanted to like it. I have a major gripe with the price, but that is all together different. I'll focus here on game design:

Specifically, the main reason why I enjoyed this game when I did, the parry, and my issues with it -

PARRY:
1. You start off fighting relatively few enemies with a zoomed in camera where you can see enemy animations before an attack, but shortly after you begin fighting tens or so enemies at once, with the camera zoomed far back.
It is impossible to detect which one of them is snapping into an attack sprite and which are just moving/backstepping, making the most enjoyable part of the game (for me) a pain.
An icon should be added on top of enemies to indicate when they are about to attack, or the camera should be kept close with a lesser number of enemies. Choose one. This isn't the 2v1 of Sekiro or Dark Souls.

2. In general I would say the time to parry timing is a bit finnicky. Almost as if I need to parry their dash attack towards me rather than the actual attack.. Attacking just before doesn't work, we just hit each other. Parrying by having us both attack at the exact same time is overly difficult at close range, since the dashes tend to have them snap to your location. I wonder what the timeframe is for it since I've spent about 30m in the abyss just trying to understand the correct timing for parrying and chaining parries. However while I was able to reach 20+ parry chaining, I could not reliably, consistently parry no matter what.

This could be a "me" thing. Maybe I just don't get it. But as someone that uses mostly parries in every single action games they play, this is a first for me.

3. What sold me on the game was the 1st boss, it was well telegraphed, mostly melee attacks which were relatively easily read for parries, with some neat concepts.
But all other bosses felt very confusing when it came to their parry timings, to the point I just opted to fight them normally with mostly basic attacks and some agility mashing, making it so I beat them in about 1 or 2 tries after deciding to stop trying to parry them. Making them no where near as memorable to me as that first boss.

I finished the game on Normal but started with the hardest difficulty. My issues with it were... again, parry related. The fact the very harsh timing is even short, and the fact you have to face the attacks in a game that has the issues I mentioned in point 1 made it so my favorite part of the game was no longer as much of an option.

Combat:

1. Stamina is too abundant in my opinion, I honestly NEVER had to replenish it in combat using the (middle mouse button) soul vacuum. And I didn't use the (space bar) ability that replenishes it all at once.

2. It is too easy to stunlock bosses, especially when you get them next to walls. I didn't use any advanced combos, mostly just basic attack mashing combined with a dash attack and some spamming of the E+Q / E+MMB. I didn't give much thought to strategy.

3. Soul sucking feels right and balanced for combat (also a very interesting idea), but it is very tedious and annoying to slowly suck souls after combat, going around the arena cleaning it all up like a vacuum cleaner.


This overall are the things that bothered me most. I came expecting a methodical high skill combat system. And while the parry offers that to a degree, the game makes it very difficult and uninviting to make use of it. You are then forced to make use of melee combat which is so powerful you can beat encounters with very little effort.


I have no reason to write all this other than because I liked this game and want to see it improved. Please don't see this as an attack or insult.

[HeLLfirE]

how much time do you think is required to finish the game..i mean game length?

[Yarden]

Originally posted by HeLLfirE:

how much time do you think is required to finish the game..i mean game length?

Back when I played it I believe it took me around 5hours. Though, like any relatively hard game, it depends on how much you struggle.

[HeLLfirE]

thanks....