Too much, too little refinement

[Snobby Hobo]

I played through the demo until I just couldn't take it anymore - which is usually not a very good sign. Almost nothing in this game feels like it works properly.

My first complaint is that there are way, wayyyy too many buttons being used. THREE selection wheels? All three with corresponding "Swap to next" buttons? A jump and a dodge button? You auto-assign both the alt and ctrl system keys for things expected to be regularly used? My carpal tunnel flares up just LOOKING at this control scheme. This game definitely was not meant to be played with KBM, or you really did not do your testing on this front.

Melee combat feels clunky and weightless. I can barely make out when an enemy is starting their attack. Too much "hold to block". Parrying was designed to battle this to some degree: for the player to take control of the pacing. This game does not have that, and as a result it feels very dry and menial. During the dragon fight the projectile flies out of my screenspace so I can't actually see what I am reacting to. The boss also has two attacks who use the exact same particles and obscure the entire screen, making it hard to tell what I am supposed to do.

Both forms of magic do not work properly from a UX standpoint. Throwing the rigidbodies is very fun, and I think this is a mechanic that should be explored much more from a design standpoint (many games touch upon it in some way, but almost none refine it beyond novelty). Unfortunately it barely works. I have seen rigidbodies just roll off enemies I hit dead-on. In other cases it just bounces off. I also noticed you can pick up multiple at a time, but I am unsure if this increases the damage dealt? The ice-path magic needs way more iterations. Just spawning blocks at some raycasted geometry works against itself and feels too simple: the blocks will frequently block the ray itself. What this results in is not a smooth "drag mouse to draw path", but rather "know exactly at what intervals the blocks spawn, or you will accidentally create a pillar instead".

Way, wayyyyy too many cutscenes in the opening mission. Please respect your audience: you cannot assume that someone who just started playing is immediately enthralled in the story. Build curiosity up, do not force it down the players' throats.

I dislike the writing, but that's completely subjective. I don't like being complimented for nothing constantly, just like I don't like being berated for no reason. There is no balance. But I still appreciate the perspective.

This game would need A LOT of work before I would consider it noteworthy. Currently it feels like you commit to way too many things at once without refining any of them. Keep it simple but do it well instead of making it complicated and losing track.

[Cahalith]

I agree with some of your points (not a fan of the writing myself, for example), but speaking as someone who always prefers mouse+keyboard to a controller, I don't really understand why you'd dislike jumping and dodging using separate keys. From my perspective, having multiple actions bound to the same key is way more annoying because it can lead to accidentally triggering the wrong action.

Having lots of keys available is one of the main advantages of M+K, after all. And you can rebind any of these keys freely, to boot.

[Snobby Hobo]

Publicado originalmente por Cahalith:

I agree with some of your points (not a fan of the writing myself, for example), but speaking as someone who always prefers mouse+keyboard to a controller, I don't really understand why you'd dislike jumping and dodging using separate keys. From my perspective, having multiple actions bound to the same key is way more annoying because it can lead to accidentally triggering the wrong action.

Having lots of keys available is one of the main advantages of M+K, after all. And you can rebind any of these keys freely, to boot.

Not necessarily stating I want double bindings - I am just enumerating the large amount of different keys the game expects me to use. You can do double-binding very effectively from my experience, but it's a balancing act.

[ChubbiChibbai]

Yeah agree.
I love the concepts here but it feels like its really underdeveloped or like most the team are pretty inexperienced.

The intro is just dull. Slow. Drawn out and dull. Too much stopping and dialogue for exposition. Not enough game-play. The voice work and audio sounds cheap.

The combat feels so flat and clunky. Firing arrows feels slow - they fly like time has slowed down. Hurling physics objects feels weightless and lacks impact.

I ended up alt+F4 and uninstalling because i'd rather be playing something else.

It's a shame because conceptually there are some very nice ideas here but it also borrows alot from other games and doesn't really offer anything much unique of its own and then what it does copy it doesn't do well.

Feels like an underwhelming and poorly developed AA game that needed way more time in the oven or a team behind it with far more experience.

[Stik Figure]

Well said. I agree with everything you wrote.

I was getting thoroughly annoyed with the "Take five steps, cut-scene" loop. I want to play a game. I want to mold the story. I don't want to watch others do it for me. Developers need to figure out that we want to play from boot, not and hour later.

Using a controller felt very sluggish. Even at 150 speed it still rotates at a snails pace. I don't use target lock in games, but in this one it seemed the only way to keep an enemy on screen.

I'm not sure what the price tag is going to be, but to me it feels like a $20 game.

[Mortis]

I agree with everything too. Though I played with controller so can't comment on the keyboard set up, but even on controller the set up feels weird. In general the movement and engagement in combat is very floaty and lacks any impact or feedback. Having the environmental objects flash red when hit even when they don't break also just creates visual clutter and noise that doesn't need to be there.

Overall, the game is beautiful to look at, though the sound and audio mixing is very weak.

I also can't say that the animated cutscenes were particularly well done. Far too many missing frames, looking jerky like a cheap Netflix anime.
I kind of like the characters and the dialogue isn't bad, it's far less cringe than Veilguard at least. But also can't help but notice there are no male characters of any importance, the 2 in the party are very much subservient with no actual presence.

Still, better than most things the AAA industry is turning out lately I guess.