Feedback after 100%!

[Leaffen]

After finally 100%ing the game, I have decided to put together a bit of feedback and ideas I've cobbled together from my time playing. This will contain minor spoilers!

First though, I do want to say I loved every bit of the game! The level design is great, the gameplay is very in-depth and fluid, there's a ton of content and things to go for, and not to mention the game just absolutely oozes with charm, with every character and cutscene being an absolute treat! 10/10 game, somehow got into my top 5.
Also of course, having a basically no-limits level editor with workshop support, is a cherry on top.

Now- some general suggestions/ideas:
1. Once you loop for the first time in endless mode, I feel you should have the option to start at 1-1 of the second loop, so you don't have to finish level 9 again every time you want to start at that difficulty.
2. Kind of a bigger change, and I'm unsure how feasible this would even be, but I wish there was a point system for normal story levels, similar to gauntlet, with your highscore on each individual level being saved and viewable.
3. I think it would be nice if we could play as Noir and Ecru in the bestiary, and be able to select various items instead of just the hammer, and maybe have a couple different test stages for testing props and special tiles...? This is another one I feel might be a bit too ambitious of a suggestion, but nontheless something I thought would be nice to see, especially for players who want to safely experiment without the level editor.
And on that note, if possible, could we have the option to change hats in the anim viewer...?

Now for game balancing. While the game is generally tightly balanced, there are a few very specific nitpicky things I think could be tweaked:
1. This is a big one, PLEASE can dash no longer revert converted tiles? It makes the item sometimes detrimental to use, and on certain stages forces you to go into a corner if you want to deal with enemies, just so you don't unmark half the stage on accident.
2. And speaking of a stage where dash is detrimental, 9-14. A stage that took me longer than any other to V rank, I believe 3 hours-. I could go on and on about what makes the stage feel unfair, but after some thinking, I feel like changing the bonus % down to 85%, alongside the dash change, would even things out. Maybe put a bomb item in there too, or is that too far, lol.
And on the note of changing bonus %, I think 7-3 could actually benefit from raising the % to... 75? 70, at least. This allows you to leave and go back to a few more patches of unmarked tiles before bonus, which you tend to need on this stage, since you have no way to deal with enemies other than to jump away.
3. Giraffes on X-15, I feel just don't work on this stage with how many jumps and corners there are. I think it would be best for them to be removed or replaced on this stage specifically? The other enemies are already chaotic enough, and with the Giraffe not working well with the stage's design, I feel like it's just too much to handle.
4. Very small one: Can Mememtos be made not to do their deathrattle upon death from bombs or contact with burners? I feel like I get hit more from these situations, than from defeating them with other items....
5. Definitely nitpicky, but I feel a lot of the stages in levels 7 and beyond of endless have a BIT too many hazards. If it could be toned down just a TINY bit, I think that would be beneficial? The difficulty just seems to spike a bit too much after that point specifically.

And... that's about it? That's pretty much all of the "gripes" I have with the game, and none of it I'd say is big enough to bring the game down or anything, so pretty good!
I don't really expect any of this to be done, as I do understand the game is finished, and not to mention I could just... be wrong in what I think would work. But still, always fun to get your thoughts and ideas out there, even if they amount to nothing!

Thanks for reading, and thanks Jaklub for making a pretty much perfect game that's brought a lot of joy into my last few hectic weeks!

[Indaiatuba-SP]

Congratulations on 100%! I'm still working towards my V-Ranks on Level X. I also think a lot of the enemies and hazards are a bit overtuned. I have some thoughts about the game and this seems like a good post to share them. My views come from this experience: I was going for V-Ranks on every stage with both Cerise and Ecru. As such, I only played on hard and never used items from the shop. I can see that some of my issues with the game might not be as bad when you play on Normal or at least equip a few bombs and hammers every once in a while, but Hard mode used to be the standard difficulty before Normal was implemented and with the way V-Ranks work, there seems to be a specific way to play that we're being nudged towards. With that said, I think the game should've been better balanced or designed around hard mode and V-Ranks.

Yes, I agree the giraffes on X-15 are a bit much, but I'd say that's less of a problem with the enemy itself and more with the fact that the drop queue will not, under any circumstance, stop. This is one of my gripes with this game despite enjoying it so much: killing enemies, especially in the later levels, doesn't feel rewarding at all. Often you'll kill a particularly dangerous or annoying enemy, only for a new one (or multiple) of the same type to spawn immediately afterwards in a nearby portal. I can't count how many times I spent all of my weapon uses standing around the same area trying to clean up the enemies a bit so I can proceed a little more safely, and still end up swarmed. X-15 is one of the bigger offenders, but there are many stages in which this is the case. I don't know how this could be alleviated.

On the dash, what I think would make for interesting tech is to be able to cancel out of it with a jump any point during the animation. That would cut your attack short, but you'd also be able to use it strategically to reposition while dealing with enemies. Sometimes you really need to kill something, but you don't want to go face first into an X tile a few steps ahead.

I think the enemy tracking is way too powerful. Giraffes can – and WILL – camp you out of jump pads, ledge tiles, etc. You can easily get that behavior on 5-15, but I recall seeing it on a handful of other stages. The clovers can constantly teleport to you with no recovery. Bombs cannot be jumped over after they activate since they'll jump back and forth. Moles can surface on the tile you're standing.

I honestly think the 'pursuer' type of enemy is overrepresented, not only in how many different ones there are but also how many of them are dropped within stages. There are many clever and fun moments, like figuring out you can trap the Lungers in X-4 to make that section a little less cluttered. But there are also twice as many stages where you'll get dropped into a neverending swarm and just brute force your way towards a V-Rank without any deduction, just sheer luck with enemy behaviour.

Some of these criticisms might seem a bit harsh or whiny, but these are aspects that I felt held this game back from being a more enjoyable experience for both casual and hardcore players. If I didn't like this game, I wouldn't have played over 100 hours of it. I hope we keep getting support for this game for a while and I'm eager to see whatever Jaklub comes up with next!

[Leaffen]

Originally posted by Chatroulette:

Congratulations on 100%! I'm still working towards my V-Ranks on Level X. I also think a lot of the enemies and hazards are a bit overtuned. I have some thoughts about the game and this seems like a good post to share them. My views come from this experience: I was going for V-Ranks on every stage with both Cerise and Ecru. As such, I only played on hard and never used items from the shop. I can see that some of my issues with the game might not be as bad when you play on Normal or at least equip a few bombs and hammers every once in a while, but Hard mode used to be the standard difficulty before Normal was implemented and with the way V-Ranks work, there seems to be a specific way to play that we're being nudged towards. With that said, I think the game should've been better balanced or designed around hard mode and V-Ranks.

Yes, I agree the giraffes on X-15 are a bit much, but I'd say that's less of a problem with the enemy itself and more with the fact that the drop queue will not, under any circumstance, stop. This is one of my gripes with this game despite enjoying it so much: killing enemies, especially in the later levels, doesn't feel rewarding at all. Often you'll kill a particularly dangerous or annoying enemy, only for a new one (or multiple) of the same type to spawn immediately afterwards in a nearby portal. I can't count how many times I spent all of my weapon uses standing around the same area trying to clean up the enemies a bit so I can proceed a little more safely, and still end up swarmed. X-15 is one of the bigger offenders, but there are many stages in which this is the case. I don't know how this could be alleviated.

On the dash, what I think would make for interesting tech is to be able to cancel out of it with a jump any point during the animation. That would cut your attack short, but you'd also be able to use it strategically to reposition while dealing with enemies. Sometimes you really need to kill something, but you don't want to go face first into an X tile a few steps ahead.

I think the enemy tracking is way too powerful. Giraffes can – and WILL – camp you out of jump pads, ledge tiles, etc. You can easily get that behavior on 5-15, but I recall seeing it on a handful of other stages. The clovers can constantly teleport to you with no recovery. Bombs cannot be jumped over after they activate since they'll jump back and forth. Moles can surface on the tile you're standing.

I honestly think the 'pursuer' type of enemy is overrepresented, not only in how many different ones there are but also how many of them are dropped within stages. There are many clever and fun moments, like figuring out you can trap the Lungers in X-4 to make that section a little less cluttered. But there are also twice as many stages where you'll get dropped into a neverending swarm and just brute force your way towards a V-Rank without any deduction, just sheer luck with enemy behaviour.

Some of these criticisms might seem a bit harsh or whiny, but these are aspects that I felt held this game back from being a more enjoyable experience for both casual and hardcore players. If I didn't like this game, I wouldn't have played over 100 hours of it. I hope we keep getting support for this game for a while and I'm eager to see whatever Jaklub comes up with next!

I've really honestly not had too much of a problem with enemies, aside when on the stages I've listed, as most of them you can technically counter by simply jumping over them, or keeping an eye on the queue and focusing more on dodging instead of painting, until an item drops.

I do understand where you're coming from, and definitely felt like I was in a similar position starting out, but eventually something clicked and enemies became a lot more readable and simple to manage for me. I'd say a lot of it is taking the game slower, and learning with the bestiary.

However, I still say Giraffes really do not work on X-15's stage design. It looks visually bad and confusing, and there's too many places you NEED to jump, and way too many corners.
On any other stage where Giraffes can block you, you can generally tell what places to avoid until you have a way to deal with them. With X-15, however, it's really not possible to predict.

That's just my 2 cents, thanks for responding and good luck on 100%ing yourself!

[SBCat (Marina)]

Hardest part for me was getting past 9-3 in endless mode.

It's such a kick in the nuts to spend so much time getting there only to get swarmed by a stupid dragon with no weapons having spawned.

[Indaiatuba-SP]

Completed 100% a few days back. Some of my gripes still stand, enemy spawns get so crazy on the later levels. Endless 9-3 (or was it 9-4?) feels a bit overtuned with how many obnoxious enemies and hazards are present, and constantly spawning. Even out of endless, there's often what feels like dozens of enemies spawning between weapon spawns in the later levels that the stages start to feel extremely cramped or unmanouverable.

One way to take the edge off might have been to spawn enemies in waves with a short pause between them, as in, a set sequence of enemies will spawn in the usual rate, then enemies will stop spawning for a little while before the next 'wave' is introduced. Maybe I don't know what I'm talking about and it already works this way, and weapon spawns almost function like what I'm describing, but since there are multiple portals and items take a while to fully materialize after the icon appears, enemies just keep on coming from multiple areas and it's likely you'll get swarmed. I accept that the game is the way it is, and I hope this doesn't come off as judging it based on what I wish it were instead.

The above is one of the reasons I found the Noir playthrough to be my favourite. She's so powerful! And it feels good to be able to use different moves that fit the situation, or even use her roller or dash abilities to quickly finish colouring a section of the stage in the Bonus. Her fireball might be a bit too good, but I loved it since I could clean up and get some breathing room whenever things got too chaotic. This didn't remove the challenge from the game as enemies kept spawning and chasing me around shortly after, it just made things less frustrating. There's a stage on the final stretch of the endless mode loop where a million moles and mole mages spawn one after the other and make it so intense! But with Noir, I could catch a break for a few seconds before the next batch of a million moles and UFOs spawned.

Anyway, I enjoyed my time with this game despite these things. I absolutely love the presentation, the characters and the music. Most of the stages are really fun and a lot of them have really satisfying quirks! Moving around as the characters feels really good and I hope it reaches a wider audience!