Early Access Feedback

[Raitoiro]

First off, great game, it’s looking very promising.
I love the improved graphics, the music is still fantastic, the combat still really solid, I love the fact that there was more interaction with and between the homunculi, and the story and characters are a lot more interesting than in the last game.
It’s also really cool that it works perfectly on Steam Deck without any tinkering.

A few negative:
- The biggest one, being that so far the game is a bit too easy, especially some of the bosses. Lito is the first boss so it’s okay for him to be easy, and Garm was just right, but Yolvan was a bit too easy and the Shackled Beast was way way too easy. For Yolvan, adding a few melee attacks to his kit during the first phase would likely do the job. For the Shackled Beast, I don’t really know what would help but all his moves except the big vertical swipe are too telegraphed and way too easy to avoid.
- Nola’s Vanquisher seems a bit underpowered, maybe it gets better once upgraded but right now I really don’t see a reason to use it over Soul Harvester which is much faster, has more reach, a better moveset, and can be used to extend a jump further. Maybe increasing the break damage it deals would help alleviate the issue.
- Similarly, Yolvan’s Lacerate is too similar to Barrage Shot, but slower and more likely to miss, and while it does more damage it’s not enough for the trade off to be worth it. I think making the ricochet bigger would help differentiate it.
- The text during cinematics is a bit too fast.
- The icons describing items’ stats when in the shop are a bit confusing without the text, and hard to read on Steam Deck (and likely all Handheld).
- The tutorials for “Blaze” and the “Hidden areas” are either way too far into the game or useless. By the time most players get to them they will likely already understand those mechanics, and those who don’t will have been confused for a long time, especially if they chose to start by exploring the mines (which seems to be what most people do).

Suggestions:
- If there’s a mechanic similar to Last Rite, please let us remap the button to activate it. I understand the need to use (up + X/Y/B) since basically every other button on a regular controller (or a Switch) was already used, but it was a bit annoying and easy to miscast. Nowadays many controllers and most handheld have back buttons so it would be really cool to have the option to remap which button is used in combination with X/Y/B, assuming Ender Magnolia has a similar mechanic.
- In the same vein, but much less important, it would be cool to have the option to map a button to start running without having to dash first.
- It doesn’t seem like the howl Bosses make when changing phase inflicts damage, but if it’s the case and it’s just really small, please remove it. It was like that in Ender Lilies and it made 1HP runs unnecessarily frustrating.
- A few more sound effects could be useful: first and foremost for when Nora speaks during gameplay, to avoid missing those dialogues. Other than that, some scenes are a bit too silent: for example when tuning an Homunculus, the process itself could use a sound and few sounds (either of metal or flesh) when the Homunculus moves.
- Finally, there were none in the early access but I really hope the complete game has jumping challenges where we need to use abilities’ blowback and aerials moves to complete, those were really fun in Ender Lilies.

Regarding the translations:
I’ve done 2 runs so far, one in English and one in French. Overall the English translation is good but half of the French one could really use some work : the dialogues are good (even slightly better than the English’s) but the findings, items, and homonculi’s descriptions read like a draft, with unnatural turn of phrase, inconsistent terminology, and some baffling choices of words. For example in Lito’s description the Fumes are called “la fumée qui rend fou” (lit. “the smoke that makes you go crazy”) which sounds like child speech.

Also, I’ve noticed a few inconsistencies between the 2 versions, I don’t know which is right but they sometimes kinda contradict each other, so one of them is probably wrong.
For example in his introduction speech the Shackled Beast calls Nola “The Grim Reaper of Milius” while in the French version he calls her the “Le fleau de Mirius” (lit. “The bane of Milius”), to me the first implies that she was a feared agent of Milius while the second implies that she was a great opponent to them.

Finally, I think it could be a good idea to standardize the romanisation of most of the names: keeping Lilac/Lila different since it’s the flower’s name but making a choice between Mirius and Milius or Rito and Lito.


Once again, great game, I can’t wait to try the complete version.
Good luck with the rest.

[watcherofanime935]

I do think the first boss and the beast boss need some slight polish. Perhaps some more mixups and feints in their kits. Oh and give us the option to enable auto skipping the intro to a boss fight after we've seen it a few times.

[Raitoiro]

Originally posted by watcherofanime935:

I do think the first boss and the beast boss need some slight polish. Perhaps some more mixups and feints in their kits. Oh and give us the option to enable auto skipping the intro to a boss fight after we've seen it a few times.

Oh, yeah I forgot the part about skipping the intro, that's definitely a needed QOL.

For the rest, I think the first boss is fine as is, he is simple but some people will come in completely blind, having never played a metroidvania, so you need to ease them in with a few easy victories.