Beat the demo, still feel like the bosses are very off-sync

[Lord of Kunn Knee]

They both attack too fast AND they don't seem to feel like they attack on-beat. I constantly feel like I'm scrambling during boss fights. I understand Patapon was a bit like this, but it also let you jam out once you found the right rhythm. On this one, I feel like the boss attacks feel random, give you no time to respond to most attacks, and the attacks themselves aren't telegraphed well. On the final boss of the demo, he does multiple different attacks and yet you have no idea which one it's going to be. For example, when he burrows under ground during a normal attack he can either chase you, go to a specified spot, run away, or attack your minions. There's no animation to show which one will happen and this is with almost all of his attacks. The windup gives you info on which handful of attacks it could be, but not which one specifically it'll be.

The other issue I have is the minion health vs. your health. It's interesting to have your health be the only thing that matters, but it introduces a strange sort of playstyle where you basically just whittle down enemies by staying near the back and spamming the attack button with the occasional reposition. Minion deaths don't matter outside of decreasing your attack and to be honest, it just feels odd. They also never regain health outside of fountains and pick ups from the shop so they're always at half health. This means that if you get your minions killed from an AOE, you basically just stand around like an idiot until they come back. Yes, you have an attack you can eventually get, but it's not worth the danger it puts you in. Also, you cannot aim it that well.

[Lord of Kunn Knee]

Forgot to add, visually and musically the game is phenomenal and I loved what I've seen so far in that department. The minions are still satisfying to kill, especially in the buildings when they explode. The roguelite aspects are interesting and I still haven't gone too far in them, but they definitely have changed my playthroughs. That being said, I wonder how repetitive it'll be to hear the same songs, stages, and bosses over and over. I really hope it's more randomized and there's enough content to keep it from getting annoying.

[Takkik]

I agree the game feel off-sync. And because you can control the team with one order doesn't help. In patapon all orders are given with the music (advance & retreat), here the moment you need to move yours pawns it put you out of sync.

I found managing your char HP more detrimental. Like you said, better to sacrify the little guys. There is so many things on the screen, it's really hard to keep track of where is your char. So many AOE too.

[I_love_my_dad69]

I don't have anything else to add that you didn't already say about this game, pretty much said how I felt while playing it a couple times. I will say however, love the name.

[W.A. the Anum]

agree there. it feels like the bosses either ready their attacks to late so you literally have to take the hit or they are somewhat off-beat.

[PantaBaka]

true

[douglasduck]

The trick is just that the attack and defend command start with the same button - the bosses usually start winding up their attack on the first button press, so you have to be ready to not press the second beat in order to defend. RIP if you were trying to do a hustle tech.

The big bosses do have some kind of pattern to the attacks - Wagoon will do an attack, then spend a turn returning to the right hand side, before giving a free window for you to attack - then it seems to be random whether there is another attack straight after or not. The crab boss has a huge windup for the laser so you can't miss the jump at least.

edit: Wagoon's screenwide attack is announced by the roar with a red screen tinge (the summon roar doesn't have the red tinge) - you have to jump in the next beat which does mean you have to eat a few rocks in the air unfortunately.

Yes, it isn't as clear as Patapon used to be, but this isn't Patapon.

[Elnidfse]

Originally posted by douglasduck:

The trick is just that the attack and defend command start with the same button - the bosses usually start winding up their attack on the first button press, so you have to be ready to not press the second beat in order to defend. RIP if you were trying to do a hustle tech.
.

This is pretty much my experience as well.

Once you get into the rhythm of observing boss patterns and only using hustle techs during the downtime you know exists most boss fights are pretty relaxing.

[Enfys Ellezard]

The only boss I really find to be off-sync is the Elite enemy Yukashima imo. It's the only boss enemy that unleash its projectile 1 beat too early so it always land just as you finish your command so you really can't do anything about it but to rally until you dodge it before you attack or just grit through it since Yukashima is quite weak.

I don't really have the same problem with the world bosses. I ran through the game a few more times because I like playing Mimizukyun and they're very predictable once you're used to them.

The crab is probably the one with the easiest tell but it also instills the wrong lesson on the players that the boss will always gives a clear tell of what attack is coming ahead of time since W2 kinda break that as soon as Kit lasso where his frontal and leap attack will just happen with no real way to prevent it.

Wagoon follow the traditional Cycle attack boss and once you notice the "Center/Cobun, You then Leap" pattern without some kind of HP loss phase shift, you just end up maximizing damage and turn it into a pincushion since it stays in the same sweet spot all the time unlike the crab. I spam so many Tech 1 bow without getting punished by it now.

The issue on the HP not recovering is real though. Even the MP on you is also odd since there's no real penalty to taking longer to beat a fight you have already won so you can always just spam Rally to recover MP before moving on else you end up entering the next room low on mp which can be bad for elite rooms. The only guarantee recovery you can get is from the extra fountain upgrade but you have to be on your 6th or 7th run to even see it appearing for W2 as a purchase so maybe a partial recovery between rooms should be a baseline that get removed at higher difficulty instead.

I will add though that backline style may look good but it's not the best. With elemental effect after buying enough upgrade, your character do extra stuff on command especially on tech that to benefit from it, you do have to be at the front else, the guaranteed freeze ice ball or the wind AoE really won't do much.

[Lilo]

this is true, the boss is very off-sync

[Lord of Kunn Knee]

Originally posted by Enfys Ellezard:

The issue on the HP not recovering is real though. Even the MP on you is also odd since there's no real penalty to taking longer to beat a fight you have already won so you can always just spam Rally to recover MP before moving on else you end up entering the next room low on mp which can be bad for elite rooms. The only guarantee recovery you can get is from the extra fountain upgrade but you have to be on your 6th or 7th run to even see it appearing for W2 as a purchase so maybe a partial recovery between rooms should be a baseline that get removed at higher difficulty instead.

I will add though that backline style may look good but it's not the best. With elemental effect after buying enough upgrade, your character do extra stuff on command especially on tech that to benefit from it, you do have to be at the front else, the guaranteed freeze ice ball or the wind AoE really won't do much.

After playing a bit more I agree more with the bosses not being as random as I first thought them to be, that being said, I still find it very punishing that the game makes you basically twiddle your thumbs like an idiot the moment you mess up once. So many attacks can wipe out the majority of your minions which means you're basically stuck doing tiny amounts of damage. I'm not sure what they're going to do about this because as you stated you can also just spam rally commands for MP. It leads to a bad playstyle of just trying to outlive the boss.

As for the backline style it depends on what character you play. I like the cat and rabbit. For the rabbit, you do adopt a backline playstyle because your main damage has to be positioned in a way where the arrows won't overshoot. This causes the previously mentioned issue to be way worse. You do have to get close if you want to do extra damage... but atm the game doesn't give you any incentive, other than not wasting time, to risk it. You're better off playing like a coward as long as you keep your guy alive nothing else matters.

[Zeniet]

I feel the same. Monster about to summon meteor out of its ass out of nowhere and I can't respond it in time because I'm already in a rhythm command. By the time you get into rotation again the meteors are already coming down and you guard when the meteor already has done its job