Finished "easy" mode, what now?

[evil_arev]

So I'm kinda lazy when it comes to playing higher difficulty levels. Got my♥♥♥♥♥kicked on "normal", so I went with "easy". Finished the game in under an hour. I must say I was expecting a bit more than 4 stages. They're quite elaborate, with mini bosses and stuff, but still, it's only 4 different stages. Unless there's more unlocked on harder difficulties? It doesn't seem so, judging by the leaderboards, but I though I'd ask. As I've said - I'm lazy, so playing on higher difficulty just for sake of it, isn't enough of an incentive to me.

Other than that, the game is quite nice. Noticed some framedrops, mostly during camera animations between sections of stages. That's on a GTX 650, have yet to test on a 1070.

It took me some time to fully get how the trinity system is hinted on the UI. Now it's clear to me that the colors indicate effects on different enemies caused by current weapon, but for some time I thought it was the other way. As in the hints tried to adapt to the enemies currently on the screen, or the last ones I attacked, and try to suggest a weapon for the desired effect. Only upon on of the boss fights, when the hints kept changing with every weapon change, I arrived to my final conclusion. Perhaps communicating this more explicitly in the tutorial would help a bit.
Also, from the trailers watched before the release, these circles: http://pawarumi.com/gifs/trinity.gif made me worry I'd have to somehow manage them to achieve desired effects. It turned out much simpler, so the trailer seemed a bit confusing to me.

Upon my second session I was a bit disappointed to not being able to start from level 2, but as there are only 4 in total this is not as big of a problem. Still, it discourages short sessions with the game, knowing you'll need more than 10 minutes to actually achieve anything.

To sum it up, the game was quite enjoyable. Most of the problems I've had with it were caused by insufficient understanding of its systems. Something, I believe, can be addressed rather easily. I liked the setting and character design a lot. I'd love to see it expanded somehow.

Sorry to see the game getting rather minimal traction on Steam. Are you planning any serious marketing campaign when the Xbox One version launches? It would certainly get some exposure then. Or perhaps this Steam release was a kind of feedback version for the console?

Good luck with the game anyways!

[MsK`]

Ah, see, that's exactly why we made the other difficulty levels quite different!

It's not just that it's harder, in normal and hard mode, you get a 5th level! In hard mode, there is one more boss! There are new and hidden enemies all over the place in normal & hard mode! And lastly, the order of the levels and the story are different, so you won't have just a slightly harder ocean dune level in normal mode, it will be quite different since it's now the 4th level of normal mode!

Also, don't forget that you have the training mode that let's you select any level you ever reached in arcade mode. Most achievements can be unlocked from training mode also and it's fun for short sessions.

Thanks for the comments on the game. Indeed we are thinking in doing more important marketing campaigns for the console releases.

I hope you'll have fun and be nicely surprised with normal mode :)

[evil_arev]

Alright, thanks for that info. I'll spend some more time with Pawarumi then!

[Lucathegreat]

Same, just can't complete it on Normal, it's way too hard and training doesn't help much if then in Arcade I die and waste 30+ minutes every time. Some bullet patterns seem to be pretty much impossible to dodge, especially in level 4 and 5.
Whatever, at least I got it for free...

[MsK`]

Every single pattern and enemy is dodgeable in the game. If you have a screenshot of the area(s) you're having trouble with, perhaps I can give you a few tricks to help!

In the meantime, I can suggest to watch those awesome runs:
Yami in normal mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTdkUUea7Zk
Fran friki in hard mode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy7XcrpRYzw

[DRoKZ]

The game is excellent, one of my favourite shmups on steam at the moment. I think the difficulty levels are just right across each of the modes. Thank you for all of your work on the game!