Why is this game so punishing? It's not fun AT ALL!

[vizthex]

I left this as my review, but no one ever reads those so I'm gonna post it here because I need to vent.

I got this for free and I feel like I paid too much.

It's just ♥♥♥♥. Fun for the first 5 minutes, but you'd better get that refund button ready when you hit the first boss. It's impossible to kill it.

You can't cancel a dodge, and the boss has this big-ass attack radius. Has a stupid burn attack that kills you. If you stay on the left he just burns you to death (which isn't even fair since it's completely random!).

I tried 2 dozen times to kill the first *♥♥♥♥♥♥♥* boss and couldn't do it. Why is it so hard? I even got to level 7 while trying, still couldn't do ♥♥♥♥. It either kills you with insane damage, or kills you just as you're about to win.

The artstyle doesn't help either. Everything is a gray blob, so it all blurs together into one giant heap of gray. Yeah it's unique and cool, but it's such a detriment to the already way too hard gameplay that it's just annoying as ♥♥♥♥.

Now I've got yet *another* dead game in my library, and I already have enough of those. Don't get this.

If you want a difficult game, go play Dark Souls. At least that one actually works, and isn't a big gray blob of impossible first areas.

Can't believe I wasted an hour of my life on doing nothing....

[lougojira]

If it's any consolation I'm on level 13 and I'm not making much more headway on that boss you mentioned either. I keep thinking that if I level up enough that boss might go down a little easier, but that's making the game feel more like a chore than anything else.

I can't complain too much; I received the game for free by throwing money at the Crowsworn Kickstarter, so other than some of my time and some foul language from dying so much, the game hasn't costed me anything.

I just hope this isn't an indication of what we have to look forward to with Crowsworn!

I don't mind getting my butt kicked in a challenging game...it makes the eventual victory all the more sweeter...but let me die because my timing was off or I haven't learned the right pattern just yet. Don't kill me over and over because the odds (seem) so ridiculously stacked against me. There's enough pain in real life...I don't need more of it here.

[vizthex]

Publicado originalmente por lougojira:

If it's any consolation I'm on level 13 and I'm not making much more headway on that boss you mentioned either. I keep thinking that if I level up enough that boss might go down a little easier, but that's making the game feel more like a chore than anything else.

I can't complain too much; I received the game for free by throwing money at the Crowsworn Kickstarter, so other than some of my time and some foul language from dying so much, the game hasn't costed me anything.

I just hope this isn't an indication of what we have to look forward to with Crowsworn!

I don't mind getting my butt kicked in a challenging game...it makes the eventual victory all the more sweeter...but let me die because my timing was off or I haven't learned the right pattern just yet. Don't kill me over and over because the odds (seem) so ridiculously stacked against me. There's enough pain in real life...I don't need more of it here.

lol same, even said "I got this for free and felt like I paid too much"

same though, I'll be legitimately angry if I backed yet another dead game in my library.

the first boss just has too much health and deals too much damage too fast.

even though I ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ hated it, the pantheons in hollow knight were at least fair. Every boss uses the exact same attack pattern, no random ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ "lol ima throw fire now" like the damn light keeper here does.

not even dark souls does this. It's hard af yeah, but it's still fair. Something that's hard but unfair is never fun, it's just punishing and stupid af.

[lougojira]

Yeah, a little bit after posting what I did, I got up to level 14 and killed that boss...so it can be done. Just ask yourself how much time do you want to put into a game that forces you to grind if you really want to get anywhere.

Learning attack patterns and getting fast with the buttons is one thing. I have no problem with that. But having to stay close to a save point, killing the same two or three types of enemies over and over for an hour or so, just to get your boy ground up to a level where you can stand a modicum of a fighting chance just seems like padding at best, and poor design at worst.

I know what you mean about backing games...I've been satisfied whenever I've thrown money at Kickstarter projects a lot of the times...but there are a couple of times that I wish I had waited. We'll just have to wait and see with Crowsworn; right now I'm remaining hopeful for the most part though.

And since you mentioned your appreciation for challenging games, if you don't own it already, you NEED Valfaris in your Library! Valfaris will stomp your private parts into powder, but the game is so fair and well-designed it will keep you coming back for more. I wish I could say the same for Unworthy. :/

[vizthex]

Publicado originalmente por lougojira:

Yeah, a little bit after posting what I did, I got up to level 14 and killed that boss...so it can be done. Just ask yourself how much time do you want to put into a game that forces you to grind if you really want to get anywhere.

Learning attack patterns and getting fast with the buttons is one thing. I have no problem with that. But having to stay close to a save point, killing the same two or three types of enemies over and over for an hour or so, just to get your boy ground up to a level where you can stand a modicum of a fighting chance just seems like padding at best, and poor design at worst.

I know what you mean about backing games...I've been satisfied whenever I've thrown money at Kickstarter projects a lot of the times...but there are a couple of times that I wish I had waited. We'll just have to wait and see with Crowsworn; right now I'm remaining hopeful for the most part though.

And since you mentioned your appreciation for challenging games, if you don't own it already, you NEED Valfaris in your Library! Valfaris will stomp your private parts into powder, but the game is so fair and well-designed it will keep you coming back for more. I wish I could say the same for Unworthy. :/

oh no i don't like difficult games at all. Never have, they're just frustrating. I just needed some examples to compare this to.

[AoiRob]

so, i beat the first boss in one try at lv2 after reading this. like, it only has 4 attacks? and very long cooldowns between attacks enough to get one or two hits in the roll away to a safe distance?

were you mashing away the attack button trying to kill it faster? or did you not realize that rolling has like a full second of invincibility frames?

[lougojira]

Publicado originalmente por AoiRob:

so, i beat the first boss in one try at lv2 after reading this. like, it only has 4 attacks? and very long cooldowns between attacks enough to get one or two hits in the roll away to a safe distance?

were you mashing away the attack button trying to kill it faster? or did you not realize that rolling has like a full second of invincibility frames?

Congratulations on whipping that boss so quickly!

When I finally defeated the boss, I realized I had to settle for landing fewer hits, and I had to be extra quick with the roll-away when he'd light the place up with that flame. I felt the need to level-up like I did because I simply wasn't doing enough damage to him when I did land those hits...it was like I was trying to stab a lion to death with a toothpick.

Maybe more patience is the key to success in this game? I don't know...I haven't given up on Unworthy yet though. Even though the second boss has clobbered me twice already, he already seems a bit more manageable than the first boss.

[lougojira]

Publicado originalmente por vizthex:

oh no i don't like difficult games at all. Never have, they're just frustrating. I just needed some examples to compare this to.

Oops...sorry for the misunderstanding!

[BadTurtleMan]

This is just all preference as I like hard games and it is very rewarding when you make it past a hard point, the first boss isn't that hard as I killed it on my second attempt, it's just a case of get gud - hollow knight

[lougojira]

Publicado originalmente por BadTurtleMan:

This is just all preference as I like hard games and it is very rewarding when you make it past a hard point, the first boss isn't that hard as I killed it on my second attempt, it's just a case of get gud - hollow knight

True enough...it is indeed all about preference when it comes to the games we choose to play. Tougher games, while anger-inducing at times, seem to be the most satisfying upon completion. I totally agree with you on that.

Speaking of hard points, I had MUCH better luck on the second boss compared to the first. Slow-and-steady does seem to yield better results when fighting the bosses in this game.

[Ty Fyter]

So i got this game, like the OP & Commenter, as a Crowsworn backer. After reading this post (before playing) they had me worried.

But after playing 2.5hrs on my stream, it’s not bad like they’re making it out. Definitely not harder than Hollow Knight.

I beat the first boss on my 2nd try: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jjKUkGFz6LY&t=1435

I’ve beaten two bosses and made my way into the Undercity, and so far really loving this game.

Neither is it a “grey blob” like the OP makes out. The 2D, B&W pixel art aesthetic is really cool!

The reason I write this is if other newcomers from the Crowsworn KS see this hysteria, and “buy in” to it before actually giving it a go.

Unworthy gives me hope that Crowsworn won’t be too easy!

[lougojira]

Publicado originalmente por The Fyterian:

So i got this game, like the OP & Commenter, as a Crowsworn backer. After reading this post (before playing) they had me worried.

I apologize if anything I wrote might have caused you to prejudge the game. I'm realizing that my personal approach to the boss encounters was all wrong at first (at least if the second boss is any indication). I just came down from putting a whole lot of time into Valfaris, and that game, by comparison, encourages you to attack the bosses aggressively...whereas Unworthy forces the player to take a more patient approach.

If anything, I've learned to not make any posts based on first impressions! :)

(Reminds me of when my co-worker bought Hollow Knight...he got his butt kicked really early the first time he played it...so he put the game down for a few months because of that. But then, when he eventually picked the game back up, he took a different approach to how he played it, and wound up loving it. He'd eventually say that Hollow Knight was one of the best games he'd ever played after completing it.)

And I certainly agree with you that the B&W aesthetic of Unworthy has a definite amount of charm to it. Makes me think of Limbo, and I really enjoyed the look of that game as well.

[weirdee]

The first boss isn't as bad as some of the later regular ass enemy encounters when they put stuff like two snipers and a giant next to a ladder exit. You're just forced into a bunch of ambush situations and you have to evade multiple attacks pretty quickly.

Basically, as long as your sprite doesn't touch anything dangerous, or you're using dodge roll i-frames (you get *a lot* of i-frames, like damn), you can quickly turn back around and get at least one or two swings in after they finish a combo. Enemies that are too quick to fight this way tend to have other flaws like getting stunlocked or their reach being smaller than yours, but it takes experimentation to figure it out. You might find that you can bait some attacks without using dodge roll, which lets you counter faster. For most enemies, they leave a huge dead zone when they strike, or if they have a combo followup, the range tends to suck on it or it's only able to do so in one direction.

The trick to most fights is that you're able to dodge cancel and multiple dodge out of almost anything, but your stamina bar is pretty limited and you should just be using your spacing the rest of the time.

Sometimes, rolling away from your problems and nope-ing out of the room is the better option. Not always an option, but quite frequently available.

Ladders are sort of a death march, though. You can't jump in this game, so you're more or less forced to be entirely helpless when you're on a ladder, while enemies are free to take swings at you or whatnot if you enter their field of vision, which is unavoidable in some encounters.

Also there's this one dirty jump that you can't really practice, but whiffing it causes instant death.

Honestly this game's mostly for people who lean slightly more kaizo than hollow knight...but only slightly, it's not too horrible or unfair. Just perhaps a little sometimes, in the way of the get gud lifestyle. The bosses, in comparison, are weirdly forgiving early on, but this probably stops being a thing after a while. I think it's to compensate for how easy it is to get killed by burst damage at any given moment.

[lougojira]

Publicado originalmente por weirdee:

The first boss isn't as bad as some of the later regular ass enemy encounters when they put stuff like two snipers and a giant next to a ladder exit. You're just forced into a bunch of ambush situations and you have to evade multiple attacks pretty quickly.

Basically, as long as your sprite doesn't touch anything dangerous, or you're using dodge roll i-frames (you get *a lot* of i-frames, like damn), you can quickly turn back around and get at least one or two swings in after they finish a combo. Enemies that are too quick to fight this way tend to have other flaws like getting stunlocked or their reach being smaller than yours, but it takes experimentation to figure it out. You might find that you can bait some attacks without using dodge roll, which lets you counter faster. For most enemies, they leave a huge dead zone when they strike, or if they have a combo followup, the range tends to suck on it or it's only able to do so in one direction.

The trick to most fights is that you're able to dodge cancel and multiple dodge out of almost anything, but your stamina bar is pretty limited and you should just be using your spacing the rest of the time.

Sometimes, rolling away from your problems and nope-ing out of the room is the better option. Not always an option, but quite frequently available.

Ladders are sort of a death march, though. You can't jump in this game, so you're more or less forced to be entirely helpless when you're on a ladder, while enemies are free to take swings at you or whatnot if you enter their field of vision, which is unavoidable in some encounters.

Also there's this one dirty jump that you can't really practice, but whiffing it causes instant death.

Honestly this game's mostly for people who lean slightly more kaizo than hollow knight...but only slightly, it's not too horrible or unfair. Just perhaps a little sometimes, in the way of the get gud lifestyle. The bosses, in comparison, are weirdly forgiving early on, but this probably stops being a thing after a while. I think it's to compensate for how easy it is to get killed by burst damage at any given moment.

Thanks for all of the pointers! I'll be keeping this in mind moving forward.

[Kreon_Tush]

all you have to do to dodge his main attack is stay behind him he wont hit you as long as you stay on top of him to dodge the big flame just dodge roll he gives you enough time in between attacks to get on top of him

[rapha_bg]

Just beat the game and now it's my favorite 2D souls-like.