[Spoilers] thoughts on the demon form

[sleepy toad]

I'm at the vatican fight and with that boss' final phase aside, i think the mandatory demon form transformations are the most tedious part of the fight and maybe of the game in general.

-They're not at all challenging. With a couple exceptions you can just stand in place and bash your keyboard since your shots remove enemy bullets until the tranformation is over.

- They're unavoidable. I think a good compromise would've been to allow you to skip them if you can type a set number of words fast enough before the phase begins. After retrying the same fight dozens of times that would be easy to do and would let skilled players make the fight faster.

- They don't showcase the game's uniqueness at all. For a game called the Textorcist where everything (even menu choices) has to be typed out, it's very out of place for a mechanic integral to the combat system to require no typing (excluding the starting incantation).

I don't know if by adding it the developers wanted to give players a feeling of empowerment, but considering you don't even really damage the bosses during these phases it feels like a huge waste of time and little else.
What are your thoughts ?

[DJDiceZ]

I strongly agree with the first point, not so much the others, although i can see why it looks out of place.

[rgk]

It's a nice change of pace. And while you are very powerful, you also feel vulnerable as the bible cannot shield you anymore.

[Endless Challenger]

In terms of gameplay, it was both good and bad. Basically mixed feelings. But the actual problem for me was that it had no story implications at all. Demons will never take control of you like of your master, and it's not a sin at all, it's completely fine, given Bible will still protect you, and you are still able to shoot holy bullets. Either it should have been explained, or it should have resulted in a gameplay change - for example, you have no shield (Bible) anymore, and you now shoot demonic bullets instead of holy bullets. And instead of exorcisms you have to type satanic incantations. The ending and dialogues could also change due to that.

Alternatively, it was possible to do away with typing completely after getting the demon form and turn the gameplay into a duel between 2 demons. You stay in demon form all the battle, your enemy can move, and your demonic bullets aren't as OP. Basically, something similar to Maiden and Spell. Personally, I'm not in favor of this idea, such gameplay change is too radical. But messing with demons having no negative effect at all isn't something that makes much sense either.

[Bagatur]

I think it both makes you feel powerful and shows that you have to use some evil (smashing keys) to beat evil. Also it is for a brief amount of time and you only take down enemy's shield. I liked it.

[Schizophriend]

I'm a bit torn on this. I do agree that it feels a bit pointless, even tho you technically aren't protected by your bible as a demon, it's almost impossible to get hit by any bullets since you just destroy them with your own ones, especially since most of them come directly from the boss itself, which is where you're shooting at anyways. I only ever got hit like 2-3 times as a demon in my many hours of playing this game.
The only bullets that are a danger to you in demon form are either ones coming from the sides or behind you (which is very rare) or bullets that move in weird ways.

It would be a little more fun if during these phases, there was more stuff to dodge, or bullets that aren't affected by your own unholy bullets so you can't just get rid of anything in your line of sight.


Still, I think it's a really cool idea if it had a little more impact on the gameplay or if it just took a little longer. I found that the Cardinal is probably the coolest boss to fight as a demon, since he teleports around and sometimes even creates small portals that might shoot you from behind. His hitbox is also strangely small, despite his sprite being relatively big, which makes his shield a little tougher to get rid of.