Recent reviews by kit

Updated Review:
I was able to successfully play with a friend today! While it didn't take me long to figure out I likely had to select a matching region previously, it is definitely far more intuitive to have players select their region BEFORE looking for rooms to join rather than after loading into the room list. And whatever issue there was that prevented me from seeing my friend's room (or my friend from seeing mine) — even after matching my region to theirs — seems to be resolved.

I do enjoy this game like I did biped 1. I think some of the "way more difficult" reviews are a little overblown. For the most part, it seems to be roughly the same. HOWEVER, I do think certain parts need to be rethought or perspective/depth-perception needs to be worked on. The level where you must take turns moving on a platform to dodge the swinging wrecking balls was mostly luck for me and my friend. Depth perception is a bit wonky, which is OK when on land since they cast little shadows/rings showing you their pathing, but it's much more confusing in the air. You cannot really see the ring-indicated pathing until it is too late, and if not relying on the rings, it frequently looks as though you are going to be hit when you really aren't (or you look safe and you really aren't!). If I had to guess, the rings being cast look like an attempted solution to the depth perception issue that unfortunately just doesn't work so well over the air.

I can't really say I care much about the new flying mechanic. It's fine, but again depth-perception needs to be worked on. When you have to fly through the hoops, you don't really look like you're flying into them — it looks more like you're flying above them. For a brief moment, I thought the movement was intended to be more three-dimensional and that we were responsible with controlling both the pitch and the yaw/roll of the planes instead of just the yaw/roll to change directions. Then I flew above the hoop and it counted as flying through... and realized it just looked weird. Anything with airtime in general is hard to comprehend the depth well.

Rail grinding is always fun, but the camera doesn't keep up/move well enough for you to realistically get all the coins on these sections first try which is a shame.

Regarding designs — I think Sila and Aku were iconic, which is inherent to the contrast in their shapes and colors. In comparison, the new characters (not sure of their names, I might've missed them) aren't as iconic to me. I do still enjoy the catbot, it is pretty cute and it grew on me a lot while playing. The purple robot, though, just doesn't really stand out to me. It isn't awful by any means — the basic design is still fun thanks to it being based on Aku's model which was already great. It just doesn't feel new/distinct enough (and part of this may even be due to purple being very close to Aku's color, blue, whereas at least the catbot is a very different color). I did find that their screens looked more appropriate in-game, looks like the gray screen is only in the character/level selection which is something I'm sure will be ironed out upon full release.

It's been a while since I played biped 1, and honestly I didn't exactly play it for the story so maybe I'm just not remembering it right, but the story so far in the demo seems like a bit of a stretch/nonsensical in comparison. I don't recall so frequently thinking "that's kind of ridiculous/weird/odd/ill-fitting" or similar when playing. But again I will emphasize, the person I was with would skip dialogue, so I will not comment too harshly as I recognize I may just be missing information.

I played this with one other person, so I'm not sure how different things are when you play it with four. Maybe this is what people refer to as being overly difficult — I think certain sections like the wrecking balls + turn-based moving platforms were already unnecessarily difficult due to the depth perception and can't imagine needing a second pair of people to succeed at the same time. There are also sections of this game with the reverse issue where it's not really clear why you even need to work together in coop aside from the fact that you can't get too far apart from each other without dying. Some areas with the elementals and see-saws can be completed solo quite easily.

I feel like sometimes I am talking to the Shaman too much. I don't really find the Shaman annoying, although I will say that game design is a bit weak when you have to literally show the player a video on how to complete the course to get your point across. This wasn't really biped 1's strong suite either, though, so I don't mind it too much. The movement style and variations of it is what makes a lot of this game so fun.

A funky little bug (?) I found is that if you and a friend both hold an item together (such as one of the balls), and then both spam "skipping" by rapidly trying to lift the other leg & immediately putting it down, the item will disappear (no animation or anything) and you will both go flying away from each other. Some sections of the map are kind of jittery/poor performing for me. I may not have the highest spec PC by any means, but I never had any trouble running biped 1. But again, I do recognize it is a demo, so it doesn't affect my opinion very much (I expect bugs and lower performance — biped 2 being straight unplayable coop initially was a different story).

I haven't completed the demo yet, but I did want to update my review now that I am actually able to play. I look forward to completing the remaining two levels.



Previous Review:
Would love to play as I really liked the first game, but I'm not able to start up online COOP.
My friend and I tried:

• Making sure our regions matched (US East)
  
• Making sure that our region in settings is "Others" (not Chinese Mainland since we aren't in China) given the update to help Chinese/Asian players
  
• Friend started a private lobby and sent an invite via game
  
• Friend started a private lobby and sent an invite via Steam
  
• Friend started a private lobby and I tried to join via join code
  
• Friend started a public lobby (that I could not see on the lobby list) and sent the invite via game
  
• Friend started a public lobby (that I could not see on the lobby list) and sent the invite via Steam
  
• Friend started a public lobby (that I could not see on the lobby list) and I tried to join via join code
  
• I started a private lobby and sent an invite via game
  
• I started a private lobby and sent an invite via Steam
  
• I started a private lobby and friend tried to join via join code
  
• I started a public lobby (that they could not see on the lobby list) and sent the invite via game
  
• I started a public lobby (that they could not see on the lobby list) and sent the invite via Steam
  
• I started a public lobby (that they could not see on the lobby list) and friend tried to join via join code
  
• I started a local COOP game and invited friend for Steam Remote play (actually did work somewhat, but was unplayable - friend was lagging/couldn't really see what was going on)

Again I'd love to play, but it doesn't seem possible to play online COOP right now and Remote Play doesn't perform well. I doubt this game is as fun in solo. From what I've seen briefly while trying to play, I think the new character designs are a little odd. They look fine in the art, but in-game they don't have as much contrast (why are their screens grayish instead of black like Aku and Sila?). It makes them look unfinished/like they don't belong, in my opinion. I do recognize this is a demo so maybe that is related to their appearance.

Despite the negative review, I am again begging the devs to make plushes of their characters. I previously begged for it when I reviewed the original game and got a dev response suggesting it would happen, and then it never did :(

PLEASE make an Aku plush I am on my hands and knees