Pretty fun game ^^ Here's my thoughts

[Regnester]

Okay so, having finally defeated both bosses (the first one 4 times, once with each weapon) I thought I would share my current thoughts on the game. If I play some more and my thoughts change i might do a followup/comment.

Also let me preface this by saying im not like a game developer or expert so naturally my words arent preach, but i really like rouglikes like this so i'd be happy to contribute in any way. Hope it is helpful :>

 

 

The weapons:

Hammer: Standard weapon, big heavy attacks, pretty balanced focus. It fulfills the weapon fantasy perfectly. Very well designed weapon.

The only gripe i have with it is that the "dash + turn around + light attack + hold heavy attack" sequence feels pretty bad to use. This is because during the finisher heavy spin the character keeps moving in the direction of the dash and most times i found myself spinning out of range of the enemy im trying to hit. I think it shouldn't move or move in the direction of the light attack.

Spear: Best designed weapon imo (altough hammer is a close second). allows pretty
good mobility while rewarding precision with the focus strike. Wouldn't change a thing

Cannon: Oh the cannon... It just... *feels* bad to use. I assume the fantasy of the weapon is supposed to be trading mobility for raw POWER and RANGE, which sounds pretty good on paper, but in practice you realise that the strikers currently deal SO MUCH more damage while also having to put half as much effort into using them effectively (and also being a ranged weapon).

Do you need to reload to have 6 shots in the barrel? Well the strikers practically have infinite ammo, you're just juggling them
Do you get punished for failing to time reload? Well even if your stiker hits the floor you can just pick it up and its immediately ready to go.

And all this pain for pretty mid damage. Don't get me wrong, I actually like the fact that you have to time a reload but like the invested effort just doesn't give enough of a reward to make it worth using. BY FAR most of my playtime was spent trying to beat the first boss with this weapon and it was the least enjoyable part of the game.

Having to heavy attack to dash sounds cool on paper (once again 'trading unlimited mobility for power' fantasy) but theres one glaring problem. you cant dash up and down this way!! This is the worst thing about this weapon imo. I can excuse having to look the opposite way and fire to dash, but this doesn't feel like a drawback. It straight up feels like a full on cripple. Give the weapon some way to quickly move vertically.

Also dash powers don't work on the cannon, so either make them work on heavy attack OR remove the powers from the choice pool when playing with the cannon

Then the mortar. Once again, the *idea* behind the mortar fire attack is pretty good. I like big risk big reward things. Not only do you have to stay still to use it, but you have to aim aswell. It great! Until you realise that it doesn't deal that much damage (and this is supposed to be the like the biggest damage dealing move of the weapon!). Its laughable. Every other weapon can dish out way more damage in the time it requires to set up, aim, shoot and then reload. Not to mention you also get knocked down if you use more than 5 ammo on it.

And lastly, the focus attack feels pretty random and unsynergetic. It doesn't reward the player for doing anything, its just... last 3 shots.... yay. Make it so that if you perfectly time the reload, you get a full clip of focus attacks otherwise its only the last 2 or last 1. Might be too op this way idk but i think the idea deserves a chance. This way it actually feels like you *worked* for your focus hits and didnt just get it out of nowhere because why not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Strikers: I love thossing these balls around! pretty satisfying to juggle them against an enemy. I like that you can dash attack to hit them and that it continues bouncing on enemies. It kinda feels a bit too strong? It's the weapon i have the least time on so maybe im wrong, but thats the vibe i got (I oneshot the first area on lv 3 frenzy using it).

One thing i noticed while using it is that sometimes even the enemies can punch it which is pretty hilarious but i kinda find it weird that this deals damage to enemies (The first boss once hit herself like 5 times in a row because her attack bounced the ball back towards herself lol). Maybe a good drawback for the weapon would be that if enemies hit it towards you and you don't deflect it using an attack, it deals damage to you. This would motivate you to not let the balls just lie around on the floor, bc enemies might hit it and damage you in the process. But this is a very hypothetical change suggestion, if it feels bad to play against then prolly best not to implement.

 

 

Enemies:

Don't have much to say about the normal enemies. Pretty good variety. The elite system keeps them kinda fresh. Love that the minibosses can be seen in non-miniboss form. Maybe have an enemy type thats exclusive to 4+ frenzy in each area so it shakes up the game a little bit after the player gets used to the elites

Mother Trek is great. I went into this game expecting it to be a cakewalk but the moment I faced off against her I got steamrolled. Love the minion summons during phase transitions, love the ramping difficulty and love the attack patterns of the spikes. The last phase is always chaotic and its awesome. Gives you a choice between clearing the never-ceasing minion wave for some breathing room or trying to finish her off quickly even though there are like 10 minions trying to attack you. Fun boss. challenging, but fair.

Bandicoot feels a bit more awkward, but it kinda fits the theme i guess? I like that they can parry, I like the trickery with the double Koot and i like the second phase's fast paced attacks. I don't really understand what the point of the pillars is during the pink eye phase tho. The Koot kinda just appears from thin air, so the pillars are just... there? Anyways the only thing thats bad about the fight is something that isn't supposed to be a feature i think.

In pink eye phase if they duplicate theselves, sometimes both can use the flash+chomp attack which got me stunlocked and killed twice. Other than this the boss is good and provides a nice difficulty curve after getting used to the Mother Trek

 

 

Misc.:

Basic materials just get stockpiled into eternity, maybe they could be converted into something else?

please let us cook more than 3 of one food at once i often start runs without realising i ran out.

The Mother Trek armor feels a bit underwhelming considering you have to beat it twice just to get enough mats to unlock the ability to craft the item

Let us open the equipment menu while in a run. It feels pretty bad that I can't check what my armor does if i forget it.

The powers are lovely, they allow for fun builds and most of them arent boring like "x2 attack power hurr durr". Bigger variety ios always welcome though

The skills (idk what theyre called actually, the attack that's like weapon exclusive and "B" button on an xbox controller) do feel a tad underwhelming. Vault hop desperately needs a buff, most weapons' basic skills feel pretty useless (ofc striker's hasn't been added yet). New banana feels very weak.

Quick restart would be nice

 

 

That's all I can immediately think of. Hope my feedback helps a bit ^^

[Regnester]

Okay, with another 10 hours in the game i wanted to make a few corrections and add a few more thoughts:

While I still stand by my point of the cannon being pretty bad, I have played a bit more with it and it isn't *as* bad as I make it sound in my initial feedback. It excels in AOE damage. This can be seen with the heavy attack launching a spread of bullets and the mortar having great area coverage.

Also:

On 6/22/2023 at 11:16 PM, Regnester said:

Every other weapon can dish out way more damage in the time it requires to set up, aim, shoot and then reload

This statement is not really correct, especially if you use a heavy attack to dash back when you have 4 bullets, then immediately go into mortar mode and fire. I found that combo to be pretty nice to use as it's a pretty hefty focus hit.

And a last thing about the cannon: There seems to be some kind of combo it can do that i CAN NOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME REPLICATE! It's a kind of heavy attack where the character shoots the ground and flies back in a small arc?? and also it deals self damage sometimes???? Is there a misfire mechanic im missing?

I still thing the weapon overall is incredibly underwhelming but i managed to get a few fun runs out of it.

 

My love for and opinions on the hammer and spear are pretty much unchanged. Maybe the hammer could use one more combo to make it feel a tad smoother, but honestly it is a great weapon without it too. The spear is still so much fun to use

 

Honestly I would love to see a 5th weapon that is very combo focused.

Currently we have

• The Hammer that is focused on Hard Hitting Heavies
• The Spear that is focused on Precision Strikes and Mobility
• The Cannon that is focused on Ranged Attacks and High AOE (I think?)
• The Striker that is focused on Juggling and Good positioning

So I would love to see one that's focused on flowing combos into eachother for uninterrupted continuous mayhem. Like give it a lot of different ways to flow combos into eachother. Either that or a weapon that has a large variety of combos to choose from each with its own utility. Anyways that's just a siuggestion.

 

As for the striker, I realised that even though its definitely strong when utilized correctly, its nowhere near as overpowered as i thought. The strikers are great for single target damage and they can create small chain reaction with a few enemis but their main weakness is that they have virtually no AOE. This balances its high single target damage out pretty well imo. The reason I overestimated them originally is because I had electricity powers in all my runs. I came to the realisation that the miniboss and pre-miniboss areas (especially in the bogs) are very challenging to get through effectively due to the copiuis amounts of little moth buggers running around.

Oh yeah and the striker skills need to be added obviously, but that's an unfinished part of the game so its not really a criticizm

 

Also, on that note, I would like to see more influential skills. Most of my runs i completely forget that skills exist, they don't do much. Banana is underwhelming in every way, pole vault is literally worse than just... dodging, Parry sound nice on paper but also I found that the parry window is slim enough to not be that consistent (DISCLAIMER: This is very likely just a skill issue), Bulk up is funny but using it in battle is basically a death sentence due to HOLY HECK WHY IS THE RECOVERY TIME ON IT SO LONG. Literally just make it faster, so it can be used in combat and that fixes it. Stone toss is... okay i guess? Not much to say about it. And lastly, Spear and Cannon basic skills are so underwhelming that I want to cry. Im pretty sure im forgetting some, but that just confirms my point of the skills being not that interesting. 90% of the time i found myself skipping the skill rewards for konjur.

There are a few I like tho. I like the Hammer basic, I love the tree roots, very satisfying and i also like the totem a lot. The totem might be the best designed tbh, it changes the way i play the game completely making my playstyle more focused on close quarters careful combat.

 

I also change my mind on the mother trek armour, that stuff is absolutely busted, i love it.

 

And lastly, maybe boss health scaling with frenzy level? Something to consider.

Once again, hope my feedback helps ^^