E3 Demo Feedback for the developer's team

1. Sharpen up Miriams model, it feels jarring against the nice background,

2. Visual Hit cues on monsters and number differential between miriam and monsters

3. Tone lighting to feel more accurate doesn't need to be super dark or bright.

4. Bit less shine on wood,

5. Speed up Miriams animations maybe for lighter weapons and please have decent animations for 2 Handed weapons, add a couple more attack or special attack button combinations so each weapon or some can feel more unique.
a) Example Kung'fu boots could have a multi punch attack that hits 3 -5 times by Down,Down-Right, Right and attacking,
b) Adding a couple of kicks and or an aerial kick or something to the boots, or another slash attack or speed up animations for both spells and weapons.

6) More cell shaded gothic vania goodness please, definitely needs some Grittier visuals and definitely blood.

7) First boss Fight was kind of predictable and didn't feel very challenging or engaging, making boss fights more engaging and slightly more challenging I think would be awesome.

8) Make rooms feel more distinct from each other, felt kinda boring going through the ship a little alot of similar ledge placements but im sure in the main game that will be fixed up, also secret rooms please . I felt like i was missing out trying every wall XD

Figured I'd register an account to provide my feedback.  I only have a few points which may have already been mentioned.  Some suggestions and a couple of big kudos.

Things I'd tweak:
Regarding resolutions - and I'm not talking about the res bug already pointed out - some of us have bigger than 16:9 screens (aka 1920x1200 which is 16:10).  It's not a huge deal but right now it actually stretches vertically for me which is a bit offputting.  And I wonder how folks out there with higher resolutions are dealing.  I don't mind a little letterboxing, but it doesn't do that (my monitor is set to not stretch things on its own).

Combos would be nice.  I felt a bit clunky with the delay per swing of sword or per kick of boot.  A 1-2-3 combo would be nice.  Not a huge deal... I know both ways have been present in previous IGAvanias.  Maybe make it per weapon - a combo for a huge heavy sword doesn't make sense but when you've got kick-boots saying" designed for mobility then there's something to be said for a little kung-fu action there.

Damage numbers for the player and for enemies are both the same color and font, so it can be a bit tough to tell who's taking what when you've got a hit trade.  Simple fix: Just make player damage red vs. the purple for enemy damage.


Things I adore:
The movement overall feels absolutely perfect to me.  Miriam and Alucard would get along just fine.  Given how far we are from release it feels great that this basic but super important "feel" aspect was nailed right away.  The slide-kick animation could take you a bit further but not a big deal at all.

God bless whoever defaulted the d-pad to being for movement.  I play primarily with a Dual Shock and its superior d-pad is a pleasure to use for side-scrollers, and it's very nice to not have to fire up JoyToKey or similar to get movement off the stick.

I loved the intro stage for what it was.  It feels like the aesthetic is really coming together well, and I'm really digging these familiar-but-different enemy designs, like the Dullahan armors.  It looks as good as it feels.  And it doesn't hurt that the music in this demo was also great - that "pump you up" style that we're used to from intro areas to other IGAvanias.  When I beat the boss and was told that was it I literally groaned out loud because I wanted so badly to keep on going.

So there's my two KS backer cents.  Hope someone sees this... at the very least the resolution stuff and the damage numbers I'd expect to be easy and sensible fixes to make.

Cheers,
gaspump

Adding my voice to what others are saying, I enjoyed the demo. Understanding there's still much to do, I felt what we got was very promising!

That said my feedback is primarily centered on the fact that aerial attacks are 'canceled' when landing (please change this!). Likewise there appears to be a delay in attacking upon immediately landing as well. Lastly, it might be my PC and/or an unoptimized build, but the framerate was a bit inconsistent. A rock-solid 60fps would improve the perceived responsiveness.


Intel i7-4765T
16 GB DDR3
Nvidia GeForce 860GTX
Windows 10 64bit
Xbox One controller

Yeah that's pretty much what I was talking about. Either locking an extra frame or two, giving us a more obvious visual effect on hits (both on Miriam and enemies) and maybe a stronger audio queue would provide a more solid feel for the action in the game. The "action" in an ARPG can be easily tanked by lack of visual/audio representation for the character's actions. And I'm not saying there's a severe lack of it in this demo, but I think the game would greatly benefit from a little bit of an extra "punch" in regards to this. I've played a lot of Aria and Dawn, and I've been playing SoTN since '98. One of the most noticeable things that come to mind when I think of playing that game is the feel of gliding through each level and slashing/bashing enemies. It felt good when I hit stuff in that game.

This is still an early demo though, so I don't even know what we need to take at face value and what we need to interpret, with what we've got.

Did the Morte demons on the ceiling ever attack you? I tried to get one to do something to me but it just walked across the ceiling nonchalantly. Again, early demo, so they'll probably get ceiling-based attacks down the road if the devs decide to keep that facet of them in the game.

Hello,

Well, first of all, it seems that the demo doesn't run on my cumputer, it kind of walks, but i guess that's due to the crappy integrated card. I did felt a bit of input lag and i think that hitboxes are too small. The demo felt too easy, yet I'm hoping is not the target dificulty of the game but more like an early lvl (also kudo to however built that giantic super resisntant and resilant wooden ship probably the same one that built noa's ark, i mean it kept a float with all the wholes and scary monsters).

The feedback I do want to give is regarding visuals. , i didn't quite liked the design of the boss in the demo, and i felt like the bright colors were out of place. I also felt like some of the enemies had visuals that didn't quite go with the environment, like that robot that seemed to colorful and futuristic, yet he was sitting on a woodden ship (i know it was not a robot, it also died way to easy)

I do have a bit more comments on the visuals, but i'm also hoping those are due to my laptop.

Regards

Absolutely agree with your tutorial critique as it's also a worry of mine. I don't think cutscenes should be wasted on something like that. Maybe an option to have tutorials on or off for people who want them? Just the idea of Johanness telling me... hey click ___button to perform this spell.

Me- Thanks but I can figure that out myself without you taking me out of the atmosphere of the game.

I can't say I'm the biggest fan of the treasure chests though, it just seems weird seeing so many of them taking up space in the backgrounds. Two here, two there. It's not a BIG complaint, it just seems a bit much. I miss just seeing the item laying about on a pedestal, or hitting a special looking environmental object and giving you an HP or something. It's just cooler? However, it's a worthless complaint since they've already created them and clearly are including it.

I SERIOUSLY hope enemies can drop special equipment though, it'd be a shame if that doesn't happen.

SOME CONTEXT: so right before I got the update email I was looking at E3 footage someone posted, and i had a few comments which I put into a text block and shot out at the people who answer questions you habe at kickstarter. This is me copy pasting what I wrote there. It is a bit long so I may miss some edits in order to fit the rules here, sorry :/ . Anyways, heres my nonsensical rambling, no bully plz. I Haven't got to play the game yet, so maybe I come up with more things, like comments on the bosses and such.

Hia, recently saw you guys' E3 demo, courtesy of (credit where credits due), and, like many others probably have before me, I wanted to state my opinion on the trailer. Sorry if you guys are swamped with things like this, but a I felt compelled to at least comment on what I backed a know?

Anyways, the one thing that rustled my jimmies was the idle animation. I'm no expert by any means, but here's my honest little opinion. From what I've seen, Miriam moves very slow and methodical, it feels calm and elegant, and I think that's what you're going for. By slow I mean her animation, not her movement speed, I'm sure you know what I mean, the movement speed and the animation is spot on, it works well. I guess the only thing I would have to "complain" about is the sword animation, it doesn't feel right having one slash, and then that animation looping for multiple strikes ya know? Its just that considering the speed of the sword compared to the time it'll take to reset your hand to make the same strike make rapid attacking look awkward. I dont know why I care so much, I know the other castlevania games and games where you can spam the attack button, (>implying) have had the same animation "issue", but for some reason, this time it gets to me more, call it a backer's nitpicking. If possible, can there be a second slash animation? Like right now there's a left to right slash (she's right handed right?), so what about adding a follow-up slash returning the hand back? So if the player is mashing that attack button it looks like a fluid action, a left-right slash, then right-left slash, and repeat. If the attacks are slow enough, then it would make sense that she would have the time to reset her hold and constantly swing one way. Its not a big issue, it just makes the game look more... "smooth", so to say. I cant find any videos, but I'm sure you guys know what I'm talking about, a slash, then twist arm 180° and then slash back kind of thing. Digressing more here, how realistic will the swords (properties, use) and such be? There's some cool sword facts out there. Nothing crazy like , but small things, like weight/speed .

One more digress, will there be projectile weapons? I know that in one metroidvania you could find a 9mm pistol (the first DS one?), Will there be "advanced projectiles" like that as well as the traditional throwing knives, holy waters, axes e.t.c?

Anyways, back to the animation. Like I said before, Miriam's moment feels controlled, elegant, with a hint of determination, but when i see the idle animation, it feels...wrong. To me, it just doesnt fit with the rest of the animations. For one, the loop speed is too fast, from the way she moves, it looks like she's out of breath, sort of... panicky. It doesnt fit with how "controlled" the other animations portray her to be. Also the pose itself combined with the movement coming from her hips feels... forced. I think you guys were trying to go with a more playful/fun Miriam there, considering the menu screen picture, but to me it feels like she's trying to hard to play into the "fancy elegant" archetype, it doesnt feel natural. The pose feels over exaggerated, with the arm and leg positioning, plus the hip movement. Personally, it feels like shes posing for the camera. To me the pose doesnt feel like the actual Mariam, it feels like someone getting their picture taken at a cosplay convention. It feels fake, ya know? It juxtaposes with all the other animations, so to say, and sort of removes some of that "genuine elegance" that she has (oh, and I'm not being anti echii here, I care not for it, but I understand the appeal and art of the echii. I'm just saying that it i feel like it doesnt work with her character, if that makes sense. If I was anti echii I probably would be objecting the short skirts, my only problem with the skirt is the practicality of it, the legs hold major veins and muscles used for mobility so protecting them is important, but this is a videogame). Of course, I'm just a humble backer, and I don't know which way you guys are taking the character, nor can I provide an alternate pose suggestion, but here's my opinion anyways. To conclude, the pose feels like something Mei from overwatch would do, not something I feel like Mariam would do. Sorry for the ramble, I'm not a professional reviewer or anything.

P.S
I guess while I'm at it might as well give my opinion on the enemies. The artstyle is really nice, I like the "storybook" kinda feel it has (I'm no artist so I don't know if there's an actual term for this). I know that this is being done in UE4 and my only gripe is that the jellyfish enemies look too much like it's from UE4. Their model has that..."plastic" look to it, like something you would see from those "what if videogame X was made with UE4?" Videos. It certainly does make them pop out from the background, and there isn't any real problem with the model, I just thought that they looked a bit odd compared to other entities ingame. Oh and one final modeling nitpick, the "chain" for the ball and chain armors. I know that the level is a
Wrecked ship, so I assume you were going for more of a sea creature membrane like texture for the chain, which works, I like the idea. I can tell from looking at it that the ball and chain is part of this armored sea urchin-like creature, for the chain has a similar texture to the jellyfish, which implies that its an organic substance, which is cool (if my interpretation of the enemy is correct). But, like the jellyfish, it also looks a bit plastic. I'm no artist, so my only suggestion would be to change the colour or the shine/reflection on the jellyfish and chain membrane (maybe even change the death animation of the ball and chain guys so it shows off that this monster is just swinging an encased part of its body at you, like making the armor crack off, revealing whats under it before it disappears or something. Assuming my interpretation of the enemy is correct of course). Again, sorry for the rambling, hope it helps somehow


PPS: is it confirmed that items wont show up on character? (upon reading the fourm, it is, so disregard this part. Ove only kept it in to make the paragraph have continuity) I know i had this question last time i talked to you guys, and just wanted to make sure. It would be a cool touch, would help in multiplayer a bit, to be able to know what your ally is wearing, but I understand that the work that probably has to be done to give a model for every piece of equipment in the game may be too much to be done (at least for the initial release date, if you plan on adding equipment models as an update or something). Also will the Miriam art on the menu screens change? Like with equipment, health/energy status, where you are in the game (biome and/or progression) and such? Will there be a set of images that will be randomly scrolled through, or no changing images at all?
And I'm not sure if this was in an update or Q&A, but will there be modding support? Not just map making, but UI, item, models, artwork, e.t.c as well? Just curious

Not really sure I can add much, I enjoyed the demo. I do feel like the items that come out of broken candles could fall a little faster. It felt like they fell a bit slower than Miriam does. Mainly referring to the coins.