Things you preferred in earlier footage/builds of the game

Well, on Dan's old posts comparing the older builds/pics to what's more recently shown, Angel confirmed to us a while back that those old lighting effects we missed (such as from the IGN screen shots) is back and even refined/improved over what it was. The lighting of the areas seemed to be the main point in the color/life difference, and so that should be back (better, even) from what was said. I tagged CastleDan about that on Discord but I don't know if he saw it. Enkeria was another poster who brought this directly to Angel's attention on a few occasions.

I don't think Decarabia (the star enemy) is gone, or that having other "Medusa head"-y enemies in the game precludes him. Floating enemies are more rather a whole genre of monsters than having a couple of reps in a game. It's also a Lesser Key monster, so what may have ended up happening is giving Decarabia a more prominent role or castle assignment. He's a "marquis" in rank, putting him 2-3 tiers above Buer and Amy in the classification. That one bit may/may not have significance though, since Barbatos, Vepar and Gremory are all the same rank at Duke.

As for things from before that I personally am missing, I'd say the aura/flower being prominent from the earlier builds. It was reminiscent (though not quite as grand) as Alucard's and other characters' after images while running. We later learned that these things were removed because they clashed with other enhancements or equipment Miriam will receive later, though we've yet to see those. I'd most like to have something similar to what was seen during the 2D characters' movement, but who knows how much of that is feasible.

For the UI, I prefer the bars over the numbers, but I do kind of miss Miriam's portrait being there. Maybe we can get some Mana art up there? heh. It'd be kind of neat if her expression changed, too. Not a huge thing for me though.

And...for the early-early-early thing, the very first anything we ever saw, I really liked that hallway we saw Miriam run through when the game was very orthographic. The colors and lighting were great, a lot like what Dan's posts were about.

SOSU and I approve of this message.

Mana Ikeda with a few facial expressions would be nice, but I rather see her as a whole in the menu. I could think a 2,5D version of her would do just fine too, if Mana wouldn't feel like doing that extra work to be honest.

One can dream though. Cool ideas guys!

That's an interesting thought - I think what we have now + the hatched lines might could relieve some of that dissonance, but it's hard to say or imagine. The vote between the two options back then was clear for me just because the hatched lines background looked a bit too flat, grainy and mad the lack of polish on the textures more apparent. The other option had a warmer feel to it and IGA used the "2D" term to describe it, so that was a huge pull.

In a different context and with current assets (the character model we have now instead of those old 3D ones), the results may have been different.

Here's the update detailing both:
Update 33 from 12/2015

Yeah the test video was what I was referring to in the last line of my comment as well.