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Post by arch on Jun 29, 2018 3:10:05 GMT -6
Alright... So far, I've finished the ship stage of the game, and got to see a rather nice portion of it. With that in mind, I do have a few feedback points I would love to share.
1. The lip syncing during cutscenes. This might seem like a minor gripe, but for the love of me I couldn't let this one go. Whenever Miriam Speaks all I can see is her lips moving so oddly that it feels like they have a life of their own. I would personally try to tone down the extreme levels of it, make her lip movements more minute and smooth.
2. Anne looks... Kinda off, for a kid. Her shoulders look really stiff and her face looks like an adult's face slapped on a child. I don't know how far you guys are into the modeling and rigging phase, but I would honestly go back and re-do Anne's model a bit. Or, at the very least, relax those shoulders.
3. The claymore seems next to useless. I made a point trying each weapon type I got to feel for them (so far my favorite is the rapier), and while the Claymore has really good damage output... It's also really, really slow. Like, to the point where trying to use it becomes next to pointless because by the time you press the button and the animation fires the enemy already moves away or you get hit and knocked back. This one... I'm not quite sure how to solve, if I'm honest. I'm aware that the point is to cater to all types of players, including those who prefer the idea of hard-hitting, slow weaponry, but I also believe that in this case quicker weapons like the rapier or the kung fu boots stunlock enemies for more time than it takes for them to attack again, allowing you to effectively stunlock enemies into submission. Speaking of...
4. Some weapons are in fact quick enough to stunlock enemies, making fights ridiculously easy and pointless. Sure, with bosses it's not that big of a deal, since they can't really be stunned, but most times I found that I didn't even need to bother to learn how certain enemies move because I could just run up to them and smack them until they stop moving. It kinda takes away from the feeling that you can't just brute force your way through fights, in my opinion. Perhaps make weaker weapons stun enemies for less time, so that you can't just bash them to death each time and actually have to run around and think?
And... This is all I have to input on, so far. I'm loving how this game is turning out otherwise, and can't wait for more! Keep it up!
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Post by Let us know on Jun 29, 2018 4:56:16 GMT -6
It was good fun, really looking forward to playing the full game. I did everything in the demo, crafted and tried most all the weapons, collected a ton of shards.
Didn't have many issues with it but there's a few:
The screen effect when you collect a new shard is pretty cheesy looking, like really happy/cartoon like, just a personal style preference.
The glowing boxes, cannons, and things you can interact with. I would bet that most people interested in this game have been gaming for a very long time and probably don't need a big flashing aura around an object to know you can interact with it. Things like this just bother me in a game like it's trying to teach a 3 year old how to play it, please have an option to turn the aura off at least.
The Zangetsu boss fight sucked! Since you can just run right thru him without taking damage it trivializes the entire fight. All you have to do is hit him a few times, walk thru to his back and hit him a few more, repeat, dead. Might as well just have him stand there and do nothing. If you took damage when you touched him, it would make you actually have to dodge and fight him.
I noticed that if you do a really short jump and attack, your attack gets cancelled if it doesn't come out before you hit the ground, can be frustrated if going for the quick 2 hit but you didn't jump high enough so your first attack doesn't come out. Not sure if this is by design or not.
The frog summon flew up and stuck to the ceiling upside down a few times when I used it, not sure if it's suppose to do that.
Anne... deeeeerp. That face, that mouth movement, those arms, the way her purse looks like a feed bucket. Scariest thing in the demo by far.
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Post by triam505 on Jun 29, 2018 5:49:05 GMT -6
Overall really enjoyed the demo. Game recognized my PS4 controller, ran fine, and I didn't encounter any noticeable bugs. Here are some notes and recommendations:
Cutscene lipsync:
I usually don't pay attention to lipsyncing and for the most part the cutscenes are fine. But Mirriam's constant 0-shaped mouthing is very noticeable. In that case, I would honestly prefer if there was no lip-syncing and the models interacted "telepathically" and without mouth movement. Having the just the 3D models on the sides is preferable to sub-par lipsync.
The mask removing hats and vise versa without notice:
Accessories interfering with each other without notifying you is annoying. I though that there was a bug that kept unequipping my items until I realized that equipping a hat removes my mask. I'm assuming the reason for that is because those items appear on Mirriam's model so there might not be a way to keep both of those equipped. But in that case it should give me a notification that what I'm trying to equip will unequip other items.
Visibility:
Admittedly this is more a fault with me as much as the game, but I walked past Lindsay, and the lever that opens the castle, twice before finally seeing them.
Lindsay just appears there at some point and she isn't placed on my path through the area. Placing her on the left platform would make her more visible and you can just walk past her if you want to ignore her.
As for the lever, I approached it from the underside (rat tunnel) and couldn't see it when I came up because there was a pillar in front of it. When I walked past it I didn't see the interaction prompt because I was already moving and looking at the other side of the screen.
Also I think the background in general could be a little darker and more contrasted.
Fast travel between areas:
Even with how short the demo is I never returned to the village, because I didn't want to walk all the way there and back again. I ended up beating the final boss before loading the game again and going back to turn in the quest.
Menu selection option:
I've seen this type of option in some JRPG games.
The pause menu remembers what you were looking at when you closed it. For example: if you scroll down to "inventory" and then "ether" and then close the menu; when you pause it will have the same options highlighted. This might be more convenient for some, but it makes using the menu very frustrating for me. I'd rather know that pausing and going down twice will take me to "inventory", instead of having a selection that is different every time I open the menu.
Sword slash appears but does no damage:
A few times when using a great-sword (Flamberge) when I do a jumping attack close to the ground, the "whoosh" of the attack would appear, but it wouldn't do any damage. I'm guessing that landing would interrupt my attack before it connects, but note before the VFX appears.
And after reviewing my video it appears that getting hit at the start of the swing would cancel your attack, but the "whoosh" still comes out.
And here's a recording of my playthough if anyone is interested:
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Post by Fuchigane on Jun 29, 2018 6:21:43 GMT -6
Greetings 505 staff, some of you may know me from the Reddit. But it doesn't matter, I'm here to share what I feeled playing the demo.
- - - Impressions - - -
* Won't start bashing the game, but the first thing is Miriam's attrocious lipsynch, which the team is already aware of, so I praise them for acknowleding it.
* The game looks very fluid, I enjoyed the pace of the game, the animation for every weapon type, and of course, the OST. Yamane is a master. Although, I think a few Quality of Life changes can be made, e.g. Spear hits downwards like short swords, reduce whips recover after a grounded attack, etc...
* I enjoyed the VA, specially because Hayter made my childhood, I love the guy, and I'll never tire. But Miriam's scream when getting the Shard for the first time needs to be looked upon, sounds cheesy as hell.
* The shop seems pretty useful, and so the alchemy part of the game, being able to craft equipments is pretty nice, making the searching for items worth the time. I didn't cook anything, but I want to see how it will turn out on later parts of the game.
* Some textures seems too flat, specially wood, it doesn't pass that "rugged" sensation, marble and stone seems pretty good and fancy.
* Now, I'm deeply sadned by the fact that, we are in 2018, and the game does not support 3440x1440. I had to play in windowed mode because Miriam looked like a fresh pizza of how much the screen strechted when trying to use fullscreen, and seeing as the game already has somewhat of a release window, I doubt the team will fix it, so I'll probably recur to 3rd party people and softwares to fix this, and it's a major shame for me.
* The overall quality of the characters during conversation are... Dubious at best. Dominique and Johaness, SPECIALLY Anne and Alfred, goddamn, they are ugly as HELL and are not on par with Miriam's and Gebel's model, which are quite descent, but goddamn, their (Johaness/Alfred/Anne/Dominique) model in coversations are damn ugly, someone mentioned to use profile pictures in conversation back on reddit, it would be a lot more pleasant to the eyes, since the 2D art for this game is superb. I haven't seen Zangetsu yet, but taking into consideration the other characters, I hardly believe he is any better. Even Lindsay is good in face of the main cast, lol.
- - - Bugs - - -
* When you arrive at the village, and head back inside the ship, the background is still dark and raining, instead of the red sunset and calm sea from the shore where you land.
Best regards from a fan who only wants to see this project skyrocket. I'll keep this post updated thorugh out the time I spend playing the demo.
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Post by CastleDan on Jun 29, 2018 8:16:36 GMT -6
I think the Castle entrance is the weakest looking and designed area of the whole demo which was a bit disappointing.  The above to me felt like a better entrance area with big open windows to see outside and lots of color. Right now if you think about it you have an entrance with largley white everything and you have a church area that mainly continues that theme.   It could use a lot of color but I feel like it's too late in the game now. Also the complaint people told me to wait for the demo to judge still remained true for me. There's still repetitive focus on reusing rooms but putting a twist on the objects in the room. It was most apparent in the Castle entrance with multiple Chandalier room structures. Graphically it has improved a lot but for whatever reason it's just not there for me yet. I don't know if it lacks some kind of visual filter or something with the lighting effects but it feels very flat.  I feel like this image has what people want out of the game visually. The lighting feels present which gives the world more dimension, and there's foggy (blueish red hue) in the background that makes the castle feel larger than life and brings a lot of depth to the image. Compare this image to the one on the top and the former feels very flat and lifeless in comparison. |
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Post by lovelydumpling on Jun 29, 2018 10:14:23 GMT -6
I think the Castle entrance is the weakest looking and designed area of the whole demo which was a bit disappointing. The above to me felt like a better entrance area with big open windows to see outside and lots of color. Right now if you think about it you have an entrance with largley white everything and you have a church area that mainly continues that theme. It could use a lot of color but I feel like it's too late in the game now. Also the complaint people told me to wait for the demo to judge still remained true for me. There's still repetitive focus on reusing rooms but putting a twist on the objects in the room. It was most apparent in the Castle entrance with multiple Chandalier room structures. Graphically it has improved a lot but for whatever reason it's just not there for me yet. I don't know if it lacks some kind of visual filter or something with the lighting effects but it feels very flat. I feel like this image has what people want out of the game visually. The lighting feels present which gives the world more dimension, and there's foggy (blueish red hue) in the background that makes the castle feel larger than life and brings a lot of depth to the image. Compare this image to the one on the top and the former feels very flat and lifeless in comparison. As much as I really don't want to agree with you... I can't help it. That last image is so stunning and really does look more like what I'd want to see out of the game. The environments definitely blend together in the current game and the rooms don't look very creative. That first image in particular has always been a sticking point for me. There are a couple rooms that look nice, that blood red moon room for example, but yeah... the game really does look hollow and empty in most of its rooms. |
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Post by Nezuto on Jun 29, 2018 10:21:49 GMT -6
I think the Castle entrance is the weakest looking and designed area of the whole demo which was a bit disappointing. The above to me felt like a better entrance area with big open windows to see outside and lots of color. Right now if you think about it you have an entrance with largley white everything and you have a church area that mainly continues that theme. It could use a lot of color but I feel like it's too late in the game now. Also the complaint people told me to wait for the demo to judge still remained true for me. There's still repetitive focus on reusing rooms but putting a twist on the objects in the room. It was most apparent in the Castle entrance with multiple Chandalier room structures. Graphically it has improved a lot but for whatever reason it's just not there for me yet. I don't know if it lacks some kind of visual filter or something with the lighting effects but it feels very flat. I feel like this image has what people want out of the game visually. The lighting feels present which gives the world more dimension, and there's foggy (blueish red hue) in the background that makes the castle feel larger than life and brings a lot of depth to the image. Compare this image to the one on the top and the former feels very flat and lifeless in comparison. As much as I really don't want to agree with you... I can't help it. That last image is so stunning and really does look more like what I'd want to see out of the game. The environments definitely blend together in the current game and the rooms don't look very creative. That first image in particular has always been a sticking point for me. There are a couple rooms that look nice, that blood red moon room for example, but yeah... the game really does look hollow and empty in most of its rooms. I second what lovelydumpling said. That 2nd image is definitely a bit better...perhaps they could zoom out from her a little bit more, so we see more environment on screen or possibly a lot of it will be added in, later? Also wanted to add in that the shaders seem too brightly lit or just too much bloom, though that can just be my tv monitor settings. |
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Post by lovelydumpling on Jun 29, 2018 10:26:30 GMT -6
* Now, I'm deeply sadned by the fact that, we are in 2018, and the game does not support 3440x1440. I had to play in windowed mode because Miriam looked like a fresh pizza of how much the screen strechted when trying to use fullscreen, and seeing as the game already has somewhat of a release window, I doubt the team will fix it, so I'll probably recur to 3rd party people and softwares to fix this, and it's a major shame for me. This is 100% unsupported but I'm curious as to what would happened if you used this method and put in an unsupported resolution like 3440x1440. |
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Post by CastleDan on Jun 29, 2018 11:03:04 GMT -6
lovelydumplingWhy would you not want to agree? I know it's kinda uncomfortable to be overly critcial but if it benefits the project then so be it. The boat location wouldn't be as detailed as it is today without the criticism, let alone Vepar who changed A LOT. That original Castle entrance pic looks fantastic and even the most negative of the negative Neogaf users were positive about those visuals since then people have been quite negative. I don't know why they moved away from that look but that look is what people expected I think.
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Post by Nezuto on Jun 29, 2018 11:06:16 GMT -6
Speaking of the ship......Is it just me or is it really off putting that when you go back aboard it, after you make landfall, that everything changes right back to as if you were on the sea, in the pouring rain? I mean, sure, it may just be a placeholder setup for now, but it's kind of a shock to suddenly be back out at sea in an instant and then on dry, no rain land the next.
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Post by dareka on Jun 29, 2018 11:27:43 GMT -6
The environments definitely blend together in the current game and the rooms don't look very creative. That first image in particular has always been a sticking point for me. There are a couple rooms that look nice, that blood red moon room for example, but yeah... the game really does look hollow and empty in most of its rooms. Personally, the only environment I felt was kind of underwhelming so far is the garden/inner courtyard. But I do understand what you guys are saying, and I think there's a reason for it. The interior of the castle is made to look spacious, as if you're in a large hall. The problem is this that, with highly detailed 3D graphics, this translates into the perception that there's a lot of empty space in the larger rooms, especially when you don't have a cave-like level design; notice how it also happens in the village, but not in the galleon, nor in the Japanese cave level they've shown. That's the trouble with 2.5D graphics: they give you more volume and detail, but because you're still moving in a 2D plane, everything feels emptier. The first image is a good example It looks less empty, right? That's because it's flatter. It's not a realistic looking room - there's no depth to it, it's just a straight hallway with windows in the background. Then again, this is how 2D games looked. They could have kept this look if they'd gone with a complete orthogonal projection - it's kind of hard to explain in layman's terms, but this means you have 3D models, but no depth to them. It robs them of a lot of detail and makes everything look 2D, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. As far as this image goes... The thing is, it's basically concept art: having this level of detail in real-time 3D might require increasing the specs quite a bit, especially if the lighting is done in real-time. Another thing is that the colors are really saturated. This certainly makes for pretty images, but it might tire your eyes after prolonged play, not to mention make Miriam and the enemies more difficult to see. That said, some this is an area where some tweaks to the lighting could go a long way. The devs are trying to balance visibility with appealing visuals, and that's very hard to do. |
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Post by crimsonx4 on Jun 29, 2018 12:29:21 GMT -6
So far my only issue with the backer demo is it being to easy. I would love the final product to be much harder, similar to Castlevania Order of Ecclesia, hopefully balanced difficulties can be added.
So far Bosses where extremely easy. Vepar was a joke and his attacks where predictable. Maybe make his attacks more punishing if hit? While Zangetsu was fun but his stage is way to large making it extremely easy to dodge his attacks and use hit and run tactics. Maybe make his moves faster and with a wider range?
Overall I thought everything else was fine, loved the voice acting and models, enjoyed the script for what it was, level design is great although lower the save room amount, and maybe make opening crawl less generic although don’t go over board.
Honestly I wouldn’t change anything except the overall difficulty, boss difficulty, and lower the save rooms. Maybe a couple of gameplay tweaks as well, but overall it’s great the way it is.
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Post by lovelydumpling on Jun 29, 2018 13:09:40 GMT -6
dareka Are there not tricks that can be done to make that image more possible with lower specs? If the closer objects and platforms were 3D but the further back items were a 2D parallax? Like that's what I assumed the window behind the fog would be, probably the drapes back there too.
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Post by CastleDan on Jun 29, 2018 13:50:19 GMT -6
dareka I've seen plenty of 2.5 games that look this detailed. I don't know if I agree with your assessment ..because there are areas in the game that actually do look quite good visually like the village and the boat. I think the problem is simple.....all those other locations i referenced and that original picture with the red windows have color to them and it helps make them look more alive...they have good lighting to them.  Look at that background....it's not about detail it's about an environment looking bland due to a lack of color and lighting.  This pic looks perfectly in line with the original pic in terms of detail AND lighting and the newer boat is even MORE detailed and has even better lighting.
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Post by dareka on Jun 29, 2018 15:34:59 GMT -6
lovelydumpling the short answer is yes, but the long answer is no, probably not. I was thinking of doing a separate thread on this, so as not to go off topic, but on second thought, just PM if you're interested in a more detailed explanation of why I think it won't happen. This doesn't mean there's no hope for improvement, though. CastleDan well, if that's the case, like I said, there's still hope, as they may yet change the lighting, probably without much trouble.
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Post by neonseraphim on Jun 29, 2018 16:24:05 GMT -6
1) Facial animations seriously need to improve
2) story animation also needs to improve, people move very stiff
3) ultra wide 3440x1440 resolution support
4) armor that changes appearance
5) could use more background items, lime moss in the walls or more foliage, maybe uneven paint spots In the walls. Ship looked great but the city and castle did not, specially the light up rooms, they need to be busier more colors may help
6) breakable walls cracks are not convincing, they need to be redone. Maybe instead of cracks you get debres falls off when you hit them
7) Quest are repetitive if all it killing # of monsters. Add more variety like instead of killing so many of X monster also have quest to collect rare items from monsters, or use an item on a monster at liw health to charm it and escort it some place, or even escort town people and save them like Dead Rising 1 game, or shoot the lion monster in the eye 5 times without killing it as a target practice quest. Get creative.
Except for quests most of the changes above are aesthetic, gameplay is solid, crafting felt right, I really enjoyed. Thanks.
Ps. Hope we get to keep the items we just got in game at release! If not, no biggie.
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Post by Monomona on Jun 29, 2018 16:24:23 GMT -6
This is just a nice graphical effect but at the “blood fountain” could there maybe be an effect where the blood drips off Miriam, same thing with water areas too. It feels weird that liquids such as water and blood just don’t effect Miriam.
Edit: Also ripples when walking in the blood and water would be nice.
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Post by abaddon on Jun 29, 2018 16:47:27 GMT -6
also to what Monomona said also add a surface swim animation to it also. she just glides in the blood when she bubbles up and down in it. Also is there going to be swimming to the game? there seems to be a secret in the fountain like a pipe line or hidden room?
Edit: Oh, falling into it makes a big splash of blood, cannon ball style.
Edit2: I guess there is very light swim motion and small splashing but they are hardly noticeable.
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Post by Monomona on Jun 29, 2018 16:56:07 GMT -6
Another thing when you fall in the blood only the silhouette of your head and hat shows the rest of Miriam’s body doesn’t.
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Post by mightymo77 on Jun 29, 2018 18:42:04 GMT -6
Just played through the whole beta demo. My integrated graphics couldn't push this game, so I went out and bought a video card just to play it!
1) During the cut-scenes you can press button A to move the conversation forward. How about the option to press a different button to go backwards in that conversation, in case you missed or didn't understand something.
2) I think that the timer should not count while you're in the menu.
3) There needs to be some sort of pause so that the music stops in case you need silence, instead of having to mute your speakers.
4) When returning to the store or to Johannes, when you press up to enter their menu, please skip the unnecessary dialog there and just go straight into the menu.
5) In the map, your location is shown by a circle, that circle should blink so that you can spot your location more quickly.
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