Whips (Requesting LOTS of Tweaking)

I had meant that Miriam wouldn't require a gun. I was more or less focused on the whip movement, as a suggestion for a special move or such. Samus does use futuristic guns and in the image, she's actually on the ground while doing the twirl, just there's no background or anything.

When I played Curse of the Moon, I used Miriam most of the time because I liked her whip so much...then as soon as I got my hands on a whip in the Ritual of the Night demo I was like "Oh yeah, this will be so good!".

Boy, was I disappointed!

I can understand that the devs don't want to have the exact same whips as in every Castlevania games, but they really need to change the way these things work.
Right now whips are almost useless : they have a ridiculously short range, don't attack very fast, don't do much damage, and are almost impossible to use adequately when jump-attacking.

Maybe it's a case of misplaced nostalgia, but I would be more than happy if they were just the same old whips we know and love

Maybe the whip can use a second strike, instead of just the one(as in if I were mashing the attack button, Miriam swings one way, then another, then back to the first, like a combo.)

I actually just played through the Backer Demo myself, and I had come on to talk about the whip. Looks like I'm not the only one. As had been stated, the biggest problems with the whip lie in the dead space between Miriam and the hitbox and the long recovery between swings. Those two factors made the whip just not that enjoyable for me to use. I found myself drawn more toward the kicks (which is funny seeing how weak hand to hand usually is in Metroidvania games) and the rapiers. The way I see it, there are two ways to fix this.

1. A more traditional, Castlevania-esque whip animation. Honestly, this is what I was expecting when I first got the whip in the demo. I mean, it's the Whip! It's the most iconic weapon in the Igavania era. We know that in Curse of the Moon, Miriam uses a more Belmont-like whip style, and as has been said, it's been done in 2.5D before, with the Dracula X Chronicles. With all of the other Castlevania homages in this game, I feel like this can be done easily.

2. Keep the whip animation as is, but fix its problems. This could work too. What I would do is speed up the recovery, probably cut the time in half, and instead of making the dead zone between Miriam and the hitbox, I would make it so that the length of the whip does some damage with the tip doing more. For an example of this, look at Marth and Roy's swords in the Super Smash Bros games. Each blade has a sweet spot that does more damage than the rest of it. This way, you're still hitting somehow when you use the whip, and if you want to go for extra damage, you can watch the spacing yourself.

The nostalgia buff in me would love to see option 1 implemented, but overall I'd be happy with either result.

I believe I've said it before, but I think the dead zone and slower animation are conscious choices for weapon balance. If the whip hit all areas that it has animation and was faster, then by necessity it would at least need to do a good bit less damage since those changes would see it outclass most/all other weapons. By giving it range and a large attack area in front and below Miriam, it gives the weapon a specialized use rather than something you either always use or completely ignore. Attack speed is something that can differ depending on the specific weapon, as well, though I don't know if that will be implemented like it was with SotN's swords etc.

I'm generally not one for realism and logic in video games either, but I do think too that it makes sense that a whip would only actually hurt something at the area of its impact.

I think the main factor here is that we have some classicvania fans getting into the game that would ideally want to only use the whip, and I think that you might just have to shake that and use multiple weapons (as such is generally a soft requirement in these games, and perhaps more enforced now with considerations of improved balance and variety first seen quite well in OoE). All said however, I wouldn't be surprised if we saw some changes to the whip regardless - I would just be prepared to adjust and branch out.

Yeah, the two main issues I mentioned in this post are still there.



If they fix these 2 issues, whips will be good. Otherwise, there's no point in using them tbh.

Wait, I just noticed that whips have no recovery when used in-air (as soon as you hit the ground you're free to move). Was this always a thing?

This changes things. Whips can actually be good if you use them in-air.