So... my thoughts on a bunch of stuff:
Dark Soulsian 2D... it looks, and feels like Children of Morta. Like, a lot. To a point where I would call it plagiarism.
But then you get into combat, and it's less the case, it's more Dark Souls classics... with parries and stuff. And extremely poor visibility for some attacks like projectiles. And very slow movement speed.
You can't parry most of the strong, visible attacks. Fair enough.
But you can parry basic attacks! The ones that have no tells. So gotta learn and predict I guess?
There's no hitstun so you can get bodied mid combo by anything.
And then the level design is linear... but immediately throws you in arenas with waves of mobs... who thought that would be a good addition? Especially since, again, it's just a mosh pit where you can't really parry, AND you have to spam executes on defenseless ennemies because...? Doom was here before or something...? The person that decided that everything should finish with a QTE should be banished to the shadow realm, this ruined Doom already, stop spreading your filth (add arenas with waves of monsters as the double trouble of garbage ideas to fill a vapid game).
It's... not fun. And makes no good use of its copy/pasted pixel art, it's too bright to see what's going on clearly and ennemies lack animations and tells. Plus it feels needlessly violent.
Off the wishlist.
That's not even a metroidvania, that's a Castlevania combining both styles at this point.
Except you can move mid jump, it does feel pretty good... with the warrior at least, the two other characters have a stiff range attack that really breaks the rhythm of the combat and exploration. Which is quite alright, with extras to find and lots of shortcuts, the level design is nice.
BUT.
Big but and I cannot lie, you have to constantly switch characters for their own specific abilities... which mean going back to campfires... they are very common. But each time you need to do so (and it can very well be every two rooms), everything respawns. This is very, VERY tedious in a demo, I can't imagine in the full game... swapping with a button would have been much better...
And progression mostly comes from money dropped by ennemies... that you can only spend when you die like a shitty rogue-legacy.
And this system has been garbage since day one, and it still is here.
It only rewards failure, more than that it REQUIRES failure to make your life easier and easier until balance breaks down. Sure you can't lvl up your stats infinitely at least (and they are separate, so add an extra mountain of grind since most upgrades will be identical - just on three different chars), but it sure as fuck feels like it's here to pad the game with tons more killing.
Game feels good, but I'm not so sure about being fun after a while. Especially since the archer and the mage feel samey, I can already see a lot of back and forth simply because movement abilities are spread on 3 chars rather than one.
And that's certainly not a good sign, Bloodstained 2D had no such issue.
Now I had never heard of this.
And I won't help spread its name.
It's an extremely basic 3D action game, which is fine if simplistic... but the controls are fucked.
Camera is slow as shit, your character moves on a dime but not her orientation so it's almost like if your legs moved before the rest of your body, the physics are NOT GOOD... and it feels like they're pushing for combat with three different attacks but I struggle to see why as it's barely a thing in favor of jank-ass platforming.
Yeah hard to see redeeming features here.
Most other games are lacking in explanations, makes sense for demos.
Now this game is the opposite and it talks (or well, writes) way too much and I don't give a shit.
But that's minor.
Extremely pretty with some very nice particle effects though. Less nice UI however.
Now, it's top down Dark Souls combat number 941739 with some old school dungeon crawling feel (and inventory and upgrade system)... but apparently it's also an open world...?
That is... ambitious and the demo is probably not enough to have a good grasp of the game.
Impossible to make an accurate judgement but one major issue: the sound design. If you go Dark Souls, you better have good feedback for your hits, which absolutely isn't the case here, the war hammer has the same impact as the dagger, that is - none, and while having two active weapons, different skills and magic upgrades could make it interesting to play, right now it feels very, very unfinished.
That's Earthbound X Undertale alright.
I didn't expect to be flashed by a gnome and to have MULTIPLE pedo jokes in a demo. There is memes, and then there is being and edgelord and not being funny.
That's this game in a nutshell. Not funny, and I don't believe for a second that they'll do anything with the heavy themes that they started with.
Otherwise, it's bland.
Crazy "lolol memes and funny sprites and colorful but actually super dark" 2D RPGs are a dime a dozen, and I hardly see why this one would be better, especially when it apes out Undertale too much with its pacifist and murderer aspects.
Realistic anime 3D platformer collectathon.
Must be said, we don't see those often, even less with such a strange artstyle.
It does look good... beside the awful pop-in of some elements, pretty jarring. Nice music too.
Just looking at the trailer, I can already see the issue with levels looking too similar, it's all modern cities with different color coding.
But as much as i would like to enjoy the game, it does not play well at all... the jump animations are too long for the movement, so you hit the ground while still floating and instantly gets back in neutral position, your character is too light and slightly slippery but with a generous amount of time to reposition yourself so it feels even easier than it already is...
Sure I'd like to explore this world, and it does have a lot of verticality and just... stuff to collect in it, but it doesn't feel very good, and it's pretty empty. The game says that the city is supposed to be silent with noone to be found... but it feels like a cop-out: it's not even true, there are animal people, they talk to you and give you little side missions for gizmos to collect so... yeah.
It sure feels like a game made out of left over 3D modelling with a platformer slapped on it.
