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Post by dareka on Jun 27, 2019 0:11:49 GMT -6
I'm just kinda pleasantly surprised at all these glowing reviews - not because I don't think the game deserves them (it does, obviously), but because of the fact that a lot of the previous coverage in the press was about how Miriam felt "floaty" and "slow", how the game felt "empty", and how the journalist "just wasn't that excited for it."
What I really think helped change the narrative in the press were the graphical improvements and - importantly - the trailer that highlighted them. That's really when most of the media got on board with the game (with the sigh-inducing exception of Kotaku). And just as responsibility for the Switch version's shortcomings falls squarely on 505's shoulders, so does credit go to Angel and his team for turning things around completely as far as perception of the game in the mainstream press is concerned.
That trick in particular was very impressive, and we should all commend them for it.
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Post by dareka on Jun 26, 2019 19:33:20 GMT -6
Oh, you mean Valefor ... yeah, I was talking about the slot machine.
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Post by dareka on Jun 26, 2019 16:32:01 GMT -6
So I encountered the Gambler boss and... His HP changes to however much money you have after he absorbs it. I had 2 million+ money. Needless to say... the boss became impossible. I've only actually ever killed him twice, both times with 777 - wouldn't that kill him regardless of his HP? I had the gambler ring equiped, I think.
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Post by dareka on Jun 26, 2019 15:59:06 GMT -6
From the review:
Note that the Switch version is currently experiencing major performance issues and INTI Creates has issued a statement that it is shifting focus to address them.
I'm no psychic, but I'd wager that this is news to Inti Creates.
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Post by dareka on Jun 26, 2019 10:55:53 GMT -6
Question Angel-Corlux I'm a LATAM Spanish / American English bilingual native speaker, a freelance translator, a college language professor, and I've worked as a technical translator / interpreter for English-Japanese at well-known Japanese game company. I've also translated a history book from Spanish to Japanese... ... and I'm always eager to help! Also, going from LATAM Spanish to Iberian Spanish and vice-versa is not too difficult - you don't need a translator, just a native speaker from the target variant to do a rewrite. It'll earn you tons of goodwill with your Spanish speaking audience if you do that for the sequel - worth the investment, if you ask me.
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Post by dareka on Jun 26, 2019 10:42:53 GMT -6
Yeah, I'm with you there, dareka . That said, judging from the reactions on Twitter and other places to the latest kickstarter post, it seems like 505 and the team might be regaining a decent bit of goodwill. People are impressed by how they've forthrightly admitted the problems with the Switch port and are making fixing it their top priority--as one person mentioned on reddit, "seeing them address the problems people are having with the Switch port this quickly backs up why I have faith in this game and company behind it. They have yet to give me reason to not have faith." If 505 does follow through, they may be known for their quick response to criticism and their determination to support their fans, which will outweigh the notoriety of releasing a shoddy port. I sure hope so, because I really want this game to succeed and to become a franchise. For the reputation of the quickly responding to criticism and being determined to support their fans to stick, they need to avoid these mistakes in the future.
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Post by dareka on Jun 26, 2019 0:46:41 GMT -6
Is there a link to the aforementioned poor performance? I will say this much: This is an Unreal Engine 4 game, and the Switch is basically a glorified Wii-U. What do you expect, exactly? I've looked at videos of Bloodstained playing on Switch. It seems to run at a stable framerate, but that framerate is decidedly 30. Maybe that's good enough for Switch users -- certainly Nintendo seems to believe so since they haven't made a Mario Kart since Double Dash that can handle 4-player split-screen at 60fps -- but if that's what is meant by poor performance, there's unlikely to be any fix forthcoming. I don't think they're referring just to the 30 fps - they say the frame rate is inconsistent, that the input is laggy (which could partly be due to the frame rate), that loading is excessive, and that the game does crash sometimes. The mere fact that they believe they can release patches to improve performance on a per-area basis means they know that the optimization process was most decidedly not finished when the game released. I don't believe there will be an official explanation beyond what they've already said (basically, that they're sorry and will be improving the game through patches). Anyway, I've often defended the devs and the publisher, but the game was clearly released before optimization, debugging and overall quality assurance were done. I mean, the PC version runs perfectly, except for loot bags getting stuck in the environment literally half the time (a big deal, if you ask me), and the game crashing every 4 or 5 hours (a pretty big deal, too). That the best version of the game has evident bugs that can be discovered through a simple playthrough, without the player looking to break the game, tells you all you need to know about how good the QA process went. Now, whether the game launching in this state was due to miscommunication, naivete, incompetence, negligence, or management at the publisher demanding a release date and making everyone stick to it regardless of how polished the game was is something we might never know. What can be said is that this is ultimately the publisher's fault, because it's 505's job to be on top of these things, to identify issues with the build they are sent and make decisions based on those builds. And they squandered a lot of the goodwill and praised the game earned by releasing the Switch version in an unsatisfactory state - which is a shame. They need a post-mortem on this, and a good one.
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Post by dareka on Jun 25, 2019 15:42:46 GMT -6
30fps games were the norm for decades so I never noticed. I guess if you are a kid and all you have ever played is 60fps it might seem like input lag. Actually, 16 bit games normally ran at 60 fps, so to speak. Everytime the screen was refreshed, your input was reflected on screen, provided it was read during the game loop. 30fps became the norm when the shift to 3D occurred, but for genres such as fighting and racing games, it was always 60 fps (Soul Edge being the only exception I can think of), precisely because you wanted to read the input buffer as soon as possible. This does not mean there was no input lag - there always is, even at 60 fps - just that 30fps can exacerbate the problem, especially for some games.
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Post by dareka on Jun 25, 2019 14:08:01 GMT -6
I like curse of the moon but it bums me out. I'm waiting for the day we get a 32 bit SOTN level pixel game and it's always stuck in the 8 bit past :/. Speaking of which like i mentioned earlier. Anyone else just a tad bit disappointed by the retro level? I'm glad it was included and all but coming from Curse of the moon's levels to what was in this was a big drop in quality.
True, it is extremely short, lazy in design and the monsters lacked variety. It was the minimum requirement for the stretch goal.
The level itself was a bit underwhelming, true, but the boss battle at the end was really well done, I thought.
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Post by dareka on Jun 25, 2019 13:12:10 GMT -6
Ciel Well my personal hope is that they got WayForward for this not just to finish this up because they sealed a deal with them to work on the sequel. I think that is the best case scenario. I think they will help make a very nice game visually that runs much better. My wishlist for the sequel: 1. All gear shows up on the character model. 2. All gear slots can be customized as [ equipment] (what you're actually using) and [ display] (the graphics displayed on the character model). 3. A little village that grows as you progress through the game (like Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter). 4. Gothic/mature aesthetics (gore, nudity, etc.) more in line with Symphony of the Night. Bloodless and Vepar should be the norm, not the exception. 5. Mana involved in the character design and art direction. 6. Development done entirely by ArtPlay and WayForward. 7. Higher-poly models for the main characters. 8. Support for clipping reduction algorithms (aka lots of polys for scarves and hair, with physics applied) for high-spec machines. 9. New enemy designs and 3D models. 10. QoL features such as a hint log, the ability to turn off leveling, and oh, I dunno, loot that doesn't get stuck in environment half of the time. Realistically, I'll be lucky to get one of these items, though.
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Post by dareka on Jun 25, 2019 9:45:25 GMT -6
I can handle the worse graphics and lower resolution compared to other platforms. What I can't handle is the input delay. Can we get some official explanation about the Switch version's input delay? Obviously it's not my TV settings, because the Switch has its own screen, and the problem is the same there. Are there any plans to do anything about it? I'm very disappointed that, even if this gets fixed in a patch later, the base cartridge I have will forever only contain an unplayable version. This is a game that requires an internet connection to even play. So if this does get fixed later, would it be possible to make a new batch of Switch cartridges with patches included? The perceived input lag is likely at least in part due to the game running at 30 fps - it simply can't update Miriam's actions as fast as you can input them, since updates occur in 32 milisecond intervals, as opposed to 16 milisecond intervals for 60 fps.
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Post by dareka on Jun 25, 2019 0:32:39 GMT -6
I've only played the PC version and there are zero issues with loading and slowdown (though in 25 hrs of playtime, the game's frozen and blocked the OS, causing me to reboot the system, around 5 or 6 times now). I have an Nvidia GTX 1070 and a very fast Samsung SSD.
This is what happens when you make the PC your lead development platform for your first multi-platform title.
If what you guys say is true (and I've no reason to doubt it), then the devs were naive. They figured that if it worked on a PC with UE4, it would work equally well on all other platforms with similar specs which ran UE4.
They figured any issues could be solved by hunkering down and optimizing.
Unfortunately, that's not how it works. You have to pick your target performance, look at the bottlenecks for each platform and build your engine around the combined bottlenecks of all the platforms you're going to support.
It's common sense, but unfortunately lots of very gifted programmers are lacking in that department.
Anyway, it's obvious the game needed a few more months of optimization and debugging to provide the best experience possible, which is a shame.
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 23:41:05 GMT -6
Oh, it does, @bloodymiri , and I can see our tastes align - so your thread plug is good. I mean, it's ultimately up to IGA, obviously, but they already got the partial nudity descriptor for Vepar's nipple-less breats. And like CastleDan points out, 98% of us are legally adults here. I'm sure publishers have an aversion to the Mature rating, that it negatively impacts sales and creates controversy; I mean, obviously, because games like Grand Theft Auto and Mortal Kombat have sold so poorly oh, wait, never mind. So I think IGA and 505 ( Angel-Corlux , Question ) should know that, should they choose to go there, they'll probably do better financially, not worse. I get the feeling the player base cares more about the quality and aesthetics of the enemy designs than their level of gore/nudity/sexuality. They should probably have Mana do enemy designs for the sequel. She's already an ArtPlay employee and she obviously knows what she's doing. She'll be invaluable to the franchise going forward if she stays on board.
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 21:22:53 GMT -6
Having given this some more thought... The argument that it wasn't built for switch doesn't really hold up as the game was developed with Wii U and Vita in mind. Both these are far less powerful consoles. Still holding out some hope for the 1.02 patch bringing some optimisation or the team letting me exchange my backer extras for the Xbox version however. Dude, I worked as a programmer for a very good Japanese game company - it's up to you if you wanna listen to me or not. When a game is made, a lead platform is settled on. In this case, it's pretty obvious the lead was going to be the PC, and Xbox One and PS4 a close second. You do development on a lead platform and then port to the others. The Wii U and Vita were stretch goals, and neither supported UE4. As stretch goals, they were afterthoughts, and neither version was going to have the market impact that the Switch version would eventually have. When they say "we're building this game on UE 4 and definitely releasing on PS4 and Xbox One", you know that hitting 60 fps on last-gen platforms is not a priority. When they built the game engine that sits on top of the UE4 middleware, and when they ordered the game's assets, they were most definitely not prioritizing getting the game running at 60 fps on a platform that did not exist outside of Nintendo's prototype labs. Switch support turned out to be easier because the platform runs a special, light version of UE4, but God only knows what compromises they had to make to get a game built on the original version of UE4 to run on the lighter version on Switch. Could you get a game like Bloodstained to run on Switch at 60 fps? Yes, if you built it with the Switch as the lead platform and had enough of a budget and enough clout to get Epic to help you with optimization. It's not just a question of hunkering down and doing a lot of optimizing. There is always a limit to how much you can do in a timely fashion given the circumstances. While it's not theoretically impossible, it is extremely unlikely you'll ever see the game running at 6o fps on the current Switch model.
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 20:58:47 GMT -6
And regarding the lack of grotesque designs and generally ...tame visual designs and material. This is their base....Literally almost 98+ percent of the people who support IGA's games are over the age of 18. Maybe cater to them more? Not saying you should drop "F" bombs or something but go a bit more bloody, go a bit more grotesque, play up some more creepy designs. It just feels weird to have such a tame approach to a game about demons. I mean when you could be doing more creepy look designs like this I only have two major gripes with the game: 1. Pacing. If you're the type, like myself, who plays to completion first and grinds later, and you get stuck because you can't figure out that you need to have your picture taken and then go to the librarian vampire to get a photo ID to make the gates at the train station open ... or if you haven't figured out that ... the game doesn't want you to find the shard that lets Miriam sink underwater to explore the underwater level, but rather to use a generic shard to propel yourself through that level until you get said shard ... it can be a real chore getting through the castle the first time around. 2. Enemy design/ graphics. I didn't wanna whine about this before the game was released, since it's not something they could do anything about once mass production started with IntiCreates at the helm, but imho most of the monster assets suck, both their design and their 3D models. This can be said for pretty much all enemies, with the few exceptions thankfully being the main bosses: 1. Vepar 2. Valefor 3. Valac 4. Bloodless 5. Baal
You'll notice two of these were touched up by Mana. As far as the 3D modeling is concerned, my guess is a lot of these were outsourced models and the firm they hired delivered cheap, but not good. But, as CastleDan points out, they could have gone with creeper, more mature designs from the get-go. This also applies to the "sexy" elements in the game: the Lilith character design was... I mean, it's not that it's really bad per se, and I get that some people might be into demonic bunny girls with footwear that looks plucked from a Dr. Seuss cartoon, but compare the Lilith design to Miriam's design: it looks like they came from two different games. Same for the Revenant Belmont - it just looks like it was plucked from a game with an aesthetic closer to Smash Bros. than Symphony of the Night. The point is, we're big boys and girls - we can handle gorier, sexier, more gothic designs - and as gamers, we can handle better 3D models. Unfortunately, I understand recycling enemy models is probably the best way to make the sequel better as a whole, because they're the one asset you can reuse without much trouble, but that was the most disappointing part for me.
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 15:42:49 GMT -6
A Boss Rush mode without the game's main bosses... that's... novel...
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 10:09:49 GMT -6
In that regard does anyone know the budget of SotN? I say that because I compare them pretty closely. I'm not sure anybody knows or will ever know (companies hardly ever reveal this data), but it was probably a lot less. The thing with SotN is that it's low-res 2D and doesn't have much in the way of extra features - just the Richter mode, actually - which, going by IGA's statements, was probably done by the main programmer in his spare time.
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 10:02:05 GMT -6
the answer to both polls is "yes." But seriously: Succubus vampire bikini fully cursed angel valkyrie demon If done properly I'll throw money at them for these costumes. I just worry their, er, tastes are not quite in sync with ours (well, mine, anyway). I mean, was I the only one who found the design for Lilith a bit too cartoony? That's not what I want from additional costumes. I don't mind that her boobs are hanging out, I mind that she's essentially a demonic bunny girl. I want something consistent with the aesthetics for Miriam's design, and with the aesthetics for the Bloodstained castle and Symphony of the Night. The design for the succubus in SotN was way more risqué and yet way more fitting with that aesthetic. Just my opinion, though.
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 9:51:53 GMT -6
zuljarasTheir budget might have been amazing for a kickstarter, but barely enough to make the game, to be honest. First, once Kickstarter's take and the rewards are factored in, they are left with something like half of the funds for the game's budget. Then, the game gets delayed for two years. The funds obviously ran out, so 505 had to help out. Remember, everything had to be created from scratch, and a ton of extra modes had to be implemented. The funds might seem stratospheric to us, but building a high-def 3D game of that size doesn't come cheap (and btw, making it high-def 2D would have likely made it even more expensive to make and also more difficult to port).
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Post by dareka on Jun 24, 2019 1:42:51 GMT -6
A launch day patch is incoming it likely includes optimizations and just to claify its dynamic in docked mode going up not 720p locked. Though even with the patch it probably won't be a perfect port. I would have thought it would have been a higher priority for the devs considering games like this usually outsell their PS4 and XB1 counterparts 3 or 4:1. It's not a question of priorities - they have to work with the assets they have, and they were created before the Switch platform was even on the radar; the same goes for the game's logic, probably. The Switch is basically a PS3. Compare Bloodstained with games running at 60 fps for the PS3 and you'll see the assets are more computationally expensive and memory intensive. They likely don't have the budget to redo the assets and optimize or maybe even redo the code for the Switch (which probably requires bringing someone from Epic over to help - assuming Epic would even bother with a game that's not an Epic Store exclusive), and on top of that fulfill all the stretch goals promised as DLC. So, I doubt it's a question of not giving the Switch priority, as much as it is a question of not having the time and money to rework the game so that it both looks good and performs well on the platform. Making a game run at a given frame rate is not just a matter of hunkering down and putting more hours into optimization: if you didn't plan the game with a given platform in mind from the get-go, your only choice is to hire another dev team to redo it from the ground up (what Netherealm did with MK11 for the Switch). It's very costly (enough that it might offset any profits from the game) and time consuming (you'll miss the launch window completely); it's a huge gamble, and one that no publisher is going to take when they can just drop the frame rate by half and have the game run well enough. If the game sells like hotcakes on the Switch, though, you might be able to get that from the sequel. Then again, if it sells like hotcakes, that would probably prove there's a market for the game at 30 fps.
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