E3 Demo Feedback for the developer's team

The E3 demo was very enjoyable. I am glad that the demo was made accessible to poor souls like me who missed the deadline for the poll. I hope it can be made available to anyone who preorders at the $60+ level, regardless of whether they filled out the poll on time. Anyway, here are my observations.

I sat watching the title screen for awhile, just listening to the music – very lovely! I thought it might be interesting to see some movement on the title screen – if the bats, clouds, and water could move – especially since the song is quite lengthy.

Overall, Miriam's animations are quite good (but I'm also not an animator). One of my concerns with 2.5D is that the characters sometimes feel 'chunky', like they are not a part of the environment, unlike in 2D pixel art games. I honestly had this feeling with Dracula X Chronicles. Part of this could have been due to the resolution, but I feel it greatly impacts platforming. Miriam thankfully feels more 'at home' in the environment, although I think she could be a little more realistic with some more animations (such as a different pose for standing on stairs). She animates and feels a lot like Alucard from Symphony, which is a good thing. But I feel she could use a little bit more 'life'.

As for the enemies... They didn't really hurt much, and I only used two potions. I assume this was because the E3 demo was made easier. But it would be interesting to see more dynamics with different enemy types working together. Amy couples nicely with just about any of them, but we don't really get to see how the rolling guy with the feet interacts with the others (sorry, don't remember his name). Incidentally, he's an awful lot of fun to kick around! It would be interesting to see how he bounces around in different platform arrangements.

Dullahammer looks cool, like a Castlevania Armor Knight (I didn't realize he swung his head around until I looked at the art!), but it was pretty easy to just play it safe and stand back until his attack animation is done. Maybe he could be 'smarter' and defend himself or be more aggressive against timid warriors.

The only times Seama and Morte damaged me were when I accidentally jumped into them (pretty infrequent). Neither were very aggressive – I stood there awhile waiting to see what their attacks were. Maybe Seama could do something with his tentacles; that way, the backdash could be used. I greatly enjoyed seeing Mortes pop out of the ceiling, and think it would be interesting to see them in narrow corridors. The real-time event where the boss breaks through the wall and spits out some Seama eggs was a nice touch – I hope to see plenty more of these!

The boss wasn't too difficult. I was expecting her to spit out more Seama eggs or be more aggressive. The Dullahammer ability worked quite well, but I was a bit disappointed the flame attack had little effect – you know, since she's a giant squid. I hope in the final version, there will be a lot more dodging, perhaps some distracting minions.

There were a couple of spots where I had trouble seeing there were hammocks I could jump on – particularly the last set before the boss. Perhaps something could be done to make them more visible? There was also a spot at the bottom of the ship where I saw a platform I couldn't reach. I expected there was a way of getting at it from above but...maybe it was just there as a teaser? Also liked finding the hidden map room.

Has anyone compared the size of the map with the size of actual warships of the period? It seems a little big...not that it's meant to be realistic, mind! ;-)

Finally, the item equip system. When I replayed Symphony of the Night and considered ways it might be improved, it seemed to me that I sure was going to the item select screen an awful lot! I wondered if it might be streamlined a little, say by having a quick-equip button when a new item is collected. This could display what immediate changes the item has on attack/defense, maybe some basic stats or description. Since Bloodstained uses a similar system, perhaps you could bring this suggestion to Mr. Igarashi and get his thoughts on ways of optimizing the item equip system.

I think for what the demo showed i was happy with, it is very hard for me to give any real feedback at this point since the game is a good bit off. Best thing i can say to add if it has not been said before is try to add DirectInput controllers support if you can, i know XInput is already here since xbox360 and xboxone controllers already work but more options are better.

I just wanted to come in and say I really love the demo and while I never doubted the game would be fantastic, the demo is evidence that things are on the right track for Bloodstained to become a timeless classic.

I will start by saying the music is fantastic. I am a giant fan of the SOTN soundtrack and was hoping this game would live up to that standard. I really hope there are more guitar-driven tracks like Cursed Orphan. I've always associated the gothic look and feel of Castlevania with guitars and I have really enjoyed what I heard so far from the game's soundtrack. The main track on the Minerva doesn't have a lot of guitar which is fine, but I love the squeals that are snuck in there. I also hope there's a track like the one from the puppeteer fight in the Castlevania games that have him. Such a rocking tune! I'm getting excited for Bloodstained just thinking about all the possibilities the soundtrack alone could hold!

I love the opening level being the ghalleon. Details like crashing waves, pieces crumbling to create new walkways, and the early appearances of the boss give the setting an adventurous feeling. I also appreciate that the screen tilts to simulate the rocking of the boat. 

Miriam's movement is great. I think the walkspeed is perfect, the jumps feel right, the attack animations are smooth, and the 180-turn looks perfect. I also like the backdash, however I wish there were some way to keep people from using backdash as a main method of traversal. I do not look foward to seeing speedruns where people are just backdashing the entire time. That looks silly and alien to me. 

Using fire magic to set off cannons in the environment was a nice touch. I really hope to see more of this sort of thing in the main game! Its a great alternative to getting an item from a shop like the one-time item you bought for blue doors in SOTN. 

I'm hoping that treasure chests aren't the only way to acquire gear. I would like to see enemies and bosses drop things like in SOTN. Hearing about the Schmoo dropping the Crissaegrim was cool because you had to look at this one enemy in the game who seemed unremarkable until you learned that it dropped the most powerful weapon in the game. Knowing there's an enemy out there that might have something extraordinary will give us a feeling that we could hunt for something like that. People will say on forums "I heard that enemy X has a flame-whip they drop!" and then others will load the game just to hunt it down. That kind of thing can be a lot of fun!

The boss from the demo was great because I'd never seen anything like it before. A She-Beast of the sea is a concept I am certain I've not seen anywhere else. I wouldn't change anything about the design and I hope the full game has a lot more interesting ideas like that one.


Overall, I was VERY impressed with the demo. It feels like this game is on track to be exactly what I was hoping for, which is a game that closely resembles SOTN but has its own distinct look, feel, and sound. Love the setting, love the music, love the enemies, its just love all around. I'm going to go ahead and tack on another pledge so I can get another physical copy.

Maybe something like this would work?

This is more an aside for something I'd personally like to see.

"VERBOSE" option in the game options. VERBOSE would show a dialog on level up showing stat gains (health, attack, etc.), small touch; but players (like myself) who want that extra bit of granular detail would find it a boon.

Alright.  Finally got the demo yesterday, so now it's time for some belated comments, suggestions and thoughts.  I already made use of the bug report thread to post a video of most of the new bugs I found.

First, some discussion of the observations people have already made in this thread:

"It's too easy."
I disagree.  Keep in mind that 1) this is a demo that was designed to be digested by passers-by at E3, 2) this is obviously meant to be the start of the game when things are as easy as they're going to get, and 3) this is not New Game+, or "hard difficulty", or anything else special.  By no means is this demo difficult, but I am perfectly willing to accept the idea that difficulty is something that one will have to either specifically choose in the beginning, or earn the right to later.

"Backdash is broken."
I disagree.  Bloodstained is taking pains to mimic Symphony of the Night.  This was bluntly obvious from the outline and videos provided during the Kickstarter.  Something like this is being said in an attempt to shape the game the way someone personally prefers, rather than the way that was implicitly promised.  I can't blame someone for attempting, but it's IGA's game.  My take: Backdash is mostly functional, but needs to be interrupted by moving in the direction of the backdash, so that the player can attack in that direction, just as they can in SotN.  Also, if one balks at the prospect of the backdash truly becoming the default mode of travel 100% of the time (rather than only when the player has become comfortable with the areas they travel, which is how it works in SotN), then a better idea would be to provide some means for roughly equating the travel speed of backdash through the use of a relic or whatever system the game ends up using for such special abilities.  Make it a tradeoff.

"Miriam's animation is too stiff."
I sort of agree.  The fact of the matter is that most Castlevania characters have stiff animation, and Miriam is actually just upholding this tradition.  But I would not complain if they made her animation a bit more girlish - I can take it or leave it.  That said, some of the animation segues do need work (see below).

"Miriam's face should animate during cutscenes."
I disagree.  Miriam seems to be similar to Alucard - emotionless and not prone to a lot of talking.  I like this.  If they gave her startled (or whatever) expressions during cutscenes, it would betray that persona.  Worst case, it might end up looking as bad as MN9.

With that out of the way, my own thoughts:

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CRITICISMS:

1. Menu elements are too heavily compressed.  Here is an example of what I mean:



A closeup of the key icon from the equipment menu.  The super-pixellation is starkly visible in this case as a stairstepping effect along the key, but the consequences of compression are apparent in other spots.  Every graphical element of the menus suffers similarly.  On consoles, this can be considered unavoidable, but on Steam/GOG, all menu elements really should be raw images.

2. Some menu elements are low resolution.  For example:


The stained glass background is a 1080p element, but Miriam's portrait is a heavily compressed, scaled 720p (roughly).

3. All menu elements should be readied for 4k.   By the time this game comes out, every platform it is slated to be on (that people will actually opt for) will have 4k available, and most PC users will be using GPUs capable of running the game at 4k60, so this is what they will do.  The current menu elements are designed for 1080p.   This means the game proper will be 4k but the menus will be 1080p.  I'm telling you up front: This will be incongruous and a point of contention for a lot of people.

4. The animation for doing an instant 180 does not segue well from the running animation which precedes it.  There is too much motion missing and it gives the impression of a cut film.

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HOPES:

1. Steal.  This was not specifically promised in the Kickstarter, so I have to make it a hope.  I loved this system in Curse of Darkness.  My hope is that most enemies have a stealable item, along with common and rare drops, a shard, etc., all faithfully notated in the bestiary once they're discovered, along with the number of each that the player has discovered and the number of each monster they've killed.  Data is fun, discovering things is fun, and "collecting them all" is fun!  More things to do is always a plus.  What I definitely don't want to see is most enemies having only one or two total items each, across all of these possibilities.  Use that imagination and give us the variety that can keep it interesting!

2. Powering up shards through use.  Yes, what's likely to be the case is that you can level up shards by collecting more shards.  If that's all there is to it, then it feels a little too easy.  If, however, the player must also actually use abilities in order to reach their maximum potential, well that gives players another goal to work on and another thing to do in the game.  Trigger and Directional shards can be based on strict number of uses against targets.  Effective and Familiar shards can be based on duration used.  Obviously, absorbing more copies of the same shard would still be a necessary component of the formula for powering up.  This idea is the only suggestion I'm going to put forward here - my aim is to prolong the useful playtime of the game and perhaps force the player to actually make use of the many abilities they'll effortlessly absorb.

I hope I'm not too late for the dev team and IGA to see my feedback. I've played through the E3 demo several times now and I love it! I'm going to separate my feedback in to things I like and things I think could be added or improved. I'll start with the positive first.

POSITIVE:

- The shaders look great!! I was skeptical about the 2.5D art style at first, I realize that it's cheaper, but I wasn't sure if I'd like it. I'm happy to say that I think the game looks VERY slick. I really like the aesthetic.

- The controls feel great! I really think this game controls just as well as any previous IGA game, I wish the movement speed was just a touch faster, but I'll get to that in my additions and improvements section.

- The music is AMAZING! I love the soundtrack so far. I think it's as good or better than anything that's been in an IGA game before.

- The menus are GREAT! The menus look fantastic and are easy to navigate.

- The upgrades and gear look like they're going to shape up to be AWESOME! I'm very impressed with the gear system, upgrades, and abilities.

- I think Miriam is a really great protagonist!


ADDITIONS AND IMPROVEMENTS:

- I'd like to see some blood, in SOTN when you killed the knight enemies they would float up in to the air and and scream as blood spewed from their body. I think a little bit of bloodiness adds to the Gothic aesthetic of the game and makes combat feel more visceral.

- Enemy variety. I know this was just a demo and it's very likely there will be a good amount of different enemy types in the final game, but I wanted to write in this as an addition that I hope to see in the final game.

- A more muted color pallet. While the aesthetic of the game exceeded my expectations I find the bright colors a little distracting and think that the game would look more Gothic if there were more neutral colors, more browns, grays, dark greens, maybe with some bright red blood

- Slightly refined enemy design. Miriam looks so great, I'd like to see that beautiful design translate to the enemies. I don't think the enemies in the demo looked bad, but some of them were kind of busy. Particularly the large knight that swings the mace. There were so many pieces on him that the design looks a little bit busy. I think a simpler design that looks more like a medieval knight would look nicer.

- Slightly faster movement speed for Miriam. This isn't a major one, I think the controls feel great, but I think Miriam could stand to be just a touch faster, to keep the balance in tact you could increase the movement speed of the enemies by the same amount.

- I didn't see a whip in the demo. Again, I know whips will very likely be added to the final game, but I just wanted to mention this as they are DEFINITELY my weapon of choice in IGA games. Lots of whips PLEASE!

These are all the thoughts I have for now. I LOVED the demo, I can't wait for the beta and the game!! Keep up the good work IGA, Ben, Inti, and Fan Gamer!! We love you!!

So I played through it and here is my feedback its mostly just visual stuff I think other people can better explain any issues with gameplay. I Think Miriam needs a better way to drop down from platforms. I would like it if she could have a few animations for each weapon to add a little variety not really needed though. I would like a better solution for when she walks into walls rather then you seeing her shadow but I have no idea what but its fine if there is no better alternative. I would like you to touch up some of the enemies colors and textures.

I do have some requests though after playing the demo. I would like it if we could get a model viewer of enemies and weapons in the menu, I think the models look great but on a small monitor like mine they are hard to see all the hard work you put into them a nice model viewer with rotation and zoom in and zoom out would be great. I would hope you also do it with Miriam so when I pick her equipment I can choose what I think is best visually and stat wise.

I also would like it if Morte did get a shard, though I want his shard to be incomplete like him so in essence its a joke shard that does not really do much like it could be Miriam throwing a slow ball of morte slime at someone for one damage etc.

Something I know won't happen is I would like her to have a punching animation because I would love to see her punch demons with that gauntlet