Welcome! Let the Beta Backer Demo Feedback Begin!

Hide headgear option!

First of all that was a good demo, i was impressed overall and it surpassed my expectations, i was worried at first but after playing curse of the moon and later this demo, i see that the finished product will not disappoint. I was very happy and felt at home with the gameplay, the movement and the attacks from every weapon felt just right. I overall didn't have any glaring issue that absolutely needed to be removed but there are a couple of things that need improving. It's fine for this demo but when the full game comes out, the bugs HAVE to get fixed, there are many bugs. The ones i found most troubling were the following:
Bugs
1- In the area after the iron maiden with the poisonous insects, at one point when i tried to jump to the right side while fighting three of the insects, Miriam was stuck on the floor in a stiff falling animation in which i could not attack or move until i was hit by one of the bees. i could still pause and change equipment but it wasn't until i got hit that i could move again.
2- when killing enemies on the wall , they dropped items and it got stuck on the wall and it wouldn't land of the floor. When i touched the item it had no effect until around 5-10 seconds where the item was seemingly taken by me although i was not near the item anymore.
3- whenever i used any gun weapon the first time i equipped it, the frame rate would drop.

Although i might be repeating other backers i have these suggestions in order:
Suggestions
1- Improve on the facial animations of every character while they are talking, Especially on Miriam.
2- Improve on lip-syncing the voice lines with the characters lips and facial expressions.
3- Add a Bestiary, in which after you kill an enemy a couple of times, more information on the monster is acquired.
4- When on the equipment screen, just like how you can preview the headgear on Miriam, i would like if you can add the weapons on the preview as well.
5- This may be odd but i feel that the font used in the chat dialogue boxes is plain and boring, there must be a more interesting font to match the style of the game.
6- There should a little, not intrusive, notification message or something following the progress of sub quests. Example if the quest was to kill 8 Mortes, then whenever i kill a Morte a little message should appear in a corner or above the screen that says something along the lines of "Slay 8 Mortes (1/8)" and continue to update until you finish and a new message says "Quest Complete" or something similar. I am well aware that you can check the status of the side quests on the pause menu but it would be better if it was added.
7- Whenever a side quest has finished a little bubble or something should appear on the menu as to notify you that a quest has finished.
8- When Miriam was swimming on the blood fountain, i would have appreciated if you added some blood on her dress when she got out. It can disappear in a couple of seconds and that would be fine but if you show that the environment has an effect on her it would be great. Just like in the boat if it is raining it would be better if Miriam looked wet.
9- The Shard power gained by Vepar, while it looks cool, it occupies too much of the screen and it makes it hard to see during it.
10- The boss Vepar should have a little more health.
11- In case it is not in the full game, a warp point near the shops is a must.

Overall is was a very good demo and i am happy with it. if there is something i would not want you to change at all is the following:
-How quick it is to save in the safe areas.

I feel like i might have left out a couple of things but please let me know anything else my fellow backers would have also liked as an improvement.

Edit : One more suggestion: If there was at least one whip weapon with the same attack animation as the Vampire Killer whip used by the Belmonts from the classic Castlevania games i would be very happy. 

Yes that whole animation should be:

1) Shortened - from the point where Miriam gets stabbed by the Shard, to the point where you start reading about the new Shard, is too long

2) Lowered - her scream is too loud

im loving it, the return of the special commands, the responsiveness of the controls, the little puzzles and things to discover scattered about, IGA and team have a truly entertaining game in the works, and i nearly lost it when id do things like id find a certain item and make a comment that id never posed so hard before, and like an hour later find out you can actually pose that hard by accident, it set off this entire quest to find out if posing in certain rooms with certain equipment would cause an even more obscure easter egg to trigger, sadly no luck yet...

- The special portraits should be in a hidden room in the game, like easter eggs present in other games. Currently they kill immersion and feels goofy.

- Background should receive some work with textures and lightning - aka, post processing - since the scenario feels blank and without depth. To make it simple: Work with the contrast.

That would kind of make it not a Dullahan afaik. Dullahans don't wear their heads, they tend to always hold it in their arms. This one uses it as a hammer.

The main clue to the fact that his hammer is a head is that he's called the Dullahammer.

This is intentional, it's to foreshadow your encounter with him. Always happens the first time you enter that room.

Yes, they are unable to hurt you.

I have been trying to figure out how to talk about this but can't really think of anything super constructive but.... the dub line when she uses swords where she gives a loud HOH!

I uh... I could really just have that line entirely removed from the game. It's so absolutely grating that I avoid using the weapons that have that voice clip, unless I'm doing the Katana tricks.

I am very pleased with the demo overall. It plays pretty much exactly how I wanted it to. My only gripes are audio/visual stuff. The sound mixing seems off, and I've had instances of cutscenes with weird buzzing sounds interrupting the dialog. Pieces from broken walls sometimes wiggle on the ground due to what I assume is a physics bug. The blood moon room has the moon appear in front of the scrolling buildings. Being able to hit the boat boss while she's in the background makes zero sense and also makes the fight too easy. Swimming in the blood fountain looks pretty bad. Also it seems Miriam's run animation was altered since the last demo? I'm assuming it was due to complaints about her moving slow, but now it doesn't seem to loop properly so it looks like she has a slight limp. I thought the original animation was fine.

My biggest gripe, and one I'm sure has been repeated to death, is the cutscene animations. The lip movements during dialog scenes is jarringly bad. Considering how much time and effort it would take to get it looking decent in multiple languages, I think it would just be smarter to scrap the 3D models for these shots and replace them with static artwork. It would be faster and easier to implement, allow us to appreciate the game's great artwork, and it's already the genre standard anyway (see Castlevania, Shantae, Celeste, etc).

Anyway those are my thoughts for now. I didn't feel they warranted a new thread so I'm posting them here. If I find anything else I'll update my post. Overall I'm very happy with the demo and more excited than ever to play the full game. Keep up the good work!