Welcome! Let the Beta Backer Demo Feedback Begin!

I actually just registered to criticize about that. It seemed repetitive and out of place. If the scream could be toned down or removed, I believe that would be better. Everyone else already mentioned some of the other criticisms I had for the demo (facial animations being the big one) but other than that, I thought it was a great demo!

Yes I agree that the portraits are kind of goofy as well. Does not fit the expected atmosphere at all. I hope Iga is not playing around too much with this game. I hope he's taking it as seriously as Symphony of the Night. I'm not exactly excited that the playable character is a girl either. I mean compared to Alucard, with him being a tough half vampire being, he was so much cooler.

He is stuck in the ceiling. After he used his grapple he went above to the next level.

I actually like the portraits, They fit in just fine. There might be some quarks with one or two but with the better visuals there going look even better. Mana did a good job on them.

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I mean no disrespect to the people who would really like an option for this or that, but it really just seems like people want an option to use or not use everything in the game! Choice to the players is great most of the time, but too much choice would lead to a horribly inconsistent game if you ask me.

Yeah... a toggle on that greenish/grey shadow whenever she's standing behind stuff would be nice, as it is just a bit jarring.

I really enjoyed the demo. I think this will turn out to be a great game, and am so glad to see the progress. I only have 1 thing I really dislike:

I hate that gear changes your physical appearance. I really hope for an option to turn that feature off. Miriam has a great design and I would much rather see that through the whole game then cover her head with pirate hats and armored football helmets. Just an option to turn that off would be outstanding. Thank you for your time.

-Joe

I have played until clearing the first boss and this is what I have up to now:

• I like that they retouched the first boss, too much unnecesary "fanservice" in my opinion


• The controls feel nice and accurate, kudos for that.


• with the above comment, I think is the jump animation that makes the illusion that when you do it the highest possible miriam get like "floating" a little bit when descending, I don't know if this was intentional to give time to work on the landing


• I saw a thread about this, I'm not a graphics-driven gamer, but what would be the idea of the graphics quality level? as I see it would be the following options:
  
  
  
  • The build was set in the minimum to avoid possible backlash of people complaining they cannot run the game because of it (let's be honest, people would complain)
  
  
  • The graphics goal is to give the same experience on all platforms, thinking that playing with the Switch @60fps as the goal (I would be happy if this is not the case, running 30fps on handheld and 60 docked if this helps)
  
  
  • The worst... a MN9-esque issue.... people here knows what this means and I hope this is not the case..
  
  
  
  


• Please, remove the screaming when attacking, maybe leaving it at breathing sounds would be enough, but screaming can get really tiring after more than 1 hour of playing or less.


• I think the MN9 trauma with the mouth movement on dialogue moments is present, but they see a little bit weird, specially Miriam's mouth (and teeth), movements are async to the voices


• the posing and the movements seem a little stiff still, being a little unnatural, I felt it the most on the cinematics and dialogs, bur also during gameplay specially the NPCs seems a little to robotic for me ._.


• Regarding the dialogs themselves, they are too friendly I think, I don't expect a DC movie script, but I think it's too shounen-style on some parts, specially among Miriam and her companions, also Miriam's characters I think need to be fleshed out better on these,, I only hpe it not a samus in Other M - style


• Please add markers or the option to add them or enable them (hollow knight style maybe?) for found items or special rooms.


• can the map be worked to have a little bit more style? I know this is not important but is still too "super metroid" era, maybe something more related to the environment can be done.


• Thanks for leaving unreachable areas(at least to me), that helped me to not feel the demo too linear, but made me look and search if there was something I could find to reach them and made me explore, what I would expect from this type of game


• I like the english voices...that's really a plus for me


• Can Miriam get a panda-themed hat?

I'll try to finish the demo tomorrow see what impressions it leaves me...

BTW, is there any release date mentioned? (I've been out of the forum only reading the backer updates, but I'm not sure)

Really liked the overall feeling of the demo.
Gameplay is really good, with a nice balance, and the only thing that I think could be improved in this area is the backdash:
Backdash: It seems too short/slow, and not like a real tool to dodge attacks. Maybe make it faster, or put up some kind of trail animation on it(use the scarf!). It could give that "ooooh nice, that was close" vibe when used.

Sound is really nice and enjoyable, but there seems to be some sort of mismatch at the volume department, and some room for improvement:
Voice Volume: Characters speaking together with music gets overshadowed by music, while Miriam's voice while playing is too loud (absurd level if you want to enjoy the music). The constant screaming while attacking and getting shards annoyed me so much that I had to turn down voice volume to 20% or so, then when there was any dialogue, I couldn't hear anything. Solution to it would be to work on some sort of equalization on dialogues. And find balance to the voice while fighting, don't use screams, and instead, use some "hip", "ho", "hai", "kyap" mute and neutral sounds on attacking, while the command moves could get some random (not always) louder sounds and eventually a full on named move would be nice.
Voice Effects: Also, one of the things that I really liked in SOTN that it's not present in Bloodstained is that "echoed", profround vibe to dialogue. It gave SOTN an incredibly corny and remarkably phantasmagoric atmosphere. Lacking resources to fully animate those sprites, sound was used to give emphasis to the acting in a way not seen before, and I think Bloodstained could benefit greatly from it.
Ambiental/spatial Effects: Wings flapping from far away have the same volume as when hitting Miriam. As does the ribbit frog sounds, hearable from 4 screens away... Sound of enemies could receive some sort of effector. Relative to protagonist, they should be quieter, getting louder as they get close by. Also, deppending on the ambient, they could receive some kind of reverberation effect. Close to water, inside big wallways, or in open areas, the same sound could feel a little different to complement the atmospheric feeling of the game.

Graphically, everything seems really good, but there are some annoyances that really distracted me while playing:
Cutscenes: Animation in cutscenes, while good to see, felt overly simplistic, seeming more like a lightly animated comic book, instead of an animated movie. Not sharming as it is, and really needs to be improved.
Better use of lights and shadows: There where instances where the lighting seemed completely off, while there where others that it seemed really deep and effective. Compare the castle hallways to that area with the red moon for example. Overall, you guys could tone down the front light, to give the game a darker experience working better with raycast, shadows and a greater color pallet for ambient based on lighting alone.
Graphic effects for ambience: Use some subtle volumetric fog in some areas to complement the atmosphere, use particles to fill in the empty spaces. Overall, the ambient felt a little too bland. The couch room and the red moond area where really nice to see - although, the Red Moon in front of the castle towers, gave me a laugh, as it seemed like the moon was inside the castle, really tiny, instead of up high in the sky, behind it.
Body Language during conversations: this one felt really strange. Models are nice and all, but those static poses beathing madly creeped me out and totally broke the mood of whatever the characters were speaking of. Animationg on these panels should be really subtle, characters could move now and then, and not be static in one pose. Also, while talking they could use body language to convey the tone of conversation. Implementing some sort of emotion body language tied to dialogue line should not be too hard. Create a database of emotions (normal, sad, happy, affirmative, negative, alert, wise, confuse, doubtful, angry, despair, etc.), Then create animations for each character on every emotion on this database, and finally, tag each line of dialogue with an emotion, and make it play once, ending in a breathing (subtle) loop. Also, Miriam's lips seemed really off putting.
Death animation of bigger enemyes: That texture seemed really weird on bigger enemies, for smaller ones it is ok. Mayber higher quality assets on the bigger ones?

Bugs(?) found:
Couch not reflecting the ambient where it's on: Change the room to fit the area where it's placed.
Red moon placed inside the castle in front of outer towers of castle.
Big enemies placed closer to screen than smaller ones, making it difficult to see the attacks from smaller ones.
Zangetsu stuck on scenery.
Miriam stuck in corner of platform closer to ceiling inside galeon - while pressing down+jump at the edge, she would try to slide instead of getting off the platform.
Miriam stuck after falling from high place inside castle.
Miriam shouts too loud while fighting! That's so attrocious that just got promoted to a bug lol.

Features requested:
Option to show or hide equipment used(some have good stats, but are laughably ugly)
Window notification on quest completed.
Option to quickly switch equipment sets (one button toggle). Seeing from the demo, we will have lots of options, and not having the ability to change on the fly would be a disservice to so much diversity.
Game over should ask what to do (load last save, restart from scratch, or get out to start screen), instead of booting back to logo automatically.



To sum it up from what I see, the game is shaping up nicely, and is really fun and enjoyable! Once I started, it was really hard to put it down.
Apart from some bugs here and there, and some room for improvement mainly on graphical and voice departments, I'm really glad to be a backer on this one!
Way to go guys, this game will be awesome when it releases! Great Work!!!