Post by Arsenical on Apr 12, 2019 21:09:41 GMT -6
As a die hard fan of Lord IGA and his work, Bloodstained is without any doubt a 10/10 game for me and im absolutely biased here but recently after watching the Gamespot gameplay i noticed one thing that left me absolutely unsatisfied. ENEMY PLACEMENT.
this wouldn't be the first time i feel this way but the tower of the twin dragons gameplay crossed the line for me.
3 things i need to mention first
1. I AM fully aware that everything we see is NOT final and it can change in a number of ways in the final build of the game.
2. I have never played a Bloodstained demo before (ps4 backer) all footage shown here belongs to other people
3. YES. i like games when they are challenging and i fully understand not everyone likes to struggle and some prefer the games on easy mode.
with that being said let us proceed to my concerns.
Let's begin with galleon minerva and its most recent demonstration. the enemy placement seems to be the same as the beta backer demo we got 1 year ago. while the visuals have improved over 100x times and the environment feel better, many rooms are long and empty with 1 or no monsters at all. i like to think of the galleon as the introduction tutorial level of the game so thats my only guess of why it is so easy.
the music is hype inducing. it is the beggining of a new journey and the enemies await, but do not worry, some of them are very slow and weak.
if we compare the introduction stage of the game to previous IGAvanias i am certain that Aria of sorrow, Dawn of sorrow and Symphony of the night would win. in Aria and SOTN you start slaying waves of zombies and mermans that won't stop coming at you and it is fun even if they never stop respawning. You take your time to swing your sword (or pocket knife) on a few of them. in Bloodstained, Mortes are slooow and you can even kill them before they spawn... Seamas are slow as hell too but they have other attacks (love when they jump at you).
Dawn of sorrow is my favorite for this because it really makes you feel like Soma is no newcomer when it comes to slaying demons. the game throws axe knights, wolves, zombies, and a boss almost as soon as the game starts. Never stop being a badass Mr.cruz.
But lets talk about the true first stage of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. THE CASTLE ENTRANCE.
in my opinion this is enemy placement done right. there are multiple enemies, some of them quick and annoying (gieremund, bats) some others tricky and strong (outsiders, Sabnock).
What i really like about the enemy placement in the entrance and in the garden of silence is the fact that you have to fight your way through. enemies are placed specifically to block your path and punish you for trying to avoid conflict.
One thing that i have noticed in Bloodstained is that the game is really punishing. weak knockback, lots of damage taken, big hitboxes for enemy attacks. Most enemies are slow but they really hurt.
Lets take a look at the tower of the twin dragons and how it manages enemy placement.
inside of the tower: no problem
outside of the tower: are you kidding me?
im going to copy paste my comment from that other thread
this one left me really dissapointed. is it because this is a demo with lowered difficulty so that our lovely journalists don't get killed in every room? is it that enemy placement for this area is not yet finished? the mystery.
but seriously for such a big area (the outside of the towers) it was really boring to watch the player navigate the place without fighting his way to the top. also, toads and bees? why? i was expecting heavy armored knights and more discus lords (the guys that throw buers at you. they are hilarious)
my guess is that the enemies for this demo are customized since the players would not be quite familiar with the platforming or are not given the option to have a personalized gameplay set yet (equipment, shards, other stuff) and placing enemies like those could become a true pain for the demo testers, that could easily take away a lot of time and become frustrating. we don't want that.
i am here hoping the enemy placement for the final game will be different.
am i the only one finding the enemy placement really weak? this is an action game right? i believe part of the action comes from slaying beasts and such but here i just couldn't feel that.
to finish my wall of text i would like to ask 2 questions to our Lord Roberto also known as Angel-Corlux
1. do you know if the difficulty of the towers demo was intentionally lowered (regarding monster placement)
2. what are poison toads doing in a huge tower with no vegetation or anything resembling a place where toads can live?
this wouldn't be the first time i feel this way but the tower of the twin dragons gameplay crossed the line for me.
3 things i need to mention first
1. I AM fully aware that everything we see is NOT final and it can change in a number of ways in the final build of the game.
2. I have never played a Bloodstained demo before (ps4 backer) all footage shown here belongs to other people
3. YES. i like games when they are challenging and i fully understand not everyone likes to struggle and some prefer the games on easy mode.
with that being said let us proceed to my concerns.
Let's begin with galleon minerva and its most recent demonstration. the enemy placement seems to be the same as the beta backer demo we got 1 year ago. while the visuals have improved over 100x times and the environment feel better, many rooms are long and empty with 1 or no monsters at all. i like to think of the galleon as the introduction tutorial level of the game so thats my only guess of why it is so easy.
the music is hype inducing. it is the beggining of a new journey and the enemies await, but do not worry, some of them are very slow and weak.
if we compare the introduction stage of the game to previous IGAvanias i am certain that Aria of sorrow, Dawn of sorrow and Symphony of the night would win. in Aria and SOTN you start slaying waves of zombies and mermans that won't stop coming at you and it is fun even if they never stop respawning. You take your time to swing your sword (or pocket knife) on a few of them. in Bloodstained, Mortes are slooow and you can even kill them before they spawn... Seamas are slow as hell too but they have other attacks (love when they jump at you).
Dawn of sorrow is my favorite for this because it really makes you feel like Soma is no newcomer when it comes to slaying demons. the game throws axe knights, wolves, zombies, and a boss almost as soon as the game starts. Never stop being a badass Mr.cruz.
But lets talk about the true first stage of Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. THE CASTLE ENTRANCE.
in my opinion this is enemy placement done right. there are multiple enemies, some of them quick and annoying (gieremund, bats) some others tricky and strong (outsiders, Sabnock).
What i really like about the enemy placement in the entrance and in the garden of silence is the fact that you have to fight your way through. enemies are placed specifically to block your path and punish you for trying to avoid conflict.
One thing that i have noticed in Bloodstained is that the game is really punishing. weak knockback, lots of damage taken, big hitboxes for enemy attacks. Most enemies are slow but they really hurt.
Lets take a look at the tower of the twin dragons and how it manages enemy placement.
inside of the tower: no problem
outside of the tower: are you kidding me?
im going to copy paste my comment from that other thread
this one left me really dissapointed. is it because this is a demo with lowered difficulty so that our lovely journalists don't get killed in every room? is it that enemy placement for this area is not yet finished? the mystery.
but seriously for such a big area (the outside of the towers) it was really boring to watch the player navigate the place without fighting his way to the top. also, toads and bees? why? i was expecting heavy armored knights and more discus lords (the guys that throw buers at you. they are hilarious)
my guess is that the enemies for this demo are customized since the players would not be quite familiar with the platforming or are not given the option to have a personalized gameplay set yet (equipment, shards, other stuff) and placing enemies like those could become a true pain for the demo testers, that could easily take away a lot of time and become frustrating. we don't want that.
i am here hoping the enemy placement for the final game will be different.
am i the only one finding the enemy placement really weak? this is an action game right? i believe part of the action comes from slaying beasts and such but here i just couldn't feel that.
to finish my wall of text i would like to ask 2 questions to our Lord Roberto also known as Angel-Corlux
1. do you know if the difficulty of the towers demo was intentionally lowered (regarding monster placement)
2. what are poison toads doing in a huge tower with no vegetation or anything resembling a place where toads can live?
but it really annoys me for some reason, maybe its because im getting flashbacks of curse of the moon and the absolute panic i felt everytime i played solo Zangetsu so i just want to see them gone FOREVER. i will be okay if they leave the toads there as long as they add more enemies. i want to dodge rolling buers!! 
