Switch Performance Feedback Request

I encountered a crash last night when I reached the first cutscene with Gebel. I had loaded a save from the previous day, and had been wandering around the Galleon Minerva, and when I entered the boss area, the cutscene started, and reached the point where Gebel first flashes on the screen, then immediately crashed. I reloaded my last save and went more directly there, and was able to fight the boss normally.

Even from the start you can notice frame drops, makes the game almost unplayable. I'd love to return it and buy it on PC, but switch doesn't do returns. Is there any way you can throw us a bone and maybe give us a discount on the PC version or hook us up with Keys? It's not like we didn't buy the game.

Not sure what the area is called, it's the one where you first encounter a certain enemy with a shovel and the dullahan heads. Anywho first time water was on the screen my FPS dropped considerably. Also took a big hit when I was on the rail car further in that area going up the mountain or whatever.

Digital Download Version1.01
Playing in Handheld mode exclusively

I am currently 4hours 25 minutes into my playthrough on the Switch version with 30.8% map completion. I have experienced 0 crashes thus far. I have, however, experienced quite a few slowdowns. Occasionally I notice slowdowns when killing an enemy in the air and landing, but it isn't a big problem.

The first instance I noticed a large dip in frames was when I got the Circular Ripper shard. When using this directional shard against enemies, especially bigger ones, there is a very bad slow down. When using the shard in an empty space like the village, there aren’t any noticeable frame dips.

The first time I got to the Towers of Twin Dragons I had a lot of slowdown. The slowdown made the input lag (more on that later) unbearable. I managed to make it through the area, but it was very difficult. There are a lot of platforming sections here where you have to time your jumps with the rotation of gears, and with the slowdown and input lag, this part was extremely frustrating. I had to retry from the bottom of the second area several times because of missed jumps.

Additionally, in this area, there is an arguably worse glitch. Sometimes when jumping on to a rotating gear, Miriam will drop through the gear and take damage from it, bouncing her off and into whatever is below. I have had this happen on several occasions, not just in this area. I tried to reproduce the glitch, but it isn’t consistent.

Now, for the biggest issue I have found with the Nintendo Switch version, the input lag. Initially, I thought the input lag was minimal, and in some areas it is. There is a slight lag from when you press the button to when Miriam jumps, but it can usually be worked around. The first time it became a major issue was in the first boss fight versus Zangetsu. During this fight, I was using the Nodachi weapon and it was hit or miss executing the parry technique. When jumping over him and attempting to attack him from behind was also difficult as sometimes the game would not accept the directional input and I would be facing backward and slashing thin air.

Additionally, attempting to execute a jump cancel into dash cancel is very hit or miss because of the input lag. The input lag also presents a problem while doing certain combos. Most notably any quarter circle forward combo has a chance to not work which is especially noticeable when attempting to execute a 3-hit combo with the Sansetsuzan katana technique.

Overall, I am enjoying my time with this game even with the problems that I have encountered. Igavania games have been some of my favorites of all time, and Order of Ecclesia is my all time favorite Castlevania. This game has the potential to beat out all of the rest, and I hope to enjoy it in its fullest on the Switch. That being said, I am planning on picking up the PS4 version so I can enjoy the game to its fullest and have a reference to compare the Switch version too. Thank you so much for your hard work on this game, and I cannot wait to see it improve.

The item getting stuck in the environments isn't too much of an issue. If you leave the area you seem to obtain them. Not sure if this is only the ones that got stuck, or every item you missed when you leave the room.

Playing on a physical cartridge, latest version applied:

Performance drops:
- Upon loading a save file for the first time, it freezes for a few seconds when opening the menu.
- Walking into new areas (either by loading up a save or using the warp) causes a few textures to load about a second after entering. Get to the warp in Arvantville and then go inside and look at the fireplace and you can see what I mean, or head to a warp room after going through about a dozen rooms beforehand and look at the columns holding up the mirror. These are quite frequent and are the big graphical points that need addressing.
- Input is occasionally unresponsive, but not to an overtly frustrating degree.
- Occasional model desync during dialogue.
- Rare cases of audio cutting out or becoming overly-compressed (The Dantalion familiar boosting your stats comes to mind)
- Rare cases of monsters outside of where they're supposed to be (the caged creatures in the Livre Ex Machina that are unleashed by Miriam's hands stay static outside of their cages until you bring the cages over to them... But this only happened once for me)
- The texture downgrade is VERY apparent during cutscenes. This is relatively low-priority to the rest, but is there a way to upgrade the quality for cutscenes and dialogue at least? Zangetsu's intro cutscene in particular looks... Very not good, nor does Alfred's clothing.

Crashes:
- Mercifully, no crashes on my end.

Loading times:
- Starting up the game takes an annoying amount of time, upwards of 20+ seconds.
- Most rooms take about three seconds to load, further breaking immersion. Some have already mentioned a few of the bigger 10+ second load times for specific rooms that become obnoxious after a while.
- I've encountered little in the way of noticeable frame drops, beyond a few intense areas like Tower of Two Dragons when the camera is zoomed out.
- The Game Over sequence takes about a minute before going back to the previous save room, which gets really frustrating.

Here's hoping we get the patches quickly! I'm more than happy to play through the game and finish it because while these are frustrating for how long it's taken to get the game, they're not dealbreakers for me and I *am* really enjoying the game... However, I won't be playing it with extra characters, modes after completing until these things are largely addressed, because the immersion really does get broken by these problems, especially the texture pop-ins and the general low-poly looks of the characters whenever you see them in close-up.

Another crash, physical copy, resumed from sleep mode at the third save room.

Physical on 1.0.1
I finally noticed some Input lag that really made those jumps in the clocktower outside area with the gears and the "disappearing" platforms frustratring. Just to get to the loot on top of the tower. Besides the Framerate suffered in this outside area.

Libre Ex Machina was actually not as bad as the clocktower.