raocow's talkhaus

from ASMT

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lftoGZnPQMA

• So after beating Castlevania Gate, I headed to Begonia and eventually Mountain Temple. But I stopped because of sheer difficulty. Dealing with rocks/bullets and enemies at the same time is what made me discouraged. It doesn't mix well when, in the middle of a trap-based platforming section requiring focus, there are enemies that also require focus separately. (For instance, in the room where you switch between characters, the horizontal stretch with the bullets and rocks with monster bats and knight mixed in. Also, the bullets could use a bit more spacing there since it's near impossible to jump up there from below without taking a hit.)
  
  So I thought, since I still had Extra Gates B and C left, I would forget about Mountain Temple and finish up existing areas instead.
• The boss of Gate B was frustrating. I really didn't like those "arms" just taking up the space, making it hard to move around or attack safely. Having to face Shroud Lord after I was 3/4 done didn't help either.
• Gate B had no way for you to exit until you beat what's ahead. That's a problem when the player just can't seem to make progress. I wish that there would be exit points added so you're not stuck there.

The main problem I see is that you can't heal yourself and it only takes a few hits before you're out. So you're in trouble if you're at a hard room with low health. And it's possible to run dry of ammunition that you need for reasonable progress. This means at some checkpoints, you just can't do anything to help or escape such a difficult situation.

In DT1, you were much more capable of handling the situation because of your abilities, including the heal. That's why I don't think a similar design in DT3 would always work as well as it did in DT1, because here what you can do is more limited.

For the extra gates, the early escape was moved to the menu, under the 'Progress' submenu. I made the mistake of changing that between demo versions. It wasn't explained to the player except in Gate A that it was even available. (And Gate 4 since it has some use there.) So anyone that started with the old version missed that. It's now explained in Gates A-C.

Your difficulty with the corridor under the split party room leads me to thinking I need to explain something better to the player, because that part is actually super easy. I know the trouble you're having, but there's a specific way to make it a cake walk. I'll be sure to use that part as a way to explain this function to the player better. Hint: It has to do with the inactive character's bubble shield.

As for the Gate B boss, was visibility an issue? I can see him really well on my monitor, low visibility is supposed to be a thing there, but some people are saying they can barely see where his arms are.

Thanks for the input. :3

Visibility wasn't an issue for me. However, the arms are quite in the way, especially during the third phase where they obstruct your movement.

And wow, those homing missiles. Their tracking ability is very well-done, but it gets on your nerves when the same missile hits you 3, 4 times. Why doesn't it just explode on contact? It doesn't help that I also ran into same issue with those wasps.

That was the basic problems with big obstructions, such as the arms. I get hit more than once because I flinch and can't get out fast enough.

I eventually got through the first part of the temple, with some luck. I find that just spamming attacks and finishing enemies quickly (including Tyrants) was the safest bet here.

I don't know why the bullets do so much damage. They're fast and frequent, and there's so many of them. Intuitively they look like hazards that do low damage.

This is the area I was referring to:
http://s1178.photobucket.com/albums/x37 ... Temple.png

I tried using the bubble shield to help me get through more safely. But how do I get back out? I need the other character on the upper path, and I can't get there anymore.

Also, it's hard to get up to the right. Jumping up to the ledge requires an exact timing because the bullets are so close together.

I have a similar problem here:
http://s1178.photobucket.com/albums/x37 ... rwater.png

I'm thinking that perhaps the spike is too close to the ledge, and with the narrow passage and wind, there's no room to first land on the ledge. You have to get up and clear the first spikes in one jump, and it doesn't always work.

The beginning part was very nice. The initial challenge with only walking and later jumping was fun enough for early game. And this game had a much more pleasant starting feel to it than previous titles. It felt like how a long RPG game, like Golden Sun/Summon Night, would start out, and it builds up the sense that this game will be long and expansive.

I know you like to meld story elements into gameplay, and the beginning area did this cleverly by limiting your abilities and making you build from ground up. I look forward to seeing more of that.

Looking back, the Mario area felt different from the other gates, because it doesn’t play by the same rules. It uses jump-based platforming mechanics instead of the weapon systems adopted in the rest of the game. It’s amusing how goofy the jump sounds when compared with jump sound elsewhere =p.

I’m really glad for the hearts in the ? boxes. This game has very limited health compared to DT1, so having plenty of health replenish is essential.

The invincibility from the starman could use a warning signal before it expires, whether graphical or sound-based. It just ends abruptly after a few seconds. On a side note, you never get to hear the whole track (without pausing the game or something), which is sort of a shame because I like it.
One thing that came up, as early as Mario level, was how Claire is more difficult to control than Jerry. With Claire, sometimes even staying still in air is hard to do. This gave me trouble when something kept me in the air, such as those bouncy balls in Extra Gate C.

Overall, this area was hard at first but on hindsight it’s fun.

One thing I wish in the next update is a map within each gate. This is particularly apparent in the Zelda region; I only recently found all 21 items. If I remember correctly, 8 of those are in the overworld, and it took quite a bit of searching suspicious spots. Fortunately, most items in this world are readily visible (there’s one hidden behind a fake wall).

What is the “Sand Crawler” thing? It frightened me in DT2 and it still does here, and I still don’t know what it means by “you can hit it with your bombs”. It doesn’t always work.

The combat was pretty fun once I got used to using abilities together. I realized that repeatedly using a single attack on an enemy isn’t always best; mixing them together dispatches them better. I really enjoyed using arrows in particular.

The main annoyances were Firebirds and Wolf Heads. The Firebirds take quite a few hits to defeat, and are hard to approach safely. The Wolf Heads can overwhelm you quickly because they keep spawning and their shots go through the wall, as I mentioned before. On the other hand, the AI was well-designed with many enemies, such as octopus heads and jumping orcs, and it was fun trying to learn their patterns and approach them tactically.

The bosses get really hard quickly. I don’t know how some of them can be dealt with if you don’t come prepared (e.g. you need to have a lot of arrows equipped). The boss I can remember the most is the serpentlike one, which was pretty tough given how you run of arrows eventually and you have to hope you’re lucky enough to survive.

The water area was pretty interesting for its water control gimmick, but also quite confusing. It’s at that point that the game felt not so intuitive and I wasn’t really comfortable with it. I liked though that it introduced a new element to the gameplay, with the rising and lowering water. The music was also very ambient.

The tower level within Central City was quite enjoyable. IMO, it’s really satisfying because at this point you can mix your weaponry from Zelda area on all kinds of enemies. The music was the most climactic and exciting one since Primary Memory theme. The side puzzle was also clever, and that tends to continue throughout the game. The boss was pretty annoying, though, with the bullet cannons interrupting you and doing just a little too much damage for you to succeed.

Having you use both characters is probably my favorite feature. There’s a lot of potential for this feature to be useful.

The forest area had nice aesthetics. It was also the area where platforming through traps was tough, mainly because those brambles do a lot of damage, and my health wasn’t that high at that point. What ends up happening is that enemies drain much of my health by the time I reach an end of a section, making the next one hard to clear. That becomes a problem because there’s no easy way to heal in this game, unlike in DT1. So you had to play near-perfectly through the obstacles, which is difficult on your first blind run.

An issue with the Castlevania area is that you don’t always notice things easily, and you get hit without even knowing what’s happening. This happened mainly with Bone Skeletons, in the first blue-gray room.

The two types of knights are hard to deal with, but I admit that they are well-designed enemies. It takes skill to fight them properly, and it feels satisfying when you pull it off. The combat overall is pretty doable, but I ran out of Claire’s ammunition a lot.

I had a lot of fun with platforming in the Castle Inner Sanctum. It was on the hard side, but it’s the type of gameplay that resembles DT1’s platforming challenges, and in a good way. Likewise, the switch-activated moving blocks and the rope-attached objects were done well.

While in Zelda area you could use bombs to help you get all 21 items, I only found 16 out of 27 in Castlevania area, even after finding a whole bunch behind breakable walls. It seems that a lot of things are still out of reach at this point in the game. Personally I found this gate to have better enemy looks and BGMs than Zelda, so I enjoyed replaying it for item search.

Things get more annoying with the last two places (Death’s Flying Castle and Death’s Hall). The flying witch poses a problem because it can see you from far away and shoot at you even when it’s offscreen. There are several big rooms where you have to redo the whole room if you die. When there’s a bunch of enemies mixed in with deadly traps like pendulums and falling spike platforms, it gets pretty difficult.

Death was tough, enough to get you frustrated even if you like skill-based duels.

The duels with those elite enemies in Begonia and Mountain Temple were interesting, but I found them to be as hard as bosses. I found some enemies in Begonia quite annoying (bats, Trident Fish), but at least they give me a lot of AP.

Speaking of which, I think that the ‘Spend AP’ system is overly expensive. I tend to move slowly and often spend time clearing all enemies in a room, but even after some backtracking for items and farming, I still had only half the upgrades available. I think there are too many levels in upgrades, with prices prohibitively high; this means players need to spend extra time killing things in existing areas. The game could work out fine if all the prices were halved, I think.

Mountain Temple… I did not like it. As I said before, it doesn’t make sense that bullets do so much damage (8) when they’re so frequent. Enemies like bats really get in the way when you’re trying to focus avoiding traps. I noticed that in the two-character room (very hard because of the traps & two elites), traps that hit your bubble disappear. I don’t know if that’s intentional, but I took full advantage of it because that room was hard enough already.

Something I noticed is that the player might not ‘get’ how to clear some bits. Most of the bits in DT1, and to good extent DT2, were intuitive enough that the player knows what to do. In this game, I’m not sure how some parts are meant to do. Sometimes, there just doesn’t seem to be a way of beating a challenge without feeling like you’ve cheated it, because the method doesn’t feel like it was intended.

The underwater part of Mountain Temple is irritating as well. First, Jerry’s bomb becomes useless. Traps kill you quickly and underwater movement with all the fans is difficult. Some of the areas look like you need a lot of air to properly beat them. Fortunately I collected enough air upgrades by then.
The Trident Fish got in the way a lot. I realized that just running away from it doesn’t work well, so I tend to finish it off quickly by spamming attacks.

I had difficulty finishing off the boss before health ran out, but I liked the sudden combo sequence after it. The surprise avalanche in Begonia was also a nice touch.

The Virus boss before Gate 4 took a lot of tries, mainly because those flying enemies got in the way and made it hard to attack safely. But they were good enemies on their own, so I hope I see them again.

There’s an imbalance I notice between how much you use each character. After Mario area, Claire isn’t useful until you clear Castlevania section, and that’s a long time you’re stuck with Jerry. And in Gate 4, it’s entirely Jerry again. I’m not sure why only one character would get powerups at this point in the game.

And I like how wall sliding was reintroduced. I’m kind of disappointed that you don’t have plans to introduce it to other areas of the game, because it was Claire’s staple ability in DT2 and it hasn’t gotten enough use yet.

I noted that Gate 4 was missing a lot of sound and some scan information, so I guess this area was only in introduction stage when the demo was released. The enemies here give about 15-25 AP, so it was very useful for leveling up.

I’m not sure why you made even the buster have ammo, to be honest. The rapidfire is commonly the most effective way to attack with it, and without it, you’re defenseless. Though I suppose the next demo will introduce new abilities and the gameplay will be similar to DT2.

The walls crushing you actually kills Jerry. The DT mechanics so far didn’t have that. Was that newly added for those walls?

I remember barely beating the boss. As with many hard bosses in the entire series (such as Shroud Lord), the strategy was to just finish the boss quickly. Because avoid attacks is very tricky, attrition will make you lose the fight. That was the case here: this boss’s attacks are just too hard to dodge with those big spike balls (no-dashing).

These were overly hard. And unlike extra levels in DT1, there aren’t enough rewards for beating them.

I know I said this before, but sometimes the level design doesn't make sense. It’s only through many tries that I got to somehow pass some challenges.

Gate A is standard platforming and it seems to be an acceptable challenge. The first two sections are reasonable, but the cave area, with podobos and maces, was incredibly tough and required a lot of precision. I had to not only practice all the jumps, but also calculate how much damage I would take in hard spots so I can see if I would make it to the end.

I’m pretty sure I always had recommended hearts when I began an extra gate, but I guess I should’ve waited until much later. I discovered that conserving enough health for next part was crucial, since you don’t get to recharge your health to full. Maybe you can add how many sections are in each extra gate? That knowledge would help the players be more confident, since you don’t have to worry about health in the last section.

I noticed that sometimes the jellyfish jump into the ceiling and go through it, landing above it. They even disappear above the roof sometimes.

The platform challenges in Gate B mostly aren’t too bad, as long as you get adjusted to the level design, though you tend to panic more in your first run. Most of it seems to be long mazes where once you know where to go and in what order, it’s fine. I just needed to be careful not to get hit.
The puzzles involving the rotating gates are rather clever. Replaying through the fourth room, I must say how intricate the design is. The one really hard part is the third room where you have to set up the bombs and run.

Then the boss comes (after that block-dodging section, where you need to have enough reserve health). The arms are extremely in the way, especially during the 3rd phase with its multiple attacks. The bombs were kind of annoying to throw into the boss in the 2nd phase, but at least its attacks were manageable. That Shroud Lord fight was an unpleasant surprise… it wasn’t that hard though.
Gate C was so hard that I had to stop midway and go back out to farm for experience. Basically I went around trying to get Perseverance upgrade. It doesn’t help against traps, but it helps against contact with enemies (such as Wall Master in the third section). Like I said, it took a long time to build up to 31000 AP (and another 7000 after I realized I needed Expertise level 3).

The shadow gimmick is hard to learn because of all the factors. Not only you but also green switches and traps and your projectiles all have shadows. It took a while to figure out how to set up the flames and hit the shadow switches.

I still don’t how you’re supposed to avoid a couple of traps, such as the lava shadow. Honestly, it was quite cruel to have the lava cast shadow like that.

And I really don’t like the Ghost Dancers. They’re ugly, and they jump around and all too often hit you. The only solution is to finish them off quickly. And the third section is especially problematic because you don’t have the leeway to learn the level properly before the Wall Master or traps collide with your shadow. It’s hard enough trying to learn the level trying to dodge those; the enemies just make it more annoying.

Fortunately, I was able to beat the fourth section in the same run as the third, with enough tries. At least the boss was reasonable this time. It was easy enough to figure out the fight and right away I was confident I could beat it.

Lastly, the Scared Temple is a nice surprise. I didn’t expect to end up there when I cleared the first extra gate.

It’s quite ambitious and aims to be a long, big-scale game. This time it feels like a game of its own rather than DT1’s casual game-mashing. It takes itself more seriously and builds up more gradually. You can see this reflected in the story, too. I could see why Slit08 compliments it so much.

As with DT1, the variety of options to strengthen your characters is nice. The different attacks are useful and I’ve gotten pretty proficient with them. I like the map system, though it could be useful in the individual gates too. Finding hidden items is still helpful and enjoyable. The dual-character gimmick is really cool and some interesting level designs and character tactics could come out of it.

A lot of the enemies are well done, even if annoying at times. It makes you use skill with attacking/dodging to fight them, and that’s part of the fun. I noted that there are several enemies with quite advanced AIs, much like the Sentinels from DT1. Some of the puzzles/platforming levels were very clever, as I’ve said. The bosses were overall quite difficult and I barely beat a boss fight at several points.

The atmosphere is also very well done. Most areas have sincere, fitting tone and effects, in contrast to some silly feel in DT1. Some graphical effects are top-notch (like some enemies in Greatest Stretch when you destroy them); some are a bit more rough IMO, but I know that you’re going to upgrade some other visuals too. The musical tracks are pretty good, though the sound when you get is pretty annoying.

On the other hand, the game can get really frustrating with no real remedy but to beat it. A vast majority of the levels suffer from having a really intimidating first impression, and it can discourage a blind run. This is an issue since you can’t afford to make mistakes with so little health.

My main complaint is how hard some parts were to figure out. In a few places, I try to partially learn the level and hope that I can dodge or tank enough hits to make it to the next place. Many DT1 levels had hard execution but were intuitive, so the player could actually see what to do early on. Then it was just a matter of practice. And mixing many different enemies in a tough terrain, or having enemies disrupting precise platforming through traps, can be a bad idea.

My counterpoint is that not everything in DT3 is better than DT1; I felt this way in Mountain Temple and Gate C. See, with DT1, you have a lot of abilities/options which include ways to recover. This gives the player the freedom to do more, so right away the game is more enjoyable, even if it’s less polished and some challenges can be broken (like the Sentinel rooms). The game is there for fun, which was the tone of early DT1, not for just tough challenges.

As I’ve said, I think the upgrades are more expensive than needed, so I suggest toning down the prices. They’re really marginal benefits that, with multiple levels, can get really high-priced. Similar concerns are for items. You need to collect a lot of internet coins to buy the equipped items and you can only equip up to three (two as of Gate 4). And I’ve only used a bottle item once (health, and I went back to an older save file afterwards to undo that) because the game makes you hesitate to use it. In DT1, you had a much greater liberty to use and re-purchase items, and I miss that, along with its Rave Mode. This game could really use Rave Mode, I think. The difficult gameplay makes you miss it.

So that’s my take on the game as of Demo 2.1.

Thanks a ton for your detailed review of Dt 3. On the one hand the game is very difficult, especially if you play it for the first time. I really had soem problems with many areas when I played through them for the first time. But now that I have played them several times they actually seem to be really doable or easy. I guess it is a matter of practice.
Then again keep in mind that most people will have finished DT 1 and 2 before playing the thrid game. In this sense the difficulty is justiced.