wishlisted af
Reviews for "DARK SWORD: The Light of Ainn"
honestly really fun game so far, I did encounter a few bugs here and there tho like some statues not being destroyed even after I beat the boss, sometimes the game just froze for some reason and after beating everything I couldnt get past the seal place bc the boss fight sequence that plays after you get the purified sword just would start back up again before I could do anything
aside from those bugs I really loved the game, it was fun doing a bullet hell game with unique mechanics and it was really cool figuring out how to do everything, however I felt really lost a lot of the time, not knowing what to do or where to go, I felt very aimless especially bc of some of the puzzles, I could never figure out how to get to the blood dungeon which I'm kinda sad abt bc I really wanted the scythe but its whatever, I did also notice that I only ever found 3 of the things to upgrade the melee weapon so even if I did find the scythe it would be inferior to the sword which I maxed, a map would be really nice though, like maybe it just shows the general layout until you discover a puzzle or boss fight then it shows that it's there? idk just an idea
TLDR: had great fun playing it all, solid game just a few little fixes here and there needed
Will definitely check the full game when it's out. One criticism I have however is that healing is almost never worth it takes too long and you're not given enough health
MrDoth responds:
Hi!! Thanks, there is an item to upgrade the healing amount ;)
yall ela teachers a happy
updating my review because all the bugs i encountered have been fixed, so i need something new to type. just putting down a couple things i found while playing the game for future reference.
in order of priority:
all the medals seem to have been fixed; at the very least, i haven't encountered any issue with them so far. however, it's weird that there's no medal for defeating Elderoth. (it was probably the second scorched groove medal that got removed)
in regards to the save system, it seems to work properly between sessions.
once you beat the game, continuing locks you into the ending cut-scene;
this likely happens because the game is coded to auto-save whenever you approach the altar in the middle of the main hub, which is where the ending cutscene takes place (you can tell because, when continuing, it doesn't start from the beginning of the cutscene, but from the second half of it).
basically, once you beat the game once, you can't continue from where you left off, which is pretty upsetting if you want to do something else in the current save without having to play from scratch.
(for the record, the game also auto-saves after releasing the seal of kalasdrine, once you've already been teleported in the cervus boss fight arena. so solving the cutscene save alone won't help with continuing from the previous save)
you can't re-enter rooms with bosses (main bosses) after defeating them (probably to prevent being stuck in the boss room, or having to refight them).
because of this, the hirunga lore book is missable (the one in the top boss room).
another funny this is, because the corridor to the boss in the pits is not blocked off, you can just walk past it and go out of bounds, though there's not much going on there since it's all void.
EDIT: you CAN re-enter bosses rooms after defeating them, but you need to defeat all 7 of them.
(before the final boss, when the lightning effect is active in the main hub area).
the goroth book respawns, even if collected properly (the one on the bridge on the left side with all the enemies)
the (third?) key in the main hub area also respawns after being collected properly.
EDIT: the book stops respawning. not sure of what causes it (collecting the cinnder book, or any other book afterwards may stop it from respawning once collected).
weird interaction with the hammer: you can't dodge while you hold the hammer (which also means you can't run).
if you switch to your gun, hold space to run, then switch to the hammer while holding space, you can run with the hammer out.
while i understand not being able to dodge because the hammer is broken, i wish i could at least run while holding it without having to do it via gimmick, if nothing else because it is still possible.
beating the game WITHOUT purifying the sword seems to lower the wall to the holy tower of ainn. it also doesn't trigger the seal in the previous room.
that means you fight providence in the regular ending, and cervus in the purified ending.
providence seems to have been completely reworked since the time i fought it by walking through walls.
there's a lot more bullets and the boss has enough health where you can't just cheese it by tanking its attacks. it's actually a really difficult fight, good job with it.
however, you CAN cheese the cervus fight; the boss has so little hp, i can basically 2-shot each of its phases with the shotgun alone (with no upgrades), without even seeing any of its attack patterns (you can defeat it faster than most of the regular bosses, because of end-game scaling probably)
i reckon a little (a lot) hp boost may be in order there, especially considering it's supposed to be the harder ending to achieve.
i also found the skull ring. funny easter egg, although not yet implemented.
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gameplay tips: the shotgun has AMAZING burst damage; it entirely depletes your energy bar on use, and deals damage proportional to the energy consumed. for that reason, it's better to think of your melee weapon as a way to refill your energy for the gun, rather than using it to deal damage when there's an opening in the boss pattern. it's just THAT good.
you can dodge in place (press spacebar without moving).
this is useful if you want to just mash attack against an enemy that is going to do a single attack against you, that would force you to move away then dodge back in. (examples being secarta's gun attack).
because of "later update syndrome", defeating Heart of Corruption grants you double energy bar, while defeating Sheregon grants you the ability to "bomb" (screen-wipe bullets).
because of how significant both of these upgrades are, it's recommended to defeat either of these bosses as soon as possible (if able to) to make the game significantly easier.
defeating Kraol also gives 2 more max hp, which isn't as significant but always helpful.
defeating Cinnder gives an upgrade to the sword block ability. it's only relevant if you're using the sword as a melee weapon, but it's there if you want it.
if you defeat a non-main boss, but you don't collect their dropped item, it will be auto-collected when you leave the area, so you don't need to worry about missing any of them.
you can press ESC to pause the game and check your inventory; you can't see how many items you've collected, but as long as you're holding at least one, you can read their description.
once you're on your way to the corrupted ending, you can still pivot to the purified ending if you purify your sword before fighting the final boss.
however, once you've purified your sword, you can't go back to the corrupted ending unless you start from scratch.
for that reason, the corrupted ending is potentially more difficult to achieve than the secret ending (on top of the corrupted ending boss being much harder imo)
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keys locations:
- room to the right of the moving platforms section in the underground dungeon;
- top area (dead valley), to the left of the bonfire before entering the mid-boss room, on the left side of the castle walls there's an opening that leads to an area with the key;
- on the top right side of the ramparts in the main hub there's a watery area with a destructible pile of something; destroy it to reveal the key underneath.
(the pile may be unbreakable, and i believe you need to use specifically the hammer to break it)
evil core locations: 5 total (of potentially 12)
- right above the stairs that lead to the ramparts on the right side of the main hub area;
- room above the moving platforms section in the underground dungeon;
- bottom room in the pits, after defeating Ill'Maggoth;
- bottom room in the sanctum, after defeating Goroth (before the room with the statue);
- in the middle of the blood dungeon, right below the main entrance (from the graveyard).
cursed ingots locations: 10 total (only 9 necessary)
- defeat Cathralon.
- defeat Crucible of Shadows (Dark Crucible).
- defeat Ill'Maggoth.
- defeat Goroth.
- defeat Elderoth.
- on the ramparts on the right side of the main hub area. bottom side of the stairs.
- below the entrance to the left side area (bottom left of the main hub), in the middle of a circular alcove.
- above the lake to the top right of the main hub area, on the right side of the stairs that lead to the top area (dead valley).
- bottom right corner of dead valley (top area), near the campfire after the bullet trap.
- on the right ledge outside the entrance to the blood dungeon.
lore books locations: all 14
SECARTA - rightmost room in the blacksmith area.
CATHRALON - on the right side of the castle wall in the top area. there's an entrance in the bottom right corner (of the wall) that can only be accessed when approaching from the right side of the area.
HIRUNGA - bottom right corner of the old temple of ainn, above dead valley (after defeating cathralon).
DARK CRUCIBLE - (top) left area (kingdom ruins), below the spinning blades trap.
RAKUL - bottom area of kingdom ruins (after the spinning blades, before dark crucible), in the bottom left between 4 rock pillars.
CURSED GROWTH - top right side of dead valley (top area), in the top left corner of the ruins with a lamppost in the middle.
SHEREGON - top right corner of the main hub area, right before the entrance to the boss room.
KRAOL - right before the entrance to the blood dungeon, at the very end of the blood pool on the right side (bottom right of the graveyard).
CINNDER - left side of the sanctum, in front of the large statue.
ILL'MAGGOTH - above the entrance to the left side area (top left of the main hub), near the campfire.
ELDEROTH - top right corner of the (bottom) right area (graveyard).
HEART OF CORRUPTION - left corridor in the pits, after defeating ill'maggoth.
THRAXXAN V - on the ramparts on the right side of the main hub area. top side of the stairs.
GOROTH - (bottom) left area (bridge of the horned one), between the statues with laser eyesight.
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very easy cheese strat to beat bosses if you're really bad at the game:
- equip the hammer and the shotgun (friendly reminder you can't dash while the hammer is equipped; you need to switch to the shotgun if you really want to dodge/run)
- hold left click;
start with the shotgun (entirely depletes your dark energy), then press E to switch to the hammer. after 3 hits (up to 5 with double length energy bar), your energy is fully replenished. switch to the shotgun. rinse and repeat.
you can move if you feel like dodging but it's mostly unnecessary.
just tank everything and hold left click, while staying as close as possible to the boss when using the gun.
switch to the gun when you have enough energy for extra burst damage.
might get one heal in if you feel like it since you can heal while attacking.
this easily melts most of the bosses (on normal mode) with little effort, even with no upgrades
(i have no idea what the upgrades do lol)