Not Bad, but Rough Around Edges
Hey.
This is an ambitions game, and there was much effort put into this.
GAMEPLAY
- Consider giving the player the ability to jump. I was also going to say back attack as well, but then I noticed you can do that as an additional attack with Spacebar-based attack. However, this shouldn't use magic...
- If the player is performing his combo on an enemy, that enemy should not be able to interrupt the player's attack and interrupt it. This goes in hand with the first item in the controls section listed below. Also, at the end of the combo, consider making the final combo hit push the enemy back a little if the enemy is not defeated. They tend to get a "free hit" on the player otherwise, because the player cannot move while finishing his animation.
- I tend to not like the Corruption attack, because it often puts you right in the middle of trouble. (:
CONTROLS
- It's easy to control the character, but consider allowing the player to perform his complete set of standard melee attacks by simply holding down the mouse button, instead of requiring additional button presses.
- Since you can enter the menu via the Escape key, having an Exit button is nice, but ideally, the player should be able to exit the menu using the same manner they entered - the Escape key.
GRAPHICS
- The background graphics look fine mostly, but the characters, especially the player's character looks a bit "flat"... like is made out of paper.
- Some of the graphics are just cheap gradient fills (the player's second sword, and the Corruption attack), and look tacky.
AUDIO
- No problems here. Sounds good to me. (:
POLISH / NOTES / OTHER ISSUES
- At the beginning of the game, if you try to move left, I can understand that you cannot go that way. However, it "pushes" the player back toward the right instead of simply stopping him. Consider Valeron, when you walk towards the Veilspere, and how it stops the player without pushing him back? That's how you should do it everywhere you don't want to the player proceed.
- The player should only have his back to us when he is walking upward. Walking left, right, and downward, we should see his front and face.
- There is the http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/www.
maxgames.com link issue which has been mentioned by others already.
- The Character menu is poorly presented. The fonts are look like Times New Roman (or some other word-processing font instead of a more game-like font), and the Energy line is overlapping the HUD. There also appear to be characters being truncated in certain areas.
- When I am communicating with the Veilsphere, and it fades out, I can see the map...
- When traveling from Valeron to the Ruins, the red dashed line does not show, and my player is instantly in the ruins (personally, I would prefer this method over the somewhat flamboyant lines. Furthermore, when I travel from back to to Valeron, the screen shakes, I hear, "Welcome back, Dristen", and the screen does not automatically change. I have to manually close the map.
- When viewing the map, sometimes, I can see instances of tool-tip from the HUD show up. Furthermore, the mouse often turns into the hand cursor along various areas at the bottom of the world map. I'm guessing the HUD is still active somewhat, as it gives a false indication that you can click on things down there while viewing the world map.
- Wasn't sure what to do next. In the areas, it's day two, and no one ways to challenge me. When I go to the Veil, he/she/it has nothing else for me, and other than the Ruins and Forest, I can't seem to find any new areas to explore.
- There are times throughout the game, where the graphics settings tend to change back to High on their own.
Nice game, but it's quite rough around the edges, and lots of issues to be worked out.
__________________________
- Ziro out.