20240216:
After a few less than great demos, I wasn't sure which demo I should try next. But a quick look at the video for AWAKEN - Astral Blade and I figured it'd be worth trying. Storywise, the protagonist seems to be similar to Megaman, but gameplay wise the game is a Metroidvania. The player gets to start with a dash that feels good, but the double jump is earned partway into the demo. Initially I had a complaint about not seeing a particular enemy that's on the ground - it blended into the ground so I would run into it. But as that was an enemy that appears closers to the beginning of the game, it soon wouldn't matter. In any case, I like the simple combo system, but I found the single weapon on the boring side (in comparison, Castlevania games in the GBA series often had a secondary or some sort of magic attack that could be used in addition to the standard whip). Perhaps the game could have made use of more combos.
In any case, the game was easy going until the first boss (that would complete the demo). Twice I grinded for Aether, the currency that allows the player character to upgrade her talents. Speaking of which, I found parry to be too hard to use, so I could have better spent that Aether elsewhere. Returning to the matter of the boss, I found the boss to be difficult in a good way. It was difficult but not frustratingly so. There was a significant amount of pattern to the movements that I felt excitement with every try that made progress on lowering his health bar. Of course, I was taken by surprise the first time he revealed his second form. I did not expect the first boss in the game to have a second form. But this made the fight all the more exciting. Note that the second time I grinded for Aether was after being defeated by his second form many times, including one great run which I defeated the first form with full health and all three heals remaining, and then I almost got the second form down to somewhere around 10%! I figured a couple more tries and then I'd gather Aether because maybe one more skill would tip the odds in my favor. After getting 1200 Aether for recovering from a fall, I returned to the boss and I'm not sure I ever really used that skill anyways. What I felt really helped instead was learning to use the dodge more aggressively (which procs a dodge skill + upgrade: enemy is slowed down for two seconds). If I aggressively use X + X + Y and then dodge, then it guarantee's a wide window of invulnerability plus the chance taht the dodge actually dodges an attack which will slow down the first form to hit with another X + X + Y. The second form is a little different. The second form should also be dodged aggressively but staying close to him except when he does his howl is was the first core strategy. The second layer of strategy on top of that was to not do X + X + Y, but instead just X + dodge or X + X + dodge. Then only if he is slowed, then an X + X + Y can be thrown in. In addition to the aforementioned, for the first form, holding right to rush in and X + X + Y right away is free damage because he does a harmless roar. But remember to run away from his second form at the start and again after he faints because those are guaranteed howls. I think I got a feel for when he does his howl as well, but sometimes I was conservative and would walk away. It's either be far from him, or be right near his back. To summarize, I thought the boss was well-designed.
Overall, I enjoyed the game. This is weird, but I kind of wish there were more enemy types and that there is a higher density of enemies throughout - especially sinc enemies only respawn after saving the game. I also wish the parry felt faster so that it could be used more last second, because at the moment the timing feels difficult to adjust to. Both of these, however, are relatively minor. Leaving first impressions on a high note, I loved the look of the game, the menu system, button layout, and the map system. In particular, I liked the aesthetics of this game more than those in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
Steam Game Time: 2.5 hours (cumulative game time) + 0.3 hours (idle time)
20240217 (AM) Comment:
I went to the forums to submit a bug report. While there, I looked through some of the threads and one player asked about "ranged weaponry/magic" and the developer responded saying "Yes, you will get one in the final version."
On a different note, it just occurred to me that it only took me 24 minutes to reach the boss, tried to fight him for about 8 minutes, went back to exploring areas I had not yet revealed for half an hour, and then tried to focus on fighting the boss again. Then as I mentioned I twice farmed some Aether, which took about 30 minutes total. All in all, I spent about 0.4 hours to reach the first boss, 0.5 hours to explore every nook and cranny up to the first boss, 0.5 hours farming, and 1.1 hours fighting the first boss, which is not a great distribution of time. I think if it takes me 24 minutes to reach the first boss, it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to defeat. If it had taken me 1 hour to reach the boss, then 1 hour to fight it, that would be within reason.
20240217 (PM) Comment:
After playing the demo for Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse, my experience with AWAKEN - Astral Blade went from good to poor. Besides having a number of top-notch elements for a video game, Never Grave had exactly the right distribution of first boss difficulty relative to the rest of the game. To be fair, losing to the boss means having to play through the level all over, but that exactly builds in the grinding for upgrades aspect in a way that makes the effort not feel like a grind. Furthermore, the first boss in Never Grave feels epic but with much simpler patterns that makes whittling the boss down much more practical.
After a few less than great demos, I wasn't sure which demo I should try next. But a quick look at the video for AWAKEN - Astral Blade and I figured it'd be worth trying. Storywise, the protagonist seems to be similar to Megaman, but gameplay wise the game is a Metroidvania. The player gets to start with a dash that feels good, but the double jump is earned partway into the demo. Initially I had a complaint about not seeing a particular enemy that's on the ground - it blended into the ground so I would run into it. But as that was an enemy that appears closers to the beginning of the game, it soon wouldn't matter. In any case, I like the simple combo system, but I found the single weapon on the boring side (in comparison, Castlevania games in the GBA series often had a secondary or some sort of magic attack that could be used in addition to the standard whip). Perhaps the game could have made use of more combos.
In any case, the game was easy going until the first boss (that would complete the demo). Twice I grinded for Aether, the currency that allows the player character to upgrade her talents. Speaking of which, I found parry to be too hard to use, so I could have better spent that Aether elsewhere. Returning to the matter of the boss, I found the boss to be difficult in a good way. It was difficult but not frustratingly so. There was a significant amount of pattern to the movements that I felt excitement with every try that made progress on lowering his health bar. Of course, I was taken by surprise the first time he revealed his second form. I did not expect the first boss in the game to have a second form. But this made the fight all the more exciting. Note that the second time I grinded for Aether was after being defeated by his second form many times, including one great run which I defeated the first form with full health and all three heals remaining, and then I almost got the second form down to somewhere around 10%! I figured a couple more tries and then I'd gather Aether because maybe one more skill would tip the odds in my favor. After getting 1200 Aether for recovering from a fall, I returned to the boss and I'm not sure I ever really used that skill anyways. What I felt really helped instead was learning to use the dodge more aggressively (which procs a dodge skill + upgrade: enemy is slowed down for two seconds). If I aggressively use X + X + Y and then dodge, then it guarantee's a wide window of invulnerability plus the chance taht the dodge actually dodges an attack which will slow down the first form to hit with another X + X + Y. The second form is a little different. The second form should also be dodged aggressively but staying close to him except when he does his howl is was the first core strategy. The second layer of strategy on top of that was to not do X + X + Y, but instead just X + dodge or X + X + dodge. Then only if he is slowed, then an X + X + Y can be thrown in. In addition to the aforementioned, for the first form, holding right to rush in and X + X + Y right away is free damage because he does a harmless roar. But remember to run away from his second form at the start and again after he faints because those are guaranteed howls. I think I got a feel for when he does his howl as well, but sometimes I was conservative and would walk away. It's either be far from him, or be right near his back. To summarize, I thought the boss was well-designed.
Overall, I enjoyed the game. This is weird, but I kind of wish there were more enemy types and that there is a higher density of enemies throughout - especially sinc enemies only respawn after saving the game. I also wish the parry felt faster so that it could be used more last second, because at the moment the timing feels difficult to adjust to. Both of these, however, are relatively minor. Leaving first impressions on a high note, I loved the look of the game, the menu system, button layout, and the map system. In particular, I liked the aesthetics of this game more than those in Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.
Steam Game Time: 2.5 hours (cumulative game time) + 0.3 hours (idle time)
20240217 (AM) Comment:
I went to the forums to submit a bug report. While there, I looked through some of the threads and one player asked about "ranged weaponry/magic" and the developer responded saying "Yes, you will get one in the final version."
On a different note, it just occurred to me that it only took me 24 minutes to reach the boss, tried to fight him for about 8 minutes, went back to exploring areas I had not yet revealed for half an hour, and then tried to focus on fighting the boss again. Then as I mentioned I twice farmed some Aether, which took about 30 minutes total. All in all, I spent about 0.4 hours to reach the first boss, 0.5 hours to explore every nook and cranny up to the first boss, 0.5 hours farming, and 1.1 hours fighting the first boss, which is not a great distribution of time. I think if it takes me 24 minutes to reach the first boss, it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to defeat. If it had taken me 1 hour to reach the boss, then 1 hour to fight it, that would be within reason.
20240217 (PM) Comment:
After playing the demo for Never Grave: The Witch and The Curse, my experience with AWAKEN - Astral Blade went from good to poor. Besides having a number of top-notch elements for a video game, Never Grave had exactly the right distribution of first boss difficulty relative to the rest of the game. To be fair, losing to the boss means having to play through the level all over, but that exactly builds in the grinding for upgrades aspect in a way that makes the effort not feel like a grind. Furthermore, the first boss in Never Grave feels epic but with much simpler patterns that makes whittling the boss down much more practical.
Date/Time
Friday, February 16, 2024
@
22:00
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