[1 year anniversary]
The game was fully released last December 7th.
In two days (or one, depending on your time zone), this game will officially turn one.
Even though the number of players is small, thank you for standing by and helping to maintain the 90% very positive rating. It means a lot to me.
I've got nothing else flowery to say about the anniversary, so let's get started.
[Changes on the "default" difficulty.]
So, the conclusion I made after 1 year of experience is that, to put it bluntly; I expected too much from the players from the start.
As much as I wanted to offer a game that doesn't hold back the punches even during the early game, it is true that only 30% or below people could ever beat the second stage out of all 30 stages. Those later stages aren't just there for the content bloat, mind you. It's something I genuinely wanted to show and share. It's doubly sadening because Act 1 - which is ironically freely available as a demo- has a lower than 10% clear rate on ANY difficulty, so I really had to do something about it.
But do I want to pull out all the teeth from the tiger to make it a petting zoo animal? Absolutely not. The fundamental movement options, encounter designs - the combat identity of this game will stay there. But there will be some helping hands and minor balancing adjustments.
- On Wraith and below, the checkpoint can be 'REUSED' to save your progression during the level.
- Which means, for the people who are struggling, you can beat one arena and go back to the checkpoint to prevent the complete rollback of your progression.
- However, to get the SSS rank, you shouldn't reuse the checkpoint. Otherwise, you will get a score penalty at the end.
- One-time checkpoint system was criticized by both positive and negative reviews, so it became the first thing I decided to adjust a bit out of all the components.
- My intention was to force a player to make a decision with the checkpoint activation, so that they feel more "pressured" by the level navigation. This kind of stressful situation is what I thought was an engaging element (like the checkpoint system in Viscerafest, for example), but my intention wasn't conveyed well to many players who wanted fast progressions expected from conventional action games.
-So, the negotiation I made is that the checkpoint will be more lenient on the "intended" first playthrough, but you can have this limited checkpoint mechanic on the higher difficulties, so that your knowledge of the checkpoint locations will play a role in the checkpoint activation decision-making in the later playthroughs. And at that time, players would be more comfortable with the character control, so it won't come off as frustrating.
- Removed the backstep-anti-air pattern and adjusted the pattern telegraph lengths from the boss in 1-2 on Wraith and below difficulty.
- Scratchpeckers and Nimbleshanks will get staggered in one hit with the fast attack.
- Added the jump cancelling tutorial on 1-2. Because I figured it's important to teach it early on. Not many people found out that most of the action moves are cancellable.
- Added Gretel's silhouette showcasing the rush movement (hold dash button) on the tutorial level.
- Score reduction on the death count is more lenient now. You will have to die A LOT to get the D rank. The S rank requirement will stay there.
- Score reduction on the set timer is also lenient now. The S rank requirement will stay there.
- The difficulty descriptions were changed accordingly.
[More QoL features]
- Gretel's i-frame duration can be visually seen with the black shade animation when she dashes or jumps.
- The option menu is differently structured now.
- You can now see the health and poise meters of enemies. You can also see the Hyperarmor/Juggle state of the enemies with the bar colour. You can turn off the bars in the gameplay options.
- Level Navigation Helper accessibility option will feature a stationary map on the levels with a complicated maze structure. It doesn't get featured if the level is linear or structure-wise simple.
- [Press Q/R1 to turn off] sentence will appear when you interact with Q/R1-interactable objects.
- You can skip the third/fourth intermission areas with the portals that only appear if you have entered the next level.
[Stay tuned for the future]
So, for the old fans, you might be thinking I'm doing nothing but de-fanging the game to oblivion.
First of all, the Reaper and Ascended Reaper clear rate is still around 1%. You're welcome.
Secondly, this is all the groundwork for the upcoming contents, which will challenge you even if you have learned the game's ins and outs.
The Hubris beckons you.