izigame.me

Balance Issues and Bugs.

This could be good, is the problem.

For the most part it is, even.

However there are several aspects that have been negative enough for me to just drop this despite being at the penultimate level.

Lets do the bugs first:

The game will occasionally lock up in an 'eternal loading screen' which is an annoyance when it happens but usually not the worst as those typically are between autosaves. Still this shouldn't happen in the first place.

Occasionally, if you run past enemies instead of killing them and then get into a 'fight arena' those enemies sometimes count as being part of the fight arena and despite killing all the arena spawns, prevent progress despite the game locking them out of the room when one would expect them to file in easily. Like, the door is right there, my dude. Didn't even lock it.

As for the balance issues.

Recovery, especially air recovery, is a joke. When you start getting to the larger or more aggressive crowds, you can actually get juggled to death from full if you are just unlucky enough. Yes you do get an on-charge 'get away from me' but maybe you spent that for meter or maybe you spend it and some other enemy literally a pixel out of the range of your shockwave just initiated a dash and hits you anyways because they could avoid the wave. Actual recovery is a TRAP option. Yes, you heard me right. Air recovery especially is a trap as there are no accompanying I-frames after the recovery to let you recenter/hit neutral again so it is actually legitimately the best option to let yourself hard fall and hope that you have enough screen to dash back make space so you aren't swarmed. The sheer lack of almost any recovery frames for the player when even the mooks you are up against get them is frankly an incredible oversight. Basic mooks get this. You don't. Not really. Also I have no idea if the dodge actually has i-frames or not either. It feels like it doesn't and I would be surprised if it does or if it's more than a literal frame as it feels like it was not made. There are seemingly zero safe wakeup options as well other than the secret moves and those cost a full bar of meter to use.

Enemy Super Armor is *Fucking Obscenely Overtuned*. Like, I understand bosses and such but they should at least still either obey your 'Get away from me' resource that you spend or not just muscle through your clashes and parries with their combo so that what would be a skillful riposte in other games is just "Oh I see you tried to use skill and cancel my attack. Cool, that does nothing to my momentum so fuck you eat my followup attacks anyway." When the game itself feels centered around controlling a crowd, running into an enemy that flatly ignores your only options you actually have to do this to grab you and throw you across the room is not so much a challenge as just a middle finger. Sure, hit them until you 'poise break' but the actual hits to do that feel equivalent to a health-bar on it's own. I get the impression these are supposed to be 'Duel' foes with their appearances and presentation early on and that's mostly fine aside from those hammer bastards with the huge shoulderplates (those ones feel particularly inexcusable with how much agency they rip out of your hands), and there is an niche for that!

And then late in the game they throw a highly mobile, rapid attacker in with one of those hammer bastards and then it's good fucking luck I hope you liked your health bar because I can and have lost tens of attempts to their bullshit from being juggled to death from FULL HP between them. Because, remember, you don't get the same super armor or recovery like the enemies do.

Both of these issues are at their apex at the penultimate boss. He attacks just as fast if not faster than you, will keep attacking through your parries and clashes despite you being unable to do the same to him/his combos are longer so you are going to have to hope he does a string that ends early or moves himself away before you run out of attacks, his super armor recovers extremely quick and you don't get a full combo off of him either, he goes flying after one hit, it seems like, and his already fast attacks get lighting trails behind him as the fight goes on so that you can just get pulled into one hit from a clash and boom you no longer have agency in the fight until you hit the ground again. Assuming he doesn't do the right strings to keep you juggled as if he's trying to do an infinite or some bullshit. You have no recovery options here. Other than him throwing you clear and thus its safe to do the ground-hop instead of a hard landing, he ignores the pushback due to super armor and you have no safe options or.. The ability to actually put in any inputs anyway. And you may ask 'but what about the 'Get away' charge?' Guess what! I can and have several times tried using it, the resource disappears, and because you don't get any I-frames, he super-armors and ignores you did anything to try and get control back. Or maybe it's just his attacks are so wide in coverage that your other option to move still whiffs and you get hit and looks like you just burned meter for nothing. Just a total lack of respect for agency.

Straight up, it feels untested, almost. Like.. This fight feels like it's built for you to have some kind of i-frame or similar thing to recover but it's just not in the game. Maybe I got this far in through bull-headedness and maybe I missed a literal fundamental part of the game but, if so, then it's not in the tutorial.

A few thoughts on controls before closing:

Your super mode should not be on the same button as your 'spend meter to dodge' action. Why? Because maybe you want to use that super mode and FUCK YOU FOR HAVING THE CONTROL STICK TILTED HALF A DEGREE! YOU GET FIVE INCHES OF MOVEMENT AND A CHUNK OF METER GONE SO NOW YOU'RE JUST FUCKED!

Change this or allow remapping.

Similarly, 2H (up+heavy on the ground) has this animation lock that feels abysmal. Like, you made the attack and now you have to wait to do anything. Sure, heavy attack so you typically don't want to allow to combo after that, I get it. But I honestly feel like there should be a chance to follow up in the air given how the rest of the animation flows. Like, you are hitting them into the air and you are moving with them so you can follow up with more hits. That is what it looks like you should be able to do with the animation. In actuality you just kinda uselessly throw them in the air with a hit and then it's the wait for them to stand back up so you can hit them again. Doesn't feel good.



In closing, I was feeling much more heated while writing parts of this but now I can come back with a more tempered expression. I do think there is a lot of good in the game but it is marred by the bugs which should be polished out and the issues of both balance and the hard removal of player agency to actually interact with a fight. I feel the super armor especially needs to be looked at and reduced greatly. I think bosses of all kinds should respect the tools given to the player to regain footing and breathing room. I think the player should actually have i-frames and recovery options. Heck, give the super mode some super armor or something.

This game could be a blast to play.

But currently what was fun became frustrating from what frankly feels like a double standard of rules for the player and the enemies with the player at a disadvantage here.

Time to put this one down and walk away.