Re: New horror and adventure sidescroller, The gate!
Just thought I'd come and put my thoughts here after playing the demo for a little while.
sound, voice acting and presentation:
The Sound design is almost arcade-like, using small elements from Q9/Perilous Hearts. It's a shame that these elements are there as having different hit sounds for each foe, whilst a time consuming effort, would've added a more mainstream feel - rather than just having grunts for the various creatures, have something that represents them as well as they come into contact with the weapon.
The voice acting, whilst good, isn't all quite there as far as delivery goes. The parallel I'm about to make might be an odd one, but please hear me out on this. When I first faced The Grey Lady (TGL), her words brought two characters from mainstream video games to mind. Zasalamel from the Soul Calibur series, notably his incarnation in SC III and Hisako from Killer Instinct. Both are b ound by time, Zasalamel is cursed and Hisako is brought back by Ultra Tech. Both, if you watch clips, deliver their lines with emotion when angered - Hisako in particular, whilst she speaks in Japanese, is prone to this.
I just wish we could've seen TGL's distress as she realises the hero of this particular game won't help her - she's been shunned by so many others and believed she had to kill them and this hero's apparent selfishness pushes her one step too far.
As I haven't managed to defeat her yet, in spite of all the tips, I can't comment on any of the other voice acting segments for the boss characters. Over all though, good job thus far.
Difficulty:
Having played mainstream games for a number of years, I had hoped for difficulty in this game and what I got kind of reminded me of bloodborne and Dark Souls, at least what I've watched of them - difficulty spikes, enemies being extremely dif ficult to kill at times due to two of the weapons in the manual not being even available to the player (I'll come on to that). The difficulty of the main levels is relatively well-scaled for the most part however, meaning that this is only a minor annoyance. I like the introduction of different attack patterns, but the lack of weapons doesn't exactly make things easy - maybe have a mode where you only have the two weapons you get currently and expand the list for the standard game? Hopefully what I've said makes sense here. Other than that, I can see why the difficulty is what it is.
Music:
I agree with those saying that there are only two or so levels of excitement and that the volume is too low for you to be able to appreciate the music that you do have, which fits the atmosphere well. Whilst I understand that you don't want the game to be overpowered, in moments where it might be, the ability to hold the page up/down keys instead of tapping them to turn music down quickly might solve that for you.
Price:
I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this one, though once I defeat TGL I might be able to make a better informed decision. At first glance (and this is only my opinion), It seemed like you would be charging a little over what I would've expected. I would've said $30 as a full price after the sail and maybe $24.99 as the sale price might've been closer to home for a lot of people, though I understand that you will want to break even and charging that little extra will help you accomplish that goal at greater speed.
If there were more insentives to buy the game (the soundtrack, a mode where you get harder enemies that you haven't seen before, the ability to change the music/sounds with the game looking in separate folders whilst still keeping the originals encrypted, additional levels as free or nominal fee DLC fo r registered users etc) I think it would give more people a reason to pay up.
Genre:
The question of side scrollers as a genre in audiogaming history and whether it has been oversaturated or not is not one that I can attempt to answer. However, I believe the more arcade/90s vibe this game puts forward suits the side scroller format and if the game was, in its current form, converted into a 3d port, it is my opinion that it wouldn't work half as well. I think that developers should just develope what they want to develope in terms of genre - side scrollers, FPS games, Space Invaders clones etc and if gamers have a problem with that it's not something to worry about as much as is the case at the moment (it might be if 5 side scrollers released in the same week or maybe even a month or so, but that's a question of timing).
I'll add/edit my thoughts in as and when I decide to carry on playing and if I have further informati on to share about the game. Hopefully updates come down the line to add new content and address any issues that come up, but other than that, it's an interesting game to say the least.
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