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[noicreC]

Hello Pixel Ferrets, and all other (unfortunate?) readers who stumbled upon this topic!
Whenever I encounter a game I adore, I tend to analyze it until no tomorrow. Maybe a bad habit, but from time to time, it does seem to proof rather helpful to some. It won't be a surprise when I say that I completely love this game. As a passionate gamer hitting close to the 30s, this is bringing me back to the time when all pixels were magic. Love it! So I decided to put some feedback in here. Of course, this is just the opinion of one simpleton - and that one guy invites those who disagree to join him in a heated, but civilized, discussion!

Please keep in mind: I'm not a big fan of sugarcoating, nor will I overly compliment you. If I seem harsh, keep in mind that I just try to be constructive - and sometimes fail at it

Keyboard controls: "Z/X"
When I first booted the game, I did so with my controller. Controller support is always a plus for me! And while it plays great on controller, I sometimes felt lost among all the effect - I'll get to that later. So I started the game through keyboard instead, hoping it would be better(with mouse and all - also more about this later!). The first thing that I noticed was the default Z and X keybindings. While it is stated in the menu what the keys are, it felt unnatural, even with the arrow key movements. Now, there are more games that use these controls - especially Japanese indie game designers seem to love it, and it is understandable. You have a lot more keys available. Especially with the 8 quick slots, this seems to be ideal. But outside the game, there is no need for this. Why have Z/X be the confirm/cancel buttons, while most games are still hung on the less convenient, but far more natural, Enter/Escape? Now, I might be wrong, since I haven't done any research on your target group on this matter, but I feel the Enter/Escape will feel far more logic than Z/X for most players of your game.

Keybindings
Following up our previous point, a solution could be keybindings. But there are more reasons why I prefer to see keybindings. On the controller, A is Defense, X is Attack. While I prefer to have my attack on either A or B. While I did get used to it eventually, this seems to be horrible for the pet capturing games. Every time I saw attack, I pressed the A button in reflex - Defense, and visa versa. Now, many of the other buttons are customizable through the ingame system, with the exception of attack and defence. And that is just the controller. What if I prefer a different keyboard layout? I really think custom keybinding is something that should be implemented in the game. - Well, there is a good chance it's coming ingame anyways. If so: awesome, can't wait!
Edit: Silly me, there is already a custom keybinding possible for keyboard. You have to access it from the menu instead of just ingame, but that is fine. Can't wait until I can rebind my controller keys!

Ingame Menu: "Down to select"
While I understand the reason behind this one, you already have a button for it, one that many players know. The Enter button. So why did you also implement "down" to access a menu? Now I can imagine this is not a problem for the keyboard. Unless you have fat fingers, or slip, you will accidentally press it, and enter the menu. But if you are playing on the controller with the stick instead of the Dpad - or even with some versions of the Dpads - there is a good chance you will accidentally enter a menu. Not the biggest issue in single player - just annoying - but could be potentially fatal in multiplayer, where opening the menu does not pause the game. I do not see what this adds to the game. It just feels like a gimmick that should not be there.
Not just the down to select, but sometimes you can also 'exit' a mini menu by pressing a certain direction. For example the collector ID tab(first tab), if you select one of the stats, you can cancel the menu by pressing right, and thus selecting the Pet menu.

Ingame Effects:
I got a cloud flying up high, have a slime running around, got a shadow doubling my attacks, and balls of lightning flying to enemies near me. What. It worked out great so far. Don't judge me. But it did bring me a few problems. Especially in busy area's with multiple monsters. You will have a lot of damage numbers and effects floating around, which makes seeing where you exactly are standing, or what direction you are facing, sometimes rather hard. I've been in several positions where I had to step out of combat, just to get a hold on my char again.
While we are on the subject of effects - I am missing a bunch of sound effects, but I am sure you are working on it, so I won't nitpick on that. Yet!
Edit: It seems something it wrong with my game, you can ignore this last part!

Red damage numbers:
This is also because I miss some of the sound effects, but it is often unclear who got what damage, especially when playing with a pet. Especially during bosses, my pet takes damage from the more devastating attacks, while I nimbly get away. I do see the red letters, so I instinctively look up to the healthbar to see if I took any damage. This should not be necessary. Speaking about the healthbar..

Healthbar and the HUD
The healthbar is clear and all, but in the Seasonnë area, when taking enough damage, if you stand at the wrong location, you won't be able to see how much HP you have left since the white letters blend in perfectly with the background.
While this is minor, the HUD has a bigger issue. It is all over the place. Top left for the healthbar indication and skills, bottom left for the item pickups, top right for the equipment you can equip, and bottom right for the enemy EXP. In battle, I want to know my health, my enemy health and what I pick up. These are spread across the three corners of my 26 inch screen. In the old days, this was all perfectly doable since the screens were smaller, and there was often far less information to soak up. But nowadays, with the bigger screens, higher resolution and the loads of information we need to know to play the game, this is not the best solution anymore. I often find myself shifting from corner to corner trying to stay updated on all the important stuff. I don't even look at my enemy HP anymore, since I just can't keep track of that one on top of my own HP, location and loot. Well, just HP and Location, since I barely ever see what I am picking during battle anyways. Hm.

Fishing loot
Yeah that reminds me. During battle it's not a biggie, but while fishing... Whenever you gain an item, or in this case fish, it briefly appears in the bottom left corner. It's gone before you know it. Whenever I catch a fish, the first thing that catches my eye is my character holding up the fish like it's Simba from the Lion King. Awesome. But before I remember to look at the bottom left corner, the message what fish I caught is already or about to disappear.

Introduction to Crafting/Crafting itself
In my first play through, I started crafting rather late. I knew it was in the game, but I assumed I would get a tutorial on it, since it's always different in every game. Eventually I forgot about it, until I really needed some better gear, and couldn't get it from a shop. I was near the boss of the second temple by then. While it's completely self explanatory, so is attacking defending, and going through dialogue. Give us a small tutorial on crafting.
The crafting itself is. Well, not satisfactory. Even if you do make an awesome weapon(I made a lightsaber. How awesome!)you just get a message that briefly appears and says "Crafted!" That's all. No indication you were making something, or a sound, or even a picture of what you just made. While this is great when you plan to make a ton of stuff, I can not see the use of making many of the same weapon - except for selling perhaps? - and even if you would do so, most weapons require a lot of materials(a good thing imo), so you will often be in a position where you will be making several weapons.

Welp, fingers are complaining, it's time for me to shut the hell up!

I just wanted to say that I truly mean when I say that I adore this game. It is why I put so much effort in criticizing, especially all those small stupid things. If I had to make a list of the things what I like about this game, it would be a few times longer. So you know. I prefer to save my fingers for another day.

There is a lot more, I mean, I haven't even touched the Arcade mode, and boy do I have something to say about that! But maybe for another time.

Keep up the good work guys(and gal)!

 

[Own]

While we are on the subject of effects - I am missing a bunch of sound effects, but I am sure you are working on it, so I won't nitpick on that. Yet!

Do you have any examples? I haven't noticed any.

 

[noicreC]

Of course!
- Character swinging a sword/firing a bow - It does not need to be a loud woosh or anything, but an indication you swung your sword, or shot a bow will help the player when the visual cue's are harder to recognize. It will also make everything feel all 'fitting' so to say.
- Character charging skills - This is something I should have mentioned in the previous post, but charging skills(an amazing mechanic, I really like this)has little indication what stage you are at. I had to look at the mana bar and count the number of mana decreases to figure out how big the charge was. I always checked the results to see if I actually had the charge or not. A sound indication for each stage could make better.
- Character getting hit(no impact sound or a character reacting to getting hit) - Now, while the character shouting "Auch" or whatever fits some games, I feel it's good it's not in this game. I don't think it fits, since we are playing a silent character that can be formed to whatever we want. But a (blunt) impact force should be there. That way you will know whenever you get hit by something or not.
- Using the Phase pads(the arrow markings) - Minor really, but the animation is lovely. A sound to accompany it would make it perfect
- Summon getting desummoned(When you unsummon the slime, you only hear the confirmation button, not the actual summoning) - Could be rather important. When you need to unsummon in the heat of battle, the only think you have are the visual cue's. Not the best when you need to pay attention to a lot more. But I have the feeling you are working on these, since the ice slime does make a sound when you summon it in his first form(very adorable btw), but not when you summon it in his silver form.

After playing the game without any music on, and sounds on max, I realised that there were SE for these. I did not notice them with sound levels set equally to music levels. I find them rather important, so maybe balance the volume for these?
- Picking up coins
- Picking up items

I might be missing a few sounds, but these are just the first few that came to mind.

 

[Own]

I think there might be something wrong with your game. Check out a youtube video of someone playing?

Swords whoosh when you swing them, bows thock, each level of skill charging has a little tingy noise to indicate what rank you're at, there's a little oomph when you're hit, phaseplates have a warpy noise and Frosty Friend pops / Cloud Strike poofs.

 

[KoBeWi]

Keyboard controls: "Z/X"

But outside the game, there is no need for this.

While it may seem to have little sense on PC with keyboard and all, it's a system that was used in these oldschool games. A/B were used for attack/something (or jump/attack in platformers) and they were also used as confirm/cancel (or sometimes B was for confirm). It's a good system and only example (I know) when it was a bit flawed was Golden Sun, where A was used for interaction and bringing up menu. Grindea seems to use this A/B system in form of Z/X, which is very intuitive for oldschool gamers (like me) and easy to get used to for others.

 

[noicreC]

@Own: Yeah, that is really odd. For some reason I have none of those sound effects. I validated the game, but nothing changed for me. I'll make a bug report

@KoBeWi: Yeah I understand what you mean! But it still just feel.. well unnatural for me. I think the biggest problem is that I used to play a lot of console games in the past. And with every console game, you control the arrows with the left hand, and the select/cancel buttons with your right. This might also be why it just feel wrong for me. But like I said, I haven't done any research on the target group, I could be wrong on this point, this is just how it feels based on my own experience

 

[Rusty]

Can't wait until I can rebind my controller keys!

Seconded! I would really like this option as well.

Healthbar and the HUD
The healthbar is clear and all, but in the Seasonnë area, when taking enough damage, if you stand at the wrong location, you won't be able to see how much HP you have left since the white letters blend in perfectly with the background.
While this is minor, the HUD has a bigger issue. It is all over the place. Top left for the healthbar indication and skills, bottom left for the item pickups, top right for the equipment you can equip, and bottom right for the enemy EXP. In battle, I want to know my health, my enemy health and what I pick up. These are spread across the three corners of my 26 inch screen. In the old days, this was all perfectly doable since the screens were smaller, and there was often far less information to soak up. But nowadays, with the bigger screens, higher resolution and the loads of information we need to know to play the game, this is not the best solution anymore. I often find myself shifting from corner to corner trying to stay updated on all the important stuff. I don't even look at my enemy HP anymore, since I just can't keep track of that one on top of my own HP, location and loot. Well, just HP and Location, since I barely ever see what I am picking during battle anyways. Hm.

I also very much agree with this point as well. I'd like to add that the health bar for enemies might be better implemented on screen directly above or below the character it belongs to.

 

[HexZyle]

The whole reason I actually moved to XBox360 controller was because there's no way to separate the Confirm/Attack and the Back/Shield functions.

As a frequent touhou player, I am used to selecting with Z and using X to go back.

In Action games, however, I always prefer the key that's dishing out the most action (Attack) to be underneath my index finger, and defense and other stuff to be underneath the rest. This leads to an issue where I'm either always pressing defend when I meant attack, or if I rebind the controls, the menu confuses the hell out of me.

Take LF2 as an example, with its Defense, Jump, and Attack bound to Z, X, and C respectively, or Risk of Rain, with abilities tied to Z, X, C, and your regular attack that has no cooldown on V, but not Touhou games because you're not bashing the attack key, apart from PoFV, and you pretty much never let go of it, apart from Parsee, so my middle finger serves just fine for that, and my index finger rests on the "panic key".

 

[noicreC]

First of all - sorry for the necropost! But in this case, I think it's actually okay since.. Well, after almost an year, nothing on these points have changed!

Which leaves me the questions: Are these just things only I am bothered with? Are these things you might still do something with in a future patch? Or are you just not interested in fixing those things?

 

[The G-Meister]

I believe they're concentrating on getting the game finished before implementing many suggestions! I'm sure they won't be forgotten about, as the polish is something I've heard they are going to put a lot of work into.