Hi all,
just recently found out about the game, watched demos and interviews and couldn’t resist to check it out myself. You have some pretty nice features on your list! Keep going!
However…
I tried to play with Mouse and Keyboard first, but quickly switched to my XBox Gamepad, because the gameplay pretty much felt like it. I think I was right with my decision, because movement and camera are really nice with the sticks, but sometimes I find the button layout and combat control a little strange. Maybe I’m too picky here, but you may think about it.
Examples:
- left menu button (how is that thing actually called?) enters the rest-menu (I would out of intuition have expected the map there)
- why is running attached to (holding) B, while LT does apparently nothing? Feels strange, especially since it’s impossible to e.g. run and jump this way. Also this way you can’t run and look around, but rather the strafing in the left stick magically becomes turning. Running (maybe even at varying speed) with the trigger in contrast would leave the right thumb free for buttons or the right stick. If LT is reserved for some future thing, then you might at least put jumping to Y, which is reachable from B
Biggest point: Combat with the controller is very strange:
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first of all, determining the aiming direction is pretty unaccurate and letting go of the stick makes it bounce to a random direction very often (original XBox for Windows pad, you might think about a higher threshold here), but hey…it’s beta status, I guess that will be optimized.
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what really bugs me is that the right stick does not only determine the sword hand direction, but also still controls the view during combat! I always out of intuition try to hold the stick at the direction where the sword should be right now and booof: suddently my character stares into nowhere and my enemy is out of sight. Also why do you need seperate buttons for “sideways strike” and “hit” anyways?
My suggestion: Better make the stick have “realtime” control only over the sword. releasing it would make the aiming return to the center (straight hit) and constantly tilting it determines one of the other five directions. You also only need one button for strikes then. And since you don’t need the 4-way pad in combat anyways (doesn’t make sense to look at the inventory in the middle of the fight), why not use left and right to switch between enemies and maybe “down” to exit it completely (e.g. for running away)?
Is someone else here having a similar or maybe completely different impression? Also maybe someone else struggled with this and eventually got used to it? Would be interesting to hear.
Best
Zero
