ACT [kyrieru] Eroico RE115470 RJ115470

[Ayra]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

And... I'm already done. That was considerably easier than I expected! It wasn't exactly easy, but I was fearing far worse than this. I suppose that I already had the hang of the game after having struggled with the demo so much... But I'm still surprised I got a total of 6 gameovers (5 in stage 2, 1 in stage 3) compared to the more than 10 I had during the demo. Stage 3 is definitively easier than stage 2, both due to easier platforming and from having many, many, many more hearts thrown everywhere throughout the level.

Unless my platforming skills increased dramatically since playing Kurovadis, I personally felt that Kurovadis was actually quite a bit harder than Eroico.


Anyway, quick review with the h-content turned off: It's a nice game and it's worth the purchase, but I prefered Kurovadis in pretty much every aspect except for sprite quality and maybe the bestiary.
-Eroico's boss music is excellent, but the rest are more forgettable.
-Atmosphere-wise, Kurovadis has this pervasive creepy feel that gets worse the further you go in the game; Eroico's first stage is all happy and seems to match the characters, the second one is pretty bland and the final one feels kind of unfitting with the tone of the game. I'm definitively fine with an happy setting and I'd rank stage 1 atmosphere and looks pretty high, but not the other two stages.
-Platforming-wise I'd say they are about equal: it's Eroico's greatest strength in my opinion. It really depends on if you prefer wall jumps and rolls or the red blocks puzzles.
-Combat-wise, I felt that Kurovadis was much more flexible. Eroico's block and magic system is fine, but it doesn't really compare favorably to the dodge roll, multiple weapons and the blaster/melee charging.
-Length and exploration. Clear win to Kurovadis. Definitively longer with some exploration and optional boss and weapon. It also feels more replayable, due to being able to use different strategies (melee vs ranged), stat builds and weapon selection. Eroico's painfully linear and if you miss an upgrade, you have to start the game again to get it. Due to lack of weaponry and heavy limitation on magic usage, you pretty much have one single viable strategy per screen... And it's about 1 hour long on the very first playthrough if you don't go collect h-scenes and don't fail that often.

So in short, I'd give Eroico a rating of "Good". It's fun, it's cheap, it's cute. It unfortunately doesn't reach "Amazing" status like Kurovadis did but hey, it's still a worthwhile buy and I hope it'll sell well.

 

[Raijinryu]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

EDIT: Nevermind, after 30 minutes of playing I passed it.
Too bad the bosses don't have animation's for downed sex. The desert boss was quite nice.

It's spot like those (gah, he removed the red block chain jumping pic from 2nd level) where I think the difficulty just spikes to 999 for some people.

I had to do it... 3 times. WOWZERS, not a big deal, felt natural, been playing a lot. Buddy of mine tried it, he was at it for 1 hour, got pissed, gonna try later.

Seriously, I don't remember any platforming in any Megaman game that holds a candle in difficulty to that spot and the one where you have to bounce and there's a rotating spike on one.
THEN AGAIN, save editing, +1 to the 11th line on a save slot will move you to another area, possibly the next one, the fact that he allows for this is why I think the game's difficulty shouldn't be touch, as you can still see everything.
THEN AGAIN AND AGAIN, wasn't Kurovadis third stage far more hellish than this? Meaning he IS indeed trying to tone it down a notch?

I am talking about jumping to rotating gears while lighting was striking between them while landing on dissapearing platforms and having metroids want to say hi to you.

And now he is asking what is the hcontent I keep turning off. Of course I told him, Hardcore mode, removes some blocks on platforming sections. hurhur

Man I can't remember shit, last time I played Megaman one was like... 20 years ago.

 

[imercenary]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

The game is SNES level difficult, if you can't beat it that isn't the developers fault, it's your fault for not being good enough at getting a hold of the game mechanics.

Its never a good sign when someone calls a game "SNES level difficult."

Theres a reason why the entire industry moved away from "SNES" (and NES) difficult.

 

[dienow]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

Theres a reason why the entire industry moved away from "SNES" (and NES) difficult.

Because it's harder to sell good games when there aren't enough people that can play them without complaining about being challenged? SNES difficult was fun, because it made you strive for your fun, instead of it just being given out.

1.: Sex has to happen in the game, not in some CG galleries or game over pictures. Make porn a part of the game, don't just attach some porn to a game. If porn only happens outside of the actual game, it feels very disconnected and forced.

You can't incorporate it as part of the game without breaking the momentum of the game, unless you incorporate as a part of the gameplay. This is remarkably difficult to do in platformers, as the majority of your time in platforming is concentrated on positioning and jump time. It sort of works in Eroico and Kuro in that you're knocked down, but it's a break from the momentum of the game, which platformers need. Mario games aren't Mario games if you're not constantly in motion, concerned with all the steps in getting where you need to go, a plan in motion... usually by fatal necessity.

2.: Quantity and Quality. One doesn't work without the other, you can have lots of crappy sex animations, the sheer number won't change the fact that the content sucks. Having only a few high quality animations is nice and all, but it doesn't change the fact that you only have a few and the customer will be left wanting more. There is only so much time you can spend on the content without getting bored of it. You need a healthy amount of both quality and quantity.

No argument there. The real issue is fitting that into the actual game in a way that doesn't detract from the gameplay.

The big question however is if Kyrieru reads the complaints and ideas and if he does, how he uses that feedback.

It's a lot harder to find the USEFUL advice in the feedback than it is to actually implement it. A lot of things sound cool, until you do it and actually try it. Then, you realize the butterfly effect that changes can have to the overall dynamic of what you make.

 

[alphaikazuchi]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

Its never a good sign when someone calls a game "SNES level difficult."

Theres a reason why the entire industry moved away from "SNES" (and NES) difficult.

NES level difficult and SNES level difficult are completely different. Anyone who lived in that era of gaming knows this. NES games were much more difficult than SNES games. Like Megaman for example. Megaman 1,2,3 etcetc are more difficult than megamanX. But, megaman x is easilly a better game, probably one of the best games. Link to the past was easier than adventure of link or the original zelda game. Super mario world was easier than super mario 2. Basically, this game isn't too hard, it isn't even like a 7 on a scale to 10. In fact this game with H-content turned off is amazing for a platformer with growth elements. Like I mentioned earlier the mechanics work well, very responsive and if you mess up it's your fault. The game shows you how things work and if you die it's not because the game is too difficult, it's because you aren't good enough. If the lasers in the sword hopping phase were random it wouldn't be fair, but they aren't. If the sword hop blocks didn't bounce you the same height everytime, it wouldn't be fair. Especially if you have the flame sword, that part of the game becomes extremely easy. The spike room is also easy after you try it a few times. None of the bosses are too hard, in fact the final boss is pathetically easy. Besides, games now-a-days hold the player's hand way too much... It's sad really, games today take no investment, you just move up and press X or something.

 

[krisslanza]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

To anyone who says the platforming is easy: you must not use a keyboard.

I couldn't get past the big spike room, because doing all that platforming with a keyboard is nightmare-ish. Probably because a keyboard doesn't work well with registering multiple key inputs at once.

I imagine with a gamepad, but...

 

[Novus]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

After beating the game the first time, I realized I missed 2 cgs and had to start over.
The second time going through was incredibly easy, after struggling to make it past the first level, skipping nearly everything in the process, the second time was just a cake walk.
I ended up grabbing every upgrade I could find and ended the game with max stats. (unless there is a hidden something I missed)
This game gave me sort of a dark souls feel in terms of difficulty, which is really good imo.
My only complaint is the lack of content.
I am aware that you said this would be just a small game to tide you between projects, but I just have to get that complaint off my chest.
Otherwise this was fantastic.

 

[alphaikazuchi]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

To anyone who says the platforming is easy: you must not use a keyboard.

I couldn't get past the big spike room, because doing all that platforming with a keyboard is nightmare-ish. Probably because a keyboard doesn't work well with registering multiple key inputs at once.

I imagine with a gamepad, but...

I used a keyboard, it wasn't that bad. You don't have to hold the jump button when you're using the hopping squares or whatever. Every keyboard lets you do atleast 2 inputs, most do 3. So that argument is still...meh. Unless you can't bring yourself to let go of every button or something.

 

[Dargoth]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

NES level difficult and SNES level difficult are completely different. Anyone who lived in that era of gaming knows this. NES games were much more difficult than SNES games. Like Megaman for example. Megaman 1,2,3 etcetc are more difficult than megamanX. But, megaman x is easilly a better game, probably one of the best games. Link to the past was easier than adventure of link or the original zelda game. Super mario world was easier than super mario 2.

None of those were hard games (except maybe MM1). Nintendo Hard applied to games like Battletoads, TMNT, Contra, Ghosts n' Goblins, etc. You either cheated with a code or Game Genie or you NEVER beat those games as a kid. It really sucked, although on one hand at least you felt you got your money's worth. Lots of NES games were arcade ports that were designed to suck quarters, but on the NES you didn't have continues (or maybe you got 3 tops if the game was nice).

So Eroico obviously isn't on that level. The problem with its difficulty is that in such a short game, you don't really have time to gradually develop the skills necessary for hard segments. You can tell that Kyrieru made a good attempt though. The first level has red blocks to practice on, but none of them are mandatory. Level 2 then introduces some mandatory blocks that are somewhat simple and stress-free. Unfortunately, the last half of the level throws you into the fire, relatively unprepared for its challenges. Level 3 is then easier than level 2, partly because you've been forced, kicking and screaming, to learn to play. To ensure a better transition and less player frustration, level 2's platforming needs to be easier, and level 3's needs to be a bit harder.

 

[alphaikazuchi]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

None of those were hard games (except maybe MM1). Nintendo Hard applied to games like Battletoads, TMNT, Contra, Ghosts n' Goblins, etc. You either cheated with a code or Game Genie or you NEVER beat those games as a kid. It really sucked, although on one hand at least you felt you got your money's worth. Lots of NES games were arcade ports that were designed to suck quarters, but on the NES you didn't have continues (or maybe you got 3 tops if the game was nice).

So Eroico obviously isn't on that level. The problem with its difficulty is that in such a short game, you don't really have time to gradually develop the skills necessary for hard segments. You can tell that Kyrieru made a good attempt though. The first level has red blocks to practice on, but none of them are mandatory. Level 2 then introduces some mandatory blocks that are somewhat simple and stress-free. Unfortunately, the last half of the level throws you into the fire, relatively unprepared for its challenges. Level 3 is then easier than level 2, partly because you've been forced, kicking and screaming, to learn to play. To ensure a better transition and less player frustration, level 2's platforming needs to be easier, and level 3's needs to be a bit harder.

I agree with that. I believe I posted earlier that if the difficulty of the level 2 and 3 were swapped it would be truly shocking how good the game is. Also, Megaman 3 wasn't too easy, but megaman 1 was harder yes. And I think games like ghosts n' goblins and battletoads are in their own tier of stupidly hard to the point where it isn't even fun. Try throwing a kid into a room with megaman 2 and ask him to play it. If hes anything like the kids today there's no way he'd be able to beat that game. Would probably rage quit and go back to call of duty or something. I dunno, I just think the difficulty complaints aren't justified.. meh. Guess some people just aren't good at games.

 

[krisslanza]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

When you consider that games are about having fun, having rage-inducing segments of difficulty is usually counterproductive to said fun.

Although there is joy in passing a hard segment, a difficult segment is also a good chance for someone to just stop playing the game altogether.

 

[Abandonedacc]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

When you consider that games are about having fun, having rage-inducing segments of difficulty is usually counterproductive to said fun.

Although there is joy in passing a hard segment, a difficult segment is also a good chance for someone to just stop playing the game altogether.

Here we go:

The whole problem about diff is if you made the game too hard people will complain and if you made it too easy people will get bored really fast, in Eroico i cant tell any part to being too hard maybe the spike room, but in easy its pretty much a cake walk.

 

[foamy111]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

Here we go:

The whole problem about diff is if you made the game too hard people will complain and if you made it too easy people will get bored really fast, in Eroico i cant tell any part to being too hard maybe the spike room, but in easy its pretty much a cake walk.

The main problem with Eroico's difficulty is that there's no real learning curve. There's no tutorial stage, no easing in, you're just kinda thrown to the wolves with no real knowledge of what's going on. When making a game the programmer needs to act like the players have never played whatever genre the game he/she is making before in their life and make the first stage or at least a practice level to ease players into the game. The way Eroico is made basically forces the player to master the controls in the first screen of the game or else they will die again and again and again. The lack of checkpoints early in the game further frustrate new players as they are forced to play through the same screens multiple times just to get use to the controls.
Adding these things can also add issues, like making the game too easy and for a short game like Eroico, it's hard to ease players in without making the game too easy.

 

[Raijinryu]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

To anyone who says the platforming is easy: you must not use a keyboard.

I couldn't get past the big spike room, because doing all that platforming with a keyboard is nightmare-ish. Probably because a keyboard doesn't work well with registering multiple key inputs at once.

I imagine with a gamepad, but...

I use a keyboard, I cleared most at the 2nd try (except the 2nd stage one, kept falling cuz I wanted to rush it, seeing as it had no danger whatsoever, the one with the heart piece on the upper left).

I agree with you though, lol. I play with my right hand on the directional keys while my left hand controls the attacks. And I am right handed, it's a weird set up, but it works wonders for me, and I kept thinking how some people, on other games, post how they are hard, and then I see this game, and well, lolz.

If the game in question uses wasd and mouse I go back to the old way though.

Also, while the spike room is likely to be the hardest spot in the game, it's also the one of the ares to be HEAVILY affected by difficulty. It's platforming that can be affected by difficulty level, shouldn't the whole game be like this? Although, that sounds a pain in the ass to do, making every platforming section similar to the spike room, not as spikey, of course, but with a way to let easy difficulty players push tru a platforming section if they made certain progress, if they didn't reach far enough, they would die to the spike dmg, if they did, they could push tru, and this gap being more limited with higher difficulty (since the spikes will do more damage).

But say someone gets stuck on the 2nd level panel slash jump section cuz they can't time well enough or dunno, not even god mode on super extra konamicode cheezy easy mode will help you there.

Save file editing does though. It's the end all difficulty issues fixer.

 

[Nete]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

foamy, the best games are the ones who doesn't need a tutorial/tutorial level, the best games can explain the gameplay and such by other means, like level design and such, like megaman X - w ww.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

 

[Raijinryu]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

foamy, the best games are the ones who doesn't need a tutorial/tutorial level, the best games can explain the gameplay and such by other means, like level design and such, like megaman X - w ww.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM

Are you saying that 'cuz Eroico does it, or doesn't? 'cuz quite frankly the only thing the first stage taught me was that if you touch a sparkly panel, you get sent in the direction you are holding, and if you hit a red one, you bounce off of it.

Where's the bit that is suppose to teach me that down+down does a stab attack in the air that does more damage that a regular attack and allows you to jump WAY higher off enemies, allowing the possibility of new shortcuts and literally trashes the 2nd boss? That would have been nice to know, at least the being able to jump way higher than the down attack from enemies. And I did know it, but forgot about it, cuz it was mentioned on his blog post on the first demo he made, I saw it no where else.


Thing is, Kyrieru probably has his reasons for everything.
Oh, and for whoever cares, you can open a slot1.txt (or 2, or 3) on the game folder and edit these:

16 ; Current Health (Health and Max can go above limit)
16 ; Maximum Health
8 ; Mana (Can't go above 8)
2 ; Sword upgrades, 1 is Lv1, guess what 2 does.
2 ; Gun upgrades, same deal.
0 ; Heart piece, 1st one.
0 ; 2nd one
0 ; Guess
0 ; 4th one
22 ; Number of "sparkles" you have, need to activate upgrade stands/thingies.
61 ; Room number, 58 is the checkpoint before the area with pretty much every enemy, 61 is the last boss, 62 is the second boss, too lazy too look for first boss.
0 ; Bubble powerup
0 ; Beam powerup (which oddly enough still makes the gun fire a beam even at max level)
1 ; I have no freaking idea.
0 ; If 1, +1 dmg to all attacks. All sword attacks normally do 1 dmg, except the down > down air stab, which does 2.
0 ; If 1, you only take 1/8 heart per hit.

Those last 2 pretty much determine the difficulty.

 

[Unnatural Kiwi]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

"Everyone's" a critic. All this difficulty talk is reminding me of the Demon/Dark Souls arguments...lol

 

[dienow]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

Nintendo Hard applied to games like Battletoads, TMNT, Contra, Ghosts n' Goblins, etc. You either cheated with a code or Game Genie or you NEVER beat those games as a kid.

I beat all of those when they came out, and I never even had a Game Genie. Those games MADE you want to beat them, because they laughed in your face until you got good enough to beat them. Games like those taught kids like me that life isn't nice and easy, and if you want to win, you have to rise to the challenge. The fun part was figuring out how to do something to not suck, and applying it so that your sucktitude factor stopped being so high.

Games these days teach kids "PRESS TRIANGLE FOR ACTION TAKEDOWN OH YEAH."

LoZ and Adventure of Link are two completely different games, and you can't compare them. One is a platformer, the other not. LttP is the best in the series, but that's because it's more significantly polished than LoZ. The only true difficulty in LoZ is the inferior control inputs and lack of diagonal movement. Otherwise, LttP is more challenging in what it requires you to think about and do. It's a second generation title iteration.

I would maintain that Super Mario Brothers 3 is better than World, so that sort of breaks your argument, too.

About needing a tutorial: Eroico didn't need one. The blocks are introduced in the first level in safe environments. If you play around with them for 30 seconds at the most, you understand exactly what you can do with them. As for your attacks, I believe Kyrieru had a listing of attacks on his website somewhere, but you'd have to follow the dev process. I can't think of anything you would need to do except create a txt file with the game that says "Please Read Me" that lists button inputs. Just what would the tutorial cover? If you haven't dealt with spike rooms, jumping, etc. before, then this would be your first platformer... which is kind of startling.

 

[alphaikazuchi]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

I think it's funny that people are still arguing about the gameplay's difficulty; The bottom line is this:

The game isn't too hard, it has a decent learning curve. The only difference that I would make is swapping of level 2 and 3's design to make it a more balanced learning experience, seeing as the platforming in level 3 is piss easy when compared to a certain room in level 2. Anyone who's played actually difficult games probably didn't have a hard time with this one and enjoyed themselves, I for one greatly enjoyed myself. People that think it's too hard... well I don't know what to say. Blame the game developers of this day and age for holding your hand through a game instead of letting you fend for yourself.

Disclaimer: By no means do I think games today are bad, I just think they exchange difficulty for accessibility. There are a few games that are the exception to this rule like Dark souls, super meat boy (One of my favorite games ever), and a lot of others that are indie games. I still felt more satisfied beating this game than I did kurovadis, but that's also because I don't like metroidvania type games too much, backtracking isn't my thing.

 

[Nete]

Re: Eroico -Develouped by kyrieru-

Are you saying that 'cuz Eroico does it, or doesn't? 'cuz quite frankly the only thing the first stage taught me was that if you touch a sparkly panel, you get sent in the direction you are holding, and if you hit a red one, you bounce off of it.

I was just disagreeing with foamy at the need of a tutorial in games really, I actually think eroico's first stage was decent but could've been much better in this regard.
Also, the game isn't too hard at all, you can't breeze through it first try which is fine by me, and you have to learn through playing and experience which is also great, it's pretty fun overall.