SAGE 2023 - Demo EdelSuche (SAGE '23 Demo)

EngineerKappa said:

This is pretty solid so far! The character designs are cute and you did nail that classic Mega Man gameplay. The higher res pixel art also made me very nostalgic for older doujin games from the 00's.

The bosses did give me some trouble, but I guess that's to be expected in a game like this. I also do agree it'd be neat to see how you plan to differentiate it more from classic Mega Man.

Still, really neat to see and I hope development goes well!

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• The old doujin look and feel is rather charming
• I liked the secrets and small extra paths. Those are well done and fun to find
• The fairies coming out of the houses having color variations is cute and charming
• The very start of Salamander’s stage didn’t give me the best first impression. You move right and you immediately have an enemy quickly running towards you with very little time to react, which felt kinda unfair. Maybe there can be a small hole before the enemy to give the player more time to react and it can teach that the enemy jumps once it reaches a ledge? I dunno, just felt like a cheap shot.
• I feel like some things could be telegraphed a bit more. For example, the zombie miners have marked spots on the floor where they’ll pop up, but they also pop up almost instantly. Maybe some rocks/rubble could fly out of the ground a bit before they pop up to give more of a warning? Another example, in Entoria’s stage the falling platforms have no tell they’ll fall when you stand on them. Maybe they can shake a bit before falling? (There was a falling platform at the start of the stage to teach the player they fall, but it can easily be skipped/jumped over and the next time you interact with them is over spikes, so I feel it would help players who did that from being surprised)
• The screw enemies that shoot out 5 shots in Salamander’s stage sometimes blend in with the background
• The special weapons/spells felt kinda generic
• Stages felt just a little bit on the shorter side
• Taking enemies straight out of Mega Man can make the game feel derivative/lacking identity. I’d personally recommend doing that sparingly or maybe adding a twist to help it stand out. That’s just me though
• This is going to seem kinda dumb, but I’m only going to mention it because I’ve seen it be a problem in other Mega Man like games. In Mega Man, when you get towards the top of a ladder Mega Man hunches over the top which keeps his hitbox from going over the top of the ladder. In this, Cecilia doesn’t do that. Just something to keep in mind when placing enemies near ladders. Again, I’ve seen other Mega Man likes not have the ladder hunch and it led to some awkward/annoying moments

Spinopon said:

I’m always down to check out a classic Mega Man inspired game and this one is pretty alright so far. The controls are replicated very well and the level design feels fair and well designed for the most part. The 2 bosses on offer here are also pretty decent, having manageable and learnable patterns while not being too easy or too hard. I had a fun time and I’ll keep an eye out for this one in the coming years. With that said, some small points good and bad that happened to pop into my head while playing, sorry if this comes off as nitpicky or whatever.

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