Hey! Enjoyed Waddle Knight 1, and liking Waddle Knight 2 as well. I played WK1 with the benefit of it being just a couple months back, at the end of the patch cycle, so I sort of figured going into this one playing the demo there'd be some balance things. Figured I'd share some feedback from what I've played thus far, having reached Fire Dyna Blade.
The Good
- The new healing system is much better. Getting hit in WK1 was double punishing because it halved(?) your healing gauge, whereas the new Focus meter allows more comebacks from the brink.
- Likewise, some of the new abilities and the partners are great. The spear twirl and Waddle Doo shot feel great, and I like the new buddies' different niches, and how they carry into the shmup sections.
- Graphically the bump-up in polish is noticeable, and the animation work and tells are generally quite good.
- Great soundtrack selections.
The Bad
- I'm getting occasional stutters and frame stops on a fairly strong gaming laptop, mostly at game launch. They seem to go away the more I play in a given session.
- Charge attack's prep time and damage feels reasonable, but the visual effect/sound effect/range all feel a bit lacking. Visually, its tough to see if its a charge slash or not. Some more "oomph" here would go very much appreciated.
- Yellow stars left over after attacks feel... a bit vestigial in the context of this game. It adds to the Kirby vibe of it all, but I'm always hoping the RNG roll makes them pink stars and not yellow, because yellow stars linger and close off openings. I feel like pink/yellow stars should be non-random, OR have some ways to clear/deflect yellow stars; maybe shoot them with Bronto Burt or something? This came to a head in the Masked Dedede fight, where his puff-up move to launch you back would routinely rocket me into lingering yellow stars for what felt like guaranteed damage.
- I'm left wishing my horizontal attacks just had a biiiit more range very often, due to collision damage being such a thing in this game, especially pre-Shade Dash.
- Jump through platforms feel buggy. Very often in fights involving them heavily, I feel like they're "eating" my jump and I end up just walking off the side. If the game doesn't have coyote time, I think adding it would improve game feel a lot.
- I can't seem to get my secondary attacks to work in SHMUP sections?
The Bosses
- Standouts thus far are Kabula, Storo, Skullseer, Mega Titan, Fire Lion, Kracko EX, and Doc. Of those, Mega Titan felt the most ingenious with its health-regen gimmick, Kracko had the best tells by far, and Fire Lion is an exceptionally well done gank boss when you learn how the Lion's moveset and openings work. It synergizes impressively well with Batafire.
- Wiz misses the above list by a hair, due to what I assume is a glitch; the spotlight tell for the spotlight zoom attack doesn't match where the screen eventually zooms in on, which led to me getting misled and hit.
- Moley's first phase is benign enough, but the addition of Boxer feels like too much going on, especially pre-Shade Dash. If you're trying to evade Boxer and Moley does the triple bolt throw at a distance, the screen is clogged and you're basically forced to take a hit. Plus, the addition of added minions after blitzing one down feels a bit out of place for the first double boss; not even Fire Lion, the post-shade dash duo fight, does that.
- The purple clouds feel finicky in the Whispy EX fight; I wish they'd give a bit more height.
- Boh boh falls victim to the jump through platform thing...
- ...which is doubled down on even more in Fire Dyna Blade, where I got walled and tapped out for the session. The openings feel so sparse (all of her attacks come from her head, which you have to be hugging dangerously close to hit), the middle platforms feel sticky, the middle phase is absurdly punishing if you fall off the debris, and the remix the first phase for what I assume is the final phase is even more punishing. With how quickly you can die from falling in Phase 2, I almost think that there shouldn't be platform gaps in Phase 3. The addition of lingering flames on the ground is oppressive enough, along with the longer attack chains. Also; how the heck do you avoid taking damage from the charge up animation of her big beam attack?