Really cool game! For anyone wondering about the whole quarantine thing, I ran the files through VirusTotal and Microsoft Defender and neither of them said there was any malware so if you held off on downloading this (like me) because of itch.io freaking out over nothing; it's safe, don't worry. That aside, here are my thoughts:
- I'd like to preface this by saying I only found out about big booba mode AFTER i finished the game. Why?? How can you be so cruel as to hide the best feature in the game in the bloody options menu?? Please keep it on by default next time.
- Ran pretty good. Never once had a framedrop or crash even during the boss, so idk what those other guys are on about unless they're playing on Brazilian Lenovo ThinkPads from 2007.
- Animations are 10/10. I specifically mean the player's animations and the boss because the enemies are just sorta "man bonk club". Fucking loved just jumping and doing the spinny twirl attack, looks so pretty and the follow up animations are great too. Also the ctrl+parry shot behind the back is insanely cool. The only sorta iffy one out of the bunch was the upward kick. Her feet just kind of glide back, plus I think the timing for it needs to be just a teeny bit more snappy. Also the gun animations are WAY too fast, which is perfectly okay but maybe have a little downtime after firing. I remember seeing the weapon models on a gamede/v/ thread some time ago and know for a fact the shotgun looks bloody awesome, so it's a little shame we don't get to see much of it.
- The artstyle is fucking gorgeous. Really stellar environments, texturework, models, particles, the whole shabang. Reminds me of something from (insert AAA game with an 8 figure art budget here), just really adore everything about it.
- Combat's not that bad. I can certainly see the direction it's heading but you're currently being held back with such simple enemy Ai. I 'want' to launch enemies into the air, do big combos into my gun, downlaunch them, fight tight one-on-one's with the assassins, the kind of stuff but there's no reason or way to when they just wander up for a smackdown and die in a couple hits. On that topic, is the shotgun parry supposed to kill everything in one hit?
- There was a bug where the player character moved in slow motion after dying from falling. This reset after getting hit by the boss but it at least let me appreciate the animations a bit more.
- Camera isn't locked in the pause screen. This isn't a complaint, just thought I'd tell you. But on the topic of cameras, I think the player camera is just a tad too close to the player. Makes it a little difficult during combat to keep track of where enemies are.
- Level design needs some work. Clearly this is just a demo and, hopefully, will be changed in the final game but please don't fall into the "arena -> hallway -> arena -> hallway" loop. Take what the player can do and accomplish that through the level design itself to solve puzzles or platforming. I really think you could do away with several of these hallways/arenas and instead had a more concise experience instead.
All in all, lovely game with a bright future ahead of it. Bloody well done.