itch.io

Can you fire both arrows with one use of the bow?

Wow, Grandmaster boss is nuts. I had a pretty solid build I think, but I couldn't get him past 600 health. The only issues I see with my build is I had to fill up 6 inventory slots with keys to enable the key blade's damage, I went in with no consumables when my build relied on philosopher's stone to put out crazy damage turn 1, and my shield only had 12 block. That said, I was able to put out around 100-150 damage a turn if I didn't have to dedicate any energy to block. What really screwed me was the massive amount of burn he built up stopped me from being able to use the vampiric halberd to its fullest, thus nullifying my ability to heal throughout the fight. 

I feel like if I dedicated any more space to armor, my build would be severely compromised and would limit my ability to put out massive damage turn 1 through philosopher's stone, and the payout for having armor instead would have been pretty small throughout the rest of my run, although it definitely would have helped with the burn.

I don't think the Grandmaster is unbalanced per say, but I don't see how a damage-focused run could ever beat him seeing how much damage he puts out every turn. The reason I built the way I did was to blast the curse and poison enemies turn 1, and I made it through basically the entire run without much issue, never really falling under 20 health. I think the key to beating the grandmaster is just to build something that can put up 20 block or more a turn without having to spend energy, and to come in to the fight with at least one of the potions that cleanses statuses, although 2-3 would be even better. From there you would just need reliable damage output of 40-50 a turn and you could eventually chip him down, although I am not sure if you would be able to get through his summons at that rate. 

Coming back from doing another run after my last comment, I have a better perspective now on the issue with curses and poison. As far as poison goes, I see 3 possible solutions. Either allow it to hit remaining block at the start of a turn, have it apply at the start of the enemy's turn so that the player has a turn to respond, or cut the amount of poison the player receives substantially. As it is now, when the snake is paired with any other enemy that also poses a threat, it is near impossible to deal with it before it hits you with 11 poison. This means you are usually guaranteed 21 poison damage across 2 turns. If you let the snake live for 3 turns, it will apply poison again, and on that third turn, you will be hit for another 21 damage, meaning you have taken a total of 42 damage across 3 turns. Currently, the only means of dealing with this damage is to kill the monster that is creating the poison, which usually would mean dealing 120 damage across 2 turns, accounting for the snake's block. You have to do that while also putting up enough block to deal with whatever enemy the snake is paired with. One or more of the changes I listed above would fix this issue without nerfing the concept of the snake, that being an enemy that punishes you for not bursting it down immediately. 

For curses, the only solution I can see to make curses less frustrating for the player without ruining their purpose in the game is to allow the player to move existing items to new slots in order to create space for the curse. In almost every case this is still going to result in the player sacrificing items, but it won't cause so many situations where you literally cannot fit a curse without destroying a part of your build. 

The only reason I am adamant about these issues is that this game is great, but it feels really horrible when you have an incredible run going and you are easily defeating every enemy, just to be completely railroaded by enemies with a large health pool who poison or curse you. If there were permanent items or build options to deal with this, there would be less of an issue, but there aren't. Armor pieces or shields made specifically to counter curses or poison would be great and would also give more of a reason to carry more than one shield on any given run, rather than only when you get the legendary buckler.

This game is great, but I feel like curses and poison should hit block, there should be more ways to increase maximum HP, or each level should increase your size by 1 more so you have more space for consumables. As it is now every time I get to Magma Core with full health, even as I am putting out 80 damage or more every turn and putting up more than enough block to cover incoming damage plus any damage from poison or block, I get outpaced by enemies with over 100 health spitting out curses or poison turn 1. If I only fought necessary enemies and didn't take side paths maybe I could avoid this, but I feel like it is wrong to discourage that when by all means my build is firing on all cylinders. I think more enemy variety that don't just curse or poison the player would also help solve this problem.

With that said, I still think this game is incredible, and this is only a demo. Seeing the quality of what the developer has already created tells me he is probably going to analyze the data he is getting from these demo playthroughs and balance new and existing content accordingly.