First off - Let me say that I love the idea behind a procedural generated Metroidvania - and I think that the game shows an incredible level of polish and starts showing off the potential of the genre as a whole. I'm going to break my feedback into some shorter pieces and leave it you to decide how helpful it might be.
One thing I've been noticing through feedback and thinking about the control schemes of the game is that there might be too many spells per archetype - but not enough variation of those spells through directional positioning.
Okay, so - that was designerese up the wazoo, let me explain what I mean -
1. The ideal controller schema of directional pad, L and R trigger and 4 keypad buttons cannot fit 4 spells, jump, move and directional aiming.
2. The keyboard scheme of 4 spells does not allow you to easily support mouse controls - as the mouse only supports two buttons and directional aiming.
It seems like this is where most of the issues lie in trying to find an ideal control setup for AVVW2 - There are too many basic inputs.
However - from playing through the limited spells - it doesn't seem like many of these spells *need* directional bindings at all - For example, most of the magic categories look like this:
Attack 1 (Long Range Dart)
Attack 2 (Some Positional Craziness - attacking at odd angles)
Defensive High Block Spell
Ammo Based HIT ALL THE THINGS spell.
Attacks 1 and 2 obviously need fine tuning and precision of aiming - but it's not altogether clear that the defensive spells really benefit from this approach - Case in point - The Spark Bomb spell, the Defensive Flash spell and the Campfire spell all pretty much ignore your directional approach.
Why is this important? It implies that - with more careful thought around the spell structure - a more precise control schema looks something like this:
W/A/S/D movement.
Mouse aim for the primary angles (45 up, straight on, 45 down)
Left Click (Spell 1)
Right Click (Spell 2)
Shift (Block / Defensive Spell)
Some other key close to W/A/S/D (Ult)
Space (Jump)
(For an example game of where this works pretty well - Try digging up an old copy of a DOS game called ABUSE.)
And on a controller it looks something like.
L/R triggers - aim up and aim down.
X/Y - Jump/Defensive Spell
A/B - Bolt one / Bolt Two
Some combination of L/R/A or L/R/B for ultimate.
A followup thought to this is whether or not you truly need 4 spells for a category of magic and whether or not a simpler set of spells (3 spells) that can be altered through context would be a superior system - For example: You can very easily imagine a "sword" based power set that has very different swings and attack patterns based on whether you were jumping, running or crouching that could cover two or more spells in the same power-set.
TL;DR - Control Schema and Spell Usage are inter-related systems. Perhaps problems with Control Schema could be solved by streamlining Spell Schema - end result would be a tighter cohesion/unity without the need for excessive calibration.
P.S. - In case you were thinking it, somehow, yes.
