Once again, copying a post I made on Steam:
Okay... let's talk about Dead Cells some more.
So, firstly: The game has received another huge update, this one currently existing only in the alpha branch.
Yet again, this heavily revamps the game's skill system. It introduces the "mutation" mechanic. Previously, each of the three scroll upgrade types would have a variety of special effects that were associated just with that type, and those effects kept increasing as the skill went up. Additionally, HP gain was almost purely set to the Survival skill (which made pure survival builds utterly broken, and shields even more broken). All of this has been changed.
To start with, each of the three stats now only gives rather simple base increases to things.... basically, all they do is give more damage to items of the associated color. But in addition, Survival is no longer associated with HP. Instead, they ALL start out giving you the exact same amount of HP. As each one is leveled up, subsequent levels of that particular stat will give you less and less HP. This means: No more super-tank builds. Focus too much and you'll actually have LESS HP than you otherwise might.
Now, as for the special effects.... you remember those from the current official build. Things like the attack boost upon enemy kills (Brutality), the cooldown-lowering of skills (Tactics) or parrying increasing your next attack's damage (Survival). Yeah. Those are not there anymore by default. Instead, you now find this dude at the end of each level, who offers you a mutation. Each mutation is associated with one of the three stats. Each stat has about... 5 of them to pick from? 4? There's quite alot of choices. And you may only choose THREE of these over the course of the entire game.
When a mutation is chosen, the strength of it's effect will depend on how high the given skill is. Each time you level up, you'll also see that mutation listed there, and you'll see that it'll go up a bit each time. Of course, try to level a stat TOO far in comparison to others and you'll be getting less and less overall benefits.
The end result: Vastly increased build diversity. Not just in terms of which stat you choose, but in terms of what each one DOES, because that's going to change each time depending on what you choose. Rather than just following a "usual" course I found myself typically making decisions based on the sorts of items I was getting... which is pretty much what the devs wanted from the start. One of the biggest concepts they've been pushing with the game is the idea of getting players to constantly switch out weapons/skills over the course of each run, instead of trying to keep certain ones way too long. Not to mention getting players to NOT just do the same bloody thing every time when it comes to skills. And really, the previous setup led to wayyyyy too much OP-ness. Hell, I watched a video earlier of the Assassin fight... the new final boss. The guy won that... mostly because he had a ridiculous 58000 HP. It didn't really matter too much what the boss did, it was pretty much a win from the start. Yeah, that's not going to work so well anymore.
Speaking of the boss: I got to him for the first time. I'll say this: This guy is sooooooo much better than the bloody Watcher. A much more well-designed fight. Well... sort of. It's honestly hard to say. The thing about it is, attack designs/patterns for this boss are VERY focused on you needing to react really fast to everything the boss does. Like, REALLY fast. In addition, the boss just.... Never. Stops. Attacking. This works out well for me, because mentally processing situations extremely fast (and thus also reacting abnormally fast) is pretty much my whole thing. It's what I do. But how well will it work for other players? Not everyone is all about speed, after all. And I found that "tactical strikes"... things like Ice Grenades.... werent even close to as effective against this maniac as they are against every other freaking thing in the game. You can try to slow him down a bit.... but it aint gonna help much.
And did I mention the part where he is just constantly bonkers? This is a fight on a flat arena, like the Incomplete One. Unlike that slowpoke though, this guy moves and strikes like lightning, and has multiple attacks that can hit at any range. At close range he has a quick sword attack. As the fight goes on he'll string together more and more of these in a combo. At long range, he has... a whole bunch of stuff. Firstly, he's got the "GET OVER HEEEEERE" hook, like a certain infamous ninja. Which can hit you from the complete other side of the arena. In addition, the projectile for this is *extremely* fast. If you've seen the Fat Jerks in the Graveyard that use a very similar attack (them being considered one of the game's nastiest enemies), it's like that, except like 5 times worse. And he can fire it at angles, because of course he can. Get hit by that, and you'll be pulled right in front of him, and stunned (and no, you cant get out of the stun before he hits you).
But that's just the start! He also has shurikens. Another super-fast projectile. But just firing one wouldnt be enough, noooo. He can fire them in a huge circle, so they go in all directions, or he can fire a long string of them. Think one is hard to dodge? How about 5 in really quick succession? Good luck rolling through or parrying THAT one.
More: A super-dash that crosses the entire arena. This one is less difficult to deal with because it's heavily telegraphed. Sometimes he'll do this more than once in a row.
And that wouldnt be as bad.... except for the fact that by the time he's doing that, he's already started the "sword rain". Giant blades fall from the ceiling. Constantly. They dont stop, even for a moment. And the boss's attack pattern is at maximum levels of bonkers here. If you're low on HP at this point, and need to heal? Yeah... good luck with that. He's not going to give you enough time to do that.
The whole fight overall reminds me alot of the Watcher's tentacle phase, except.... that level of chaos is the entire fight in this case. Which to me is much better.... the fact that you need to spend a million years chasing the Watcher around is the biggest problem with that fight as far as I'm concerned. But again... the non-stop barrage of chaos might be a bit much? I'm really not sure. You'll just have to see it for yourself, really.
Oh, but the problem with that: It still requires that you go through either the Clocktower, or the Sepulchre. The Clocktower is full of somewhat cheap hits. The Sepulchre is a gimmicky mess (and one where shields are going to be very bad, due to all of the rapidly teleporting ninjas that are EVERYWHERE). I've already ranted on about both of those stupid zones, so I wont do so here, but suffice it to say, they're nasty. Like, rage-quit nasty. If you're at all getting stuck on earlier parts of the game.... you aint seen nothing yet.
Overall though, this update is really darned nice. I love it. Dont expect to see it in an official update particularly soon though... this is in the alpha branch after all. But if you want to try it, it's easy to do so.
