Legend of Iya -- Interesting Kickstarter

[Pepisolo]

My friend showed me this the other day, a metroidvanian style game with great spritework.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/523651724/legend-of-iya

Looks like it will struggle to meet its goal target, which is a bit of a shame. There is a playable demo available. Check it out if interested.

I haven't decided whether to support it myself yet, especially as I find kickstarters with early bird tiers annoying. The spritework is tremendous, but the demo felt a bit lacklustre. The controls were quite sluggish. Hey, this is very early alpha, though. There is a bit of a Treasure feel about it, though. A little bit Gunstar Heroes-esque.

I'm on the fence a little with this one...

[KingIsaacLinksr]

My friend showed me this the other day, a metroidvanian style game with great spritework.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/523651724/legend-of-iya

Looks like it will struggle to meet its goal target, which is a bit of a shame. There is a playable demo available. Check it out if interested.

I haven't decided whether to support it myself yet, especially as I find kickstarters with early bird tiers annoying. The spritework is tremendous, but the demo felt a bit lacklustre. The controls were quite sluggish. Hey, this is very early alpha, though. There is a bit of a Treasure feel about it, though. A little bit Gunstar Heroes-esque.

I'm on the fence a little with this one...

So I tried out the demo for the heck of it and here are some thoughts:

1) No spreadsheet of estimated development costs and what individual items will cost is a big no from me. If I'm going to kickstart a project now, I need detailed information that at least tells me they have a good idea of how much development will cost. Not just a general rough estimate. Even if they missed their early projections, I can be forgiving because the project person tried. We've had way too many Kickstarter projects go way over budget because they estimated too low and I'm no longer forgiving of that. I need facts. Not guesses.

2) Combat is extremely dry and dull. I know that it's a demo and early alpha but there are a metric ton of 2D platformers on the market and my standards have gotten pretty high for what I'll find enjoyable in this scene. Just spamming the punch button isn't nearly enough and from what I saw of the trailer, there doesn't appear to be any other kind of combat so that's concerning.

3) As a follow up to #2, the graphic style really isn't that engaging to me. I know this is personal preference but there isn't much here for the eyes to feast upon. It's an average-to-good graphic quality for pixel-art but there are plenty of games that have done pixel-art better. Or at least, more interesting. Nothing the trailer showed me caught my eye either.

4) Way too much dust cloud effect. I noticed this in the trailer but the amount of dust the character kicks up is a bit distracting and bemusing.

5) Controls are way too sluggish and floaty, which only gets more irritating when trying to deal with the flying monsters.

I know I'm being hard on this game but this is a highly competitive genre and the guy hasn't shown anything that is new or different to engage my interests. It's probably why the Kickstarter is struggling to meet its goal. It needs something more and he isn't selling the best features. If it has a good story, he doesn't show it off as far as I can tell. Selling a game purely on it's graphic style is a mistake and clearly that's what he's trying to do.

Thanks for sharing it though.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I'm just going to say this piece based on what I read.

1. A story-based metroidvania? Are you mad? A couple of dialogues is fine, like in the later Castlevanias, but completely story-based is going to heavily mar the exploration factor of the game. That's enough to push me away in a major way. You can't really competently structure a story-based game and have it also be nonlinear or have too many branching paths. Either the gameplay or the story will suffer as a result. Judging by the fact that he's worked on Monster Tale, it's probably going to be the gameplay that suffers.

2. The actual gameplay doesn't really look deep or impressive. Metroid games give you a lot of tools and cool weapons and dangerous native enemies. Castlevania games give you a lot of RPG elements, spells, and weapons. This looks like a game where the stakes can't really get higher from where they begin. Super Metroid has you move from Zoomers to almost-invulnerable Space Pirates as you move from fairly strong to almost invulnerable. Castlevania games give you glyphs to combine in countless ways (Ecclesia) or allow you to steal enemy attacks outright (Sorrow). What sets this game apart? It looks like you have to wander from waypoint to waypoint just to watch each cutscene and get the slide/double jump/screw attack/energy tank, same as every other metroidvania.

I'm not impressed, frankly. Maybe I'll play the demo, but I don't even feel like spending my time on that. I've played almost every metroidvania there is, and this is the only one that I haven't seen any kind of unique mechanic or major difference. Pretty sprites isn't enough for me.

Edit: I will amend point 2. It has a combo system going for it, but that looks like all. Unfortunately, again, that's been done more than enough in this genre anyway. It's not like it, say, contributes to your score or anything, so there's not much reason to do it aside from feeling cool. Monster Tale did it, as did Fortune Summoners. Fortune Summoners actually practically made the combo system mandatory, because the combat was incredibly hard. You had to keep enemies locked down or you were basically dead. Monster Tale gave you more materials for combos. Doesn't look like there's any incentive here.

[Pepisolo]

No spreadsheet of estimated development costs and what individual items will cost is a big no from me. If I'm going to kickstart a project now, I need detailed information that at least tells me they have a good idea of how much development will cost. Not just a general rough estimate. Even if they missed their early projections, I can be forgiving because the project person tried. We've had way too many Kickstarter projects go way over budget because they estimated too low and I'm no longer forgiving of that. I need facts. Not guesses.

Yeah. Some information in this area would've been nice. One of the costs is going to be in hiring a sound designer, but that's all I've gathered so far. It's really not the best run Kickstarter I've seen, for example, the demo wasn't available until recently; the dev was spending his time trying to get the demo out while he could have been working on his Kickstarter campaign. If you're doing a demo, you should really get it into shape before launching the Kickstarter.

Controls are way too sluggish and floaty, which only gets more irritating when trying to deal with the flying monsters.

This is the biggest problem for me. If the game was more responsive it'd help a lot.

2. The actual gameplay doesn't really look deep or impressive. Metroid games give you a lot of tools and cool weapons and dangerous native enemies. Castlevania games give you a lot of RPG elements, spells, and weapons. This looks like a game where the stakes can't really get higher from where they begin. Super Metroid has you move from Zoomers to almost-invulnerable Space Pirates as you move from fairly strong to almost invulnerable. Castlevania games give you glyphs to combine in countless ways (Ecclesia) or allow you to steal enemy attacks outright (Sorrow). What sets this game apart? It looks like you have to wander from waypoint to waypoint just to watch each cutscene and get the slide/double jump/screw attack/energy tank, same as every other metroidvania.

One thing that the developer seems to want to include is a puzzle element. Nothing major revealed so far, just basic pull/push block puzzles in the demo. If the dev can tighten the combat and the combo system up I could see how that would provide a lot of fun, although at the moment the mechanics don't feel so good.

Oh, here is a Lets Play by the dev if anyone doesn't want to install the demo:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyoxDMaY7mA

The dev mentions Shadow of the Beast in the trailer so he's obviously a top guy!  Not sure I can support just based on that, though. I'm feeling generous towards this project, so maybe. We'll see.

Thanks for your thoughts, guys.

[LaughingThesaurus]

So it's kind of metroidvania puzzle platformer. Admittedly, still something I've seen before, but at least it's just something that doesn't appeal to me that I don't mind. I still think a strictly story-driven metroidvania is a bad idea. I think games like, say, Metroid Fusion suffered as a result of being too story driven... not as if that game was bad, but it was more a survival horror platformer than it was a metroidvania. I'm interested to see if, maybe it actually tells a lot of story through the environment. Something very cool about, say, Super Metroid is the fact that the world itself told a story. I always appreciate that in a metroidvania, because it jives really well with the idea that you're exploring the world.
I don't really have enough information to hypothetically support it.

[Pepisolo]

Phew. Closest Kickstarter campaign I've been interested in. Reached it's funding goal with only hours to spare. Hopefully the dev will do a good job of managing his budget. If so, should be a decent little game when/if it comes out.