If the controls were just a little more responsive I would be fine. 'Cause you got 2 attack modes. Moving and Stationary. But hitting Esperia requires frame perfect precision. You know she'll teleport behind you but you have to move or you're dead. Doing intermittent stationary attacks was difficult. With Svoli, theoretically, I could move 2 tiles - stop - and do a stationary attack and hit Esperia before she teleports away. Do just enough damage that she doesn't completely recover by my next attack. Then I could whittle her down that way.
But in reality, I'd stop on a tile - press attack - and still do a moving forward attack because the event processes kinda lag behind for a few frames. I think adding "exit event processing" to a number of conditional branches would improve response time.
I think thats more because all weapons have a small cooldown. The Divine Spears is no different, mostly its not a forced cooldown, and just because the spears have to travel their full length before they are ready to be used again, but I may be able to make it snappier. The issue with moving not moving is definitely valid, and i may simply destroy 'not moving' alternate fires. Or simply make it a separate key-press.
The biggest thing this ABS is missing is damage recoil. If you hit an enemy, all they do is flash red. They don't stop or take a step back.
A lot of fights don't have this due to how easily move-routes can be messed up with something so simple. There was a time when this was a thing and it ruined several boss fights. Teleporters it wouldn't effect much, such as the Esperia you fight in Blood Council, the thing is it's more consistent if no fights have it than only some.
Systems aside, I have a few thoughts on the story. I actually played the Hellcat demo after this. I notice a deleted scene in Heldath which would have tied into Hellcat. I suppose you had your reasons for leaving it out. It looks like it was suppose to take place between Acts, as if, while Pep and everyone was falling to the ground Esperia popped over to this other dimension to have a conversation. That would have been weird. And honestly, it was right in the middle of the highest point in the story, it's probably the worst place to plant a story seed for a larger arch.
With a little tweaking it could worked as a post credit scene.
Oh gosh, yes that old thing was actually designed to play shortly after the Esperia fight, but I removed it for a multitude of reasons.
A. It did nothing to largely help the story of Perseverance, only to tie it into Hellcat, at least in some very vague manner. This game takes place before that game, and it's not like you can't visit Heldath in other games.
B. The tiles were ugly as sin compared to the rest of the game, furthermore characters like Seradath and Anathema making an appearance would have prompted the creation of more portraits. It would not have at all meshed well with the aesthetic.
C. Anathema goes some places with dialogue that she probably shouldn't.
All said and done, It is possible I may add it back in some manner for the PFC wide-screen patch. I suppose since it's a bit more than just a resolution patch, I should talk a bit about it and what may be coming in it.
PFC Widescreen Patch Planned Change List.
General
-Resolution will be changed from 640x480 to 960x544. Full-screening the game will now be ideal for widescreen ratio monitors. if off by a matter of a few pixels.
-The Radio will no longer be overlapped by the BOSS_HUD. There is now enough room for both to coexist.
-All maps will be scaled up from 20x15 to 30x17. This process, especially with parallax mapping, will be what takes the largest amount of time.
-Alternate fire will be removed. Most of theme were rarely used or just buggy, the following will be what is effect.
--Shotgun no longer has recoil when standing still.
--Orbs of Annihilation is now Orb of Annihilation, utilizing the move-fire, the previous 8-orb area effect will be scrapped.
--The Zodiac will now simply throw an hour glass and do damage to 9 tiles, no more charge-punch, which was dangerous to use and not enough damage to make it viable.
--The Lich Reaper will go back to being the 'stand still a moment' sniper rifle, without the easy-fire for less damage method.
--The Warthog's Cleaver will go back to it's 2-tiles in front heavy smash.
--The Black Death will go back to being a boomerang and solely that.
--The Recusant Glaives will go back to their 4 orbs of random death. No more unreliable and hard to see move-fire.
--The Impetus will drop its melee-attack capabilities.
--The Etheral Blade's parry-shield will be removed, as it was mostly buggy and broken, anyway.
--Divine Spears will utilize their usual 8-way fire. Their damage will also be normalized, as scaling off of distance travelled was buggy. Three-spear straight ahead attack is no more.
Monsters
-Esperian Soulcatchers will be given updated graphics, and their movesets will become a lot more difficult to predict. Their bite damage will be reduced to 25.
-Bloodseekers in the Xepp 2 encounters will do slightly less damage.
Bosses
-Naxonite Attack Chopper sometimes unduly hit the player before the targeting reticle was even visible, this will be corrected.
-Saxxis #1 will drop a splode barrel on each platform he's instending to set alight.
-Esperia #1 has no planned changes.
-The Clash of Leaves will have no changes.
-Esperia #2 will have no changes.
-Saxxis #2 will have no changes. Although the places where jumping is possible may be highlighted.
-Warth'og will use cleave more and sky barrage less. Jumping areas may be given indication.
-Naxon #1 will not undergo any changes.
-The Helgate will not be changing, however the soulcatcher you fight will have less predictable AI as a result of the upgrade to soulcatchers.
-Esperian Blood Council will see Esperia's regeneration rate halved. Kloe, Kira and Kyon will have much less predictable AI and each their own moves.
-Naxon #2 will be mostly unchanged. However it's likely the summoning of two Orb Dreadcasters in phase 2 will be done away with due to the lag it creates.
-Esperia #3 will now be able to be damaged with all weapons. Regardless of phase. Her reactionary Shadow-kick will thusly be removed.
-Nola Deus fight will be a little less lackluster and more structured.
-Xepp 1 is fine.
-Xepp 2 is probably my favourite boss fight.
-Xepp 3 may be redesigned, depending on things. He doesn't exactly feel climactic the way Esperia does. I mean, it's not that he's exactly meant to- the whole gimmick is that he's meant to feel like fighting another player.
Superbosses
-In this patch, five super-bosses will be added to the game.
-The Freedom Fighters (Lumi, Koko and Lilac fighting you together.)
-The Devil behind the Pale Door (Tiramisa, lore-dated preview of this fight in its early stages can be found in the game files, but also in
the form of a youtube video.)
-The Impetuous Sussuration (Member XII) boss fight that is done with Esperia, leading to the likelyhood of that area seeing use.
-The Man of a Thousand Names (M.F. Lazarus, found by entering Splode's lab after he's been murdered. Only the boss-fight and after-scene remains,
a video exists that shows what is done already.)
-????? (
Xali.)
Areas
-Heldath, the Vahnuswailan Isles, and a couple other locations will be accessible for the sake of new end-game content.
There's probably more but that's all i can think of currently. Here's a couple screenshots, too.
Granted, this game will take quite some time to fully reboot with the whole 'making the maps larger' thing. Infact some areas will radically change due to that 3 maps can now be fit in two! 30 tiles wide, means that before it was 3 maps of 20 tiles, where now its to maps of 30, to make 60 tiles in full. Some maps will have to be alttered drastically to make use of the new tech, but some can remain largely unaffected, this includes all boss arenas. Although it will still be all the work of reposition and recalculating all event transfers and player transfers. That said once i start properly working on it it shouldn't take long. I already got Act 0 and a good chunk of Act 1 done.
