Has anyone else dug into this one yet?

I'm really liking it so far! I was curious if there was going to be a Quick Look of it, but I saw that Jeff showcased some of it on the last Unprofessional Fridays. Might be the last of it that we see on the site in an official capacity, I don't know. Sometimes the crew leaves games only on UPF.

Anyway, I wondered if anyone else is digging it too. The game is really tough, but fair. I'm about 3-4 hours in so far. The checkpoints are just close enough to your death that they make you work to get back to where you died, but not far enough that you decide to quit. That's really been helping me keep going besides the soundtrack and each new ability.

The game drip feeds the new skills at a decent rate and then makes you practice using them right away. Which you are grateful for later as the game continues to build upon itself, so you better learn how to use shurikens, parry, dash, etc. I don't know. I guess I just wanted to gush about it while it's still fresh in my mind.

Glad to hear it's been good, I only put a half hour in to see if it felt good (it did), gonna go back after I'm done with Hitman and Spiritfarer

I've been liking it quite a bit! I just got my fourth skill. And I agree with OP on the tough but fair. It's all fairly manageable and I like the checkpoint unlock stuff.

It feels more like NES Castlevania than I expected, knockback and all.

I don't really care about the story, but I wasn't under the impression that I would.

After seeing Jeff play it on UPF I think it might be a little too hardcore for me. Also as cool as it looks I don’t see “the hook” other than the retro aesthetic. I always think that it’s a waste to remake one of these in modern tech and then not add elements that would have been impossible to create when the game was originally developed. Maybe there is some cool stuff later on?

@humanity: Curious about it as well, because if I had seen the early parts of the Messenger I would have thought the same but that opened up a lot.

Having said that, I wasn't the biggest Shovel Knight fan and feel like it never quite went anywhere that interesting. Just, retro through and through (to be fair, never played the DLC).

@humanity: I can totally understand that sentiment. Same reason why I thought Dead Cells looked cool. It's reminiscent of older looking games, but there's effects in that game that you probably couldn't do in like the Saturn/PS1 era. I'm no developer, but it looks pretty.

I'm on the other side of this though. I find myself thinking about how this would have been a very cool, very late NES release. I also embrace the hardcore ness of it. This genre is probably the closest that I get to the whole Souls craze. Really hope that some of the crew keeps playing it and discusses it on the next bombcast.

I'll also add that the game is developed by a single person besides the soundtrack which is a two person team that includes Jake Kaufman, the man behind the fantastic Shovel Knight soundtrack. I think that's pretty cool. I always admire one person shows.

@humanity: I'm currently at the last boss and will just tell you that the game changes pretty significantly halfway through (or rather 2/3rds). Up until that point, I merely thought of it as a very good version of that kind of game. By now it has risen to the top on my list of those kinda games (modern spin on retro platformer / shoot em up) that I played in recent years. There was the occasional frustrating boss or level section but nothing was so extreme that I wanted to give up. It often only seemed that way when first encountering a new problem. At the worst, I died like 10-20 times at a few difficult sections which, yeah, I suppose can be too much already for some people. But overcoming challenges feels so rewarding in this game; as does the character getting stronger and the player mastering new abilities (things get crazy).

I'm also loving the numerous and blatant videogame references (Mario, Megaman, Metroid, Castlevania, Thunderforce, Contra, ...).

The optional upgrade system at checkpoints is a pretty clever idea, too. Usually I would attempt the next section without spending money on upgrades but if the section or boss turns out to be difficult, you can just choose to make your life easier. Really helped at certain points and and gives you an additional fun thing to consider while going through the game.

My only two small gripes:

- the game structure reveals itself to be a semi-connected Metroidvania and it became a tad confusing when I was trying to collect the last upgrades in order to 100% the levels (the map is not made for that). Collecting everything turned out to be pretty easy and quick in the end though fortunately. You can pick up 100% of the upgrades before starting the last two levels even.

- in some sections during which the game demands especially acrobatic maneuvering I found the control inputs failed me a little bit. For example, the character not turning around as quick as I wanted or a double-jump not executing for some reason.

Great game overall and I feel it's a little underappreciated at this point.

(Better than The Messenger imo and at least on par with the quality of HUNTDOWN, which was one of my favorite games of 2020).

@cptbedlam: This is good to hear!

I'm not having an exceptionally fantastic time with it or anything, but it's a fine game. I think the combat has been a little simple for me so far for a game of it's difficulty level. Having all the skills consume MP means that I'm pretty much never using any of them, so I can save it up for the boss fight. With these types of challenging platformers I'd rather they encourage you to use the different skills more to get past enemies.

Gonna second everything @cptbedlam said

Just finished the game, the back 40% of the game really sings when it all comes together

The first half I thought was pretty run of the mill

@ everyone here playing this game: try the CRT filter. It's great and I can't go back to playing without it frankly. The damaged wires filter is also pretty fun.

Since @jeff seems to be into this game, I really would love to see a regular feature of him playing through it and a couple of duders watching. No pressure obviously but I really liked the Friday stream. :)

I never got around to playing The Messenger. I'll probably finish this first, but do you think I'd enjoy digging into The Messenger after?

Also, I never even heard of HUNTDOWN and that game looks baller. Good looking out.

Finished the game with a total of 427 deaths. That seems like a lot. I don't know. Did anyone playing on Xbox consoles have issues with controller inputs? I'm guessing there's just something funky in my set up somewhere, but it seemed like I had a good number of issues just trying to get the down attack out, or double tapping to dash.

Just tried this tonight. I only played the first three levels but I enjoyed them. Noticed that there were some inacessable passages so I assumed I would be returning later. Glad to see that pans out. It feels pretty great and responsive to me. I've seen some people who have had input lag, but I haven't experienced that on my computer running Windows 10. Playing on an Xbox One gamepad and so far no problems.

I have the exact same setup. Works great for me.

I had twice the amount of deaths if that makes you feel better.

I also wasnt a fan of double tapping to dash or tapping forward to prime bullets shot at you, it felt really awkward. I went from using the stick, which i've found is fine for most games (beat super meat boy and other difficult platformers using it) but I had to convert to the d-pad which hurt my thumb after awhile.

Anyway, I enjoyed it but as far as Ninja Gaiden-likes go I think The Messenger is a much better game.

@boozak: There was an option in the menu to change those to a different command. Not sure what it changed to since I left it on the default, but I noted it was there.