Oveall thoughts
i didnt play this in a long long time, so i'll review it as if i'm a first time player:
overall i like the experience, but i'm not blown away. the enemies are for the greater part "fodder" and the difficulty is more on manuvering than killing. even manuvering is very very easy for the first 5-6 stages; the survival challenge where the map is cramped, is better by a mile. Also, super imo, putting one or two later enemies in the first stages could spice things a lot (even a purple crab or that big "dog")
the game is cool while playing, but a screenshot is not "cool enough" if you know what i mean. also is not different enough that you can recognize it by one screen, at a glance. imo all your screens should be gifs.
the animations i like a lot(explo; chests; gibs flying etc), but again, from a static screen i cannot see them
the sounds are overall great, both sfx of combat and music for mood.
Random stuff
- after clicking the exe, the program takes "a lot" to start up. the experience once you get in is flawless.
- like the menu a lot, the distortion in the "distance", is very cool. Counterpoint, the buttons seem too much out of place from everything else. i understand we need to highlight them, but imo you went too far
- pause menu is instead more cohesive
- my 8bitdo ultimate for some reason had problem with "firing". It's recognized by the game as a button in the button mapping, but in game it just wont fire (another button works as intented). so i did a check, since it's strange for a unity game to have this kind of problems: another 8bitdo (pro) works, steam controller and official xbox series also works. it should be a problem with my pad, but it has no problem with any other game, so...
- the chest on stage complete dont telegraphs that only one of the two choices can be picked. consider adding a "linked" effect
- it's cool that the bg of each weapon is the ammo type and the magazine, and the border is also the time to pick it up.
- dunno about the ammo count for your weapon in the bot left of each of them. it's so little that you really have to focus to read it;
- i did a ck in grayscale, and red and blue ammo type are very very close to each other. dunno how much u care about that tho
- in the ammo type, the base yellow for shields clashes a lot with the aim cursor, good idea to have it change with your weapon;
- the icon themselves of the ammo type are also the same, consider making them customized (you know classic light ammo is pistol rounds, med is assault and heavy is one big slug). flippin the coin, since the game is also quake-y you could consider making the icons of the ammo types something esotheric
- good to have a telegraph for dash off cd; since your game is pretty fast, consider a telegraph on the player itself
- map screen, runes are cool, but maybe hard to understand at a glance, you need mostly to highlight them. since the sides of the map screen are empty, consider an icon index you can activate if needed
- lvl up highlight is maybe too bright when not highlighted (consider playing with pad and you enter that screen with lvl up already selected)
- dunno about the design decision to let a player not open a chest and just take the gate out of the level. dunno if there is later design choice to this.
- in the merchant, i had an artifact on the far left. if i place mytself well enough, i can have both the tool tip for that artifact and the item in the normal row. imo adjust those triggers.
- rune of lesser mending is not clear enough to be a medkit (imo +33"n" is not clear enough on the first go)
- dunno about footsepts sound. it's something you notice just in the shop, since it's silent, but the sound is completely decoupled from the animation (i'm really nitpicking here)
- imo the ammo pickups are too small, and can get lost easely in battle. also they look mostly gray, imo you should point more to the color of the ammo type to be clear at a glance, even in the mist of an enemy swarm.
- i like the survival challenge a lot
- while in the engraving sub menu, d-pad moves both the ui of the menu, and the selection of the weapons
- while in engraving, i can choose to reroll or "back". if i choose back, i can choose the other reward of a level. imo this can encentivize lame play: "lemme see if i have a good engraving drop. if not, i'll choose the other reward".
- i got a "furtuituous a new pg in the nexus". after i click "i understand" the ui dosent go back to the selection to start the next level (with pad). i have to use mouse to select continue.
- at somepoint i got a level with only purple big crabs with an aoe atk. imo this kind of encounter is "bad". because it's boring if you have tons of ammo and you can just play strafe, and if you get there with almost no ammo it's very hard because a few mistakes means death, and those crabs are super tanky.
- about new chara, maybe logan and biff should have different colored suits to make them more varied (see assault droid cactus)