Castlevania Dungeon Forums

The Castlevania Dungeon Forums => Hardcore Gaming 101 => Topic started by: X on September 24, 2021, 06:17:31 PM

Title: Actrazor remake!
Post by: X on September 24, 2021, 06:17:31 PM

Anyone seen this yet?  :o

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zki3kY4YCQ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7zki3kY4YCQ)

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: theplottwist on September 25, 2021, 07:55:54 AM

I did, am playing it. It's cool but building the first town was extremelly annoying to get through. The game just never stops throwing tutorials at you and halting your gameplay at every 5 seconds to say some dumb thing you already know how to do. Hopefully the next towns won't be as obnoxious.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Gunlord on September 25, 2021, 10:36:57 PM

The models don't look very good... :sob:

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Aridale on September 26, 2021, 08:08:50 AM

Yeah Ive seen it. Want to get it but not impressed with the visuals tho so will probably wait until I catch it on sale

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: BMC_War Machine on September 26, 2021, 01:14:08 PM

I grabbed it late last night.  I agree with all that's been said, modeling looks like a rushed, pre rendered fan game.  Tutorials slow the pace down to a crawl.  As much as i LOVE the original game, i'm having a hard time appreciating this one so far..

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: X on September 26, 2021, 11:53:12 PM

I've been playing this for a better part of the day, and despite a lot of the things I have some minor gripes with, I have to say I'm enjoying this remake.

(click to show/hide)

One of the gripes I have with this is; why did they put in a gunslinger?.. An Archer would've made far more sense considering the state of the world you're attempting to repopulate. A world that was completely devoid of human life till god (player character) came back. There is no heavy industry to support a matchlock let alone a modern-looking six-shooter. It's kinda the same beef I have with Ys 8: Lacrimosa of Dana. And that was the Transporter character (who has a gun). I think they just put these types of characters in games because they feel it's cool or something, so much so that they completely disregard the setting in which the series was built upon/takes place.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Bloodreign on September 27, 2021, 12:54:10 AM

Game Sack mentioned sprites are prerendered, and the Switch and Steam versions have issues with framerates, and the already mentioned endless tutorials that stop after the first town.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Darkmoon on September 27, 2021, 05:53:10 PM

Bloodpool wasn't much better. Even without the tutorials the game still constantly stops what you're doing to play a cut scene, then dumps you in town, then plays another cut scene. The temple is there so you can check on your people and get quests, but then the game just has to interrupt your groove to dump other crap on you. It creates a real bad stutter to the gameplay. This is the thing where you wonder whether they actually played the game or not during development.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: JR on September 27, 2021, 07:08:07 PM

Quote from: Bloodreign on September 27, 2021, 12:54:10 AM

Game Sack mentioned sprites are prerendered, and the Switch and Steam versions have issues with framerates, and the already mentioned endless tutorials that stop after the first town.

That's where I first heard of the remake. I was hoping they expanded on the town-building in a fun way, but it sounds kinda bleh.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: X on September 28, 2021, 12:38:15 AM

Quote

I was hoping they expanded on the town-building in a fun way, but it sounds kinda bleh.

They did and they didn't. You can build defensive arches and towers to stave off the invaders that like to pop up every so often. When the level of civilization goes up you bulldoze the current buildings and the people (despite being killed by the demolitions -woops!- lol) rebuild with a more advanced look and increased productivity to the structures. I think there could have been a better way to do that without sacrificing people and property. It is inconvenient when a raid happens and you just destroyed a beneficial part of the town that helps against such incursions. And yes, the interruptions do start to quickly grate on one's nerves when the player's got a good thing going. It's almost as if the game is playing at least half the game for you and you don't have a whole lot of choice in the matter. I like that they attempted to bring back a good ole title from the golden age of SNES gaming, however I feel they tried a bit too hard and in the wrong direction.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Darkmoon on September 29, 2021, 08:34:53 PM

Yeah, the town defense part of the game feels really tacked on. You could do a lot of the other stuff in the original title -- control where your people built, destroy old sections of town as the civilization level went up (which allowed you to increase the population more and potentially get enough "town experience" to level up again). I like the fact that faith from quests, and not just population level, is the metric for leveling up, although even then it does reduce the need for the town building. Why craft the town more specifically when eventually you're just going to get all the EXP you can from quests and then the town doesn't need you anymore?

I also though putting little action sequences in the demon portals was interesting. I didn't hate that as it did help to break up the pace some. At the same time, though, I really dislike that you can't just go and take out the portals and focus on the town building. The structure of the town building is so regimented that there's no improvisation to be had. The pace is all wrong, made only worse by the town defense sections. I didn't think "more features in Actraiser" would be a bad thing after everything they ripped out of Actraiser 2, but this game just doesn't have the right balance to its new features.

The one change I fully support, though, are the enemy drop-crystals. Those made fighting and killing enemies in the platforming sections more interesting, and the bonuses were nice. Otherwise, yeah... as pretty as the game looks and sounds, there's a lot that doesn't work about this remake.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: BMC_War Machine on October 03, 2021, 05:36:56 PM

So i spent about 8 hours this weekend with this again to give it another chance and while it's still not what i'd like to have in an actraiser remake, it still became fun after i gave it some time.  If you can get past filmore then you should be fine lol.  I haven't beaten it yet, im at marahna now.  But if you're on the fence with this, give it another shot.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: X on October 04, 2021, 10:33:40 AM

Funny thing. Marahna is more difficult then the final area of the game: Northwall. I don't know why that is. It was perhaps the hardest area in the original, but not in the remake. Has anyone stuck around to get a 100% in each area? Both me and my bro did.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Abnormal Freak on October 04, 2021, 03:49:41 PM

The God sim part of it looks kinda boring and that's my favorite aspect of the original, so I doubt I'll play this unless it becomes hugely discounted.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Gunlord on October 07, 2021, 02:10:33 AM

Been playing this a bit and REALLY enjoying it. My only problem is that the graphics are genuinely so bad, this would be an absolute 10/10 if they had like classic sprite artists working on it instead of the cheap mobile graphics, because the music and strengthening of the plot is really really good.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: zangetsu468 on October 10, 2021, 03:15:55 AM

I was pretty hyped and surprised this was actually happening, judging from the comments it doesn’t seem like a remake the way Link’s Awakening, for instance, was a remake. I might have to watch some gameplay footage and see whether it’s worthwhile.

Title: Re: Actrazor remake!
Post by: Darkmoon on October 11, 2021, 03:23:35 PM

Yeah, the game looks like it was designed in answer to SolSeraph, an "ActRaiser-like" that added in some town defense over the basic ideas of ActRaiser. This is like that game... but worse.