i put a good hour into the kuf: circle of doom demo and i have come to the conclusion that lyte edge has a little yellow dick. despite the horrendous screen tearing, it was a welcome relief to be playing a game with REAL GRAPHICS after the fugly-ass mess that is super mario galaxy. jesus christ the wii sucks.
anyhow, i enjoyed it, although it has a fair few problems. to get those out of the way, they are:
1. sloppy timing issues on button presses for attacks
2. attacks require sp, which is designed to keep you from abusing the heavy weapons (which drain sp far faster), but there's no good feedback in a visual-haptic sense to tell you when your sp is drained and you can't continue a combo outside of watching a bar when you should be watching battle. wtf! KOOKY KOREA-Y.
3. needs better equip feedback so i can tell when something is a substantial improvement. i can tell at a glance whether or not damage or bonus hp is an upgrade, but i also wanna know about the sp consumption rate, sp requirements, and any tertiary abilities without menuing around.
4. god i hate synthesis systems for upgrades. this one's pretty stupid and easy outside of the gay success-failure gambling bit, but i still hate synthesis as a concept. why do dirty easterners stick this in their diablo clones? (see: shining force neo/exa, lodoss war et al.)
5. screen tearing LOL.
6. since big weapons use sp faster than you can regen it, you chug a LOT of creamy white potions -- even in mid-combo. zzzz.
7. NEEDS MORE STATS. when you level, you upgrade hp (which lets you take more damage, spluh), sp (which affects EVERYTHING, including what you can equip and how fast your strikes/magic recharge), and luck (which apparently improves crits and drops).
the GOOD which is good
1. omg graphics. next gen total. nice combat animations, and the monster designs are OMG OMG OMG FUCK MY CHERRY ASS OMG.
2. you can assign a weapon individually to the X and A buttons, or a weapon to one and a shield to another, and your character weilds both. when i give lestat the vampire bishie a kusarigama and a dual katana, i can use A to soften up and position enemies with a chain attack, and then go crazy with dual sword combos. some weapons, like the shield (bash) and the kusarigama/chain are used more to herd enemies and do crowd control, which is an awesome play dynamic. since battle is also all about sp management, it's best to have one button with a quick low sp weapon that does fuck all damage and can be used to herd monsters together, and then have a heavy of some variety on the other so you can slaughter the herd without having to chug white potions en masse. this is a game of crowd control, pure and simple -- it is half dynasty warriors and half diablo.
3. lots and lots of modifiers and skills on equipment to play with, and mucking about with SP regen rates is horribly compelling for the ocd nerds like me.
4. random dungeon generation is surprisingly good, with elements placed REALLY well and monster clusters/sub-bosses well-placed and chosen algorithmically. no arkadian warriors this!
5. OMG 4P CO-OP
6. loot and levels come fast and furious
i rate this a small horny badger out of a dark shake on cheebs coupling session. i will definitely buy, albeit with a few reservations.
