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Eddie the Suicidal Superman

First off, I created a feedback video that talks about certain aspects of the game.


This review is relevant as of X-Noir Demo v.2.0, 02/10/2013 04:53 AM
This was going to be an unrated review, but I decided to rate it for now. I'll N/A the score by request of the creator when the review is dated.

** Story **


in version 2.0, there are 3 cases the player must solve. Each case is connected to an overarching plot that keeps the player hooked. Most of the characters are intriguing, and the main character is memorable.

The NPCS not connected to the cases are okay, but due to the fact that the game takes place in one city,
you'll be seeing the same NPCS with no new dialogue quite a lot.
This makes the world feel very static, and voids potential world building.

The game tries to be dark and mature, what with the main character's unfortunate case of depression. This is all well and dandy until Eddie tries to commit suicide at the start of the game. I can't put my finger on what the problem is, but Eddie's depression just doesn't make sense. I feel as though many players will not connect to Eddie. He apparently had a hard life that's never experienced in-game, Eddie killing himself so early into the plot is not going to bother me; not until I get to know the character.

Overall, I rate the story a 4 star. While Eddie's motivation puzzled me, I nevertheless enjoyed the plot, and it definitely kept me playing the game.

✰✰✰✰

** Gameplay **


You have three modes of gameplay, The Investigations, The Puzzles, and The Shootouts. For the Investigation missions, you're usually running around the city talking to people and having the occasional choice here and there. I found it very convenient to play the game and experience the story. X-Noir gives you objectives that helps locate NPCS. This voids the chance of a player getting lost and frustrated.

Unfortunately, there's a problem in one of the major features, the anxiety meter. Every time the player doesn't pay attention and picks the wrong choice in dialogue, Eddie's anxiety meter will increase. The problem is that after case 1, Eddie may indulge in activities which lower the meter and have no limit of use.
This makes the anxiety meter useless.

The Puzzles were all designed very well, and was fun. I have no real issues with it.

The Shootouts... are weird. While in moderation the shootouts are fun, but due to the fact that 80% of the monsters will always respawn, you'll be fighting a lot more than you would like. This wouldn't be so bad if the controls weren't clunky and hard to get use to.

The bosses in-game span from easy due to AI exploitation, to tedious levels of long, and not hard whatsoever.
The player may stack up to 99 healing items.
Which means that Eddie is an unkillable beast with no limitations to how many item drugs he can take in the menu screen while in battle.

I honestly feel as though this battle system needs an overhaul, but for now I recommend limiting the amount of items Eddie can carry, and KEEP THE BATTLES SHORT AND SWEET. Make the player want more by giving him very little. Do not pad bosses with a lot of health, and have areas with respawning targets.

✰✰

** Music **

The only track I knew was ripped is the remixed Persona 3 boss theme. Every other track was unique to my ears, and some of it was beautiful to listen to. the music also fits the scenes it was added to. I might have to steal that mp3 that plays in Eddies Apartment. <3

✰✰✰✰

** Graphics **

The modern and futuristic tilesets are all very beautiful, and used competently. Though I must say that I wished the game would either fancy up the mapping, or add new parts of the city. After case 2, I was sick of retracing the same buildings for different cutscenes.

Also, there are a few mapping errors. One in particular was in the first boss battle. You could maneuver the boss onto his desk, and precede to move left and right, stopping the boss from shooting you or hitting you in melee range.
More reason why I don't like the battle system for this game...

Oh yeah, and Ronove's artwork for the portraits are awesome. I hope she'll draw replacement art for some of the other characters, because as of this demo, some NPCS are fitted with RTP facesets of uncanny+1.

✰✰✰ 1/2

Conclusion score, 3.5

I like the game. I like the characters. I like exploring the world and helping NPCS. But X-Noir needs a lot more polish.
I can recommend the game in its current state, but do yourself a favor and buy a shotgun and a lot of healing items.
spam melee and range at the same time for 80% of the fights.

You'll thank me later.

Posts

Pages: 1
First off, thanks for the time and effort you put into all this. I feel like a jerk about not having a "thanks for playing" bit at the end, that seems like an oversight. You also found a few bugs that have so far gone unreported so that's good. A few clarifications:
-You can disengage from combat at any time by pressing the Q button.
-The blue arrows in the box moving puzzle don't move at random. When the box moves over one blue arrow, all the blue arrows rotate once. So with enough advance planning, you can anticipate the box's path although it gets complicated.
-Most of the NPCs change their dialogue at the start of a new case. That may not be often enough, but then again this is Eddie and changing them every time he goes to the bar could be a lot of work!
-You noted the transitions numerous times...funny story about that. The last major feedback we got was that the intro was far too slow-paced, enough for the reviewers to quit after 15 minutes. Tried to fix that but now this way is apparently a problem. I guess that's the RM community in a nutshell.

A lot of the mechanics are still in development, which is why this kind of thing is so useful. The anxiety meter in particular has another role that is unconnected to how often the player brings it down in the apartment. But I agree that its current state is fairly inconsequential and we're still trying to figure it out completely. I'll let ArtBane speak to the battle system stuff since he's more knowledgable on the details.

Regarding Eddie and his motivations, I suppose at this point I can only hope the experience of the entire game would help people reflect on his earlier actions and have more understanding. I had hoped that the mystery of his behavior would intrigue people as the game went on and more details came out slowly...didn't want to bog everything down with his whole backstory right away. Again, thanks a lot for giving us feedback on this scale. Much appreciated!
Glad this was helpful. :)

author=Volrath
First off, thanks for the time and effort you put into all this. I feel like a jerk about not having a "thanks for playing" bit at the end, that seems like an oversight. You also found a few bugs that have so far gone unreported so that's good. A few clarifications:
-You can disengage from combat at any time by pressing the Q button.
-The blue arrows in the box moving puzzle don't move at random. When the box moves over one blue arrow, all the blue arrows rotate once. So with enough advance planning, you can anticipate the box's path although it gets complicated.
My fault.

author=Volrath
-Most of the NPCs change their dialogue at the start of a new case. That may not be often enough, but then again this is Eddie and changing them every time he goes to the bar could be a lot of work!

Ah, okay.

author=Volrath
-You noted the transitions numerous times...funny story about that. The last major feedback we got was that the intro was far too slow-paced, enough for the reviewers to quit after 15 minutes. Tried to fix that but now this way is apparently a problem. I guess that's the RM community in a nutshell.
THIS SUCKS, THIS IS AWESOME, THIS SUCKS, THIS IS AWESOME, THIS SUCKS, THIS IS AWESOME, THIS SUCKS, THIS IS AWESOME
That's critics in a nutshell. =3
It's tricky trying to walk that thin line. Trust me, I know.
But one dialogue box used to help players not get teleport whiplash is probably not going to make people rage quit.

The intro dungeon was a pretty good gameplay hook, so I don't know why someone would do that.
<- V1.0 demo ignorance.
author=Volrath
Regarding Eddie and his motivations, I suppose at this point I can only hope the experience of the entire game would help people reflect on his earlier actions and have more understanding. I had hoped that the mystery of his behavior would intrigue people as the game went on and more details came out slowly...didn't want to bog everything down with his whole backstory right away. Again, thanks a lot for giving us feedback on this scale. Much appreciated!

Well like I said in the review, the story, for me, is pretty enjoyable. While I'm not following Eddie as of the moment,
I doubt that will be an issue once the game is completed.
I also appreciate all the effort you put into this review. You certainly went beyond the call. I must admit I really like this format too. Being able to watch and listen to you play gave me a lot of added insight.

You mentioned the repetitiveness of environments. For case 3 there was going to be the town of Birchwood to walk around in but that got cut for the demo. That will probably appear in the full version of the game. Case 4 will also have a new area to investigate. But I like to think of the city as the hub so you'll always be coming back to it.

For the combat, we designed a completely custom system with the help of fomar0153. It has some inherent problems being a 2d tile-based shooter. But it is fun as you mentioned despite being somewhat clunky. Some of the issues such as the shooting through walls and the enemy pathfinding are things we are working on. I'll be looking at reducing enemy respawns and boss health and perhaps reducing the frequency at which you can use healing items as well. I don't think it will ever be perfect but there are certainly things we can do to improve it.

Thanks again for all the feedback. You gave me a lot to think about. :)
Awesome~

And when it comes down to it, the gameplay is the only thing you guys might want to keep an eye on. Everything else is borderline nitpicky.

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