@alim298: Like I said, I just finished playing Mirror of Fate and wanted to reflect back on my favorite Metroidvania games. Mirror of Fate arguably has the most in-depth combat system of any 2D Castlevania game. I thought it was a solid game. There were a few annoyances that kept it off my list, however.
First the change to a 3D engine made the game slightly sluggish. It was barely noticeable, but still noticeable. I had the biggest issue trying to time grapple points. The game would highlight the grapple point, I would hit the trigger, but nothing would happen.
Second, if you set the brightness level as desired by the developers, you cannot see where you are going in any of the underwater sections and any of the shadowy areas. This is easily remedied by turning the brightness setting back up.
Third some of the platforming was inconsistent. If you would run to the edge of some platforms you drop and hang from the edge automatically. Other ledges you would fall right off. Now I had no idea what ledges would do what, no graphical indicators existed to warn the player what would happen. Instead trial and error had to be used to what would happen. I will get back to this point later with some of the level design.
Fourth, I would have liked to have turned off the checkpoints in boss battles. Typically Castlevania bosses require the player to pick up patterns in order to beat the boss. Now if the player does not pick up patterns on the first attempt, the player has to reattempt until all of the patterns have been fully learned. I love the satisfaction of beating the boss from start to finish, knowing that I overcame all the tricks without any aide. Now I have not started the game on hard mode yet, so I am hoping the checkpoints are removed on hard move. Also, one boss battle, would restart the player at the beginning of the battle with only half life. I am assuming this was a bug or design flaw. I am not sure why if the player had trouble figuring out how to beat this boss, they would be restarted at the beginning with half a life bar. This was remedied by just pausing and restarting last checkpoint.
Last, but worst of all was the level design. This is my true issue with this game. I realize this is MercurySteam's first 2D Castlevania game, so they have plenty of room to improve. Early on in the game, one of the scrolls teases that the fallen character did not come properly prepared for this area. Right by that fallen character, the game shows the first grapple point. Now later going through the mines the player reaches what appears to be a dead end with a grapple point teasing a path. Now I assumed that I had missed the grappling item having read that scroll since I could not see where to go. Not having the item, I attempted the jump and fell to my death. I thought to my self, OK, I just need to find the grapple item. I searched high and low for this grapple item. It turns out you don't get it until later in the game. So, I go back to the seemingly dead end. After committing suicide a few times, I notice a ledge to the left, but I cannot make the jump because of the positioning of platforms. Well by chance, I accidentally ran too far once and Simon automatically started hanging from the edge. I decided to hold down to see what was below me and sure enough there was a ledge. By dropping down to that ledge I was able to make the jump to the ledge to the left It turns out that the grapple point was just to get a "hidden" item and the true path was actually hidden.
Now this was just the first instance of bad level design. Now back to point three where I didn't know what to expect when approaching the edge of a platform. Later levels will send you falling to instant death on spikes or even worse back to the beginning of the level if you accidentally fall. Now some platforms you need to hang from edge to further yourself in the game. However, I would run to the edge of the platform and expect my character to automatically hang, as he did most of the game. Did my character auto hang? No, he runs right off the edge. Was it because I couldn't hang from the platform? No, I could and was required to hang, they just decided to change how the platforming worked for random platforms.
A few levels allow for the player to fall back to the beginning of the level if a jump was missed or say the player hit an obstacle and it knocked them back. Later in the game one of these flaws sets the player very far back. The player was required to go up and around through other areas only to come back to the top level of the same area. Now some grappling jumps were required to complete this section and if one was missed, the player would be set all the way back. Luckily players hit checkpoints every time they enter a new area and since the player had to re-enter this area from the top, the game could be paused and checkpoint restarted.
A few levels do not introduce the player how to properly use a provided tool. For the most part the game does a good job with this, but there are 2 items in particular that do not. The magnetic rail is the better example, because at this point in the game you have to jump from one magnetic rail to another. However, for the first time this was required, an intermittent electricity bolt was blocking the path with an electric floor below. I try to make the jump with the jump button, but that just drops me off and I insta-death on the electric floor below. Now the checkpoint for this part is a ways back and I have to repeat this section multiple times. Finally, I figure out that to make the jump I have to hit the same button that made me cling to the rail to jump over to the next rail. A good design without annoying tutorials would have required the player to learn this technique in a simple situation first; where the player could have reattempted it a few times, until the player understood what they were doing.
My last gripe about the level design was how easy it was to find all the hidden items. Only one item was well hidden in the game, and I was pretty satisfied when I figured out how to get to it. I achieved 100% on the first play through with little effort to finding all the secrets. I had more trouble trying to find the path I was supposed to be taking, than finding the secret paths. For the most part it seemed as though all the "secrets" were directly in front of the player, but the player would not have the required item yet to get the secret. On a plus note, most backtracking was only required to get 100%. For those trying to get 100% there are a few nuances where doors or magnetic rails will not have been activated, unless you had first went the "other" direction first, requiring even more backtracking.
Log in to comment