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[Shadowman16]

Well that explains something then. Its worth stressing that the game isn't unplayable. I've almost done my first playthrough and I've managed to do no damage runs against all the bosses so far (Mother Beholder was a pain to do as usual but I managed it in the end). I just feel that a lot of the effects could have been toned down to get a more stable frame rate, as the backgrounds are still very busy and beautiful - it looks to be running at native resolution and certainly looks the part, but starts to fall apart when you actually try and play it!

 

[kizito]

Yup, the game seems to be running at 30 fps, but dips around 25 when multiple enemies are on screen. Game also stutters when some effects appear for the first time, like deflecting magic bullets. On some occasions, the big magic skill also slows down the game violently but for a brief period.
I don't regret my purchase as the game seems to be pretty good, but the port is not perfect. Game looks fun and it's playable, but it really looks like these slowdowns could have been avoided. Also, loadings after death could have been shorter.
Finally, the French translation is a shame, I would have done a better translation than that, as you can immediately see it hasn't been done by natives, judging by the amount of incorrect grammatical stuff. Had to turn the game back into English to enjoy it.
By comparison, Jak and Daxter port on Vita was unplayable to me.

 

[Kresnik258]

By comparison, Jak and Daxter port on Vita was unplayable to me.

That's pretty good to hear. Jak was annoying but mostly fine for me, so bodes well for the quality of this port.

 

[Shadowman16]

That's pretty good to hear. Jak was annoying but mostly fine for me, so bodes well for the quality of this port.

Not really, if anything it feels worse than Jak in terms of performance. The old town level with its constant snow storm and certain enemy death animations completely kill the frame rate, definitely hitting single figures at points. The frost giant boss battle at the end of the stage as well is bloody terrible, when he starts his tornado attack the frame rate basically kills itself. Seriously, the only quality thing about this port is the graphics, which do still look bloody beautiful. Best way of describing it is the most beautiful slideshow you'll ever watch. I'd be less critical of the port if it was a slower paced title with no action. This is a fast paced title that relies on reflexes and is fairly tough in places. Oh well, only got one level and the final boss left and got most of the trophies along the way, I'll be able to delete this off my memory card soon thankfully.

 

[bidguy]

vita port is shit but xbone (and ps4 i assume) runs flawless. game is pretty good too if youre a horror nut

 

[Shadowman16]

vita port is shit but xbone (and ps4 i assume) runs flawless. game is pretty good too if youre a horror nut

PS4 version is a perfect 60FPS, its glorious. Definitely the better way of playing the game versus the Vita port.

 

[2+2=5]

I guess i'm not so sensible to framerate because to me it's fine except when you try to deflect magic, but i'm still at the beginning so maybe later is worse.

 

[Shadowman16]

Managed to finish the game, managed to beat Vroll without taking any damage (that one took a few tries to do!). Now I've only got one boss left to perfect, unfortunately its the one that kills the performance the most. Then I just need to do a no mana run and I'm done. Doubt I have the patience to do a no death run (might try using PS+ cloud saving) but I can't do the wolf run trophy (frame rate kills any precision required there) and I still need to figure out how to do the last boss in 3 minutes or less.

 

[Kresnik258]

Not really, if anything it feels worse than Jak in terms of performance. The old town level with its constant snow storm and certain enemy death animations completely kill the frame rate, definitely hitting single figures at points. The frost giant boss battle at the end of the stage as well is bloody terrible, when he starts his tornado attack the frame rate basically kills itself. Seriously, the only quality thing about this port is the graphics, which do still look bloody beautiful. Best way of describing it is the most beautiful slideshow you'll ever watch. I'd be less critical of the port if it was a slower paced title with no action. This is a fast paced title that relies on reflexes and is fairly tough in places. Oh well, only got one level and the final boss left and got most of the trophies along the way, I'll be able to delete this off my memory card soon thankfully.

Sounds just like the Jak port to me to be honest (a looker with terrible performance).

But if it's on the level of people saying it's better than that game, then that's good enough to me.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Borderlands 2 port was also abysmal apparently.

Seems like the Cosmic Star Heroine port is gonna be good, they keep boasting about how they're getting it to run so well on Vita like it's some amazing feat. Really sounds like the Vita is a piece of shit hardware to me, to be honest. xD

 

[Kresnik258]

Really sounds like the Vita is a piece of shit hardware to me, to be honest. xD

It's 5 year old mobile hardware. It's capable of more than most devs are willing to push it but requires effort to get it there, not just a sloppy export and let the power difference fill in the rest.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

It's 5 year old mobile hardware. It's capable of more than most devs are willing to push it but requires effort to get it there, not just a sloppy export and let the power difference fill in the rest.

Yeah, which is why I get annoyed at KS projects having Vita stretch goals and whatnot. All that effort to support that crappy old hardware almost no one even has... I bet CSH would be out by now if not for that damn promised Vita version. xD

 

[Robert at Zeboyd Games]

Seems like the Cosmic Star Heroine port is gonna be good, they keep boasting about how they're getting it to run so well on Vita like it's some amazing feat. Really sounds like the Vita is a piece of shit hardware to me, to be honest. xD

It's more the fact that I have little formal programming training & have been learning Unity at the same time (and Unity adds some overhead that you wouldn't have if you were programming directly for the Vita) AND when I first started trying to get our game on Vita, I was getting <15 fps & constant crashes. So I'm really proud that I managed to get it from that to generally being 50-60 fps.

But you gotta remember that the Vita is old now andcost a lot less than the mobile devices of the time. Unless you're making a 3DS game, the Vita is drastically weaker than any other platform a developer would be likely to targeting these days (PC, PS4, XBO, or even WiiU). People make fun of mobile gaming all the time, but any semi-modern tablet/phone game has WAY more power to work with. And the Vita RAM limits are just ugh.

I bet CSH would be out by now if not for that damn promised Vita version. xD

It definitely would have sped things up, but on the other hand, all the optimization we did to get the game working on Vita benefits all the other versions of the game. The PS4 version of the game has fantastic performance & minimal load times now which definitely wasn't the case before I tried to get the game working on the Vita. And the game runs much better & on much weaker PC hardware now than it once did.

 

[Glix]

I bought this for Vita/PS4 but have only had a chance to try it on Vita so far.

1. The game is gorgeous.

2. Its runs assy, but is not unplayable by any means. I mean, the games it is paying homage to had slowdown and shit like that as well.

3. The music is awesome. Not my style, but fits so perfectly with the game.

4. I love the sprite work, but some of the other stuff, especially the effects when you kill certain enemies seem janky as fuck. See the pseudo medusa heads for an example.

5. The perfect block+counter mechanic is super satisfying.

Edit - concerning Vita power - I know the system is underpowered... but man, I popped Killzone in for the first time in ages yesterday and the game is fucking astonishing. Incredible that they got it to run so well and look so good. Continued AAA development for the console would have been really interesting.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Went back to this last night after about a month away, and man it's such a good game. Kind of suck at it so I need to re-accustom myself to the controls again, but I just love almost everything about this. Might be the best pixel art I've ever seen as well.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I've downloaded this on my Vita and I'm just about to give it a crack for the first time...

 

[Triggerhappytel]

I love this game so damn much. The difficulty is high but never feels unfair, as most attacks can be parried and the combat has a nice rhythm once you get used to the timing. I've just defeated a massive skeleton mini-boss in the sewers and it was a complete bastard, but it's nigh impossible to defeat without parrying so it's a nice lesson as well. After I've done this I have one more area to visit; a door which is currently locked. I've been playing for a few nights and am making a little progress each time. Thank goodness the checkpoint system is generous!

 

[Hyun Sai]

How long is this on average ?

 

[Triggerhappytel]

How long is this on average ?

https://howlongtobeat.com/game.php?id=25005

5.5 hours for main story
9.5 hours for everything

About 2 million hours for the Platinum

 

[DirtyLarry]

Is it not a Cross Buy title? I see nothing about getting the Vita version on the PS4 page and vice versa for the Vita to PS4.
I totally forgot about this game and can use a reason to boot up my Vita but want the option to play it on PS4 as well.

 

[anothertech]

Any ps4 pro benefits with boost?

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Is it not a Cross Buy title? I see nothing about getting the Vita version on the PS4 page and vice versa for the Vita to PS4.
I totally forgot about this game and can use a reason to boot up my Vita but want the option to play it on PS4 as well.

It could be because it launched months later on Vita and they forgot to mention cross-buy in the description, because I have both but only bought it on PS4. Maybe you could tweet the devs to confirm?

Edit - I can't even find them on Twitter, so not sure what to suggest.

 

[The Spoony Hou]

I keep snubbing this game ever since people shat on it at its release (also because it's only gotten 50% discount and I usually wait till 75%). Is it good now?

 

[Shadowman16]

Any ps4 pro benefits with boost?

Nope. Its already a perfect 60FPS with super fast loading normally, not sure what boost mode could improve.

I keep snubbing this game ever since people shat on it at its release (also because it's only gotten 50% discount and I usually wait till 75%). Is it good now?

Yeah, its good now. I've put a serious number of hours into the game (mainly the PS4 port) and it ended up being one of my favourite games played last year.

It could be because it launched months later on Vita and they forgot to mention cross-buy in the description, because I have both but only bought it on PS4. Maybe you could tweet the devs to confirm?

Edit - I can't even find them on Twitter, so not sure what to suggest.

The game should be cross buy, there was a problem with the Euro store but they fixed that at the tail end of last year. I've been meaning to check the Vita version again to see if the game was ever patched to improve performance... but since the game has a shared trophy list between the PS4/Vita version I just ended up playing most of the game through my PS4.

Took me a few tries but I got the platinum. To be honest its not "that" hard! Ok, its not particularly easy either... Its just all about learning how to parry like a master, which is easier than it sounds. A couple of the bosses can be a pain in the ass to perfect (especially on Vita, but I've managed it!) but once you know the game like the back of your hand the only trophies that should pose a great threat are: beating the final boss within 3? minutes (which is actually a pretty kind time limit, as long as you can kick the crap out of him quick on phase 2), beat the game without dying (just abuse cloud/USB backups) and beating the final boss without taking damage (3 phases) - that one just requires you to be patient (as the bosses attacks aren't all that dangerous when you know what your doing). If you want a plat that'll take 2 million years then try Lumo, currently getting my ass kicked by that game!

 

[@MUWANdo]

I keep snubbing this game ever since people shat on it at its release (also because it's only gotten 50% discount and I usually wait till 75%). Is it good now?

It's not awful like it once was but I still don't think it's particularly good.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Took me a few tries but I got the platinum. To be honest its not "that" hard! Ok, its not particularly easy either... Its just all about learning how to parry like a master, which is easier than it sounds. A couple of the bosses can be a pain in the ass to perfect (especially on Vita, but I've managed it!) but once you know the game like the back of your hand the only trophies that should pose a great threat are: beating the final boss within 3? minutes (which is actually a pretty kind time limit, as long as you can kick the crap out of him quick on phase 2), beat the game without dying (just abuse cloud/USB backups) and beating the final boss without taking damage (3 phases) - that one just requires you to be patient (as the bosses attacks aren't all that dangerous when you know what your doing). If you want a plat that'll take 2 million years then try Lumo, currently getting my ass kicked by that game!

Yeah, I've managed to defeat a couple of bosses without taking damage. It seems ridiculous at first but once you learn attack patterns and parry timing it's not so bad! I really don't think I'd have the patience to complete the whole thing without dying. Some of the instant death stuff would be really frustrating in an no-deaths run.

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Holy shit, the Mother Beholder is nails. I fought her maybe ten or twelve times yesterday and probably didn't take more than a fifth of her health! I'll try again tonight, but no idea what tactic is best, to be honest.

 

[Ruud_Luiten]

Anyone received their physical copy from signature games yet?

 

[Shadowman16]

Anyone received their physical copy from signature games yet?

PS4 version yes, Vita version has been delayed until May the last I heard.

Holy shit, the Mother Beholder is nails. I fought her maybe ten or twelve times yesterday and probably didn't take more than a fifth of her health! I'll try again tonight, but no idea what tactic is best, to be honest.

Ah yes. THAT boss fight. A right pain as it switches up its attacks a couple of times and is just a right pain. Charge attacks are amazingly effective but the timing (as well as position) you need to have them hit, while mother not hitting you is a pain in the ass. Its just a matter of keeping your distance and waiting for the blob to float into range where you can get a few decent hits in before it floats away/attacks. Its up there as one of the worst to perfect kill, the little demon/suit of armor duo (basically the first boss of House of the Dead 2!) is another that I don't really enjoy fighting due to how the little bastard flies around like a jerk!

 

[Mr_D_]

See below for full post

 

[Mr_D_]

Hi guys! We have been quiet for a while preparing for this announcement.

Steel Mantis (Andrew Gilmour and Thomas Jenns - the team behind Slain:Back From Hell) are excited to announce Valfaris - A heavy metal space saga coming to PC and console in 2018.

Set in a far corner of space, Valfaris is a heavy metal infused 2D action-platformer and the next game from the team behind Unity Awards finalist, Slain: Back From Hell. Brutal combat. Deadly enemies. Stunning pixel art. Savage soundtrack. Get ready to rip the galaxy a new wormhole.

Trailer: http://bit.ly/2rThinw
Steam Page: http://bit.ly/SteamValfaris

You can follow us on Social Media below!

https://twitter.com/ValfarisGame
https://www.facebook.com/ValfarisGame
https://www.instagram.com/valfarisgame/

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Cool! I think you can make a new thread though? New news, new thread and all that. Or, if you aren't allowed as one of the dev, I can make it for you.

 

[Sinatar]

Cool! I think you can make a new thread though? New news, new thread and all that. Or, if you aren't allowed as one of the dev, I can make it for you.

He's a junior member and would have his account nuked from orbit for self promotion so it's a double no.

 

[double jump]

Them boyz got another one wooo!

 

[Morrigan Stark]

He's a junior member and would have his account nuked from orbit for self promotion so it's a double no.

Oh, gotcha. I'll make the thread then.

 

[Mr_D_]

He's a junior member and would have his account nuked from orbit for self promotion so it's a double no.

Any help with this would be great, would I need to send you assets across or can you re-use these?

 

[Morrigan Stark]

Valfaris thread because new news, new thread and all that ^^

 

[Mr_D_]

User Testing

In about a months time we will be ready for our first round of closed user testing.

If you are interested in being a part of development and helping us make Valfaris taste like intergalactic heavy metal mayhem flavoured space gibs, just fill in this form below. Many thanks and hugs from the team!

FORM - https://goo.gl/forms/D7HJHvkkcNUCLlRj2

bit.ly/SteamValfaris

 

[Triggerhappytel]

Cracked this out again for the first time in months, and after about half an hour of constant retries I'm so close to defeating Mother Beholder. She is absolutely tough as nails, but I think I have a strategy that works for her first phase (even though I still take a lot of damage from her), her second phase is mostly manageable, but then I keep dying when she's literally about 3 hits from death herself. Bastard! I'll keep playing tonight and try to get past her. Want to finish the game off so I can move on now.

Also excited to see more of Valfaris. Given how much I've enjoy Slain I'll probably be in there day 1 when it comes to PS4.

Edit - is the above for PC players only, I take it?

 

[Head.spawn]

Survey filled out. Looks awesome.

 

[Arttemis]

This game is in the PSN flash sale for less than $5. I heard it got lots of patches to improve its rough initial state, but how far did it go?

Is it another awesome retro title like Volgarr the Viking?

 

[xclaw]

This game is in the PSN flash sale for less than $5. I heard it got lots of patches to improve its rough initial state, but how far did it go?

Is it another awesome retro title like Volgarr the Viking?

Buy it, you won't be disappointed.

 

[jipewithin]

Looks awesome!

 

[Dunkelgrau]

I believe this game needs more attention. Started it today on my PS4 because I needed a pause from "Hollow Knight". And damn, it's awesome.

&#8211; Graphic are gorgeous
&#8211; Stunning soundtrack
&#8211; Controls are not easy to handle, but it's so fun, to do the "Bloodborne"-move

Only played for an hour, but I am amazed for what is yet to come.

 

[Shadowman16]

I believe this game needs more attention. Started it today on my PS4 because I needed a pause from "Hollow Knight". And damn, it's awesome.

– Graphic are gorgeous
– Stunning soundtrack
– Controls are not easy to handle, but it's so fun, to do the "Bloodborne"-move

Only played for an hour, but I am amazed for what is yet to come.

After a little while of playing the counter move will click and everything will fall into place combat wise, every move feels like its useful. Against some enemies you can follow a successful counter attack up with a charged attack for nice extra damage. Its one of my favourite indie titles of last year for sure, the combat certainly clicked with me, I loved going after all the trophies and fighting the nice variety of bosses and the game just looks stunning. Really my only disappointment with the game was the lackluster Vita port.

I can't wait for the developers next game, its certainly a day one purchase for me.

 

[rubbishmonkey]

Totally forgot about this - just picked it up on sale from Steam

Valfaris is looking amazing btw - added to my wishlist!

 

[Mr_D_]

http://twinfinite.net/2017/11/switch-slain-release-date/

 

[DESTROYA]

Looking great too.

https://youtu.be/Plm9Rc28QUY

 

[The Hermit]

Just watched the Switch trailer.

Is this game good? I remember it had a lot of backslash when it was launched

 

[llien]

Wow, it's on Vita too.