Next Fest June 2023 - NOW LIVE!
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Steam Next Fest is a week-long celebration featuring hundreds of FREE playable demos as well as developer livestreams and chats. Players try out upcoming games on Steam pre-release, developers gather feedback and build an audience ahead of their Steam launch, everyone wins!

Would love to hear peoples experiences with any of the demos out for this Next Fest.

A standout for me is Sea of Stars, and it seems the demo runs perfectly so far!

Let’s collect some recommendations here for others to join in

  • BrainisfineIthink
    3·
    2 years ago

    That’s my biggest complaint with it. The dodge feels borderline useless but mandatory. It’s like it wants you to use their perfect parry system but there’s no reward for using it. The timing is inconsistent and it won’t even stagger enemies half the time, and will never stagger a boss until they’re nearly dead anyway. The risk of missing the parry isn’t really worth it most of the time when the only reward is no damage taken. Also the hit boxing against bosses and large enemies is extremely deceptive. Like the first boss had me struggling until I realized that I could dodge most of the attacks easily, even though all his animations still looked like they were hitting me. On the other hand the second boss has attacks that seem to track and connect no matter what, even if they seem like they’re a mile away.

    • Bri Guy @sopuli.xyz
      2·
      2 years ago

      Yeah the second boss made parrying seem mandatory which was annoying as hell. I also had the issue of getting stuck between the bosses with dodging so I couldn’t move anywhere

      • BrainisfineIthink
        2·
        2 years ago

        I realize it’s a demo but I thought about it more and I realized that, at least in the demo version (which is only the very early game), there’s a particular play style that is better. For a game designed to let you build to your play style, it seems to really gear you towards a faster, more mobile, parry heavy play style. Tanking isn’t viable, and the heavier weapon set leaves you too slow and unable to recover against aggressive enemies like the second boss. Hoping that’s not the case for the full game, plenty of other games have OP early bosses (wo long immediately comes to mind) and balance issues before release. It’s got way more positive things going for it than negative so far.