The Pros and Cons of Crypt of the NecroDancer
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- čas přidán 5. 06. 2024
- Analytical review that separates out the primary positive and negative aspects of the rhythm roguelike Crypt of the NecroDancer.
00:00 Introduction
01:32 How Rhythm and Roguelike Interact
05:04 Customization, Variety, and Value
06:50 Progression and Challenge Design
13:32 An Addendum on Aesthetics
15:43 Conclusion
The Gemsbok site: thegemsbok.com/
The article that became this video: thegemsbok.com/necrodancer
Crypt of the NecroDancer on Steam: store.steampowered.com/app/24...
Twitter: / the_gemsbok
Facebook: / thegemsbok
Steam: steamcommunity.com/id/thegems...
The media clips used in this video are expressly for review commentary, academic criticism, and comparison; their inclusion falls under the purview of Fair Use and does not violate copyright. - Hry
I have the final character (Coda) unlocked, and let me say that you made the right choice on never unlocking her. She combines all of the worst aspects in the game, and just beating Zone 1 with her is more than twice as hard as beating Aria All-Zones. Coda is double speed, dies on a missed beat, dies from taking damage, and dies from touching gold. Also she can only use the dagger and does not start with a potion. I’ve had her unlocked for 3 months now and am stuck on Zone 3 with her.
Ouch. Truly *major* props for getting as far as you have. What you have accomplished so far is nothing short of incredible.
There were definitely drafts of the script for this video that talked a bit about Coda. But ultimately, in the abstract, I don't think it's necessarily a problem that Coda is in the game; Coda is a completely absurd challenge, but is the kind of absurd challenge I'd expect to find hidden away somewhere in a game like this.
The bigger issue is related to the fact that Coda isn't hidden at all. She's smack-dab in the center of the character unlock screen, as though completely in step with the other characters. Unlocking her and beating All Zones Mode with her are both tied to achievements. The implementation of Coda is undoubtedly a symptom of NecroDancer's challenge design problems, but does not lie at the heart of them. The real issue is simply that the overwhelming majority of the game's characters, modes, and achievements---including elements in the primary story track of the game---are tied to the kinds of absurd end-game challenges that one expects to find hiding alone at the conclusion of mastering any other famously difficult title. Coda is simply the insane cherry on top of a poorly difficulty-tuned sundae.
The Gemsbok You made some pretty good points in your video. Crypt of the Necrodancer is one of my favorite games, but I agree that the difficulty spike in the story mode is extreme. While I don’t think Aria is as hard as Bolt, going from an character with an OP weapon to a character that dies in a single hit is a huge jump.
Also, Crypt of the Necrodancer is widely considered to have the world’s hardest platinum trophy on the PS4 version because of Coda and the trophy you get from beating an All Chars run without picking up items or using shrines. (low%)
Coda is basically a joke character
@@NeatherBen221 Nah, I disagree, he is overemphasizing the cons. It's just a minor con and I think Mary and Bolt are inbetween Melody and Aria. But the fact that every single character has a totally unique playstyle he forgot to mention. Since the DLCs even more so. The difficulty spikes are for those crazy about the game, and that's what I think keeps games alive for so long, otherwise players just beat it and leave.
In my opinion the game has more than 2 pros and this 1 con is really not that big. It's an amazing game and one of it's kind.
If I were to compare the difficulty curves of NecroDancer and Celeste, it would be like if in Celeste the only available levels were 0a, 1a, 2a, 1c, 2c, 8b, 8c, farewell, and all of top hard list.
As much as I appreciate the highly articulate and almost academic analysis in your videos, it's nice to have this one punctuated with a simple, upbeat "it's a lota fun" ^-^
Great review. I would like to add two things:
- This game has really poor feedback on taking damage. A varied hurt sound and maybe a slight screen shake depending on the level of the damage would drastically improve the playability and learnability of this game.
- Some people use Steam achievement managers. Usually it does not matter, but for a game where the rarest achievements are super hard, I would wager that the stats get more screwed up. So the game is even harder than those ridiculous stats show.
Both great points! Especially that first one, which would've fit nicely alongside some of my points about the unpolished aesthetics in the video (if I had thought of it). Thank you for the comment.
On the achievement stats, though, it skews a little bit in both directions: up for the reason you mention, and down because some players boot or idle the game without ever actually playing it. As a result, such stats will only ever give a rough idea---but it's still some of the best data available for this kind of discussion.
I like that there are achievements that aren't collected by every player. The way other games do it is boring in my opinion, Necrodancer does it better. I don't have all of them and it's ok.
I love Crypt of the NecroDancer! But it is crazy hard, especially on All Zones Mode. I dont usually get very far in All Zones, but I like to skip around to different zones in the zone selection menu since they are really fun to play.
Lol I beat the game as bard and am struggling to beat zone 4 cadence as well as zone 5 dove
If you play on all zones mode it makes later zones slightly easier. Although the item shop might make a similar effect for you.
I've sunken 103 hours into this game, and this game is incredibly addicting, but I heartily agree that the skill wall is insane. I've gotten to the final boss with Aria twice, and I'm irked so much by the fact that beating the game with her is required to see the ending. Who thought that design decision was okay?
Coincidentally, I stumbled past the 100-hour-mark in the game myself last week while finishing up work on this video. And yeah, I'm with you completely: great game, very addicting, includes some baffling design decisions.
This is one of the toughest platinums ever, it's quite notorious.
Definitely. In the recent speedrun I link in a card near the end of the video, they point out that the character Coda has still been cleared by fewer than 50 confirmed individuals worldwide.
@@TheGemsbok O-O dang.
@@gonturan0585 I think these design decisions are totally fine, even keep the game interesting for a lot longer than normal because they push players to try harder. If they don't want to, they can just watch them on youtube.
But the fact that every character has a different playstyle and thus different difficulty he forgot to mention as a pro.
I am one of the 0.5% of people who beat aria all zones.
This isn't related to the video, I just wanna brag about my achievement.
With the amount of time it takes to get many of these achievements I think bragging is allowed! I've had the game for almost seven years now and was so happy when I finished low% Aria.
Coda is another story, but perhaps I'll get there one day...
Good video, I would probably go even further on the aesthetics, they seem a bit inconsistent or almost unfinished at times which struck me as pretty odd considering how old the game is now and the amount of post launch support it got. The short tutorial level makes a pretty big deal about skeletons raising their hands before they're about to jump but that's about all the enemy "tells" you can expect art wise, I think there's also the skeleton casters with their glowing staves and the dragons when they're about to breathe fire, but a lot of the enemies in the game don't really have any animations actually indicating what they're about to do. You can obviously still manage to go through the game just fine by "feel" knowing how their patters work, as a lot of people do but I still think it's a weird inconsistency that would've improved readability a lot, especially in more chaotic situations, if implemented.
There's also some jank with other enemies, not sure if it's intentional or not, the "spirit" guys which follow you around or the spiders can be annoying to deal with sometimes because a hit doesn't really count if they're on a wall. The knight guy in Zone 4 is also an interesting enemy that is fun to fight, however he also seems pretty janky if you have anything other than the default weapon, sometimes resulting in a huge chain of parries because of the huge hitboxes to the point where it almost feels like an oversight, I mean there are some ranged weapons that just hit them normally so it seems they thought about it, but it feels weird they didn't consider other melee weapons.
Totally agree with your point about the lack of pre-movement animations on a good portion of enemies! Definitely a sore point on a game that relies so much on the player's pattern recognition and consistent mechanics to be enjoyable.
Regarding Zone 4 though...
...I think those aren't really examples of 'jank', their behaviours are intentional. Zone 4 IMHO is a good point to start putting in enemies like that -- less straightforward to deal with, to maintain some challenge even for characters who are likely geared up well by that point. -Knights- Blademasters, spiders, warlocks (the teleport mages), they're all monsters that you can't just mow down with a warhammer/axe; I think if you were able to do so, that would be boring.
Brace Yourself Games took the latter approach with _Cadence of Hyrule_ , and to me it seemed like the hardest part of the game was at the start -- the last 2 champions I defeat in that game's base campaign are usually total pushovers you can face-tank through, due to the lack of compensation for the player's gear.
(This is a flawed analogy of course, I give CoH a pass since it is marketed to a wider potential playerbase; just comparing their implementations since the game mechanics are very similar.)
Playing this game stresses me out... doesn't help that it's the only game I have where my hand ends up hurting too much to keep trying.
Then you should try my nightmare mode. xD
I installed like 20 mods that made the game more... challenging. Can't beat the first level with bard anymore, let alone a zone. Enemies carry items, there's Fortissimoles electric dancepad in every level, like 30 new enemy types, whole design changed to be nightmarish, water turned to blood, and in case you don't play bard I made an own mod that changes the rhythm to a syncopy beat with long and short notes (basically double tempo with 3rd, 6th and 8th beat missing). I don't know why but it's fun.
Great video, as always! I own Crypt of the NecroDancer, but the difficulty scared me off, and I say that as a Soulsbourne-veteran. I loved so much about it, but I didn't really have fun. I just got stressed out.
You're in very good company---considering they've never beaten the game, over 90% of NecroDancer players likely feel similar to how you do. And thanks for the comment!
That's so interesting! I have played Necro on/off over the years, and recently beat Cadence on Switch. But I could NEVER play Souls 😭😭 way too hard for me
I honestly love the difficulty. I stopped at all zones Aria as well and keep it at a level where I am moderately struggling. That's the most fun.
But then installed 20 mods that make this game into a nightmare and I can't beat the first level with bard anymore. xD And yet, I don't know why, but it's still fun. The deaths are just so riddiculous.
Great game and one of it's kind, I think people who give up are missing out on the fun.
Wow, you nailed how I feel about the game. I love hard games and Necrodancer seems like endlessly charming fun, but I always download it, play two/three levels, get exhausted and delete it.
I usually love hard games, including fast skill-based roguelikes with very slow progression, such as Gungeon or Hades. But Necrodancer sort of pulls you in with a cute and chanming smile, then slaps you across the face with the hundrets of challenge options and modifiers, even before you beat the first proper boss. It is really intimidating.
But why enable all the difficulty? I just play with characters where I struggle moderately. Never cared to play Aria on all zones, never cared to unlock Coda, never cared for some achievements. I think I watched Arias ending on YT before deciding to finish her zones individually. Have now 750h into it.
Especially now with the DLCs there are characters with difficulty inbetween Aria and Melody & Cadence. Even a mod that splits the difficult mechanics of Aria onto 3 new characters A, R and I (lol).
This game is one of it's kind and I think people who give up or are too easily frustrated miss out on a lot of fun.
Revisiting this one today for some reason. Still a banger, Ya gotta make more of these pro/con deals.
The weird thing about the issue with new mechanics in the end boss fights is that they actually do have a little mini tutorial moment for one detail of one of them (the two characters in the main boss for Cadence). But that one still uses another new mechanic with no guidance (the lute weapon), and the other five have nothing whatsoever. Really odd choice by the devs there.
Very well said. In an earlier draft of the script, I did mention that little moment you're talking about. But since---as you point out---the fight still uses at least one un-tutorialized new mechanic, I ultimately decided to just remove it.
The whole game's got this weird energy like it was designed to be unsuccessful and niche and hard as balls, but it ended up getting a lot of press and taking off.
Your editing is really good in this video btw.
Thanks! I like to think I've improved at that a lot in the past year or so. Man, when I think about (for instance) how much work went into my Isaac video, just for it to go live with such bad audio mixing, it makes me sad.
I really liked your thoughts on this. It took a lot of practice for me to beat Cadence's story and after the credits rolled, I stopped. Your comments on progression and challenge put my feelings on why I stopped into words very well. I'd be curious to see your thoughts on Cadence of Hyrule too.
Thank you for the very nice comment! The stats don't lie: your experience with the game is a very common one (rivaled only by the number of people who never even manage to beat the game with Cadence).
Unfortunately, I was only able to play a few minutes of Cadence of Hyrule to gather the footage for this video. I don't have a Switch myself. So thoughts on that title would have to wait a while.
The con is exactly the reason I prefer cadence of hyrule.. you get the songs remixed with iconic Zelda stuff, you get to play as Zelda and save the kingdom yourself and the difficulty does not suddenly spike.
Great video, my gf gave me Cadence of Hyrule for Christmas last year and I loved it so much I also bought Crypt of the necrodancer. I am not someone that plays rogue-likes or have a lot of free time to spend on 100% difficult games with a lot of extra content like this one, your video really makes me see that indeed these 2 games are very different and why I loved one so much while I abandoned the other one.
that's exactly my thoughts about the game
i really liked it, i WANT to keep playing, but the difficult spike is too much to me to handle
i got stuck in every zone with cadence and i was able to finish her storyline in 7 hours
after that melody was a piece of cake, finished her entire story in 30min (got lucky in my runs btw)
but aria is another level, completely, i just can't
i have my doubts if even all the devs completed the game with aria, or one of them completed with coda
aria could have more hearts, being a lot more forgiving with errors but sticking with "you miss the beat, you die", or just having a better weapon, like piercing spear or something like that
and i'm a completionist, i like to see every aspect of the game and gets all the achievements and such
necrodancer could be a game that i would play for weeks to get everything, but i'm not in the mood to get stressed trying to surpass ridiculous challenges
i probably will give a try to cadence of hyrule to see if they cared to let the game be more acessible to players
i love necrodancer, but even with over 100 hours logged on steam, i never beat the game as aria. its probably doable if i put in enough time and effort, but i personally have limits for what i find acceptable to actually try, and i think if i tried to actually complete the game as her, i don't think i would be having fun.
like, i love getting 100% on games, and thats often where i have the most fun, but there gets to a point in some games where i stop having fun, and my brain turns it into a sort of obligation that i *have* to do before i move on to other things i might enjoy more. essentially turning what would be a time for lesiure into a sort of job that i don't get paid for. and i think trying to go for necrodancers more difficult challenges starts to hit that threshold.
Really nice review. Found your conclusion really pulled your crictisms together
Thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed it.
You're very insightful. I'm really glad I discovered your channel. I hope you get big in no time
Very kind of you to say! For the time being, I'm trying to keep up a pace of at least one video every month. Hopefully that can be enough for the channel to grow; I guess time will tell. Anyway, thanks for your comment.
Might have to check this one out!
Based on your prior interest in Vlambeer titles, this one could be right up your alley.
@@TheGemsbok Actually, maybe I should play this on my channel, I mean, I'd suck at it, but it is a very unique game...
If it's any consolation, EVERYONE sucks at this particular game (at least at first).
@@TheGemsbok Just saw the game on sale! Downloading now, can't wait to die repeatedly for the next 6 hours!
@@TheGemsbok Holy shit, this is amazing and I am never going to get good at it lmao
I wish I found this video before purchasing the game
I’m happy I managed to see through the story but do have to agree that aria is stupidly hard and that I don’t see myself trying all zones mode with her anytime soon
Edit:I got bored and am now attempting all zones mode with her but am spending more time with bolt and monk due to their more unique and more gimmicky gimmicks aside from just being really really weak and frail
What'S annoying is how many achievements are tied to being able to beat the game with Aria. If you can't do Aria, you won't get 9 other achievements either that require you to beat the game with Aria with increased difficulties. The achievements in this game are actually insane and judging from what they added in the SYNCHRONY update, they don't seem to be making these games any easier in the future sadly...
If you see the steam achievements not even 50% of who played the game beat zone one. I beat it on some days, because crypt of the necrodancer is like playing a normal rhythm game; It takes a lot of time to get good at it and when you do, you see that what you had to struggle is now actually very easy (even that doesn't take a *lot* of time to beat zone one). Crypt of the necrodancer is not a game for everyone, as you can see, but at least they added no beat mode so people who can't play Aria will have a (very) easier mode to see the story of the game
don't tell the guy about coda :p
Looks really interesting.
Agreed, it is definitely an interesting design. Feels on principle like it just shouldn't work, but it works (other than the weaknesses I describe, of course).
You should check out bullets per minute if you haven't yet. Originally I had reservations about a shooter that had rhythm aspects, but it has definitely surprised me with how much I have been enjoying it.
Looks interesting! I've now added it to my Steam wishlist, to possibly play in the future. Thanks for the recommendation!
You beat SpaceChem? Holy shit, people do not understand how insane this is.
PRO: VIKING YODELER IN THE BACKGROUND, PRO:DANCE PAD COMPATIBILITY, PRO:MARIO THEMED LEVEL, CON:MOUNTAIN CLIMBER HAS BUCKET STUCK ON BUTT MAKING GOING UP A BIG CHALLENGE
I have perhaps never before agreed with a comment so completely as I do at this moment. Thank you for the recap.
As someone who has beaten coda and loves the hell out of this game, I 100% agree with your recommendations. This game is not for everyone. Great video by the way!
Watching this after completing aria low% yesterday
A truly incredible achievement---congratulations!
The Gemsbok thank you i appreciate it
Totally agree with the difficulty curve. I love Familyjules7x and it kinda sucked not being able to finish even world 4 and enjoy 3 through 1 with the metal versions.
I forgot to mention this is on Aria's playthrough.
That's a very fair point. The game foregrounds its music so prominently that you'd think it would use its different soundtracks more broadly by default. Thanks for your comments.
You know you’re not stuck to using a certain character, if you want a certain soundtrack to be played, right? You can switch which soundtrack you want to play with which character in the soundtrack menu. It’s what I did. Hell… You can even make it to where all the characters play the same soundtrack, instead of making them all different ones. That way, even if you want to switch characters, but keep a certain soundtrack, you can do that.
Yes, I am aware of that. That's why I included the phrase "by default" in that sentiment. (If your comment was directed at the OP of this thread, sorry for interjecting.)
@@TheGemsbok No worries dude, it was directed towards the OP. I know you mentioned it, but from the sound of the way they wrote it, it kind of sounds like they didn’t.
You are right, love the game but it’s exhausting. Sad that so much content is gated by difficulty.
Since you mentioned it, I personally liked (and used) Assist Mode in Celeste for its most difficult screens. Something like that could probably work in this game as well.
Interesting idea! I was thinking about what that might entail, since the gameplay in NecroDancer is so closely tied to the music. Here's what I've come up with: when enabled, the option could make it so that a song ending doesn't end a level (the music would just loop like it does for Bard), and then let you set the pace of action (every second beat, every third beat, every fourth beat, etc).
The completion percentage on Diamond is a bit misleading, as he's actually a fair bit easier than Cadence, with the ability to move diagonally and the relatively minor drawback of only having one active item slot. I think it's just low because fewer people attempt him, being a DLC non-story character.
I wholeheartedly agree that Diamond is easier than Cadence, and would likely have a completion rate above 1% if he had been in the game at its initial release.
But 'at or above 1%' is already a fairly arbitrary cutoff, just intended to provide a reference point for viewers, and I went back and forth a number of times about how to use that information. For instance, I could've easily said 'above 1%' in order to also cut out Dove. Ultimately, I decided that the most understandable way to present a reference point to viewers would be to include Dove and not Diamond when I'm showing percentages, then include Diamond and not Dove when I'm X-ing out the 'inaccessible' characters on the unlock screen.
I fully admit that it's far from perfect, but there are always reasons to suspect that such completion stats are skewed in both directions anyway (skewed low because many players open or idle the game without ever really trying to play, and skewed high because some players will use cheat utilities to unlock achievements), so they can only ever give a rough idea.
This video helps alot, as i am a person who isnt insanely good at videogames, especially rhythm based ones, and especially especially fast paced rhythm based ones. i was originally considering getting Crypt of the Necrodancer on Switch while its on sale atm, but knowing that the game is an absolute brick wall in terms of difficulty, i think im gonna step back and do a bit more research, then maybe buy it next time its on sale...
Since you have a Switch, I would recommend that you try out Cadence of Hyrule first (if you haven't already). It's a Switch-exclusive rhythm game by the same developers; it has the same gameplay/combat style, but with a far lower base difficulty level.
A friend purchase this game for me and i'm playing the heck out of it, it's a good game and i kinda understand the difficult raising? The first object is to defeat the necrodancer and the rest seems to be just extra, like baba is you fake ending, after the ending you are playing just for the will of 100℅ completion, i still trying to get the true ending as Aria and god you have to master the game.
Coincidentally, I'm currently working on a new video about achievements (in a different game) to release later this month, and in it I'll be talking more about how 100% completion factors into my discussion of Crypt of the NecroDancer here. Thanks for your comment!
@@TheGemsbok no problem, thanks for the amazing review and video!
Crypt is a perfect example of a game that’s not made for everyone, but for a very specific group of players. It is a bold choose to narrow your audience to the degree the developers did, but it allowed them to make a perfect game for that small group. Crypt is not for a casual gamer, it is for a someone with immense video game skill. And if you fall into that small group of players who have the skill or dedication to beat the game, then you can appreciate the masterpiece it truly is. The mechanics are precise and the game doesn’t ever feel unfair, just really hard. You will never randomly die from things outside your control, each death is a result from a wrong decision you made at some point. It’s too hard for most people, but extremely rewarding for those who can handle it.
I’m on zone 4 btw lmao, can’t beat the necrodancer. One of my coworkers always talks to me about it and he’s closing in on an aria low% run
My friend can beat Aria but I can’t even beat Cadence XD
I'm terrible at the game, because it is super fucking hard, and also I'm just terribly bad at tempo games, so I ended up playing as the bard. This is still hands down my favorite game. I don't mind the difficulty curve, I'm sure some people love it.
Sounds like you're in one of the groups to whom I specifically recommend the game at the end ("a less intense player who is explicitly unfazed by never being able to even touch most of the game's unlockable characters"). Nothing wrong with that!
Specifically playing as Bard and still considering it your favorite game is admittedly a pretty unique stance, though---since that cuts out the game's core mechanic.
I’m a pretty casual player and I had almost no experience with roguelikes before. I also deliberately avoided games like Soulsborne because I don’t like that level of challenge. I decided to check out Crypt of the Necrodancer because I like rhythm games and because it was on sale on switch. I had no idea about how hard it was. I’m about fifteen hours into the game now, just unlocked the third dungeon and I love and hate it at the same time. Already came to terms with the fact that I’ll never finish the game once it becomes more difficult than the default character but it’s just too addictive and so much fun
Necrodancer is great. Only beat the final boss like 3 times in all my hours but it's still a great game to hop into for a little bit.
This game is like a drug to me. I just can't stop playing it
The devs for this game are rediculous over half the games content is locked behind stupidly difficult challenges that are either impossible or require over 10k hours of practice.
None are impossible, you just gotta get good
Though this video is now heavily outdated due to the release of Synchrony and version 3.0 (yes, Synchrony is technically DLC, but you do include the Amplified DLC in this video), I still wanted to comment on parts of the video.
## IMPORTANT NOTES AND SUMMARY
You do mention the Steam achievement stats a lot. For this, I'd like to show that the stats are skewed by pointing out that the achievement for completing zone 1 as Cadence only has 45.9% completion. On Steam, a lot of players either get the game for free for various reasons, or just never end up playing every game they own.
Creating a game is a balancing act, obviously, but, as you did say yourself, Crypt of the Necrodancer chooses to be more faithful to games like Rogue, which reflects in a lot of these decisions.
A lot of this boils down to "You don't like the difficult curve, me and a lot of people I asked do". Game difficulty and accessibility is a very complicated and subjective topic. As I do say later on, for me and the people I asked, the difficulty contributed to the feel of the game and this would've been ruined with slower pacing. Eitherway, if you want to skip that, just read the visual style paragraphs.
## GAMEPLAY
I don't really see the point with final bosses having unforeseen unique mechanics - *all* enemies have somewhat unique mechanics in this game. Roguelikes are almost designed to be paced somewhat so you have to die at each new area before you learn it. I'd rather say that Crypt of the Necrodancer is much easier in this regard, considering the training rooms.
The Aria argument is very common, and I do think it could've been executed better, but... I definitely wouldn't see this as an objective flaw. While I absolutely see that this will make the story impossible to complete for a lot of players, for many including me, it just made it that much more engaging, as the story is reflected in the gameplay. Without delving into spoilers, it makes sense to me to lock the unlikely ending behind this character. Game accessibility is a whole topic on its own, though. And I don't agree with the comparison to Super Mario World. Crypt of the Necrodancer rolls the credits after even beating the game as Cadence, and most of the other characters' new content can be seen immediately upon hopping into a single run with them. All zones, items and enemies can be seen with Cadence. While some bosses *are* locked behind characters like Aria, this is true for many games beyond just Crypt of the Necrodancer. Content hidden behind challenges few players will complete is almost a staple for rogue-likes.
In general, though, you did talk about how you disliked the pacing in certain areas: you did mention that you dislike how tiring the game can be to play, which is absolutely true, but I don't see how this is an issue at all, as it is still a fun experience nonetheless and this fact does not lessen the amount of content within. You did also mention how all-zones mode ignores diamond mechanics (unlockables and the like), but, again, I absolutely find this to be a great design choice. While it can make the player feel like what they did was for "nothing", that definitely depends on player psychology. Unlockables are mostly featured in the game as a way to not overwhelm the player with tons of items right at the start. All-zones mode makes it so that, if you prefer a more traditional rogue-like experience (as oppose to what is referred to today as a "rogue-lite"), it is an option. I personally picked this option, as did many players that I spoke with.
## VISUAL STYLE
Regarding the "visibly female armour regardless of character choice"... what?? First of all, this is a game thematically about venturing into a deadly crypt. If you find "female armour" (whatever that means??) you will most likely use it anyways. There can be lots of different lore explanations for this (crypts are places often used for burial, as this one clearly is. These items most likely belonged to someone in the past. Our human history has a lot of kings, and kings used to be buried with expensive equipment such as this - who's to say that, in Crypt of the Necrodancer, they were queens instead?). And, aside from that... I'm not even sure what you're talking about with "visibly female armour". I seriously don't see anything, but maybe that's just me.
With that, you do also mention other things like "slapping the shovel or effect sprite on adjacent tiles", which I found perfectly fine design choices (not only does it produce less clutter, but it also creates more clarity). These are all probably subjective, though, even if you did say they're elements that are... "noticably unpolished".
Thank you for taking the time to comment. Every comment supports the channel, so I greatly appreciate it! As most of what you've written is a matter of taste or aesthetic analysis (simply differing with some of the opinions offered in the video), I'm happy to agree to disagree on it.
But to be clear, people who own a game but never interact with it are not counted by Steam achievement stats. Only those who actually download and open a game are counted. Still, it's perfectly true that achievements are never going to be a perfect metric for gauging game completion on Steam, as they _are_ erroneously pulled in both directions to some degree (pulled down by people who idle the game for cards without actually playing, and pulled up by people who use cheat utilities to unlock them without earning them). Nevertheless, achievements offer the best data that is publicly available for such considerations---especially when comparing between games on the same service. I discuss this topic in more detail in my video on Spelunky 2: czcams.com/video/ts3X9jSlcRE/video.html
@@TheGemsbok Thanks, I wasn't expecting a reply. To not drag on too much:
I see, I didn't know about Steam not counting players who do not launch the game. I really wonder why the zone 1 completion stats are so low then? Weird. I did go on to watch that video and I do agree somewhat. It is true that it does show us some information, even if it is somewhat skewed (I particularly find the graph of achievement difficulty you used in that other video to be a good metric).
To be honest, I mostly made that comment as a list of my thoughts and I do realise that a *lot* of it is a matter of opinion. I tend to respect all of a game's decisions as I prefer heavily-targetted games, so we are bound to disagree.
That's all.
Ik this is an old review, and I agree with most of what you said, but there's a few things I disagree with. I think the difficulty curves are fine because the game is designed for hardcore gamers and is pretty clearly advertised as such. The characters aren't there for seperate strategies or playstyles, but a seperate challenge, even a seperate campaign in some cases. And I think they did a good job at that. I just recently finished Aria all-zones, and I have to say, it wouldn't have been such a blast to me if it weren't for the monstrous difficulty spike. It feels so great pushing through such a hard challenge from the hardest level down to the easiest. Then the final boss which is super well-designed and is fun to practice against, in my opinion.
The game still offers quite a lot to the average player: Cadence, Melody, Nocturna, Bard, Diamond, 5 equally awesome soundtracks, a level editor, and training mode. Most people would probably stop after Cadence, maybe Melody or Nocturna, but the game provides lots of options for training for those willing to approach the more difficult challenges.
As for Coda, uhh. Idk if she is designed to be fun, seems more like an experiment to see if the players can even beat her to me, so I'm not sure how I'd judge her gameplay. I'm sure it must be SUPER satisfying to finally win all-zones with her for the first time, though.
I'm trying not to be biased, but the game is honestly just so good, lol.
I love ppaying incredibly stupidly hard games... and I suck at them to!
Happy to say I am part of the 0.5% of players who beated the game with Aria ~w~
Pros: incredibly fun, creative, and addicting
Cons: hard
Honestly I don't care about the cons mentioned here.
I also stopped at beating all zones mode with Aria, and although my daughter wants to play Coda I just don't care to unlock her. But now I installed 50 mods, probably 30 new characters and 20 that make the game more difficult and I'm still having a ton of fun. I wanted the all zones mode to ignore the progression system. I love the soundtrack more than from Super Meat Boy and Isaac. I don't mind there not being a character in difficulty between Melody and Aria, I love games that give players the ultimate challenge and difficulty, in my opinion that's what keeps games alive, and I think more important than that is that every character has a unique mechanic how to play, which I also love. There's a mod as well that splits Aria into 3 characters A, R and I (lol) with each having only one of the mechanics that make Aria difficult.
In my opinion the con is just a minor inconvenience, and there are a few more pros than just 2. All in all an amazing game and one of it's kind.
Can't believe 98.6% of the people who bought the dlc never beat Nocturna
That's not quite accurate. That's 98.6% of people who have ever downloaded and played Crypt of the NecroDancer. So it includes players without the DLC.
It's sad that Steam doesn't break up the data better, but as I say in my Spelunky 2 video ( czcams.com/video/ts3X9jSlcRE/video.html ) it's still the best information available for this sort of analysis.
And I've tried to fairly account for that situation in this video to some degree by using the criterion 'at least 1% of players' instead of 'greater than 1% of players' for my counting/reporting around that point in the video. That allowed me to include rather than exclude Dove, whose rate was exactly 1% at the time of creating this video. I did that because I conjecture that Diamond's completion rate would be above 1% if he had been in the game from the start.
i agree with you, COTND is a VERY difficult game, but even if i'm not a full try-hard person, i really like to just play with my favorite character even if they are too hard for me
I love how super difficult this game is, punches you down every time you get up then you improve slightly and rinse and repeat. Wish all games were more like this one.
You can't expect a game to make two genres go hand in hand and still have a hand left over to hand-hold you through 100%-ing the main story.
lmao are you high? The dude said he personally seen 100% of the main story.
Vid just says there's no reason for the ending to be limited to 1 out of 200 players when most hard games have a ratio more like 1 out of 5...
It's called a difficulty curve. Look it up and pass what you find to the devs...
Good video. But you’re absolutely tripping on the music. All the music is pretty amazing IMO. At least the cadence levels and bosses,
I never understood why people feel the need to get all the achievements. Not saying it's wrong, but I don't understand it at all.
Well, if you're really curious . . . czcams.com/video/ts3X9jSlcRE/video.html
11:18 13:08
You're not supposed to be able to beat the game in your first run as a new character.
That's correct. Was there any part of this video that led you to believe that I think otherwise?
Reaching the final boss with one of the story characters is very unlikely to occur in a person's actual first run with that character.
What the hell are you in about, dude? He's talking overall total progression numbers from the player database, to date of the video.... What in the hell does that have anything to do with what you're saying? Literally at all?
This game definitely has some curve in difficulty, and I, unlike you, are bad at video games. Also, it seems like zone 5 is easier than zone 4. Also Mary takes 2 hearts damage after her sheep dies, but can survive.
Not quite. If the lamb dies within three steps from the level exit and the miniboss is already dead and you were at full health beforehand, it may be possible to barely survive. Otherwise it's a death.
From the wiki:
"The lamb dies in one hit, and will cause Mary to immediately take damage every beat (Mary's Curse), including the beat on which it was killed.
The amount of damage per beat depends on the player's maximum Heart Containers and Cursed Heart Containers combined:
1-2: 0.5 damage
3-5: 1 damage
6-7: 1.5 damage
8-10: 2 damage
If Mary loses her lamb but exits the level before her curse kills her, the lamb will respawn and the curse will be lifted."