Docs, QoL Changes, and Fixes.

Heyo everyone! Here we are again. This week was getting SFX docs ready to go and sent off. Considering the SFX doc takes quite a bit less time than stuff like VA and Translations, I ended up with some time to spare, so I started tackling the list of things I've yet to get to. Many of them are minor, but there are a few pretty notable things. Let's get into it!

I made some revised improvements on laser detection

Before, when this boss did this move, hitting the face was super inconsistent... but no more.

There were a couple other things with this fight that bothered me a lot. One was that Sola could technically roll a face that was already destroyed... making it kind of awkward to attack if the only living face was on the back. I fixed it so that she will now only roll existing faces (This was the original intent, but it was bugged).

Finally was her Flamethrower indicator. It was barely noticeable, and actually didn't even display properly. Now when she is charging, and shooting flames, she will have a much brighter indicator showing her timing. You should have a better idea of when it's safe to return now.

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Next I went through some levels and looked for assets that could benefit from fading materials to ease camera clipping.

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Next was fixing a few lingering visual quirks in Nova's final boss fight, along with assessing the SFX to see if new ones are needed, or if existing ones work.

I also found an issue with the new Neural Link ability which I fixed.

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After this I decided to approach some inconsistencies that were presented in levels.

First was in Raptura. If you destroy the wall ships, when you approach Lana after missing the pipe she says she'll "take the one on the right, you take the one of the left"... but what if they are already dead? I decided to separate the dialogue so that she no longer says this if they are dead already.

After that was the seemingly worthless function of the wires in Neos. If you just blast down the hall, you explode every wire with no repercussions. Now when you destroy a non-pink wire, they explode, but rubble will also fall down onto your head regardless of how far away you are, causing you to take damage.

Another weird thing in Neos, and in fact any level that has a boss rail that doesn't move forward. When you pick up things like Nika's Yarn, or pick up a health pack, the hitbox lingered. You could technically jiggle in and out and collect the yarn like.. 3 times per yarn. This bug was fixed.

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Now here is where we get into one of the bigger implementations. This was actually something that has been requested since the initial public releases: skipping boss intros.

Some bosses have pretty long dialogue sequences, so I made it so that if you are loading from the last checkpoint of a level, the boss will not do their intro dialogue, and instead start the fight right away.

The jarring thing about this is that there's not the greatest "tell" that the fight is starting right away to the player, so it might surprise them. To combat this, I decided to make a few other changes to the UI.

This was something that always kind of existed in a few fights, like Pigman. When you started the fight, the screen does a slight shake, a "boost" sfx plays, and your character goes way faster. This was the "tell" that the fight had started. This was not present in all boss fight because some bosses don't work too well when you are going 5x speed (like Sola in Titas 2, imagine trying to move around the pillars at 5x speed).

To give a proper tell across the board, I added a similar effect to the start of the level when you first gain control of the character.

It will now display "ENGAGE" along with the engage sound effect as soon as a boss fight starts.

This gif also displays Pigman's behaviour when loading from a checkpoint. Notice he does not sit there and yap. As soon as the boss is in position, the fight begins.

There is still a big question on my mind with this function now that it's in, and that's if the dialogue should skip any time you replay a level.. in general. I feel the bosses lose a lot of their charm without their intro dialogue, but at the same time I feel if you are replaying a level, you probably are trying to just get through it for a specific reason, and wouldn't want to sit idly by for the boss' banter.

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The final thing I did this week was... sorta a small follow up on the "saving time during dialogue" train. A dialogue string that always bothered me was Pom's intermission if you go the pink wire route. When she tries to retreat, and it fails, I felt the dialogue just kinda went on and on. I decided to remove the whole first chunk of dialogue for that segment.

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Annnyyyyways... I was yapping a bit here, but that sums things up. Next week is going to be a quick Music Doc, then I will be continuing the list. Depending on the state of assets, I may adjust. Thanks again everyone! Catch ya then!

-Regulus