SallyNasty's Game Club - Guacamelee! Playing now! Hey Brochacho/Sistracho - spoilers open!!!

Redherring wrote:

I'm finding this really difficult and frustrating in parts, particularly the platforming sections later in the game where you have to turn platforms and walls on and off with precise timing while jumping between them. And the boss fights. Oh and the "locked room with wave after wave of enemies" fights.

I'm about 6 hours in and maybe 3/4 of the way through?

This describes my experience. I just got through a frustrating jumping section and fell right into a frustrating combat section, so I'll accept my limitations and move on. Youtube for the last boss battles it is!

I'm still glad to have played what I played, and worked this game out of my pile.

I'm running around the temple early on and I might be joining the exodus on this game. This game has fiddly controls already. Up and circle to get a high jump, which is tied to a stamina bar and which doesn't have much air-adjust to it? I prefer a traditional double jump. Dodge on L2, a button with large travel distance and thus a poor response time? Alternative is the right stick, aka the only input which is IMO worse for dodging than L2/R2. The controls are also very glitchy. I keep getting my movement input acting as though I'm holding left on the d-pad when I'm not, after a while it does fix itself but until then I'm either getting battered in combat or frantically jamming right so I don't run off in the wrong direction. I'm pretty sure it's not my controller at fault.

I'll keep plugging away for a while but, considering that the game gets more demanding, I doubt I'll make it to the end. Particularly if the input bug doesn't fix itself.

Rather sad. I like Metroidvanias (progressive exploration games, was it, in another thread?) and would happily play more of them if only so many of them weren't built with demanding platforming and combat. Metroid: Zero Mission is more my kind of challenge level for this game type. It's been years since I last heard of a game of this type with a lower dexterity barrier.

SallyNasty wrote:

These deadlines are not enforced:). Having fun is the only important thing!

As luck would have it, I'm on way home earlier than expected so maybe I'll make that deadline after all!

I know it's not an enforced thing, and I usually go by my own schedule anyhow, but still, I'm kinda liking this "let's all play together" concept.

I played on both Vita and Wii U, and I consistently had problems with inputs misregistering, especially the directional ones. Even using a d-pad for control, where I'm less likely to hit a diagonal by accident, I had issues throughout the game with the wrong attack happening at the wrong time. The timing on dodging also seems really finicky, even without a lot of travel distance in the button press itself.

I made it to the jealous girlfriend fight, defeated her on my second go, and the game crashed while loading the cutscene. Got to do it all over again. Not happy!

How far into the game is that boss battle?

Halfway?

Thanks. Halfway, that's not too bad for progress. I'll pick it back up tomorrow; all the uppercut jumping has made my hands ache.

That is one good thing I can say about the game: when you fail a jump you usually get set back nearby and don't lose any health. Heaven knows I've been doing that a-plenty.

Climbing the Tule Tree.

Can't help but feel that this would be easier if I had a normal double jump instead of up+circle. That's fiddly and unreliable at the best of times, but when stacked on top of dimension swapping and in situations where you don't have long to react? When the controls keep bugging out and acting like I'm holding down left? So much falling back down.

Edit: nope, game would definitely be easier with a normal double jump. Blasted thing is refusing to fire something like half of all of my attempts and it is now making progress impossible. I'm going to try using my spare controller instead in case there's something wrong with the d-pad on my primary.

2 hours of falling later, and I made it to the double jump. Yay! Yay? Wait, it's also unreliable to trigger? [weeps] Changing controllers did not help. Did anyone else play the PS3 version?

I AM going to finish the Tule Tree. I AM. Stubbornness has engaged. I have struggled too much to walk away without having my progress secured. After that? Dunno. Is the platforming here typical of the remainder of the game? If so, I'm heading back to easy games like Dark Souls ;p

This game is illustrative of why I'm always a little wary of indie games. It's lacking that smidge of polish and approachability which most 'proper' games have, and the result robs the game of much of the fun I would otherwise have found. Small tweaks would make it so much more approachable. Why no easy mode where enemies do half damage? If not for the chicken suit's health regen I wouldn't have made it this far and even with that it's been occasionally tougher than is fun. Why not let the character grab ledges when a jump is narrowly missed? Stick that in the easy mode too if you want to maintain the platforming challenge. Definitely spend more time polishing the controls. The game looks lovely and the world is fun to explore, but the minute to minute experience is one of varying frustration for me. People complain about games being focus tested to death but games like Guacamelee are what you get when you only test with a small pool of relatively skilled players.

I have finished plenty of tough games but my skillset simply does not fit 2D platforming and busy 2D combat, so most of the time I'm locked out of the genre despite liking 2D exploration and puzzle gameplay. Most entries in this genre are made by indies now and I've lost count of the number of times where I've gone "That looks really good ... Oh, it's being called tough by people who are better at this stuff than I am, another for my skip list."

frogbeastegg wrote:

2 hours of falling later, and I made it to the double jump. Yay! Yay? Wait, it's also unreliable to trigger? [weeps] Changing controllers did not help. Did anyone else play the PS3 version?

I AM going to finish the Tule Tree. I AM. Stubbornness has engaged. I have struggled too much to walk away without having my progress secured. After that? Dunno. Is the platforming here typical of the remainder of the game? If so, I'm heading back to easy games like Dark Souls ;p

The tree is where I nearly gave up, but I pushed on. The next part seemed a little easier with the jumping, but the optional rooms are just getting harder and harder.

Also the double jump doesn't do you much good, in some parts you need to use the double jump and uppercut together (and/or other abilities).

Still going...

Ugh, based on what I've seen I might call it soon. We'll see, I'm just past the tree but man, it's getting less and less fun.

EDIT: Yep, calling it right now. Just uninstalled. Got to a segment which was pretty terrible and was basically a 'speed test' to see how fast I could kill enemies and not get hit at all.

Oh well. Maybe the next time we play a platformer, it will be good.

I still like it, but the platforming is pretty gruelling that is for sure.

I really didn't expect to be one of the only ones to finish the game this month.

I made it past the tree yesterday. It took me nearly 3 hours. This afternoon I got home, decided that I'd better progress some of my games, and loaded Guacamelee. 10 minutes into the War Temple I decided to delete it from my console. I've lost all interest and I have too many other games to play which I know I will enjoy.

That's -1 for the backlog so it's still a win. Thanks for prompting me to address the game instead of leaving it to continue to sit there.

I actually finished this one! Hit the final boss at about 11:30 last night, at which point the baby woke up. I was foggy and forgot Clocky's mention of how long it might take when I came back to it after midnight - frustration-induced stubbornness set in soon after, and eventually the credits rolled around 1:30 am. But damn, came so very close to throwing in the towel after the first 15 or 20 minutes of fruitless attempts.

All in all, I got most of my enjoyment out of the first 2/3 of the game, which was just barely enough to propel me through the rest. The platforming toward the end had me feeling a bit like I hadn't spent enough time practicing my Popper's Practical Exercises for Young Magicians, and had there been any more of it I probably wouldn't have stuck with it. I'm not that good with controller-based dexterity, so I was never able to work out the line between iffy controls and my own bungling, but it did seem like something might have a bit off in the input translation department, as well as the platforming collision detection in general.

Stuck on the fight with the Jaguar.

10 hours in now.

Are we all playing the same game??

I'm less sure of that everytime someone posts.

Actually, it is work asking: who is playing which version? There's the original release and the Super Turbo Championship edition. STCE adds one or two new areas, a new boss, a new enemy type (the ones that teleport), and was rebalanced to be "less cheap". It also adds a power-up "Intenso" mode to deal extra damage for a short time.

I finished the original release on Vita. I previously played up through the Sierras in the STCE on Wii U (it took 3:45 to get that far). It looks like there was a new area in that part of the game (Pico de Gallo); that's where I left off.

I've been playing the STCE. "Rebalanced?"

It's less that the fights are hard and more that there is lots of potential for cheap deaths, for me.

Yah I am having a pretty hard time right now. Admittedly I am playing on hard, but I am 9 hours in and am having a pretty difficult time of it. Some of the platforming requires such precision it isn't really enjoyable. I really like the graphics and music but damn this is a tough game.

RIght...I've been distracted by other things but I'm going to finish this today, fingers crossed.

The PS3 version is the original. I suspect that it's a version to avoid. No one else here seems to be playing it; no one else has reported any crashes, no one else had the problem with Whatshisface randomly running left every now and then, and while many of you have called the controls a bit problematic none of you seem to have experienced the level of failed inputs I did. Some core moves had like a 50% execution rate and I am certain that I was not fudging my commands.

I wonder if the "less cheap" involved any changes to the platforming?

ok. yeah. No. I got to the final boss.

Just...no.

I'm calling this done I think before I throw something.

pyxistyx wrote:

ok. yeah. No. I got to the final boss.

Just...no.

I'm calling this done I think before I throw something.

First phase or second?

ClockworkHouse wrote:
pyxistyx wrote:

ok. yeah. No. I got to the final boss.

Just...no.

I'm calling this done I think before I throw something.

First phase or second?

second phase. The first one took long enough but I really don't have any patience for the second one. Plus it looks like you get the bad ending without 100% the game anyway so...I think I've done enough to call it done at this point.

I'm playing the "Gold" edition on Steam with an Xbox 360 controller.
The controls are definitely not quite right, plenty of times I've been stuck because the controls wouldn't do what they were told.

I think it crashed once when I entered a new area but overall the game is stable.

The STCE edition is on steam as well but there's no option to upgrade except for buying it again at full price, and that isn't going to happen.

Wow the difficulty just keeps going up.

Redherring wrote:

Stuck on the fight with the Jaguar.

10 hours in now.

2 more hours and still stuck. I've been going through the various stages of stuck:

Annoyance
Determination
Watch someone do it on youtube
Annoyance - that person on youtube can do it why can't I?
Boredom
Rage
Resignation
Throw controller (I mentally threw it because those things are expensive)
Uninstall game and never speak of it again

Oh my. I haven't had time to play more, but I'm getting nervous.

It is fun but the last third *really* ramps up the difficulty.

Which is not a good sign for me considering I'm at the Deserto Caliente and having trouble.

Edit later that night: yeah, sorry gang, but I'm out. Those different colored shields were the straw that broke the camel's back.