
Demo Feedback after ~430 Hours On DZR1 And A Thank You To The Devs (Pic is my face while playing)
Started playing DZR1 in the playtest and put over 400 hours in, now playing through the demo and having an absolute blast, but do have some more specific feedback other than "having fun".
First of all, you can make pixel art with the hallway panel! How fun!
But in reality, the demo so far has shown me that the devs understand perfectly what we all loved about DZR1 and set out to make a game based on what we loved. Combat still feels very smooth, movement feels intentional(although Ill admit its been so long since not being max level in DZR1 that I felt like a slug for a bit), and enemies are unique with clear counters and strengths.
Thank you for building melee into a more fleshed out system. The weapon variety feels meaningful, we have another melee perk to run, and the existing melee perk is no longer a stealth cheese, which I am so thankful for. I would love at some point a "Main-hand melee" option so that we are running around with melee in hand, but I also recognize that might not be what the devs want, so Ill chalk that up to wishful and hopeful wanting.
Thank you for not shortcutting the non-gameplay aspects that made DZR1 great! The voice acting is stellar, the music is fantastic(cant wait to be able to buy the album), and the aesthetics really feel like a natural extension of the first game. The bar/club room is such a great slice of what makes the DZR games feel unique: Great layout design, amazing music, interactable environment, and funny interactions and dialogue
A few things I would like to see or have notes on:
Some of the outside levels need their brightness toned down a bit. The nature ones are great, but the exterior ship ones are so bright and have the same colors as the enemies that sometimes its hard to distinguish where anything is.
The audio seems a but sharper(?) than in DZR1, a bit more tinny and the loud sounds really punch through the rest of the audio causing very loud moments compared to the rest of gameplay (though, maybe this is just me).
Already mentioned that Id love a main-hand melee, just bringing that up again because please :)
Accurate stat display to keep track of total kills, accuracy, runs, deaths etc that DZR1 had for a little bit but wasnt accurate on. To me, its another way to reward replaying the game because I think we all love watching numbers go up
Hopefully after release we get the option to further support with ship decoration packs as we did in the first game. It was just cosmetic, but it really did add a fun vibe to the starting area as well as allowing us to support as we can.
Please let us just restart a run rather than having to abandon and go back through the entire selection process again
Overall, the demo feels exactly how I would have wanted it to feel: a natural extension of the first game that feels like the first game with some unique and fun identity changes. I cannot wait to sink hundreds more hours into DZR2 and thank you devs for keeping the spirit of the game true <3