Fantastic video! I love this devlog type of stuff and learning the reasons behind design decisions is always interesting. Also I never realized the end of levels quote all started with the corresponding ranking initial lol. Nice touch!
I also had no idea you regretted the style meter. I personally love the implementation. As it doesn't fall on the usual Dmc/Bayo trap of forcing you to understand what the game means by stylish. Here both the efficient and stylish approach work, and you don't really need to pay attention to how many times you use a move to satisfy the arbitrary threshold the dev had in mind.
Coming from a guy who's only similar games are DMC 5 in normal difficulty and P-Ranked Ultrakill in Brutal difficulty : These combo games are not really my type of games at all, cuz I'm really not that good at doing extended combos, juggle or anything fancy. But your style and your designs was what attracted me because it all looked so grotesque and cool as hell ( plus , the pink/purple for the win ) I appreciate a lot of designs decisions you've made on the game, especially all the links between attacks, projectiles, player movement and the enemies design ( also Holy shit so many different enemies had crazy ) All difficulty available at the start. DMC 5 didn't want to make me try playing in a harder difficulty because it bored me to hell, being forced in the maximum difficulty you can have at the very start. My only fun was trying to make long aerial combos, but I didn't have anything pressuring me to do so. Haven't finished my run on Magenta Horizon, but playing on Wraith difficulty as a first run forced me to learn the systems of the game. It felt unfair as hell some times, but once the systems clicked in my head, god damn is it satisfying to control the room. At first, I had a really hard time incoporating the projectile attacks into my combos, as I saw them as just a safe way to attack from afar. But once I started considering them as some actual attacks I could get in my combos, it became brutal the good way. Wraith Heart for example, I used to just use them as some prop to put down then just chose whatever direction I wanna send them in. But realising the initial installation of the spike IS an attack that lifts enemies up, it became one attack with a follow up instead of a projectile generator. Except Ultrakill, I don't think I've experienced another game that rewards me with experiencing with my tools to be even more effective in the coolest way possible. All this long text to basically say that you've made a really cool and beautiful game that I'll be coming back to from times to times, whenever I want a challenge :)
Great breakdown, I'm not that good at the game still yet I feel like this helps me come to a better understanding of how to approach the game in my playthroughs. Some of the things I love most about the game are the gross and ugly enemy designs and how they fit into the unique background areas and their animations help show how much they are wild animals native to the afterlife they reside in. The overgrown mushy paths and jagged rock walls that look like carved chunks of flesh really sell this "trying to survive in a chaotic purgatory" world. The music is also literally otherworldly. Another great thing is how Gretel and Archibald (and eventually Blucher) work together, bouncing off eachother with funny dialogue that only sells their friendship more as Archibald gets more items to sell to you and talk about with. Hope we see them a bit more at the end of the game back in Nest Sanctuary after Gretel is done finishing act 3 solo. That is, if they don't make a sudden appearance to help Gretel in some way.
