Demon's Crest

[@adammalm4733]

always love hearing Matthew's hot takes about the ale industry in Ireland

[@edhero4515]

"...when companies do really [not good] stuff and people get defeatist about it and say: well that's it [...] that's just the way things are now, [...] it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy." Matthewmatosis, 04.12.2021

[@glossedghost]

If it helps, yes, I go back and rewatch your old videos because I like them more and I feel like that might be the case for a lot of other people as well.

[@thebuddah1253]

Same. I rewatch all of his multi video series all the time.

[@XATH0RN]

I can't believe I missed this! Demon's Crest is absolutely my favorite game and I missed you playing it! I have a few insights that may address some things brought up in the stream. My most major criticism I have for the structure of this game is at 12:03. I think the game does a poor job of communicating that this guy and his two brothers have set up three different shops in the realm, and that they are hidden on the world map. This is the only time something is outright hidden on the map, and other than some discrete landmasses, the game gives no indication that there are three of these Trio de Pago minigames. The manual briefly mentions it, but especially considering that the reward for the highest-tier one is something you need for the true ending, it could have done a better job while still remaining somewhat hidden. At 24:45, Ground Gargoyle's grounded move that travels along the ground does double the damage than the aerial version as a general rule. Like Mega Man, certain bosses have weaknesses to specific attacks. Belth, the skeleton at 14:15, takes 3x the damage from G.G.'s ground move rather than the usual double. The bosses in this game have invincibility frames, so even if the grounded projectile was active for longer than the aerial one, the boss would be immune. I do like the fact that even if you hit the boss while it is invincible, it still plays the damage SFX. It makes whaling on it more satisfying. To clarify 30:50, the game does not have lives, and death sends you to wherever you entered the room. If a room has multiple entrances, it can be advantageous to leave and re-enter through the door closer to the boss. I also agree here that not being able to use L and R to switch forms is the biggest mistake this game makes. At 35:50, you can die to prematurely leave a level, but considering there is other stuff in the cave you could have gotten with the buster if you explored a little more, I would not have advised it there. You mention the soundtrack at 41:19, an interesting note is that this game, like Super Ghouls N' Ghosts, has no percussion whatsoever in its soundtrack, which makes for a distinct cohesion throughout the OST and even with GNG, albeit much more sinister. At 42:01, you can get those talismans appraised by the scholar at 10:23 to learn their effects. The crown you've picked up there increases the drop rate for money and lowers it for health. At 43:40, you mention the later levels being locked off. This has to do with how the multiple endings are structured. If you've not taken all of the main paths in the first 4 levels, the last two levels do not become available. An interesting note is that if you've taken only 5 or 6 out of the 7 paths, the final boss becomes available, resulting in the bad ending if you fight him. This unclear nature of the structure of the game, combined with the fact that the cave in level II and the Tower in level IV are very well hidden, led many people to think that Demon's Crest is only half the length it actually is, and is cited as the likely reason this game reportedly had a week of "negative" sales, where more copies were returned than were sold in a one week period. If you're considering hacking the game, 53:43 is a notorious bug where if you die once while fighting Flame Lord, the burning forest is removed, when it should only be removed after you've defeated him. This makes the first phase of the fight much easier than it should be, but also allows you to collect an item hidden in the brush early. In regards to 1:46:43, there are more endings, you've gotten the second worst of them. For the better ones, you need not just the talismans, but 100% of all collectibles. I'm glad you see things of value in this game, it is truly something special to me and I am very happy you played it, even if it was not 100% with the true last bosses. As a GnG enthusiast, I think it is worth your time to go for the best ending of Demon's Crest at some point.

[@thanksbetotap]

The soundtrack for this game is amazing.

[@Dahpie]

Probably of the best SNES games in terms of artstyle and music. The music in this game is phenomenal.

[@MAYOFORCE]

Demon's Crest is an elaborate rom hack of Mega Man X

[@genegideon6705]

Let’s not act like the shop systems in DMC and Bayonetta are perfect: they lock important, basic stuff in them. But for the most part, they’re far better than most upgrade systems/shops in modern games. So many games of the last several years lock the most absolute standard tools behind upgrades. I don’t know how many indie action/platformers I’ve played where you have to buy the ability to hit enemy projectiles. Or how about Hyper Light Drifter, making you buy the multi-dash. This is the reason Curse of the Moon 1 and 2 are so awesome to me: you get a plethora of great tools just by getting through the first few levels, and then you just adapt and learn the game. But AAA games do this the worst. Ghost of Tsushima gates off the ability to block arrows, and you even need to go through the skill tree to have smoke bombs actually blind enemies. And for a game as long and bloated as that is, it’s completely unacceptable. Unpopular opinion, but I like the upgrade systems of stuff like RE4 and Dead Space 2; you get amazing, multi-functional tools that are great on their own, but you upgrade their established utility to make them slightly more efficient at what they do. I prefer this to trying to figure out how to spend my money when the options are basic necessities we’ve seen in games countless times.

[@xHanabiran]

Have you played Shadow of the Ninja - Reborn by Natsume? Great action platformer. I Also love Ninja Five-O by Hudson, the best GBA game ever imo. Another great indie action platformer is Steel Assault, very fun 1cc to perform. Well, needless to say Mega Man 9 by Inti Creates is the greatest game ever imo, I hope you try that one someday. You did so much to me in terms of good recommendations that I hope i am able to return the favor in some extend with these recommendations :)

[@dearcrowns]

Feeling like I do need to check out the GnG series (and it's spinoffs) at some point now, or at the very least Super GnG onwards (less sure about the games that precede it admittedly).

[@SmileRYO]

Man he's so passionate for GnG Resurrection. Game definitely didn't get a fair shake. I also was turned off from the art direction at first but I'm glad I gave a chance regardless. It's really good.

[@jerm5466]

Thanks for the stream as always - and hurry back for another

[@wonderguardstalker]

Fucking love Demons Crest, very pleasant surprise

[@karpopper]

Does GnG have a good scoring system or do you just ignore it. When I play mario 3 or castlevania I just ignore score but maybe it makes it more interesting.

[@deadliestvice5356]

Dread could have been better in execution if A) two of the EMMIs didn't get immediately destroyed, especially the first one you encounter, which is at very beginning of the game, since they got advertised as an insurmountable enemy. B) the game focused on EMMIs only, maybe even just the *one* and wasn't bogged down by all this other stuff like Raven Beak and Samus becoming some kind of Metroid goddess. C) the checkpoints weren't placed before the rooms and the EMMIs (and bosses) being balanced better instead of a reaction-counter spam fest. D) some optional suit and cannon upgrades existed; all of them are necessary. E) the one Chozo guy wasn't there, in the ONE game that was part survival horror, when in every other game Samus is completely isolated. I always wonder what could have been if Metroid didn't get outsourced.

[@Galaxy40k]

I haven't watched the full stream yet, but does he say anywhere in here how he's playing the game? Like is this an original cart on a Super NT, or is it running through an emulator?

[@zaborgx380]

Flash cart

[@xHanabiran]

Matthew said that he likes ghosts n goblins better than mega man but i highly doubt that he played mega man 9 and mega man 10. Specially mega man 9 i would argue that it is the greatest action platform game of all time. Heck, it is my top 1 best game of all time.

[@thefebo8987]

when did he talk about NFTs or was it in the other stream?

[@dante19890]

is Matt comming back with vids for his main channel soon

[@ebnflo]

Nah. Not at least for a while. Doing game dev apparently.

[@dante19890]

@@ebnflo love too see some new game reviews. He seems to hold himself to an unreasonable standard tho.

[@LavosYT]

So do we know if Mattew's planning any new videos or only working on his own game?

[@maxgarcia6231]

You gotta be trolling lol

[@Galaxy40k]

In this stream he says he's got some ideas for videos but nothing in production

[@pinkfloyd36123]

he's not planning any new videos, but he hasn't totally ruled out possibly going back to them at some point. for now it's just the game tho

[@LavosYT]

@@maxgarcia6231 Not trolling, I watch most of his content but did not find the time to watch a lot of this stream

[@LavosYT]

@@Galaxy40k Thanks!

[@specknacken6507]

OK maybe i'm not getting anything and Ghouls and Goblins just isn't for me but: Can't you just break down its design to basically "Bullshit Difficulty On Purpose" which is absolutely fine for people who like that sort of stuff btw.? Matthew talks about meticulously but also randomly placed enemies but...that's just deliberate fuckery with the player no matter how you put it in the end. It's only different for people who like it because they have way more patience with this sort of stuff (which again is absolutely fine) and Matthew is proof of it as he demonstrated in the last few years that he has no problems bashing his head against a wall for hours until he wins. I played Resurrection and it is overall a well designed game but boy howdy was i glad it had difficulty levels for everyone. And Matthew mentioned some time ago that he got to a point where the game's difficulty became too much even for him (i think it was the Nightmare version Dragon boss or something) so... I kept thinking about DS2 and its "bullshit and stupid" difficulty moments. And it is a stupid game imo but what makes it better if its "bullshit and deliberate"? "Every frame you are solving a problem"- So it's just very hard and demanding? Because that's all i get. "Git gud" is cringe unless its about Ghouls and Ghosts? I don't know maybe i have to play it again because i have such a 50/50 relationship with Resurrection as on one hand i absolutely appreciate its determination to not pander to the biggest number possible (difficulty levels aside) but on the other hand...i can totally see why almost no one makes these specifically designed games anymore lol. Or it's just not for me which funnily enough is something i can appreciate when i think about it. We need more games that are not for everyone if you know what i mean.

[@matthewmatosisextra]

"Bullshit Difficulty on Purpose" isn't how I would describe GnG. My 4th developer diary on Patreon explains the appeal better than I'll be able to here but I'll try to explain again anyway since I probably didn't do a good job during the stream. I also explore the topic during the shmup section of my Viewtiful Joe commentary where I'm essentially explaining why action games benefit from some amount of randomness. Action games always tend to have some amount of randomness, even if that randomness is kind of accidental. Medusa heads would be one example. In some Castlevania games (maybe all) they're deterministic which means if you're a speedrunner you can exploit them to your advantage by moving the same way every time you go through a specific room. If you move the same way, the medusa will spawn in the same place, becoming predictable. This is probably not what the developers were trying to achieve though, they were just working with the limited hardware of the time to create an enemy which would throw players off their game. Most casual playthroughs of a Castlevania game will see the medusa heads spawning all over the place due to subtle changes in the player's behaviour which has a knock on effect, meaning a player will need to adapt on the fly. I think it's in these adaptions where the game is at its most enjoyable since it forces you to think about the mechanics in a deeper way in order to make the right choice, not simply press a pre-defined sequence of inputs you've worked out ahead of time. GnG is just this principle taken to a further extreme since enemy spawns themselves are randomised to a degree. This gives the game a lot more replay value. No matter how many times you've gone through it, if you switch your brain off you will die. Even a momentary lapse of judgement is often enough to take damage. It's hard yes but it's always (or almost always) possible to find a safe way out of a tricky situation. Note that I'm not simply praising difficulty here since it would be possible to create a much more difficult game (even using the same character and enemies) by planning out an extremely precise series of movements which is the only way to survive. I would enjoy that game a lot less despite being more difficult. It's the constant struggle to adapt which makes it so good.

[@specknacken6507]

@@matthewmatosisextra Thanks for the thorough explanation, much appreciated. I get the joy of constantly having to adapt to different situations and obstacles and how much it benefits the overall replay value of a game but as someone who nowadays prefers to mostly relax playing videogames that's just too stressful. It once again bears mentioning though that i do think it's wonderful a game that goes this hard into that design philosophy exists and it got published and made by a major game company.

[@matthewmatosisextra]

I can understand that, I go through phases where I prefer relaxing games myself. Needless to say I'm also glad Capcom took a chance on it. I hope it at least broke even for them.

[@joebailey8294]

You coaxed an essay out of him