Quoted from zacaj:Honestly, I feel like as is with the weird auto difficulty making the rooms inaccessible the code is a downgrade from previous. Lots of potential showing, but nothing is really there yet. Not to mention how all the items seem to do a similar thing (give you some free starting progress). Was very disappointed to see that both the zombie items are completely identical in function. No point in choosing which to go for at all.
Light shows are nice, and I really appreciate that we can finally see the hurry up value, but the rules themselves have just gotten weirdly lopsided
I agree that it would be nice if you had the option to always explore the entire castle.
After having some time to play and digest the items addition, I concluded that I think the items are cool and if nothing else make for a fun side quest. But it would be more fun (to me at least) if they were always all available, independently from the selected monster, and you could just accumulate them on passes through the castle. Then I would have the freedom to sequence the monsters and the collection of items in whichever order I choose. Or, even if I want to try to play a round where I don't care so much about the monsters per se, but want to try to collect as many of the items as possible. Sort of like Medieval Madness where some games I just want to screw around and destroy castles, where others I'm trying to work to Royal Madness...Or others where I'm super serious and trying to Battle for the Kingdom. Just fun to have varied paths/options. (Note: I'm not a tournament player and tend to enjoy achieving objectives more than points, though achieved objectives often tend to net a lot of points
And perhaps, to your point, that would open up options for having different items work in different ways on different monsters. So maybe you could select which item you want to use while fighting the monster. Or maybe even combine them for different effects, etc. (Or maybe I just played too much Monkey Island when I was younger...)
Also, always using the vampire shot feels a little bit repetitive. I like that it's the upper playfield (as it's the GOAT IMHO), but I wish the item shot varied a bit up there. And if multiple items were in each room (due to always being available), it would make sense to map each one to their own shot(s)...Or maybe even combos, or roving shots, or...Maybe a shot to select which item you want to grab (assuming multiple items per room) and then a varying shot to collect it?