Grabbed it last night and had enough time to give some quick impressions. I’ve enjoyed reading the back-and-forth between MC and macplash. You guys are something else I’ve seen the game on other platforms and considered buying it several times but I chose this version because I like my shmups/bullethell games on iPhone. There seems to be loads of content - skill trees, different pilots, missions and side missions, etc. The voice acted story is quite nice too. I was worried about the controls not being relative touch, but after reading the developer’s response to MC’s query I had to pick it up. It makes a lot of sense why they went with the control method they did based on that. I tried both joystick and touch and I prefer the touch input. I’m getting used to playing in portrait (the only orientation) but there’s often a lot going on on the screen. I think it will just take some practice to get better. I started out on hard difficulty so I may lower it to normal. Overall I feel like there’s so much here to take in and everything works well mechanically so there should be no hesitation for those that are on the fence. Definitely a quality premium title that I’m looking forward to diving into more this weekend.
My new favorite grinding area, Chapter V - Stage 1 - Hard difficulty - things are getting serious. You can also see Meteor fall ability in action, which looks great even though fully upgraded bomb is still stronger. Check it out: —-
Okay, so the Squadron level cap is 145. This will leave you just 6 points short from fully upgrading skill tree for all 4 characters in American campaign. If you’re willing to make compromises and do some smart choices, you won’t need to grind for skill points anyway. There’s always an option to reset skill tree completely so you can try different loadouts and don’t miss anything cool. Took me 10 hours (including all the grind) to go through American campaign, which is 25 levels in 5 chapters of fully voice-acted story and cutscenes, boss fights and 3 difficulties to choose from. Now, there’s a second campaign for the other side ahead of me which contains everything from above with different story, set of characters, planes and whatnot. Ridiculous amount of premium content, am I right? —————
Well, I tried the game and also having an issue with controls. I think the real problem is the lack of control options available. There are abundant of shmup control methods out there, say relative control, dynamic joystick, joystick that follows around the finger, etc. This game has none of them and limited to control methods from 10 years ago. To my eyes the devs are trying to get away with minimum effort in porting to mobile, especially after knowing the company has experience with adding additional control mehods.
Trust me, they're not trying to get away with anything. From the time and effort they've spent emailing me, to monitoring this thread and other sites (yes, I hadn't mentioned that, but they're amongst us), checking any reviews they get on the App Store, etc., they want to get the most amount of feedback possible in order to see how to move forward with this control dilemma. Look, I emailed them honestly not even expecting a response, but what I got in return made me a loyal customer for life. They could have just ported this over with minimal effort, made a few bucks and called it a day, but instead they're actively looking to fulfil what we, as an active community, feel is best. I was the harshest critic on these controls, and trust me, @macplash would have condemned me to the pits of hell if he couldn't deal with them either (this is a guy who truly believed there was no way to get Dead Cells on mobile without it playing like shit, yet take one look at the Dead Cells thread and...well....no explanation needed). While I personally agree that the controls are not optimal (even Jared brought them up in the Game of the Week post), there's a reason why they are implemented like this, and there are options available.
I’ll add: absolutely unplayable on iPad. Certainly without a table to hand. If there is an auto fire option, I’ve yet to encounter it. I assume it’s an unlock? Im intrigued as to the reason for them being implemented like this, btw?
Old RTFM comes to mind, but if you tapped on Instructions - controls, you’d see for yourself. It’s not hidden or anything.
Hey! I most certainly would not have done such hideous thing! I probably would have brought it up every now and then for the foreseeable future, but nothing as harsh as eternal condemnation. Oh boy, was I skeptical before the game came out? Absolutely! Did I claim there’s no way for touch controls to work? I sure did. Did it turn out to be a phenomenal experience eventually? Hell yeah! And in retrospect I’m just glad I was wrong back then. It has taught me a lesson. Now when there’s a new game to try I’m always going in with an open mind. All this negative feedback about controls is probably coming from those who didn’t even try the game for themselves or didn’t spend enough time with it. Just judging it by the lack of available options. And it’s getting pretty annoying to discuss it over and over again. There are two completely different control schemes and both work exceptionally well. There’s a logical reasoning behind these control schemes explained by the developer in a response with quote in this thread and if that’s not enough I dare you to suggest a better way for controls to work with all the features and requirements in mind.
Sure, add MFI controller support or the following joystick from the Soul Knight, where the joystick moves around when a finger reaches the edge of the boundary of the circle, and I’ll keep my mouth shut as hard as my gf’s purse.
As I wasn't familiar with Soul Knight I went through trouble of downloading and trying for myself and there's no such thing as "joystick moving around when a finger reaches the edge of the boundary of the circle". On the contrary. It offers a classic floating joystick which means the joystick appears anywhere on the screen under your thumb after touching it and stays there as long as you don't lift your finger. Surprisingly, exactly the same control scheme that is available in the Aces of the Luftwaffe Squadron Extended edition. Which only proves my point about people criticizing something before even trying for themselves. Case closed.
Well, I am absolutely sure there is one for the Soul Knights because I was playing the game just now. Try tapping the joystick option until you get the “following joystick”. And I did purchase the Luftwaffe squadron. I can take the screenshot if you so doubt that I am talking about the controls without even trying the product.
@Jstorm I don't know what game you're referring to but only Soul Knight game I found on the App Store has no such option as "following joystick" nor am I able to tap anywhere to make a different choice. the only available control settings I have:
You need to select a character and press the pause button to access the option I am talking about. it’s the third button from the left on the bottom row.
Oh, so obvious. How could I have missed that? But you're right! And there are two options for you then. Either contact Handy Games with detailed description of the controls you're craving for and wait for them to implement it or request a refund because the game's unplayable for you any other way. There's nothing else to do. But bad-mouthing them the way you are really isn't the way! Especially after their explanatory responses to our previous requests.
Relative touch would work much better despite what the devs and some here have said. The port is excellent other than the controls and I don’t regret the purchase one bit but different speeds do not matter (relative touch with a max and/or differing speeds has been done before by others). If it can work with direct touch (a current option), it can and will •always• work better with relative touch. I really don’t want to belabor the control issue because it’s been pretty well laid out, but I need to point out that, as someone who has played hundreds of shmups on iOS, these controls are simply not good. Yes, you get used to them, but that just means you learn to like them better than you did at first, which is very little. They are still not good. As I said the game is otherwise incredibly well done, and I appreciate the developers are listening to feedback, but I hope they take it seriously (they responded to my email by saying that “you get used to it” and pointed me to this thread which is why this current discussion worries me). This port is like being handed an absolutely delicious bowl of soup and a fork to eat it with. Sure I’ll figure out a way to make it work, but I’d prefer if the restaurant brought me a spoon.
Good analogy. I don’t have a problem with the controls. Didn’t take much time for me to get used to the joystick. But sure, I’d prefer relative touch since every shmup I love on iOS has had them (and usually toss aside the ones that don’t). I’m actually surprised that the response from the dev pointed to this thread. It would be awesome if they could interact with us here. So if you’re reading HandyGames, come out of the shadows. We’d love to have a conversation with you.
