Well, with all due respect to Nicalis, their App Store history isn’t the greatest when it comes to updates and it was made extremely clear from the beginning that the iOS release of Isaac was simply going to be Rebirth and that would be it. Playdigious, however, have always been extremely consistent with updates. Like, there was a point in time where I was updating Evoland 2 so much that it drove me insane. I guess in hindsight that's a good thing, eh?
I can't make it out of the damn Promenade of the Condemned. Not really complaining as I'm having fun dying, but wanted to make sure I wasn't missing something. Is there another Rune I should have by now or no? Should I be going into the Toxic Sewers? Went there once as found it in under two min so was able to unlock that 2 min door.
If you can go somewhere, it’s intended. You can’t reach anything you aren’t supposed to. Of course you will die anyway
My only complaint so far (from my first 1hr of play) about the touch controls is that the v-stick can be finicky for me around platforms with climbable chains. A bit too many times the PC would start climbing down a chain instead of going across the platform. It hasn’t cost me yet but the movement doesn’t feel as tight as in games such as Rogue Legacy, Grimvalor, or Dust. I think the reason may be is that the sensitivity of the v-stick from left to right is a little low and too high when it registers an up or down movement. Another way to put it: It feels a bit too easy for the game to think your trying to press up/down on the v-stick when your just trying to move left/right and lower acceleration than I’m used to when moving left/right.
THIS! This is the only real problem i've ran into as well. My character climbing the chain while mid combat simply because I slightly pushed upwards on the v-stick near a chain has gotten me killed more than once. NOT to mention, even the slightest movement past the horizontal threshold will cause the character to climb, makes it hard to jump off of chains onto platforms. OTHERWISE.....these controls are crispy.
Holy crap Dead Cells was on my phone this morning what a way to wake up. Iphone X wow its so good , so smooth, The touch controls are incredible the auto attack is actually pretty useful. Ios 13 needs to hurry up so i can use my ps4 controller. Im impressed 2 of my fav games BOI and Dead Cells on my phone correction 3 Rouge Legacy also these are the best premium Rouge Likes ever made. Andddd The new TOOL album Is friday!!!
Tonight while playing, I was able to get further in the game on my phone than I ever have been while playing on PC with a controller. =X To be completely straight though, I've only sunk about 25 hours into the game on PC (and have already spent about 10+ hours playing on my phone in the last day, and knowing what needs to be done for my style of play has vastly streamlined the dive into a new save file), and I'm sure that Hyper Light Drifter and Rogue Legacy have bumped my touchscreen 'skills' up a notch over this last month. Anyway... it's freaking awesome having this available in my pocket and even though there's some out there who don't see why the developers would have ever even considered bringing DC to mobile, I'm incredibly glad that they did, and fully recommend it to anyone thinking about grabbing it. The controls are basically perfectly designed for the device and it runs buttery smooth, even on my older 6S. That - and - you can't really beat $8. Even with it being version 1.1 of the game.... it's a steal. =D
I haven’t seen it mentioned here yet, but there is a known bug for people on iPad Pro when not locking at 30FPS. Basically auto-hit and double jump work inconsistently (The double jump in particular was driving me crazy). For now the workaround is to either limit the system FPS (In accessibility options) or lock to 30FPS in dead cells. Developers are working on a fix.
I made a post (and you can check my post history on reddit) on the iOS gaming reddit about Dead Cells coming to mobile long before it was announced, and I got DESTROYED by folks, saying it could never happen, it wont ever be on iOS, touch controls would be impossible blah blah..... Here it is, Dead Cells, on iOS, running an AMAZINGLY crisp 60fps, touch controls perfectly suited to those of us that posses the skills to use them, and now we are looking at the Rise of Giants DLC coming not too far down the line. One of my favorite parts about iOS gaming is just how WRONG most people are about iOS gaming as a whole. The F2P flood has given mobile a bad wrap, and it seems most people get scared away from touch controls, but mobile is progressing into being just as capable a platform as the Switch. We have literally got Premium Indy titles in our pockets, like, the CREAM OF THE CROP of the Indy market, available to play, on the go. Whenever. Its amazing. And with iOS13 coming out bringing the XBOX and pS4 controller support, this is only going to get better, and better. GOD ITS A GOOD TIME TO BE A MOBILE GAMER.
How about that 4/5 eh? I don't think I've ever been irritated by a toucharcade review score before today. First time for everything as they say. Loving this game. Bought a clip for my xbox controller to hold my phone but I havn't bothered trying it with this game yet, I've been getting used to the touch controls. Game works fine on ios 13 beta.
Worse still that the same review gave 5* to Rogue Legacy, even if he mentioned issues with touch controls: "Enter Rogue Legacy ($3.99), a rogue-lite with a very low tolerance for poor character control. Even with a number of quality of life changes, and some surprisingly good controls, this game is hard. It’s hard in other releases as well, but on screen controls simply cannot deliver the pinpoint control required, which makes the iOS experience even more challenging. Nevertheless, Rogue Legacy welcomes all comers for a quest to explore a cursed castle, beat bosses, and (maybe) figure out who the devil keeps writing all these journal entries." I think DC with autohit is far better than Rogue Legacy on this aspect.
I dunno about that... I think DC with autohit OFF is much better than Rogue Legacy, though.... but whachagonnado? The issue with autohit being on for me is that the character constantly tries to hit enemies even while I'm trying to drop down through a platform, or jump up onto a pole to climb up, and it always results in me taking hits. If I have autohit turned off - this never happens as I have full control over the character. <shrug> It's a well written review, and - as always - there's going to be people who don't mesh with the controls because of the lack of tactile feedback. Maybe DC being higher up on the difficulty scale is what dropped it down to a 4... seeing as any issues one might have with the controls will have more of an impact, and be a lot more noticeable here than in Rogue Legacy. Hopefully people who are on the fence will take all of that into account and won't put buying it on the back burner after playing (and maybe potentially having issues with) Rogue Legacy. This is, of course, all just speculation.... I remember years ago, they were tossing around the idea of getting rid of star ratings all together so that people would focus entirely on the written review.... which, if people did here, I think they'd see it as a 5/5. Control issues are brought up, but it's nothing that sounds like it would drop the score down (until the difficulty and the absolute need for 100% precision comes into play). It's still a good score. Not great - but nothing that should change the mind of most potential buyers. With all of that said.... I think this feels better than 99% of the action games I've played on the touchscreen, and it didn't take more than a few minutes to get comfortable with the controls in their default positions. I did wind up changing the size of the input areas just a bit, and moved the jump icon a bit to the right. I also opted for the fixed joystick. But I have no issues saying that I view the controls as being better than Dust or Wayward Souls or Barbearian or Bastion, Rogue Legacy, Hyper Light Drifter, ect.... actually, I can't think of one game that feels better than this.... I just said 99% because I'm sure there's something that's not coming to mind or that I haven't played yet. =P
agre with you, imo DC has one of the best controls i've played in all this years of iOS gaming, find them better than Rogue Legacy ones... and the whole port is OUTSTANDING!!!
Maybe it’s just me but I feel Dead Cells difficultly curve is kinda underrated and is much kinder to the player than Rogue Legacy or many roguelites and I’m a big fan of Rogue Legacy. Not saying that it doesn’t get crazy but I was not expecting so much gameplay on my first run. Dead Cells, in the way the difficulty escalates, feels like a proper console game that I would have played on the Super Nintendo / PSX. I was on the fence about this game for the longest time because of the “game is super hard and impossible with touch controls” comments before release which I thought meant “you will die super quick so don’t even try on iOS if your not a expert gamer” and that can’t be farther from the truth. I caved and picked this game up on preorder a couple hours before release and I was expecting to be disappointed but it turns out this is one of my best purchases. I was a bit annoyed with that too since the details of the review didn’t match the perfect score. I don’t mind the 4/5 Dead Cells score but it was strange Rogue Legacy seemed to get a pass on the touch controls. I agree that most would see DC as the 5/5 game out of the two if you were just to judge the written reviews. At the end of the day critique is all subjective and it definitely doesn’t impact my feeling towards Dead Cells or Rogue Legacy.
I had never heard of this but based on the comments decided to give it a go. I'm a crappy platformer but these controls are like buttah. And it doesn't seem too hard (meaning, I've been able to play through more than 30 seconds)..Glad I bought it.
Regarding the review, I always have a tough time knowing what to do in those situations. For my money it's a 5 star game all the way, even with its occasional issues. I thought about asking James what he'd think about bumping it up even half a star, but at the end of the day I like to stay out of the way of a reviewer's opinion unless it's just WAY out of whack in some way. As mentioned it's a really well written review and he totally backs up his opinion with explanations. It didn't occur to me that James also wrote the Rogue Legacy review and gave it 5 stars with similar control complaints, and had I realized that I probably would have at least brought up the notion of bumping up the score, or at least getting to the bottom of why one is 4 and one is 5. That said I do think Dead Cells is the more demanding game and I've personally had far more control flubs in it than in Rogue Legacy, but again, not enough to really diminish my enjoyment or for me to not rate it 5 stars. I do really hate review scores though, but they've been a necessary evil for a number of years now, and are kind of integral to how TA functions as a website. That said, I'm working on some changes for the site that may result in either getting rid of the scores altogether or perhaps re-reviewing previously reviewed games and giving them different scores or even offering up second opinions from additional writers for a specific game that might mean it gets two different scores. And then average those, maybe? I'm not sure but I'm always open to ideas.
@JasonLL when the conversation shifts to hardcore platformers, it's been always between Dead Cells, Hollow Knight and Cuphead. It's about personal choice. I find Hollow Knight most difficult for my taste and it's not only because of annoying traveling to destination of last death. Dead Cells just gives me the most satisfaction after successful completion of any task. And of course, it's the only one available on mobile since yesterday, so everything else is pointless
Same here but in defense of Dead Cells those mishaps cost me much later into the game. Rogue Legacy, while it does have tighter controls, may end your game within minutes if you have a control mishap. For me it’s sort of a wash between both and cancel each other out. The zealotry and fascination with scores in general are a religion for many gamers. There will certainly be some lurkers who will give a hard pass to Dead Cells 4/5 (80%) since it’s more than a dollar (super pricey!) and it isn’t a “perfect” game so I understand the concern some of the TA family may have. On the other end I don’t think James Wyndcliffe should automatically give it a 5/5 if he genuinely doesn’t think it’s deserving of it. I remember years back when a reviewer gave one of the Zelda games an 8 and the internets lost their collective minds despite the facts that an 8 is an amazing score and opinions are subjective. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I wish more people, if they’re interested in a particular game, take in the big picture and try to get as much feedback as possible without being solely focused on one review. Games on the AppStore evolve constantly and I feel re-reviews are necessary in certain instances especially if certain complaints from the original review get remedied in future updates. For the big games I think that’s a great idea even if the scores are not any different. Even if a big game like Dead Cells gets a 4/5 from both reviewers it at least says to the average user that “this is a huge release and a big deal to the iOS ecosystem”.
For me, I wasn’t annoyed at the score until I looked at other games scores In touch arcade and it didn’t seem fair, but then I passed it up as the reviewers being different and having different tastes. But then looked at his other reviews and it really seemed discordant. But whatever. You can’t give EVERY game a 5 or you would invalidate yourself. I notice he hasn’t done a ton of them so I bet over time he’ll get a better feel for scoring. As far as getting rid of scores I think you’d be shooting yourself in the foot. When I get an iTunes gift card, I come to touch arcade and look at the 5 star games and decide which ones I want to invest in. Sure, if none of them appeal to me or I’ve bought them all (Yes, I have a problem ok!?) then I look at the lower tiers incrementally. But you KNOW you guys do the same thing. That 5/5 list is a shopping list. That’s the other main reason why this annoyed me so much, Dead Cells belongs on that list. If anything I think adopting a multi tier approach could work. Graphics 10, Gameplay 10, Sound 10, Controls 8, Depth 10, total 48/50. Or something like that. Just spitballing. And by the by, I adore the idea of multiple reviews for games. LOVE it. My favorite time of year is when you guys all post your top ten lists and I can read multiple accounts of the same top tier games. Even if I already own them I like to see what you guys all think of my favorites.
