Hello, since I found solution to my previous issues and could play this mod properly I decided to share my thoughts. At first I'd like to congratulate you for amazing work.
Every chapter has its own environment, enemies and much more. Thanks to that levels doesn't feel like the same and repetitiveness is only minimal. Good job.
Second type of ammo for some weapons is really interesting idea. I didn't use them much during my playthrough but I guess that will change in future after full version will be released.
It is nice that story is after events of Serious Sam 2. Croteam made only prequels and honestly Serious Sam 4 and Syberian Mayhem didn't add much to the storyline. Don't get me wrong. Both games are great, but their story don't develop the overall plot much. I am really curious about storyline of this mod in full version.
That is for pluses, but there are also some minuses, but I guess they will be fixed in the future. For know I mention only the biggest ones.
1. In level "Ancient Cambodia - Forgotten Temple" after I killed all enemies in the final arena, door didn't unlock a I got softlocked. In the end I had to use "Please open" cheat to proceed. Looks like there is broken script or something.
2. Same thing happened in level "Ancient Cambodia - Bayon Temple" in the arena with "XLP-4 Beam Gun". Again after killing all enemies, door remained locked and I had to use cheat to open it.
3. Level "Ancient Cambodia - Angkor Wat" has some FPS drops if you look at specific direction, but fortunately it is not that bad and still can be played properly. Similar issue also has level "Planet Atlantis - Crystal Mountains".
4. In the same level after I beat the boss and trigger cutscene, I was moved out of bounce instead to next level, but that is probably because chapters do not yet follow each other smoothly. Same thing happened at the end of levels "Deserted El Dorado - Fungal Caverns" and "The Final Encounter - Abandoned Spaceship" probably because these chapters are not complete yet.
5. In level "Deserted El Dorado - Temple of the Snake" jump pads work correctly only if you step on them from the side. If you go straight, your jump is not high enough to get where you are supposed to get.
6. In level "Planet Atlantis - Crystal Mountains" in the arena with Rocket Launcher I again got softlocked after taking the weapon and killing all enemies. Path is blocked by crystal which was supposed to blow up but that didn't happen. I had to use fly cheat to proceed.
7. In level "Planet Atlantis - Fortress in Ice" in the final arena Spaceship's attack beam causes big FPS drops which makes game almost unplayable. Fortunately it was only for a few seconds.
8. One more softlock in level "Planet Atlantis - Aquarium City" in the final arena. I had to use ghost cheat to get past forcefield.
9. After I beat the boss in level "Planet Atlantis - Abyssal Metropolis" game crashed. That is probably because of same reason like that strange teleport mentioned in number 4.
10. Camera acted strange a few times, but open and close the menu always fixed it.
I know I mentioned many things which must be fixed or improved in final version but don't take it as critics. Even with these issues I enjoyed the game very much and looking forward to full version.
If you are interested you can watch my full playthrough here: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/2623716415
Keep up with good work.
Viewing post in Serious Sam: The Sequel (Public Beta) comments
Hey, cute Miku avatar. I see you're also using Cecil's patch, because some guns fire way faster than they're supposed to. This is because both my mod and Cecil's patch fixes the infamous slow down bug and it ends up adding up, making those guns fire faster. The patch may also cause some unexpected issues, which is why some of these might not get caught in time.
Regarding the issues you found. Some of these are because a fight has been reworked in an update and I guess I messed up some counting triggers. You're also playing on a lower difficulty, which is a bit less tested. And chapter transitions aren't implemented yet. (Each chapter is a separate mappack currently, so linking them up would cause a map to be unable to load, due to the world link not finding the target level.) Framerate issues are of course, a big sticking point for most mappers. I'll try to look into the places you mention. No idea about bouncers. Bouncers are cursed. And Icu-Turso is a constant struggle. I thought I fixed the crashing issue, but it seems it's still there.
Thanks for playing!
I am using Cecil's patch because of widescreen resolution. Steam version has additional patch with widescreen support but GOG version doesn't. You can play with widescreen resolution anyway but it messes up with weapon's FOV, which causes they are much closer to the corner of the screen and they are not fully visible and I just don't like that. In Serious Sam 2 you can adjust weapon's FOV with console command but unfortunatelly this is not the case for First and Second Encounter so I had to find other way to fix it.
About difficulty I always play on Easy on first playthrough. I want to enjoy the game and explore calmly, not suffer. Not every player is the hardcore one. I remember First and Second Encounter have some differences in amount of enemies depends on difficulty which can mess up with count triggers, but based on my personal experience, these triggers can be set for each difficulty separately so it shouldn't be a problem.