I played the alpha demo and was very pleasantly surprised. This has a ton of potential and is a lot more polished than I was expecting.
Here's some feedback in no particular order:
- I couldn't figure out any proper counterplay to the armored hobgoblins, I ended up mainly baiting their jumping slash and hit-and-running. Likely a skill issue on my part, but it felt like I was cheesing them.
- Level and fight design are really solid. All the right fundamentals are in place: great pace, new elements thrown in constantly, rewards for paying attention, etc. It really shows you know what you're doing.
- Loved the sneaky hidden door, very well hinted at. Excellent zombie ambush as well.
- As it seems to be a common topic: I found the difficulty to be perfectly fine for a short intense challenge (or a hard mode), but it might be escalating a bit too fast for an introduction in a larger game. I only died a couple times but I had to used nearly every item.
Lastly, and this is very subjective, I think the weakest aspect is the art direction (primarily the visuals). It's competent and achieves a fairly convincing N64 look, but feels quite bland to me. Dungeon section aside, it didn't build any particularly strong feelings or sense of immersion.
I understand it's a very early build, but at the moment the appeal is mainly just the systems and the challenges. The game would be a much stronger experience if it was also doing something thematically deeper on the whole. That said, I also think it's better to be minimalist and tasteful than the opposite, so take it or leave it.
Hope some of this is helpful, I'll be on the lookout for more updates!