Thanks for your kind words!
1.0 was kind of a mess. The combat wasn’t actually playable, I had to carefully play a certain way as to not break the character and animations. It was also too ambitious with the inventory system and character customization. At one point I wanted to implement stealth, parkour, climbing. But for a multi-character game the above is too much work. It’s since been deprecated and the recent versions are more focused on combat and lootable powerups for progression.
Props for using your own assets! I’m sure you’re extremely talented and I hope to see what you come up with in the hack n slash genre!
As for polishing, I think the biggest thing would be;
TLDR animnotifies to dictate smooth transitions between attacks and movement, wind down animations, camera movement
-focus on the animnotifies. Make sure you set properly when you can chain into the next combo and when you can cancel out of the attack. Same with dodging, how fast after dodging can you dodge again. This is something personally I see other hack and slash indie projects and even AAA games get wrong. Getting the animnotifes right can make a difference between smooth transitions and rough and choppy looking combat. Some may think adjusting speed of animations can make it look smooth but defining how each attack transitions into another can make things appear faster without losing the quality of the animation.
(I played a game called Vindictus where enhancing your weapon increased your attack speed. This literally sped up the animations but there’s a certain point where it doesn’t look natural. If it were up to me, attack speed should maybe dictate how soon after an attack you can perform the next combo with just a tiny bit of playrate increase)
-This may be a small thing for others but terms of animating, I personally love wind-down animations. Meaning every single attack animation should have an end where the subject retracts their weapon and goes back into the idle position. Games like Honkai Impact and Punishing Gray Raven do such an amazing job at stylizing and adding personality to the characters with wind-down and intro animations. One of the characters in Honkai Impact even used taunts at the end of each attack as a wind down. Some marketplace sellers animate full combos and just split the animation up, so the attacks are just cut abruptly at the end.
-Camera is important, depending on the type of feel you want in your game. If you want it to be actiony and up close and personal, you need your camera to move a lot. That means things like camera lag where the camera is a bit slow to follow the character (like nier automata for example, especially during sprinting the camera lag becomes even slower). Camera shakes are important to convey weight in attacks. Camera zooms are a good way to convey certain special attacks. If you’re countering or performing a charged attack of some sort. Zooming in and out can add a layer of dynamic camera movement to your attacks. A good contrast in camera would be Vindictus vs Black Desert Online. Both have similar graphic styles and combat, but the cameras are so different that each create a different feel. Vindictus is actiony and up close and personal while BDO is more laid back and focused on the open world, camera is zoomed out more, weaker shakes, the character is literally stuck in the dead center of the screen at all times. Also with Honkai Impact vs Genshin Impact.
Hope this helped!