I gave this a try, having never seen or played Sicari 1. It's very well done! I think "cohesive" is the word I want here - a great big pile of things have been changed, but they all fit together, and nothing looks like it was done "just because." I cleared every level as each character; my (completely unsorted) thoughts and impressions are below:
• Not being able to run was weird for about five minutes before I got over it.
• There's no such thing as a polite-sounding way to suggest a grammar fix, is there? "As you know,
we Gods are weak..."
• I kept getting hurt as Sicari for quite some time because I wanted to run at enemies while swinging the dagger. I had to learn to slow it down a bit. I'm not framing this as a bad thing, mind.
• I didn't figure out what the midpoint was the first few times, I thought it was a decorative sign and passed it by. I don't think it's particularly poorly communicated, I'm just letting you know at least one of your players is real dumb.
• The Hungry Sand was my least favorite level. I had a difficult time judging which jump would be the one to free me from the quicksand.
• Feeling the Heat and Silence in the Library were tied for favorite level overall.
• One hazard I quite liked was the "double grinders on low ledges" setup towards the end of Ka'Shai the Foul, where jumping too high to escape the grinder puts the player back on the top ledge, forcing another try.
• One hazard I much did not like was in Chill Out, namely the "triple single-tile slippery block jump scrunched under a low, solid ceiling you can't see all of" setup. In my opinion, this is a post-midpoint kind of exercise. The ceiling was kind of a nuisance in that level whenever I had occasion to be near it.
• I'm sure you've noticed, but powerups coming out of blocks like to hide behind the background while rising only to suddenly appear once fully out.
• Ducking and spin jumping seem to cancel Sicari's dagger swing, but starting a wall slide does not. It's so quick as to be a minor issue, but for a split second a blade is slashing out of her back.
• After getting a GAME OVER, the computer screen level select menu is shown; one can see a little halo over the level selector icon.
Originally posted by EeveeAs for my previous question, from what I've seen, the opinion on which character is better is still very split, which I suppose is a good thing?
• I'd argue that's the best thing. If everyone can agree that character X is best, then she probably is, which ought to concern you if balance is something you're after. That said, I found Sicari to be more capable in general than K-16. K-16 seems to be a very horizontal-oriented character, so the second an enemy starts crawling up one of the many slopes or is positioned in one of the many pits, K-16's abilities are quickly made
much more difficult to use.
• Tapping into the above, I kind of felt like there were a few too many "blue metal" enemies about. Maybe these levels were disproportionately from the later game, but placing an abundance of enemies that flat negate most of the abilities that make your characters so unique seems like an odd choice. Could just be me on that one, though.
• Also related to the above, I didn't feel like the powerup items I found were of particularly great use.
If any of my rambling sounds overly negative, that's only because I haven't touched on the graphics, or the music, or the overall design, which is all excellent. I'm glad you're as dedicated as you are to your project, and I hope it turns out to be everything you want it to be.
The woman on your title screen looks like she's in the middle of falling over because she can't see through her heavy iron helmet.
(I'm sorry)