Analyzing Arcane Odyssey’s Bosses
This post is a work in progress.
Shura
First bosses in games are very important to player experience. In my opinion, Shura is a mediocre first boss.
Moveset
Shura’s moveset consists of threee main moves:
Teleport: Shura teleports right above the player, releasing a cloud of smoke before he does.
This move is probably Shura’s most annyoing move. The problem with this is that if you can’t see him, you have no idea when this is gonna happen. Also, because of this move, Shura can literally follow you off his island (if u use a rowboat or u swim) and still kill you.
Multi-Slash: Shura slashes with his sword multiple times, creating 4 (i think?) arcs of acid in the air.
This move is pretty good. Gives players a bit of time to get away, but just a bit, and then starts.
Locked Blast: Shura locks a blast to where the player is at the start of the attack, then fires a few seconds later.
(Some of what I mention in the following section may be a bug.) This move is okay, but a bit bad. First of all, it doesn’t really pose much of a threat to the player. Second, Shura can’t be harmed by melee weapons during the startup of this attack. Third, Shura sometimes just feints the blast when he realizes it won’t hit you.
Shura’s moveset is fine, but Teleport and Locked Blast need to be improved.
Environment
Only gripes here are that there is a campfire which burns player fighting Shura, who have around 140 health, to death in 15 or less seconds, and the island is super small with many things blocking your view of Shura. This is a problem because of Shura’s Teleport skill. Also, player doesn’t spawn on the same island as the boss. There is literally an area that would be perfect for that on the island already. Every other boss has a spawn location just like 250m away from it, why not Shura?
AI
Shura’s AI adapts to the player, which is normally better for later bosses. For example, after Shura teleports, he can either do a Locked Blast or Multi-Slash depending on the player’s proximity. This is fine. However, after he does the Multi-Slash, he can do it AGAIN if the player is still near him, or if the player went away and came back. This is where I have a problem with Shura’s AI. Complex AI does not equal fun AI. Fun AI can be learnt and is relatively simple usually, while complex AI is hard to learn and hard to predict.
Rating: 3/10