Hey guys, long time no posting, but always lurking.
Well, I love the game, as I thought I would. The buttons take some time getting used to. For the people complaining about too many buttons, remember that SNES also used 6 buttons (8 if you count Select and Start). I still haven't succesfuly found a way to change the buttons placement on android (via "touch.txt" damn, that thing is hard to configure!) so I'm only playing on my laptop (also, huge loading times are a big turn off on android for me). I do believe the experience would be better with a controller.
I love how you can chain attacks and specials into combos, juggling enemies (though I think you could reduce the number of juggles you can do so it feels a little less cheap).
I think the number of characters is the highest point of the game. This is a game for COMIC FANS first, and Gamers second. We, comic fans, get crazy happy just to see a single sprite of a character (we WILL wait 30 minutes in a theater to see a 30 second after credits scene). It doesn't matter if it's optimized or if it doesn't add anything new or different to the game, as long as there are tons of characters and cameos. It's different from Ilusionista's game (in my opinion) who seems concerned much more with gameplay than adding characters to please fans - his game is for GAMERS first, Comic fans second. No matter how much perfection he brings into the code, there will always be the "where's spiderman?" chorus from the comic book fans.
I still have many many many characters to play, but here are some general issues in my opinion:
1) Yes, characters are unbalanced. Not just because some are supposed to be better than others (like Hulk vs Jubilee), but some play much better, specially the new ones, probably because they were created with the new system in mind. Some characters received good updates, but a lot haven't. In any case, if you choose the "right" characters, you can finish a stage with 5 lives. But people feel penalized if they can't play with their favorite characters. I know char select is the "choose difficulty" option: Wolverine=easy, Emma=hard. Even so, it feels bad.
2) The new air/run attacks that use the "weak" and usually non-knockdown attacks, while the air/run specials which do knock enemies down cost MP. This forces you to spam them, preventing access to the ultra move (which is the best "break away" move). You could add up to 50-70% more MP to all character without changing the MP cost of any moves, so you still can't spam ultras, but can use specials more times.
3) It's my opinion that every character in a beatemup should have two jump attacks: the main (attack) that knocks enemies downs, and a (down+attack) just hits and sets them up for a combo. None of these should cost MP. A lot of games are like that and it's something that I think works very well to control mobs. An air special should be something else, like diving attack or a shooting a projectile mid air. There's a really big difference between Dr. Strange's and Storm's air specials right now.
4) the number of enemies on screen is way too high. Specially shooters! Breaking away and keeping enemies on the ground would make it much easier to control the battlefield, but it's much harder to do it now, because of what I said on earlier. Also, there isn't a clear progression of difficulty: stages can already start with a lot of enemies, something you'd expect on later levels, near the boss. In my opinion, you should begin fighting fewer and weaker enemies on the first levels, and later you start encountering one or two bigger badder foes, until later you have to deal with a group of them. I don't know if it's possible to increase the number of enemies in a group according to the number of players, but that would be the best thing ever.
5) X-Npcs are very unbalanced and Xavier dies too easily and you have to restart everything. Good to know you plan on changing that. (please make the big sentinel arrives from the right side, because while you move forward, Xavier usually stays behind). This shouldn't be a hard stage - should be more like a bonus stage. Though it's a great idea to use the npcs, I can understand people finding it strange that they don't have jumps, and blocks and etc. You can't say they aren't real fighters, because Bishop and Domino aren't exactly noobs, while Jubilee is a full character.
6) I know it's an openbor thing, but it's unclear that you can restart the game and keep your unlocked stages/gems when you die. Nothing to do about it, I think.
7) Suggestion: Using Infinite Continues cheat on Story Mode breaks it, but Infinite Lives doesn't. So maybe add this to the "how to play" as a "secret" - cheating is something Deadpool would definitely teach.
8) Suggestion: Instead of increasing the starting number of lives, increase the number of lives found on stage hiding them on secret places and perhaps more Stan Lee cameos (by the way, he should stay on screen instead of disappearing as soon as you hit him so it doesn't seem you actually killed him!). Or maybe items that give a lot of points so you can gain lives faster.
9) Suggestion: allow both buttons and combination inputs. I've done that on MFA2, just by placing a couple of comands at the start of the characters txt, something like "com F F A2 freespecial3" "com D U A3 freespecial4" or whatever syntax works. This will please your kids and allow grognards to use their hadoukens interchangeably.
10) Suggestion: increase jump height for all characters, not just because of plataform levels, but to help dodge bullets. Speaking of jumps, now all characters can change direction mid air which is ok, but they shouldn't do that during a dive attack, like X23 and others do.
11) Suggestion: Stryfe's run. Oh My God. Kill it! Pleeeeeaaase! (the jump animation has a nice enough sprite for a "levitation" move if you change the cape)
Overall, I'm very happy with the game!
