Okay, I take it they just didn't spawn or when they did, that was what made me crash.
Eitherway, a small writeup, section wise, pure opinion. Might contain some spoilers, also note I may not know the exact names in which case I might end up describing the area instead.
[SPOILER WARNING]
Dark Forest
The starting area. Difficulty wise it's absolutely brutal with a fresh character. In a way, the starting area serves the same purpose as Sigmund, slaughter anyone foolish enough to not run away.
Petra Town
The usual training ground for me. Curiously enough, everytime a quick leveling exploit I reported gets fixed, I find another. This time around: Some weapons finally work under water - which is great. However you can attack while standing in the pond, the enemies on the other hand can't. Either way, I usually do a couple of levels the normal way, gain some money and weapon proficiency in the process. From that money, the first purchase always ends up as either an armor or a shield.
Dark Forest
Back in business, still, I avoid everything that gets thrown at me and rush my way to the bridge. Did the white skeletons get a rate of fire buff? They do seem to throw their bones much more often. Anyways, they're not worth the trouble.
The Bridge
Heya Skeleton Suckers. Goodbye Skeleton Suckers. Not much to say. Again the white skeletons aren't worth the hassle thus I jump off the bridge and take the water route to the other side, get out safely and proceed alive. Going over the bridge seems a bit problematic, long single tile passages and machine gun (white) skeletons firing away to their hearts content. most of the time they bump you into the water one way or another so might as well save the time and HP and ignore them alltogether.
Castle Hall
First area inside the castle. Ghouls are a great way to gain another couple of levels. Just wait till they're next to you and happily bash away. Thanks to the introduction of active dodge (yay) and an optimized level structure (YAY!) this area has improved a lot in playability. Being able to dodge projectiles and hide behind obstacles is fun.
Inner Quarters
I always forgot the name. It's the first branch in the castle. It's a place I'll only venture in under one of two conditions. One, I found a silver weapon or an artefact with critical hit properties. Two, I gained a couple of levels and grinded a RNG 2+ weapon. Otherwise it's a pretty straightforward area with decent rewards.
The Moat
Will you bloody stand still already? The merman are a nuisance at this point. Most classes aren't fast enough to close the gap fast enough for a hit, thus its a perpetuum mobile between running towards them and them running away. Usage of jumping and skills can remedy that to a degree. It's not a particular fun area to pass through, but not a difficult one either.
Boss: Giant Bat
Same as the merman, hard to hit, unless you're spamming skills or abuse its teleportation. Not hard, not a challenge either.
Castle Lab
Now we're slowly getting somewhere. Another good place to stock up on a couple of levels. Medusa Heads are quite predictable in their pattern. Healthy distribution of potions, keeps you running for a while if not for rescue missions. While rescue missions can appear earlier than that, this is where I mostly find my first captive. Backtracking included.
Castle Lab can be a bit difficult first time you enter it but there are no real surprises here. Medium difficulty.
Boss: Medusa
Mileage may vary. You need to be quick to take her down, once she had time to builtup an army you've lost. It's a hit or miss thing. Difficulty fluctuates quite a bit. Usually she isn't a problem though.
Chapel
I can't stand the music in here so I usually deactivate it. Other than that, an area most will breeze through. Especially since for some reason, somewhere in the previous levels there seems to be a surplus of keys. More often than not I can head straight for the door without searching any keys whatsoever.
Castle Ruins
Brickwall. It's quite the steep jump in difficulty from previous areas, although it does seem to have improved a bit from earlier versions. Or that's experience. Or it's the new and improved Manbeast. Actually from this point on I can't say whether its the new manbeast changes or just generally the areas since I've only went that far with a manbeast in the new version. Medium to High Difficulty
Boss: That thing
I forgot its name, sorry. No challenge, not even the need to use skills, just bump into it until it dies or you have to quaff a potion or two.
Cave
Forgot the name again, know what, from here on out I don't know all of them anymore. So after you've gotton this far, the Cave seems really lackluster in difficulty. It's a drop, everything suddenly turns easy again with the exception of the Mantis and the Golem. Luckily those aren't respawns so its safe cruising from here.
Warehouse Branch
The Warehouse doesn't seem to work properly. The Vampire Bats don't seem to attack, they just fly around randomly and only do damage if they accidently hit me on their way. Very easy with absolutely no challenge. Also this is another fine leveling spot. Find a corner, jam down attack key. Measure your hitpoints while you spamkill Vampire Bats. If you're a Renegade or Manbeast, you can do this indefinitely.
Underwater Reservoir
OUCH. It's not that it is a hard area, it's that the enemies spawn so fricking fast I can't keep up with killing. Sooner or later I'll be swarmed to death by an entire screen full of enemies that all spam fire in my direction. Every step literally takes 10-20 seconds to play out with all the projectiles flying. I don't like this area one bit and will have to try again with a weapon that deals critical hits to those enemies. I do realize that it's not mandatory to beat the game.
Continued: Warehouse
Catacombs
Tough enemies. I would have loved it if the Icebrand weapon dealt critical damage to the enemies here since its an icebased weapon and they all seem firebased. My approach to this area was to ignore all that moves, collect the keys and proceed.
Boss: Legion
Hard. Really Hard. But kinda cool. Hits like a truck and spams Enemies all over the place. I took it down by spamming skills at it (Claw Assault) and once I ran out of hearts I had ample supply from all the mobs. There's yet another exploit here. Remember the leveling exploit I sent you a couple of years ago? The very fast spawnrate here kinda forces that onto you and renders you invulnerable.
Continued Cave
Back on the quest again. Still not much of a challenge.
Boss: Dragonking
Not that difficult either, bumping into him did the trick although by that time, my character was almost indestructible. The def had skyrocketed to 3+11, I had 40% Dodge and Manbeast Regeneration. Somewhere in that mix, something got too strong. Or perhaps that's because I once again took some turns levelling up the character.
Castle Courtyard
Forgot the name again. The one you get to once you leave the cave. Nice change of visuals, refreshing to see something new. As well as some old friends getting another turn.
Castle Thingie
That storyrelated thing where there are a couple of merchants. I didn't like the Bats here, they were pointless. By this time they can't even damage you anymore so you just waltz through them. I'd say either put stronger enemies there or take out the bats, they do seem out of place.
Dinner Hall
No problems here but... what's the point? I actually found 3 hallway like things that would represent exits in all other areas but didn't do so here. Where they bugged or was that intentional or just some missing tile graphics?
Castle Dungeons
Looking good, feels good balancewise as well. Neither too hard nor too easy, although I did turn around and went for another try at the Underwater Reservoir, only to lose my Level 28 Manbeast to the Blast Crash.
General Observations:
I like the weather effects. But I think they could do with some reduction both on the effect intensity but also the frequency. After a bit of playing, my eyes started to hurt because I had a lot of trouble of actually seeing something in the dense fog.
Balance of the Manbeast, it's a much more stable character now. Once it has gotten a couple of levels, it does seem rather strong but I'm really not sure if that isn't a result of my vivid levelling. I think the Defense plus through Levelling could use a lid at some point. Also I haven't compared it to the Paladin, does he gain Defense at the same or an even faster speed? At the point of crash the highest damage I took was 1 Damage and that was perhaps the case of 1 in 20 attacks.
Special: Petra Sewer
Surviveable. It's a looooooong way down though. Same thing as with the Underwater Reservoir, they do spam, pardon me, spawn pretty fast.
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Well, that's it for now. Don't consider this a suggestion, it's just some general feedback. Impressions I had while playing up to that point which I reckon isn't that far off from actually completing the game. Hope its useful to you in some regard.
