This game did miraculous work as a CAG with a simple weapon set and a simple style-meter structure. It's a good reference book when you are making a small but focused experience.

It’s more like, I got inspired by the dev himself more than his project. 5 years, alone, he made a short and unapologetically dense action game that have alienated a lot of players with its sheer amount of systems as a love letter to his favorite kinds of games… And that is really commendable. I got inspired by his attitude, and here I am, making my own game for 3 years.

Yeah it is kinda obvious. But you have to admit that as a platformer-based melee combat, HK grasped the fundamental better than any other similar games at that time. It’s a great wire frame to add more clay upon.

Very few games could grasp the feeling of conquering hundreds of different kind of demons coming at you. It’s inspirational how each yokai enemies have their own personalities and utilize that theme as their concept of movement. The über-maximalist mindset of that game is also something I need to learn more.

Doom Eternal taught me the simple flow of arena-platforming-next arena can be great if you make a good enemy composition for each arena. Master Levels showed how it can recontextualize the same level structure with the encounter designs alone, and it became a backbone idea for the Reaper Difficulty. Also, the cartoonish demon designs are note-worthy.

Weapon switch combo. Also, another inspirational developer.

Lovely creature designs. Also how the enemies act with their moveset was a good reference when I’m working with the animation. Did I tell you that Blücher was kinda influenced by Ludwig?

Grim dark surrealism, a tortured protagonist, and a story about treading the road to self-redemption.

Haven’t played this one, but this one made me decide to stick to Spine 2D as an animation tool. The trailer was amazing lol

Haven't played this one either, but I referenced their OST while composing.

Hahaha landing charge attack goes brrrrrrrrrrr..... I really wanted to replicate the relentlessness of its combat flow.

Pale angry ape, One main weapon + Several sub-weapon settings.

It is commendable how efficiently they constructed the levels and sprite animation while maintaining a 2-people team during the development.

Believe it or not, the final scoring system is kinda inspired by this game. (Where both kill numbers and combo meter are important in the calculation)

Haven’t finished yet, but the ammo management system was really interesting. I yoinked it and applied to my mana-management system.

How people will behave in a man-made-society in the afterlife? That aspect doesn’t have much narrative weight in MH’s story line, but when I had to explain that, I always referenced Grim Fandango.

Plenty of convoluted maze levels appear in Act 2, and Doom 2 was a good handbook for the ideas.

Highly likely that I referenced this game when I designed humanoid enemies. Also, “Aldrich but good” was a main idea for the boss in 4-2.