I started to get really frustrated with this game at first because I chose to play as Blues. Once I started getting enough screws to buy useful items from the shop and beat my first Robot Master, I had a much better time getting through the rest of the game. It's fun! But I think I played for 2 hours before I made any meaningful progress, resetting my playthrough at least twice because I wanted to see if playing as Rock would feel better, before I decided to go back to playing as Blues.
Rock feels EXTREMELY limited compared to Blues. In a similar way to how it feels like a lose:lose situation playing as Forte and Rock in RM&F, Blues gets better tools at the expense of taking double damage and double knockback, and vice versa for Rock. It feels rewarding dodging enemies and their attacks efficiently by forcing yourself to learn patterns rather than just boosting through everything, but I wish that double damage was just a Hard mode option rather than locking the Charge Shot and Slide behind the Hard mode character.
Blues taking double damage was a fair tradeoff in 9 because he was DLC. You were sticking new, powerful mechanics into a game not designed for it, so the tradeoff is that they expect you to be a master at the game if you want to abuse these mechanics. But why not just design this new game around the Charge Shot and Slide? Let Rock use them, and give Blues something else aside from his Shield move to differentiate him. I was thinking it'd be cool if they implemented Break Man as a "glass cannon" option into a playable iteration of Blues. You go Break Man to deal twice as much damage, while also receiving twice as much. Though considering that 10 doesn't dare risk or innovate much in the same way 9 didn't, I feel like that would be far too complicated an idea to put in this game.
My friend suggested I should try playing the Legacy Collection version with Extra Armor enabled. That way, Blues' double damage quirk cancels out and you only take as much damage as Rock. At this point, I've made too much progress to start over a fourth time, but I just wanted to include that in my review in case anyone happens to feel the same way as I do.
Rock feels EXTREMELY limited compared to Blues. In a similar way to how it feels like a lose:lose situation playing as Forte and Rock in RM&F, Blues gets better tools at the expense of taking double damage and double knockback, and vice versa for Rock. It feels rewarding dodging enemies and their attacks efficiently by forcing yourself to learn patterns rather than just boosting through everything, but I wish that double damage was just a Hard mode option rather than locking the Charge Shot and Slide behind the Hard mode character.
Blues taking double damage was a fair tradeoff in 9 because he was DLC. You were sticking new, powerful mechanics into a game not designed for it, so the tradeoff is that they expect you to be a master at the game if you want to abuse these mechanics. But why not just design this new game around the Charge Shot and Slide? Let Rock use them, and give Blues something else aside from his Shield move to differentiate him. I was thinking it'd be cool if they implemented Break Man as a "glass cannon" option into a playable iteration of Blues. You go Break Man to deal twice as much damage, while also receiving twice as much. Though considering that 10 doesn't dare risk or innovate much in the same way 9 didn't, I feel like that would be far too complicated an idea to put in this game.
My friend suggested I should try playing the Legacy Collection version with Extra Armor enabled. That way, Blues' double damage quirk cancels out and you only take as much damage as Rock. At this point, I've made too much progress to start over a fourth time, but I just wanted to include that in my review in case anyone happens to feel the same way as I do.