The easy AI match took longer than I expected actually, but I'll get to that later. First off, some thoughts on the visuals. It runs smoothly, despite talk of various rendering effects. The characters aren't that badly modelled, but they do look like they are largely untextured and relying on object materials to differentiate by colour and specularity/glossiness. It's not a terrible look, but combined with the lighting it does leave it looking and feeling like the alpha it is. Textures are an important factor for things like this, even if they are subtly done for a simple almost but not cel-shaded aesthetic. Likewise, the lighting is very... well, it's almost ambient, non-directional lighting. There's no light and shade on a lot of the environment at all. so it comes across less like a wrestling ring in some small hall or an arena or anything and more a quickly cobbled together location in the default 3ds max environment.
I'd suggest thinking about where the lights are coming from in the area and avoiding making it too washed out. You're running dynamic shadows after all, so you might as well have some actual light and shade in there. For a game and a setting like this, you probably don't need that much light on the outside of the ring, so a few directional lights focusing on the ring itself and leaving the outside in relative gloom would probably help the atmosphere quite a lot. Especially with the cut-out crowd.
But that's probably enough on the look at this point.
So, what next? First off, I've got to say I like how much control you have in theory over the camera. But in practice, I have basically no control over the camera. That thing is erratic, it's not particularly intuitive how its actually going to react when you move the mouse and I frequently ended up looking at things at very strange angles when I tried to make simple adjustments.
I've got to second the thing about sluggishness. The controls are responsive enough, but the movements themselves seem very slow. Floaty even. They don't look like punches meant to hurt people, it all happens far too slowly. Again, use some references for the animations if possible.
The actual attacks themselves feel a bit strange. The sliding kick thing is really not a wrestling thing I've ever seen and juggle combos feel incredibly out of place in the context of a wrestling match (and the floatyness that goes with a juggle combo definitely increases that sense of low grav, slow motion it has visually speaking). Personally, I'd recommend looking at things like clotheslines, shoulder blocks or the good old dropkick for the kind of move to put on the end of a running attack. Again, use references, they're invaluable for stuff like that. It has to look good and it has to feel impactful.
Uh, what else? Well, I actually rather liked what I saw of the moves. There were recognisable wrestling moves, and the single legged Boston crab with the fingering happening at the same time felt exactly like the kind of thing I'd like to see incorporated into a gimmick like this. Legitimate hold with kinky stuff happening at the same time. I'd like more hybrid moves like this, personally. Abdominal stretch (which is included) with added spanking using the free hand. Bear hug with neck kissing or motor-boating. I don't know, things like that?
I think there's a very obvious gap when it comes to standing grapples by the way. You've got submission moves as an option, but no throws. You could do with a couple of basic suplexes. ddt's and throws and so on mixed in. Perhaps as a simple way to transition from standing to having your foe on the ground, or instead of simply
releasing the hold.
In the context of the easy match, it took a surprisingly long time to win the match. Took quite a while to grind out that win, a lot longer than I'd have expected considering the total lack of offence I was dealing with. That's not inherently a problem, but did surprise me, so there's that.
In the level 3 ai match, I actually got to try out the parts of the game dealing with not-winning-unopposed. Got to say, utterly baffling. Perhaps skipping up to level 3 is involved in this, I don't know. But even after the match, I have no idea what the difference between resist and struggle is supposed to be, whether I am supposed to mash one or both or if they were even working. It all seemed very random, half the time there would be various inexplicable bars filling up and nothing would happen, other times holds would break before a bar even filled. I have basically no idea what was happening for the most part. And the give up button? Literally no idea what that even did and I'm sure I pressed it a couple of times.
Especially as it apparently replaces
defend when things transition, so a button to protect yourself apparently becomes an option not to often without real warning. And then does...something? I don't know. Presumably it does something.
Other than that, I can't think of any obvious feedback. The music wasn't a problem, the gem on the outfit they are both wearing staying behind when they were otherwise stripped was unexpected and I can't say I entirely understand. Are the wrestlers all the gem-people from Legend of Mana, the mysterious Jumi? Is it supposed to be a visual representation of the life-bar in some way and if so, why so many other life-bars? Is it remaining a glitch with the outfit destruction system? I don't know, it's not clear.
But it did all work, it ran, the matches were completable and even the tough AI match was playable (if difficult and confusing). There weren't too many obvious glitches, (the Q button sometimes executing the standing punish command from the wrong stance, and so on) and doing a sliding tackle in any direction other than towards the foe looks weird as hell.
I still say it feels off that both competitors have identical ring gear and the fact that you can't run the ropes (bounce off them) feels deeply surreal, but never really came up in actual gameplay.
But it was a good enough Alpha that I felt there was point dropping this wall of text on you and good enough that I'll continue to keep an eye on your progress.
