Ichor wrote:I watched someone play this on a stream today, and he quit halfway through. He got as far as the church and that instant death floor. There was no indication to which way to go. There was a post earlier that mentioned that one empty room with the zombies and the marker that seemingly means nothing. However, he never found any keys except the fire key, and when he went through, he had no idea which way to go, and he ended up having to save after every step just to make it through. By then frustration got the better of him and he quit.
Now then, I played it soon after, and the only way I knew which way to go was by watching him first. I did get the spider key and go to that one room first, but I didn't know what it meant until I looked at this thread. So this is what might be a good idea. Instead of nothing being in that room, you could put the fire key there. That way, there's no way that you will be able to get in the church until after you go to that room. After that, there should be some kind of clue in the church as to where to go. Slightly different floor textures, something on the ceiling, a tiny change in the floor height, or maybe even some pools of blood just past a turn in the maze. Or perhaps instead of instant death, you get teleported back to the start.
Another problem he had was that it took a very long time for him to get the shotgun. All he had was the pistol for most of the time he was playing. It should be in a bit more obvious place, like in the open court near where you summon Thamuz. But my problem with the shotgun is that it doesn't automatically reload once it's out of shells. This could lead to an awkward situation where you're about to shoot something, but instead you reload and likely take some damage.
That "someone" was none other than me, by the way
-> . No need to hide that fact since I'm here too.
But yeah, compared to Sapphire this was a lot more frustrating to go through, so much so that I actually had to quit after a one and a half hour of struggling. My main issues, as highlighted in that now half-deleted let's play (I deleted everything that followed Sapphire since I figured most people would not find it satisfying in the least, and I was not pleased with my performance either), were the confusing layout, everything being largely locked behind doors requiring keys, lackluster combat since the new weapons were clunky, feeling as if they packed no punch - the Shotgun also had an awkward delay while and after firing -, poor visibility at the start, although admittedly this may have also come due to my sector lighting of choice (Doom). Standard would've been better but I am simply not fond of that mode anymore, its shaders are just too primitive and it makes everything look too flat. Some lamps, torches, or whatever could definitely help solve this issue, and also make the map more atmospheric. There was also the issue of there being just not enough ammo, I even ended up having to godmode in order to kill the monster guarding the fire key because of this since I had only the pistol at that point, as you said, and ran out of ammo completely... The enemies also took far too many shots to kill - either that, or the pistol was just heavily underpowered, zombies seemed bullet spongey. Movement was slow too, and running was essentially rendered useless since the speed took a massive hit. There was no point in running anymore. Although the following issue is mostly minor, I was also not fond of the font used for some of the letters, it made reading them difficult at times. The font that was used for the messages and automap totals was not optimal either, if I was to use a smaller dimension (I use 4) everything was going to look just like indecipherable gibberish.
But what eventually made me quit was the floor puzzle at the church and its Disciple miniboss, accompanied by a general lack of any sense of direction, it took way too long before I started finding my way through the map, but by that point it was already too late, that building was the icing on the cake... I mean come on, no clues for that puzzle whatsoever? That was literally just a guessing game for me, I ended up saving at almost every step until I eventually found the right path. And the Disciple... he just constantly fired rockets at me while being invisible. It wasn't fun. The issue there was not the fact that he turned invisible as much as it was him staying invisible for too long, and also attacking me constantly while in that state.
I am sorry if my impression about this remaster was overly negative, but after Sapphire I expected this to be at least on par with that, and I ultimately ended up experiencing the contrary. I'm not exactly one to sugar coat things...
But if it's just the idle frame... 
