Heres a small wip of stage 1:
http://www.teamspooky.com/TAS/Valis4.zip
Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eG5-nkrzubM
Notes so far:
Lena (Or Rena, I can't tell what her name is, thanks Japan!) has a slide and you know how we love those. In addition, her slide allows her to go off platforms, and the game does not check if she is airborne until the slide is over. This of course means that by consecutively sliding on precise frames, she can fly. Not only this, but she is invincible during the slide animation, meaning she can basically fly through piles of enemies at once with hilarious results.
Her sister (whose name I keep forgetting) has a double jump, and her weapon is slightly more powerful than Lena's. This makes her useful for taking out high hp enemies, especially in areas where Lena cannot slide.
Lena can't slide up or down certain slopes, but can slide up or down other slopes. It's really arbitrary, 2 slopes can look identical yet she'll be able to slide up the first but not the second. Any time I switch or stop sliding is because I encountered a slope that Lena cannot slide up or down.
In section 1-4 you have to go all the way to the right side of the screen and jump up. It is possible to get enough height and fly to reach the upper tier of the stage sooner, but unless you jump in from the particular section I did, you are blocked off from entering.
Thee are 2 powerup types. 1 Levels your character, and 1 improves your subweapon. Leveling your character just improves their weapon range as far as I can tell, and does not make your weapon do more damage.
Subweapons have 3 levels. All 3 of Lena's subweapons seem useless so far, they do less damage than her sword, or deal damage slower than her just attacking multiple times. However her sister's level 2 subweapon appears to be a faster way to kill the first boss. Most likely in my next wip she will be the one to do the boss fight.
It was unnecessary for me to get maxed subweapon in this stage, as level 2 was the only one necessary. However level 3 subweapon might prove useful at some point later in the run on bosses that can be hard to reach or out of range.
There are a lot of improvements that already can be made, but I just wanted to see how people feel about the game so far rather than continuing with it if no one finds it entertaining.