good post overall. question about the dodge roll. i noticed something changed, but i'm so forgetful with these things. what were the changes?
The animation itself is completely different, the Vanilla one looked kinda dopey and felt sluggish. Your character threw himself arms first into the roll and it felt like the animation played in slow motion, the new one is snappy and very capcom feeling. I also immediately noticed tweaks to the climbing animations which look much better now even if they still aren't up to SOTC standards.
The IK system on big enemies feet is also improved and seems to update faster making the whole game feel more grounded. There's just a ton of small improvements, the fact that I was playing Vanilla right before switching really made me appreciate the small things.
I will say that some of the enemy AI in BBI was a bit glitchy though, playing as a Sorcerer I would always try to find a little spot to climb on before casting and the enemies could get stuck trying to get to me. It wasn't a big deal and it's even kind of fun to score some free hits but it definitely happened more than I would have liked. Alot of the rooms in there are cramped so that probably doesn't help.
The damage that you take in there is a bit rough too on Hard, even with great gear some stuff just 1 shots me. I want to see if I can get my elemental res higher before saying it's unbalanced but it's certainly frustrating at times!
Oh and if anyone wants to use my Pawn feel free, need the RC and she's getting pretty good. Just need to get her stuff DF'd then she'll truly murder everything! PSN is JoeFenix and pawn is 154 Strider named Cereza, I added myself to the list in the OP too.