Delicious FruitElCochran90's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: Aug 25, 2018
Bio:
About time I updated this bio.
Name: Edgar Cochran
Country: Mexico
Currently living in: Mexico City
-God's servant and one of his blessed sons (John 1:12; John 3:16).
-Lover of the entire animal and plant creation.
-Film lover and reviewer for Letterboxd.com (https://letterboxd.com/elcochran90).
-Adjunct professor and personal tutor of Statistical Inference, Business Forecasting, Marketing Research and Portfolio Theory.
Fangaming experience began in August 2018, so only modest achievements here. However, I'll describe some relevant FAQs here made to me during my stay here since 2018:
Q: Are videogames art?
A: Yes
Q: Are fangames videogames?
A: Yes
Q: Why are your reviews long and unconventional?
A: I am a film reviewer; in a way, I sort of unconsciously dragged my style of film reviewing to the world of fangames. I often involve personal experiences in my writing. Expect that structure; I'm not planning to change it.
Q: How are you rating games? Do you compare fangames as normal games that your ratings are lower than all other people ratings or are you just a critical person?
A: My ratings are not lower than people's ratings all of the time regarding fangames, but they are most of the time. However, this is not my intention. I am rating them as normal games, as in, I don't have a different spectrum for rating "normal", "official" games than fangames. They are in the same scale, because they are all videogames. I don't like to think myself as a critical person; ratings are just subjective numbers. However, I have realized that I rate games more harshly than I rate films/short films, which I do more often.
Q: What are your favorite fangames?
A: I have not played enough fangames to make a comprehensive and representative list, but this can be answered by going to my Favorites list. Anything getting 6.7 or higher will be considered immediately as a favorite.
I've submitted:
381 Ratings!
381 Reviews!
792 Screenshots!
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381 Games
381 Reviews
ElCochran90
For: I Wanna Be the White Cherry
For: I Wanna Be the White Cherry
*Cleared on 13/02/2023*
From ホネ。(Explorer, End the Blood Festival, Buy the Crayon), this is perhaps the most accessible game from the maker in terms of difficulty, and it experiments with many audiovisual ideas to convey the sense of variety, one of them being horror (and the most interesting concept for that). It does stay away mostly from generic visual designs and that creates a sense of curiosity in the player regarding what gimmick and type of platforming will be implemented in the next area, exactly like in Buy the Crayon.
Like many products of its time, it’s a hit-and-miss game that requires secrets with a cryptic location (I’m looking at you, Stage 4) in order to access the final boss. Each stage is labeled with a difficulty level to give you an idea of the intended order, and said numbers are completely arbitrary. Stage 3 is a no-save area, and how do you make it cool? Add traps! Have fun. At least this area was done better in Be The Flower. Stage 4 in particular, which name is “SpikeZone Very Devil”, is a disgrace: for the average difficulty it employs, it puts stupid jumps like single-jump diamonds, double corners, TAS jumps, frame-perfect landings, and that first jump of the second screen which is a mutated and uglier version of the 9 jump. The secret of this stage in particular requires an infamous jump (again, for its average difficulty standards) followed by a little army of no-chokey gates. Also, the stage has a horrendous soundtrack that is used as a psychological torture method for you to finish the stage fast, or else your ears will suffer.
Final area and final boss are fun, but for the life of me, final boss killed me in the exact same way HeavenTrap 1 did many years ago: last attack begins and lasts after the boss has been beaten, so be extra careful with that.
[0] Likes
From ホネ。(Explorer, End the Blood Festival, Buy the Crayon), this is perhaps the most accessible game from the maker in terms of difficulty, and it experiments with many audiovisual ideas to convey the sense of variety, one of them being horror (and the most interesting concept for that). It does stay away mostly from generic visual designs and that creates a sense of curiosity in the player regarding what gimmick and type of platforming will be implemented in the next area, exactly like in Buy the Crayon.
Like many products of its time, it’s a hit-and-miss game that requires secrets with a cryptic location (I’m looking at you, Stage 4) in order to access the final boss. Each stage is labeled with a difficulty level to give you an idea of the intended order, and said numbers are completely arbitrary. Stage 3 is a no-save area, and how do you make it cool? Add traps! Have fun. At least this area was done better in Be The Flower. Stage 4 in particular, which name is “SpikeZone Very Devil”, is a disgrace: for the average difficulty it employs, it puts stupid jumps like single-jump diamonds, double corners, TAS jumps, frame-perfect landings, and that first jump of the second screen which is a mutated and uglier version of the 9 jump. The secret of this stage in particular requires an infamous jump (again, for its average difficulty standards) followed by a little army of no-chokey gates. Also, the stage has a horrendous soundtrack that is used as a psychological torture method for you to finish the stage fast, or else your ears will suffer.
Final area and final boss are fun, but for the life of me, final boss killed me in the exact same way HeavenTrap 1 did many years ago: last attack begins and lasts after the boss has been beaten, so be extra careful with that.
Rating: 4.0 40
Difficulty: 54 54
Oct 22, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I Wanna Be Like Beautiful Starlight
For: I Wanna Be Like Beautiful Starlight
*Cleared on 09/02/2023*
The game Flavi the Flav does not want you to play because he made it is one of the fangames of all times: U.S. soundtrack that no one outside the country will recognize, woeful platforming, repetitive triggers, nasty choke jumps that do not compare to the average difficulty, single-jump gimmick implemented horribly, unspeakable screen transitions in all areas (especially corridor needle), horrendous background choices and a cute, first-try boss (at least in my case). Even if you want to highlight yourself first-trying the boss (you guessed it: a cherry), it will be muted due to copyright. The only swag thing about the game is the Phil Collins wallpaper I guess.
Also, if I might ask, why is the average difficulty above 60?
[0] Likes
The game Flavi the Flav does not want you to play because he made it is one of the fangames of all times: U.S. soundtrack that no one outside the country will recognize, woeful platforming, repetitive triggers, nasty choke jumps that do not compare to the average difficulty, single-jump gimmick implemented horribly, unspeakable screen transitions in all areas (especially corridor needle), horrendous background choices and a cute, first-try boss (at least in my case). Even if you want to highlight yourself first-trying the boss (you guessed it: a cherry), it will be muted due to copyright. The only swag thing about the game is the Phil Collins wallpaper I guess.
Also, if I might ask, why is the average difficulty above 60?
Rating: 1.5 15
Difficulty: 55 55
Oct 18, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I Wanna Develop An Appreciation For Music
For: I Wanna Develop An Appreciation For Music
*Cleared on 02/02/2023*
I owed my fellow Racic a live playthrough since ages, and by the time February came, I never released a review.
Truth to be told, fangame reviews were passed to a lower priority given many changes and events concerning my family’s health, my work, new ways of working at my job with a hybrid Home-Office / In-Presence model, and a recent engagement! My oh my, there will be another wedding in the IWC.
However, I personally established an obligation to review every single fangame I ever play because it’s a personal moral standard: there is a reason for my numbers, my appreciation matters, I share my worldviews with this unique community that still employs memes and humorous language I will never understand for the life of me, and, most importantly, all artists deserve feedback about their work and a review is the least they deserve.
Since day zero, I have always hated trap games. Also, as the community becomes desensitized with a brutally increasing trend of absurdly difficult games that will get today a difficulty rating of 71 even if in the old days they would be floating around a rating of 82, finding fun games of any genre becomes a challenge more today. That is why we, the less skilled ones, are each time more grateful for events like IWT (and there will still be outliers, like Know My Retribution or luck-based Crispy Fries).
This is where Racic and I share a tangency point in our vision:
“As an older, and far far less skilled player of fangames, I had noticed that newer games kept coming out with more complicated gimmicks, and the skill level kept getting higher and higher. One of my goals was to take fangames back to that old-school silly trap, dated references, fun.”
Why has this become rarer today? As a far far less skilled player of fangames myself as well, Racic wore the brave pants of creating a fangame, something I have no idea how to do (let alone having free time today to learn how to), and delivered this charm.
Prepare yourself for a surreal adventure trap game that will culture you with the basics of old-school hip hop, 90s Eurodance, vocaloids and country music (thanks a ton for the latter since it has been unjustly maligned and trashed).
The level of self-awareness is massive, and I think that’s the point of it all. “It is not a game that will change our lives”, but it’s just out there as a homage to the old days of not-frustrating fun. It’s a trap game, but the traps really don’t repeat themselves as much as old-school atrocities inspired by the legendary downloaders of Record My Jumps. The Sudoku-ish aspect of it makes it what it is: low production value goes along with the humor of the game.
I am not the meme-humor type, which pretty much excludes me from 95% of the Gen-Zers and 85% of the millennials (me being one), so the humor is lost on me. Many screens are frustratingly looking, and the traps do fall into generic territory most of the time. There is a punishment room, and it gets too cruel with the number of times intended for you to fall into it. It stops being funny and makes you begin to pray you don’t go there for the 17th time, especially if you have a terrible memory for traps (me).
The spikes sprites are a meme by this point, but why must all of them be poop? It’s kindergarten humor and you’ll have to endure it to the end. Still, what I love about Racic is that the upcoming sequel has “poop spikes addressed”, raising a middle finger to all. What can we do? Legend.
It’s a game that you can flush down the toilet, but it manages to do exactly what it aims to do: culture a little, restore the old Kayin days (who unironically gets trashed today) and makes you laugh. I laugh a couple of times, to which Racic said: “I don’t mind about your final Cochran rating: you’re having a good time and that’s enough for me”.
You have my respect, good sir.
[3] Likes
I owed my fellow Racic a live playthrough since ages, and by the time February came, I never released a review.
Truth to be told, fangame reviews were passed to a lower priority given many changes and events concerning my family’s health, my work, new ways of working at my job with a hybrid Home-Office / In-Presence model, and a recent engagement! My oh my, there will be another wedding in the IWC.
However, I personally established an obligation to review every single fangame I ever play because it’s a personal moral standard: there is a reason for my numbers, my appreciation matters, I share my worldviews with this unique community that still employs memes and humorous language I will never understand for the life of me, and, most importantly, all artists deserve feedback about their work and a review is the least they deserve.
Since day zero, I have always hated trap games. Also, as the community becomes desensitized with a brutally increasing trend of absurdly difficult games that will get today a difficulty rating of 71 even if in the old days they would be floating around a rating of 82, finding fun games of any genre becomes a challenge more today. That is why we, the less skilled ones, are each time more grateful for events like IWT (and there will still be outliers, like Know My Retribution or luck-based Crispy Fries).
This is where Racic and I share a tangency point in our vision:
“As an older, and far far less skilled player of fangames, I had noticed that newer games kept coming out with more complicated gimmicks, and the skill level kept getting higher and higher. One of my goals was to take fangames back to that old-school silly trap, dated references, fun.”
Why has this become rarer today? As a far far less skilled player of fangames myself as well, Racic wore the brave pants of creating a fangame, something I have no idea how to do (let alone having free time today to learn how to), and delivered this charm.
Prepare yourself for a surreal adventure trap game that will culture you with the basics of old-school hip hop, 90s Eurodance, vocaloids and country music (thanks a ton for the latter since it has been unjustly maligned and trashed).
The level of self-awareness is massive, and I think that’s the point of it all. “It is not a game that will change our lives”, but it’s just out there as a homage to the old days of not-frustrating fun. It’s a trap game, but the traps really don’t repeat themselves as much as old-school atrocities inspired by the legendary downloaders of Record My Jumps. The Sudoku-ish aspect of it makes it what it is: low production value goes along with the humor of the game.
I am not the meme-humor type, which pretty much excludes me from 95% of the Gen-Zers and 85% of the millennials (me being one), so the humor is lost on me. Many screens are frustratingly looking, and the traps do fall into generic territory most of the time. There is a punishment room, and it gets too cruel with the number of times intended for you to fall into it. It stops being funny and makes you begin to pray you don’t go there for the 17th time, especially if you have a terrible memory for traps (me).
The spikes sprites are a meme by this point, but why must all of them be poop? It’s kindergarten humor and you’ll have to endure it to the end. Still, what I love about Racic is that the upcoming sequel has “poop spikes addressed”, raising a middle finger to all. What can we do? Legend.
It’s a game that you can flush down the toilet, but it manages to do exactly what it aims to do: culture a little, restore the old Kayin days (who unironically gets trashed today) and makes you laugh. I laugh a couple of times, to which Racic said: “I don’t mind about your final Cochran rating: you’re having a good time and that’s enough for me”.
You have my respect, good sir.
Rating: 4.4 44
Difficulty: 45 45
Oct 17, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I Wanna Start A Party
For: I Wanna Start A Party
A work of love, tribute and dedication. The vision brought to this game is an astonishing amalgamation of the Mario Party mechanics, a juxtaposition of the elements that have defined classic original videogame franchises, and also what has defined fangames as an artform derivative from their original videogame sources, bringing along a fantastic, entertaining, utmost enjoyable online multiplayer experience to be grinded solo and then for competing with friends.
Think of the logic old-school Pixar feature films followed: an endearing story, lovable characters, an adventure sense, universal moral angles for everyone to relate, and jokes for all audiences (containing a handful that only adults could get either from indirect innuendo spiciness or more complex societal / political issues, maybe even nostalgic references to past eras before their sons were born). They were films that you didn't have to understand 100% to have an absolute blast after watching Buzz and Woody falling with style to make Andy happy, a bunch of monsters finding the meaning of humanity and how to eliminate unconscious bias barriers, a clown fish going through astonishingly detailed ocean obstacles and dangers to pursue his son and make someone with short-term memory loss loved and cared for in the process, or a dysfunctional family of superheroes working together for a common purpose like never before where love takes its proper place as the core.
I Wanna Start A Party embraces exactly that universality: it's the ultimate, landmark conglomeration if videogames and independently-made fangames (also videogames for my artistic standards of appreciation and evaluation) coming together to celebrate what makes any game lover come to play: have a challenge, have fun, brake barriers with people, celebrate a community and make its members closer to each other and, no less important, invite curious players that might have the stigma or the conscious bias of perceiving IWBTG fangames as inaccessible or niche-exclusive due to their well renowned difficulty (especially considering the games that have become popular since 2007 on the Internet, all the way to the showcases of AGDQ and SGDQ): Boshy, NANG and Kamilia 2 are not particularly accessible. Even if there is an official website, a Discord and a welcome page for Intro, sometimes the first impression is the one that matters.
This project that cascades love for playability needs to be promoted widely: there is no previous fangame knowledge required, even if many fangame references might fly over new people's minds (but, then again, not the original board maps necessarily, from popular ones like Super Mario World and Undertale to lesser known ones like Baba Is You), the learning curve for all that will click the download button will be exactly the same, and the variety of minigames (40 to be exact) and challenges (20 to be exact) will keep anyone hooked.
The board game system is implemented quite fantastically for those of us that grew up before computers at home were a thing, and having a laptop in 1999 was something groundbreaking that only the rich could afford. Rules are self-explanatory, items are varied, and some RNG instances have the capacity to turn the tables entirely upside down. Some games depend entirely on luck, some others on skill, and some others as a mix of both depending on your position each second. For the RNG unfairness complaints, they are understandable; then again, everyone is subject to the same probability of failure.
I particularly appreciate that the amount of achievements and skins you can unlock is very rewarding, there are nods to the underrated original game that started it all, and the game is under constand updates for revisions, bug-fixing (like the crazy coin chests disappearing and reappearing), and feedback.
For the solo experience, there are minigames you're meant to lose, such as the CN3 moving cherry house gimmick, the hidden host (Super Mario World game where you hide behind a door and all bots look for you), the NAMTG memory challenge of placing objects on their respective pillars, or the DeDeDe memory challenge from Boshy. Have you ever heard about the magical number 7? If someone at home asks you the favor of doing groceries and purchasing 7 items in particular, once the amount passes that threshold, you're in trouble. In a DeDeDe session against 3 bots, I had to memorize 15 movements and create a 16th. Screw you.
For cultural purposes, the game has the courtesy of not only referencing the games of the boards, but also the fangames referenced per skin or theme, just to expand on any player's curiosity, fangamer or not.
Finally, Gab makes a very true statement. This is a breakthrough in fangames. People waited for this for over 10 years (I wouldn't really say just 10) and attempts were made, but none of them truly invested the player to spend hours to grind for ramping up the fun with companions. Remember I Wanna VANILLA? The game asked for a really significant grind, but being a monotonous 100_Floor game with repetitive bosses and having a slow payment system, there was no way. The western community didn't really care about the language barrier and decided to register their scores on the public leaderboard anyway, but it wasn't talked about afterwards. Have you heard people speaking about it?
And so, we have come to 2023, a game that is meant to deservingly claim some special prizes at the next Fangame Awards (better than the Oscars; I freakin' hate the stupid Oscars [it's so easy to surpass the Oscars anyway {f*** them}]), and garnering the true sense of gaming:
-Companionship
-Team building
-Camaraderie
-Healthy competition
-Strategy
-Skill
-Suspense of entirely luck-based events
Bottom line, it is the best attempt of bringing a board game in the history of fangames, amassing almost all ideas that constitute a fun and exciting gaming experience while inviting atypical audiences to witness the variety of ideas and accessibility this community is capable of producing.
Conclusively, as far as I am aware, in the landscape of videogames in general, this is a project much more relevant than I Wanna Be the GBC, because whereas the latter did a lot for the community more than what it did for fangames in general, this is doing for videogames much more important things for international audiences.
Let the party begin!
[5] Likes
Think of the logic old-school Pixar feature films followed: an endearing story, lovable characters, an adventure sense, universal moral angles for everyone to relate, and jokes for all audiences (containing a handful that only adults could get either from indirect innuendo spiciness or more complex societal / political issues, maybe even nostalgic references to past eras before their sons were born). They were films that you didn't have to understand 100% to have an absolute blast after watching Buzz and Woody falling with style to make Andy happy, a bunch of monsters finding the meaning of humanity and how to eliminate unconscious bias barriers, a clown fish going through astonishingly detailed ocean obstacles and dangers to pursue his son and make someone with short-term memory loss loved and cared for in the process, or a dysfunctional family of superheroes working together for a common purpose like never before where love takes its proper place as the core.
I Wanna Start A Party embraces exactly that universality: it's the ultimate, landmark conglomeration if videogames and independently-made fangames (also videogames for my artistic standards of appreciation and evaluation) coming together to celebrate what makes any game lover come to play: have a challenge, have fun, brake barriers with people, celebrate a community and make its members closer to each other and, no less important, invite curious players that might have the stigma or the conscious bias of perceiving IWBTG fangames as inaccessible or niche-exclusive due to their well renowned difficulty (especially considering the games that have become popular since 2007 on the Internet, all the way to the showcases of AGDQ and SGDQ): Boshy, NANG and Kamilia 2 are not particularly accessible. Even if there is an official website, a Discord and a welcome page for Intro, sometimes the first impression is the one that matters.
This project that cascades love for playability needs to be promoted widely: there is no previous fangame knowledge required, even if many fangame references might fly over new people's minds (but, then again, not the original board maps necessarily, from popular ones like Super Mario World and Undertale to lesser known ones like Baba Is You), the learning curve for all that will click the download button will be exactly the same, and the variety of minigames (40 to be exact) and challenges (20 to be exact) will keep anyone hooked.
The board game system is implemented quite fantastically for those of us that grew up before computers at home were a thing, and having a laptop in 1999 was something groundbreaking that only the rich could afford. Rules are self-explanatory, items are varied, and some RNG instances have the capacity to turn the tables entirely upside down. Some games depend entirely on luck, some others on skill, and some others as a mix of both depending on your position each second. For the RNG unfairness complaints, they are understandable; then again, everyone is subject to the same probability of failure.
I particularly appreciate that the amount of achievements and skins you can unlock is very rewarding, there are nods to the underrated original game that started it all, and the game is under constand updates for revisions, bug-fixing (like the crazy coin chests disappearing and reappearing), and feedback.
For the solo experience, there are minigames you're meant to lose, such as the CN3 moving cherry house gimmick, the hidden host (Super Mario World game where you hide behind a door and all bots look for you), the NAMTG memory challenge of placing objects on their respective pillars, or the DeDeDe memory challenge from Boshy. Have you ever heard about the magical number 7? If someone at home asks you the favor of doing groceries and purchasing 7 items in particular, once the amount passes that threshold, you're in trouble. In a DeDeDe session against 3 bots, I had to memorize 15 movements and create a 16th. Screw you.
For cultural purposes, the game has the courtesy of not only referencing the games of the boards, but also the fangames referenced per skin or theme, just to expand on any player's curiosity, fangamer or not.
Finally, Gab makes a very true statement. This is a breakthrough in fangames. People waited for this for over 10 years (I wouldn't really say just 10) and attempts were made, but none of them truly invested the player to spend hours to grind for ramping up the fun with companions. Remember I Wanna VANILLA? The game asked for a really significant grind, but being a monotonous 100_Floor game with repetitive bosses and having a slow payment system, there was no way. The western community didn't really care about the language barrier and decided to register their scores on the public leaderboard anyway, but it wasn't talked about afterwards. Have you heard people speaking about it?
And so, we have come to 2023, a game that is meant to deservingly claim some special prizes at the next Fangame Awards (better than the Oscars; I freakin' hate the stupid Oscars [it's so easy to surpass the Oscars anyway {f*** them}]), and garnering the true sense of gaming:
-Companionship
-Team building
-Camaraderie
-Healthy competition
-Strategy
-Skill
-Suspense of entirely luck-based events
Bottom line, it is the best attempt of bringing a board game in the history of fangames, amassing almost all ideas that constitute a fun and exciting gaming experience while inviting atypical audiences to witness the variety of ideas and accessibility this community is capable of producing.
Conclusively, as far as I am aware, in the landscape of videogames in general, this is a project much more relevant than I Wanna Be the GBC, because whereas the latter did a lot for the community more than what it did for fangames in general, this is doing for videogames much more important things for international audiences.
Let the party begin!
Rating: 8.5 85
Difficulty: N/A
Apr 3, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I Wanna End the Blood Festival
For: I Wanna End the Blood Festival
Rating includes extra. Difficulty rating includes normal game (although extra is less difficult and doesn't affect it).
I am unaware of which game came out first between Device and this, but many fangames used the same formula:
-Begin in a hub from which you can choose 'n' stages in any order (n = 6 this time)
-Every stage has a cryptic secret (not so cryptic in this one, but at least one is not obvious)
-Face a boss at the end of a stage
-Enjoy generic traps from beginning to end, including at the very end of a save
-There is a final boss
-You unlock extra after beating the boss and collecting all secrets, with the extra requiring you to beat an additional stage or many, and having to face all bloody bosses again in steroids
Every stage is blood themed in a way, although there is a stage that was randomly decided to be the typical "forest stage"; I swear the only think missing was the overused Super Mario RPG theme. Screen transitions are quite unfair and mostly don't make sense.
If you're one of the people like me that usually begin with the upper left stage instead of venturing yourself in a random order, beware. Unless you understand perfectly the moving cherries that form a circle in the first screen, this screen is certified to be hell. Even when you're capable of noticing how to do it, you'll realize how precise it is. The very first save of the first screen of the game, which was this one, took me 25 minutes and 150 deaths. The second save of the same screen took me 6 deaths.
Expect an atrocious difficulty balance all over the place, but you will face the reach of this unnevenness right at the start. Don't get discouraged (or, just don't play the game at all).
The Miku is really boring, with a first minute that gets really boring, a second minute that is a cascade of fast attacks you must grind your learning through practice to get them right, and the final minute has two very precise moves which are really precise in strategy as they are position based (the two flower-like attacks that explode from the very center of the screen). The vocaloid is really fun, but the implementation to the avoidance is quite bad and it does have a Lovetrap attack at the end which is most unwelcome and frustrating.
Up to this point, the game is as awful as Explorer: failed gimmick ideas, bad execution, a really bad avoidance with a banger of a song (wasted potential) and
Now, enter the Extra Stage. You remember those old fangames where it was clearly done by two people, as properly credited in this page (say, Tempest or Breaking Out)? You can tell who did what if they have a preceeding reputation, or at least one does. Extra Stage is an oddity like itself. It has entertaining side scrollers, ingenious traps, a menacing terror aura, a dragon boss with robotic autotune, and even a Buy-the-Crayon-like / See-the-Moon-like segment with gravity gimmicks!
What is this? Who made EX? Was it done by the same person? Should I find a way to translate the read me? This is an entirely different, decent game.
The Extra Boss is not only better than the final Miku for any% clear, but also quite cool, more balanced, implements the cool attack nicely, has a cool sprite and a great background for the "blood theme".
I cannot recommend this game solely based on experiencing Extra, since that involves also fighting all bosses buffed, and some stages do not even feel blood-themed at all. It's a strange, very bad game overall.
If you're into the K2 challenge and have a high tolerance for those particularities that old fangames had.... err, sure, try it, but do seek for EX and use a guide for the secrets.
[1] Like
I am unaware of which game came out first between Device and this, but many fangames used the same formula:
-Begin in a hub from which you can choose 'n' stages in any order (n = 6 this time)
-Every stage has a cryptic secret (not so cryptic in this one, but at least one is not obvious)
-Face a boss at the end of a stage
-Enjoy generic traps from beginning to end, including at the very end of a save
-There is a final boss
-You unlock extra after beating the boss and collecting all secrets, with the extra requiring you to beat an additional stage or many, and having to face all bloody bosses again in steroids
Every stage is blood themed in a way, although there is a stage that was randomly decided to be the typical "forest stage"; I swear the only think missing was the overused Super Mario RPG theme. Screen transitions are quite unfair and mostly don't make sense.
If you're one of the people like me that usually begin with the upper left stage instead of venturing yourself in a random order, beware. Unless you understand perfectly the moving cherries that form a circle in the first screen, this screen is certified to be hell. Even when you're capable of noticing how to do it, you'll realize how precise it is. The very first save of the first screen of the game, which was this one, took me 25 minutes and 150 deaths. The second save of the same screen took me 6 deaths.
Expect an atrocious difficulty balance all over the place, but you will face the reach of this unnevenness right at the start. Don't get discouraged (or, just don't play the game at all).
The Miku is really boring, with a first minute that gets really boring, a second minute that is a cascade of fast attacks you must grind your learning through practice to get them right, and the final minute has two very precise moves which are really precise in strategy as they are position based (the two flower-like attacks that explode from the very center of the screen). The vocaloid is really fun, but the implementation to the avoidance is quite bad and it does have a Lovetrap attack at the end which is most unwelcome and frustrating.
Up to this point, the game is as awful as Explorer: failed gimmick ideas, bad execution, a really bad avoidance with a banger of a song (wasted potential) and
Now, enter the Extra Stage. You remember those old fangames where it was clearly done by two people, as properly credited in this page (say, Tempest or Breaking Out)? You can tell who did what if they have a preceeding reputation, or at least one does. Extra Stage is an oddity like itself. It has entertaining side scrollers, ingenious traps, a menacing terror aura, a dragon boss with robotic autotune, and even a Buy-the-Crayon-like / See-the-Moon-like segment with gravity gimmicks!
What is this? Who made EX? Was it done by the same person? Should I find a way to translate the read me? This is an entirely different, decent game.
The Extra Boss is not only better than the final Miku for any% clear, but also quite cool, more balanced, implements the cool attack nicely, has a cool sprite and a great background for the "blood theme".
I cannot recommend this game solely based on experiencing Extra, since that involves also fighting all bosses buffed, and some stages do not even feel blood-themed at all. It's a strange, very bad game overall.
If you're into the K2 challenge and have a high tolerance for those particularities that old fangames had.... err, sure, try it, but do seek for EX and use a guide for the secrets.
Rating: 3.5 35
Difficulty: 75 75
Mar 27, 2023
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