ElCochran90'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.
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378 Games
378 Reviews
For: I wanna kill the troll king
That is, except, that this is a trap game. I was warned, of course, but the opening stage is (intentionally[?]) terrible, and traps don't stop being frustrating. It has never been my genre. However, I greatly applaud the progression of the game because it is not entirely built of traps, and when you have advanced pretty much through a lengthy save, it won't pull out the awful card of a trap near the ending. Also, half of the game isn't trap based. The bosses surprised me in this matter, because they are not grindy like a Find My Destiny would do so against your patience, and they all look great, so extra points for that. Still, when you come back to the initial area once again, you know, the one infested with traps, the way to advance were so goddamn and stupidly cryptic that I had to search in the Internet how to get past them (I still don't understand how the triggers work in the last save of "Where Everything Began").
Overlord stays in my heart as his grandiose game, and it keeps growing in my heart the more I reflect on it, but this is a great adventure fangame, slightly below Reach the Moon's quality, and deserves all accolades from the community.
Now, when are you going to charge for your fangames, MattinJ? Give this guy a studio contract!
For: I wanna be the Overlord
You can take many paths, but more than often you will reach an impasse because of an obvious item requirement. The constant backtracking is never boring as the hub system and subsequent transportation gimmick works exceptionally well for those looking for a faster pace. For those like me that enjoy their sense of exploration and do not mind going back and forth while grinding in a fantastically-looking and designed game, then do so. The game grants freedom in this sense. The thought behind the route one must take is very well-thought and requires memory, and the Super-Metroid-like map system is great for three reasons: it tells you what the connecting areas are; it tells you where the saves, secrets and transportation devices are located; and it easily helps you to know what areas you haven't explored because of each square not having a white border, so you know you can go that particular direction.
Grudges? There are a few. At least two moments are extremely cryptic and can get you stuck senselessly. In the Land of Giants, how was I supposed to know that I had to shoot distant blue orbs to transport myself? It took me too much time figuring that out and discovered it by pure accident. Also, this might be quite my fault, but getting the coin took me forever and it is, frustratingly, the very first item you can get. Getting to the Lake of Souls was quite the task. Also, half of the times you acquire an item, the same room that contains it or the previous one to it forces you to do something you couldn't before, and two times an explanation is given. From there, there is never a verbal description of what the hell some items do. Good luck finding for yourself. If the inventory screen contained a description of all items and weapons, it would work wonders as a great feature.
I intentionally didn't leave my complaints for last. The spirit of the game is what should be more discussed here. The game opens with a Dark Souls vibe combined with Castlevania: Dracula X for the SNES. From there, it takes the best aspects of adventure games like Zelda and Mario, but also brings SNES RPGs to remembrance. The mostly grandiose bosses also back up this honorable pathos. I couldn't stop thinking about how this amalgamation of childhood videogames' inspiration kept bringing Quintet's Heaven and Earth Saga (Soul Blazer, Illusion of Gaia and Terranigma), including its spiritual predecessor, ActRaiser. Bosses mimick a lot ActRaiser's mythology while the worlds are a fusion between fangame creativity exclusively seen in the community (including terrific inside jokes) and the aforementioned games. This fangame is the embodiment of a committed artist, MattinJ, mixing the old and the new in a present-time capsule, so it feels like an original game and a huge homage at the same time. There is no way this is his first fangame, but again, debuts can sometimes be masterpieces, and this applies to all art forms.
Sound design and backgrounds are just breathtaking. There is no better description. Even the Game Over screen has some love put into it. The already mentioned boss fights are exceptional fun and, mixed with the visuals and the challenge demanded, they will prove to be unforgettable and rewarding beats. The game never aims at being too difficult, but epic, and a wise decision was made when it opted for that. Extra credits for Cryptoria and the pre-final area, which feature graphics I had never seen in a fangame. Also The Crypt King, ironically proved to be the hardest boss for me, instead of the last or the second-to-last boss. Weird, but that doesn't mean that they aren't fun, and the final boss has a save in the middle which makes the experience all the more reasonable.
A game is good when it makes a lot of good decisions, because even the seemingly tiniest ones matter.
The fact that this is free blows my mind, and the fact that he openly says during the credits that the game should stay free for everyone amazed me even more. Dude, you should be charging for these games! This stuff is better than I Wanna Be the Cat!
My beloved Timemachine has been surpassed as my personal favorite fangame so far.
For: I Wanna Maker
The world of fangames opened to the whole world to know, with the engine we dominate and grew up with and a new system of level creation that makes you forget easily about the past. With great new gimmicks, this massive experience borrows the idea from the Mario franchise, but becomes an ecosystem of its own, a massive universe of possibilities to be explored, practiced and discovered. This game is entirely dependent on the continuous, non-stop and incredible creativity/cruelty/findings/charm of the makers, so my rating should be volatile, but fixed around 7.9. Customization is great and the most popular levels (and some unknown ones) have shown some jaw-dropping ideas. I have even encountered artistically admirable levels!
This is not a revolution in the gaming industry, but it is in the fangaming community, and I will always recognize that, no matter how long or short the hype lasts for this one, as fangames keep being created independently. However, we can always come back to this and have a theoretically infinite experience and material to stream for months.
For the rookies like us, we will always find a challenge up to our difficulty standards.
For all that, THANK YOU. <3 :3
P.S. Thanks for the people that have watched my streams, as this game made me have an amount of viewers I only achieved with the Uhuhu games and with speedrunning Sunspike.
For: I wanna be the knight in shining armor
This was made for the Shortventure contest of 2017, and I think that is it's greatest drawback. It's not a short adventure, but one you can see was limited in the extent of its possibilities in order to comply with a set of standard contest rules for a contest. These experiences demand to be at least as diverse as Reach the Moon, another one of the best adventure fangames.
Do not doubt for a second. With enough humor, adventure and action, this should bring along a great pair of hours.
For: I wanna be The Cat
Consider a Difficulty Rating of 35 for Medium Mode, 50 for Hard Mode, 65 for Magic Tower and 60 for Impossible Mode (which is an improper name for the challenge it actually offers).
An event. A big one. Nemega spends time, effort and invests resources to build a fantastic fangame with a splendorous production value that is matched by its entertainment capabilities and audiovisual universe. Not afraid of being a direct inspiration from the original I Wanna Be The Guy like other fangames are afraid of admitting it, featuring an original soundtrack and also countless references to other popular fangames such as Boshy, Timemachine and Kamilia, this adventure fangame has enough content to keep one satisfied whether for single players or online communities.
This was an obvious blind buy, and there is nothing to regret: the price is right and Nemega deserves retribution for his work. Platforming is mostly fantastic and replayability is high. Although some boss fights are quite unfair and feature guaranteed hits, all of them are much more than cat puns: they are creative to play through, learn and beat. Escalating the difficulty modes is highly recommended for acquiring experience and familiarity with the stages and fights, and for finally playing the difficulty mode I assume was intended for the game: Hard Mode. This unlocks the Magic Tower Mode which wasn't released originally with the game, but was in the plans, and it shows.
The Magic Tower mode has another notorious source of inspiration: Tower of the Sorcerer, which also inspired Not Another Magic Tower game. The game here acts more like a regular fangame and functions more as an adventure RPG, featuring screens to conquer, where each screen represents a floor. Constant exploration and backtracking is required to obtain all items, keys, and powerups for attack and defense. It's a boss rush, where you fight the main bosses once and then The Cat. It is important to repeat that the bosses are fun and quite original despite being obvious pun inspirations, but it is a misunderstanding that this game allows you to fight their Impossible Mode forms: you actually fight HARDER versions of them, and the final form of Nyanko got me cheering up to a degree I was FORCED to upload a screenshot. I was surprised and laughed at the same time. Her variety of attacks are quite the challenge!
When a game manages to be challenging and fun, you can be proud of actually achieving something significant, and this game does so. Add to that a soundtrack I will never forget and a feeling of reward few games will grant you after conquering it, without including a big smile.
And so, everything seems positive up to this point, and I yet give it this rating, and that is why I get trolled by the community including Stonk in his streams with a dab. "It's an amazing fangame: 7.5/10".
Well, here's the issue. A monumental issue. An issue that I haven't still been able to understand from this community. I first became somewhat popular in this site because of my Qoqoqo 2 review after going through an event that substracted probably around 1.5 points from the overall rating, scarring me for life, and it happens here once again.
SOFTLOCK
Why must the "Magic Tower" concept in this community must necessarily equal to the possibility of softlocking yourself?
WHY???
Softlock is a concept that should never exist in any rational game. It is a conscious decision from the maker to actually punish you and erase your entire effort for a single bad decision, and the payment is starting all over again. This cancels out entirely the feeling of freely exploring the game. Metroid and The Legend of Zelda, both released in 1986, got the exploration concept right: you get stuck in an area for not making an intended order, and the challenge there is to push yourself to find secrets or a correct route to keep progressing in the adventure. However, you never get softlocked. You are advised that something is missing, and part of an adventure game is freedom in your exploration. Conditioning it is killing the concept of the game. The Metroid (1986) complaints are valid, though: it is too cryptic. It is. For me, it worked splendidly as an Alien/Aliens (1979/1986) tribute of being stuck in a strange planet with lethal lifeforms and no map system, because the planet is unexplored. Environment construction there is gorgeous, but I digress. My point is that I would infinitely prefer a cryptic game than a softlockable game, because the latter pushes you away. It kills your mood to do everything again because I think no one in their sane judgment would accept the nullification of hours of effort as an acceptable punishment.
I got softlocked four times. The third time was particularly painful because, having one-hit HP against Alucat, I used a blessing for getting past him. Too bad you don't know you're supposed to use all blessings for a better shot at the final boss or you're screwed.
I really don't consider using a guide for this type of games as a cheat, because the game is screaming for it. The fourth floor would be an ok design for all floors, since there are mirrors and multiple keyholes: one can figure out an optimal route, but not when you're meant to backtrack constantly. You cannot have clear calculations because you have no idea what lies ahead.
It is true that you can back your game, but you can only do one backup. Why not many, like a memory card? Why just one? And again, you're not even sure if you're backing at a secure point because you might have progressed through an "obvious" route until it turns out you don't. So you might backup an already softlocked state.
I cannot tell you precisely how many points I substracted for that mode being ruined because I never had a free-exploring experience. You can estimate, however, between 8 and 15 points probably, which would place it above my current favorite fangame.
Anyway, it is a very special game. It united the community more. It reminded us of the original GOOD game. It was a throwback to other community classics. It is a brave project that reflects self-confidence in its production value because there is a solid platforming behind it, an adorable protagonist, amazing bosses, good levels, a high replay value due to every experience being unique, and races in yearly marathons. I applaud projects like this.
Spread the word, buy it and play my recommended order (well, not that YOU HAVE TO, but this is how I loved it the most):
-Medium Mode
-Hard Mode
-Magic Tower with a guide (this mode has the most complete experience in the Bosses department)
-Impossible Mode, which you will already be prepared for given your experience with Magic Tower
Let the catventure begin!
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