44 Reviews:
LastTISisLife
Great adventure with big focus on needle with gimmicks and interesting things. Each stage is unique and enjoyable on their own, i'm really fan of Mario stage with games of perspective - this was real banger. Also liked scrolling apple stage and sand stage (yeah, even infamous last save) - both were very fun. Quiz stage has some questionable content, but that's like basically my only personal low point of the game. Final stage is atmospheric culmination with callbacks to main stages, and final boss is just pure fun - creative and interesting Destination-like boss with intense white phase. Despite me first trying it, i still appreciate design of this boss, one of the better challenges that fangames can give to unexperienced players i'd say. In general, i had great time and can easily recommend this shiny example of classic Dagger style
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.1 81
Difficulty: 51 51
Nov 19, 2023
SMOrc
Русский:
Довольно серьёзная игра в плане разнообразия, здесь автор явно потрудился на славу. Недостатки только в том, что некоторые места могут быть довольно дисбалансными по сложности. Где-то можно пройти участок за 5-10 минут, а где то только 1 сохранение берёшь чуть ли не за 30-60 минут из-за весьма непростых таймингов в двигающихся шипах, что не есть весело. Да и местами загадки на японском, это как то не для всех, знаете ли... :/
English:
Quite a serious game in terms of diversity, here the author has clearly worked hard. The only drawbacks is that some places can be quite unbalanced in complexity. Somewhere you can go through the area in 5-10 minutes, and somewhere you take only 1 save in almost 30-60 minutes due to very difficult timings in moving spikes, which is not fun. And sometimes riddles in Japanese, it's somehow not for everyone, you know... :/
[0] Likes
Довольно серьёзная игра в плане разнообразия, здесь автор явно потрудился на славу. Недостатки только в том, что некоторые места могут быть довольно дисбалансными по сложности. Где-то можно пройти участок за 5-10 минут, а где то только 1 сохранение берёшь чуть ли не за 30-60 минут из-за весьма непростых таймингов в двигающихся шипах, что не есть весело. Да и местами загадки на японском, это как то не для всех, знаете ли... :/
English:
Quite a serious game in terms of diversity, here the author has clearly worked hard. The only drawbacks is that some places can be quite unbalanced in complexity. Somewhere you can go through the area in 5-10 minutes, and somewhere you take only 1 save in almost 30-60 minutes due to very difficult timings in moving spikes, which is not fun. And sometimes riddles in Japanese, it's somehow not for everyone, you know... :/
Rating: 6.3 63
Difficulty: 60 60
Jun 19, 2022
CanusAntonius
Review based on Any%.
Dagger has a lot of interesting games that are almost always full of variety and interesting aspects, and usually, I would recommend them, but this is not one of those games. The level of variety is still present, but most of it ends up actually detrimental to the experience, added on to the fact that Dagger used some of his worst trap placements in this too.
Many of the gimmicks found throughout were borderline unenjoyable to me. For example, there's one that has you play in the background, which is cool but unfortunately for me it felt way too hard to see to the point that I had to fullscreen just to play. There's also one section in the sand gimmick stage that was pretty much garbage and involved a strict rhythm movement to go between moving spikes, I'd probably have dropped the game if it took longer than it did. Another disappointment is the lack of bosses, there's only a 60-second avoidance in the infinite jump stage and a final boss at the end, which is also pretty boring as it's just a long destination fight. The major problem though comes from the traps, which have almost always been placed at the very end of saves and will make the game feel twice as long as it should be.
Overall, it's an okay game, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Try Pendulum instead if you haven't, that's where Dagger shines the most!
[0] Likes
Dagger has a lot of interesting games that are almost always full of variety and interesting aspects, and usually, I would recommend them, but this is not one of those games. The level of variety is still present, but most of it ends up actually detrimental to the experience, added on to the fact that Dagger used some of his worst trap placements in this too.
Many of the gimmicks found throughout were borderline unenjoyable to me. For example, there's one that has you play in the background, which is cool but unfortunately for me it felt way too hard to see to the point that I had to fullscreen just to play. There's also one section in the sand gimmick stage that was pretty much garbage and involved a strict rhythm movement to go between moving spikes, I'd probably have dropped the game if it took longer than it did. Another disappointment is the lack of bosses, there's only a 60-second avoidance in the infinite jump stage and a final boss at the end, which is also pretty boring as it's just a long destination fight. The major problem though comes from the traps, which have almost always been placed at the very end of saves and will make the game feel twice as long as it should be.
Overall, it's an okay game, but I wouldn't really recommend it. Try Pendulum instead if you haven't, that's where Dagger shines the most!
Rating: 6.0 60
Difficulty: 55 55
May 6, 2022
DerpyHoovesIWBTG
Prism would have been a game that I liked a lot if it wasn't the case where there has to be a trap at the end of nearly every save in this game. It ultimately came down to frustrating platforming for me, even if some of the gimmicks like the rolling fruit kid gimmick in the red warp were really cool. Some examples of saves I disliked a lot were the last save of the yellow warp and the water screen of the last stage (the one with the shuriken in the top middle).
The final boss is pretty fun, but I was not a big fan of blue 2. The white phase can be a bit tense, but the spike does not kill you so you don't have to worry about it that much.
I can see why people like it, but I wasn't a big fan of it. Wouldn't recommend it that much because some of the platforming feels dated to me.
[0] Likes
The final boss is pretty fun, but I was not a big fan of blue 2. The white phase can be a bit tense, but the spike does not kill you so you don't have to worry about it that much.
I can see why people like it, but I wasn't a big fan of it. Wouldn't recommend it that much because some of the platforming feels dated to me.
Rating: 4.5 45
Difficulty: 50 50
Dec 31, 2021
exteriorbot
It's pretty good, and although it has some noticeable flaws, it is 100% worth playing. Dagger has a lot of cool and original ideas in this game, but it goes beyond that. A lot of his ideas are used to create challenges that you don't often see in fangames and that test the player in ways that they don't often get tested.
For example, the last save of the yellow stage has a very simple concept that ends up being a great test of rhythm, focus, timing, and consistency. The purple stage is a very fun puzzle section which has a bunch of creative and not too hard solutions. Many of the puzzles require you to think outside the box and result in pleasant "eureka" moments when you figure them out, although some of them probably require the player to look up a video if they don't know Japanese. The orange and red stages are also interesting, the former being one long save with no spikes whatsoever, and the latter being an autorun level that culminates in a tricky but satisfying save.
However, not all of the stages are that different from a typical adventure game or a typical needle game. For me, this is where the game is the weakest (though far from bad). Dagger's overall level design is quite good but it is not exceptional. Often you encounter saves where the hardest part is at the very end, though Prism is not very hard and if you are a good player this will be insignificant for you. I also thought there were some saves that relied too much on generic-feeling jumps for challenge, though I also think that lots of people will disagree with me on this one.
Visually, the production is very nice. It is often minimalistic, but it works. I found that it made a lot of the areas feel more ancient and imposing, like you're an explorer who has stumbled upon prehistoric ruins or something. The problem, though, is the music. The song choices for each area are pretty nice, you have a lot of fun and popular video game songs. However, this game has restarting music for every stage, and a lot of the stages have tricky jumps near the start of saves, meaning that you will be well-acquainted with the first five seconds of each song. I sort of thought that it gave the game more of the "classic fangame" feel, but I know that a lot of people are going to hate the restarting music.
I also have to talk about the final boss specifically. While this boss will not pose even close to a problem for players who are good at avoidance, it can be annoying for people who are bad at it or new to avoidance. Each one of the boss's attacks is easy (and quite generic tbh, you've likely seen these attacks before in many other fangames), but the boss has a lot of health and the rate at which you can damage it is quite slow. This means that you have to last for 4 minutes without making a mistake, which is made worse because the RNG can sometimes give you somewhat tricky scenarios. To make matters even worse, the very last attack of the fight is clearly the hardest out of all of them and is the only one which really poses a challenge. Overall it is a fun fight even if you have to put in the time to beat it like I did, but it can be somewhat annoying, and part of me feels like my time got wasted.
To sum it up, Prism is 100% worth playing. Some of the stuff that's done in Prism is stuff that you won't find anywhere else, and the stuff that's less original is still very well-designed. I would maybe recommend that you have some skill and consistency with avoidance before starting though.
[0] Likes
For example, the last save of the yellow stage has a very simple concept that ends up being a great test of rhythm, focus, timing, and consistency. The purple stage is a very fun puzzle section which has a bunch of creative and not too hard solutions. Many of the puzzles require you to think outside the box and result in pleasant "eureka" moments when you figure them out, although some of them probably require the player to look up a video if they don't know Japanese. The orange and red stages are also interesting, the former being one long save with no spikes whatsoever, and the latter being an autorun level that culminates in a tricky but satisfying save.
However, not all of the stages are that different from a typical adventure game or a typical needle game. For me, this is where the game is the weakest (though far from bad). Dagger's overall level design is quite good but it is not exceptional. Often you encounter saves where the hardest part is at the very end, though Prism is not very hard and if you are a good player this will be insignificant for you. I also thought there were some saves that relied too much on generic-feeling jumps for challenge, though I also think that lots of people will disagree with me on this one.
Visually, the production is very nice. It is often minimalistic, but it works. I found that it made a lot of the areas feel more ancient and imposing, like you're an explorer who has stumbled upon prehistoric ruins or something. The problem, though, is the music. The song choices for each area are pretty nice, you have a lot of fun and popular video game songs. However, this game has restarting music for every stage, and a lot of the stages have tricky jumps near the start of saves, meaning that you will be well-acquainted with the first five seconds of each song. I sort of thought that it gave the game more of the "classic fangame" feel, but I know that a lot of people are going to hate the restarting music.
I also have to talk about the final boss specifically. While this boss will not pose even close to a problem for players who are good at avoidance, it can be annoying for people who are bad at it or new to avoidance. Each one of the boss's attacks is easy (and quite generic tbh, you've likely seen these attacks before in many other fangames), but the boss has a lot of health and the rate at which you can damage it is quite slow. This means that you have to last for 4 minutes without making a mistake, which is made worse because the RNG can sometimes give you somewhat tricky scenarios. To make matters even worse, the very last attack of the fight is clearly the hardest out of all of them and is the only one which really poses a challenge. Overall it is a fun fight even if you have to put in the time to beat it like I did, but it can be somewhat annoying, and part of me feels like my time got wasted.
To sum it up, Prism is 100% worth playing. Some of the stuff that's done in Prism is stuff that you won't find anywhere else, and the stuff that's less original is still very well-designed. I would maybe recommend that you have some skill and consistency with avoidance before starting though.
Rating: 7.2 72
Difficulty: 52 52
Apr 18, 2021