19 Reviews:
Jopagu
Unenjoyable experience that would greatly benefit from some consistency and design cohesion. Enemies behave differently with no rhyme or reason. It seems completely random whether a projectile will go through walls or not. Additionally, some enemies are randomly unkillable. I.e. the turret in the first zone is killable, but the bullet bill turret later on isn't. One enemy can't shoot through walls but can shoot through buzzsaws, which you can't shoot through. Those same buzzsaws appear later in a boss and you can shoot through them. The first stage has traps that feature suddenly appearing blue energy balls. It quickly establishes that these balls only come out of a specific background feature, and then, a few saves later, has one come out of no where for a cheap shot kill at the end of a save. These balls return throughout the game, but never use the indicator that the game bothered setting up. The game features vines, and later on there are conveyor vines. But the conveyor vines don't use base vines as a base, and you can't jump off of them. One screen has a winged block from Mario, but unlike in Mario, this is a semisolid platform, not a solid block, a fact which is necessary to know to beat the save. If you're going to borrow gimmicks from other games, why would you change how they work? Additionally, the game uses Mario bouncy note blocks, and despite having the idle animation where the note moves around, they didn't copy the animation for actually bouncing on the block, so you're just bouncing off a completely solid unmoving block. In the area with all these Mario sprites, the game introduces what are effectively P-switches, but instead of using the actual sprite, it has a custom block sprite. It looks out of place, especially when a normal P-switch would fit in with the other things in the stage. In the cave area, when you turn into a dragon, you're immune to lava, however for some reason you're not immune to the fireballs that shoot out of that same lava. Later in the stage's boss, the floor is covered in lava. But instead of using the gimmick you introduced just to drop after a room, you just fall through the lava and die. Any of these things alone would be minor complaints, but together make a very frustrating experience. It feels like the game is constantly doing things completely differently than it did even a few rooms ago.
Secondly, the game doesn't feel very cohesive. The first area is on a spaceship, and halfway through the spaceship gets attacked by aliens. The robot guards are all destroyed and hostile aliens roam the stage. Finally, you get to the boss of the stage, and it's just like a guy. This attempt at storytelling is abandoned and the rest of the levels don't have any sort of events happening. After the spaceship, you go to a flowery field, then a forest that leads to a cave, and then from the bottom of the cave to another spaceship! Why aren't the spaceship levels connected in any way?!? The third boss is a giant super meat boy. Despite fighting this in what looks like hell, it doesn't use super meat boy's actual hell boss. The super meat boy is protected by cute little fairies that don't fit in at all. If you want to use this gimmick in a meat boy boss have floating bandage girls or something! Why are there fairies?? This game didn't feel like a proper adventure game, but rather an incoherent sequence of stages and bosses drawn out of a hat.
In addition, I feel like the choice of a custom engine was the wrong move for this game. I have nothing against nonstandard engines, but if you're going to make a fangame without fangame physics you should have a reason. This game never benefits from its engine, and it only serves to make certain sections clunky and annoying when they would be more fun with normal physics. The game uses normal named jumps, like diagonals, but they're way more annoying and can't be done as smoothly with these physics. The worst offender is the vines. Firstly, the vines have no slowdown effect when you slide on them, making staying on a vine frustrating. Multiple areas require you to fall onto a vine at high speed. With normal vine physics, this would be a normal maneuver, but instead it becomes a finicky test pressing jump at the right moment. Secondly, you can't shoot while on a vine, even when facing away from it, with you gun half a block away from anything that could reasonably resemble part of the vine. This is even true on the conveyor vines, which as stated, don't actually work like vines. The game has multiple sections where you need to shoot gimmicks or fight enemies while on vines. This includes the final boss!! If the vines just worked like they look like they should, these would be normal segments. Instead, they just become awkward, with you having to do small jumps off of the vine to shoot, then go back onto the vine. I can't see any good reason for these vine changes, and just having vines work like normal would directly improve several sections. The game also messes with controls, changing jump/shoot into Z/X instead of Shift/Z. Your hands are in the exact same spot except jump is harder to hit. How does this change add anything except unfamiliarity, increasing the already clunky nature of the physics. Finally, a small pet peeve of mine, you can't quit the game by pressing esc, you have to go back to the menu and select the exit option. This is just annoying and slow UI design.
This game does have a lot of good ideas. I particularly like the transformations into a spaceship and a dragon. Additionally, the game has a lot of production value, and looks great (but why is restarting music a thing??). This has the seeds of a great game, but it suffers from a slew of minor mistakes that just make nothing feel like it should. Some small changes, and following some rules of game design, would make this into a top notch game. Unfortunately, I can't recommend it as it has too many small issues adding up into an unpleasant game.
[1] Like
Secondly, the game doesn't feel very cohesive. The first area is on a spaceship, and halfway through the spaceship gets attacked by aliens. The robot guards are all destroyed and hostile aliens roam the stage. Finally, you get to the boss of the stage, and it's just like a guy. This attempt at storytelling is abandoned and the rest of the levels don't have any sort of events happening. After the spaceship, you go to a flowery field, then a forest that leads to a cave, and then from the bottom of the cave to another spaceship! Why aren't the spaceship levels connected in any way?!? The third boss is a giant super meat boy. Despite fighting this in what looks like hell, it doesn't use super meat boy's actual hell boss. The super meat boy is protected by cute little fairies that don't fit in at all. If you want to use this gimmick in a meat boy boss have floating bandage girls or something! Why are there fairies?? This game didn't feel like a proper adventure game, but rather an incoherent sequence of stages and bosses drawn out of a hat.
In addition, I feel like the choice of a custom engine was the wrong move for this game. I have nothing against nonstandard engines, but if you're going to make a fangame without fangame physics you should have a reason. This game never benefits from its engine, and it only serves to make certain sections clunky and annoying when they would be more fun with normal physics. The game uses normal named jumps, like diagonals, but they're way more annoying and can't be done as smoothly with these physics. The worst offender is the vines. Firstly, the vines have no slowdown effect when you slide on them, making staying on a vine frustrating. Multiple areas require you to fall onto a vine at high speed. With normal vine physics, this would be a normal maneuver, but instead it becomes a finicky test pressing jump at the right moment. Secondly, you can't shoot while on a vine, even when facing away from it, with you gun half a block away from anything that could reasonably resemble part of the vine. This is even true on the conveyor vines, which as stated, don't actually work like vines. The game has multiple sections where you need to shoot gimmicks or fight enemies while on vines. This includes the final boss!! If the vines just worked like they look like they should, these would be normal segments. Instead, they just become awkward, with you having to do small jumps off of the vine to shoot, then go back onto the vine. I can't see any good reason for these vine changes, and just having vines work like normal would directly improve several sections. The game also messes with controls, changing jump/shoot into Z/X instead of Shift/Z. Your hands are in the exact same spot except jump is harder to hit. How does this change add anything except unfamiliarity, increasing the already clunky nature of the physics. Finally, a small pet peeve of mine, you can't quit the game by pressing esc, you have to go back to the menu and select the exit option. This is just annoying and slow UI design.
This game does have a lot of good ideas. I particularly like the transformations into a spaceship and a dragon. Additionally, the game has a lot of production value, and looks great (but why is restarting music a thing??). This has the seeds of a great game, but it suffers from a slew of minor mistakes that just make nothing feel like it should. Some small changes, and following some rules of game design, would make this into a top notch game. Unfortunately, I can't recommend it as it has too many small issues adding up into an unpleasant game.
Rating: 4.7 47
Difficulty: 40 40
Jun 23, 2022
shign
A good adventure game with a lot of creative stuffs. Bosses are all good (maybe except the third one), traps are a mixed bag, some are great but I feel that most of them aren't espacially good. That wouldn't have been a problem if your hitbox wasn't totally fucked up, it's way bigger than your character's sprite. It can be useful sometimes (like for exemple in klonoa world to better bounce on bird) but most of the time you will die because of that. Hopefully the game is not very hard so it's not a big issue, but it's still sad. The game also use a different engine so if you combine this with the hitbox, some jumps are a bit harder than they should.
In overall, this is a good beginner game despite some few flaws.
[1] Like
In overall, this is a good beginner game despite some few flaws.
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 40 40
Jul 14, 2019
WoshTheTriangle
This game is pretty fun. You play as a little box fellow with a cool laser gun that gets upgraded throughout the game. The gimmicks mainly revolve around your gun and its upgrades but there are some other mechanics and traps throughout.
The platforming is fine, the different physics engine messed me up a lot as you are decently faster with a weaker jump but a stronger double jump. Also you fall somewhat slowly. The traps can get annoying but they are pretty well-designed.
Bosses are really well-made each being unique and really enjoyable to learn. Only exception is the final boss, not because it is badly made, but because it just lasts too long. There are three phases with the second one just taking up time so when you die at the third phase you have to redo the first two all over again. A checkpoint at the final phase along with it being harder would be really cool.
I like this game, it has its own unique charm. Still, it just feels like it drags on sometimes and made me get bored more often than I would like. It feels like there is a lack of direction in the level design. Besides that, it is a pretty solid game.
[0] Likes
The platforming is fine, the different physics engine messed me up a lot as you are decently faster with a weaker jump but a stronger double jump. Also you fall somewhat slowly. The traps can get annoying but they are pretty well-designed.
Bosses are really well-made each being unique and really enjoyable to learn. Only exception is the final boss, not because it is badly made, but because it just lasts too long. There are three phases with the second one just taking up time so when you die at the third phase you have to redo the first two all over again. A checkpoint at the final phase along with it being harder would be really cool.
I like this game, it has its own unique charm. Still, it just feels like it drags on sometimes and made me get bored more often than I would like. It feels like there is a lack of direction in the level design. Besides that, it is a pretty solid game.
Rating: 6.0 60
Difficulty: 40 40
Apr 29, 2024
PlutoTheThing
A fine game, the main issues is the jank. Some mechanics feel unnatural or weird, and the physics aren't very good. You fall extremely slowly, in a very unnatural way. It's like the entire game is in water but not really, it's hard to explain. This makes platforming clunky, and the bosses aren't super great either. It's not really a bad game, but I think it's very flawed and could be far better, unfortunately a lot of improvements would be fundamental changes.
[0] Likes
Rating: 5.7 57
Difficulty: 31 31
Jun 16, 2023
CanusAntonius
This was really a special experience that could have been so incredibly enjoyable if it wasn't for the fact every enemy and boss has so much HP that the mashing became absolutely ridiculous, the final boss especially is one of the worst things I've ever played in lieu of this. There are so many cool ideas here, but this one flaw completely destroys the experience for me as I'm not looking to play a game to cause my hand physical pain from mashing their multiple-phase boss with required damage checks at the end. Because this issue is mainly due to a pre-existing condition for me I won't actually put a rating, but I have this marked as a 4 from me personally because of how egregious that was.
Overall, if you can mash fine then sure it's a cool game, but if you can't then either get wasp and set it to your X key or don't play at all.
[0] Likes
Overall, if you can mash fine then sure it's a cool game, but if you can't then either get wasp and set it to your X key or don't play at all.
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: 40 40
Nov 20, 2022