I Wanna Destroy the Maelstrom

Creator: MLSTRM

Average Rating
8.0 / 10
Average Difficulty
67.3 / 100
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Tags:

Adventure (10) Needle (8) Avoidance (7) Trap (1) Gimmick (6) Boss (8) Secrets (1) Long (5) Story (2) Extra (1) SourPls (1)

Screenshots

  • by CeleCele
  • by Chuckolator
  • by CeleCele
  • by CeleCele
  • by CeleCele

Creator's Comments:

MLSTRM [Creator]
Current version: V1.2.09.07
This game is a rather long Adventure (or perhaps more accurately Needleventure) game using a variety of mostly standard gimmicks, with a couple of weird ones thrown in there. There is a story/narrative to the game, but you can opt to play without it if you so choose.
There are optional secrets, and obtaining them all unlocks some Extra content.

This project was a long time in the making, and I'm grateful to anyone that helped out or encouraged me along the way.

UPDATE: October 23rd: Made what I hope to be the final patch of the game - mostly minor fixes but also added some persistence to the Chapter 5a gimmick which should reduce some annoyance there.

UPDATE: September 27th: Some further changes made, mostly focused around the final boss.

UPDATE: September 20th: New update released with various balance changes. Details in included text file. Also fixed crashes introduced by patch

UPDATE: September 15th: Small update to fix some softlocks and an accidentally impossible route in 1 place. Larger balance fixes and overall adjustment coming later on.

...

UPDATE: September 7th 2024: Recent delfruit downtime made a long-standing bug clear where if this site goes down the game is unplayable, oops. That bug fix was the only intentional change in this release. It's honestly humbling that people are still playing this game to this day. Thank you!

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[7] Likes
Rating: N/A       Difficulty: N/A
Sep 13, 2019

27 Reviews:

kurath
This is a very long needleventure game. It's a grand undertaking that starts quite easy and ramps up slowly over the course of its extensive length. Expect a wide variety of platforming and bosses as your journey progresses, though still heavily focused around traditional needle design. Accompanied by a traditional fangame story (generally a little corny and thin but gets the job done in terms of keeping the flow going), there's a lot of charm here. The game has secrets, though they are optional but do unlock an extra. If that sounds like your thing, its best to give it a shot.


The game's identity ended up feeling a bit strange to me, though, because I felt like at times the platforming and bosses came from completely different games, so I'm going to address their aspects individually.

Platforming-wise, outside of the traditional 'guy tile' first stage, there's a ton of great looking stages and production tends to ramp up for the most part over time. For the most part, each stage tends to focus on an individual gimmick as is typical for needleventure style games. These gimmicks, though, for the most part are more common needle gimmicks - engine gimmicks like platforms, jump refreshers waters and vines, and triggers or cycle based stuff. Though I did like almost all the platforming in the game, my favorite part of needleventure style games is typically the more creative, out there gimmick styles which made stage 5 easily my favorite. I'd have loved to have seen more of that.

Difficulty wise, the platforming starts out quite easy and trends up fairly smoothly over time with the exception of the secrets which tend to be more on par with lategame platforming regardless of their location in the game. The stages felt like they had a lot of care put into them and play well.

The bosses on the other hand, felt very much the opposite in many ways. Where the platforming felt smooth, polished and clean, the bosses felt very experimental and rough. They rarely had much to do with the stages they were in and due to that felt like a pretty sharp shift with each one. The big upside of this, for me, was that each one felt quite unique and generally had creative, uncommon mechanics and interactions. Unfortunately, since many of these were introduced mid-boss fight, they occasionally could become frustrating as you're learning attacks and mechanics simultaneously.

While the bosses do trend to be more difficult as the game progresses, it felt very much more all over the place where the difficulty peaked in stages 4 and 5. Production and balance wise, they also felt a lot more inconsistent. Some bosses would have a solid theme and play to it, and some of them felt like they'd just simply appear and throw default sprites at you for a while for no reason. Likewise with the visual design being hit or miss, the songs feel like they'd have benefited from some better cuts at parts to keep the energy higher but a lot of songs used featured softer intros/segments that felt out of place in a boss encounter.

Likewise, the balance was frustrating at times. As said, the bosses feature a number of interesting mechanics but these felt like they ended up taking a backseat to the boss being defined rather than working with its interesting mechanic but instead by a couple particular attacks that stood out as being more difficult. This was certainly frustrating at times. If you're a very good player, they're certainly not so out of place that you'll likely struggle by any means, but for a more moderate player, do expect to hit some rough bumps along the way.

Overall this game has a ton to offer and I certainly felt like I got a lot out of it. I'd definitely recommend it to the advanced player who likes a variety package featuring all different types of what fangames have to offer. For the intermediate player, I'd still recommend it but expect to take some breaks from it as you go as its very long and the bumpiness piles up a bit from time to time. Still, its giving a shot to.

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Tagged as: Adventure Needle Avoidance Boss Long
[4] Likes
Rating: 8.7 87       Difficulty: 68 68
Oct 9, 2019
Wolfiexe
Destroy the Maelstrom is a grand adventure game with a strong needle focus to its platforming, utilizing a lot of the standard needle gimmicks such as water, vines and platforms alongside some other quirky gimmicks along the way, as well as a pretty stacked roster of bosses to keep your focus. There's even a story which will you have you right on the edge of your seat to the final moments, so be prepared for that.

The game follows a classic format of stages into bosses and mixing up the visuals and gimmicks on a regular basis. The game mostly feels fresh, although I think a few stages could maybe have done with a few less screens to keep them from dragging a little. One small issue is that some stages can end up feeling like a collection of needle screens with a theme attached to it, which takes away from the adventurey feel at times. Despite that, I did enjoy the platforming and the needle is generally well thought out and designed in an enjoyable way without any really upsetting jumps or overly precise segments.

The real strength of the platforming comes with the clever design and layouts that are used in certain areas. 5B's maze-like area comes to mind with a very unique and well thought out path that takes you on quite the journey. I also thought the final stage was very memorable in the flow and layout of the screens, alongside a very fitting visual effect. I am conflicted in regards to the first part of Chapter 5 as whilst the gimmick seems initially interesting, it does lead itself to a fair share of tedious moments whereby you need to do something trivial at the start of a save for 5 seconds before actually being able to attempt it, but I did find the gimmick interesting, just perhaps not used in the cleanest way.

The bosses are all pretty enjoyable, although somewhat mixed. The game has some great bosses such as on the big bridge and the colour-shifting avoidance which utilize either the gimmick or visuals really nicely to make the fight more interesting and engaging, whereas a couple feel like they could've done with perhaps more unique bullet sprites rather than the classic sprCherry, and maybe just a bit more polish. I don't think there were really any bosses I disliked, which is a pretty impressive feat in a game with so many of them.

The game does feature some secrets which unlock an extra couple of challenges. The secrets are generally fairly obvious and the hub will even take you to the entrance rooms which makes it easy to go back and hunt them at any time. I haven't fully tackled the extra content yet, but they both seem like pretty tricky yet enjoyable challenges where the enjoyment will probably greatly differ from person to person.

All-in-all though it's a memorable adventure and one with a lot of variety and content, something I always appreciate. There's some hiccups along the way whether it be the spotlight design or the odd boss shenanigans, but if you're looking for a good needleventure to sink your teeth into then you'll be right at home with this one.

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Tagged as: Adventure Needle Avoidance Gimmick Boss
[3] Likes
Rating: 8.6 86       Difficulty: 65 65
Oct 21, 2019
shign
I really wish I enjoyed it more because it's obvious that a lot of effort had been put into the game.

Starting by the goods, the production is quite high and there are a lot of variety with each stage being very different from the others. The platforming is mostly nice even if I'm less a fan of it from 5b and that the early is pretty basic (but still enjoyable). I especially liked the stage with the colored lights, I don't remember which one it is. There are also secrets and they are cool too and unlock extra which I'll talk later. To finish about the goods, the musics are really bangers.

However, and I'm really sorry to say that, bosses suck, they really do. The only bosses I kinda had fun with are Dark Kid which is pretty cool, and the final boss phase 1 and 5 because phase 2 and 4 are borring avoidances, and phase 3 is pretty cool minus one unavoidable attack that I had to prey to not get it. The other bosses are either really borring or unfair, the most stupid one was the color switch avoidance that I truly hated from the bottom of my hearth. I also said before that I was less a fan of the platforming from 5b because even is 5b maze is very impressive, it's honestly a mess and it's impossible to locate the good way without using the arrow. Chapter 6 is also less interesting and felt more generic.

I didn't completed extra but I gave it a try and it's not for me. The touhou boss looks really well made but has an absurd amount of hp, I really feel that the fight is gonna take around 10 min, and the right boss is an avoidance that looks way too hard for me.

I would say that this game is worth giving a try, however I didn't enjoyed it like many others because too much things annoyed me or felt really unpolished. Extra might be pretty good if you're a very good player tho.

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[2] Likes
Rating: 6.0 60       Difficulty: 65 65
Mar 16, 2021
CeleCele
(This review is based on V1.0.09.15)
This is a game of highs and lows.
Theres a lot i like in this game, yet some parts are very frustrating.

Let's start with some of the bad:
Around the halfway mark a lot of the bosses have way too much hp. Especially the final boss and its 5 phases (5 phases is a bit too much)
Some of the bosses their attacks might've been a bit too rng heavy. Especially the final boss again.
The mid game had some save balance issues, atleast in my experience.
I also wasnt personally a fan of 5c gravityflip
The stages maybe overstay their welcome a bit. I think a lot of the mid game/ late game couldve done with like 1/2 less rooms per stage.

Now some of the good:
The song choices are amazingly good, not a fan of the genres used but I still could enjoy the songs.
Besides 1 stage mentioned earlier i like all the needle. Especially everything in chapter 4.
The bosses their concepts are very creative and mostly used in a cool way.
The production value and graphics are also very good.

In the end I can say I enjoyed most of the game and a some of the issues I have can be fixed later on with updates.
I definitely recommend playing this if you like long medium difficulty adventure games. (Atleast after some updates.)

edit: Some bosses have been nerfed or shortened, so i upped the rating from a 7.8 to an 8.5

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Tagged as: Long
[2] Likes
Rating: 8.5 85       Difficulty: 68 68
Sep 18, 2019
BoshyGo11
Really cool adventure game on the long needleventure side, like Ocean Princess, featuring tons of production value. All of the stages and bosses look apart from each other, have different gimmicks and are memorable in some way. Music is really cool too, being mostly FF and Mario Galaxy tracks. It has secrets, but these are optional and after you find one you can return to its location via portal room.
I haven't cleared the game yet, but this is the experience I got from the first 5 chapters. Well, I don't think that the quality will drastically fall in the end of the game though

edit 05.12.2020: So I've finally finished the game and, as I expected, its quality didn't hickup at the very end! Such variety, such creativity, wow, this adventure is brilliant.

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Tagged as: Adventure Needle Avoidance Gimmick Boss Story SourPls
[2] Likes
Rating: 10.0 100       Difficulty: 70 70
Sep 14, 2019