Delicious FruitLatest Reviews
dorafura
For: I Wanna Fine-House
For: I Wanna Fine-House
Tagged as: Adventure
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 40 40
Sep 11, 2022
Kilgour22
For: I wanna get the Rainbow feather
For: I wanna get the Rainbow feather
Dogshit quiz = 3
[0] Likes
Rating: 3.0 30
Difficulty: 30 30
Sep 11, 2022
yangshuoen
For: QAQ Needle
For: QAQ Needle
Tagged as: Needle
Impossible
[0] Likes
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Sep 11, 2022
spellux01
For: VOX Diamond
For: VOX Diamond
Tagged as: Nasrano-like
[2] Likes
Rating: 3.0 30
Difficulty: N/A
Sep 11, 2022
CanusAntonius
For: I Wanna be the Vandal
For: I Wanna be the Vandal
As one who is now known as the "Vandal" behind closed doors and hushed whispers, it felt necessary to remark on the journey taken for such a title. This is by far one of the highest quality Needle games to come out of the community and features exquisite gimmick usage throughout bundled under a chef's kiss.
It's well known that Wolfie has been an exceptional fangame designer for a while before this game, but if you view Witch's Tower as FFXII then Vandal is the sky-shattering zodiac age. It's such a crisp and beautiful evolution of design that you can both see the humble beginnings alongside his newfound abilities intermingled with one another. It creates a wonderful game that holds both his traditional design philosophy alongside a fresh modern coat, and I greatly enjoyed it.
Set as a 50-floor game, every area in it feels distinctly creative and unique. For the most part, this comes to flesh by adding a new gimmick per stage, and it's very clear that the design is made to suit them extremely well. Sometimes gimmicks can feel shoehorned into a save, or needle placed to suit a gimmick, but the game feels as if both are thought of at the same time. There is typically a good difficulty balance between these saves, if you have a harder gimmick segment to do then it'll be balanced with easier regular jumps for the other half.
The aesthetics of the game are also pretty beautiful, and the overall narrative going on actually makes this feel more like an Adventure game than most Needle stuff does. You have your favorite Magic Tower characters back in action to help the Kid on his journey (or not), each providing funny dialogue worth reading whenever you can. The visuals really help each area feel like part of a greater world, of course, expanded upon by the various maps throughout the game (the final one being quite the spectacle). Finally, there's the music, in which you're basically going to want to save some of these songs to your playlist as they're quite jamming. (As a side note: the soundtrack playlist in the Readme doesn't seem to work anymore which is a bit unfortunate). I'd also like to give a special shoutout to the final stage, which ends up being the Tower Lead of Needle in such an amazing way.
I did have a few minor issues with the game, most of which might be more of a personal dilemma than the design. First, I felt as if there was a major visibility issue in one of the ending stages, especially since it made the water nearly impossible to see. It's hard to appreciate a visual challenge usually as I only view it as contradictory to the general gameplay of Needle, and here is certainly no exception, it doesn't feel fun to play when I can barely see the screen with how dark it is. Second, the final segment of that stage feels like quite an outcast from the rest of the game, I don't really think the theme matches anything else going on, it was also like the hardest thing in the game for me since it once again has the visual dilemma alongside a forced timer. I also kind of feel like the design earlier in that stage was a bit of a lesser stance than the rest of the game because of how difficult it was, but also because stuff like the tiny water gaps when they're over spikes didn't really feel like the design anywhere else, it was uncomfortable to play. Finally, I really don't get the green block gimmicks, I always felt like the height they pushed me up was a bit random, I'm not even sure if it relied on if I held down shift or not. Beating the entire game and not understanding the gimmick mostly probably means it's a bit of a weaker chain link than the others. This being said, these issues didn't make me stop enjoying the game, but just wanted to mention them for the sake of the review.
Overall, Vandal is one of the most important Needle releases ever to come out, and after playing it I've realized exactly why. It's a stunning game, and well worth the attention it gets from everyone, I would even say that it's my favorite pure Needle game at this point. It's such a shame that people are going to vandalize it, or is it?
[0] Likes
It's well known that Wolfie has been an exceptional fangame designer for a while before this game, but if you view Witch's Tower as FFXII then Vandal is the sky-shattering zodiac age. It's such a crisp and beautiful evolution of design that you can both see the humble beginnings alongside his newfound abilities intermingled with one another. It creates a wonderful game that holds both his traditional design philosophy alongside a fresh modern coat, and I greatly enjoyed it.
Set as a 50-floor game, every area in it feels distinctly creative and unique. For the most part, this comes to flesh by adding a new gimmick per stage, and it's very clear that the design is made to suit them extremely well. Sometimes gimmicks can feel shoehorned into a save, or needle placed to suit a gimmick, but the game feels as if both are thought of at the same time. There is typically a good difficulty balance between these saves, if you have a harder gimmick segment to do then it'll be balanced with easier regular jumps for the other half.
The aesthetics of the game are also pretty beautiful, and the overall narrative going on actually makes this feel more like an Adventure game than most Needle stuff does. You have your favorite Magic Tower characters back in action to help the Kid on his journey (or not), each providing funny dialogue worth reading whenever you can. The visuals really help each area feel like part of a greater world, of course, expanded upon by the various maps throughout the game (the final one being quite the spectacle). Finally, there's the music, in which you're basically going to want to save some of these songs to your playlist as they're quite jamming. (As a side note: the soundtrack playlist in the Readme doesn't seem to work anymore which is a bit unfortunate). I'd also like to give a special shoutout to the final stage, which ends up being the Tower Lead of Needle in such an amazing way.
I did have a few minor issues with the game, most of which might be more of a personal dilemma than the design. First, I felt as if there was a major visibility issue in one of the ending stages, especially since it made the water nearly impossible to see. It's hard to appreciate a visual challenge usually as I only view it as contradictory to the general gameplay of Needle, and here is certainly no exception, it doesn't feel fun to play when I can barely see the screen with how dark it is. Second, the final segment of that stage feels like quite an outcast from the rest of the game, I don't really think the theme matches anything else going on, it was also like the hardest thing in the game for me since it once again has the visual dilemma alongside a forced timer. I also kind of feel like the design earlier in that stage was a bit of a lesser stance than the rest of the game because of how difficult it was, but also because stuff like the tiny water gaps when they're over spikes didn't really feel like the design anywhere else, it was uncomfortable to play. Finally, I really don't get the green block gimmicks, I always felt like the height they pushed me up was a bit random, I'm not even sure if it relied on if I held down shift or not. Beating the entire game and not understanding the gimmick mostly probably means it's a bit of a weaker chain link than the others. This being said, these issues didn't make me stop enjoying the game, but just wanted to mention them for the sake of the review.
Overall, Vandal is one of the most important Needle releases ever to come out, and after playing it I've realized exactly why. It's a stunning game, and well worth the attention it gets from everyone, I would even say that it's my favorite pure Needle game at this point. It's such a shame that people are going to vandalize it, or is it?
Rating: 9.5 95
Difficulty: 72 72
Sep 11, 2022