Delicious FruitLatest Reviews
Arle17
For: chrimbuschampion_secretsanta_gaming
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For: chrimbuschampion_secretsanta_gaming
[1] Like
Rating: 4.0 40
Difficulty: 20 20
Oct 12, 2022
RandomChaos_
For: I wanna Trash Needle
For: I wanna Trash Needle
Tagged as: Needle
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Rating: 1.5 15
Difficulty: 55 55
Oct 12, 2022
RandomChaos_
For: I wanna dip the Crusty Benis
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For: I wanna dip the Crusty Benis
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Rating: 5.1 51
Difficulty: 62 62
Oct 12, 2022
Kilgour22
For: I wanna be the Phantom Needle IV
For: I wanna be the Phantom Needle IV
60-floor needle game that has original screens that match the source game for the visuals in terms of platforming style. It's great overall; what keeps me from giving it a higher rating, however, is the inclusion of very precise jumps that break the flow of the game. I didn't so much mind the difficulty balance, but how the difficulty spikes occurred.
Others have talked about a few of the harder screens. I generally agree with their assessment, though I don't think 37 save 2 is quite as hard as it's been made out to be, and I would argue that 59 also deserves a special mention for its difficulty, like 58. (I essentially first-tried 60...) Note that the elevated difficulty on these screens may be a huge turn-off for players who are good enough to enjoy the rest of the game but not quite ready for the hardest screens.
If you have the skill, it's a great game with lots of content. It kept me busy for nearly two hours, which is pretty darn solid for a needle game. Play it if you like standard needle.
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Others have talked about a few of the harder screens. I generally agree with their assessment, though I don't think 37 save 2 is quite as hard as it's been made out to be, and I would argue that 59 also deserves a special mention for its difficulty, like 58. (I essentially first-tried 60...) Note that the elevated difficulty on these screens may be a huge turn-off for players who are good enough to enjoy the rest of the game but not quite ready for the hardest screens.
If you have the skill, it's a great game with lots of content. It kept me busy for nearly two hours, which is pretty darn solid for a needle game. Play it if you like standard needle.
Rating: 7.3 73
Difficulty: 75 75
Oct 12, 2022
phgQED
For: I wanna elm
For: I wanna elm
This game is more difficult for me to review than Elk. I think several conceits it makes towards the precision needle genre are very well executed (constant align and valign display, hint document), but that overall it was a less fun experience to play. While there is always a certain amount of restriction to the way a particularly difficult jump is performed, there are mechanisms within that execution which can still leave the player feeling in control of their experience. In Elm, because so many of the jumps only work with an incredibly specific strategy, there is much less incentive to test various input combinations. Most of the jumps, when aligned properly, will feel like full jumps that somehow magically just work, and while there's not necessarily anything inherently wrong with that (it's even highly enjoyable in small doses), it leaves me with a feeling more like I'm manually playing a TAS than actually experiencing the needle for myself. Also, in a game that is specifically designed to be oriented around valigns, it boggles my mind that there is not an option to simply save your valign. Maybe setting up a random-seeming number by bonking your head repeatedly or numpad cancelling is what people find enjoyable about valign required jumps, but to me it's just pointless setup time that prevents me from actually attempting the jump. I don't have to redo my horizontal align every attempt... anyway.
The aesthetic, ethos, and presentation of these jumps seems to me to serve as sort of a science sampler, a little peek into the jump laboratory where needle scientists are poking away at the pixels and subpixels to make the world's most complicated jumps. That type of magic is really cool when it lets you feel like you're an integral part of the equation, but here, I more felt like I was just being shown what to do rather than being allowed to determine that on my own.
I would still recommend checking this game out as a sort of window into a highly valign-dependent precision jump world, but the experience of playing it was not necessarily my favorite thing.
Oh, it's also worth mentioning that this game suffers from at least one frame of input lag even post-patch, and that it also suffers from an engine save bug (which you can mitigate by running jtool in the background). It also has a full-screen flash every time you reset, which was somewhat visually painful. All of these things negatively impacted my experience.
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The aesthetic, ethos, and presentation of these jumps seems to me to serve as sort of a science sampler, a little peek into the jump laboratory where needle scientists are poking away at the pixels and subpixels to make the world's most complicated jumps. That type of magic is really cool when it lets you feel like you're an integral part of the equation, but here, I more felt like I was just being shown what to do rather than being allowed to determine that on my own.
I would still recommend checking this game out as a sort of window into a highly valign-dependent precision jump world, but the experience of playing it was not necessarily my favorite thing.
Oh, it's also worth mentioning that this game suffers from at least one frame of input lag even post-patch, and that it also suffers from an engine save bug (which you can mitigate by running jtool in the background). It also has a full-screen flash every time you reset, which was somewhat visually painful. All of these things negatively impacted my experience.
Rating: 5.5 55
Difficulty: 66 66
Oct 12, 2022
phgQED
For: I wanna be the Archfoe
For: I wanna be the Archfoe
Archfoe is one of the first needle games I ever downloaded (because of the cool name). As such, I've not really had a contiguous experience with it—there have been many stops and starts, poking my head in at various points on my needle journey to see if I was ready to give it a proper go.
The three words I would use to describe Archfoe are 'chaotic', 'pointed', and 'boisterous'. While some of the difficulty and jump concepts approach a more traditional L-needle level of challenge, the shape of the map and the implementation of various spike patterns and strange shapes make a given playthru feel less oppressive but still generally a bit treacherous. The game is unapologetic about jumps which benefit from cancels, and you'll also see apples, minispikes, and platforms situated in such a way to obstruct your jump trajectory, rather than aid it. 'Prickly' is another word that comes to mind, but that's a generic synonym for needle at this point. I would think of a longer, slender needle with some barbs and random curled points along it, perhaps.
I think I remember seeing archfoe described as 'Uhuhu but harder and with less production value', and while I can certainly see a bit of merit to that comparison, it doesn't hold up for me due to a lack of playfulness in the former. Uhuhu is all about showing off new ideas and weird shapes, while Archfoe felt a lot more like "I have designed this to punish you". The tileset is indeed grim, and though the song is nice, it can't compete with a giant anime medley for potential banger-ish-ness.
Altogether I think the shortness of this game and the unique/peculiar nature of some of its jumps make it worth a look, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not interested in the raw fringes of needle subgenres and some painful jumps in general.
The three words I would use to describe Archfoe are 'chaotic', 'pointed', and 'boisterous'. While some of the difficulty and jump concepts approach a more traditional L-needle level of challenge, the shape of the map and the implementation of various spike patterns and strange shapes make a given playthru feel less oppressive but still generally a bit treacherous. The game is unapologetic about jumps which benefit from cancels, and you'll also see apples, minispikes, and platforms situated in such a way to obstruct your jump trajectory, rather than aid it. 'Prickly' is another word that comes to mind, but that's a generic synonym for needle at this point. I would think of a longer, slender needle with some barbs and random curled points along it, perhaps.
I think I remember seeing archfoe described as 'Uhuhu but harder and with less production value', and while I can certainly see a bit of merit to that comparison, it doesn't hold up for me due to a lack of playfulness in the former. Uhuhu is all about showing off new ideas and weird shapes, while Archfoe felt a lot more like "I have designed this to punish you". The tileset is indeed grim, and though the song is nice, it can't compete with a giant anime medley for potential banger-ish-ness.
Altogether I think the shortness of this game and the unique/peculiar nature of some of its jumps make it worth a look, but I wouldn't recommend it to anyone not interested in the raw fringes of needle subgenres and some painful jumps in general.
Tagged as: Needle
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Rating: 5.0 50
Difficulty: 62 62
Oct 12, 2022