Delicious FruitLatest Reviews
Chibimisha
For: I wanna destroyed over easy
For: I wanna destroyed over easy
my ears hurt
[0] Likes
Rating: 1.0 10
Difficulty: N/A
Dec 4, 2019
kurath
For: I wanna be the Noodle Loon 2
For: I wanna be the Noodle Loon 2
Jestre's needle has improved steadily over time, and I'm a big fan of his most recent works so I decided to look back a bit. This one is a bit rougher but still generally good moderate-hard needle that for the most part stays interesting.
I'd recommend looking at his newer games first, but if you're still out for more after that this is worth the time.
I'd recommend looking at his newer games first, but if you're still out for more after that this is worth the time.
Tagged as: Needle
[0] Likes
Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 63 63
Dec 4, 2019
Wolfiexe
For: I Wanna Defeat The Discord Makers NA Side
For: I Wanna Defeat The Discord Makers NA Side
A pretty solid needle collab by the NA crew (and one non-NA member because they dared to break the rules). Most stages follow the format of a bunch of separated screens with the usual focus on a standard gimmick or two, with most achieving a somewhat similar difficulty aside from a couple outliers, which ended up far harder in my experience (most notably Inferno's).
The production value on the title screen and stage select is pretty flashy with the whole Hotline Miami style going on, although the stage production value varies quite greatly. Some have pretty nice effort put into aesthetics to stand out that little bit more, whereas a few are pretty simple in terms of the tilesets and backgrounds used. They're all pleasing enough and fit their respective maker's style as I would expect so I didn't really have any complaints, although one part of Stonk's stage has tiling reminiscent of Piece's infamous pre-patch Sandwich tiling which I won't soon forget.
In terms of the level design, if you've played any of the makers stuff before then you'll know what to expect. Jestre has the classic loon-aesthetic with triggers and pleasing colour combinations going on, Inferno has his signature visual style accompanied with some very tricky water-grab needle and Dopamine has...well, the good old dopamine-effect. It's all good stuff. If I were to pick a favourite, I'd say I enjoyed Piece's stage the most. This is partly down to it feeling more like a mini-area and not just a collection of unrelated screens separated with warps, with it looping around and using layout pretty interestingly, as well as having in general good design and pleasing visuals. This is something I wish more stages did, not just in needle collabs but in needle games in general, as it makes them feel more cohesive and memorable to me rather than a just a jumble of unrelated needle screens.
As mentioned earlier, a few parts did feel like spikes in difficulty. A couple of water segments in Inferno's stage really stung for me, Wonderful definitely had a couple overly tricky parts too and Vi's stage kept the high difficulty quality she's known for. In a way, I can't really complain too much about difficulty given I was initially a tester for this game long ago but only got around to doing a few stages. I don't think the difficulty ever gets too much, but depending on your familiarity with a few gimmicks, you may run into some blocks.
Overall it's a solid needle collab. It doesn't do too much to reinvent the idea and the quality bounces around a bit alongside the difficulty, but for the most part you're getting interesting and competent needle without any strings attached. If that sounds like a good time, you should give it a shot!
[1] Like
The production value on the title screen and stage select is pretty flashy with the whole Hotline Miami style going on, although the stage production value varies quite greatly. Some have pretty nice effort put into aesthetics to stand out that little bit more, whereas a few are pretty simple in terms of the tilesets and backgrounds used. They're all pleasing enough and fit their respective maker's style as I would expect so I didn't really have any complaints, although one part of Stonk's stage has tiling reminiscent of Piece's infamous pre-patch Sandwich tiling which I won't soon forget.
In terms of the level design, if you've played any of the makers stuff before then you'll know what to expect. Jestre has the classic loon-aesthetic with triggers and pleasing colour combinations going on, Inferno has his signature visual style accompanied with some very tricky water-grab needle and Dopamine has...well, the good old dopamine-effect. It's all good stuff. If I were to pick a favourite, I'd say I enjoyed Piece's stage the most. This is partly down to it feeling more like a mini-area and not just a collection of unrelated screens separated with warps, with it looping around and using layout pretty interestingly, as well as having in general good design and pleasing visuals. This is something I wish more stages did, not just in needle collabs but in needle games in general, as it makes them feel more cohesive and memorable to me rather than a just a jumble of unrelated needle screens.
As mentioned earlier, a few parts did feel like spikes in difficulty. A couple of water segments in Inferno's stage really stung for me, Wonderful definitely had a couple overly tricky parts too and Vi's stage kept the high difficulty quality she's known for. In a way, I can't really complain too much about difficulty given I was initially a tester for this game long ago but only got around to doing a few stages. I don't think the difficulty ever gets too much, but depending on your familiarity with a few gimmicks, you may run into some blocks.
Overall it's a solid needle collab. It doesn't do too much to reinvent the idea and the quality bounces around a bit alongside the difficulty, but for the most part you're getting interesting and competent needle without any strings attached. If that sounds like a good time, you should give it a shot!
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 75 75
Dec 4, 2019
Wolfiexe
For: I wanna join the AA
For: I wanna join the AA
Join the AA is a roughly 2 minute long barrage avoidance, featuring a bunch of well designed attacks all synced very nicely to AA BlackY mix. I suppose one initial complaint that isn't really towards the game itself is that the the first 30 seconds of the song can feel quite repetitive and with an early attack being particularly tricky, it can make the song grow a little old, but that's no fault of the game and moreso just a personal distaste.
One thing I liked a great deal is how a lot of the attacks have a big focus on multi-tasking, often throwing two separate hazards your away such as combining an infinite jump screen-wrap barrage attack with the corner aimed bullets that form a small circle upon impact, or the early sideways-barrage attack combined with the 4 orbs circling around the screen border. It felt like a really good design choice and made the avoidance feel a lot more engaging, at least in my case. A special shoutout also goes to the semicircle attack near the end, with the opposite-facing bullets indicating the upcoming opening. I found this attack to be very satisfying to read and well designed, and not something I can recall seeing before.
I always find it difficult picking flaws in barrage avoidances, as I often struggle to really decide if I think an attack is necessarily unbalanced or a bit off, or if I'm just having difficulties in general reading and getting good at it (the more likely of the two). If I were to pick out a couple, I suppose the first attack can feel a bit sudden to read and overbearing with the RNG it can throw out, especially given your starting position right beneath it. It's not a big deal as it's right at the beginning, but it did cause a little frustration. I also found the aforementioned sideways-barrage attack with the moving border bullets to be one of the hardest parts of the fight to get good at, making for some really difficult and perhaps sometimes unreasonable situations, but again it's hard to say if I'm really blaming the game or my own skill here.
Overall it's a very solid avoidance. I hope Gludraq makes more in the future, as his first solo project has some interesting ideas and in general shows a lot of creativity in terms of attack design. Would recommend to anyone looking for a barrage to get stuck into.
[1] Like
One thing I liked a great deal is how a lot of the attacks have a big focus on multi-tasking, often throwing two separate hazards your away such as combining an infinite jump screen-wrap barrage attack with the corner aimed bullets that form a small circle upon impact, or the early sideways-barrage attack combined with the 4 orbs circling around the screen border. It felt like a really good design choice and made the avoidance feel a lot more engaging, at least in my case. A special shoutout also goes to the semicircle attack near the end, with the opposite-facing bullets indicating the upcoming opening. I found this attack to be very satisfying to read and well designed, and not something I can recall seeing before.
I always find it difficult picking flaws in barrage avoidances, as I often struggle to really decide if I think an attack is necessarily unbalanced or a bit off, or if I'm just having difficulties in general reading and getting good at it (the more likely of the two). If I were to pick out a couple, I suppose the first attack can feel a bit sudden to read and overbearing with the RNG it can throw out, especially given your starting position right beneath it. It's not a big deal as it's right at the beginning, but it did cause a little frustration. I also found the aforementioned sideways-barrage attack with the moving border bullets to be one of the hardest parts of the fight to get good at, making for some really difficult and perhaps sometimes unreasonable situations, but again it's hard to say if I'm really blaming the game or my own skill here.
Overall it's a very solid avoidance. I hope Gludraq makes more in the future, as his first solo project has some interesting ideas and in general shows a lot of creativity in terms of attack design. Would recommend to anyone looking for a barrage to get stuck into.
Rating: 8.1 81
Difficulty: 72 72
Dec 4, 2019
Lucien
For: I wanna Aurum
For: I wanna Aurum
Is it really worth 7.7 rating?I don't believe it.
Tagged as: Needle
[2] Likes
Rating: N/A
Difficulty: N/A
Dec 4, 2019
AAA_shuibiao
For: I Wanna be the -I Wanna-
For: I Wanna be the -I Wanna-
This game is good, but a little bit short.
The final boss is weied-hard,
(bug report: you will win the game if you didn't hit the restart button after you get killed by the final-boss
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The final boss is weied-hard,
(bug report: you will win the game if you didn't hit the restart button after you get killed by the final-boss
Rating: 5.0 50
Difficulty: 20 20
Dec 4, 2019
Wolfiexe
For: I wanna crazy boy EZ
For: I wanna crazy boy EZ
The only real benefit this has over the original Crazy Boy is that in it's beatable, and therefore you can pad your clear list a little. Otherwise, it's still quite upsetting with intentionally(?) eye searing visuals, minispikes/spikes hidden behind red water which you can't actually see and a very questionable piece of audio.
Tagged as: Needle
[0] Likes
Rating: 0.5 5
Difficulty: 60 60
Dec 4, 2019
Wolfiexe
For: I wanna be the Sorcerer 2
For: I wanna be the Sorcerer 2
Sorcerer 2 is a trap-heavy adventure game split across a few stages that can be done in any order, before converging into a couple of endgame stages to polish off your magical adventure. Every stage consists of a simple theme or gimmick and inundated with traps, some of which can be pretty soul crushing, before being rounded off with a boss that generally bares little correlation to the stage theme.
The game has a fairly nice production, with the tilesets and gimmicks feeling adventurey and varied enough to make the stages feel distinguishable and different from the last. However, despite the originality and often pretty interesting design, I felt that my enjoyment and the general design was greatly diminished due to the difficulty. Often you'll have long sprawling saves with some really awkward precise segments waiting far in, followed by a soul-crushing trap right at the end that makes you do it all again. It just got annoying for me by the end, and whilst I can appreciate traps and don't really mind a whole lot if it pulls the whole end-of-save-scamp moments on me, in this particular case the difficulty and precision of some segments just ruined the enjoyment, and made it more of a chore to get through than anything else. Some jumps also just felt completely untested such as the cloud jump at the start of the last stage, where jumping onto a bouncy cloud at the end of a save at the wrong height makes the final jump nigh-on impossible, or at least ridiculously harder than it should be.
The bosses I generally had fun with, maybe with the exception of the twin dragon fight which had a couple of really questionable attacks, one of which I don't think I ever even dodged and ended up just winning without ever getting it. I have to give credit to the bosses that they all feel varied and interesting enough to be enjoyable, even if there are some bumps along the way.
Each of the first 4 stages also has a secret which you'll need to access the last couple stages. Most are spottable but the one in the mushroom stage is a bit hidden (on a pretty tricky save no less). You can revisit stages although to my understanding you'd have to beat the entire stage again (without the boss, at least).
The game ends with kind of a "that's it?" kind of feeling, not really culminating in any memorable finale or even credits, just a very abrupt ending. It was kind of a shame given the decent production and flow the entire game had up until that point, but I guess it's not a huge deal.
Overall I'd say Sorcerer 2 is a pretty memorable game with a lot of interesting design and effort put into it, but there's also a good amount of questionable design choices and weird difficulty implementations that kind of make the experience a lot more clunky, at least in my case. I'd probably still recommend people give it a shot as it seems somewhat underplayed, but expect a few rough spots here and there. I'd definitely be interested in a Sorcerer 3 if that ever comes about.
[2] Likes
The game has a fairly nice production, with the tilesets and gimmicks feeling adventurey and varied enough to make the stages feel distinguishable and different from the last. However, despite the originality and often pretty interesting design, I felt that my enjoyment and the general design was greatly diminished due to the difficulty. Often you'll have long sprawling saves with some really awkward precise segments waiting far in, followed by a soul-crushing trap right at the end that makes you do it all again. It just got annoying for me by the end, and whilst I can appreciate traps and don't really mind a whole lot if it pulls the whole end-of-save-scamp moments on me, in this particular case the difficulty and precision of some segments just ruined the enjoyment, and made it more of a chore to get through than anything else. Some jumps also just felt completely untested such as the cloud jump at the start of the last stage, where jumping onto a bouncy cloud at the end of a save at the wrong height makes the final jump nigh-on impossible, or at least ridiculously harder than it should be.
The bosses I generally had fun with, maybe with the exception of the twin dragon fight which had a couple of really questionable attacks, one of which I don't think I ever even dodged and ended up just winning without ever getting it. I have to give credit to the bosses that they all feel varied and interesting enough to be enjoyable, even if there are some bumps along the way.
Each of the first 4 stages also has a secret which you'll need to access the last couple stages. Most are spottable but the one in the mushroom stage is a bit hidden (on a pretty tricky save no less). You can revisit stages although to my understanding you'd have to beat the entire stage again (without the boss, at least).
The game ends with kind of a "that's it?" kind of feeling, not really culminating in any memorable finale or even credits, just a very abrupt ending. It was kind of a shame given the decent production and flow the entire game had up until that point, but I guess it's not a huge deal.
Overall I'd say Sorcerer 2 is a pretty memorable game with a lot of interesting design and effort put into it, but there's also a good amount of questionable design choices and weird difficulty implementations that kind of make the experience a lot more clunky, at least in my case. I'd probably still recommend people give it a shot as it seems somewhat underplayed, but expect a few rough spots here and there. I'd definitely be interested in a Sorcerer 3 if that ever comes about.
Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 75 75
Dec 4, 2019
Wolfiexe
For: I wanna be the Renegade Fruits
For: I wanna be the Renegade Fruits
Renegade Fruits is a pattern avoidance drawing heavy inspiration from Chaos Time, making use of crazy camera rotations, bizarre arena movements and other quirky gimmicks. About 95% of the fight is pattern, making either recording your attempts or studying an existing clear very appealing choices, especially given how initially difficult it can be to tell what is happening on a few attacks. Despite the initially overwhelming impression, it's fairly lenient in a few spots and ended up being a very fun one to learn and execute.
A few attacks go really hard on the visual discombobulation, again a big trait it borrows from Chaos Time. This can be a big positive or a negative depending on how you feel about that kind of stuff, and whilst I'm generally not a fan of it due to feeling almost like artificial difficulty where you struggle to actually see what you should be doing, in this case I surprisingly enjoyed it. I found myself getting remarkably consistent with just about all of the attacks, minus one tricky 16px sorta dodge in the box attack.
The production value on everything but the avoidance leaves a little to be desired. There's no title screen and the intro to the avoidance is as basic as it can be. Not that this really matters a great deal, but it felt like at least 5 minutes could've been spent to spruce the first impression up a little.
If you're a fan of pattern avoidance and don't mind some visual craziness, you might have a good time with this one.
A few attacks go really hard on the visual discombobulation, again a big trait it borrows from Chaos Time. This can be a big positive or a negative depending on how you feel about that kind of stuff, and whilst I'm generally not a fan of it due to feeling almost like artificial difficulty where you struggle to actually see what you should be doing, in this case I surprisingly enjoyed it. I found myself getting remarkably consistent with just about all of the attacks, minus one tricky 16px sorta dodge in the box attack.
The production value on everything but the avoidance leaves a little to be desired. There's no title screen and the intro to the avoidance is as basic as it can be. Not that this really matters a great deal, but it felt like at least 5 minutes could've been spent to spruce the first impression up a little.
If you're a fan of pattern avoidance and don't mind some visual craziness, you might have a good time with this one.
Tagged as: Avoidance
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.0 80
Difficulty: 68 68
Dec 4, 2019
Telnaior
For: I wanna Love the Winter 2
For: I wanna Love the Winter 2
Really well-put together, Medium difficulty is a quick and easy adventure for players of any skill to enjoy the traps with less stress, while Hard difficulty adds more needle challenge as well as removing save points to really step up the challenge. Absolutely recommend.
[0] Likes
Rating: 8.5 85
Difficulty: 16 16
Dec 4, 2019