Pelemus-McSoy's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Deterministic Dungeon]

HeadShotGlass had a similar experience I had, so I'll try to avoid repeating that review (but I make no promises). I will also preface this with I stopped playing in the Silver floors. I will also make an occasional reference to Pokemon.

/*The Good*/
~A sense of progression...kinda.
The beginning of each dungeon is challenging and offers weaker enemies along with the option for new, tougher enemies. With enough grinding, the end of each dungeon is relatively easy. I was even able to walk up to previous floors and one shot most of the enemies.
While this works out great in the beginning of the game, it seems to stagnate near the end, especially if you can't level past 20.

~Intuitive game play.
It was easy to pick up and play, and never once said "How the heck do I do something?" during the game.

~Not being attacked by all enemies at once.
When I first encountered two of the tougher enemies, I was afraid I was doomed given the amount of damage they do. Thankfully, it was balanced by being attacked by one monster per turn, and allowed for some tactical thinking (for me, I would target the tough guys or the Mages first).

~Optional bosses.
The bosses are strong, and making them optional was very much appreciated. It allowed me to grind on higher level monsters and come back later.

~Solid damage formulas.
This ties in with the progression. I definitely felt stronger as I went along.

/*The Bad*/
~Unbalanced weapons.
Weapons were either high accuracy/low damage, high damage/low accuracy, or low damage/low accuracy. While the low accuracy can be mildly mitigated by choosing my attack, I kept ending on 0 more often than the regular odds. And yet, I felt I needed to use the higher damaging weapons so I wouldn't be crushed by the enemies who did significant damage. Which leads me to...

~Cannot heal outside of combat...or much for that matter.
While I appreciated being completely healed when leveling up, needing to use a scroll in combat only to heal was completely unintuitive and rather unfair. Even Pokemon lets me use a Potion outside of battle. Once the scrolls are gone, I'm boned. Given that I don't usually play Rogue style games, maybe this is normal, but it doesn't make me want to play again if I get so far.

~Crappy loot pool at higher levels.
The fact I was finding Plastic Shields, Bucket Helmets, and Butter Knives when I was level 17 and in the Silver floors was mildly insulting to say the least. The sense of progression I had felt before was gone at that point.
I also couldn't tell if the special weapons I got from the Golden Orbs were secretly amazing or intentionally bad. I couldn't risk using them in the later levels due to the high damage that was being dealt to me.

~Level floor layout tended to be similar for me.
A minor issue I experienced most of the floor plans ended up being the same. Most rooms would connect to each other.

/*Suggestions*/
~Add a currency and shop system.
Sacrificing gear in the magic room for powerful magic was neat, but I'd rather be able to sell the gear and purchase some "random" gear, especially healing items. It would also help clear out the huge clutter of gear I'm not using.

~Add stronger and more accurate weapons the further down you go.
If the weapons progressed with me, I would have enjoyed this game a lot more. Pokemon had their moves became progressively stronger and remained relatively accurate (unless you get to the stupid strong moves like Fire Blast, which has lower accuracy).
When I was making an RPG a few years ago (never made it out of beta, unfortunately), I realized I was undercutting the sense of progression by making the stronger moves inaccurate or causing splash damage. Why bother learning them then?

~Let the loot progress with me.
At some point, the Wooden and Plastic gear needs to be gone completely. I was shocked I could still get those at late levels, and fed up when I had the misfortune of getting them. Even though Destiny has a crappy RNG, at least it phases out the lowest tier items as you progress.

/*Overall*/
For the most part I enjoyed it, but got annoyed by the end. I appreciate that you've been reading and responding to the comments (which means you care). I look forward to seeing a sequel in the future.

~Pelo

PestoForce responds:

Thanks for the detailed review, I'll definitely keep it in mind for the mobile fully-fleshed-out version.

[Pixeland]

Pelo says...

Pros?
~Surprisingly addicting.
~Great learning curve.
~Challenging extra levels.

Cons?
~A little sensitive.
~Unlocking the puzzle mode.
~Exclamation Blocks aren't consistent.

Overall?
I gotta say, this game is really good...much better than Meatboy because it isn't brutally hard or impossible. The bonus levels at the end of each world are pretty awesome, too (except the last one, that's just cold). However, the collision detection feels a little too sensitive (did I really just hit that lava?).

My overall complaint is starting the Puzzle levels. I want to see what's in them, but I've given up trying to beat the final challenge. It requires absolute precision and an exact path. Those take away from the challenge and make it unnecessarily hard. One thing that also makes this final challenge difficult is the Exclamation Blocks' patterns don't restart when you die. I may have the right path down, but it doesn't mean anything if the Block is solid.

Perhaps instead of requiring all 5 challenge stars to unlock the puzzles, why not 4 so that if someone gets stuck, they can just come back to it later after the other levels?

Don't get me wrong, this game is great. It taught the game in a good way, and the difficulty curve was perfect.

Overall, great job on gameplay, but I'm disgruntled with the stars.

~Pelo

Starblinky responds:

Thank you!

Actually I completely agree with you with pretty much everything you've said.

I actually planned on keeping the game short! But when it was just the main 25 levels, it felt so bland, so I ended up adding in bonus levels. They were fun, so I kept them. But at this point I forgot all about my main focus of the game,which was to keep it seemingly short and simple.

Thanks a lot for the great review!

[CannonCrotch]

Pelo Says...

Pros?
~Good controls.
~Simple gameplay.
~Good music.
~Good graphics.

Cons?
~Too easy to die, especially when against a tank or when in the plane.
~Needs extra lives and/or checkpoints.
~No way to predict when or where the red and white lasers will strike.

Overall?
~It's a fun game, but only if you aren't getting killed frequently.

~Pelo

I-smel responds:

The red line shows where the white one's about to be. So if you find yourself on a red line, get off it.
Or you can cheat and just stay at the top of the screen.

+They aren't lasers, they're jets.
Cheers.

[Fry That Chicken]

One major complaint

The controls are really sloppy. It takes to long to get moving and stop, making it difficult to evade the fryers.

Other than that, not bad. Music fits perfectly.

~Pelo

CybermonkeyStudios responds:

Overall rating seems a bit low. The controls take a bit to get used to.

Thanks for the review.

[TimeSplatters 1.3]

Not bad...

I liked this. There were a ton of characters, loads of guns, and a great story line.

Are you a Perfect Dark fan? That's my favorite First Person Shooter. I like the cheese thing, and the parody of Joanna Drak, Cassandra DeBries, and Dataswine.

Honto responds:

Thanks, and yea I am a big fan of Perfect Dark, my n64 is still plugged and the game's in. I love that game, best FPS i've ever played. They should have done a remake for the 360 instead of what they did.

[Tank-Assault]

Not good.

It wasn't very good, and got boring after awhile. In the words of Joe Dirt (from the movie "Joe Dirt" starring David Spade), "It's not about what you like, it's about what the customer likes" (or something like that...)

liam responds:

For 5 hours, it was pretty good. Joe Dirt was a cr4p movie.