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71 Game Reviews

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Do you know how good this game is? I'll tell you. I got to the very last part of the game, and it crashed on me. And then, I got back to the last room. And it crashed on me again.

And I *still* played through again to see the end.

Just so we're clear, I'm pretty sure the problem was on my end with the crashing. This computer I'm using isn't super-powerful. But this was so intriguing that I played through the game three consecutive times in order to see how it turned out. *That,* my friend, is some quality work. Excellent job.

Well, on the positive side, it's a fun and creative game with likable characters, a unique art style, and puzzle logic that actually makes some degree of sense, unlike a lot of adventure games you see.

SPOILERS

Unfortunately, I found a glitch that stopped me cold. Once you're in the Daemon's stomach, if you climb to the very top of the path and hover your mouse in the upper left part of the screen, you'll see the word "Daemon" pop up. If you choose Examine, you'll get the same text as when you first saw him sleeping on the cliff. If you choose Interact, the game seems to freeze. And since I usually browse with Private Mode on, this means I didn't have a save file available when I had to refresh the page. I'm reviewing this now and giving it four stars because what I was able to play was really good and made me confident the rest of the game will match up quality-wise. I just don't want to ruin the luster by having to play through it twice in a row. I'll come back some other time and finish it up properly. And finally, I think it might be good to pick up Doris' walking pace just a little. It wasn't super draggy, and I know she's old, but it might help keep the pace up. All the same, this game was really good, and I look forward to the next parts!

ArrogantPixel responds:

Thank you for the very detailed feedback! We were discussing last night how we should have put a disclaimer in warning people that we use temporary files on the browser to save - we aim to do this in the next update. Also, your bugs have been noted! If you want to experience the game in full screen and not worry about the save function, you can download a DRM free version without ads on our website. Thanks for playing!

The game itself is pretty basic, but then again, there's not much you can really do to spice up these "Where's Waldo"-type things. The random retro tracks are a nice touch, and you've pulled from a pretty impressive pool video games, so you did a good job playing up the nostalgia factor.

Now, I do have to get kind of fanboy here, because it involves my favorite game series of all time, so fair warning.

The character Eve isn't actually from the game EarthBound, and while Ness is, the character you have in the game isn't Ness. Short backstory: EarthBound is the second in a series of games named the "Mother" series. The first Mother - the one the sprites in this game came from - came out on the NES, but only in Japan (so, technically the Famicom, if you wanna get really nitpicky). The next game came out in both Japan and the US. Over there, it was Mother 2. Over here, it was EarthBound. Mother's main character's name was Ninten. Ness was the main character in EarthBound. So, it should be Eve from the game Mother, and Ninten from the game Mother. Which might be kind of a hard one for some people, considering the whole "no US release" thing.

Anyway, sorry if I came across as a know-it all. I just wanted to provide a little additional info, especially to anyone who might be interested in these games. They're my favorites, so I want to share them!

I'd never played the original Flappy Bird (not that this has anything to do with that, totally not being inspired by it and all) but now I think I can see how it got popular. Of course, EarthBound is my favorite game ever (not that that has anything to do with it, also totally not being inspired by it), so that gains some bonus points in my book. What I like most are the incentives for scoring higher. Even if it is just a change of scenery and music and no real gameplay change, they help keep it interesting. Also, you did a great job on the suspiciously-similar-substitute songs and graphics - they're more than close enough to bring back all the good memories of the game and its designs, but still unique enough to show you put a bit of effort in them. It's much harder to make a loving parody than it is to make a direct rip-off, and you did the former very well. Also, good job with the pencils - keeps things from getting too monotonous.

Could I ask how many different locals there are total? It may be a while before I can find them myself, and I'd like an idea of how many I'm shooting for, if you don't think it's a spoiler.

Kcori responds:

Thanks for the review! There are 5 different locations, including the one you start with, called 1tt, which is totally not inspired by Onett. :]

Actually not too bad. The interesting part is that I might not have had the patience to go through the entire thing if I hadn't read some of the reviews and realized it was going to take a while. Or, rather, I might have just dismissed the entire thing as a joke, prank, or random piece of junk. It provoked a little thought, and there were a few brief seconds where I became aware of a kind of meditative quality to watching the ball move so slowly. As a game, there's not really much to it, and even though I wouldn't call the ending cliche, I'm pretty sure it's been done, but I still liked it.

This is a great game, frankly. It's already been said - Mega Man meets Contra, and it's a great mix. Personally, I found it to be a tad on the easy side - especially the last three boss fights. The first one had an element of randomness to it that made it difficult to predict. The second boss (the "pong" one) just bounced the ball in the same spots over and over, so all I had to do was stand almost underneath it and shoot. The third boss, the crane-type robot, took damage really quickly and always dropped the crates and bombs in the same spot. When I got to the flying saucer boss, I had so much health I could just stand still and shoot straight up. None of this is to say it wasn't fun, though. It might make for a good early level. Anyway, I really liked it, and I'm looking forward to the full thing. Good job!

Here's the good and bad in no particular order. Feel free to ignore the bad you already know:

Good

-unique walk, run, and jump animations for each character
-each character has a different stage/music
-Pinkie's wall-sliding animation is adorable!
-after I escaped the "course" on Rainbow Dash's level and fell off the bottom of the screen, I was returned to the start of the level. That may be obvious, but the levels appear to be designed in a way that isn't meant to include the traditional "bottomless pit," so it's good that it works anyway.
-I can't be sure because they're not on the same levels, but Dash seems to have the fastest, well, dash, in keeping with the show. Rarity doesn't like exercise and takes longest to reach full speed. Nice touch.

Bad

-There's to be a quick appearance of a jump sprite when you quickly switch directions walking sometimes
-rocks disappear in a very noticable way when they're half-off the screen
-rock physics - it's cool how they roll back and forth with a low center of gravity, but they roll more like balls with weights in them than lopsided boulders. One of the rocks in Rainbow Dash's level just kept rocking in place for minutes on end on its point without even being touched. Also, physics stops affecting the rocks after they leave the screen - Dash's falling boulders remained in mid air until I saw them again.
-as pegasi, bumping into the underside of something or walking off an edge without jumping stops you from being able to fly until you hit the ground again
-the wing-flapping animation for the pegasi doesn't play if you hit spacebar too fast
-landing on the very edge of a block, the game starts switching really fast between a falling sprite and a standing sprite
-as Fluttershy, when I was flying from right to left, she would sometimes jerk around at the top of each "flap" like she was starting a different animation suddenly
-if you use magic on a rock, then move the mouse off the rock while holding down the mouse button, it still moves the rock like you were clicking on it.
-The magic skill is odd - you can't control the direction or speed things move, you can only make them move faster from right to left

Suggestions

-Add more idle animations - maybe just some continuous breathing or something in addition to their current ones. Also, maybe longer "long-wait" ones, or multiple "long-wait" ones that cycle as you go through them.
-Pinkie and AJ are the only ones with idle animation
-Have a transition frame when the character lands from a jump
-change Applejack's wall-sliding animation - it looks more like she's sinking through the wall than sliding down it
-consider another way to use magic - switching between the keyboard and mouse in these things always feels a little awkward
-there doesn't seem to be a "ceiling" to Fluttershy's level - once she flew high enough to go off the top of the screen, I tried flying continuously for different amounts of time and then seeing how long it took her to fall back down - it was always a greater amount every time I spent longer going up. I don't know if this applies to the other levels, or even if it was done on purpose or not, but unless they need to go offscreen, like in the original Super Mario Bros. for example, maybe stop the player from being able to go off the sides and top of the level.
-for their running animations, the ponies start off with their manes and tails flying straight out like they're at full speed, even though they obviously build up momentum over time - give them animations to match their current speed.
-be careful with pegasus levels - flying and platforming don't always work together
-more kinds of obstacles, and maybe some enemies.
-again, don't know if it was on purpose, but Mayor Mare isn't gray.

Overall, you have the makings of something good here, and you're off to a great start. You need to tighten up the controls, improve the animations, and pay attention to ALL of the little details - it seems odd when you pay attention to some things but not others

Okay, some hopefully constructive criticisms.

The images you're using have some sort of... artifacting, I think is the word. There are pixels easily visible all around and throughout both Twilight's "sprite" and the background, so I'm guessing they're things you cut out of another image and possibly enlarged. If they're just placeholders, that's fine, but if not you need to either get vectors or make some.

The audio sounds a little tinny to me, especially for the male voice. It COULD be because I'm on a laptop, but I'm not entirely convinced the problem is all on my end. When I listen to this, then some other flashes back to back, there does seem to be a difference in quality.

The dialogue seems slightly clunky, to be perfectly honest. "A rare case of amnesia, and a strong hit too if you can't even remember your name. Also makes sense why you freaked about a talking pony, especially since you are one yourself." It might have been better written as "This seems like a rare case of amnesia. It must have been a strong hit too, if you can't even remember your name. That would also explain why you freaked out about a talking pony, especially since you are one yourself." Furthermore, she has no way of knowing that head trauma is what caused the memory loss, and it seems more likely that she'd think thebiggest evidence that he forgot normal things would be that in their world ALL ponies can talk. Sort of like "...about a talking pony - how else would you forget something like that?" Another example: "...and the forest works in strange ways. Such as the weather moves and changes on its own, and the plants grow by themselves." I don't think you need "such as" there. There are a few others like that throughout - they don't quite ring true. Additionally, the text doesn't always match the audio - you may want to fix that. You're also going to want an editor to check for grammar and spelling and capitalization and whatnot. Maybe even get another writer to bounce ideas off of. If you want it to be YOUR story, then that's okay, but there's nothing wrong with getting a consultant, so to speak.

Also, was Twilight always that testy? She seems pretty short tempered for trying to deal with someone apparently having a freak-out. Yelling at someone who's losing it isn't going to help.

Finally, the story so far - human mysteriously ponified in Equestria, and with amnesia no less - isn't very original, but it IS only the beginning, so it's not fair to judge it yet. Just make sure you come up with something really spectacular to set it apart. Which is not to say that what you've got planned WON'T be, but be careful anyway.

And just to throw in an additional little bit of personal nonsense, you managed to hit a pet peeve of mine - she asked if there are any other kinds of towns besides one filled with ponies. What about griffons, or zebras, or donkeys? Even in the show, it bugs me how they always seem to forget ponies aren't the only intelligent species in their world. It doesn't have too much to do with this in particular - I'm just yammering.

Here's hoping the final product turns out great!

Pretty good. Lovely Music. Cute graphics.

But perhaps most of all, you recognized that while frustration may make a great metaphor...

...it also makes a *terrible* game. Good job keeping it fairly simple.

Very fun, but the later levels just get too long and too hard, plus the combos get too difficult to pull off reliably. Still worth a four out of five, though.

People are friggin' WEIRD.

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