General Gaming Snap judging pixel art indies

[crispy4000]

11 hours ago, stepee said:

 

I got this on humble and excited to try it!

 

It's good, you'll have to tell me if it gets legitimately amazing.  The systems are all a bit much for the little time I put in.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 min

Rating: ***

 

I've heard good things about this game, but from the get go, it's a tad too slow moving.  It's basically an adventure game set in some sort of post-apocalyptic world, where you are regarded its savior carrying its sun.  Inventory items can be combined as a puzzle solving mechanism.  Beyond that, you wander through semi-large environments looking for items to pick up and clues to help you progress.  There's some 4th wall breaking moments that could be compared to Undertale, but its not as fun as that game, surely.  That said, it has a unique vibe to it, kind of like if Loom was an RPGMaker game.

 

I'm open to return to it, especially since it has a short run time.  But there's probably more interesting adventure games on the list.  At least from what I played.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 min

Rating: ***½

 

Exactly what you'd expect, but in the best way.  It's a Metroidvania with tight controls, fluid motion and a decent bit of challenge, but at a semi-relaxed pace.  You can do a charge shot like in Megaman with an infinite supply of arrows, and the hit reactions for your melee attacks feel superb.  It doesn't reinvent anything, and the plot is paper thing at the onset, but most everything about it hits a quality bar I appreciate.  I really wish it wasn't 4:3 though.  It still makes no sense to make a pixel art game in 2016 at that res.

[dualhunter]

10 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Time Spent: 30 min

Rating: ***½

 

Exactly what you'd expect, but in the best way.  It's a Metroidvania with tight controls, fluid motion and a decent bit of challenge, but at a semi-relaxed pace.  You can do a charge shot like in Megaman with an infinite supply of arrows, and the hit reactions for your melee attacks feel superb.  It doesn't reinvent anything, and the plot is paper thing at the onset, but most everything about it hits a quality bar I appreciate.  I really wish it wasn't 4:3 though.  It still makes no sense to make a pixel art game in 2016 at that res.

 

I just finished Moonlit Farewell and don't remember much from Reverie under the Moonlight. It seemed like there were references to things from RutM and Minoria but I don't remember a whole lot. I never played Momodora I, II & III so there may have been references to those too. So the plot doesn't matter too much but the games are still good. A weird thing about the bow in MF is that after doing a full stamina power shot, the weaker shots if you keep firing fill up the stamina meter faster so spamming arrows is encouraged. Definitely check out Moonlit Farewell (it's widescreen) if you like Reverie under the Moonlight.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 45 min

Rating: ****

 

Toptier.  But seriously, it's fantastic.  I knew the concept of combining a 2d and 3d game would interest me, but I wasn't expecting how slick the presentation would be.  I won't spoil the plot, but it also goes places I wouldn't have expected.  There’s almost a Katamari Damacy vibe to it.

 

In 2D, your character can jump and gravity is in effect.  In 'Top-D' your character can push blocks and fill holes.  Time is paused for the other when you switch.  You beat levels by trying to get to a portal together at the end, with a satisfying animation when you do.  There's even boss fights, in a puzzle game!

 

This will likely be one of the first games I return to once I've made it through my library trying things.  It's a super fun, and accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do, as well as you could ask for.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 20 minutes

Rating: *½

 

I played this one ages ago and remember it being awful, but I booted it up again for another shot.  On the surface from screenshots, it looks like it should be okay.  It's an action RPG with a multiplayer component, how badly could you screw that up?  Instead, this game is one of the highest effort flaming turds I've played in this thread.  Only ADOM was worse in that regard.

 

On boot up, my controller doesn't work when Steam said it should.  So keyboard I go.  All actions are mapped to the arrow keys whereas movement is WASD.  The tutorial explains things in an MMO chatbox that fills the screens, yikes.  The pixel scaling is truly awful on big screens, enough to where it everything has an aliasing shimmer when you scroll the screen.  Any redeemable quality of the art is completely ruined with it.  It even makes the text hard to read.  And of course its only 4:3.

 

It's clear the game is running well below 30fps, at some off number.  The sound effects are both loud and nondescript to what is actually happening on screen.  The inventory system seems convoluted and doesn't pause the game when you access it.  After finishing a tutorial I started the main story: you fight a few colosseum matches surrounded by 3 AI companions who can't stop brainlessly humping, I mean healing, you.  I spammed the attack button to kill a bear, finishing the section, which subsequently crashed my game.

 

Play Rogue Heroes instead.  It's what this game wanted to be but failed at.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 40 minutes

Rating: **½

 

Run & gun platformer where you can stop time at any point, loop back to any point in your run, and create a copy of yourself.  You can make a few dozen copies per level, including a few different unit types.  There's a timer counting down, you can collect items to extend this timer or create additional copies.  Sometimes this is needed to do enough damage to enemies and breakable walls.

 

It's clever, it's just not for me.  I wish it felt a bit more like an RTS, where you gave units commands instead of just copying yourself 30 times throughout a level.  The fact that they only live so long as you controlled them is also a bit unfortunate.  It leads to a lot of damage sponge feeling enemies and such.  Also not a huge fan of the chunky pixel look, but it does present better in motion than in stills.

 

Picked it up or a dollar on sale last week on Steam, but that's over now.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 minutes

Rating: ***

 

Another rogue-like action game, this time with equipable spells.  This has some of the best pixel pyrotechnics I've seen, everything feels super crunchy, and like Hades you still feel very capable at the start of your run.  But with so many action buttons and cooldowns, it doesn't come together in a cohesive way, at least not at first.  It's one of the mashier one of these I've played.  I'm sure there's ways to create a solid build and coordinate everything, but for now I can't be bothered.  There are some pallete swaps to the environments and alternating bosses, but it's still not enough to make me think I must return to this game.  I could see it being pretty fun in multiplayer though.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 min

Rating: ***

 

Celeste if the challenges were more bite sized, and slightly more puzzle oriented.  It lacks any of the Metroidvania elements, opting for single screen challenges.  The main character's hair even changes color to represent a lack of second jump or wall jump, plus an optional collectable that's very much a strawberry equivalent.  It's really on the nose.  It also gets very hard very quickly, you'll wish your teeny tiny double jump could do more for you.  But there's still something of interest here.  I think it's the polished presentation, it's slicker than Celeste, if not nearly as imaginative.

 

If this is your type of game, it may be worth checking out.  Certainly better than that Sir Lovelot game on the last page.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 20 min

Rating: **½

 

Similar concept as Downwell (which it predates), where you scurry to lower floors as quickly as possible.  There's a large variety of unlockable weapons and powerups.  My favorite so far was the nunchuck, which was a lot easier to use than the basic katana despite its short range.  The enemies are either very braindead or very reactive, but either way, it's rapid pace action to stay alive.  Katana Zero is still much better than this, but I can't deny the basic loop is still pretty fun., even with a timer pressuring you to move on.  I'll take a bit off for the visuals, which don't feel cohesive at all.

 

Sadly, this was delisted off Steam due to the Adult Games publishing label getting shelved. 

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 min

Rating: **½

 

Caveat: it's free on Steam, but not on console.  I'm still going into this thinking of it as a paid game, which I feel is fair considering.

 

Twin stick roguelike (or lite?) that takes inspiration from Halo's shield system, two weapon inventory, and oddly enough, the auto aim.  When your targeting reticle is close enough to the head, it auto locks into position like auto aim, making your shots dead more damage.  Feels pretty good, but then you start to realize that's the only way you'll be killing anything, and centering your aim will take time.  The gun character I got bored a little fast, but there's a brass knuckle character that 1 or 2 hit kills most enemies that was way more fun.  That's a problem in a twin stick shooter, IMO.  I was clearing rooms super quick, but got my ass kicked by a boss I would need to resort to projectiles for.  The levels the standard mode (Adventure) seem to always stay the same as well.

 

With a little better balance, I'd think this could be great.  As it stands, it’s an interesting experiment, but sits below more straightforward games like it, such as Blazing Beaks.  Not a huge fan of the art either.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 20 min

Rating: **

 

I like turn based battles 3 vs 3 battles, but I was expecting to like this one a bit more than I did.  Text is annoying to read on a television, even if you set your monitor at a lower res (I'd imagine it would be even worse on a Steam Deck).  There's no controller support so far as I could tell.  It's information overload from the get go.  The tutorial that commands guides you through specific actions, but there's at least 3 dozen things you'll do before it lets you go.  In battle there's all sorts of status effects and elemental weaknesses to consider.  Outside of battle, there's base building, day management sim elements, and good old space navigation of setting rally points.  For someone who really gets into it, it's could be fine, but for a first impression, it feels like overkill.  As far as graphics, the spell effects are neat, but I don't think pixel art is necessarily the best medium to draw nebulae and such.  I suppose it does make it stand out from all the other space sims out there.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 min

Rating: **½

 

Some of the best pixel fx I've seen so far, it’s top notch, probably only beaten by other notables in the category (Animal Well, Noita, what I played of Akatori, etc).  Animation is equally gorgeous.  It's just such a shame the combat is disappointing.  It warns you from the beginning that it expects you to be deliberate in your movement, which is true, but your melee weapons either move too slowly or have no range at all.  The slow varieties deals way more damage, especially an early secret weapon you'll find quite easily, so it kind of forces you to go that route.  (one review said that early weapon nullifies most of the challenge anyways)  It's still not a bad game overall, it's everything feels just a bit too slow.

 

It was given away free on GoG a little while back.  So it may be worth checking out just to see what it looks like in motion.  But you can probably put it away if you don't enjoy the slower pace, or would enjoy a basic Metroidvania with a few more traps than normal.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 40 min

Rating: **½

 

There's a somewhat interesting loop here.  Get off your train, search for a code to route it to the next destination, keep all your survivors alive in a survival mini-game where you keep them alive with food/medicine and make repairs to the train.  The plot seems okay, there's a bit more intrigue than your standard zombie tropes, at least at the start.

 

Where it kind of falls flat for me is the combat.  It's a survival horror game, meaning you'll need to run past enemies and not waste bullets.  But that only works so well in a 2d sidescroller without a jump button.  There's different paths and walkways you can take, but good luck dodging anything when you're generally limited to one axis.  You instantly respawn if you die, but that's more of a crutch than a solution.

 

You can probably skip this and play INSIDE instead.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 min

Rating: ***

 

Fast paced Roguelike that combines Megaman Battle Network (which I've never played) with Slay the Spire.  I don't think the frenetic pace totally works for it, it has a similar problem as Astral Ascent where it's impossible to keep track of which special abilities you're spamming.  It's hard to say if the Slay the Spire elements work for it in just my single run, but I'd think the semi-random artifacts and powerups work better in the context of a turn based game.  It's still quite fun, and I could see myself getting into it if I put in the time, but there's certainly better roguelikes on the list.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 20 minutes

Rating: ***

 

It looks a little better than Hammerwatch 1.  Plays a little better.  Has slicker UI.  Persistent progression upgrades, including a town you can visit between runs.  I enjoy the vibe of this game much more, but it's still pretty lackluster in the gameplay department, at least in the early goings.  But it has just enough carrot on a stick mechanics to make things a bit more interesting.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 1 hour

Rating: ****

 

I played the demo for this years ago back when it was a Kickstarter project.  Don't know exactly how much they improved that section since, or maybe it's the comparison to other games I've played here, but it's much better than I remember it being.  Just an extremely polished and slick action RPG, with some subtle shadowing effects and amazing UI animations that sell the whole experience.  It's the dream 16-bit game visually, what Terranigma could look like in a modern lens. I'm not 100% sold on the core concept - I have an aversion to MMOs, and still kind of dislike the idea of an RPG being set in one (or shudder to think how long it could be!).  But that's really the most negative thing I could say about it.  Combat is great, soundtrack hits everything it should, there's enough intrigue to the plot early on, etc.

 

Give this game a shot if you haven't.  I'm playing the version I got in one of those itch.io charity bundles, truly the gift that keeps on giving.

[dualhunter]

13 hours ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Time Spent: 1 hour

Rating: ****

 

I played the demo for this years ago back when it was a Kickstarter project.  Don't know exactly how much they improved that section since, or maybe it's the comparison to other games I've played here, but it's much better than I remember it being.  Just an extremely polished and slick action RPG, with some subtle shadowing effects and amazing UI animations that sell the whole experience.  It's the dream 16-bit game visually, what Terranigma could look like in a modern lens. I'm not 100% sold on the core concept - I have an aversion to MMOs, and still kind of dislike the idea of an RPG being set in one (or shudder to think how long it could be!).  But that's really the most negative thing I could say about it.  Combat is great, soundtrack hits everything it should, there's enough intrigue to the plot early on, etc.

 

Give this game a shot if you haven't.  I'm playing the version I got one of those itch.io charity bundles, truly the gift that keeps on giving.

 

It can be pretty long if you try to do everything as soon as you can but you should be able to save a lot of time by waiting until you're done an area to do most of them (i.e. an item might be rare at the start of an area but more common later). For a new game +, you get points for achievements which you spend in order to carry things over and unlock bonuses. One of the bonuses is a damage hack that makes you do crazy damage. The NPCs react to that and their reactions and the main character's facial expressions are hilarious and worth the second play through. You may wish to redo dungeons after finishing them if you want to speed run them to win the races but I only did that on the new game +. I don't play MMOs and the simulated MMO story line didn't bother me.

 

One thing that was added after release but before I played it, was the mode you enter when you keep a chain going defeating enemies. I spent a lot of time running loops collecting items with the special theme playing and the NPC party members complaining that they're tired. The DLC is good too and the devs announced their next game Alabaster Dawn a month ago.

[crispy4000]

On 9/6/2024 at 1:53 PM, dualhunter said:

One thing that was added after release but before I played it, was the mode you enter when you keep a chain going defeating enemies. I spent a lot of time running loops collecting items with the special theme playing and the NPC party members complaining that they're tired. The DLC is good too and the devs announced their next game Alabaster Dawn a month ago.

 

I forgot all about Alabaster Dawn, it looks really good.  One of the more successful looking 'HD 2D' games I've seen, it really does a great job preserving the pixel look with some added depth to it.

 

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 minutes

Rating: ***½

 

Quite good, stands above VirtuaVerse, the other Cyperpunk adventure game I tried so far.  There's maybe a half dozen of these on the list, so if you like this genre, you'll see more.

 

The hook here is that you can go into an alternate reality digital realm, and use that to interact with personified AI systems, some of which get quite zany.  In one puzzle, I downloaded a computer virus from a bogus email, and used it to corrupt the AI of a system I was trying to hack.  Just neat stuff overall.  I can't say it hooked me as immediately as Thimbleweed Park, but this is a game I'd like to return to at some point.  It's weird and gritty in all the right ways.

 

It's running at some strange, non-full screen resolution though.  Wider than 4:3, but not quite 16:9.  I don't get decisions like that, but hey, what is shown still looks good.  A little blown up perhaps, but the art still holds up.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 minutes

Rating: **½

 

Free, short Zelda clone, of the Link's Awakening variety.  I already beat a third of it, according to their metrics.  The dungeons are pretty decent all considered, but the world map lacks any enemies or much in the way of interest.  I think they perfectly captured the feel of a GB Color+ game, but there's just not much here that's memorable otherwise.  Killing enemies should be more rewarding, it lacks feedback or something.  But I did have fun when I played, so it's not bad or anything.

[crispy4000]

'

 

Time Spent: 45 minutes

Rating: **½

 

This one is a bit of a bummer.  It's a roguelike where you fight an endboss after dying 5 times, or clearing 5 randomly generated maps.  Your stats get better with each trial, and at least with the class I played, living just a few nights was enough to make the (first) endboss a cakewalk.  Combat was extremely simplistic: hit enemies with your 3 hit stun lock combo, then dash away before they snap out of it and attack.  No need to use any special abilities.  There's a bit of Oregon trail to it in picking responses, which lead to different stats you won't guess.  There's also some land features that can only be unlocked if you take on certain personality traits as a result of these decisions.

 

Overall, its pretty drab.  They tried to go for something somewhat Supergiant-esque, but came up woefully short.  It's decent, not much more.  Highly recommend Children of Morta above this.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 1 hour

Rating: ****

 

I was interested in this from the onset, and felt that pull to keep going.  There's a few things that makes this game distinctive: the way you answer questions and solve puzzles affect a personality triangle.  Supposedly you'll unlock different deduction abilities later on based on this, changing the way you progress through the game (and increasing the replayability factor).  There's three abilities unlocked from the start: an analyzing tool that highlights pixels for forensic clues, a heartrate monitor for those you talk to, and a super strength one.  They're mostly gimmicks, but again, it's creative.  The voice acting is great, and there's a lot of it.  Visually it's cleaner than you'd expect from raw pixel art, but the resolution they sampled the background paintings at still works.  Story involves two murders in a post-AI world, so it's not quite cyperpunk, but kind of a fallout from that kind of society failing.

 

Overall, this isn't as flashy as some other pixel art games, or as interesting and quirky as Thimbleweed Park, but it's still pretty great.

[crispy4000]

 

 

Time Spent: 30 minutes

Rating: *½

 

Possibly the worst twin stick rogue-like I've played so far.  It can have all the trinkets it wants, if a game like this feels unfun to move around in, it's a failure.  The way the camera moves with your second stick is nauseating.  Maybe to compensate for that, you move super slowly.  With the Melee character I played, the whole game was basically letting your sword's post-swing hit box hit the enemy's before they hit you.  And you don't even see the enemies swing at you really - the visual feedback is extremely poor.  Then they map two face buttons to skill tree and stat upgrade menus.  It's like they had too many unused buttons and decided they needed to do something with them.

 

It feels like a student project that may have gotten an B in the class, but a D in the real world.

 

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 45 minutes

Rating: ***½

 

It's good, I just don't know how much better it would be than the previous game.  The art is slightly better, it's actually fun screen now.  But it's also lost some of the cool depth effects of the first game, which is even stranger since it was made for the 3DS this time.  The environments might be a little more interesting, but it has you traveling to different self-contained zones now instead of a seemless world.  It still has much of the same strengths as the previous game, but no animal transformations apparently, just ability upgrades.  And they got rid of magic in place of single use items.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 45 minutes

Rating: ***½

 

Pretty good 2d platformer Metroidvania that, like Pirate's Curse, is stage based.  Apparently a developer from this went on to make Touhou Luna Nights and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (neither of which I own). The main character uses their rabbit ears to attack, and they're particularly potent in their spinning air attack variant.  I think it very successfully emulates the feel of a 32-bit 2D game, maybe even one by Treasure.  But again, I wish it didn't resort to 4:3.  The writing isn't great, and I have some minor quibbles with the slightly floaty jump and size of the main character sprite.  But those are nitpicks.  Seems like there's some decent variety here as well going by the trailer and screenshots, but it does start in basic egyptian caverns.

[crispy4000]

 

Time Spent: 30 minutes

Rating: ***

 

Sells itself as GBA Fire Emblem but more complicated.  Its major flaw is a lack of tutorial.  The second major flaw is a convoluted weapon advantage system that goes several layers deep that is never explained (so far).  So there's a ton of trial and error, checking characters against others just to see if they have an advantage.  I suppose you could also read a guide, but it really needs to do something in-game to explain itself.  I'd rather it put in effort there ahead of doubling down on the visual novel elements.  Also the music is a tad worse than you’d expect.

 

I still can't deny that the attacking animations are gorgeous and do justice to its inspiration, even if the UI otherwise feels a tad underbaked.  So I have to be honest and say that it would be neat to return to, to see more of the combat visually, and hopefully find that the systems all coalesce into something great.  But really, I would recommend Symphony of War instead.