Played on 3DS. Full review: https://pastebin.com/0NqrYEHg This game really surprised me!; wasn't expecting to complete it at all. I've been intending for a while to try it out. Being a cheap indie 3DS game; both in price and probably budget, I wasn't expecting such a superb game! My first impression of the music when in the main menu, was that it had its own pleasing, unique retro vibe to it. I was still at this point expecting the OST to be a somewhat generic chiptune that was just a little catchy, but GOD I did NOT expect it to be such an absolute BANGER. Seriously, this games retro OST is amazing! I'm still obsessed with 'Potential for Anything'. Getting into gameplay, I wasn't overly impressed from the get-go, but wasn't unimpressed either. After all, I wasn't expecting a high quality game, & had no idea this is considered an 'indie classic'. The thing I first noticed was that the controls felt a bit slippery. Somehow though, this didn't make it frustrating. The slipperiness of the controls didn't make the challenges any less fun. In fact, I think they would've been a bit too easy had they been tight. Just know this is very much trial & error style gameplay in which you will die MANY times The story is simplistic but pretty unique. Without going into much detail: You & your crew were each teleported to a random location in the world map-- that's right "world map". This game is technically a metroidvania. However, unlike so many other metroidvania' I've played, this one doesn't block progression to certain areas by locking you out until you find items and/or abilities. The only thing locking you out from areas are the challenges themselves. The game is great simple fun, really. The challenges get VERY difficult a few times, but the checkpoints are so common that dying's almost never an issue. If you're not playing the game expecting to breeze through each room, the challenges aren't too frustrating at all, and your going to have surprisingly fantastic time.
(Minor spoiler review - mostly things you will learn very quickly) Bioshock has a dreadful and sad atmosphere set in an underwater city called Rapture, and a highly intriguing plot and world lore. The developers made a really great game here. Most of the characters who's stories you learn about through pre-recorded radio messages scattered around are very memorable and you really feel sorry for the inhabitants of the entire city who were slowly mentally, emotionally and physically destroyed to the point of literal insanity. The world is split up into many different sections of the city, which are each accessed through a submarine (which is a loading screen). These loading areas only pop up at the end of each section of the game, otherwise the way you progress through the game feels very inspired by the Half-Life games but without the platforming aspect of them. I think that every section of the game has it's meaningful place, but It did feel like it was starting to go on for a lot longer then expected. I stopped playing it for a couple of weeks after getting really far into the game and than came back to complete it. Because I plan on replaying this one day, I'm happy that it went for the length that it did because replaying a game tends to go much faster then a first playthrough, and I was taking my time to explore as much as I could so I guess it highly depends on who is playing it when your determining if it's too long or not. Either way, this was a really great game that's a must play if you love highly unique and imaginative worlds. Now, would you kindly go play it.
Love this game! I'm definitely going to pick it up when it releases. The only minor complaint I would have with the game that I can think of currently is the very strange button placements like H being the button to holster your weapon, where you need to either awkwardly press it with your left thumb, or take your right hand off the mouse to press it. It's only minor though because the game does allow you to rebind the controls which I did. I understand it may also be the intention of the developers to make the game feel more like mid-late 90's PC games which was a period where PC games did tend to have very strange button placements.
