So, being an older gamer I love 90s/2000s games. With a few rare exceptions modern games just dont do it as much for me. I was suprised I hadn't heard of this one. It was on sale for $3 so I picked it up. And I was pretty impressed. Its got good graphics for the time as well as full voice (a rarity back then). The major flaws I see is as far as I can tell, theres no way at all to rest to regain magic/health. Most games of this type have a rest thats basically a fastforward feature with a chance for enemy spawn so you dont have to just park your char in a corner and walk away for 20 mins. This one basically requires you to park your char in a safe location and go do something else, as although so far healing potions are decently plentiful, I have no idea if this will hold true on the harder levels so I'm trying to save them. I have yet to find any way besides magic, waiting, and one use items to heal. Suppose I could crank up the DOSBOX cycles really fast for a min to speed it up, but thats not how the game was intended. This is a major irritation to me. The other ones are no keybindings. Like you can hit typical numpad to move (no strafing), C to look at your char, J to look at your journal. So you'd think M would pull up a map, right? Nope. AFAIK theres no map key. Theres also no keybinding menu, so youre stuck with what the game gives you. That being said the automap is *great*. I just wish I could pull it up with a key and not a mouseclick. Same goes for attacking. The game appears to be 90% mousedriven. The final issue as I said earlier, there doesnt appear to be any option to strafe-move. This is an issue in grid dungeon crawlers. Kind of annoyin g you are required to turn so you cant dodge easily etc. Still, although these issues are enough to knock off a star, the game is still highly recommended for any fan of these style of dungeon crawlers. Well worth the full purchase price and a steal if you can get it on sale.
This games really cute, with a really unique art style. I desperately wanted to like it. But unfortunately, the controls are just not good enough for a platformer like this. You think you can make a jump, only to have your char's model completely clear a platform (so it looks like you should make it) but fall through. You fall off platforms easy, and slide a bit. Modern platformer/metroidvanias should have absolutely perfect controls - its what makes or breaks them. Other issues - there's absolutely no in game tutorial except for very rarely on picking up an item. I found what I think is a save point, but I'm not sure if I used it properly - I got no indication either way. Other people have found the game repetative, and I did too. After about 15 minutes I was already sick of the annoying controls, climbing around, and killing random enemies for loot. Nothing drew me in besides the art. And if it was that bad after such asshort play, I cant imagine it would get any better. Oh, also, the "uh-uh" sound when doing something like jumping near a ladder got to me. It'd be ok for $5 USD. But at $16.99 iut needed way more polish. Its a shame, because the art style is amazing. But unfortunately the cute story and art is all its got going for it.
