In this game, you control Lolly, a wind-up toy-girl, who, for some reasons comes to life, and gets an insatiable craving for candy and sweets. You lead her through various, big and colorful maps, collecting powerups, powerdowns, keys and lots and lots of candy, up until the very end, when you defeat the final boss and become ruler of your candy kingdom. Or something. Lollypop is in many ways typical to the era and area. It's an early 90's Danish platformer, and as in most similar games coming from europe around this time, you have: beautiful, detailed and colorful pixel-art, smooth animations, a dire need to pick up everything that isn't nailed down, great music, tough gameplay. I have to say, that as I recall, this one isn't exactly the hardest one out there, but it's pretty tough still. I'd say it' at the same level as Prehistorik 2 - even if this one has smooth scrolling, which makes precision platforming much easier. Just like that game, this one feels very Amiga-esque as well, but this Lollypop is the PC original, and the clear winner compared to its later Amiga port. Not only it has a wider color-palette, the CD version sold here (at least judging by the game size) has absolutely lovely music. Aside from that, the main draw of the game are the graphics. Each and every level has an entirely different theme (even your character looks different in some of them) and they're all colorful, large and creative (though most of them has a strangely eerie vibe). Unforunately it shares some of the pitfalls of its contemporaries: uninspired bossfights, deliberate but slower gameplay (pick up everything), and some unfairness here and there. All in all, if you're into this very specific genre, give it a go, it is a very pretty addition. If not, then it is just another early 90's platformer from Europe
A clever, small-scale, indie puzzle game. The gimmick is in the title. The game doesn't want to get played by you, so he puts hurdles in your way. Puzzles you need to solve by thinking slightly outside the box. What's here is all pretty darn great, but It had more potential than what it ended up being. Fist of all, it's VERY short. An ideal game to play in small bursts on ones phone, but it feels very different on the big screen. While the story is fun, funny, has it's twists and turns, it is by no means brilliant. Thankfully, it doesn't overstay its welcome. So, in a way the sort playtime fits the story. Well, almost. In the middle, at the RPG parts the whole thing runs out of steam for some time. Next: even the puzzles are a little too simple. Most, if not all of them are logical and perfectly solvable but some are just a little too obvious. All in all: good at current state, could've been even brilliant.
Please refer to my Samurai Showdown review for details, but here's the case in a nutshell: These SNK games now run through a terribly rigid, uncustomizable frontend, Where you cannot even change the button layout. The only thing I'd like to add, that this makes local multiplayer practically impossible. That's one more reason to ignore this version.
same issue as with Samurai Showdown 2 and Fatal Fury special. An absolutely useless, rigid, zero effort frontend for this emulated game. Too bad. Game's great, but the publisher really doesn't deserve to be paid for this.
I'm quite dumbfounded to see this one here. Yes, it is a good game, no, I don't think the vast majority of people here ever heard of it before. Theoretically, this is a pretty typical text-adventure. You give words and simple sentences as input, and you mainly solve puzzles to advance the (fairly typical and fantasy themed) plot. In practice, the developers managed to fix most of the problems that are ever present with text adventures. Find it hard to navigate? There is a map, and a compass, showing exactly where you are and which direction you're facing. Don't find the text evocative enough? There are little illustrations showing you the scenery and the action. Can't find the right word? Most actions are actually listed in the menus. Tired of tying in simple commands again and again? There are button shortcuts to the most generic and regularly used ones. Still, there are some dead ends, player deaths and pretty obscure, timed or illogical puzzles, but when it comes to old text adventures, I feel like this is one of the easiest to get into. All in all, very much recommended. Ancient, obscure, interesting and highly playable.
The game looks and controls really nice (and the amiga version sounds nice as well). Now to the negatives: The game's not only hard, it's horribly unfair, unbalanced and unrewarding. It's basically a mix between a super-pretty amiga collect-a-thon and conemtporary arcade sidescrollig action game. It captures some of their best aspects (ie the graphics), and some of the worst: more power-downs than power-ups, useless weapon upgrades, a non-sop barrage of enemies unexpected instant death-traps, artificially extended gameplay, where only the graphics change, but everything else stays the same, a lame ending etc. I think the only reason to buy this is for nostalgia's sake, but be prepared for your rose tinted glasses to shatter really fast. I dug this one up about six years ago because I recalled kind of liking it, yet never getting too far. This time I managed to be much better at it, but having way less patience for this kind of bullcrap. It's way more playable than Deatbringer for example, but it's only marginally more enjoyable.
