Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Dynapuff JUMP!]

The mechanics feel artificial to me. The ridiculous amount of grinding involved to get maximum stats is dumb, the upgrades themselves defeat the purpose of speedruns in the beginning since you can just go back with higher stats later. Aesthetically it's nice and I like the upgrades and gameplay, but there's just no replay value to it unless you want to grind to get everything and THEN try to do speedruns. This game feels very commercialized, as if it's going through the motions of including upgrades and a currency system, when what it really needs is a mechanic that motivates the player.

[Hexa Shift]

There's a major problem with your power being random every turn. There's practically no strategy left. If players could manage their flow of power (bide their time vs. more points right now) it would actually be fun.

[Dice Hero]

Addicting, but rather threadbare of gameplay. All you do is roll the damned dice. There's no strategy at all. It would be cool if you could hold onto a roll for later or something, or if doubles allowed you to remove one card of your choice, or possibly any factor of the doubles. As it is, it's pretty brainless, even if the luck factor makes it addicting.

[Snake]

It's okay I guess. Pretty simple, not as many modern twists as you claim there are. The music and effects are nice but in the end the only difference is the speed, the time bonus, and the multiple collectibles rather than just one. One issue I see with this is that you could hypothetically get a higher score by stalling, since you get points just for surviving. It would be slower, but it would be a surefire way to get into the hall of fame.

This definitely needs more. The most obvious change I can think of is to have more objects on the screen - enemies, powerups, obstacles, etc.

[Shapeformers]

Definitely interesting. You made a very simple mechanic that quickly blossomed into a fully functional physics game. The levels were definitely not in the right order - some of the last levels were also very easy, while some earlier ones were quite difficult. There also weren't that many shapes - no triangles or hexagons. Though, for what it is, it's short and fun. I also liked that a few of the levels required quick reflexes, it gave this an interesting twist.

I would have liked to see more levels with chains connecting certain objects, or perhaps slippery, sticky, bouncy, or breakable substances. Still really fun though.

[! Fishy !]

Amazing game, I always loved Fishy and I'm glad I came back to play this and write a review. I played this back in 2003 and it's just as great as I remember - much more charming than later permutations which were divided into levels. The music is almost trance-like and relaxing, the graphics are incredibly pleasing to the eye for something so old, and the gameplay just feels RIGHT. Now that I'm older and more patient I was able to beat this on my first try, though I remember my impatience getting me killed when I was younger.

Nonetheless this is an outstanding game. Sometimes I wish there were more to it but I'm glad it's as simple as it is. Though, there should be something that allows players to have different scores after beating the game - perhaps restarting it with the fish moving faster? Otherwise anyone that beats the game has the same score more or less.

[A Dance of Fire and Ice]

A little gimmicky. I've always hated one-button rhythm games (is that even a genre?) because it's really all about eyes and memory rather than brains or reflexes. Certainly this is fun and addictive, mainly due to the music chosen, but it gets old and quickly begins to rely on an unforgiving intolerance for mistakes to facilitate its difficulty. Personally, I prefer games with difficult tasks but many checkpoints to one with easy tasks assigned in large quantities, and because of that I would have preferred shorter levels with more confusing visuals (perhaps a hex grid) and complex rhythms (alternating or odd meters).

The layout and presentation is nice, but its simplicity is also its downfall as people are repeatedly faced with a very plain screen telling them that they have failed. I would have liked some kind of system that judged how close you were to hitting on the beat, as many other rhythm games do (Perfect, Great, Good, Almost, Boo).

fizzd responds:

Sorry you didn't enjoy it! It is by design meant to be a game of rhythmic endurance just as much as rhythmic gymnastics, and is meant to train the ability to keep a consistent beat throughout a song, so I'm not going to switch the design to exclusively short hard levels anytime soon. Definitely isn't for everyone!

[The Awakening RPG]

I don't think anyone would argue that this isn't a flawed game, but it certainly has a charm to it. The graphics are very intricate and give this game an uncanny sense of magnitude on par with the Epic Battle Fantasy series. The music is somewhat dull and repetitive but is quite well done, though still a far cry from the Sonny soundtrack. The gameplay is overall really well-done and keeps players engaged with the active battle system, though I would have liked to see things played around with more, for instance attacks where you can hold down a button and consume extra stamina to deal extra damage, attacks that damaged an enemy's stamina, or enemies that feigned attacks or had certain conditions for which you made them unable to dodge.

This game suffers from several major pitfalls. First is that I noticed it lagged a lot. At the beginning of the game I recalled reading something about setting the quality to low, but skipped past it too quickly and wasn't able to find that information again. I pulled up every menu I could find and didn't manage to adjust the quality, which was a real pain since you walk SO slowly on the world map... If you wanted it to be atmospheric, you could have at least made the character smaller on the world map, like Chrono Trigger does.

That said, you balanced this out really well. I liked how you moved away from the grindier aspects of the game, allowing players to grind but not really making it necessary, especially when there were only a few pieces of equipment to be gotten. I got the Twin Serpent Blade and instantly fell in love with its massive damage bonus, and though I played this game for three hours only to change weapons once, I felt it actually worked out fine.

Also, the storyline was pretty lame, in all honesty. There were a lot of tropes... Waking up and not knowing anything, befriending a random magic user that seems to know anything (this was a very close parallel to Sonny and Luis...) and then the battle with the Golden Demon that was impossible to win... Which really annoyed me since I was really kicking his ass but ended up being funneled into the plot dialogue anyway. You use a lot of tropes and it's bad enough to the point of me not being able to take the narrative seriously at all. Thankfully there were a few moments of comic relief that broke it up, and the huge number of civilians in the towns also gave this game a sense of realness, even if the main plotline wasn't interesting.

Final verdict? Good game, though it was a bit slow and buggy at times. I would be interested in seeing the conclusion to the story, as well as what you had planned for the rest of the game. It would have been nice to have some kind of arcade or Colosseum mode where players could engage in battles and unlock story sequences without doing fetch quests and stuff - it would have been a nice easy way to wrap up this game without it feeling completely unfinished.

RockLou responds:

Thank you for the review and your input!
During the development of the game, I experimented with the attacking where you held down the attack button and a seperate bar would appear and fill up as you held the button. The longer you held it, the more damage your attack would take. It was an interested idea but one thing I like about the current battle system is how fast your attacks seem whenever you press the attack button. It happens instantly and you feel badass. :P
I also experimented with the spells. Whenever you made a spell you'd have to press a combination of numbers quickly and depending on how you performed, the spell took more or less damage. But that also took away the instant and fast-paced feel of the battle.

I can agree with you that the story is kind of lame. :P Most of it wasn't really thought out much. The future of the story (not in the game) is more thought out, if I ever would continue.
I didn't want to include any crystals or anything because it IS very cliché, but I really needed something to boost the plot.
I have thought of a colosseum in Savina city, but it seemed a bit out of place and would've been even more work... and I'm already tired of this goddamn game. -.-

[Raise to Review Mod]

This is so damn buggy. I ban one user, then the ban button is stuck down and I ban a bunch more involuntarily. There's no button to close the Flash that you vote on and flag - I had to use the Tab button to press something off-screen.

Graphics and music are nice but this needs to be fixed so I can actually play without guessing.