Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Flash Rpg Game]

Wtf Did I Just Play?

The graphics are... Terrible. Just circles and squares, and no real animation aside from a simple tween. You can buy the same thing in the shop twice, which wastes your money big time. There are no sound effects, and the gameplay is just awful... But let me go into the gameplay more:

You can buy weapons which increase your strength and you can increase your stats. Since I'm assuming your damage is based on a multiple of your strength, increasing your strength is infinitely better than increasing your health points. The problem is you can buy weapons over and over, wasting money, and you can only use your mana for one magic attack. This means all you need to do is magic, attack, attack, magic, *attack, attack, attack, magic, repeat from asterisk. In fact, after a little while your normal attacks are stronger than the magic attack as well.

Next, some enemies give out the same amount of experience. Because of that, you should always defeat the weakest enemy that gives the most experience... Aside from that, this game is just pure click-mashing and grinding. And each time you level up it takes twice as much experience to level up again! That's unheard of! You can buy bombs which should deal lots of damage, but I found that my normal attack was actually stronger, so the bombs are a waste of money.

Overall, I found the best 'strategy' for this game is to repeatedly fight a monster weak enough for you to kill without using magic (Battle 7), so you can just mash one button, then repeat the battle over and over until you level up, at which point you dump your stats into strength and then repeat. The equipment increases exponentially, so you can just skip buying weapons until the last one is available.

I finally settled for Laser Spikes and beat the boss without magic. I kept grinding to $15,000, though, just to see the last weapon's graphic. Most of the time grinding I was tabbing the whole thing, so I had to hold down the Enter key for less than a second to win a battle. The "Epic Wep" was not as epic as I had hoped, although it was pretty strong, admittedly.

Overall... I didn't like it at all. If you don't understand why, re-read my review.

[Madness Mouse The Game]

Decent

I like the concept, but maybe some time limits, better animation, more levels, and obviously ways to lose would make it better. Even if you didn't animate all of the ways to lose, you could cut someone's time in half by clicking the wrong thing, for instance. The animation looked almost tweened a points, and I saw absolutely no effort in the easing at all. Maybe you could have animated this FBF with sticks and then traced over it later?

[It's Raining Cats and Dog]

Decent

I really liked the graphics. The art style you used was really cute and there was a really natural/organic feel to everything you had up there. And as it was, I actually think it did better without being animated at all. To fit the style, though, I think it would have been really cool if there had been a little white or brown outline around the graphics and then a drop shadow behind them. It would have made the graphics look cardboard-y and it would have given you some major bonus points.

It was a shame there were no sound effects or music. Just a little bit of ambient music from the Audio Portal would have done, and even though the sound effects could have gotten repetitive, at least a little 'ding' every time you hit a certain number of points would have livened it up just a little.

As for the gameplay... I really like what you did here. The concept isn't overly original but it's not by any means bad. The powerups you put in worked nicely and spiced up the experience. Perhaps you could have given the objects a principle of momentum, though. They look kind of odd the way they are now. One last thing I'd like to point out is the canvas size is obnoxiously large. Size it down a bit so that it can all fit on the screen at once and I'd have bumped up your score a little bit.

[Boring Game]

Frustrating

The graphics are really bad, although the animation is actually pretty decent with the coins. There's no sound, which I would have liked. The game being silent makes it... Well, boring. The gameplay was decent though. When you had to start avoiding things it got pretty difficult. What I didn't like was that you couldn't hold down the up button to jump. I lost dozens of life because I was holding down the up key but not jumping. While the game is fun, I wish there were checkpoints or something.

[Newgrounds HQ Showdown]

Disappointing

The graphics are very nicely done, and the animation is decent. The music is alright, but kind of annoying and no song is really memorable. The sound effects are very basic and sometimes I noticed hitting an enemy with no sound effect for making contact.

The gameplay of course is the main point of the game. This is where the real letdown is. This is just a copycat of Portal Defenders, with different graphics and more slide in the main character. It's also a lot easier. I wish the weapon you got said something about its damage/knockback/weight just so that you knew they were different... As it is I suspect they actually aren't different, especially as a lightsaber makes the same whacking sound effect. The keys are, at times, somewhat slow to respond. Characters also get knocked down way too often... Enemies should get knocked down around 4 or 5 times before they die, while the main character should fall down about 3 or 4 times before he or she dies. Another thing that bugged me is the strategy is the exact same for every level. Rush enemy, spam attack, done. There were no bosses early on that required you to block, and I couldn't even jump! No good combos to use, either. The hitTest is also very stingy, and if by some miracle you manage to die, you have to redo the same (boring) levels all over again. No checkpoints, and no way to recover health. I wouldn't mind if the levels were fresh and entertaining, but they're not.

This is basically just another game that BoMToons puts out, except there's now a different person who made almost the exact same game engine, and someone else did the graphics. Whoop de doo.

[This is the Only Level II]

Unique

The graphics are simple but work well. While you don't have much leeway in the graphics since they all have to be the same, I noticed you did what you could with everything else, like the menu. Kudos on touching up what you could.

Sound was very nice. The music got kind of repetitive, and I would have liked if there were Audio Portal integration or something. That aside, the sound effects are simple, satisfying, and despite a few of them being really high-pitched, not very annoying.

Gameplay was obviously the biggest factor. While the gameplay could have been a cheap knockoff of the first one, the level design is pretty damn good. Some levels (especially Schizophrenia) were brutally hard, while some were a challenge to figure out (like World 1-2). Some were clever, some were not-so-clever. The only real problem here is that a lot of the levels were too easy, and the game doesn't have much replay value. Maybe timing players for individual levels would allow players to hone their skills at their favorite levels... This would be particularly effective if you had the levels from both parts of this series molded into one file (which would take up less than 3.1 MB, surprisingly). Basically you need to make the game more competitive, and maybe add bonuses for fewer deaths and such. Secret or unlockable levels would be very welcome as well.

[Dragon Boy]

Simply Amazing

Graphics:
There's a neat anime thing going on and the art style is rough yet unique. The color scheme for the magic attacks are an interesting contrast. The animation could have used work, though. A lot of things were tweened or animated poorly. A few backgrounds were done very, VERY well.

Sound:
The sound effects were mostly good. The fire and ice ones were good. The attack sound effect sounded like a bitch slap more than an axe or mace actually connecting with the enemy. Overall the sound effects were good though. I really liked the menu and button sound effects... Very satisfying. The music was chosen very well, too. My only gripe about this is that the levels were so short you didn't get to hear the whole song! Perhaps you could have let the music carry over onto the main map before stopping the sound when you tried another level, so we could have heard more of the songs. The boss music was exceptional and SUPER dramatic. Props on that.

Style:
The storyline wasn't too great. I couldn't really tell what was going on, and the so-called plot twist was obnoxiously bland. The presentation, art style, and theme to the whole thing saved it though. There was a little bit of humor, and the progression of dialogue was interesting to read, even if the contents weren't too great. The interface was done really well though.

Gameplay:
There's a lagging issue even with low quality. It seems like there's a 'command queue' for the controls, and sometimes that 'queue' causes the controls to stick even after letting them go. In addition to that, I was peeved that the gold and experience weren't saved when closing out of the game. Furthermore, I didn't like how long it takes to level up once you reach about level 40. The amount of time you have to spend grinding is ridiculous, and it's even worse that your experience is reset after closing it. The whole system with enemies attacking while on the inventory screen is bogus, and sometimes you can actually die while paused. Also, being able to attack offscreen enemies while they can't attack is both unfair and oftentimes the only way to win a lot of battles. Not only that, but after loading the game you have to start with only a certain amount of health, making you wait before starting a battle for no real reason. This is also a problem after barely winning a battle and just waiting for you to regenerate on the main map. It just wastes time and distracts from the main game. Fighting can also be unbalanced. If you lure enemies off to the side and take them out one by one, it's too easy, and if you end up surrounded or next to a bunch of enemies that are completely overlapped, the damage they do is ridiculous and the knockback prevents you from going anywhere. That aside, the gameplay is very enjoyable, except for the mass grinding you need to do and numerous things that were overlooked. The gameplay, while a clone from Diablo, is a fun fusion that combines real-time fighting elements with RPG elements. The different stats are cool and all work themselves into the gameplay without being too extravagant. The system of leveling up is really cool, as each character levels up a different way (stats, equipment, abilities). Aside from how bland (albeit powerful) Blaze is, I really liked the customization and the choices you had to make with Guil's equipemnt and Arazec's abilities. (Not to mention Cast Rate without the space is "Castrate", lol). The special abilities Arazec had and the different stats Guil's equipment boosted spiced up the gameplay a lot, although I would have liked more twists of that sort, such as status ailments. It was also annoying that you couldn't do much to customize Arazec's defense. The system of equipment being slightly randomized is neat, and paying to see the shop prevents exploitation, but the shop selection wasn't big enough, and the cost should be rounded. I also feel like there should have been a lot more adventure and exploration going on instead of one teleporter and several arenas.

Overall great effort, VERY fun, but TONS of bugs to iron out.