Kwing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[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.

[Sift Heads World : Act 1]

Great!

The graphics are very nice, although I would have preferred if you had upped the contrast at some sections, as the lighting seemed a little strange at some parts. The missions were fun and worked well. It was much easier to navigate the sections than in Sift Heads 5, although I was annoyed that navigation was still somewhat difficult. The animation was smooth for the most part. The music was very fitting but lacked some of the finesse that Sift Heads 2 and 3 had. The different weapons worked well, yet I felt the game lacking something. Despite how many missions there were I felt there wasn't enough action in any of them. I got to shoot a lot, but there wasn't much puzzle solving. All I did was explore, shoot, explore, shoot. It became very monotonous and there were no extra long or extra hard missions.

I liked it but it needed some of the balls-hard missions that were available in Sift Heads 2 and 4.

[Sift Heads 5]

Boring

The whole system of objectives is poor. You run around collecting objectives, finding random things to pick up, shooting things like security cameras... And it really distracts from the main gameplay elements. Not only that but it's hard to navigate the areas... Sometimes I found myself clicking a door and going back to an area I had already been to when I had meant to go to a new area. I couldn't tell which doors went where! This made the entire game VERY tedious. Another thing is that the missions were kind of bad. Sometimes I just had to go to a certain place, and all of the missions were pretty easy. When a bunch of enemies were trying to shoot me, they drew their guns so slowly it was impossible to get killed unless you ran out of ammo. None of the enemies were that far away and there was no need to use any weapon except your default one. The last mission was ridiculous because you could shoot Kiro and he wouldn't die. It would have been nice if he at least dodged the bullet so you knew you couldn't actually shoot him directly. The gameplay all in all was BAD.

The gameplay was also riddled with glitches and lag. Sometimes if you restarted a mission you would appear in the wrong area, etc. That kind of stuff got on my nerves and slowed down the game quite a bit for me.

Aside from that the music was alright, the graphics were very good, and I liked the art style. The storyline also glorifies an interesting perspective of justice that I found myself agreeing with most of the time. If the focus was more on the missions, and the missions had been a bit harder, I think I would have enjoyed the game a lot.

[Vinnie's Rampage - Act.1]

It Was Okay

The graphics were good and I loved the 3D effects when the cars rolled over. Unfortunately there were only 3 weapons, the Uzi obviously being the best choice... The gameplay was horribly bland... There's not much else to it. I get that you were trying to make a survival game out of this but it just didn't work out. I do love the voice after each round though, saying "son of a bitch!" or "cock-suckers!". That was pretty funny.

[Sift Heads 0]

Funny!

The beginning missions are hilarious! Seeing Vinnie as a baby or a drooling teenager really cracks me up! It's also cool getting some backstory from the later missions. The graphics are great, with an awesome black and white theme to it. The sound effects are perfect, although the music isn't as good as the rest of the Sift Heads series, and the gameplay is fun. It plays more like a puzzle game than a first-person shooter though... After beating them the first time around I managed to beat all of the missions in under two minutes, which gives the game limited replay value. Other than that it was pretty good!

[Sift Heads 2]

So Stylish!

Everything from the intro to the menu to the color scheme... It just teems with greatness! The graphics were very, very nicely done despite the fact that the characters were stick figures. The buttons and menu are super cool, although I was annoyed that I left the gun shop every time I bought something. Also on the note of mistakes, you spelled it "Bunty Hunter" on the main map. In fact, there are several grammatical errors throughout the game. Not only that, but when you select a gun for a mission, if you select a different gun, it tells you to choose a weapon when you've chosen one.

The music was especially good. It all fit perfectly to both the situation and the whole style of the game. I wish I could find all of the songs featured in Sift Heads, since the soundtrack is literally the best soundtrack I have ever heard in a Flash game, and better than most console games as well. I only wish you hadn't cut the loops so short. Maybe you could have loaded the entire songs externally...?

The gameplay was fun! The difficulty curve was just right, you never had to wait too long with the cutscenes, and each mission is presented very well. The only thing I didn't like was some weapons didn't target the center of the crosshair, which pissed me off a LOT.

One problem with the entire thing is that the right-click menu is unchanged. I actually managed to play through the mission at the port by hitting Play after it said it was the end of the demo.

[The Company of Myself]

Somber

Wow, where to begin... The menu is very nicely done, very easy to navigate, and has great music to it, although sad. The text for the game thankfully isn't in the same font, which would have been too extravagant. I love how the text isn't frustratingly vague, but revealing either. It just makes me crave the next line. One thing that annoyed me was that I accidentally skipped over a piece of text and wanted to re-read it. Instead of a Continue button, a Level Select button would have been nice. The graphics were good, although the cartoony style didn't fit with the storyline. On that topic, a few of the earlier lines in the game seemed like comic relief, but it just didn't fit the theme. While comic relief would have worked had you incorporated more characters, and had the comic relief been further into the game, it would have worked, but it just distracts from the overall scheme where you put it. Another thing is that the text near the beginning and end had different colors, which kind of vexed me and had no real reason behind it. The gameplay is almost an exact repeat of the console PSP game EchoShift, and there are several games that are like the few levels with Kathryn. The gameplay overall isn't original, but the level design is. They were just about the right difficulty for me, with the exception of the last level which I had to look up a tutorial for and seemed really cheap to me. It was a fun puzzle game though. Another thing that confused me was why he was running through these levels in the first place? Is he inside his own head or what? That would be a total ripoff of your game Reverb. And then there's the really... Er... Nasty twist at the end. They don't explain why he did it, or anything like that. I liked the story better when I thought that Kathryn's death had CAUSED the hermit's insanity. It was a lot more poetic. But from what I can tell about the story, he was mentally unstable the whole time. Some minor storyline alteration would have made this so beautiful I would have been left in tears... Which reminds me just how great raindrop effects are. If you could have added a simple drizzle of rain throughout all of the levels (or some specifically chosen levels), I think it would have enhanced the game a lot.

Overall, this was a fun game with a very sad but beautiful storyline. This video game is a work of art, although I will say the gameplay is a COMPLETE RIPOFF of EchoShift. The storyline is great though, and the way it's presented simply blew me away.

Eli, you are one of the most underrated Flash authors out there. I look forward to seeing more form you in the future, and I really hope you can get the publicity you deserve someday. You have a great history of game-making and I bet you have a great future ahead of you!