Cute But Unforgiving
Pocky & Rocky is that typical cute run 'n gun game trap. Where the graphics, while not hugely outstanding, are nevertheless charming, with the environment designs are well crafted, there's a nice variation of enemy designs and there is nice use of colours to give it a cute feel. But beneath its seemingly dorky smile is a game that is tough.
Even normal is a big challenge and you can forget about Hard mode until you’re able to memorize the game to the point of second nature and have cat-like reflexes.
A lot of this boils down to the issues the game has. The stages have cheap gimmicks, from the the enemies, bosses and, from stage 2 onwards, environments themselves. Hitbox detection is wonky so just as you think you’ve avoided a hit, you’ve lost health (or a life). And your invincibility window when hit is so small, you might as well see it as losing a life in certain events. The fact that after taking two hits you depower, so in later stages, this is all but near-certain death and while the controls are solid and you have some nifty defence and offence options, the lack of being able to lock a direction and fire while moving does add to the difficulty.
All these add to make a challenging game become cheap at the later levels. There may only be six stages and in theory this game lasts an hour but good luck progressing far into the game for a good many hours.
It's worth giving Pocky & Rocky a go, just to see the quirky nature of the game and loose story. But one can't ignore that the difficulty creep will become too much for everyone but the really determined.
Rating: 6/10
Pocky & Rocky is that typical cute run 'n gun game trap. Where the graphics, while not hugely outstanding, are nevertheless charming, with the environment designs are well crafted, there's a nice variation of enemy designs and there is nice use of colours to give it a cute feel. But beneath its seemingly dorky smile is a game that is tough.
Even normal is a big challenge and you can forget about Hard mode until you’re able to memorize the game to the point of second nature and have cat-like reflexes.
A lot of this boils down to the issues the game has. The stages have cheap gimmicks, from the the enemies, bosses and, from stage 2 onwards, environments themselves. Hitbox detection is wonky so just as you think you’ve avoided a hit, you’ve lost health (or a life). And your invincibility window when hit is so small, you might as well see it as losing a life in certain events. The fact that after taking two hits you depower, so in later stages, this is all but near-certain death and while the controls are solid and you have some nifty defence and offence options, the lack of being able to lock a direction and fire while moving does add to the difficulty.
All these add to make a challenging game become cheap at the later levels. There may only be six stages and in theory this game lasts an hour but good luck progressing far into the game for a good many hours.
It's worth giving Pocky & Rocky a go, just to see the quirky nature of the game and loose story. But one can't ignore that the difficulty creep will become too much for everyone but the really determined.
Rating: 6/10