Pretty fun for what it is but a pretty shameful concept in terms of marketing and publishing. Definitely well-tempered in terms of difficulty on Normal for the most part, though I'm not a fan of how slowly the characters move by default as well as how spongy the weak enemies tend to be for a shoot-em-up. The bosses are varied enough but the game's short with only a few stages, though I didn't get the secret ending (yet?) so there might be a huge load of extra content I missed by just getting the regular ending and playing a bit more after that. Not like anyone would know, right? The game's only got a small amount of people able to play it in the first place...
I'm quite a fan of the music I heard and the voices are fun in terms of both acting and sound quality. It's pretty nice sound design, nothing super out-there for the current age but clearly done with passion. The look of the graphics and the feel of the controls are both solid; in general I do enjoy the game's presentation and style even if retraux is a bit less loved by most nowadays. It gets the quarter-munching nature of old games down well enough, though I question why the devs missed any opportunities to bring a dead player back unless you beat a level by not giving the game some kind of credit system. It's also pretty annoying that neither character has EXP information unless you pause the game so you generally don't know how many enemies to kill to get to your next level before a boss, which can limit the amount of strategy to put in for the game's light RPG mechanics unless you're a big fan of the + button. Still, finding the secret areas and mowing down every block you see is nice as you can often get plenty of bonus EXP and power-ups to make your trips to the pause menu less necessary.
Getting away from the game itself for a minute though, the fact that the game is physical only feels like a detriment to it, especially since its limited nature could never have been lived up to by the game for how short and content-light it is. Furthermore, the game having old-style secrets and codes to put in is cool but hampered by the fact that only a maximum of approximately 9000 people are ever going to play it at all, meaning any shared information will be scarce at best unless the game eventually gets a wider release. This was incredibly lame of a decision and while I don't regret playing the game, I can't possibly support developers going this route in the future if they can help it. The game's fun as I've described and can make for a sweet afternoon with a buddy in co-op, but it has enough issues and a lack of longevity that I can't help but feel burned. If it had been released more cheaply and made more widely available I'm sure I would have felt much less lukewarm on it, but as it is I just don't think it was worth it.
I'm quite a fan of the music I heard and the voices are fun in terms of both acting and sound quality. It's pretty nice sound design, nothing super out-there for the current age but clearly done with passion. The look of the graphics and the feel of the controls are both solid; in general I do enjoy the game's presentation and style even if retraux is a bit less loved by most nowadays. It gets the quarter-munching nature of old games down well enough, though I question why the devs missed any opportunities to bring a dead player back unless you beat a level by not giving the game some kind of credit system. It's also pretty annoying that neither character has EXP information unless you pause the game so you generally don't know how many enemies to kill to get to your next level before a boss, which can limit the amount of strategy to put in for the game's light RPG mechanics unless you're a big fan of the + button. Still, finding the secret areas and mowing down every block you see is nice as you can often get plenty of bonus EXP and power-ups to make your trips to the pause menu less necessary.
Getting away from the game itself for a minute though, the fact that the game is physical only feels like a detriment to it, especially since its limited nature could never have been lived up to by the game for how short and content-light it is. Furthermore, the game having old-style secrets and codes to put in is cool but hampered by the fact that only a maximum of approximately 9000 people are ever going to play it at all, meaning any shared information will be scarce at best unless the game eventually gets a wider release. This was incredibly lame of a decision and while I don't regret playing the game, I can't possibly support developers going this route in the future if they can help it. The game's fun as I've described and can make for a sweet afternoon with a buddy in co-op, but it has enough issues and a lack of longevity that I can't help but feel burned. If it had been released more cheaply and made more widely available I'm sure I would have felt much less lukewarm on it, but as it is I just don't think it was worth it.