Very charming and appealing adventure with some of the best sprite art of the 16 bit era but it suffers from having generally average gameplay and every dungeon past the first one has pretty significant problems. The fire dungeon's really slow, the water dungeon has too much backtracking, the ice dungeon is torture without a guide, and the sky dungeon is an insane difficulty spike that demands a lot of trial and error. It can still be a great time though, thanks to pepelegoo and the ways he fits into the game's sequential narrative, as well as probably the best boss fights of the monster world games. But it's frustrating how so many journalists neglect to acknowledge its low points to preserve its status as a 'retro hidden gem'
6 Comments
come on now. The ice dungeon does not require a guide, you just werent willing to put up with the puzzles. I agree with everything else tho.
engaging with the ice dungeon's puzzles is one of the worst experiences I've had with a non-western 16-bit game and i'm not gonna abstain from using a guide just because it's 'technically' possible to do it without one
Not saying you should abstain from using a guide if you feel its not worth the hassle, but you are acting like the puzzles are obtuse and based on trial and error when its not the case. "Technically" just means writing down the clues on a piece of paper and using them to solve moderatively accessible puzzles. I understand if thats not something you wanna be doing on a platformer, but its really not big a deal.
I'm adoring this game so far, but I agree with you 100% on the ice pyramid. Frankly, it's just a boring dungeon with all its repeating hallways and lame gimmicks, but it's also easy to lose your bearings in there and get all turned around. It overstays its welcome a third of the way in and then continues to drag. I resorted to a guide as well just so I could get it done as quickly as possible.
I actually liked the fire dungeon quite a bit (especially the section at the end with platforming over lava), stream sanctuary was okay but as you mentioned has too much back pedaling. The ice pyramid is actually where I dropped the game in my college days and coming back to it was actually worse than I remembered. It would have been fine if it was kept to just one segment of tedious navigating and riddle solving...but someone decided it needed to be done three whole times.
I do agree that sky palace is a bit of a difficulty spike but I also really appreciated that it was more action oriented and not just a collection of shitty mazes and riddles. It almost felt like a reward for dealing with the ice pyramid.
I don't think anybody talks about the last chapter enough. After how interesting sky temple was it's...just a bunch of drops where you fight every single enemy in the game until you reach the final boss. The caverns themselves look nice but it was pretty boring.
I do agree that sky palace is a bit of a difficulty spike but I also really appreciated that it was more action oriented and not just a collection of shitty mazes and riddles. It almost felt like a reward for dealing with the ice pyramid.
I don't think anybody talks about the last chapter enough. After how interesting sky temple was it's...just a bunch of drops where you fight every single enemy in the game until you reach the final boss. The caverns themselves look nice but it was pretty boring.
icazinho
3 years ago