Despite having never played Prison City, immeaditly at the start of the game I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. The game looks gorgeous and is extremely high quality at it's goal of mimicking a NES game. It gave me heavy sunsoft vibes right from the get go, specificly the batman games. Any game that reminds me of the game that got me into this hobby does get some bonus points. Really though, the retro filter options are really well done and make the game look great. From the scan lines to the mirrored edge of the screen to the color pallete used put this game on my must play list.
As for the gameplay it really plays like Strider or Rygar. (I really need to get around to trying Rygar out) You have a limited disc based weapon that you can throw in any direction. The amount of discs you can throw are on a cool down meter of sorts. You can throw a lot of them out at once but they do slightly less damage if maxed out. The game gives the ability to really attack in many different posisitions so it never really feels like you can't hit something, although they only travel so far. Prison City has a Mega Man style level select set up, so you can tackle the stages in any order. As for the stages themselves they are your typical side scrolling platformer layouts. However there are a few divergents paths here or there that might lead to a health or weapon upgrade. Every level follows the same formula, first, you have to find an informant that will give you a key card and secondly you have to find the door which said key card unlocks so you can fight the boss. Usually the door is found in the mid stage and the informant is usally in the later parts. The levels are designed to be traveled back and forth so no worries there. Enemies can provide a challange and there are some challange in the platforming and it all feels nicely well balanced. The game is pretty generous with it's lives and checkpoints and for the most part if you put a bit of effort in you should be able to get through the game fine. Bosses are the harder obsticle and are really well done. Learning patterns and ways to avoid attacks and taking a good defense is a good offense is the way to go with this game. The last level does something a bit interesting that I won't spoil but it greatly extended my first run.
If your a completionist this game is pretty difficult though. Completing every stage with out getting hit is tough and beating the unlockable boss rush on the hardest difficulty might take a lot of practice. I don't know if I wanna do that right now but the game does have a bit of replay value if your into challanges. Even if you only play Prison City once though for a measly ten dollar price tag at launch you get a high quality retro inspired NES game and for me the nostalgia hit alone was worth the asking price. I can easily see myself coming back to this in a year or two.
As for the gameplay it really plays like Strider or Rygar. (I really need to get around to trying Rygar out) You have a limited disc based weapon that you can throw in any direction. The amount of discs you can throw are on a cool down meter of sorts. You can throw a lot of them out at once but they do slightly less damage if maxed out. The game gives the ability to really attack in many different posisitions so it never really feels like you can't hit something, although they only travel so far. Prison City has a Mega Man style level select set up, so you can tackle the stages in any order. As for the stages themselves they are your typical side scrolling platformer layouts. However there are a few divergents paths here or there that might lead to a health or weapon upgrade. Every level follows the same formula, first, you have to find an informant that will give you a key card and secondly you have to find the door which said key card unlocks so you can fight the boss. Usually the door is found in the mid stage and the informant is usally in the later parts. The levels are designed to be traveled back and forth so no worries there. Enemies can provide a challange and there are some challange in the platforming and it all feels nicely well balanced. The game is pretty generous with it's lives and checkpoints and for the most part if you put a bit of effort in you should be able to get through the game fine. Bosses are the harder obsticle and are really well done. Learning patterns and ways to avoid attacks and taking a good defense is a good offense is the way to go with this game. The last level does something a bit interesting that I won't spoil but it greatly extended my first run.
If your a completionist this game is pretty difficult though. Completing every stage with out getting hit is tough and beating the unlockable boss rush on the hardest difficulty might take a lot of practice. I don't know if I wanna do that right now but the game does have a bit of replay value if your into challanges. Even if you only play Prison City once though for a measly ten dollar price tag at launch you get a high quality retro inspired NES game and for me the nostalgia hit alone was worth the asking price. I can easily see myself coming back to this in a year or two.