FutureCopLGF's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Newgrounds Rushdown Rivals]

Hell yeah, I love me a good beat em' up and this delivers in spades!

All-around I feel like this game looks and feels wonderful and has a very professional level of polish and huge amounts of content. There's just so much to love, like the great variety of enemies and bosses to fight, all the referential humor, the combat with its fantastic feedback and subtle guiding auto-aim/stickiness and clear attack telegraphs, tons of characters to play with all sorts of distinct playstyles and unique hidden techniques like whacking back bullets with Pico's bat, the great menus and controller support and so on and so forth. I probably can't even list all of the positives about this game because they are innumerable and also subtle: so good you don't even necessarily notice it (but you sure as heck feel it from how fun this is)!

If I were to have any nitpicks, it would be:

*Would've loved to see character stats/bios being accessible on the character select screen instead of only in gameplay: can end up going back and forth if you end up picking someone that doesn't gel with you because you didn't have a chance to study beforehand (though I felt like I loved all the characters I tried).

*Sound was kind of weird if you wear headphones. If you walk to the right side of the screen, you'll end up hearing footsteps coming from the right side of your headphones as if someone is to the right, not realizing its your own footsteps. Basically, its kind of strange that the 'ears' are centered in the center of the screen instead of tracking on your character: would be much better for a more informative audio, I think, but maybe some people playing view themselves as an outside observer and not the character so it makes more sense to them, dunno. Maybe it's because it can be a 2P game?

*Was a little disappointed that there was no story or campaign after it seems to be building it up during the tutorial: instead you just play in separate arenas at your leisure that largely have the same enemies to fight, not much unique stage hazards or geography or variety in minibosses, and in general no major differences between them except the final boss. Because of this, unless you're a score/difficulty junkie, it can feel like it's lacking a sense of progression and being a bit repetitive, like once you've seen one level you've seen 'em all (except for the boss, of course).

*I do love how simple and mashable the combat system is, but I was a bit confused and unsure whether it had a deeper strategy to go for beyond just comboing to get powered up. Would love to learn some strategies like how to proc 'vunerable' status on enemies and any other neat tech, as so far I couldn't find anything definitive in my attempts to research it. Think it could create a whole new deeper level of strategy and intention in the combat if there were enemies with certain weakpoints that you need certain moves or timing to exploit and get 'vunerables' with: as it is you can kind of just mash through everything no matter what, even if they're a shield enemy which you think would need another approach (which is a positive in some respects).

*While most of the characters are awesome and unique, some seem rather imbalanced and confusing in design: for example, Pico has the ability to whack back bullets with his heavy attack bat, and Hank has the ability to parry bullets or attacks with his special, yet Cassette can only parry specifically melee attacks with a very tightly timed up attack (why so specifically only melee? just seems so limiting and hard to pull off when I feel it could've easily just reflected any damage like Hank, but I dunno, maybe she'd be OP if she could)

*Weird mouse bug: if you're using the controller on the menus but stop moving for a second, the selection will suddenly snap to what your mouse is pointing to when I'm not making any major mouse movements to make it think I switched control schemes.

*I do find that the characters move a bit too fast and snappy: they all remind me of Fox from Melee whereas I liked playing characters like Marth for more slow, controlled movements. This game, however, has enough auto-aim and subtle guidance that it's not an issue: just an initial personal preference thing that bothered me slightly.

*Difficulty can be a bit wonky and up to luck at times: sometimes you get a round that gives you a lot of health and assist trophies, other times you're on your own. Sometimes you get a wave of normal enemies, sometimes you keep getting Dad-bot popping in over and over who is seriously way too spongy and way too much of a mini-boss to be within those waves of normal mooks. Maybe there's some way to reduce RNG, like a way to guarantee health drops (for example, I liked how Pico gets a free psuedo-health point for getting his combo up) and hand-craft the enemy waves for each level?

*I could see some people complaining about the fact that the boss fights have random mooks popping up in them: usually this design is treated as the boss not being strongly designed enough to stand on its own, random mooks being a cheap way to artificially increase the boss difficulty. I don't really have a beef with it since I think it works with the chaotic nature of this game, but maybe something to think about.

*Not sure how assist trophies work? I pick them up and they happen after a weird delay of time, or sometimes they don't even happen at all? I would expect them to either be used immediately or go into my inventory and press a button to use: maybe I am using them and not realizing?

*Medals seem to sometimes work and sometimes not? I got some of the medals like the assist trophies and some minibosses, but none of my full clears as Pico, Cassette Girl, Hank, etc.

Christ, I know that's mucho texto up there, but again, the above are very much nitpicks that didn't really hurt my great experience with this game, I just wanted to point em out just in case. Sorry I dedicate so much text to that instead of the positives, but well, it's kinda what I do, haha. Well done on this game!

Spagato responds:

I appreciate the detailed criticism as it's the best way I improve. Your feedback last year really helped with the development of this one and I'm glad I delivered :^)

Thanks again for playing! Please keep doing what you're doing. It really helps me and probably others as well.

- I'll probably put a way for players to see the movelist on the character select in the future

- That's probably a bug since the game has a listener in the center of the camera. I'll see if I can adjust that so it's not so weird.

- Ah the story, I REALLY wanted to make one and put one in, but the work was HUGE for a free fan game lol. That might come in the future but I don't think for the web version as the loading times for this game is already crazy.

- The armor just gets destroyed by damage or specific moves that do more armor damage (usually on attack2)

- I wanted every character to have something unique for themselves so they won't overlap each other as much as possible. I was going to make her kick reflect but that might make Pico's bat look outdated so I made Cass the only character so far with a melee counter hit. I gave Hank the parry because it looked cool like his character and I wanted him to play as risky as possible so the reward had to be high.

- I think the dadbots are a little tanky, might nerf their health next patch. You do get a guaranteed hp from foamy if your health is low and he usually spawns more likely when you're low.

- I wanted the minions to change a person's strategy mid-fight and make them move around more. I haven't gotten a complain about that yet luckily, but I'll keep an eye on this one.

- The assist comes out when there are a lot of enemies on screen, but much faster if a boss is present. When I play-tested the game I noticed the assists kept being wasted alot so I tried to make it "take and let it do it's thing" as much as possible. I'll try to adjust the times, maybe that might be the better option.

- That's my bad :( . I'll try to fix the medals asap.

[K I S S I N G]

I know you most likely tried to make this too confusing and wacky to grasp in order to get the intended 3 stars, but I'm sorry, this game was just too interesting of an experience that I gotta rate it higher than that!

Something about the way the game presents itself had a certain charm or mystique to it behind it's low-effort facade that made me think this really had something to it, and I feel vindicated since what I found was a really fascinating and unique puzzle game. Don't get me wrong, it did take quite a few tries to figure out how the heck everything works and I can see how some would be frustrated, but for me the entire process was a great journey, like being an archeologist and figuring out what these hieroglyphs meant, and everything finally coming together and getting me a win gave me a real sense of accomplishment. I think you struck a pretty good balance where there were enough hints put in place (the arrows next to the rows of keys, the origin points on the character/number symbols) that people could figure out the logic without being too obvious so as to keep the mystique: reminds me of something like La-Mulana level puzzles.

Really fascinating stuff: like a piece of outsider art this was fascinating to delve into and figure out what makes it tick!

Emrox responds:

I will gladly accept the label of "outsider art." Glad you liked it! Maybe if they do this jam again I'll have to go even weirder.

[Palmer's E-Girl Adventure]

Hah, another grand entry into the 3 star jam! It certainly takes a lot of the right steps to earn that 3 star, what with its very bland and bog-standard shooting gameplay, incredibly short length, stiff and unanimated characters, lack of polish/special effects, nonexistant challenge, and the cherry on top: a score counter that doesn't even properly reset on replay. Certainly a strong contender!

However, I feel like the game does show a little bit too much effort in some areas with some rather fancy touches. First, of course, there is the obvious inclusion of a dab charge shot with its own comical animation which also does increase the depth of strategy in the game by a tad. Then, there are some nice touches like how enemies get increasing battle scars as they take damage, and the fact that the game does have a decent variety of enemies and puts them into handcrafted formations. Finally, the game does overall have a bit of charm to its cheapness what with the flailing e-girl and goofy compressed visuals and so on. I dunno, I think I gotta punish you by increasing the score a tad!

maxxjamez responds:

Thank you for this

[27 pages [DEMO]]

Hmm, it definitely didn't make the greatest impression on me. The game overall just has an incredible feeling of blandness due to the lackluster graphics and almost complete lack of sound: whereas other games make aspects like jumping and such satisfying through visual effects and sounds, this game had absolutely nothing and therefore felt dull. If the intention was that the game is currently in a prototype/demo state where the graphics are placeholders and the sounds will be added later, than I can understand: just want to point it out nonetheless. The game also felt a bit aimless without any sort of theming or story to prop it up on (though I don't hate games that just cut to the chase and focus on gameplay).

Even if we look past the graphics and sounds such and just focus on raw gameplay, though, I felt like it was compromised due to the wonky controls. While regular jumping and movement seemed alright, it never felt like I could have confidence in my wall jumps, as many of them would not work and give me a much shorter jump than I expected for no reason I could discern, other than the controls being not as forgiving as they should be. This is a critical issue for a challenging platformer as I feel the more challenge there is, the more the controls need to be perfect so to make everything feel fair.

Having said that all that negative stuff, when the game worked and you look past the lackluster graphics and lack of sounds and so on, the game did have some fun obstacle courses to go through that kept getting more and more complex. I easily found myself getting addicted despite it all, so I think there is a lot of promise in its core here: hope the game can get fixed up a bit for full release.

jonaspatrik responds:

Thanks for the honest review. This is the reason why i made this demo.

[Robo-butcher]

Hrmm, it very much feels like a 'my first arena shooter' game: promising and ticks all the boxes needed, but not really exciting or fun in its current state when compared to its contemporaries.

Overall the game just feels incredibly bog-standard: it's technically got everything needed for an arena shooter like enemies and powerups and abilities, but there's nothing special, unique or really satisfying about the gameplay to get me hooked. So much of gameplay is spent fighting these really boring, spongy enemies that pose no threat. The game also just has an overall lack of presentation with an incredibly boring HUD, weird graphics, and stock sound effects.

Don't get me wrong, the game does have some nice things like the very satisfying way enemies explode, and I do think the game gets good in the later stages by having a larger variety of enemies that pushes you to play much more focused. But the time it takes to get to the point where there is a large variety of enemies takes way too long, leaving you stuck in an overly simple and boring repetitive loop: I could easily see people dropping it before getting there or refusing to redo the boring start when they die, which is a shame.

Pitigamedev responds:

Thank you for your honest feedback. I hope to do better next time!

[Cross Strike]

Game definitely gives me some MegaMan X and Guardian Legend vibes, what with the cool slick shooting action and really unique jet transformation. For the most part, the game feels well put-together with some solid graphics, music, sound effects, etc and good juice/special effects to the various actions you can do (even something as simple as walking and jumping feels great due to the nice sounds and visual effects). Enemies are nice as well with a good variety and intuitive attack telegraphs. Felt like it had some good progression in getting more abilities that open up previous parts of the map as well as an anime-as-heck story.

Overall I feel like this game is pretty dang cool, but there are some nagging aspects that I felt really hold it back!

*I thought the whole transformation mode was pretty cool, but it felt so token, like something you can only do at certain zones clearly made for the jet and nowhere else. Would love if the jet mode was something you could integrate into combat more and such, like being able to use it to dodge or pierce certain enemy defenses, but it felt underutilized and the corridors too cramped to use it anywhere beyond the designated zones. I also just didn't like the jet mode because it felt too fast: felt like I was playing Sonic where you're moving too fast you can't react to things in time, so it's too scary to use.

*I hated that I couldn't hold down the fire button to autofire: I understand that it's because you have a charge move later on, but it's such a pain for carpal tunnel users. Firing is especially bad since there technically is no limit to fire rate: it goes as fast as you can press, so it feels open to being cheated by mashers.

*While it was cool that the level was big and all interconnected with gates being opened from later powers, the level just felt so maze-like and boring due to the bland, sterile graphics, and constant use of cramped boring corridors. Over and over you're walking down similar looking hallways, seeing the same save rooms, dealing with the same lock traps that pit you against two enemies: so repetitive! Everything just looks the same and not only really drags the game down but also makes it confusing to navigate: would love more varied graphics, room designs and landmarks to keep things fresh and let you build a mental map (could also maybe have a map screen on pause).

*Felt annoying to have to make so many leaps of faith or miss seeing things due to not being able to see high or low enough: would love if the game let you hold down/up to be able to peek ahead.

I gripe a lot, but that's just because this is definitely a promising game with some cool ideas and I want to really love it and its sequels: hope this feedback can help make it even better! Loved the cool boss fight and hope to see you continue this connected lumina cinematic universe you're making!

Yword responds:

Really sorry about those issues... But thank you so much for the valuable feedback, I will note them down!
And thanks again for playing too! :)

[Run, Billy, Run !]

Hmm, bit mixed on this one!

On one side of things, I think the game is quite fun! There certainly are an astounding variety of crazy obstacles to contend with that assemble in all sorts of fresh tracks, it feels good to move fast and be as efficient as possible, the music gets you amped up, and overall the game is quite charming with its little quips and style.

On the other hand, I felt like the game was super wonky, bordering on unfair at times.

*Jumping physics could be really bad when it comes to jumping off of moving platformers: jumping when a platform is moving up and you're sent to the moon while jumping when a platform is going down makes it so you practically don't jump at all. I get that sometimes games make you inherit some of the momentum from the platform you're standing on, but here is feels excessive and unintuitive.

*Physics for the 'slippery' floors was also weird: felt more like they were 'sticky' floors.

*It sucks that when you pop a balloon accidently it never respawns, so all you can do it wait for death since you need them to proceed.

*The distance tracker is completely bunk: you can have tracks that make you run to the left to progress and it decreases your tracker as if you were backtracking!

*The game also ended up getting a bit repetitive: if you have a long run going, you can end up seeing the same recycled traps over and over. This wouldn't be a problem if the traps would get more intense the longer you go or remix little things about them to keep you on your toes, like Warioware does, but for this its literally the same thing over and over, so it gets boring because once you've conquered it, there's no challenge to it.

Definitely a nice concept and a good attempt, but just felt like it needed some more time in the oven!

FFuriousDuck responds:

Hi !

Thanks for your review, i totally agree with you, i'll fix all this mess in the next update !

Take care !

[Beck Gets Bitches!!!!]

Well, considering it was for the 3 star jam, I'd say you've done an excellent job at earning this 3 star: whether you want to take that as a compliment or an insult, I'll have you decide, haha!

As said, it very accurately captures that feel of a 3 star game. Playing this puts a picture in my head of a newbie creator who was very proud at being able to pull off very basic player movement and collisions: it's nice as a step forward on their journey to game dev improvement, but it definitely doesn't make it a good game or ready for the limelight.

I almost actually want to dock points (or add points? this jam is confusing) because the game does show a little bit too much effort in putting bonus characters like Pepsi man and also just having a lot of goofy sounds: it shows a bit more craft and professionalism that you wouldn't see from a legit 3 star game. However, you clutched the 3 star in the end by having a score counter that doesn't properly reset: good save!

Taka responds:

Thanks bro! However I didn't know the counter didn't reset right LMAO
Good thing I made sure to do mid testing HAHA

[Biome Conquest]

Not too shabby! Feel like, despite being a very simple and drab game in theory, the construction of this felt quite polished and well-done overall. My favorite part was how, despite the game not really teaching you much except how to drag a tile onto the board, the game subtly teaches you all of the other rules through how it animates effects, such as how tiles will fade colors to signify territories being conquered, or how numbers pop to signify them getting reinforced, or how the tiles snap to a position so it's always clear where you are going to place something. Other games would just have that stuff happen instantly and it'd be too fast to notice and grasp what happened. Nice stuff!

Unfortunately, at the end of the day, I didn't have too much fun with this. That's partly my fault: this just isn't my type of game and most likely it is built for two players facing off each other instead of a computer for maximum enjoyment. But even then, other games that aren't in my wheelhouse have been able to hook me through means of progression or juice or other such things, so this game could be seen as lacking in that respect. Curious whether the game would be better if you could preview the tile of the next move, like you'd see in something like Tetris: maybe that'd allow you to plan ahead and strategize more? Anyway, as said before, while it ain't my game, I appreciate the effort in construction.

rvh86 responds:

Thanks for your review! Previewing the next move would've been a nice addition too the game.

[Stall]

Hmm, not too shabby! I think the game actually does a pretty decent job of building up dread with its graphics and sound. I liked the way events progressed and thought some of the events such as looking at your watch upon seeing the graffiti, the appearance of the hole in the wall, and the bloody bag being dragged were highlights for me. It's definitely a little bit sparse and lacking polish so it's not as immersive as I'd like, but it's decent and showing promise.

The big killer for me in this was the controls: I appreciate the attempt at creating these smooth analog controls where you can fine-tune how you open doors and such, but compared to games like Amnesia which do it very well, this felt painfully awkward. Just the way you get your movement locked down when not only you're trying to use a door, but examine other objects, felt so awkward and difficult to disengage from. The worst was the chase sequence which I felt was ruined by this: not only do you feel like you have to exploit it by moving diagonally to get enough speed since the initial scare comes too fast, but unlocking and opening the door at the end fast enough was an exercise in frustration. There was also some other silly aspects like attempting to leave without investigating the hole getting you jumpscare killed: didn't feel like a satisfying way to guide the player to the hole naturally.

Oscura responds:

Thanks For Trying The Game, This Was My First Time Trying Out Something Like This So I Wasn't Sure How Well The Features Would All Work Together.