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Reviews for "Raider: Episode 1"
positive review
hard and fun, A-
I liked the game, though I think your naming conventions for difficulty settings should be changed. Normal is "normal," not hard. Hard in this case should be "Hardcore" or "Insane" or something else that is eye catching yet plausible.
I also had some troubles with the controls. I prefer not to change the controls so as to play the game the way the author built it but they are set up awkwardly and you can't change them mid-game. Putting a controls option in the pause menu would be a huge improvement.
Pseudolonewolf responds:
I thought that 'Expert' was a fair enough name for the hardest mode, and 'Beginner' for the easiest and 'Intermediate' for the middle difficulty, since these imply difficulties based on experience and practice. Like how when learning an instrument, the more complex music would be 'Intermediate' and then 'Expert' (which imply lots of experience to get to that point) rather than 'Normal' and 'Hard' (which imply that you could play them without practice, just not easily).
Yet another complaint about the controls being 'akward'... I really wonder if it's largely because UP isn't jump. Hmm.
The control scheme I used is the one that's usually used for emulator games, so I thought it sensible, especially since it's so easy for me to use myself. Perhaps people are confusing 'awkward controls' and 'lack of familiarity with the game'...
TOO HARD but AWESOME
When I started this game, reading your note that the game would be tough, I figured I'd know what to expect. Spike hell, small platforms, little health, the works. I just finished playing through Jumper 2 (not on Newgrounds) again, so I figure I could get through that sort of challenge.
Playing through the level, I got exactly what I expected. Tough jumps, spikes everywhere, and not much health to do it. The actual level was a nice challenge, even though I did not go and collect all the items. Come to think of it, the tight jumps and well-spaced savepoints almost seemed reminiscent of IWTBTG, although being able to take a few hits made the game reasonable.
However, the boss was ridiculous. His health bar stretches far enough so that you cannot just get lucky. You have to be able to consistently dodge his lightning storm attack, not to mention that you have a fairly small margin of time to jump to avoid the shockwave his attack creates. At best, I was able to cut down his health in half before I died.
If there was a purple checkpoint right before the boss, I may have fought against him enough to learn his pattern and beat him. However, the last purple checkpoint was very far behind, before some tough platforming. There is no way that I would replay all that to only get a half dozen more attempt at the boss.
I am pretty sure that if I was able to get to the boss with six lives to spare on medium, I should not need to play though the game again just to beat that boss. Heck, now that I know the tricky jumps, I should be able to play though medium again without losing more than a couple lives. However, there is no way that I am playing through the game again right now, only to get owned again by that blue asshole.
Other than that, the game was totally AWESOME! There are not enough challenging platformers on Newgrounds. Can't wait for the next in the series.
Pseudolonewolf responds:
The boss isn't any harder than most of the robot masters in the early NES Megaman games (it might even be EASIER than some), though on Beginner mode it's a LOT easier and you have infinite lives so you can try it over and over again if you die without losing any progress.
That's what Beginner mode is for; for people unused to the game.
Still... So many people complained about the boss and controls that I'll keep these things in mind for the future episodes.
Good game, could be a lot better
First things first, I didn't like the controls. I hate having the jump and two attack buttons all controlled by my left hand. I noticed this and changed jump to "up" right away. Much better. Except when navigating options (can't use up) and climbing ladders becomes much harder. Normally not a big deal, yet the latter half of the game is like all ladders. And unfortunately you can't change the controls during the game once you find you need to tweak it. Big flaw.
I like games with challenge, though this frankly was too hard. I played it on medium mode, and yeah I know you said "don't complain if this is too hard if you haven't tried easy" but I'm not going to replay the game all the way over at this point. Yeah I should have started on easy in hindsight, but at the same time you shouldn't call "easy" a mode you want to play to practice. You should of called "easy" a normal mode recommended for just about all players playing this game for the first time, and "normal" mode "hard" mode. Yes I am nitpicking....but c'mon does the purple checkpoint really have to be so far from a boss that hard? I only continued once the whole game but after I got beat by the last boss I wasn't going to continue a 2nd time.
Does the game have to have so much spikes? Yeah I know I should be grateful spikes aren't instant death compared to say Megaman. But megaman was 95% shooting baddies and 5% spikes. This game is like 75% jumping over spikes and climbing ladders and 25% killing baddies.
Eh, I'm sure I came off as whiner from this review. Oh well, I do think this is a really good game, its just a shame because I could have enjoyed it a lot more. Not any one problem was that bad, its just that all of it combined with the up button/ladder thing it became frustrating. This is still a great game though. I'm looking forward to the sequel and will be sure to play it on easy and will be careful about changing the controls, heh.
side note: the character really looks like Megaman when climbing ladders, his "hair/horn" even creates a line down his head like Megaman's helmet. Was this done intentionally as a tribute? I thought that was pretty cool.
Pseudolonewolf responds:
Yet ANOTHER complaint about the controls... I've always found jump as UP to be really amateur and awkward, and no console game that I've ever played has had anything other than one of the 'action buttons' as jump since jumping itself isn't a simple 'movement' but a distinct 'ability'... Or that's how I see it, anyway.
The default controls are designed as they are because they work well; they just take a few moments to get used to, as is likely the case in most games (I wonder if people who complain about the controls in this complain about the controls in all other Flash games...?), and the ability to customise the controls isn't very well supported since it was mainly added to satisfy the people who blamed the 'awkward controls' for their unfamiliarity with the game... Or something. Hmm.
I'll refine it better for the future episodes though.
The modes are called 'Beginner' (not Easy), 'Intermediate' and 'Expert' because those names imply practice rather than simply difficulty. 'Easy', 'Normal' and 'Hard' clearly imply that you'd be able to finish them all in your first try, probably, but it'd be more challenging on the highest settings.
But this game's difficulty seems to be directly related to how much practice someone's had with the game, so if they've had none, they're a 'Beginner', and if they've had loads, they're an 'Expert'. 'Intermediate' is between the two, but it's not called 'Normal'.
Really though, the default selected difficulty SHOULD be 'Beginner', so perhaps I'll make it that in future so then people won't always choose the higher difficulties out of pride and then complain about the game's difficulty when they don't have enough practice to succeed...
Also, on Beginner, you have infinite lives, so you can just keep trying at the boss without much penalty if you fail. On the other difficulties though, I wanted to make lives MEAN something and to encourage carefulness, rather than 'it doesn't really matter if you die because you can just try again straight away'...
Some platformers are 100% fighting enemies with essentially no dangerous platforming elements, whereas some just don't have baddies at all and are all about skillful jumping around. I'd say that focus on one and not the other is just a matter of *difference*, rather than one being worse for not focusing on one thing enough.
This game isn't Megaman, so it should be expected to be different in many regards, one of which is the balance of enemies and platforming things like spikes.
Anyway, I probably don't sound all that grateful or something in this response because I probably generally tend to sound bitter and dismissive, but I really do appreciate reviews like this! o_O
its jsut not that good
graphics arent good and this plot is bad