ya have to admit...
it fun but usualy you just have to hold down space and its easy! the modes norman mode fels like easy and you level up to quickly.
Reviews for "Agony: The Portal"
Repetitive, spells use not really an option
Having played through the whole campaign on insane, and done a few rounds of darwin mode afterwards, I can say that it's fairly fun for a while, but this level of repetitive gameplay needs a really good story or multiplayer (or preferably both) to make it palatable. I finished through sheer bloody mindedness, to be fair in the review, and for something to do with my hands and eyes while listening to the news on the radio.
Though I understand the motive for the pay system, an in game system of money would be good just to add some depth. Side quests, other characters that matter even a little bit, etc. I mean, most FF style rpgs have ridiculously repetitive combat, and mmos aren't that much better, but one has good story, the other has enough interaction with others and interesting skill trees.
Which brings us to the skill trees. Stun is extremely useful, and the skill that will keep you alive on insane. Charge is fairly useful before you have stun. The rest... not so much. Especially the uppercut thingy, that was extremely inconsistent to hit with. Teleport was occasionally nice. Having more than one skill that would be a viable long term plan would be good.
The spells are, with the exception of heal, by and large useless. They could be useful, but the problem is the increased cooldown time with each upgrade. That's a real problem, I don't know why you put it in. It's not like the spells would be overpowered without it. As it is, upgrading a spell usually makes it WORSE because of the increased cooldown.
The stats... finesse's benefits are so slight, even if they were at 100% each, the stun attack would be better anyway. And at the sacrifice of hitpoints and base damage, absolutely worthless. Magic... well maybe if the spells weren't so bad. But even then sacrificing the ever so necessary hitpoints is too much to ask.
If ranged magic were really a viable alternative, I could see teleporting around and lobbing fireballs as being an interesting alternative build. Gravity would be a great way to deal with ranged enemies if it affected axes and fireballs, but it doesn't and those do just as much damage so... it also doesn't last long enough and the increased cooldown with upgrades makes upgrading it an untenable option.
Enemies... need more variety, melee, and two types of ranged... well it'd be okay if there was something besides a new item and an identical battle waiting for you at the end of it. The 3 waves thing also just gets kind of obnoxious. Not really added difficulty, just a longer time to slog through. Maybe enemies resistant to some attacks. If magic were a viable option, enemies strong against physical/weak against magic and vice versa. Summoning minions of your own, enemies who summon minions themselves (like right next to them, not like the kings where guys just keep coming while they're alive), making it so you are forced to prioritize certain enemies over others at times (besides ranged vs melee), there are so many different ways of making it not terribly repetitive or at least more entertainingly repetitive.
So yeah, having viable alternative ways to play would be good. Real story and NPCs would be REALLY good. A reason to get through the combat. Best of luck.
Ambitious, but repetitive
I played the game for several hours, but was only entertained for two of them. Leveling up became too slow and not rewarding enough too quickly. Additionally, the game's reliance on the little midget gremlin race for earlier levels lasted too long. Changing their skins and giving them cooler weapons was a step in the right direction, but didn't actually alter gameplay significantly. Ease into the use of the other races, or include different, more advanced weaponry to help keep things interesting. To clarify, by "advanced weaponry" I mean catapults or mounted fighters or cannons. Really anything that changes the way the enemies attack, rather than how they look.
The inclusion of a skill "tree" was ambitious, but wasn't very well executed. The combat skills were too limited in number, and like other skills, weren't practical to use much of the time. I found that using the crowd-clearing lunge/rush skill often resulted in my taking more damage than I would have by simply spamming my regular attack and inching forward, and the short time allowance between steps in combos resulted in my having to input a command too early to keep a real chain of attacks going. Unless I was fighting a massive horde (which as I noted earlier, would eat my life too quickly) I'd be forced to lose my "combo" in order to keep attacking, or keep the "combo" and completely miss. The jumping attack took too long, and wasn't practical for targeting anyone closer than 3/4 of a screen away. Because the enemies move forward as the attack drags on, enemies even half a screen away would generally end up behind me, no matter how early I hit and held the appropiate arrow key to adjust the targeting. The teleport was well-done, but I would have liked to see some damage potential added to it, rather than simply increasing its range with level-ups.
The spells were a little better thought out, and I found the fireball spell particularly versatile. Although they upgraded in a more practical, innovative way than combat skills, I didn't feel that having them mattered much. They didn't do enough damage to really alter the gameplay since the time between uses was so long. Either allow for the spamming of weak spells, or the occasional use of powerful ones. Allowing the occasional use of weak spells doesn't really alter the gameplay. The gravity spell was probably the exception to the rule. The health spell would have been, too, but you forgot to increase the healing potential beyond 20 percent. After a few upgrades, spending points on Heal just results in having to wait longer between uses.
The equipment feature was well-done, and seemed like you put some thought into it. It was nice to be able to change the appearance of my avatar as well as most of his stats. However, making the drops a little more random would have been nice, especially if players had the option of revisiting early levels. I understand that you had to strike a balance between giving people loot and encouraging them to buy cool gear, but you could have done a better job. Purchasable gear needs to be slightly overpowered (which you did well) and unique in appearance (which you didn't do so well). If you had offered a wider selection of buyable gear and made it customizable or unique in appearance, I think you'd sell more. Then you could also accomodate players who would rather farm for treasure without cutting into your profits.
Overall, your game was above average, but the gameplay was too flawed and repetitive to keep me playing to the end. A good effort, but you could tweak some things and wind up with something great. Think about including character classes in a sequel, and actually creating a tree for the skills, rather than allowing everyone to accquire every spell.
i gotta admit..
it looks a lot like the diablo series.. but the magic and combo system is amazing! anyway nice job! plz make a part 2..
pretty damn good
It gets boring halfway through the campaign, I think it's because there isn't really much variety to the game, but regardless it is a very well made and entertaining flash.
Also I would love to see the addition of minions or the ability to raise undead soldiers.
One little physics problem I saw was that the gravity did not affect throwing axes. I'm not sure if this was intentional or not, but it may just be because I only leveled up that skill once.