Reviews for DN8:Pulse

[MehNameless]

Very fun and visually pleasing game! The gameplay was just shy of being repetitive, which in my opinion is the best half-way point between frustration and boredom. The endless barrage of sweet sweet eye candy isn't a minus either, and the game was just challenging enough to be addicting.

A couple things, however, took away from the game a bit.

For one thing, throughout my entire first playthrough, I was clicking between the perk and "talent tree" menus, wondering, "where the hell is this challenges page and why do I keep getting random ones??". It was only after I beat the game that I saw the page on the MAIN menu. So, if you could please, add the challenges menu into the in-between-battles screen.

Also, the "talent tree" is... not unbalanced, per say, but perhaps... unduly strict. It was after I chose the Double Shot for the first branch that realized there was absolutely no going back, even for talents just one back, which made my life incredibly miserable because without shields I always get pummeled into space dust no more than 2 or 3 minutes into each fight, so I had to start over. That said, maybe you could institute a more lenient system of choosing talents? Maybe a system of buying them instead of strictly PICK THIS OR THE OTHER, NO TAKEBACKS. Or at least add a warning saying that <-----

Overall, a really well-done shoot-em-up space top-shooter, nothing INCREDIBLY innovating but fun nevertheless. Good work.

Squize responds:

Great review, thanks.

That's a good point about the challenges screen, something we'll factor into future games.

[PelucheTouteDouce]

Woaw great !
A very cool soft with a smart "Grazing System" who's greatly increases the quality of play.
The weapons upgrade system is pretty well thought out, especially being able to choose between an offensive or defensive gameplay.
But there are some negatives :
_ The difficulty is too easy on most of the game, you must wait for the last 4-5 levels for a challenge.
_ The perks are pretty useless (except 2x XP and 2x GRAZE to reach faster the RANK 50)
_ The patterns of bosses are too repetitive, and the bosses themselves are too repetitive
_ The drones are... more boring than anything else : especially for grazing

Finally, there is music that I do not like but it is only my opinion, most of it sticks well to the game so why not...
Basically: good game with that opportunity!
Congratulations, I will look forward your future games!

(Pardon my english I'm French !)

Squize responds:

Thanks for the review mate, and your English is great :)

[SlayerX3]

Funny and a bit challenging with a decent sound track.

But for the eventual touhou player this was really easy the patters could be improved a little and the drone's bounce back made passing though the bullets even easier.

[OneOther]

It's nice that you made a sequel... but it's more a graphical upgrade than anything else...

For starting, the perks... some are useless, and some usefull... but maybe not as perks but as evolutions of the ship.
- 5 lives: certainly useless, or if the player isn't good but he will go into the defensive way for finishing the game. When you know how to graze, it become useless.
- Double XP: Good perk, but maybe for later in the ranks, when it become harder to level up in rank. I've been fast rank 20 in 1 complete run.
- Double graze: Well, useless (or usefull) if you know how to graze, usefull (or useless) when it's hard. (depends of the player...)
- Double shield: Useless if you don't take the shield...
- Rear diagonal & Homing missiles: Shouldn't be perks... maybe they should be in the evolutions.

Then come the evolving tree... nothing new to the first DN8. And that's a bad point for people like me who played the first one and maybe wanted something new:
- There's, again, the Super Redrum... why don't we got other ultimate depending of the tree line? Like a "Slow-mo mode", "Triple Fire", "Atomic Explosion" or anything else...
- Maybe another treeline like "Utilitary", giving defensive & offensive power at the same time, and there goes the Homing Missile and Rear diagonal, where we can adds Tail Drones firing lasers front/side/back, Pulsating shield that send back bullets for 1.5 second when touched but less charge that the original shield (2 maximum)... only exemples, but it's certainly possible to have more evolutions
- Offensive tree can be defensive and defensive can be really offensive... I'm speaking about the defensive drones and the side/rear drones. Maybe the defensive drones should be in the defensive tree (letting the player having a ship really hard to touch) and the side/rear drones in the offensive tree (more bullets fired -> more destruction).

The challenges... has more challenges, but they're a lot faster to fill compared to the first DN8. The only one not filled yet when tipping this message is the "Combo King" challenge. (but I gonna have it fast too...)

The levels, at the start, are nearly like the first DN8... maybe have an all new serie of levels? (or randomly generated levels... it can be great and make every new game unique)

Well... I think that's al I have in mind. Maybe a next game with all this could be really nice. (it can be risky if the players prefer having the same old tech-tree...)

Also add an "old-school" option... for having the same graphism of the first one. It would be nice. ^^ (Not that I hate the new graphism... but I prefered the old ones...)

Squize responds:

Excellent review, thank you.

Yep, being perfectly honest it was a way to learn the new 3D tech in Flash rather than a full blown sequel. We had no clue what the outcome would be regards compatibility etc. ( Turns out 80% or so of players can actually play it properly ), and we really couldn't afford spending too much time on a game using brand new tech with no knowledge how it would be received.

As it turns out, it was difficult to sell and it's not spread well, so I think it took about 8 weeks to do and that's with re-using a lot from DN8 ( Very little code, but things like the level tree / power-ups etc. ) so I think we took the right decision. If we'd have done a full blown DN8 II and it went like it has then I'd have lost even more money on the game.

So yeah, we were a "Little" bit cheeky with this one as we had to balance out the risk of using stage3D, and I'm glad we did to be honest.
Maybe next year when stage3D games are more common and if we've got enough ideas we could do a proper sequel, but there's nothing planned right now.

Thanks again for the review.

[pronoyrulz]

Awesome game..... Thank you....

Squize responds:

Thank you mate for taking the time to play it and comment. Glad you enjoyed it.