I like everything except for the control scheme.
Reviews for "Asslevania: SOTB"
deathink responds:
I use a game pad for it myself :)
An interesting game that leaves the player screaming "I DAMN THEE ARTIFICIAL DIFFICULTY!". Obviously a huge throwback to castlevania in many ways and, while not near as hard, still presents a large number of talking points that could be called unjustifiably outdated or intentionally rigged to screw the player over as frequently as possible, which I might have favored a whip delay or something in exchange for these:
-Rooms you occasionally enter instantaneously in harm's way. One room you literally enter falling into a crusher and it sucker-punches you almost every time for some health.
-Crushers + ghosts. I'm almost 100% sure this was done very intentionally to attempt to infinite combo the player into death regardless of level or health standing, unless you miraculously pull it off without getting caught into it. Crushers or spikes make the player turn backwards for a brief instant, giving the ghosts a free card to approach. Many of the spinning spikes do not present opportunities to repel the ghosts, but rather hopefully just get through it so you don't have the ghost ANYWHERE in the spike region and of course, don't get hit afterwards. If the ghost is anywhere within the field of spikes (which appear in groups almost always for mini-marathons of this) and you cross the point where the ghost is "dormant" the ghost will live inside your ass and waste 0 time violating said ass into a pulp, often leaving the player paralyzed in a state of irrevocable ass-kicking.
-I re-iterate this. Ghosts that are, at any point, unable to be repelled and must have their exact region crossed over, almost always guaranteed to result in death.
-Green ghosts proving to be outrageously hard to contend with, with almost every room they appear in sporting the idea "don't get hit or you're dead regardless". Though, this could easily be the motto for any room with multiple obstacles with any chance of coming into close proximity, since the paralytic hit period guarantees you can keep getting sucker punched over and over again until your death.
-Many rooms you can't really work out a solid strategy that seems to guarantee or even moderately increase your odds of coming out alive, regardless of health level. Some just throw so much crap at you in such rapid, brutal succession that you have to perform them perfectly in a manner that often doesn't seem clear in timing or even often method to the player. Many rooms I would best in one attempt by shear luck, try to repeat what I'd done in said lucky streak later, and consequently get pulverized because even after having done it a few times, I still had no fucking idea how I'd done so.
Other than that, there were lots of humorous bits, psyche outs, and lots of little details that simply bled retro, including many of my areas of disappointment. My only regret is that the only remotely modern mechanic present was the "level" system, which seemed pretty ill-explained, poorly tracked in progress, and generally had a humongous tendency to not make a half-shit's difference unless what was hurting you was a single, lone obstacle or opponent.
This IS a good game, despite the negative aura around my review. It's a fun tribute and representation of Castlevania, but simply seems contradictory, counterproductive, or mildly uncreative at some points due to the over-abundance of similarities present.
I'm sure many others find this to be a real masterpiece.
8/10, 4/5 ~WCCC
deathink responds:
Thanks for the review man. I grew up in the 80's, when developers still had the "drain all kids of there quarters" mentality. I love brutally hard games, and if you were a fan of castlevania, you loved it for 2 reasons. It had monsters, and it kicked your ass. I Made this game for myself and other hardcore games out there (like Mick).
I don't know what was going on but sometimes it was slow and sometimes it was fast? Either way, wish I had another heart or two lol maybe I should be sober when playing this. I couldn't get past the third room with the flying bitch heads lululul OH! and maybe some subtitles? Mah speakers arg broke!
Pretty good, I mean, I gave it four stars because castlevania was pretty boring for me, but you definitely put the main points, (especially the jump and swing one) and was pretty funny.
Awesome.
4 out of 5 stars for me. I rate games based on their own Merit though, so I'll just say right now this is better than 95 percent of the other games on this site. I liked the music, found the cupcake difficulty very castlevania-esque, and thought the humor was great.
Right now I say it's a good game, not a great one, because it's a bit too short and there's a few "dick moves" that get pulled on you. More on that below. Though if a later version or something opens up those doors or does something with that empty tower that would be the way to go. I would like to see a castle warp system instead of the checkpoints, and some mini-bosses to really fill out the game.
It is good. I found the difficulty a little irritating at first, but once I adapted it was fine. Honestly, with the way the candles gave out stars I thought it was a little easy other than the part with the green ghosts. I beat the final boss, but I'll be honest, I don't know what I did. First time around I couldn't seem to hurt it, and second time around I just survived until I got a free kill or something. It was funny though.
I'm not sure what problems other people are having with the controls, they seemed fine to me. I liked the music, and the comedy. I think for the length of the game the comedy was about right. If it was longer I'd like a bit more to break up some of the traveling.
As for the part I referred to up above as "dick moves", there were three really. Two were in the same hallway were if you moved forward as you entered from either end you fell into a blade. I fell into a blade before I even knew what was happening the first time, and it was a bit tricky to avoid from then on. The other one was that first green ghost, since he spawns very close and meant I was guaranteed to lose some life to cross. On the one hand, it felt a bit old school that way, but on the other hand, it wasn't any fun to have happen.
The music was very fitting and I liked it. I had no complaints about the music or sound effects, which is more than I can say for some Castlevania games actually.
Overall, this is a very well made game and it's obvious you put a lot of hard work into it, and that deserves to be recognized. I'll be looking forward to your next one.
Thanks.