This is a pretty good game, not without it's flaws, but regardless, a good game. The story, you're a red devil cat... thing, cause why not? And you must destroy these orbs of evil and defeat the lizard that lays within the dungeon, why a lizard you my ask, because why not? To help you along your quest you gather loot and powerups to make it easier to vanquish your foes. Story is not put together all that well but who cares because it's the game and the loot we care for. The visuals are extremely well done. The animation is very smooth and the game is overall pleasing to look at, not exactly NES or even SNES graphics, still very good. If you want a good example of 8-bit graphics check out Sinclarin's work. The music isn't bad or good, but I'd rather listen to something like a megaman soundtrack. Controlling the protagonist feels a bit stiff, but once you start falling you just plummet like a cannonball shot from a cannon in space, with an added fall damage, this I could do without. Because of the gravity I've fallen onto enemies and into acid pits causing unnecessary stress and cracks on your computer screen from punching it so hard, luckily this gets fixed as soon as you get the glide powerup, but tedious to spam it just to make sure I don't fall on anything that will kill me. The gameplay itself is basic, kill things, destroy orbs, get loot, kick bosses butt. At first you seem like a helpless thing that can only jump and do measly damage with a scratch attack, which needs to cool down constantly, and a small ranged attack, similar to how Link in the first couple of Zelda games can shoot things at full health, once you get hit, ya lose it. The worst part is you're expected to beat a huge boss in the boss room with a boss added every few levels which changes between four different ones, a guy with a sword, a guy who can shoot magic blsats, a guy with a freaking laser beam like Cyclops from X Men, and a guy with a turban that spawns jumping enemies everywhere onto you and teleports wherever he wants even if that means in the exact spot that you're at! This helplessness eventually goes away as you play along and gain powerups you start to feel more powerful, but the turban guy is still so freaking cheap! You get to jump higher, climb stuff, spam your attack like ya ain't going to live tomorrow, and break stuff like the hulk. You bet more and more powerful, driving you to see how much more powerful you can get, however, eventually you gain all the powerups, killing the same enemies gets boring, you can spam attack without worrying about cooldown, you got the most powerful armor, and you can 1-hit the orbs. This causes the player to just want to go strait to the boss after reloading and hunting for the flight powerup which goes away once you get hit once. Overall the game is good to goof around with. It's difficulty is not exactly a legitimate one, it's created by the bosses, especially the turban one, he just makes me so mad! Dropping enemies right on top of you and teleporting, guess where, right on top of you! The visuals are very well done, I really like them, but everything else is just, okay. A very good effort, to make this better, you could have added some more enemies and some with unique attacks. Also lightening up on the gravity to make a fair falling speed would improve the game a lot and just remove the fall damage. Falling from the place you wanted to be is bad enough, the player does not need salt in the wound. Also I would have made some weapons to add to your attack and some gears that have effects, like shooting fireballs or poisoning. Just a larger variety of powerups, weapons, and enemies could make someone want to play this game a bit longer and create an actually fair difficulty would have improved this game a lot.
Reviews for "Labyrinth: SoS"
Thx for the detailed wall of text! (I did read it all!)
I really like this game brings me back to the old days when games were tough.
The only thing I really don't like is the overheating thing, but that's preference so I wont dock any points for that. The only problems I ran into were the occasional impossible chest and once or twice I got stuck in a position I simply couldn't get out of without double jump or wall climb (which I didn't have at the time) so half a star for that.
Still though this is the best game i've seen on newgrounds for at least three years maybe more.
Wow, best in 3 years... that's a big compliment! :-D
Perfect, awesome, breathtaking etc.
<3 <3
Well I was impressed and at the same time a bit let down because this game has so much good things but at the same time, not so good. I enjoyed and at the same time did not enjoy the game.
So lets get going with the review, the points I usually take when I review a game, this time its a retro style game:
-Story.
-Game Mechanics.
-Battle Mechanics.
-Music and Sound Effects.
-Game Features.
-Graphics.
-Normal or Broken. (Final Score)
-Story = 8
The story is well simple and not very interesting, still it makes you understand why is the main character (The hybrid cat dragon?) has to destroy the dark orbs to save the day from the darkness.
-Game Mechanics = 10 [Reinforced with Game Features]
The mechanics in the game where well placed and well executed, never had problems with it, making this game easy get used to.
But the game itself it's very easy. The use of randomized dungeons was great and with the features it had, was good thought making the game tones easy and lose its strength.
-Battle Mechanics = 6 [Score affected by Game Features]
The battles in the game where often very boring and the combat was extremely repetitive, when we talk about the boss fights are kind of generic and almost no difference between each other, thought this are maybe... the parts that saved this game to fall apart hard (Still a great weakness in the game overall). Plus the game features sure hurt the game in this aspect because it totally breaks the balance (Going to explain in Game Features).
A side of that, the power bar was well implemented to prevent spamming full health ranged attacks + with the implementation of "No ranged until full hp" prevents a hyper easy mode and makes you look for slices of cake or the big cake to heal and recover.
-Music and Sound Effects = 9
Very well done, the retro music was very good and as the sounds in the game where well sync and placed.
-Game Features... = 3 [Reinforced by Game Mechanics]
The most important aspect of a game is what it can offer you during your progress in it as well as what can you control sure the audio and pause features where well placed and function properly, but the aspect that makes this game interesting are the power ups, witch completely destroy the game in battle but in the other side we have a good influence in the game mechanics.
In battle = Makes killing anything easy including the bosses, makes you almost unkillable (Acid can one-hit kill you).
Not in battle = Fast, easy exploration, fun time and fast monster clears (thought it does not mean it makes this game better)
-Graphics = 10
The graphics where very well made and the retro style can be seen from afar. Good job.
-Normal or Broken:
This game can be played in to ways: playing it normally or breaking the whole game thanks to power ups. I played the 2 of them and here is how I visualize the final scores.
Playing Normal (This involves not over using power ups like crazy and doing all by the book) = 3.7
Playing Broken (As the name suggests) = 1.5
Still i cant stop complaining and wondering a bit:
-Why no more kinds of mobs?
-Why no more variety of bosses?
-Why not harder levels?
-Why is this 2 easy!?!?!?
So my suggestions are the next ones:
1. More enemies!!!
2. Harder levels (works with randomized levels better)
3. More boss types (Lizards? No thanks)
That is all from my part, I know this is maybe not your best game, but it has potential to a point I still have hope that if you guys do a sequel, it will be amazingly over the top. I wish you guys the best of luck and I hope you come with something amazing next time.
Thanks for the detailed review!
I think this was one of the best games I've ever played on this site, I do have one complaint however. I got to a higher level, with lots of the upgrades, then I fell into an acid puddle and died instantly. In my opinion it would be much nice if the acid didn't instantly kill you, at least if you had the good armor.
Acid is a bummer!