After being burnt out time and time again, I took a long absence from Newgrounds at a certain point, and decided that today is the day I'd come back and do another review. Whether I'm gonna remain here is undecided. So what does this have to do with the review? Well, Skeleton Gardens is the first game I've played since my return. And I'm happy to say that it's a not a terrible game. In fact, you can really get into it once you master the ridiculous placing of the controls.
Skeleton Gardens has no story. Instead, the entire game's concept revolves around death, killing people, death scythes, and planting random uhh.... "things" to help block and/or take out more people. The planting part is never truly understood, and neither will it, unless the creator decides to explain this in a post at a later date. But in this case, it doesn't have to make sense to earn phrase. You will more than likely be too busy trying to stay alive rather than ask questions. The animation are good, and it's a good time waster when you just wanna turn off your brain and get a high score. But this is where the positive feedback ends.
The rest of the game is fairly bare-boned. For some awkward reason, you can jump by pressing up (or W) on the keyboard despite serving no real purpose for the game itself. There are no sound effects to indicate when you are taking damage, which is a crucial element for any action or fighting game. In fact, Skeleton Gardens decides to scrap all sound effects entirely, and just relies on it's single slashing sound effect for the main character, and it's only looping song for players to listen too. It gives too many indications that this game wasn't made to be the best game possible. And when creators have no heart in their work, it becomes too difficult for gamers to take their work seriously. Skeleton Gardens feels unfinished. You play the same level over and over again, battle the same f***ing enemies over and again, use the same tactics over and over again of spamming plant walls until you die. Finally, I have to criticise Skeleton Garden's music for it's poor variety. For the record: I enjoyed this song. I thought this was an excellent track. However, others may not feel the same way. It cannot be ignored, especially since there is no way to turn the music off without turning off the speakers on your entire computer. An options menu toggling the sound effects and music is surely needed should the creator decide to update this game, and for any other games they decide to make.
It's hard to determine where the art-style should be place. The animations in this game are beautiful in an 8-bit like style. But when you look at the main character, they look like s***. If this was only supposed to make a passing mark then mission accomplished, because Skeleton Gardens gets a 5 out of 10. It is average in every sense of the world. Should those issues above be patched in, I have no doubt that it would have upgrade to a 6 out of 10. However, that doesn't change the way the game is now.
Skeleton Gardens simply has too much repetitiveness to be a perfect game.
Final Verdict: 5 out of 10
NG Rating: 2.5 Stars