It took some elbow grease to make it through the single small nest, but after beating it, I don't feel especially inclined to continue playing. Even if there are more enemy types I haven't encountered yet, pushing through the early game (as I'll explain later) doesn't feel like a fun enough task to justify being a completionist here.

I see why this is one of the classics. The gameplay is simple, the slow-but-powerful swing attack is easy to grasp, satisfying, and requires strategy, and despite enemies having almost no AI, a lot of strategy emerges from deciding if and when to engage different enemies.

The biggest weakness in my opinion is that you spend too much time in early game, and for a game as punishing/difficult as this, it can dampen the game experience quite a bit. You spend a LOT of time pushing through the first 50 or so enemies repeatedly, especially because being killed by charging enemies with almost no warning (due to them being off-screen) happens easily and often. I get that area denial and controlling the center of the map is a central part of the gameplay, but you don't need instant death to hammer this point into the player's head, and doing that ultimately produces a frustrating experience where players suffer a cheap death, which makes them want to speed through the easy part of the game to reach the end, only to recklessly die again. If you could restart smaller sections of the game in which you could begin with the spawn rates of late game, it would have made this game much more satisfying as the player would be confronted with challenging content all the time, rather than constantly dying and having to repeat boring sections.

The bells and whistles on this game (different modes, powerups, bestiary, etc.) are all nice additions and add a sense of professionalism to the final product, but I don't think these change a whole lot. For the most part, the good parts of the gameplay (strategic depth) are present in every mode, and that's the important part. The issue is that the weaknesses (redundant early game) also affect the entire experience.

one of my favorite games on newgrounds so far. it's kind of amusing to watch a little guy with a sword twice his size murdering hordes of slimes and sometimes getting himself killed. simple yet super addictive and theres always things to do or try to unlock.

Many things need to be fixed in this game but considering the age it probably won't ever happen. First off the janky ass hitboxes are incredibly misleading and leads to many undeserved deaths. This goes for the enemies as well as the damn sword you use through 100% of the damn game (barring if you end up getting the razor glaive). Majority of the "rewards" are complete hogwash with a few actually being useful so unless you want to be ripped off look up what each reward is and choose accordingly to usefulness. Lastly a few enemies are downright unfair such as the torchie whose explosion is almost unavoidable considering his speed and the explosions range. If the game was fine tuned a little more this could easily be a 5 star classic but alas I don't see that happening.

Sometimes it is impossible to survive as you can't move, even by a hair!

This game literally was my childhood.
hint: Combo gear to make it look different, try the Hazmat suit and the Armor :)