All Good Excepting the Gameplay
I quite like the general style, dialogue, and voice acting. However, I find that the gameplay was very glitchy (even when unintentional.) The biggest flaw I see being that you can heal way over your maximum health limit, and that the clones seemed to warp when I killed them.
That said (as story is just as important to a game as gameplay is) I think fairly highly of this game; it is a rare flash that actually makes me chuckle so big points for such.
I worked very long on this, both animation, programing, vocal acting, and script. I thank you much for recognition of this.
That's not a flaw you used as you're example of glitches though. Healing way over the limit is totally fine, also - ya feel super powered when your own HP goes off the screen. It original was going to be an achievement (if I could program 'em) to get your HP bar to a size that it goes off the screen.
The glitchyness you speak of I know and loath and have gone to war against. I've slaughtered good amounts of errors, but it seems theirs always some more. I'll check 'em out and see if I can fix any more. I appreciate your understanding and cooperation in playing the game without letting any small annoyances get the better of its pleasurable experience.
Enjoyable Game
This is a fun game and it's really enjoyable to play. I thought as first this game was too easy. With a bit of caution, brains and good reflexes, it doesn't take an enormous effort to get through this game. But I did go over some of the thingies at the start of the game again and it seems the swinging axes and the lava pits send you back pretty quickly. So good work on producing a very solid package.
Some good things about this:
-The control scheme. Very intuitive. The gravity and jumping was not bad, but there were one or two spots where you could do a double jump off a bump in the wall and clear an enemy.
-Sounds: good music, good voice acting, good sound effects, nice humorous dialogue.
-The level design wasn't too repetitive and it has a very nice classic platformer feel.
Some stuff that could be improved:
-The graphics were usually quite good but there were one or two points (the forest? the buildings?) where the graphics seemed a bit unfitting: dodgy thick lines or unstraight shapes/platforms. But they didn't influence the game's enjoyability of course, it's just that there's always room for improvement.
I did however, like the graphics of all of the characters and the weapon effects.
-The villains: The villains might have been a bit too easy to evade/kill. A lot of them needed only one hit really to kill. This is of course your choice though how hard the in-level enemies are. It does seem fair though with lack of save points after a certain point.
The bosses could've been more challenging.
The panda (was it a panda) in the beginning could be outranged by standing a long way away.
The helicopter boss has a clear spot on the right of the scientology building where you were sure to be safe, and all you had to do once you reached that point was jump straight up and shoot.
There was nice variance in attacks, and I liked the tank boss, but the last two bosses had clear spots where you could just rest and certainly not be hit.
I did however, find, the thingy surrounded by six clones by itself a bit harder. But once again you just had to time in a couple of stabs/super-hand things and then go out of the way.
Maybe a laser that tracks you and makes you move around the screen could make it a bit better. Making the player do more when he can't attack (instead of just sitting) might make it a bit more challenging.
One more thing is that the text for the dialogue seemed to be a bit unfitting or just a bit amateur-ish. Maybe a cool MGS-like display or something could give it a nice touch or even an avatar of the guy talking to you, but that's just me again.
And I really, really liked this. It certainly has areas to improve, but it shows with effort, determination and good planning, you can make a really enjoyable game. I'd take this any day over some flashy graphics with uninteresting gameplay.
Also, I died at the helicopter the first time and then came back to the page five minutes later (I wanted to finish the game) and I didn't get to pick up from my last save point. For future games do you want to program in some cache-data-y thingy?
Very fun.
Great review - thanks a bunch.
A type of display for the begining lvl convos - MGS-like inspired would be neat.
I tried to keep the backgrounds of the lvls simple so it wouldn't get too big.
Huge sorry for any errors. The sloppy, dodgy, or dirty rugged lines or style of the art I do purposely. It' just my style and a good way to send a message that pretty ain't what we all think pretty is.
Thanks a lot again. I tried to make it solid - easy but challenging. I've fiddled with the difficulty of the final bosses an few times. I may fiddle more.
Very glad you enjoyed this game. And thanks for the final time for this wonderful review.