Reviews for Reaching Finality

[RadCarrot]

It's a good game, well made with interesting environments, some pretty hard gameplay and some fun elements. The plot could have been better, but that's not really any problem for a flash game. It was enjoyable and the enemies were varied, even those damn bats.

But... it's ridiculous in its difficulty. You gave us no warning that saving inside the dungeon was pointless, so I wandered for half an hour, reached the boss, got spanked, and that was that. Half an hour wasted. I'm not playing through that again.

Consider resetting to the start of the level on death rather than the frankly absurd resetting of half the game, and also remember that as there is backtracking involved, try not to swamp the end points with enemies - a lot of the time, I re-entered the room to find myself covered in bats and those rock monsters, with damn little all I could do about it but watch as they removed all my hearts. Perhaps turn off the respawn, or create more safe areas around the doors.

I'd also like to see more weapon versatility, like some form of throwing weapon? But it was well made, just a little too infuriating to play through.

Kcori responds:

You're supposed to restart at the start of the dungeon, but you don't have to get all the keys or hearts again or unlock any doors. I don't know if you noticed that or not, because it makes re-reaching the boss a lot quicker.

[JustinDP]

I thought this game was really well done. It had a very "Zelda-esq" feel to it, which is nice. Though, in the constructive criticism department I might as well make the following suggestions:

1. The weapon swing can be a little slow when it comes to the spitting enemies, and it often results in them hitting you while you're running around attempting to line up a shot. Having him swing the fork like a baseball bat might fix that. Perhaps as an alternative attack rather than straight up replacing the stab motion.

2. Perhaps an ability to upgrade the fork later on? Near the end everything takes multiple hits, and with rooms full of enemies this can be a little on the tedious side. I mean you don't need to one shot kill everything obviously, but a hidden damage upgrade would be a good extra. Especially for a daredevil run.

I managed to find all but one of the hearts. No clue where to look for it. I thought it might be right outside of the shrine amongst the open section of the trees but I couldn't ever find a way past them. Ah well. Good effort, and it played fairly well (if not a tad bit on the difficult side. Though, I'd likely do better with a controller in my hand rather than keyboard controls for this kind of game).

[Dhall]

An absolutely astonishing take on the old Zelda type games. The score for the game is brilliant. You could have included more weapons and monsters. All in all. 4/5. Congrats!

[Decisional]

Very beautiful, although watch out for Ninetndo's lawyers on the whole Link to the past overworld-graphics-thingy. Would have liked a bit more variations in enemies, and also, to have you respawn at the very BEGINNING of the huge castle when being defeated by the boss is nothing short of cruel. Otherwise a very impressive submission.

Kcori responds:

These aren't Link to the Past graphics, so Nintendo would have to have some pretty good lawyers! As others have pointed out, they're closer to Earthbound or Pokemon, but still completely made from scratch by me and not intentionally mimicking anything else. They're also 8x8, as opposed to standard 16x16.

[amphitheres]

I may be giving higher praise than it deserves, but I had a fun time playing the game. everything up until the castle was basically tutorial. the castle was the most fun and difficult part of the game. the soundtrack felt perfect and the dungeons were fun.

I don't know why people are complaining about this game being too hard and frustrating.The enemies were all pretty easy except for the marshmallows. games need to have penalties in order to motivate you to not die, and this game is obviously emulating zelda. I died a few times too, but the game gives you plenty of chances to collect hearts, just be careful not to lose any. a frustrating game makes the finish so much more satisfying in my opinion.

my one complaint is that the soul you were protecting wasn't really present during the game up until the end. you didn't have a weird aura, or a ball of light hovering over your shoulder, you didn't get a special attack for the soul. I would at least have liked to have seen it once, even at the death screen or something.

in summary, it is a good short game worth playing through.