A footnote of a footnote. This title basically served as a contractual obligation and a testbed for some of the changes that would be applied to the second trilogy of Keen games. In totality it's pretty much more of the same from the first three.
This is such a weird entry in the Commander Keen franchise. Made in between the "Invasion of the Vorticons!" and "Goodbye, Galaxy!" trilogies as sort of a demo for some of the gameplay enhancements that would be found in the latter trilogy. While the graphics are vastly improved from Invasion of the Vorticons, the gameplay is tedious at best, with Keen using flower pellets to stun enemies rather than using his usual artillery. This game also comes with a weird message of "vegetables are evil," which I understand a kid having that viewpoint, but at no point in the story does it vilify Keen's position. In fact it justifies it, so it just comes off as awkward.
Not bad, but those vegetables sure are!
What a weird game! I like the idea of a platformer's campaign having the player journey a pretty open-ended game world and collecting special ammo in the game's levels that's used for the final boss encounter, but this game needed a better implementation. The bombs you collect are pretty scarce when you measure how many you need to finish the final boss and how many there are in the world.
The whole idea is weird, and I might mean that way more as a compliment than not. This dreamscape that occupies Keen's mind is a very sunshiney nightmare. It's colourful, but horrifying and nothing adds to the eeriness quite like the lack of music. Replaying this game today, I didn't put on anything on Foobar or put on a podcast to really bask in the game's unsettling atmosphere.
As for the game itself, a lot about dispatching enemies is bad. The flower power pellets you throw should have had a big collision box. I don't think the inherent temporal nature of turning enemies into thirsty flowers is appropriate for this kind of game where ammo is somewhat limited and while the length of time they are flower'd is decent on Easy mode, I think Hard shortens their stun time too much.
The level design is okay. The physics are improved compared to the first trilogy. Maybe a bit floaty but just a bit. It's still good platforming. Okay is the operative word here as this was a playground for new ideas in the Keen franchise and there are some strong improvements here even if they are not fully developed.
The whole idea is weird, and I might mean that way more as a compliment than not. This dreamscape that occupies Keen's mind is a very sunshiney nightmare. It's colourful, but horrifying and nothing adds to the eeriness quite like the lack of music. Replaying this game today, I didn't put on anything on Foobar or put on a podcast to really bask in the game's unsettling atmosphere.
As for the game itself, a lot about dispatching enemies is bad. The flower power pellets you throw should have had a big collision box. I don't think the inherent temporal nature of turning enemies into thirsty flowers is appropriate for this kind of game where ammo is somewhat limited and while the length of time they are flower'd is decent on Easy mode, I think Hard shortens their stun time too much.
The level design is okay. The physics are improved compared to the first trilogy. Maybe a bit floaty but just a bit. It's still good platforming. Okay is the operative word here as this was a playground for new ideas in the Keen franchise and there are some strong improvements here even if they are not fully developed.