You know what the mark of a great game is? When you beat the final boss and there's an enemy roll call. Regular guy? Regular guy but with a hat on? Guy you didn't even fight? All present and accounted for.
And let it be known that Mabel Syrup is not to be fucked with. That witch will rip her eye out and send it to kill you without a second thought.
That's the plot, not that it matters much. Wizard sends a knight to rob the witch, witch gives them what's coming. Why an eyeball? Because it's gesture controls. Mouse or analogs, or finger if you're on your phone. Swipe to move, tap to stop. And it works! Quite well, in fact, all while avoiding the (potential) pitfall of requiring ever-escalating precision.
Instead the game just absolutely never stops throwing new enemies at you. I think there was a fresh face for every single level in the final zone, perhaps each of the penultimate as well, and plenty of one-off enemies besides. Tons of minibosses and arena challenges, because why not? And everything requires a different approach, different swipes, different timing.There's collectibles too, which the game will cheerfully taunt you over if you reach the end without all of them. It's fun, engaging, super easy to get drawn into the loop of seeing what the next level wants to do and where it's hiding the blue gem.
So it does this, and does it well, and then brings in the finisher that is its just incredibly charming art and music. Big, chunky GBA-style graphics, vivid colors, bouncy animations, shockingly great music. Everything is so expressive, enemies are easily readable, sights and sounds their own reward as you advance. Top notch.
I do wish the analogs would indicate the direction you were moving them in. I also wish the mouse, which I switched to, was captured by the window because the number of times I hit my second screen in a boss fight was infuriating. Some sort of indicator of which collectable you missed in a level (think the natural order of the KONG letters in Donkey Kong Country or Celeste's blank strawberries) is sorely lacking as well. Small qualms, though, and nothing that really marred the fun I had.
And let it be known that Mabel Syrup is not to be fucked with. That witch will rip her eye out and send it to kill you without a second thought.
That's the plot, not that it matters much. Wizard sends a knight to rob the witch, witch gives them what's coming. Why an eyeball? Because it's gesture controls. Mouse or analogs, or finger if you're on your phone. Swipe to move, tap to stop. And it works! Quite well, in fact, all while avoiding the (potential) pitfall of requiring ever-escalating precision.
Instead the game just absolutely never stops throwing new enemies at you. I think there was a fresh face for every single level in the final zone, perhaps each of the penultimate as well, and plenty of one-off enemies besides. Tons of minibosses and arena challenges, because why not? And everything requires a different approach, different swipes, different timing.There's collectibles too, which the game will cheerfully taunt you over if you reach the end without all of them. It's fun, engaging, super easy to get drawn into the loop of seeing what the next level wants to do and where it's hiding the blue gem.
So it does this, and does it well, and then brings in the finisher that is its just incredibly charming art and music. Big, chunky GBA-style graphics, vivid colors, bouncy animations, shockingly great music. Everything is so expressive, enemies are easily readable, sights and sounds their own reward as you advance. Top notch.
I do wish the analogs would indicate the direction you were moving them in. I also wish the mouse, which I switched to, was captured by the window because the number of times I hit my second screen in a boss fight was infuriating. Some sort of indicator of which collectable you missed in a level (think the natural order of the KONG letters in Donkey Kong Country or Celeste's blank strawberries) is sorely lacking as well. Small qualms, though, and nothing that really marred the fun I had.
The game mechanics are quite interesting, and the game itself is quite fast, but still, I felt a lack of dynamism.
Not knowing what the collectibles are for was something that negatively impacted me.
If you don't collect everything in the levels, most of them are easily skippable because you can ignore almost all enemies and just go straight ahead. This is a point that impacted me a lot since I didn't know what the collectibles were for. Since there wasn't a clear reason, I wasn't motivated to pick them up, so I just went through the levels ignoring everything, and it ended up being very monotonous most of the time.
Among the three other alternative game modes, only one is unlocked after completing the game on the only difficulty available initially. This would make me play more if the game on normal difficulty had captivated me.
Even though they still showed that there would be a story part in the unlocked difficulty level, I personally didn't feel like continuing because I wasn't shown a reward equal to the effort, just like with the collectibles.
The bosses are fun, with interesting mechanics and well-balanced.
The graphics, sound effects, and stories are good; I didn't encounter any bugs or problems of any kind. The achievements also didn't motivate me to keep playing. Overall, it's a nice and well-made game, quite short, and has its charm despite some flaws.
Not knowing what the collectibles are for was something that negatively impacted me.
If you don't collect everything in the levels, most of them are easily skippable because you can ignore almost all enemies and just go straight ahead. This is a point that impacted me a lot since I didn't know what the collectibles were for. Since there wasn't a clear reason, I wasn't motivated to pick them up, so I just went through the levels ignoring everything, and it ended up being very monotonous most of the time.
Among the three other alternative game modes, only one is unlocked after completing the game on the only difficulty available initially. This would make me play more if the game on normal difficulty had captivated me.
Even though they still showed that there would be a story part in the unlocked difficulty level, I personally didn't feel like continuing because I wasn't shown a reward equal to the effort, just like with the collectibles.
The bosses are fun, with interesting mechanics and well-balanced.
The graphics, sound effects, and stories are good; I didn't encounter any bugs or problems of any kind. The achievements also didn't motivate me to keep playing. Overall, it's a nice and well-made game, quite short, and has its charm despite some flaws.