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Two out of three ain't bad, at least. There is a gryphon, and a knight that rides it, but "epic"? ehhhn.
This was a nice little crunchy sidescrolling shmup, though the controls weren't nearly as tight as I would like for something leaning toward the Gradius style of gameplay. Thankfully, it was made up slightly by the RPGish progression of being able to buy healing items between stages, being able to soak a few hits (your dude's hitbox is uncomfortably large, even if the the griff itself is not part of your hitbox), and the occasional hidden upgrade squirreled away.
Story is about as much there as you'd expect out of an arcade shooter - three years ago, you and your sixmegaman bosses buddies slayed a dragon; everyone else looted ancient mystical weapons out of the hoard, leaving you with little more than a magical pendant and the crossbow you flew in with.
If you guessed "everything present is violently cursed", congratulations, you've played D&D. The pendant ends up making an evil clone of your character to play as Obvious Endboss, and the weapons all just turn your buddies evil straight up. You can cure them with the pendant, which apparently "removes peoples' evil sides". Then, they give you that weapon, which you can use without trouble because your evil side is already rampaging around the countryside.
These weapons range from "absurdly useful" (a spread-shot type bow and a homing slingshot) to "situational" (a lance that lets you bullcharge forward with a hefty dose of damage and invincibility) to "your default shot is more useful" (fireworks and a magical staff that has to be fired and activated Unreal Tournament style). Your default weapon gets the ability to charge like a megabuster, but I learned about halfway through it's not at all worth it.
As far as flaws go, the controls were definitely getting to me by the end; it plays like the Gundemonium games where you have a designated button to turn around from facing right to facing left, and a lot of times stages zigzag as of such. However, there's just too damn many buttons to focus on in the heat of the moment - your equipped weapon, your autofire crossbow, healing/buff potions, the buttons to cycle through your weapons, the flip-that-gryphon button... More than once I died to getting the controls confused. On top of that, everything kind of plods on, since turning around tells the camera "oh I want to go back" when you're in horizontal-scrolling sections, which... well. Swinging back and forth as you try to kill enemies only complicates matters worse.
All in all, not that bad of a game. If the concept of "Gradius Meets Megaman" appeals to you and you could see yourself replaying it to get high scores or clear the hardest difficulty of every stage? It's totally worth seven bucks. If you just want a game to clear and consume, it's.... I dunno. I'm less impressed and would give it an "only if it's on sale" pass.
Decent spritework, tho. Love me some good spritework.
This was a nice little crunchy sidescrolling shmup, though the controls weren't nearly as tight as I would like for something leaning toward the Gradius style of gameplay. Thankfully, it was made up slightly by the RPGish progression of being able to buy healing items between stages, being able to soak a few hits (your dude's hitbox is uncomfortably large, even if the the griff itself is not part of your hitbox), and the occasional hidden upgrade squirreled away.
Story is about as much there as you'd expect out of an arcade shooter - three years ago, you and your six
If you guessed "everything present is violently cursed", congratulations, you've played D&D. The pendant ends up making an evil clone of your character to play as Obvious Endboss, and the weapons all just turn your buddies evil straight up. You can cure them with the pendant, which apparently "removes peoples' evil sides". Then, they give you that weapon, which you can use without trouble because your evil side is already rampaging around the countryside.
These weapons range from "absurdly useful" (a spread-shot type bow and a homing slingshot) to "situational" (a lance that lets you bullcharge forward with a hefty dose of damage and invincibility) to "your default shot is more useful" (fireworks and a magical staff that has to be fired and activated Unreal Tournament style). Your default weapon gets the ability to charge like a megabuster, but I learned about halfway through it's not at all worth it.
As far as flaws go, the controls were definitely getting to me by the end; it plays like the Gundemonium games where you have a designated button to turn around from facing right to facing left, and a lot of times stages zigzag as of such. However, there's just too damn many buttons to focus on in the heat of the moment - your equipped weapon, your autofire crossbow, healing/buff potions, the buttons to cycle through your weapons, the flip-that-gryphon button... More than once I died to getting the controls confused. On top of that, everything kind of plods on, since turning around tells the camera "oh I want to go back" when you're in horizontal-scrolling sections, which... well. Swinging back and forth as you try to kill enemies only complicates matters worse.
All in all, not that bad of a game. If the concept of "Gradius Meets Megaman" appeals to you and you could see yourself replaying it to get high scores or clear the hardest difficulty of every stage? It's totally worth seven bucks. If you just want a game to clear and consume, it's.... I dunno. I'm less impressed and would give it an "only if it's on sale" pass.
Decent spritework, tho. Love me some good spritework.
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