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Before you ask: Yes, I am running through a chunk of short games to round myself off. As much as I know it's not necessary, I want to finish this before the new year, because I have ideas and thoughts and I want to complete this instead of trying to juggle two "full year" things at once.
That said: I'm glad I picked this to gun through, and will absolutely be coming back to it.
When I was playing through it, I was very definitely getting a pretty solid Harmoknight vibe out of it - the goals are simple. Dodge rocks (and debris, and things that might want to eat you), collect bubbles and sparkles. Smack round cymbal-like objects and bamboo poles with your tail. It's fairly forgiving for a rhythm action game (You can take something like five or six hits in most cases - more on that "most" later - and health pickups are pretty frequent) which is probably a good thing since the entire game gets very very clogged, very very fast. It's a completionist's nightmare, but what rhythm game isn't?
That said, the game is not without its faults, and most of the faults in this game are vore. (Yes, I said it. No, I'm not taking it back.) That is to say, your tadpole isn't alone in the world and a whole lot of things want to eat it, particularly in later stages.
Being eaten is generally fatal.
And these songs can go from 3 to 4 minutes, with the lethal nomming coming halfway through, or in one stage's case, at the literal end of the song if you didn't do good enough. Thankfully it's not as frequent as I make it sound, but it's still a few fractions of a point docked. A few more get docked for the controls being not quite as precise as I would've liked - more often than not I'd find myself overcompensating trying to get something and eating a hit.
It's still one of my favorite games from this 52.
Part of this is very likely due to the soundtrack. Music is the most important part of any rhythm game, and it can make or break a game. In this case, it very, very much made it. (Click that link; it's one of the later stages, but it's also one of the best songs in the game, if not the best.) It's also very aesthetically cohesive and maybe I'm a bit charmed by the art style. (There's a reason for that, too - turns out the game was headed by the guy who did Brawl in the Family, way back when.)
It's a generally short game - again, I'm trying to tackle the nibbles as opposed to going for the big fish - but it's a rhythm game, and those are meant to be revisited. I'm revisiting this, rest assured. ♥
That said: I'm glad I picked this to gun through, and will absolutely be coming back to it.
When I was playing through it, I was very definitely getting a pretty solid Harmoknight vibe out of it - the goals are simple. Dodge rocks (and debris, and things that might want to eat you), collect bubbles and sparkles. Smack round cymbal-like objects and bamboo poles with your tail. It's fairly forgiving for a rhythm action game (You can take something like five or six hits in most cases - more on that "most" later - and health pickups are pretty frequent) which is probably a good thing since the entire game gets very very clogged, very very fast. It's a completionist's nightmare, but what rhythm game isn't?
That said, the game is not without its faults, and most of the faults in this game are vore. (Yes, I said it. No, I'm not taking it back.) That is to say, your tadpole isn't alone in the world and a whole lot of things want to eat it, particularly in later stages.
Being eaten is generally fatal.
And these songs can go from 3 to 4 minutes, with the lethal nomming coming halfway through, or in one stage's case, at the literal end of the song if you didn't do good enough. Thankfully it's not as frequent as I make it sound, but it's still a few fractions of a point docked. A few more get docked for the controls being not quite as precise as I would've liked - more often than not I'd find myself overcompensating trying to get something and eating a hit.
It's still one of my favorite games from this 52.
Part of this is very likely due to the soundtrack. Music is the most important part of any rhythm game, and it can make or break a game. In this case, it very, very much made it. (Click that link; it's one of the later stages, but it's also one of the best songs in the game, if not the best.) It's also very aesthetically cohesive and maybe I'm a bit charmed by the art style. (There's a reason for that, too - turns out the game was headed by the guy who did Brawl in the Family, way back when.)
It's a generally short game - again, I'm trying to tackle the nibbles as opposed to going for the big fish - but it's a rhythm game, and those are meant to be revisited. I'm revisiting this, rest assured. ♥
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Unfortunately, as you probably already know, people
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(the game, not your $5)
(also not people)
(people already get to me)
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Heard any news from the other provinces?
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HI PAST SWORD, FUTURE WOODRAT HAS COME FROM THE FUTURE WITH A WARNING:
The frequent health pickups are there for F-rank challenges. Going for F turns the entire game into this weird alternate reality of having to strategically injure yourself every time your streak starts to climb, but at the same time manage your health because it turns out your streak naturally climbs kind of a lot and you need to eat like every fifth or tenth rock to keep it under control. All this while avoiding all the collectables (except health, also oh my God this is why health pickups aren't worth points) and swattables, naturally. It's kind of like a no-jumps Challenge Fly run of Saltwater Cape.
I'm actually really impressed how this game can make every stage, with the same single layout, feel like four or five entirely different games solely depending on what your goal is going in. (Another example: Ever wonder about these oddly-placed gated walls of health in Snowfall Lake? The Challenge Fly for that level involves getting through without eating any food.)