Trick or Treat

Introduction

I wish I could say that I was bringing a new perspective to this largely forgotten game, but my opinion largely mirrors that of TungerManU when it comes to this game's biggest flaw. So much so, that I almost feel like this review is pointless, but I figured it might help drag this game out of obscurity for a little bit. And, I'm still looking for short games to review in order to continue my push through the rankings. At any rate, I suppose I should dig into why Kazesui's "Trick or Treat" is a bad game.

Gameplay

I really don't get why this game is listed as a puzzle game. After all, you don't need to solve any word puzzles, push boulders onto buttons, or carefully eliminate blocks in a specific order. Though, if I had to guess why this game has been categorized that way. It's because Kazesui didn't include any instructions for this game. As such, it's up to the player to figure out what the various snacks and health food do in this game. After all, it's only through trial & error that you'll learn that the carrot doesn't reduce your score, but it does reduce your time.



As for the game's pacing. Well, it starts of painfully slow. In fact, it takes around ten seconds for the first snacks to reach the player at the start of a level. On the other hand, the game eventually reaches a point where the items are falling on the screen so fast that it becomes impossible for the player to keep up.



Though what really hampers "Trick or Treat" is the game's random nature. After all, you may get lucky and get hit with a lot of ice creams and cookies early on or you may only see a ton of cheap candy coming your way. In fact, the over abundance of cheap candy reminds me of my habit of handing out fistfuls of hard candies that cost a bit over a penny apiece on Halloween. Though the main problem with this random aspect of the game is that you need to earn a certain amount of points on every stage in order to advance. And because the drops are entirely random, you may have a hard if not impossible time to earn enough points in order to unlock the next level. An issue that caused me to stop on Stage 2 after failing to pass it five times.

Music & Sound Effects

To start on a more positive note, the game does appear to utilize some rather solid background tracks and even ramps up the tempo as the game picks up speed. Which is definitely a nice touch. On the other hand, the game utilizes the same sound effect for capturing both positive and negative items. And, I'll be honest, I find the decision to do that extremely baffling. After all, there isn't any good reason I can think of for not having a sound effect associated with negative items. Though, I may be overestimating the capabilities of RPG Maker 2003 here.

Bugs

Sadly, I don't have any footage of this first bug since I wasn't recording at the time I spotted it. And, I'm not patient enough to play through the game again in order to capture it, but sometimes you'll have items drop from the top in the exact same spot as well as at the same rate. As you can imagine, this results in items overlapping each other. Which can be really frustrating when one of the items is a treat, but the other item is a healthy snack.



The second bug you'll run across and probably the more notable of the two is that sometimes you'll see a treat randomly shift into another treat. To make matters worse, this changed treat will also slow it's rate of fall considerably. So slow in fact, that the treat will sometimes hang dead in the air for a few split seconds before it continues it journey.

Conclusion

"Trick or Treat" could have been a fun little distraction if it was done well, but the game's over reliance on random bits of good fortune makes this game unbearable. After all, if I wanted to play a game that was difficult for the wrong reasons again, I could go play "Nociel (After story)" by Wishiyo.

Suggestions

I suppose this section is a bit pointless considering this game is probably never going to be updated, but I do have a few suggestions for how to improve it.

01) Include instructions in the game that explain why the various treats and health food do.

02) Instead of losing the multiplier when a treat hits the ground. Change it so the player only loses their multiplier if they catch a piece of healthy food. That way the game doesn't feel like it's punishing the player for not being able to catch treats that are falling at the same rate, but are so far apart that you'll never be able to catch both.

03) Iron out the bugs