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An old school platformer with potential - and design flaws.

  • Decky
  • 01/26/2014 01:56 PM
  • 2094 views
I love Metroid with a passion. I wasn't actually expecting a reskinned Metroid game when I downloaded this, but that's basically what it is. From the Super Metroid-esque intro to the eerie, solitary nature of the futuristic setting, this game is screaming Metroid. (And a little bit of Mega Man, too, as evidenced by some of the graphics.)

Overall, this game is not too shabby, but I had to stop at a very annoying segment that I will get to later on.

First, the good:

The controls are smooth, the hit boxes are great, and overall I would say that this is one of the most technically impressive rm2k games I've played. Naturally, this is an RPG Maker engine, so action games will never be perfect, but Inside does a good job with what it has to work with.

The music selections are great (though naturally heavy on the Metroid side of things). Enemy layout and level design is generally very good at the start: nothing is too tricky or frustrating - until later on, that is. I'm also fond of the sound effects - they make sense but they're not overwhelming.


Pure Super Metroid into right here. Also, those cells mean bad news...


The premise is interesting: our main character is infused with these special cells, which end up turning him into a super human while also serving as a companion as he attempts to escape the facility in which he was transformed. It's a slight twist on the tried-and-true Metroidvania formula. Unlike most games in this genre, there are cutscenes and character development!

Now, the not-so-good:

The story also ends up shooting the game in the foot. The text speed is rather slow and the game takes a few minutes to get going. Metroidvania games should be lean on the story and fast on the pacing. Like I said, the story is interesting, but the text boxes should scroll a lot faster to reflect the style of game. The cutscenes are also somewhat lengthy, so I recommend shortening them to keep the pace breakneck. It's hard to do "cinematic Metroidvania" games right, though, so I'll give this game credit for trying and (partially) succeeding!


Because this is a non-native English game, the text could use some work. Some words are misused/switched around, making the plot a little hard to decipher at first.


Secondly, the game may wear Metroid a little bit too much on its sleeve. You have to attack doors to open them, for instance. This mechanic is probably unnecessary...but that's a nitpick. I would also like to see a greater arsenal available early on.

Unfortunately, the heavy platforming elements in this game came back to bite it. I was unable to make the jump in the center of this map, especially with the poorly placed enemy running back and forth on it. Early in the game, this was a huge deal breaker:


Come on, man :(


But overall, I have high hopes for this project should it continue. I want to get past that screen but I simply can't! That jump is too wide and the enemy should not be placed there. It's the first tricky jump of the game! I got frustrated and quit after trying to cross it for about 5 minutes straight.

If that's fixed, I'd probably be willing to give it a go again and see how far I can get! Not too shabby so far.

Posts

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You didn't miss out on much. That was the second to the last map before the end. You cross this section, you get another cut scene where the other guards realize you are loose, and then you make a break for it with the alarms blaring, then the screen goes dark and the credits roll.

So this really plays more like a tech demo or a prologue than anything else. Lengthy cut scenes aren't a big problem for me as long as it's properly translated. But long cut scenes with slow text boxes filled with poor translations made it more aggravating than it should have been.

Still, it was nice to see a metroid like platformer out of RPG Maker. It'd be nice to see a finished game.
Corfaisus
"It's frustrating because - as much as Corf is otherwise an irredeemable person - his 2k/3 mapping is on point." ~ psy_wombats
7874
Personally, I found Lolninja to be a more solid platformer than this, and since we're past the era of "you did this on that?! WHOA!", I can't really see the premise of a platformer in RPG Maker as anything more than a gimmick. I also heard that that one ZeroWing game was pretty alright if not a bit difficult.

My biggest gripe with this game was more the awkwardness of activating stuff and the fact that you had to use the space-bar to even get into the game. I must've sat there for at least a minute pressing every key on my keyboard, and by the time I got through to the actual game, was less excited than I could have been about actually playing it. Also, some of the text boxes in the intro auto-closed too fast.
Hello everyone,
Dechkiller thanks for the nice review.

I want to continue making this game. I know the problems about slow stuff, bad keys and poor translation but I think is better change everything and put in another language, I mean in another engine. I'll restart this project and change everything (story a little bit too and do a good translation).

amerk and Corfaisus, thanks for their comments that help me a lot.
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