Rhete's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[TANK MAN]

An awesome Mega Man clone

It's rare to find a retro tribute that so perfectly gets the feel of the original game just right, and this did it. I was a bit disappointed it was only one level, but still a lot of fun.

Lambtaco responds:

Thanks. I get the feeling many complainers never played the old Megaman games. Before most Newgrounders' time, I guess.

I was thinking that if this game turned out successful I might expand and make a full game, but that doesn't look like it's gonna happen. :(

Who voted this review down? Weird.

[The Annoying Little Game]

Frustrating

I'll never understand the genre of intentionally shitty platformer. The game breaks it's own internal rules by the second jump and becomes a series of memorizing what instant kill trap is coming up next. This isn't fun, it's just annoying and repetitive.

tap5y responds:

Read the title much?

[Raider: Episode 2]

I gave up

I wanted to see this through to the end like I did episode 1, but 33 minutes in I was forced to quit, after seeing 9 or so vines in a row, with spikes between them, above a pit of lava. I shouldn't have to deal with 1 hit kill crap like that on beginner, and it was a bit disappointing to see a brick wall like that after getting through so much.

One big problem I noticed was that even though it's only the second level, you seem to have already run out of ideas. This level didn't really introduce anything new, and just focused on dodging spikes the entire time. The enemies felt like more of a formality than anything else, they were just standing in your way to give you an excuse to press the S or D key a few times before going back to dodging spikes. Even the tutorial had better use of enemies with the sole laser turret. The only enemies in the stage itself of any note were the ghost things, which also happen to be immune to attacks, so they may as well be floating spike blocks.

I would like to see a better balance between platforming and combat, though that may be hard since the combat controls are pretty stiff. Why can't you move on the ground when attacking? It's pretty strange given that you can still jump and move in the air while attacking, so you can just bounce around everywhere while firing the laser anyways. I don't expect you to change the engine in the middle of a series like this, but maybe our hero could receive a combat upgrade power-up or something...

The reason I mention combat so much is because there are only so many ways you can make the player dodge spikes before it gets old, and this level definitely pushed that boundary as far as I think it will go. After constantly jumping between ladders, abusing gravity by jumping into a ceiling, or falling down pits onto spikes, it gets a bit repetitive, and I'm wondering if you plan on making the remaining levels like this as well. I'm still looking forward to the next one, I just hope you focus more on combat and timing obstacles, and less on pixel perfect jumps determined by how long you press the A key.

Pseudolonewolf responds:

This seems to be a matter of preference for some people...

I for one find *combat* tiring and dull, but jumping around trying to find my way past obstacles - even if they're the same obstacles, just in a different order - far more appealing. I like games like Tomb Raider, for example, where the enemies were rare and dull to 'fight', and the main focus was jumping around very much the same obstacles in different layouts...

So this game is designed with my own preferences in mind, apparently. I suppose I made what I like, I made a game I'd want to play myself.
It's unfortunate that my preferences don't match up with everyone's, but oh well. I notice enough combat-focused games around and didn't really see the need to add yet another to the mix.

Episodes 1 and 2 were made basically at the same time, before I decided to release the levels as separate games, which is why there's not much of interest in this one compared to the first. It seemed easier to get away with when they were both levels of the same game/file.
Episode 3, which I've made most of, has more variety in its obstacles (I don't know about combat though; as I say, this isn't meant to be a combat-focused game; you have no advanced weapons for a reason).

Anyway, uh, I'll keep feedback like this in mind for future games, if not necessarily for future instalments of this particular series...

Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed review anyway.

[Dual]

Good game, poor execution

This is a pretty good game, I like that someone else is making a more traditional Contra style action platformer rather than going with the new mouse to aim fad, which I hate.

However there were a lot of flaws in presentation that I think dragged this down a lot. The first being the tutorial, that seemed far too long for such a simple game. It needed to be a lot more concise, arrows to move, A and S to shoot, ctrl to duck. If there is more than that I missed it because I got bored with how long it was taking to actually get to the game.

The stages themselves are good, but there wasn't a whole lot of variety between them (I got through most of the jungle area) Same basic enemies with maybe a few upgrades, the music was also nearly the same in all areas, and to be honest I didn't like the music at all, and it really didn't seem to match the game at all.

I liked that there were multiple paths to take in a lot of places, but in the end the game felt a bit lifeless, a combination of the static and generic backgrounds, bad music, and repeating enemies. The core gameplay is good though, but couldn't hold my interest through the entire game.

PhobiK responds:

Thanks so much for all your advices. Yeah, I tried to go the Contra style, it's good you liked it. And thanks for pointing out those weak points, I noticed some of them, and it's good to hear of the other ones I didn't notice. Yeah, the tutorial is too long, but I wanted to cover all the stuff the game involves there, that's why I created the quick help window when you press '9' if you didn't want to go all the tut long.

With the music I wanted to add some metal to the game as I like the way it sounds in some games, and I like rock :P but I know the quality isn't too good.

I'll take your advice in mind and again, thanks so much for the review :)

[Obsticle Course]

Worst one yet

Your mazes keep getting worse, and you refuse to take any constructive critism from reviews. 4 megs is simply TOO MUCH for one short maze. The song itself is longer than the computer takes to even finish the maze, which is flat out lazy. Trim the song down, or better yet, make a short loop. The song itself didnt even fit the maze

As for the maze itself, again, worst one yet, as it wasnt even a maze to begin with, it was just a single path. There was only one part where you could go the wrong direction, and since the enemy ball comes from that way, you'd know not to. Challenge = None. The entire game consists of following a preset path

Please, PLEASE stop crapping these out every day. Spend some time on the next one, use better maze designs, fix your horrible audio problems, and try using more than one maze per game

Kill-ZONE responds:

Oh, go cry about it.

[Troll Rampage]

Good game

Pretty good game, always fun to smash stuff. The choice of controls was a bit weird though. Not being able to walk backwards was fine, but then it seemed weird to even have a walk button at all, since I found myself holding down A nearly the entire time. Perhaps having him automatically walk would've worked better, since you stop at buildings anyways

The other control issue I had was that you used the mouse to smash buildings, when the attack itself required so little aiming it could've been accomplished with a keyboard button.

Alillm responds:

I could have made him walk constantly, but that would have taken away from the interactivity a bit. The mouse was used simply for coding reasons. It would have killed the game to check for collisons with every single building, but using the mouse, you know what building has been hit.