vgthing's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[SHMUP]

Mediocre

The levels were rather uninteresting and repetitive with no obstacles other than enemy ships. That's fine in games like 1943 or Twinbee where there's tons of bullets to dodge and loads of powerups to collect, but since none of that is going on here, it leads to a very boring experience. No one level really stands out here as well- especially with the same music. Every level of every Gradius game is extremely memorable and, ergo, can be mastered through repeated playthroughs.

The art style, though intricate, seems very flat and sterile. A lot of games in this genre aim for bolder colors and higher contrast on the foreground objects to not only make the game more visually appealing, but also to make hazards more noticeable. None of the ships (including the player's) were animated aside from the thrusters.

Music was okay, but did not loop smoothly and got repetitive quickly. I eventually had to mute it and put the awesome Xexex soundtrack on ;).

Lastly, the hit-box on your ship is, in my opinion, far too large (the Vic Viper's in Gradius V was like, one pixel in the cockpit). Pulling off some extreme maneuvering through enemy fire is half the fun in a game like this, and it's neigh impossible with the hit-box as large as it is.

Having played a lot of the old-school shmups, (my favorite genre of video game) this one was just 'O.K.' Wasn't terrible, but doesn't really stand out.

[ShellCore Command: Ep1]

Big Core MK1?

Kinda reminds me of Gradius for some reason.
Wonder why...

[Last Breath : Overwhelmed]

Impossible.

This game would be alright if it weren't for the impossible difficulty.

Now I've beaten Gradius V in one life, so I'm not bad a SHMUPs at all. In fact, it's my favorite genre of video game. I made it a few stages past the second boss, and I couldn't advance any farther. Maybe I just need to practice a bit more, but I thought it was way too hard for a number of reasons:

The amount of bullets is staggering. Not only that, but they move way to quickly for you to dodge. If that isn't enough, your hit-box is the entire ship! The game is basically forcing you to get hit. That's just stupid right there.

Also, your main weapon just sucks. If you're going to have that many enemies shooting that much, at least ad a couple kick-ass weapons for us to use.

Other than the insane difficulty, the graphics were pretty good. Music was good as well, if a bit monotonous at times.

Try playing some other SHMUPs like Gradius, R-type, or Radiant Silvergun and see how they did it and how you could improve your game.

Joelasticot responds:

I'm not sure how the fact that the hit zone covering the whole ship is a problem... It's what made sense to me. I admit that the few levels following a boss can be harsh. I'll look up those games you mentioned and consider a difficulty setting for my next projects. Thanks for the review

[Crazy Tracker]

Got to level 14

with a score of 33400. Gets pretty tough near the end and shields help a LOT!
Great game, smooth controls, nice animation.

[The 8-Bit Wizard]

Got 540/600

I guess that's because I collect old video game stuff... ;)
Great quize though! Even challenging for me!
maybe make a SNES one?

[...The Maze Game...]

it's alright...

I liked it, but I hate the fact that every time you die, you have to start the whole thing over again. Otherwise, nice work.

[Music Catch]

Sometimes different is good

This game tries something very new and pulls it off very well!
cool game! make some more stuff like this!

[Ghost Buster]

Good for first game

I thought it was o.k. for a first flash, but you should really make it good and entertaining before you submit something. I thought that for such a large health bar, you didn't have much health. Maybe you could add some power-ups or something like that. A scoring and a timer and other stuff like that would also be cool. Overall, great start, you just need to improve on some things.