I bought this game the second it launched, and initially I agreed with the review. Since I've spent more time with it, I'm changing my opinion....this is a five star game, no question. Yes, it's punishing. But so is Dark Souls, and people love that game for its punishing challenge. I compare the two only on the basis of difficulty. Reading the review, it seems to have been penalized for the difficulty, which is obviously an integral part of the game design. So what if it's not for everybody? I don't care to listen to Beethoven, but that is in no way a reflection of his merits. Absolutely loving every minute of this gem!
Well, he hadn't understod that the "super stars"(medals) give pretty much on the progress bar. (that's probably our fault? But we are showing it pretty good and many people understand this point) Therefore you don't really have to 3-star all the levels. 1 medal gives about 2.5 stars of progress, which is pretty good. And they are really easy to get if you have appropriate weapon: just follow the makers and kill as much nibbles as you can and destroy everything in your way.
Jfyi I felt like the discussion of the TA review was getting too out of hand so I've moved it to its own thread here: http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?t=283572 If you want to talk about the TA review of Lost Socks or discuss reviews in general, please do it there. If you want to talk about the game itself, please do that here. Thanks
i hope it can get you guys a huge boost to the sales and title awareness. best luck dev. still waiting for the mfi update here.
So I've been trying to get back into this game and get a feel for it. But it is just not clicking for me. I get that the game is hardcore, but I'm just really not having fun. Encounters feel so scripted and "on-rails" that I find myself completely frustrated and unwilling to hit the retry button 20 times. I am not averse to hardcore games. I love the NES mega man games, Mario, sonic, super meat boy etc. I sort of wish this weren't an auto runner. Player control adds flexibility with how you move through the environment. (Plus it opens up the potential for speedrunning) As is, weapon use and jumps require the utmost precision. It's almost like a rhythm game. And the trial and error nature of the gameplay ensures that you'll have to retry levels many times before you memorize it. The devs are clearly talented, so I will keep an eye on them for future projects. The presentation here is 6 stars/5. Really beautiful game.
I hear you. Personally I really enjoy the game, including retrying levels to perfect them. In fact I often keep repeating levels even after I've gotten 3 stars and the crown, just because I enjoy really mastering the levels. However I do get tired of completely scripted games sometimes, and enjoy procedurally generated games for the freshness they can bring to each play through. There's a big tradeoff when deciding how scripted a game like this should be. Scripted levels have some distinct advantages: * They can potentially be much more clever than procedurally generated levels could ever be. * You know for sure that if you get a better score or finish a level that you have been struggling get through, it's because you played better and not because the random number generators happened to favor you. * Because of the previous point, competing for leaderboard positions or even just against your own high score feels more meaningful. * It can be really enjoyable to get to know a level inside out. The downside is that playing the exact same levels repeatedly can start to feel stale. Procedurally generated levels also have some advantages: * The gameplay can feel fresh for longer. * You get that "flying by the seat of your pants" feeling due to not being able count on knowing what's coming. * That fact that luck plays a bigger factor in how well you do is actually a positive thing for a lot of people. It can feel thrilling when you get a lucky run where the procedural generation happens to work out in your favor, especially if you've been struggling to get through a level, and then get a lucky break. Of course it's possible to mix the two approaches. This game for instance does have a certain amount of randomness in what kinds of perks and power-ups show up in the levels. My point I guess is just that I don't think it's a flaw that this game has scripted levels. Rather it's a deliberate design choice with advantages and disadvantages. In this case the advantage is that the levels are very cleverly designed, and often the exact timing of when enemies show up and how they move is part of the design. The enemy timing along with the level design create really nice puzzles which wouldn't be possible with procedurally generated levels. However I totally get that some people much prefer procedurally generated games. I'm the same way at times.
NES mega man games, Mario, sonic, super meat boy etc. all these games scripted if we introduce AI you would die very often can add the super hardcore = hardcode + AI
I was lucky enough to catch a promo code and OMG this game is great! I'm in level 8 and it's getting difficult now. I see that I probably will be one of those people who get stuck relatively early on. And on the one hand, that's a shame, and if there's anything the devs can do to make the game work better for less hardcore players without diminishing enjoyment for superstar players, that would be wonderful. On the other had, as a mediocre gamer I'm kind of used to not finishing games and that doesn't mean I don't enjoy the time I did get to spend with them. (I realize that I might have felt very differently if I hadn't known that this game was described as very difficult - I knew this was going to be tough and was happy with each level I finished). I really love all the attention to detail. The game made me genuinely smile at times. I also really like that the devs made it so that you keep your coins so that less skilled players have more coins than more skilled players. That does help with balance. I recently started Super Monkey Ball 2 again and was baffled by the decision to let players earn extra lives by grabbing all the bananas. Less skilled players will not have the time to grab all the bananas (the levels have time limits), but they're exactly the ones who could use those extra lives. Skilled players who can grab all those bananas don't need the extra lives.
@bilboa, i have the same thoughts. We are learned a lot about scripting and (as you said) this method provides developers to control every second of the game levels. Actually my main concept was about delivering that "speed" feeling of gameplay. When so much things happening on the screen and you act between them. But! We admit that we made gameplay too complicated even for hardcore players. If you look in statistics almost no one can't stand in our game more than 20 minutes. On this moment we are working on design when player can choose between risk and reward. So if you want to just pass the level things won't bother you with difficulty, but if you want to achieve something bigger you must have to be stronger. However in future game i think we will try to combine fully scripted and AI based gameplay situations.
Hey there! Happy to hear that you enjoy it) Yes, level 1-8 is kind of hard, but the next two levels will give you time to chill a bit)
One more thing! Please vote on metacritic. It was my dream to make a game that got high scores on this site. xD
I made it to 3-8 and finally unlocked and upgraded everything there is. The Hurricane is sick. Can't tell you how much I have enjoyed this game. Now it's time to stop perfecting and see if I can plow through the rest and beat this thing.
Hell yeah! Please tell me when you'll defeat the boss about how you feel about read this after you have killed the boss!: Spoiler the cutscene before and after the boss level
