Second part of my multi-part post: Another big difference between this port and the original PC game is that the PC game does not have leveling up or equipment. The PC game does have some of the skills, but not all of them. Instead of having the player grind to randomly unlock new skills and equipment through what is effectively a slot machine (which the iOS port does), the PC original had special stages that had unique challenges to them; once you beat a special stage, you unlocked the skill that stage contained. There is no silver in the PC game either; once you got a skill, that was it, and you had all three skill slots already unlocked at the easiest difficulty, which encourages players to mix and match unlocked skills to find a combination they like. You earned one more skill slot by beating the easiest difficulty, and one more skill slot for beating the medium difficulty, encouraging even more experimentation. The iOS port not only has you praying for random chance to give you a skill or equipment that you want, every single equipment and skill that you receive has the potential to be even better... IF you upgrade it. Upgrading a skill or equipment requires spending silver, which makes the skill and equipment objectively better. However, silver is important for other things as well, which I will talk about in more detail a little later. Also, there is the random chance that an upgrade to a skill or equipment will flat-out fail, potentially wasting the silver that you spend on that attempt. Last but certainly not least about equipment, the amount you spend upgrading a piece of equipment does not factor into its sell price at all, which means pouring lots of silver into a bunch of upgrades for a piece of equipment nets you no return on that investment when you go to sell it in favor of a better piece of equipment. Sure, the iOS version has more skills and stuff to play around and fiddle with, but it is a hassle to get to a point where you will have decent gear and skills to experiment with. The iOS equipment and skill system is worse than the PC version because it distracts you from the gameplay. On the iOS version, the gameplay is a means to an end: you play the game so that you can earn silver to upgrade your skills and equipment. The entire point of the gameplay loop in the iOS version is to buy more and better stuff, either through earned in-game silver or through opening your wallet. As the game gets harder, that makes the gameplay loop more stressful, because it becomes harder to earn the silver you need to buy the stuff you want, jeopardizing the entire gameplay loop. Eventually, the game is no longer fun; if you can't progress because you spent all the silver you could, then the entire reason for playing the game falls apart, because there is nothing more you can do to improve your situation. In short, the paywall hits, and it hits hard when it does. The PC version is superior because there is nothing preventing you from playing the game. The entire gameplay loop of the PC version centers around having a fun time playing the game: There's the first few stages, go play them. See that special stage with a skill? If you want the skill, beat that stage. Rinse and repeat. Sure, you could argue that the extra complexity of trying to avoid the paywall for the iOS version is more satisfying than the simple cycle of the PC version, but the PC version does not hold you back. There is no arbitrary limit to what you can or cannot do in the game, other than the obvious end of the content that you hit when you beat the hardest difficulty. If there is no barrier to entry, no external worries about silver or upgrades or leveling up, then there is nothing in the way of you, the player, and your enjoyment of the game via playing it. On iOS, you play for more stuff. On PC, you play for fun. Which is better, and which is preferred by most people? The one that has the focus of its gameplay loop squarely on fun, which is the PC version.
Third part (yes I know these are long, bear with me): Then there is the health system. In the PC version, your health is set for you every stage: some stages have a lot of health, other stages have barely any health and one enemy hit kills you. You can see before you enter the stage how much health the game gives you, and you can plan your skill slots accordingly. In the iOS version, health is tied to your fighting stance. Fighting stances on the PC version were cosmetic changes that were randomized for most of the stages (Boss stages always used the Drunken Master stance). In the iOS version, you equip a fighting stance and use that stance exclusively until you equip another one, and your health is tied to whatever stance you have equipped. However, your health is represented by a vague health bar when in combat, which does not tell you how many hits you can take before you are defeated. For all you know, you could take ten hits or more... at least, until you mess up and somebody manages to smack you, which then shows how much health they take away with just one hit. At the early stages, the enemies can take you out in two hits regardless of what stage you are on, but you won't know that until it happens to you in-game. This means that you better play perfectly and not deal with the vagueness at all, or take the sting of defeat so that you can see how effective your current stance actually is. Needless to say, the PC version is once again superior because it is clear what your margin for error is: X stage allows you to survive Y enemy attacks before you'll go down. Not only is it clear what each stage's health is at, it is a useful game design tool because the amount of health you have directly correlates with the level of difficulty of the stage: stages where you could get one-shotted by a lucky enemy will always be more difficult than stages that allow you to tank a bunch of hits before you go down. All of this is communicated intuitively to the player in the PC version, whereas the iOS version obfuscates this information and forces you to guess at how many hits you can take before you fail a stage. Also, the fact that fighting stances were randomized in the PC version meant that every fight was somewhat unique-looking in regards to the animations: one attempt at a stage may have you in Eagle stance, the next attempt could be in Tiger stance, so on and so forth. It was a cosmetic change, no more, no less. This variability in the stances helps the animations not grow stale over time, because the animations are constantly changing. This means the fights are slightly more dynamic in the PC version than on the iOS version, which gives the PC version more staying power and replayability than the iOS version.
Fourth part: Last and certainly not least, one of the major differences between the iOS version and the PC version is the layout and structure of the stages. In the PC version, there is an overworld map that lays out all of the stages. There are branching paths and little dead ends that have a special stage at the end with a skill to unlock. There is an end goal that you work towards, and because of the branching paths you can make whatever journey you like towards that end goal. Each stage has a bronze, silver, gold and platinum medal that is awarded based on your performance in the game (bronze awarded for 7-10 misses, silver for 4-6 misses, gold for 1-3 misses, and platinum for 0 misses). You could also achieve a perfect on a stage by never taking damage. The game would also score each stage, and based on that score would grant you Mastery points. Mastery points is one giant score that increases every time you play a stage: the more you play, the higher your Mastery would increase, and the better you played the more Mastery points you would earn. Mastery points have no in-game benefit other than being a high-score-chasing number for leaderboards, and there are achievements for certain Mastery point milestones. There are three difficulty levels: Student, Master, and Grandmaster. Each difficulty level has you traversing the same overworld map with the same paths, but the stages are tweaked to be faster and have more enemies at the higher difficulties. Also, once you unlock a skill in any one of the three difficulties, you unlock it for all the difficulties. You can still play the special stages at the other difficulties after you unlock the skill, but that is optional. You must beat the Student difficulty to unlock the Master difficulty, and the Master difficulty must be beaten in order to unlock the Grandmaster difficulty. In the iOS version, the stages are linearly laid out with only one path to take. There is no overworld, although groups of stages are loosely themed. The stages can be replayed over and over again, with various rewards doled out every third and fifth replay, although certain stages have their rewards doled out at different replay counts. Each area has a Hard Mode version that is faster and has stronger enemies. I do not know where the iOS version ends its content, but I assume that it has some kind of an end at some point. Each stage grades your performance by a three-punch system: three punches multiplies your silver earned in the stage by 1.4, two punches multiply the silver by 1.2, and I do not know what the multipliers are for the one punch and zero punch ratings (Is there even a zero-punch rating?). Your character's level multiplies your score by a certain percentage. There are various consumable items that you can purchase with silver per stage to make your run through that stage easier, although I never purchased any of these so I know nothing more about them other than they exist. The PC version's stages are obviously simpler than the iOS version's stages in some ways, but I would like to assert that the PC version is still superior in this category over the iOS version despite that simplicity. I have already talked about how certain aspects of the PC version encourage players to have fun, experiment with stuff and explore the game's systems while never being stressed beyond their personal skill level, and the stage layout and stage design is no exception to this concept. Because the PC game has branching paths, players can choose whatever route they want to get to the end of every difficulty setting. They could take a completionist attitude and beat all the stages, or they could take the shortest route to the end of the difficulty setting they may be on, or they could be somewhere in between. This allows players to set their progression through the game at whatever rate they want, and no matter what route they take they are guaranteed to eventually make their way to the end. Plus, the game uses Mastery points as a shorthand for how much time and effort players put them into the game. If you want to get a high Mastery score, then play more of the game! The simplicity is powerful in this case because it directly connects the player's progress to a quantified number that they can see increase every time they beat a stage. Reaching some of the higher Mastery Points achievements feels like an accomplishment because so much time and effort was put into the game in order to reach those milestones, and it was fun every step of the way. The Medals system and whether or not you achieve a Perfect on a stage serves much the same purpose, although these things are stage-specific rather than measured over the entirety of the game. The iOS version is a lot more rigid, and encourages you to grind through already completed stages for more goodies at certain replay counts. This encourages you to pay more of your precious stamina without progressing through the stages, and it encourages you to maximize the reward earned from each run through each stage. Getting the three-punch rating is critical to this end goal of getting the most silver for your stamina, and that rating almost always requires a Perfect rating, which again stresses the player out as the stages become more difficult, and also makes the game focus on getting silver to buy more stuff over having fun playing the game. Sure, the consumable items can make this less stressful, but the consumables require spending silver. Spending something already precious such as silver in order to make a few stages easier does not alleviate the inevitable short-circuit in the gameplay loop: eventually, the pay-wall will hit, the player will run out of resources and cannot progress in the game period... unless they pay money out of their wallets, but eventually even those resources will become used up, and you return to the same problem again. And because there is only one linear route through the game, the player has no choice but to march towards the impending paywall, and that's not fun at all.
Last part: If there is one aspect that has remained in the iOS port from the PC version, it is the core gameplay. The gameplay controls are just as tight and feel just as satisfying on iOS as they are on PC. I should know; I got halfway through the Grandmaster difficulty on PC before I decided to backtrack to Student difficulty and grind some platinum medals and Perfects out. The iOS controls translate almost perfectly, with some exceptions (What happened to range weapons? Oh, so that random thing that happened in the PC version where the background went white and I murdered everyone at the speed of sound is triggered by the player now, and there are different levels of it? That's cool I guess). If only the monetization model didn't have such a stranglehold on the core gameplay, because it makes the point of the game about getting stuff rather than about having fun. In short: the iOS version would be a worthy port of the original if the monetization model wasn't so aggressive and changed so many elements of the original that made it the unique experience it was when it came out on PC. I fear that this port is going to be around for a couple of weeks before it sinks into the depths of the AppStore, destined for the obscurity that the PC game barely managed to avoid despite how good it was. Make of my thoughts whatever you will. Sincerely, Mr. Album
Keep your gold for unlocking new slots and fighting styles, most of the stuff that's locked behind gold purchases can be bought with silver when you reach a certain level anyway. So in usual free to play style. Save save save for stuff that only can be bought with gold.
Kudos to Apple for not featuring this game BTW. Speaks volumes if you ask me given the popularity of the Steam version.
ok,so i just wanna know is it allow to say" the game is bad because the gameplay is boring" rather than saying " the game is bad because of its f2p system is poorly designed ? or just tell me negative comments are forbidden , then i know next time what to do. thanks.
This nightmare of an f2p sickens me. I'm not exaggerating that statement as I have cashed out on the game (I just bought a gold pack) and I bought the best move set in the game which was the cappiberra (forgive me if I spelt this wrong) and I still died In one hit in the early stages. This is just too unfair and unbalanced so I deleted it some time later. I'm kinda sad because I had high hopes for the game on iOS ;(
I'm sorry but I actually loled at reading the what's new section for the games update today. Bug fix and add IAP Rofl. I'm sorry. Now it's just funny. Billy
Well I cannot believe it. So I said what the heck let's see what IAP they added. They added an IAP to get rid of the ads and an IAP to get unlimited stamina. I'm shocked. Finally. It's a good move. Billy
so, if you purchase the two IAP's to remove ads and get unlimited stamina, how comparable is it to the PC version, we talking the same content or something more pared down such SpaceChem Mobile?
