It is time once again!
I'm going to be inside and go for full Abhi mode. Basically I'll start on the fourth difficulty rating. Oh and I'm doing like last one and am writing on the fly, so if this is a bad decision (with hindsight, it sort of was, but it was a fun bad decision), then I don't know it yet. I'm already terrified :D.
[Note: I'll put everything that I thought after playing the whole thing in these square friends]
Music is a bop, perfect feeling for the game. [I would have liked a bit more progression to it though, like the melody changing as you progress or something like that. I didn't get tired of it even though I heard it for 50 minutes straight, which is something I can't say for a lot of music. Great work!]
Some SFX felt missing, like one for player death. [The SFX could also be utilized better for telegraphing, it felt like it was more for spectacle than function a fair bit of the time]
First level complete! I got completely smacked a good few times. So I got angry, read the manual. [I need to get better at that sort of thing, I just blazed past the title screens manual, and the challenge modifiers without reading them], and then beat it!
Got the piercing bolt let's go! It's pretty fun to use, and seeing go through all the enemies is kind of satistying.
I wanna fly with the pew pew! Being able to shoot down is useful for ground enemies, but being able to use it as a second jump would be really cool.
Keep getting caught off guard by the recoil of the gun, I fall of platforms pretty often due to it. [I did adapt to this but it took until level 6 or something]
Nice telegraphing on the shooting, it's visually very clear when something is going to shoot. [It was in the beginning, it got a bit cluttered later on]
The enemy types are hard to differentiate. [This applies mostly to the flying enemy types, as they both flap their wings and are ball shaped]
Second level done! The % meter is great, it gives a feeling of progression and makes you feel like you are going towards a goal.
Grabbing thous 2 extra hp, I feel like I'll need them. [yes]
The lobbers (that's my try at naming them, they are the sluglooking fellas that shoot sort of upwards) are an interesting switchup, everything before aimed straight at you. [It's really nice that there are two sort of ways they shoot (not counting the spinning one for the boss), it gives them all a different flavour]
The enemy distribution feels really off some runs, I guess the enemies are randomly (ish) chosen and then placed, which leads to some runs having a lot lot of shooty bois and others not having any at all. That would need some balancing so you didn't get completely blasted by fifteen bullets at ones. [This is sort of a peasant moment, I was getting blasted by that amount at the end and it was doable]
Third done! I got the two exploding fireballs.
THEY AIM HOLY SHIT [they do and it is amazing this saved my ass I can't aim for shit]
Damn you boss! I wasn't expecting one so soon.
Fourth level done [I think I took arrows here, or faster reload], difficulty feels pretty good, its hard but not too hard.
Fifth was a breeze, it felt way too easy. It might have been just a unfair enemy distribution for them. [I don't really know if the enemies are randomly distributed, I get conflicting feelings because some stages (one part of a level) feel like they are the same every time, where others really don't]
Sixth was a bit more spicy in difficulty, it went back to the hard but not too hard mode.
Picking actually feels like a tough choice here, like it is really important. I'm sort of thinking "do I want to be able to survive longer or go full rambo with 250 bullets on them?".
Second boss was here! I'm not a fan of scaling pixelart, even for bosses. I'm a bit of a purist when it comes to pixelart, so either I want it to really feel pixel perfect or go full ham with 3d and stuff. Anything in between feels a bit odd, like it was engine jank or just the devs being a bit lazy (which devs have all right to be, making games is really really hard). It does make it super clear that they are bosses though, which is a nice thing.
Seventh level was not that hard, I got through pretty easily.
There is not that much space to manuver on, and things are getting hard to read with everything going on. The hitboxes for enemies and bullets also feel pretty large, and I don't get those "holy shit how did I get out of that" moments that I'm used to. A good and bad thing at the same time, it means I have to be more careful.
Eighth (spicy spelling) was tougher, and now I feel like it's really taking off.
I keep rolling and then shooting in the wrong direction, I think it just shoots in whatever direction you were going last. I would prefer if it was the button you pressed last instead, so you could turn while doing a roll and then fire off in the right direction without having to begin moving in the other.
Ninth (also spicy spelling) was really tough, the tough I expected from the game. I feel challenged and I'm very happy about it. This is a de-stress thing, I really get to dig my teeth into it and fight towards a goal.
FINAL BOSS YEAAA [No explanation needed]
It's really hard to tell where it will go, the telegraph could be better, like a line or a shadow where it will go to.
Using the things that spin around you and almost explode when you touch the enemies are really fun to use, you can build up damage, use a roll and then just deal 40 damage in a split second. Very satisfying.
Alright, beat it! I was hoping for something more after the boss, some dialog or something to end of the game. Even just getting platform the whole way up and jumping up to a door or something would make winning a bit more interesting. Time for me was 54 minutes. (Not 5 as written, but it was on CL4 so I guess I'm going a bit out of standard here).
I should note that I didn't really read what the challenge level did, so forgive me being unaware of things like the enemies being pretty thick and there being a lot lot of them. [I didn't actually write that much that related to this before, so it wasn't that much of a problem. The enemies having a lot of health was a bit frustrating though]
Alright so that was a bop! Short but really sweet. I'm not ready for permadeath that would hurt my soul too much, but I like the challenge of CL4, although it felt a bit unbalanced at some point. The unbalanced things might have just been me though, being unable to not really think as creatively as I should. Most of the enemies are no that hard to beat, you just need to know their patterns, and how to dodge them.
Oh and here's a random thought about tryh4rd: I think it did so well on armored games (I they were the ones that uploaded it) because people are tired of easy to digest, really basic web games. Tryh4rd was fantastically polished, had a visual style differentiating it from everything else. When everything looks professional, then everything also looks the same. Your games have a pretty distinct style, maybe not as professional as other styles, but it's different and has a soul to it, and that is so much more important. The gameplay is also pretty deep, even considering the length of the game. It's almost like the first run is the tutorial, and second one is where the mastering really begins. It also presented the players with something that you don't see often enough anymore: a game where you have to work for your dopamine. Tryh4rd doesn't reward you for just playing, you need to really try hard (terrible pun, but it was intended) to get that reward (that spicy bit of dopamine). So I feel like all your work (especially recent ones) are a breath of fresh air. They are not accessible for everyone, but that's their charm. The would not be what they are if they weren't so difficult. I know I was close to screaming at dreams of d4rk, I know I was really mad at planed d4ark and damn it tryh4rd was difficult. But they all felt amazing when I beat the challenges. It was like winning an actual fight, something was on the line. Your games really hit a sweet spot for me, they are short (picking up a game the day after is always difficult for me, I have the attention span of a squirrel when it comes to games), insanely polished and really fills that itch for something difficult yet fair. Alright that's enough compliment showering, I'm done.
Last question: have you beaten CL5?
now; BAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII!