The art style and vfx of this one are really good, but I think this submission shines the most in its THEME. It feels so magical, but at the same dangerous and mysterious. I love it!
The gameplay is fun, but at the start for most of the time I was looking at a long hallway and holding W. The default speed as well as the overall pacing feels too slow.
The meta-progression/skill tree is also nice, but I find some of the things useless. The mining and some of the attack upgrades especially, like crits, lightning or weakness marker.
crits/lightning give me no feedback, so I don't know if they're worth upgrading, so they're low-level, so they give me no feedback -> repeat.
weakness markers take too much time.
I also didn't used the anvil a lot. It has a lot of potential, but if the game gave me more opportunities to upgrade my base dmg in mid-game, I wouldn't use it at all. Because of that, getting crystals is simply a time&energy-wasting hassle and buying crystal upgrades is pointless if you're getting chests constantly. Chests?
CHESTS!:
They're fun to unlock, and I like that they're introduced later in the game rather than at the start like every other room type. Though, I had ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to open the first one, and it took me WAY too long. There's also no risk in opening them (compared to fighting enemies), so it feels weird that they give you so much money and crystals. Maybe make a timer/make the player lose energy over time? But at the same time, Opening them is hard, so they should have a nice introduction tutorial without any pressure on the player (for now :D ).
Money/Cash/Coins/Collectibles/pickups:
They move A LOT and in the late-game, most of the time is spent collecting them. Maybe make the hitbox bigger?
BUGS:
While hovering over the anvil, there's no outline, which is weird because everything else shows it, sugesting that the anvil isn't clickable.
lot of textures are drawn on top each other, especially enemies, but my sword often ends up behind a wall.
Radish Asparagus Studios
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There's no info how to dodge him, so for the first run he was knocking me down before I had time to run away. He locks you in place first, and then the throw animation plays (probably a bug? pun unintended). While trying to kill him with the knife, it often ends up on the floor (the knife, not the guy) and I think the game becomes softlocked? I assume you can also kill him in other ways (probably with the toaster), but he wasn't doing anything life-threatening with it.
This game is AMAZING! It feels like gambling - luck is definitely a factor, but it doesn't outweight the skill required.
I got 2 problems: 1. You cant unfocus the nickname editor and 2. Bombs sometimes spawn on top of you/directly above, making in feel unfair.
I like a lot that the environment changes when you are at a certain height. There should be more colors/biomes/height levels though.
20173 got fourth at one point.
SPOILERS WARNING FOR THIS GAME AND TOREE SATURN!
The level is okay-ish. It's not bad but 5 slides in a row is kinda repetitive. It doesnt utilises the boosters as well as Saturn levels but that's understandable cuz its "Saturn's early access". The thing thats shocking though is that the slides could be more "=interesting. Jumping from slide was fun since Mario 64's cool cool mountain penguin race, but it was better in Toree3D where theres less slides but they got snowball-monsters, fences and other stuff + that big blue monster that appears out of nowhere and kills you if you're going too fast/you're too slow to react. Although the theming is really good, as always in Toree Christmas levels. Makes me wanna play Mariah Carey on speakers mid summer. There should be more Christmas levels in games (And they should all have "Last Christmas" as their BGM ngl..... but im getting off topic). Skins are the same as in Saturn so qucik summary- "I want more Toree skins in a Toree game (The winter Toree looks so adorable I NEED it in Saturn"), although there's one skin that BLEW ME UP (blew me out? idk how to say it lol). The 4 Toree's Toree skin gives so much possible gameplay variety. In Toree 3d/2 it was okay-ish to good. Tasty probably is fun to run faster but didnt played as him ever, but Macbat/glitchy allowed us to explore the levels as much as our heart desires which is GREAT! Saturn... Saturn uhh.... got none of that....Why? But 4 toree's skin is different! Its not just "Oh you can fly/go faster now. Have fun!", It feels like a CHALLENGE, like a SIDE MODE or smth like that... The game asks you "Can YOU beat the level without brutally pushing one of your adorable little birds? The answer is no cuz I lost one on the first platform which was not meant to be challenging at all. the challenge becomes even more interesting when you discover that the boost pads launch only the Toree's that touch it, so if only 2 of them touch it, and the other 2 dont, now you have a 20 meter gap between your cute little birds. It gives me that "You got the kid. Take care of him" vibe like in other video games. I encounter it very rarely and tbh I can think of only 2 example at the moment (Games like My talking alien blob/animal dont count. They gives me FOMO PTSD), but in New Mario Bros U. (The only 2d mario platformer on the biggest console of all time: Wii U) You can pick up baby Yoshis on the world map. They respawn rarely, so losing one makes you depressed. Having one allows you to have some bennefits although you have to carry him around all the time. You FEEL like your responsible for its safety so you protect it at all cost. It also applies to the 4 toree's skin which is so cool. The only "con": It isn't available in Saturn which makes me want to abandon parental care for colorful Torees :( . So the final part of my review:
MINIGAMES! :
the one where Toree jumps in low gravity is meh. You dont see anything cuz you cant rotate the camera. The depth perception is nonexisent and the collectables don't make the "collect" SFX which is like 70% of fun in collecting random stuff in games. Pengu is my favourite one, both in Toree Jolle jam and Saturn, because it's the only one I think is "fun". It lacks replayability though and is too simple. The RPG one is uhhh... I couldn't beat it... Although I must say that I'm not a fan of non-Toree minigames in Toree games (that's why im so critical towards these), which usually already don't have enough Toree content in a Toree full game release. Does it makes sense? I wish there'd be more levels like ||Super Kiwi 64 dessert|| because, well - it's more Toree in a Toree game.
IN SUMMARY:
So the question that everyone was waiting for.... Is Jolly jam BETTER than Toree 2 christmas levels?
And the answer isssss......
I have no idea just gimme a minute I'll boot up Toree 2.....
Jolly jam IS better than the first and third level, im not sure about the second, so i guess that's a win for Jolly jam||
IN SUMMARY 2:
for this lil short review I made, I replayed all snow/christmas in older Toree games. Here's the observations I observed and conclusions I concluded (I don't know what that means either) : Slippery ice sucks in video games almost as much as underwater levels and the first thing I tried after booting up OG Toree after a while was trying to groundpound dash so its too hard to go back and play these games . Thanks for staying with me and Merry Christmas! (It's still mid-summer)