Quick Review: Zero Reflex

Ooh, closing these Quick Reviews on a pure test of skill. Yes! Why do I feel observed?

This was the first level I encountered.

A creation of Exordium Games released on November 5th, 2015, Zero Reflex (also known as Zero Reflex: Black Eye Edition) is a Bullet Hell game based entirely on a simple premise: Attacks come from an eye at the center of the screen, and the little thing you control can only move around the eye in a circle. Move with either A and D, the left and right arrows, or the left and right Crtl, that’s all the controls you need. No need for a grandiose story either, all we have is the many challenges ahead.

This one is clever: The darkness won't kill you
outright, but the bullets are the same color so
you can't see them in those shadowed areas.

Every stage sticks around for exactly 30 seconds, and you have three lives. Avoid the various bullets, hazards and other dangers, most of them coming from the eye itself, other times floating around the circle you’re moving on. A game of this type with a limited form of movement is an interesting idea, but since it’s so simple, it’s gotta have something extra outside of controls to back it up. Well, it does… if you consider colorful graphics as good enough. On the front of style, the game delivers, as every level feels special and adds a little something to the overall experience. That said, if you want the full package, you need to try and get through the Psychedelic Mode, where the background moves and serves as a greater distraction while you go around avoiding the bullets sent your way.

Those things jumping around the "planet"
were a big roadblock for me.

Two power-ups can help you, if you can manage to reach them. The first provides a shield against damage for a few seconds, while the second unleashes a shockwave that will remove all bullets in its area (but not larger hazards). On every level, you have three “Hit Points”. Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Well, the catch here is that if you lose all three HP, you are booted back to the previous level. So you have to beat that one again. Not so bad once you’re accustomed to the game. However, some back luck and you wind up far back. Well, at least they’re gonna be in the same order.

And everything is out there for your blood. Shuriken, ladybugs, snake tongues… sometimes the circle is bigger, sometimes it’s smaller… sometimes it’s not visible, so you have to approximate where your cursor is going… A couple instances remind me of other pure skill games on Steam, like Super Hexagon.

Those damn circular saws are even harder to
avoid when the background is distracting me.

Also included are a Practice Mode accessible from the main menu, as well as a Hard Mode unlocked after beating Normal Mode, followed by an even tougher Nightmare Mode. The main difference between them is that on Normal, your three HP restock at every level and you go back 1 level, but on Hard, you only regain 1 HP at each new level and go back two levels. I assume that on Nightmare difficulty, your HP doesn’t restore at all, and you go back three levels. Good luck! At least the game puts you through only 20 levels (out of the 25 the game is made of). With the 30-second limit for each, this means a successful run takes 10 minutes at the minimum. That said, the difficulty gets intense fast, especially on higher difficulties.

This one’s fun. Catchy music, simple yet fun graphics with the possibility to add a psychedelic twist to them, and basic gameplay that’s all you need for what Zero Reflex wanted to be. It’s pretty fine, if you feel like paying 3.99$ USD for it on Steam, anyway.

Oh, that goddamned level... Yes, for the
record, the clock hands outside the circle
will hurt you as well.

The one thing that bugs me is the first negative reviews on the store page that say there may have been something scummy going on with this game on launch, with Exordium Games promising a 10K$ prize to someone going through all 60 levels (I assume all three main difficulties) and giving proof. Yet, they’d argue most submissions showing a success were done through hacking, without telling how they verified for such things, and ultimately they gave the prize to someone they left anonymous. Very suspicious. If you’re not bothered by that (after all, the “prize” was “given” on January 2016, so all that’s left is the game itself) and want a challenge… well, it’s still around.

Man, talk about a weird downer end for these Quick Reviews. Hopefully we aren’t staying in the grim and the depressing with the upcoming big reviews… Oh, right. The next one is gonna be Sonic Forces… I can probably slip in a happier one in-between… I’ll see what I can do.

Quick Review: Yono and the Celestial Elephants

He’s a chonk, he’s an absolute unit, he’s friggin’ a-do-ra-ble!

Cutie patootie! He's adorable and I want a
plushie of him.

Developed by Neckbolt, published by Plug In Digital and released on October 12th, 2017, Yono and the Celestial Elephants features an elephant protagonist descended onto the world from a fallen star. He is soon found by the locals and begins a journey across this odd land inhabited by the living, by some (actually quite nice) living dead, and by some living robots. Yono is the seventh elephant to descend to the mortal plane across the last 20,000 years. He proceeds to solve everybody’s problems, and maybe help this civilization retrieve memory of the past elephants, too.

Yono moves around with the arrows or WASD, interacts with E, can do a headbutt attack with Space, target with the left Tab, and blow things away with a trunk toot using Crtl. The trunk toot can also allow him to take in water, which he can then spray onto a target. Further down the line, he can also suck in peanuts and throw them at stuff, or take in some hot peppers to spew fire.

Doing a big sippy to water the garden below, all while
giving a rooster a guided tour on his back.

The way I'm dressed right now, cruelty
towards ceramic pottery was inevitable.

The story itself involves, among other things: The mysterious disappearance of the princess of Knightingale; the nice undead from Sundergarden are worried as the new skeletons popping out of the ground are evil; and some trade disagreements between the Kingdom and Freehaven, where the robots live, and yearn for complete autonomy. For a game that presents itself as quite child-friendly in both looks, tone and difficulty, there’s a good handful of deeper messages to be found here, blending political, spiritual and philosophical commentary.

Get out of there so you can see the constellations painted on me!

What better than water to douse a monster's life fire?

Gameplay is a mix of 3D platforming and puzzle, with a bigger emphasis on puzzle-solving but exploration and combat also being present. Aside from very creative puzzle-based bosses, combat against regular enemies is bland – generally, all you really can do is headbutt them till they explode or fall over. Platforming is also limited since Yono can’t jump, but it is present. There are quests to complete in the towns, mostly of the “fetch” type, as by pressing the E key Yono can also take an item (or even an animal!) and put it on his back to carry. Cuteness all around. For what I perceive to be the target audience for this one, puzzles are just the right difficulty; they were overall pretty easy for me, with just a handful that were trickier, mostly near the end, and I assume it would feel like a natural progression of logical thinking for a younger gamer. Most of the puzzles are of the block-pushing and "key and lock" varieties – stuff we’ve already seen aplenty, in all honesty, but for what could be someone's first puzzle game, it works just fine.

This body paint option is called "The Elephantom Menace".
No, really.

Ice blocks slide all the way across the floor. Like I said,
this game has plenty of those classic block slide puzzles.

On top of the game looking beautiful and adorable, its music is also quite good. Beyond the main quest, there’s a couple of bonus things to do, like gathering letters to unlock the stories of the previous six elephants who walked this land. You can also customize Yono by passing by the salon and give him various looks, ranging from “constellations” to “Darth Maul” passing by “green tunic”. (Hey, if you’re gonna break pots all over the place, better reference the OG breaker of pots.)

Celestial elephant or not, fire is still gonna hurt.

Some of my gripes with controls can be understandable; of course Yono is slow, he’s an elephant. The isometric look works well for the puzzle aspect, but can make controls a little tricky – you do have the option to keep controls in the regular 4 directions, or to tilt them one diagonal or another (so that by pressing Up, Yono will go either north-west or north east, at your choice, instead of straight up). I also ran into a few more glitches in the final stretches of the game compared to previous areas; stuff like the camera not following Yono, or something getting stuck on his back. Despite those small issues, I think this is a pretty good game which I’d say deserves to be more known.

Yono and the Celestial Elephants is available for 14.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Wonder Boy: The Dragon's Trap

Not often do I get to play games from SEGA consoles – or remakes of them.

This dragon is going down! ...I hope.

Wonder Boy III: The Dragon’s Trap was originally a game developed by Westone and released on the Sega Master System in 1989. Today’s game is a remake of that title, this time developed by Lizardcube, published by Dotemu and released to Steam on June 8th, 2017. The most notable change in design may be the use of hand-drawn scenery and sprites. The intention was otherwise to stay as true to the original Wonder Boy title as possible – so aside from a few quality of life upgrades, much of the remake should play the same.

Well, this is a strange turn of events...
Good thing I adapt well!

The story to this one directly follows the previous installment in the Wonder Boy series, even opening like the other would have ended: As the fully-equipped hero, we make our way through the final dungeon, with a lot of health and such high attack and defense that the enemies are trivial. We get to the “final boss” and, while tough, we beat him. Surprise! This dragon had the power to inflict curses, and in its dying breath, transformed our hero into a weak fire-spewing lizard. Their quest, now, is all about finding some way to undo this curse and retrieve their human body. The only logical way to do that is to defeat the other dragons, withstand their curses, and amass abilities to find the cure!

The gameplay has the basics with some interesting twists. Move around with the arrows, jump with X, do a sword slash with Z (I usually switch those two around in the options) and use a special attack with C. Those attacks can be picked up from enemies that are felled, and used up afterwards – they include a boomerang, a fireball, an arrow shooting upwards and a bolt of lightning (will harms all enemies on the screen). We swap between these options with A and S.

Running up that pole, running up that column.
Why is the mouse outfitted with wall stickiness?
I really don't know.

Yeowch! Hey! Stop walking into me! My
invincibility frames and "Ow!" sprite won't
go away till you let go of me!

We have hearts at the top of the screen, but don’t go think those deplete by halves and quarters like in other franchises; no, they’re more like a fancy way to show an HP bar. What do I mean by this? Well, as we progress through the game, we can buy swords and armor that will increase the character’s attack and defense respectively. Almost like RPG mechanics in a platformer. The higher the character’s defense, the less the hearts will deplete from the same attack. Some weapons and armor also come with bonus abilities.

You can play as a lion too? Best game ever!

The other major gameplay element is the curses themselves, as each one grants new abilities to our hero. Their lizard form can breathe fire; the second one, a tiny mouse, can run up walls and ceilings; the third one, a humanoid piranha, can swim; and there are more. The game is built so that no character can get stuck badly. We also get the occasional upgrade to our skills. While not purely linear (as you can explore a fair bit of the map at any time), progression is limited based on the form and abilities you have. Late in the game, you become able to switch between your hero’s collected forms at will.

Also of note: Choosing at the start to play as either Wonder Bor or Wonder Girl (even if the human form sticks around for all of 5 minutes); difficulty levels from Casual to Hard; and the possibility to play the game in the original 8bit.

There's even a small handful of extras added to
this version that weren't in the Master System
title.

I had to travel half the world to get to this
place. I better get some cool stuff out of it.

The hand-drawn art makes this game a treat to watch as you play, with lots of detail in every area. The soundtrack, which takes the chiptune tracks of the original and updates them with real instruments, is highly enjoyable as well. Gameplay is pretty solid, with multiple options for attacks as well as special abilities for each form – the one downside is that when you get stuck with a new form, you have to get used to its features. Not so bad for most of them, but I remember struggling with the mouse’s wall climb and its sword the size of a friggin’ toothpick, I swear. Lots of rewards can be found through exploration as well. There’s a number of gameplay flaws lifted from the title it remakes, such as the lack of checkpoints, our sword’s hitbox, some physics, and (the worst in my opinion) how the game handles invincibility frames after getting hit, often trapping the player in an inescapable series of blows while they stand there in their “hurt” sprite.

Putting those flaws aside, if the goal was to be faithful to the original game, then that’s a success – and the game is still pretty fun and engaging.

Wonder Boy: The Dragon’s Trap is available on Steam for 19.99$ USD.

Quick Review: A Virus Named TOM

Don’t let the name fool you… he’s humanity’s worst nightmare.

Doctor X: All it takes is one bad day, and...

A creation of Misfits Attic released on August 1st, 2012, A Virus Named Tom shows a futuristic world that has it all: Robot dogs, automatic sidewalks, teleporters… A technological dream! All of these were created by the visionary (but a tad unhinged) Doctor X. His latest invention veers directly into the realm of mad science, so he gets promptly fired. Unfortunately, he’s well down the path of destructive insanity, and thus sabotages his lifelong work and all the tech humanity can no longer live without.

Yep, apparently machines in the Future will
have computers in every one of their parts.

Meet TOM. He’s X’s latest creation. A computer virus, TOM can infect machines and break them. However, it’s pretty meticulous; every invention is split into areas he must seize control of in order to… well… put it out of order. Those are our worlds and stages. In every stage of this puzzle game, TOM has to navigate virtual circuit boards with various pieces showing paths. TOM moves along the horizontal and vertical axes on the board and must connect all of the available pieces together, usually through a single path started from a green power source. When everything is lit green, that part of the code has been broken.

The game doesn't start out with question marks, but it does
make the puzzles a fair bit harder if you can't quite see
what the pieces are till they're connected.

The controls are WASD or the arrows to move and Space to spin a piece in place (you must hold Space while moving around the square to do that). Semi-early on, TOM is also fitted with a new glitch program that allows him to strike back against the spider-like protector programs and stop them from moving temporarily. If TOM is destroyed by coming into contact with a protector program, he will respawn at random in one of the four corners of the board. Also of note is that TOM’s energy depletes over time and when he hits an enemy, and when it's fully depleted, you lose. The quicker you act (and thus the less energy you spend), the higher the end score for a stage, with an accompanying medal (Gold, Silver and Bronze) based on how well you did.

Oh, the protectors can't kill you... just sap your energy
and waste your time. And you do need both here!

Of course, the company that turns a profit from X’s inventions, Mega-Tech, will not let TOM do this easily. Customary of puzzle games, new mechanics are introduced regularly, making it harder for TOM to move around or connect the circuit. No green power source? Create one by crashing two spider protectors, including a green one, at an intersection together to create a blast that lights the path. Dangerous red pieces? Either avoid them at all costs, or if you can’t, create the path making sure everything lights up before getting to them. Pieces you can’t spin at all? Tiles hidden under question marks till you connect them to the green circuit? Having paths outside of the periphery of the map, meaning you need to connect everything taking those into account as well? All that, and more!

Don't worry about your little programs, Mega-Tech...
They'll be back soon enough.

C'm'on, join in! (...Oh, right, it's local only.)

Though the game can be completed as a single player, there are local-only multiplayer options here – you can beat the game with a friend(s) in a co-op mode split across 50 extra levels. There's also a vs. Battle mode where you play against friends to seize the squares on an empty grid, holding down Space to create an area of squares to claim for yourself, and then connecting them to a power source of your color. When all the squares have been claimed or the timer ends, the player with the most squares wins. Of course, it won’t be that simple, since all players have access to a glitch bomb ability that can both deactivate squares owned by another player and/or destroy the other TOMs who get caught in its blast, which will follow both axes. Like in the base game, destroyed TOMs will respawn in a corner, good to go again in a few seconds.

Makes some pretty mosaics.

Yet another example of what I expect from a puzzle game: A fresh idea, executed really well, with a gradual climb in difficulty as more variables get introduced. Gameplay is simple yet effective, while providing plenty of challenge. There’s a point where beyond just figuring out the solution, you also need excellent reaction skills. Appropriately for a game where we play the bad guy, the tone is overall comedic, whenever there’s a bit of story (such as seeing the results of our tampering). Graphics are overall pretty simple, the cutscenes are fine, the music is pretty good, and the multiplayer modes are a welcome addition. You get tokens to skip stages if you’d like, but it’s a pointless addition; since, if you skip a stage and go to the next one (never mind that worlds often give you access to two stages at a time), and fail it, it’s back to square one. Also, the game is stuck in one resolution, 1280X720, with no way to improve that. Still, overall, a pretty good experience, worth trying out at some point.

A Virus Named Tom is available on Steam for 9.99$ USD.

Quick Review: Tiny Bridge: Ratventure

I don’t think I’ll be able to cheese through that one.

Tiny Bridge: Ratventure was developed by Estelion, published by Senpai Studios and released on May 8th, 2015. This game is a puzzle game in which you have to use the physics engine to build bridges across gaps. There are obstacles in the way and your number of moves is limited.

I would never cross a bridge I don't trust. But when you're
a mouse, I guess you don't always have a choice.

You also control two mice, known as Mr. RatMan and Party Mouse, who have to gather cheese. These puzzles are thus split in two parts: You build your bridge, then you make these two mice walk across it. The goal is to collect the wedges of cheese on the screen, with the biggest one being the level's end goal. You switch between both modes as you wish, either constructing or walking. When in walking mode, you have to pick a node and the mice will walk towards it, and their added weight will have an effect on your construction. You thus often need to adjust and balance, and can even build while the mice walk.

There are stage hazards as well; little yet heavy creatures called minions (no relation to the Illumination thingies) will jump on the node you create nearest to them. Seems bothersome, yet their weight can be what you need to keep a node in place. Then, there’s the circular saws, which will instantly tear through the wooden connections between nodes and break your path. More elements are introduced in the first world, like hooks that are attached to a ceiling, and which you can connect to nodes.

Two more catches:
1. The mice can't get onto the bridge unless it's close enough,
so sometimes you'll have to make extra connections just
because goddamn Party Mouse couldn't get on.
2. You need BOTH mice to reach the big cheese.

I call this one "The Pit and the Pendulum".
...what? Too high-brow?

The game is split into six worlds of 12 levels, for a total of 72. When beating a level, you’re awarded up to three stars. One for completion, then two more based on other factors, such as the time you took to get to the solution and the number of moves you spent adding pieces to the bridge. Each level has a number of moves you can use: It’s the white number on the right. If you go past the white number limit in a stage, you’re allowed to go overboard, but then you dip into the green number next to it. The catch is that the green number represents “extra moves”. Be careful if you dip into those, as while they do replenish, they don’t do so every time you start a level over. There are hints you can use, but you start at 3 max and they then take a while to refill.

Beware of sawblades!

Most achievements for the game are "beat world X" or "get
three stars on all stages of world X". Not a lot of special
achievements. There is one example in this stage: Beat it
without building anything. I did it. It's a clever solution.

This is the sort of game that I could see as a part of a STEM class. The concept isn’t unique (other games similar to this exist), but it puts its own unique spin on the idea with the walking mice. In some levels, the problem isn’t so much to figure out how to build the bridge towards the wedges of cheese; it’s how that bridge will stay in place, either on its own or when the mice start walking on it. The puzzles get devious quickly, with some requiring excellent precision in how you build and when/where you walk, especially if you want those three stars. Hell, getting three stars is borderline impossible unless you know the absolute perfect sequence of building/walking, and good luck figuring it out. Especially with the hitboxes and how being even barely close to a saw will kill one of your mice. The game looks just okay, and has okay music, not much memorable there. Long story short, even in the minuscule “bridge builder” puzzle genre, while not outright terrible and with its extra mechanics, this game is likely to get eclipsed by better-known titles, with World of Goo being mentioned a lot as a better option.

Tiny Bridge: Ratventure is available on Steam for 1.99$ USD.