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Re:PUNCH!!!'s itch.io pageResults
| Criteria | Rank | Score* | Raw Score |
| Harold Award for Excellence | #2 | 3.955 | 3.955 |
| Marsha Award for Music: Sound | #3 | 4.000 | 4.000 |
| Oldhar Award for Literature: Story | #3 | 4.091 | 4.091 |
| Therese Award for Strength: Combat | #3 | 3.864 | 3.864 |
| Lucius Award for Laughs: Comedy | #4 | 3.636 | 3.636 |
| Hrld Award for Graphics: Visuals | #22 | 2.818 | 2.818 |
Ranked from 22 ratings. Score is adjusted from raw score by the median number of ratings per game in the jam.
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Comments
Given the name, I wasn't expecting a deeply philosophical story. I was surprised and impressed.
The combat is the point of the experience, and I was impressed with it too. It's one of the few times I've seen guarding be treated as a strategic tool, and I love how you have to learn the enemies' patterns to properly respond to them. That said, it's not really possible to know what to expect from the enemies on the first pass. Hitting the hardest mode out of the gate or even expecting a flawless run the first time playing on normal isn't reasonable to expect, but if you do go the distance to learn the patterns, I can see flawless hard mode runs being possible. The tutorials for the various mechanics were implemented well - something I could take cues from for my own games!
The music, of course, sounds great. Sometimes I forgot that I wasn't listening to an old NES game's soundtrack. Very nice stuff.
The boss rush format felt appropriate too. I didn't have to worry about figuring out where to go next to get to the next plot point. It kept the experience streamlined.
I liked this entry overall. It's definitely one of the outstanding games in the jam. Nice job, Sawyer!
The punching battle system was good, the story was solid, though I'm a bit confused why 47 went all 'huh' at the end? I feel like I missed something there. (Also why was he walking all the wall or was that the joke?)
The only bug I could find was that at the beginning it looked like there were some empty text boxes. I'm not sure whether those were intenional or whether something was loading slowly. (I played the web version in case this helps.)
combat and story was jokes
Up to this point, my favorite story by far! The writing was really good, plenty of laughs, and such a great premise, I can forgive you for using the "Re:" in your title that I always disliked. Loved the secret boss too, though I really don't get it!
Can't not mention the amazing soundtrack, and I would recognize those . . . other themes anywhere. Secret boss was pretty cool too. Excellent all around.
High marks for everything here, alotta fun, tricky battles too. Good stuff Sawyer.
This is a solid entry. Fully reminds me of a satisfying dream I had where I pretty much punched myself from a different timeline in the face. Nicely done!
This one was fun and had a lot of creative spins for the themes needing to be used, Love the sound ofc, I can't stand rtp visuals but ik it's a gamejam and time is slim, I can see where you put all the effort and other areas, and the maps were still charming regardless of rtp
the battles were fun, had a good feel to them and well balanced.
I did actually laugh a handful of times at the dialogue/writing/ and I don't find most things funny, so the type of humor was up my alley as well
doing my best not to be biased, I really liked this game overall, a handful of my top favorites, actually
Time to re:play this gem. May or may not be biased because Axial boys.
Excellence: Not much gameplay outside of the combat itself, but fortunately the combat is amazing. More on that later.
Combat: You damn well know a Sawyer game is gonna have a Sawyer battle system. Really fun without veering into jank or frustrating, unsurprisingly enough. It's also explained super well, whether through direct tutorials or (obvious) hints like the Oni Sweep. I also got a game over for the first time and the battle immediately restarted which was so nice. The only snag is there were times where everyone would have the same amount of AG and I wouldn't know who would get hit. I also wish re:charging healed 2 PP instead of 1 so you could immediately get a dodge back.
Comedy: Funniest core concept for a Harold Jam game I've seen so far and the jokes are pulled off very well while still contributing to the story and world and never feeling out of place. A real highlight was the music gradually speeding up during the 19 scene. I desperately want to see you pursue something like this out of a jam.
Sound: Classic Sawyer bangers as usual and even a unique motif to bind the soundtrack together. He never misses. If the SFX were also 8-bit to suit and then all the sound meshed well with the graphics (which I am still absolutely bitching about), I'd give 5 stars.
Visuals: It's RTP. I understand you wanted to focus on Axial after having a product you felt confident in, but I will always be in the "you made this game in three seconds so you should have at least spent another second repurposing some Axial graphics" boat.
Story: I am furious you took this absolute gem of a story and used it for a Harold game. Genuniely so meaningful and heartfelt despite being conjoined to a game about punching yourself in the face. I can tell a lof of personal experiences and the morals you learned from them played an important part in this game. I genuinely felt like I learned so much more about you just through this game.
Criteria: IDK how often I'll be including this but your use of the dead end job outside of the prison was super clever.
This is the most Sawyer game outside of Axial. Favorite of the jam so far. Typical Sawyer W.
and now i shall critique your critique by demanding you give me a 5 in sound
No
It was OK for a game that was just a rail road of text to fight to text. There were no choices out side of what you could do in combat. More on that in a moment.
Combat was fine, I guess, but I just spammed the punch button. I chose the first option of game play too. Ought to have just one shot these guys. Something really bothered me about the combat... more on that in a moment...
I didn't find any of it all that amusing. Maybe it just not my ... Jam. Or cup of tea. Whatever.
I turned my sound off on my head set because there was never a moment in the game where I could turn the volume down. No pauses in the rail road.
The BGs were OK. They got the job done. The moving grid of the combat, however, made me a little nauseous. IDK how you did that but please consider giving options to turn movement off!
Maybe because I'm a girl and I don't believe in 'cringe' but I didn't relate to this story at all, on any level what so ever.
I can see what you were going for, and for others it was probably very fun and relatable, but I found my self skipping though both text and spamming the attack in combat.
Cringe af.
I’m not sure what was more savage–punching a 9 year old in the face or that one part in the credits. :D
'When i was 9, i used to try and sing along to the lyrics of the second One Piece opening even though i don't know Japanese.'
And then i was hooked.
I never thought a game would be so relatable but it takes a joke and really runs with it.
The writing is very charming and keeps you going from the start. I loved the premise and the joke of it all. Has a good message in it too even among the humor. Good interesting take on the battle system too, enjoyed every moment!
Surprisingly relatable plot. I had fun learning and working out the battle mechanics. The music really "packs a punch" hehe.
This was very well done! Never has going back in time to punch yourself in the face felt so good. Well done!
This game is pretty amazing and the soundtrack is absolute fire. Unbelievably good!
I was slightly weirded out by the RTP instead of seeing your own art style, but that's understandable being a Harold-centric game. My other slight, slight negative was that the gameplay in between battles is kind of on rails, but the writing was so good I mostly didn't care.
Fights: great.
Story: great.
Dialog/humor: great.
Did I mention the OST is ridiculous?
I'm definitely gonna play this again. Excellent work!!
EDIT: played through again and found several things I missed the first time. Great job gating secrets behind battle actions :D
Battle system is HARROWING on One Punch and I wish that the one or two skills that restored shield were removed or did something different on that mode, but that's so minor. It was super engaging to have to manage Aggro, PP, and set up damage against the enemy all in a delicate balancing act; you can't just stall indefinitely because they'll run you out of PP, but if you go too aggressive someone gets punched in the face. Draining enemy PP is a bit too meta, but having one slightly overpowered strat did not hinder my enjoyment at all.