[Narrator voice begins] On the previous episode of Tama and Paisley's adventures, after Paisley came to realize her true feelings towards Tama, she awakens as a magical girl and confesses her feelings to Tama. After months have passed, Paisley has yet to receive an answer from Tama and decides to try again on Valentine's day but not knowing there lurks in the shadows an unknown group who plans on testing the strength of their Entangled Hearts. So be sure to tune in to tonight's short and highly polished magical girl game and find out if the two magical girl's heart are truly entangled as one [Narrator voice end].
Entangled Hearts is a game that is part of a series of game jams about the adventures and relationship between Tama and Paisley. In this latest part, the player plays as Tama, a magical girl wielding the powers of art, battles against the nightmares appearing through the city as she seeks to save Paisley from her captors.
Magical Girl Concept:
The game portrays several magical girl who wields a magical weapon and can also transform between their magical and non-magical form.
Visual:
The art style is really nice and it portrays the magical girl world in a vibrant manner making it feel like it came out from a super hero comic book. The choice of using pixel art sprites and animation gave it a very polished feeling to the game and is very consistent through out the gameplay. Every sprites, which includes the character, enemies, and parts of the background, are all animated and it can be seen that it is done with a lot of care and effort put into it. The UI art and design is clean and laid out neatly which isn't distracting in any way while being able to visually show the player character status.
Audio:
The music composed for the game is well in tune with the art style and the genre for a Beat'em up. Every scene of the game has a track attached to it, from the main menu to the boss fight so their is a good amount of tracks to keep the player entertained. The sound effect gave the game an added bonus to the feel and feedback especially during combat.
Theme:
The theme picked is Entanglement and Energy. Entanglement is immediately displayed in the title of the game and also found in the story where it is mention whether both Tama and Paisley's heart is truly connected. As for energy, it is part of the story and in the game mechanics where the player collects a sort of magical energy from fallen enemies and is used to fuel the healing magic or allows Tama to fire a ranged attack. (Spoiler Alert! Start) Later in the end it is shown that when Paisley and Tama worked together in battling Tama's doubt, a large amount of energy can be seen released after defeating her doubts (Spoiler Alert! End) .
Challenge / Engagement:
The game has several levels featuring many enemies types that consist of either melee or range attacks with some range attacks being able to track the player character position. The game level of challenge is quite balanced where you get a group of weaker enemies with a good mix appearing while at times harder but only a couple of them appears at times. (Spoiler Alert! Start) The difficulty isn't very apparent during battle with the nightmares or minions until the player reaches the first and final boss fight which consist of a magical girl, number 21, and then Tama's doubt which requires a good level of dodging enemy attacks (Spoiler Alert! End). Besides that the story is engaging in a way that it drives the plot towards the romance genre and how there is also a sort of mystery being revealed mid to end section of the game. I expect this is possibly a setup for the next release so it good that there might be plans ahead of time.
Overall:
Mechanics in the gameplay is solidly built with some fine tuning required on the combat segment. I find that the move distance on each attack executed could be toned down so the player character doesn't move into enemy range while the animation attack speed could have been a little faster. The artwork in the game is absolutely wonderful and it shows a lot of passion and care has been put into building the world for the two characters. The choice of music track composed for the game is pretty accurate with the game depiction and suites really well for the genre. The story is well written with no issues and has a solid direction with what comes next.