I think you got the 80s saturday morning cartoon vibe right. The team is perfect and the characters you get to meet are interesting enough too. Besides overall the animations in as out of combat range from good enough to cool.
The game is fun. The roster of cards is good enough for a first mission, and I thought they were balanced well, with cards you gain all better than the ones from the original deck while the ones you get seem of similar power and choosing between the 3 is always an interesting choice, that's how I like it to be.
I didn't get the Focus nor the character bars.
Overall the game is very stable, I think the only bug I got was the stunning stars displaying on the bottom of the screen instead of above the enemy. Sometimes I wondered if the enemy turn went longer as it went but it was not that clear.
On particular cases the enemy AI would deserve to be better in my opinion, for example I think it should use its +2 something for 1 energy before using the +1 ones, it's weird that it doesn't. Sorry if I'm wrong but I think that sometimes it uses an attack card on a stunned enemy and that's weird too. However don't get me wrong, I think that on more regular cases it's perfectly fine that it does more random things that doesn't particularly seem optimal though, I don't think it's a bad thing.
My only caveat at this point is that overall everything is too slow, one way or another I want to be able to play this game as fast as I press the buttons. You should be able to skip the transitions between screens, speed up the enemies' turn and probably speed up some other things I can't think of by mashing the Left Mouse Button.
I'm happy because I just finally managed to clear World 2 for the first time while as the time passed I was starting to think I would not manage to before the end of the jam.
Now completing the game will require at least a couple of extra sessions. ;)
I think the game would benefit from an objective either in the form of a score of finite lives but it's fun to play as it's punchy with perfect controls, the appropriate speed of bullets and engaging sound effects.
Somehow with so many things happening on the screen without anything blinking sometimes it almost feels too sharp, too smooth, too fast for a NES game ;).
The watermelon won only once and only because the spectator kept mixing left and right, I definitely think it's unbalanced in favour of the human to the point the watermelon can't win.
I did, the last fight was very cool because I could flawlessly beat the two first monsters of the boss fight using Chloro Drain but the last one had me change some of the other monsters in my party and all 4 barely managed (3 were dead at the end) to beat it on my, I think, 3rd try.
Switching to full screen should definitely keep the original ratio as currently you can't really use it and need to zoom in your browser instead. Despite the jump feeling very weird even if couldn't give the exact reason the game is still pretty fun because the level design is very good with the multiple paths through levels, enemies which are fun to deal and the occasional power-ups and the proposed difficulty is right on point.
I think equipping an item consistently makes the game crash, no big deal once you're aware of it.
The game is very fun. Every single monster looks super cool and given the context I think they're very elaborate which is quite a feat as they're also plenty of them. The soundtrack is great too. I like that with the right element a monster basically dies in one hit, I had plenty of fun making full use of the right elements, competely switching to a different full team of the same good element for each dungeon.
My only caveat that I'm mentioning only because the game is overall great would be that the trees, rocks, etc.. feel like they're built 16x16 and then resized to 32x32 which feels both a bit too big at all compared to the most traditional NES games so in the end the game doesn't completely look like those and also inconsistent with the characters on the map. No biggie, especially as once again the monsters during fights look amazing.
I had a lot of fun playing, the levels are diverse while all being real levels with some challenge, challenge which is perfectly balanced for the context, and once again this is served with perfect NES presentation.
The 7th wave is the last one right? I always die there but I think sometimes quite some time after I reached it. Defeating all the aliens is super hard, I don't know if it's technically doable or not. I don't know how much getting hit on purpose is intended or not either, I think it's fine either way anyway.
This game is very fun, the half of an enemy blinking when you're hitting it feels so much NES, that was really a super good idea. The game sounds good, I like the design of the aliens and it mostly plays like a NES game with the appropriate speeds of everything and the right amount of things happening on the screen.
A 2 player mode is a very nice touch, I've not tried past launching a game so I don't how I feel about each ship being stuck on its side instead of simply crossing each other, it seemed unusual but it might be perfectly fine in practice.
The game looks and sounds fine, the gameplay loop is fun enough and I can imagine playing this game on NES.
However I think I wish that losing energy for spinning was faster so that you get to take more risk if you want to get further in combination with some sort of objective either in the form of a score system or of a single level you need to reach the end of instead of an endless mode (ignore this part if the game is in fact not endless and I'm just too bad to get to the end ;) ).
Overall the art is nice even if the style doesn't completely feel consistent, the music is nice too. I like the different weapons and I like that the speeds and weapons were really adapted to an NES feel.
I wish each enemy would propose its own threat and I wonder if the game could not be dynamic by taking place on a much smaller battlefield especially as the speeds of the hero and monsters are, rightfully, slow.
I've got a question : How do the intersections work?
I absolutely can't figure it out nor couldn't I even bruteforce as sometimes the trains do what I want but then I change the track further and then they don't anymore ;) .
As everybody said the NES feel is as high as it can get with this one.
The game would benefit from visual and audio feedback on collisions and I'm sure you were aware of that but the look of the cars approaching is perfect. I think some parts are impossible but in the same time I like that the game gets harder fast enough so I can't complain much.
The music got nice as I realised I needed to restart after I died and I like the different animations of the character and the enemies when they walk or hit/are hitten with the stick, this stick attack is definitely an NES attack.
Too bad we can't play more, there seems to even be a generation or warp system as you don't get the same levels on replay.
Everything about what's playable is very cool. The game looks specially good and the intro and intro music are super nice. The game is very pleasant to control partly due to engaging sound effects. Finally everything about how it plays make it feel like a NES game despite the, as far as I'm aware, anachronistic genre which is fine, the overall look and sounds, the actual tower and enemy sprites, the speed and the amount of things which happen on the screen.
Run time : 05 :46 Nice metal ending. I think I chose the right path by chance at the end on my second try, didn't get the puzzle with the password, but it's fine.
On one hand the vibe I got from the game was not specially typical NES, I think mostly due to the resolutions of the sprites, but on another hand and even more important it was pretty fun to play, I enjoyed the controls based on accelerating and decelerating, the actually different levels between the one where you're going fast and the boss fight and the fine difficulty.
I won! It took me some retries to beat the first level while I beat the third one on my first try, the difficulty is appropriate.
The game is fun, I like the look of the environment as well as the tune and the variations on it.
The game would benefit from visual feedbacks on hits (both the hero and the enemies). I also agree with the person who said everything feels a bit lighter and faster than in a regular NES game.
This is much more interesting to play that I anticipated. It's very hard to parse with no experience but I could see myself wasting quite some time on this.
Funny you can reach a point where you can stay on the stairs spot, the enemies don't even have the time to appear and you can advance this way without even needing to be in front your screens, I think I closed the game when I was at something like level 250.
It could be a NES game and I like the look of the hero and his walking animation.
This game teached me that bananaes kill dinosaurs just like chocolate kills dogs, it's kind of an edugame.
Overall the game works and it's fun for a while to try to get the best score from these super short lives. The visuals and sounds fit the context, that's actually a game I can imagine belonging to a multicart.
"WOW" I beat all the levels, not without dying a lot in the process. Super cool to have a boss fight at the end, especially against this very cool looking and animated shark, funny that it is probably one of the easiest levels but that doesn't matter much.
This is another one which 100% feels like a NES game, which is why we're here, with just heavy and slow enough control for the game to still keep being super fun, and the exact visuals, sounds and music, gameplay loop which feels both familiar and unique and the kind of level and variation between levels you would find there. Infinite continue was the appropriate compromise in my opinion so that we get to see all the content during the jam while each level can be kept hard enough. There's one level where I died several times, I think it's the seventh one and judging by the screenshot I think it was indeed this one.
I completed the game in 2:34:28 according to the game.
The game is very big, and quite polished, I did not expect even the NPCs in towns would thank me if I visited them again after getting the last ingredient. The picture while the ending text is scrolling is specially nice. All the bosses are unique too, overall there's quite enough content to fill this big world, it's not bloated.
I used the map. I really like that the world is completely open and I assume you can get the 6 first ingredients in any order even if I got them in order, that or that there's a natural path don't matter and are not and are never the question.
I've not played Ys on NES so I don't know if it feels like playing Ys on NES but I've played Ys and I've played NES games and then I know it totally feels like playing a NES game and it totally feels like playing Ys, except with a much more cool storyline, I love the cheesecake storyline, and given that one is not that long this one isn't even much shorter. The game looks very good, I specially like the interface part, the mages when they're black and the very first enemies but when they're I think something like brown or orange. The soundtrack is specially nice too.
The game controls perfectly and fighting and getting stronger feels good, the dungeons feel distinct enough in part thanks to the seven different bosses. What you get to find in chests at least sometimes matters and unlocking the different key items and getting back to smash all the walls I had taken notes of (I was wondering whether I missed the item to smash the walls possibly even in the very beginning for a while), going through the invisible monsters before finding the goggles was fun and so were all the boss fights.
I reached the lvl cap quite early, before the 5th boss. The difficulty was overall perfectly fine in the context, the boss fights were almost too lethal, super hard to dodge and easier to bruteforce with one of the sides winning in ten seconds but that's much better this way than the opposite.
So far I could never find real cream cheese and always ended replacing it by Mascarpone in my cheesecakes. The recipe I'm using only uses half a lemon as fruit, no sauce, I cooked one just last week.
I only escaped with the glorious amount of 8 gems as I had especially never used the Z command so I had to restart to catch some of the hidden ones.
The game looks and sounds very good, it controls well, the plateforming challenge is appropriate and the exploration of this big quite open place is fun, I like big open places.
I beat all the levels, although the comment below that the goblins dying is no big deal greatly helped me as I was stuck there with absolutely no idea of what I should do.
The game is cool, I like the lighthearted settings and the somewhat over-the-top sound effects. The game controls well enough and the levels are varied with plenty of fun and unique ones, I greatly enjoyed my time with the game.
I stopped playing on floor 9. I like the music and the transitions between screens. The game plays as it would have if released on NES back then and it's fun for a while. I relate with the other comments suggesting some extra visuals on hit would go a long in way in making it feel a bit less floaty. I think it also could either stop after some floors or get harder as it goes.
You get a bit too strong too fast compared to the enemies yet it's satisfying for a while to ridicule a horde of enemy just staying there and spamming magic and the game sounds and looks cool, I really like the look and animation of the hero.
