Argol - Kronoss' Castle

7/10

I'm gonna recommend this one for retro platformer / arcade fans, but with a BIG caveat. This game is JANK. Very much so. I'm not just talking about clunky controls or retro mechanics, I'm talking about basic things not working such as attack animations, hitboxes not disappearing when an enemy is defeated, or hitboxes spawning too early before an attack sprite has even appeared. Weird momentum changes occurring when you get hit while dashing, and the strangeness of how dashing even works. There's a lot of oddness to this game. I haven't finished it because I spent an hour in one of the later stages looking for a key that doesn't exist so I couldn't progress, had to start the whole stage over again because if you use one of the 3 keys to open the secret door (which I didn't even know I was using the key since they just disappear from your inventory when you approach certain walls or obstacles) the secret room doesn't contain an extra key so you get SOFT LOCKED. The fact that the stage is so damn long with 2 awful horseback riding sections and a mini-boss only to throw this soft lock at you at the end of the stage is ridiculous. Oh maybe I should elaborate on the janky dashing. It seems to work based on some kind of timer, it basically forces your velocity to stay at this increased rate during that time, so if you get hit you will be flung backwards at that same velocity. The speed is ludicrously high compared to your normal walking speed which is painfully slow. And you often have to dash jump to cross many gaps, the timing is very strict since you need to be near the edge when pressing dash in order for you to have enough time to clear it, so you gotta press jump exactly 1 or 2 frames after pressing dash. It's not like Mega Man X where you carry your momentum into the air when dash-jumping, no once that dash timer runs out you will lose all horizontal velocity and drop like a stone. The game also features other common jank like no variable height jumping, and you cannot drop through semi-solid platforms. Fortunately the levels are decently design and almost always give you a way to kind of walk down to platforms underneath you, but it's still unnecessarily jank, and you can't get away with calling it retro as this mechanic has existed since the late 80s. The game is fairly easy for the first half, the stages get a bit tougher in the later half. But the bosses are an absolute joke, you can basically just burst down every boss in the game. Most of them only have 1 attack and barely move. It's really weird to see these giant well drawn boss sprites just stand around or walk slowly while repeating one attack over and over again. Enemies aren't much better but since they come in large numbers can be a little more threatening. You are gonna take damage since there's so much coming at you in the later stages. Almost all projectile-based enemies can be easily dealt with by simply ducking and slashing at them, they always throw over your head. Flying enemies are the only ones that really give you any trouble, and those annoying flower guys that fly at you at mach speed and have a habit of spawning right on top of you. There are some weird choices with the attacks too. Your basic sword attack is fast and getting powerups makes the range pretty good, it's actually pretty fun to use. Enemies get hit-stopped when you hit them so you can basically play it like a hack n slash, individual enemies are easy to deal with but groups of them require more careful play. There is a punch attack that thrust you forward, it's useless as you immediately take damage from whatever you punched. And a jump-kick which also is useless for combat 95% of the time, unless you are kicking a few of the flying enemies out of your way, it doesn't deal enough damage to be useful, but it does actually help some of the platforming sections feel a bit easier since it's more reliable than dash jumping. With all those problems I just mentioned, why am I still recommending this game? Well, it's pretty entertaining. The graphics are fantastic, a truly authentic 16-bit looking game, very reminiscent of late 80's arcade classics. Large, colorful and details sprites and tilesets with parallax backgrounds. The music is also quite good, though it doesn't always fit the theme of the game, there's a lot of different inspirations in the music that are interesting to hear. The controls are consistent so despite the few movement issues, it still feels satisfying to slash everything in side and kick flying skulls in the face. The stages take a non-linear approach where you often have to hunt for keys. Not my favorite style of level design but it's not poorly laid out here. It's kind of fun to explore the stages, killing enemies and jump kicking through the platforming. The sound effects are hilariously goofy, the player character makes really high pitch goofy sound screams all the time, odd choices for an action game but I think they were leaning into that late 80's / early 90s anime cheese here with the sounds and character designs. The dialogue is equally as cheesy as well. So overall, it's surprisingly entertaining despite all it's flaws. And it's at a cheap price too so I'd say if you can overlook the jank, you might get a kick out of the gameplay, soundtrack and general goofy anime vibes. There's even one or two interesting ideas the game manages to have through out the journey. And looks like there's difficulty options, achievements and maybe unlockables with the hostages you can rescue so there's at least a few hours or more of content here. If you go in with low expectations you might have a cheesy good time. 6/10

Argol is an old-school action platformer meant to be a throwback to arcade action games from the 80s and 90s, like Rastan and Rygar, with a sprinkle of anime from the same time frame, mostly Saint Seiya. The devs did a good job in making it authentic enough, but still not as frustrating and annoying as these games were: it autosaves whenever you complete a stage, there are unlimited continues and, despite the lives system, you can retry a stage as many times as you want. Plus, there's some replayability since you can revisit the levels to find the hidden items (prisoners, life points and songs of the soundtrack). Plus both a bad and good ending, but I haven't figured out how to unlock that one for now... The only cumbersome thing is that the double jump and dash attack moves are a bit weird, and it's easy to drop into a chasm, especially since you can't see what's below and above you. But the stages are structured in a way that you usually can figure it out. There's also a shoot-em-up segment near the end that becomes pretty annoying, because it's still structured like a platformer somewhat but everything shoots at you from every direction, but with a little patience you can pass that part too. It also has a strange but cool soundtrack that reminds me of "prog rock" somewhat, unusual for this kind of games but still pretty interesting! For the rest, I did enjoy it, especially since it's the first work from the devs, and they are off to a good start if they want to make other homages to coin-ops and action titles of old!

c est un jeux qui m'a fait retomber en enfance. Graphisme, animation sympa et une excellente jouabilité. Je le recommande. vraiment

Imaginé le meilleur des jeux rétro, purgé de tout défaut. Jeux passionnant, développé par un passionné.

Très bon jeu, on plonge dans un univers rappelant celui des jeux des années megadrive, les graphismes et la musique sont top