C.A.R.L.

I was at an Anime con when I gave this game a shot where Nintendrew setup the demo and marked it on my list to pickup after the convention. [i]This is just my bare bone critique's.[/i] [b]Pros[/b]: The game is roughly similar to another plat former, Cave Story, though it doesn't setup the levels and story like Cave Story does. You have a choice in levels you want to attempt based on the amount of technology or chips you locate, though sequence breaking is difficult if not impossible based on how the rules of the platforming works. The levels, while most folks argue are just bad, they are well designed in hiding the treasure's and upgrades and leading the player to them so long as the player chooses to stop and observe the level along with any inconsistency in it's design. Such as fake walls, gate's locked with a switch I did not locate in the current or 1st run and have to go looking for it. It's a game that demands you at least try to learn about your level and use it to your advantage based on the rules imposed in some sense. The soundtrack is killer, there are a TON of nods and easter eggs everywhere and the character's are all incredibly likeable. Especially the machines your rescue. [b]Small Irritations[/b]: The controls to C.A.R.L. are legitimately tight from controlling where you jump to using your blaster to get through levels though I have had some small issues when some of C.A.R.L.'s upgrades are mapped to his movements. Such as double tapping the direction or D-pad to do one action, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't when it's not tapped fast enough or it works, but your controller is flighty and registers a different direction such as down towards certain doom. Buttons such as B, Y, RT and LT are currently unused as they could be assigned for those abilities to reduce the need for using the directional to operate properly. Another small irritation is access to new weapons which doesn't happen until about 60% into the game to find the weapons developer H.A.R.V. which he does provide handy weapons such as the missile launcher, grenades, shotgun, etc. though some of these could have been slightly useful earlier for some enemies in some levels to deal with while managing a small amount of HP. Ontop of that, some of the weapons can also be a little overpowered when purchased so early for certain boss fight's, such as using the missile launcher with splash damage against C.H.A.R.L.O.T.T.E. and taking our certain parts of her body that she needs to move about though they all have a hit box affected by splash damage, as an example. The only time I had to swap to different weapons was when I found the final boss as he would move about to quickly for missiles, thus I had to swap to my blaster and shotgun to deal with him. I would say that from this perspective, difficult doesn't become justified though if this was intentional to help the player, then I guess I can't really gripe about it either. [b]Cons[/b] Factory Section 4, R&D... WHY?! (Had to play each of them twice to find all of the pickups from bonus chips to blueprints, especially the room with purple glue and anti-gravity everywhere that didn't do the neat programming trick or infinite repeating areas no matter how far you fall or how far you travel in a direction.) SO MUCH PAIN! XD No proper guides to find the 16th medal. Found the discussion board of little help as there was one annoying Steam User creating a massive load of topics that weren't helpful. Game is a bit short, I was able to beat it in a few hours, though I have had trouble trying to 100% the title. [b]Surprises[/b] When your reach the end, the last level before the true final boss fights is actually kinda cool. Especially with the 3D work and that the previous levels make up PART of that last level, I'd say it's a beautiful rendition of imagination and you guys outdid yourselves. [b]Meh[/b]: The characters are fun, but the story feels kinda 'meh.' I won't blame the youtuber or the developers as the story served it's purpose. [b]Should you get it?[/b] If you enjoyed games like cave story and treating the 4th section of levels like water levels, then yeah, pick it up! It's only tough when you need to find something so very specific and while I haven't 100% the game, it was still a fun time to play through and I kept coming back to beat it at least. :D That's not a lot I can say for AAA games like Forsaken. XD