[h2] a very miserable time. [/h2]
i bought the game for like 3 bucks, and if i could get them back i probably would.
to start with, the game does the cliché of making you very powerful, having you die in a cutscene, and then dropping you off at the start of your journey. unfortunately for you, once you've played that little snippet, you've played the whole game. everything from after this point is the same, but now you have to whittle down health bars. there is a leveling system, but it serves little purpose aside from making the also leveled weapons have a higher potential level. there aren't many different enemy types, and just as few weapon types. there are also shields!! which brings me to my biggest grievance — sound design!!
[h3] Say goodbye to your ears. [/h3]
this game is VERY LOUD. i had the sliders turned most of the way down and even then, it didn't matter much. if it wanted a noise to be loud, it was gonna break your eardrums. sounds can also layer on top of each other, making them much louder as a result. there aren't many opportunities for this to happen, what with a lack of noise from most creatures and npcs, but just about every entity has a shield. in this game, shields can be broken, and to indicate that your (or another creature's) shield has broken, it plays a not too quiet noise. on it's own it's nothing crazy, but this game loves to throw multitudes of dudes at you, all of which have the same single code line ai to hold block as they near the player. when attacked, you break all of their shields, which allows for free attacks as they get stunned. unfortunately, this is where the layering of sounds matters most, as the not-to-egregious shield shatter noise gets amplified ten-fold. this can and will happen multiple times within a single combat, as enemies will almost always spawn in waves. there is a section of the game where there are turrets that shoot homing rockets at you, which completely disregard volume settings, and then there are enemies that shoot the same rockets.
the constant barrage of loud noises and the protagonist sounding off every action like he is exuding effort at all makes for a very miserable time. the camera controls are very very bad, which paired with directional attacks makes for a very miserable time. the difficulty slider feel of enemies scaling to your level, turning everything into a chore makes for a very miserable time. the stamina mechanic being tied to dodging and not being able to be improved at any point makes for a very miserable time.
downloading and playing this game makes for a very miserable time. you can get the same feel the game is trying to evoke by playing some slop like genshin, at least that will look better, control better, and sound better than this proof-of-concept, bare bones school project of a game.
