Got quite a bit with what I paid for from a game of this size, with more that I'm still uncovering during post-game. I suppose it's time to give my thoughts, which I feel will be ironically not much despite all I've dived into thru out my playtime but we'll see if I surprise myself this time. This is a recommendable game with VERY questionable decisions that need to be touched on.
Story:
There's a handful of good notes this game falls back on that kept me coming back for more. First off being the slap-stick humor and wackiness that consistently is shown even in the story. Whether Frebb decks someone, throws someone offscreen, or manhandles someone into the ground- You get the feeling he's just always upset (like most of us), or just likes playing the straight man. Another strength, which I find is it's double-edged sword, is the grand, yet B L O A T E D story, where essencially drags Frebb into an intergalactic tyrant's mess of constant partying, making his subjects OD, and having Rose do his dirty work as she self-promotes said work via broadcast (to a popular degree ofc). Frebb himself wouldnt be a part of any of this if they hadnt disturbed his sleep from the constant music and destroying his home after basically luring him out. So yes, we are talking about yet another revenge plot, though a pretty downplayed one as hijinks are a major focus....As well as text, upon text, upon text, upontextupontextupontextupon you get the picture. To get thru the plot, expect alot, and I mean ALOT of reading, which is incredibly ironic given the cartoony nature of things.
There isnt much character development to speak of. Barely even character progression as everyone gets a pretty ok outcome by the end of the game...Which basically sequel-baits when Frebb had not one, not two, but THREE TIMES where he could've killed Ulcethot like he planned to do. But oh man, even after turning Super, he has to talk mad garbage before doing much of anything. In fact, he doesnt even take any lives despite how overwhelming and selfish he is to everything. He very often is distracted about minor things around him. Another odd decision is how we're blatantly told his very anatomy is abnormal (didnt transition well to gameplay), since (get this) he's half-Ulcethot....Which we ZERO implication of aside from a mad scientist's analysis of Frebb data, but even then, you'd make him at least green in a few area, or have a 3rd eye somewhere. Though apparently, he has very decent regen (again, not at all in gameplay) and it quite literally only is shown once at the end sooooo pretty often, there's alot of plot points that felt spit-balled in there. The biggest among those being Brunner, who literally is Never mentioned in the story, unless you clear many bonus challenges. For a character who's very closely the strongest, only 2nd to True Rose Akai, his story with her is actually very dense; Having past students, being the protector of Earth for centuries, constantly training and being trapped in a demon prison, which explains his absence, but I just wish he was often hinted at often. He is someone that's stronger than our current heroes after all.
Anyways, you can cut the dialouge into 1/3rd (or less) and still have this grand plot the devs intended with no changes to the outcome of things. Other characters like Drinn, Roxy and Mindstein are pretty inconsequential for 80% of what's going on, but if any are your favorite, more power to you. Kinda feels like the storyboarding took off like a rocket and left them in the dust after the 2nd Zone. There's alot of lore and background bs I could get into but no one cares at this point.
The challenge mode is practically my favorite part of the game, especially when you can unlock more characters the story progresses, which many games lack these days. I'd play it way tf more if it was backed with backed by better stage design, so I have to go in with a mindset of willingness to get reamed, Lord help you if you choose All the challenge options for your runs.
Gameplay:
The credits ironically go into how there's a handful of good testers, but it feels like they only did so in order to prevent crashes than actually addressing game design (unless it was even worse back then), cuz I swear, over half of the stages feel like they were made by Dimps. You know how ppl often complain about slipper controls in some of the Sonic games? Well there's that, MORE than plenty of bottomless pits, and when the devs feel like the player needs challenge, GIVE THAT MF SPIKES ON THE GROUND, CEILING OR EVEN IN MID-AIR!! YES, it gets that bad. OH and add some gray backgrounds and darkness while making the spikes bigger than usual , cuz we want all the platforming hate crimes present in here. It really would turn players off and wonder if the designers' favorite stages were from Kaizo Mario. You'd be surprised with how often platforms themselves are just wrapped in spikes and force you to fit thru narrow gaps of other spikes. It's some very mental stuff.
The characters can get pretty fun and worth exploring to get around issues, but more often than not, they can lack the damage, and better movement options when lacking one or the other. Sometimes there's a balance like with Frebb, Rose and (sometimes) Hilde. But you get real iffy stuff with Foamy (who basically lacks everything for later challenges), Roxy, Mindstein and Doomkopf (who NEEDS double jump); And trust me, I tried hard with these other characters but you really feel it when they fall short. If it aint apparent in the stages (somehow), you'll REALLY feel it in the bosses. Often they get Zelda-like where you can only hit them when a weakness is exposed, but you should expect things to take up more and more of the screen as the game goes on (my least favorite of them all being Porrid. Makes me wanna R2 myself every time). I'd highly suggest these guys should stray away from being given I-frames 90% of the time, or keeping them til a weakness comes up, cuz I dunno who told them that was fun to deal with. The custom moves could've been better, with the best one being Frebb's Guts sword to replace his whimpy spin-punch. I mean if it had momentum-amped damage to it's spin like I thought it did initially I wouldnt replace it so much, but the sword gives me jump height too so cant exactly blame me. I'd like to see what the other characters could've worked with as far as custom moves, but most are hard to use and inconsistent as hell, or flatout underwhelming. The creativity is certainly there, but look at Freedom Planet, Copy Kitty & even Blazblue to have some truly impressive stuff happening for custom moves. Stacking power-up with up to 3 instead of one at a time would be also great, ESPECIALLY for the boss rush mode. It feels impossible to do as is.
Music:
I'd say the composition was handled pretty well with several tracks I'd like to have on my playlist. Odd that they're all hidden and encoded hard in the files yet there's no music player to speak of in the game? (as far as I'm seeing). Never did I feel any tracks were out of place. Definitely the game's stronger suits.
Visuals:
It's some of the wackiest stuff I've ever seen honestly, which is what drew me in first of all. Proabably the game's strongest suit ngl.
Conclusion:
The game is hard honestly, but it'd benefit infinitely if it can straw away from arbitrarily high amounts of bs everywhere at the player's expense and often feels like the devs dont know what that is. I want to be more lenient of judgement of this game but the cons are VERY big cons still, which I hope get addressed in the sequel (which I did play. looks promising but runs like turd on my pc for no reason). Still recommendable for the experience, but completing the game certainly a nightmare that even pros will find layers of egregious things to deal with.
Other words, 7/10 on a good day, 3/10 on a REALLY bad day.
