gururoji said:My 2 cents:
I have no idea why this game is so hugely hyped. Honestly it looks just like something I would totally flip for, and I tried hard to be super excited about it, but I played through it was fairly underwhelmed the whole time.
Here's a few points that I keep coming back to:
* The way the game moves feels to me like a turn-based game maker trying to make a real-time action game. I never got the feeling like it controlled all that fluidly and it's weird sometimes how drilling will "snap" you into position (this is fairly helpful from a gameplay standpoint, but the way it looks and feels was weird to me). Feel is a fairly subjective thing in a game, but of all the other platformers I played on GBA (Mario Advances, Megaman Zero, Klonoa, hell, even DK King of Swing), this had the strangest, most disconnected feel to me. Reminded me of old PC shareware.
I think the biggest flaw in the game is the framerate, it feels like it is sub 30fps and a lot closer to 15fps than to 30.
* The optional training level you can go to after the first introductory level throws pretty much every basic control and game-mechanic twist at you right away. The effect of this? I played that level, thought the game was freakin' awesome, then played through the rest of the game and was bored by the fact that the other levels weren't as challenging or innovative. The one secret level I did unlock was pretty out-there and challenging too, but basically I played 2 outstanding optional levels and plodded through the rest.
I think all of the secret levels are fun and challenging, more so on hard mode. In fact, the whole game is much better in hard mode. It actually gave some oldschool vibes, where you had to do certain parts over and over again until you knew the RIGHT WAY to do it.