Definitely a 5/5 as far as Kongregate games go...that said, action was too frantic for me to listen to take in Phyrnna's music. Also, unlike Raindrops of a Dream and the first world music in Bullet Heaven 1, I feel like most of the music here was really made to the levels, as opposed to going for more memorable melodies.
Lack of upgrades is also a minus, IMO, since it makes it harder to progress then go back and blow away earlier levels.
In any case, definitely had fun playing the game.
Solid gameplay. Unintuitive, however, in that crafting anything above uncommon is a no-no. Definitely some performance issues, but overall, it very much seems a labor of love.
That said, 4/5 for me because, well, there was a side-scroller released a few years back that had one of the most beautiful visual-novel type stories in it as well, and that set the bar a 5/5. So yeah...solid, but Starwish this is not.
I'd really like an autoburn feature on rarity--that is, I'd love to automatically have my grays and blues be burned every time I finish a sector, rather than every minute have to go through the clicking of burn items->auto select->upgrade->okay.
Pirate raids and fleet raid become impossible very quickly. I don't get why fleet power isn't taken into consideration when making these matches. This game stays at 2 stars until this is fixed.
Definitely the worst Frantic IMO. The old weapon system was working perfectly fine, and all the HUUUUUUUUUGE ships (including the player's) give a scale of smallness. And the music is definitely the worst so far. There is also less content than in the previous 2 frantics. If each boss level was counted as one area, you'd have 6 of them compared to the old Frantic's 15.
Which isn't to say it's a *bad* game by any means, but by Frantic standards, it definitely doesn't measure up IMO. 3/5
@ Shadasa: Yep, evas were at 50-70%, the physical and magical redux were perhaps 30-70% since they go to full from one cast. Oh, and I was at level cap (30). Otherwise I simply would have grinded (ground?) to a higher level.
@ishtaba: as I said, I was playing it on epic. I'm pretty sure I would do just fine in normal. As I said, it's not balanced for epic, which just shows a poor job with the numbers, and considering that RPGs more or less are about the numbers (especially this one, as there isn't much plot compared to say, Chrono Trigger, or even Starwish), this lack of execution in perhaps the most important aspect of RPG gameplay is pretty important.
@Shadasa: Does it matter what kind of game it is? The point is that there is a difference between challenging ("Aka I need to do this, that, and the other thing, and be that much more mindful of X, Y, and Z") and frustrating ("Well, despite having my evade/reduce damage buffs on, my team still died in one volley because one of the monsters took out a quarter of my health, and then the boss hit criticals on his attack that came out of nowhere on all 3 of my teammates"). To be able to correctly make that distinction is what separates a good game from a not-so-good one.
@End of Eternity: I really don't think my example is an example of poor balance. A player should be able to complete the game without being a complete expert at it. Or another example, Hell Difficulty on Diablo 2. Is it difficult when you just start it? Of course. But then once you get optimal gear and into the 80s/90s, while you still very much can die, you can cruise through hell with smart play. The later portions of this game in epic difficulty are a question of whether or not some massive spell hits/crits your characters, and if you get caught in a revive/rebuff lock, that's all it takes, regardless of your equipment/level/etc... IMO epic should not be luck based when you have 60% physical/magical/evasion buffs on with proper gear. It is.
Have to rate this a 3/5 at best simply for how frustrating the game gets at later points on epic. Put it this way: a game should not be hard if you're using the most degenerate strategy in the game. The fact that at level 30 you can easily get caught in a revive/rebuff lock wearing max dark resists against Akron is just absurd.
Basically if you've ever played a game called Seiken Densetsu 3, when you had a team of Star Lancer Lise (mass group buffs) and nightblade or ninja master Hawk (debuffs), once you got the spells up, bosses did two damage to you with their "boss is charging super powered attack".
That's the way it should be. The way it is now is basically "oh hey is Akron poisonable? No? Keep waiting."
The game may be balanced for normal, but it certainly isn't balanced for epic. So yeah. A lot of work, a lot of talent shown, but rather poor execution on the edge cases.
Seems both you and Xdanond are fantastic at game creation. It merited a 5/5, yes, though this is a throwback to the 8-bit games, where as Starwish was a bit more modern. However, once again, very very impressive. Easily better than just about any other game here on Kong.
Class 1 ships are easily the best in the game. The best defense against all of that firepower isn't fancy class 5 weaponry, but to simply NOT GET HIT. The larger ships are easily the worst in the game since they're so fat and you can't move, meaning you get shredded in a heartbeat.
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