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And the final boss. Oh god, the final boss, one of the most unfair, luck-driven boss fights in I've ever seen. The whole enemy laser system of the game is either glitched or random. They appear instantly, with no regard if you may be on top of them or not, half the time you dont know when it's safe to go through them and the final boss especially LOVES to cheapshot you with them out of nowhere, or just close you between two of them and spam several bullets there (Not counting constant aimed red bullets).
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The moment you start actually playing the stages, you see the horror.
No determinable hitbox, confusing/damaging terrain (which once glitched out and instantly killed my by teleporting me off-screen), a couple of enemies with same behaviours repeated over and over and music that saps all energy from what should have been action-packed stages. Most of the time the small projectiles clutter the screen and if your ship has alot of it's own projectiles, it becomes hard to see anything. Even the bosses rely on just spamming random obstacles, not a single pattern was noted in any of them.
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Gameplay: Oh dear lord...
Atrocious. Sorry, sorry, ok, maybe's it's not that bad, maybe I got too used to playing good shmup games, maybe I have irrational hatred towards most shmups that don't have any given projectile kill you in 1 hit, but this is just, ewwwwgh. Lemme go more in detail.
The RPG elements are fine, the different weapons were good and I liked the fact that there were many situations that required you to mix up your weaponry, except for few completelly useless weapons. The stat upgrading seemed balanced, mods were ok too. So where is the problem?
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Now, what IS a bit silly are exxagerated traits that all the characters show. I mean, yes, Swig likes to drink, I get it, I got it the first time the game told me that, I know that Deadeye has little regard for human life, I knew it since the FIRST time she almost killed me.
The idea of subtlety for those characters seems to be the same as writing "SUBTLE" on their foreheads o_o.
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Characters: Now for the good part :D
The characters in this game are by FAR it's most shining asset. And by that I mean their various relations and backstories. Whenever you learn something more about them, it really adds some depth.
Even the main character feels like he is more than just a cardboard cutout and he even experiences development and learns something throughout the story.
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The other problem is that the game really loves to TELL you stuff without ever showing it. There are a dozen moments where simply cutting away from characters describing something to the actual thing being described would help. Now that i think about it, you NEVER cut away from characters talking. Whatever grandé event is taking place, you never actually see it.
The final parts of the game really hyped me up for a desperate fight against some impossible enemy which you cannot best in conventional combat, but in the end, it just turned out to be "Shoot at it until it dies." Disappointing.
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Story: Because this is the clear focus of the game.
The story is eeehhhhh. I can't say it's bad, as far as plots go it has it's highs and downs. The main problem for me is how often it introduced plot points in JARRINGLY sudden manner (Character A: O hey, remember that ancient sealed power we never mentioned before?) and how it painstakingly explains those in later conversations to desperately sew up loose plot holes.
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Okaaaaaay, here comes a short review from me.
Minor spoilers ahead (possibly).
(It comes in several parts due to 1000 letters rule)
Now, having played through the game, I must say I have a mixed opinion on it. Won't rate it in numbers tho, better way is to rate every aspect on it's own merit.
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It takes a bit too long to load dont ya think?I would like to see an upgrade with fewer conversations and using shorter sentences to speed up the loading process...
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I keep losing my save file and have even resorted to the tech support part of the forms. If anyone has any suggestions I'm all ears. What parts I could play were great but til I can play the game and it not have to be in one sitting I can't rate it very high.
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Only complaint I have is that sometimes it is impossible to distinguish between Background Objects and things that you can run into, damaging your ship. A good example of this is some of the forest levels, where trees in the background and foreground look the same >.<
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LOTSA SPOILERS:
The only thing I didn't like about it, and it doesn't say anything against the game but just about life in general which the game does an excellent job of portraying, is how not everyone ends up happy. I still haven't done hard mode and gotten the secret ending so I don't know if something about this changes, but as is, you're forced to end up with all but one of: Tessa dying loveless, Swig loses his planet for good, Johnny never makes peace with himself, Deadeye never sees again (and also dies loveless), a couple endings I didn't find first time round, and Ginny dies soon and totally alone. So it's quite sad, when you think about how even if one person ends up happy, the others are still in pain, even when it's something that could be avoided even without wishing for it. Tessa, for instance, just wants you to talk to her and confess yourself. You don't need a wish for that, but that only happens if you DO wish for it. Which I find sad.
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It's insane how much you can care about fictional characters. It's a shame that there isn't a full-fledged book based on this game; i feel like i just read one. It was very nice idea to have several endings as everyone has their own "thing" for a particular character. I found the gameplay pretty fun, though once i decided to stack defense i seemed to breeze through the game (especially when i chose the power-up for defense to add to shields as well) Without a doubt, 5/5. Another one please!
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For a walkthrough (especially to earn the special ending), go here: http://www.kongregate.com/forums/3-general-gaming/topics/175829-rpg-shooter-starwish?linkfixed=1&page=3
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I wasn't expecting much when I first came into this game. However, I can say that it very much surprised me. The story was great, the gameplay was smooth and easy to learn, and the difficulty was in the right spot too. This is the type of game that I just want to keep playing until I see everything the game has. :D
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Finished finally... what a ride. A handful of meager complaints (auto-fire, weapon-cycle-key), but it's nothing because this game is very well designed. I applaud that such a good shmup could be made without any notable lag, even for such a crappy box as mine. Highly refined, and a fantastic story that almost made me weep. You have my most sincere congratulations!
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Make an separate "OK" button for the dialog boxes. Gets annoying when you accidentally skipped a dialogue when you just want to load the text.
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Great game
Maybe sometimes an autosave could be useful.
I accidentally shut down the computer and lost two hours of progress
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@RocketZX: I believe that Flash Player 10.3 changes that, so clearing your cache DOES erase all Flash save data. It's considered a "feature", and flash game authors cannot "fix" it. Can you check your Flash Player version? If you installed the update, that would explain it, and there's nothing xdanond can do about it.
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Spectacular game, loved all of the alternate possibilities in game-play and the story. Tip: for the last fight stay above the boss's forehead, seems less shots gather there(at least for me). 4/5
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Best game since the MARDEK series. It has an amazing and complex story, great music, brilliant writing, engaging characters and a beautiful message. I normally don't even like this genre of shooter, but this game's story and well-balanced, challenging gameplay had me totally hooked until the last scene.
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I believe that if Pseudolonewolf made a game of this kind of genre, it would look like this. trust me, this is a VERY high compliment. This game is a masterpiece in all it's aspects. 6/5, my friend. 6/5.
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"Mare and Johnny are on Enigma trying to calm down some people"
"Oh well, I guess that's ok..."
*Goes to the cafeteria.. Find Johnny and Mare there* "Hey WTF???"
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He he...due to the way levels are unlocked I destroyed the Earthwall, and just after that there was the cutscene where the Earthwall was attacking.
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Ah just got the time paradox achievement on hard, that really should be an impossible badge.
Unless you get lucky on the first go, you need to spam def, att and agl on a new game plus and max out health, reduce, evade modules. Wish there was a bonus cut scene though.
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Junes,the author of the game IS xdanond.The info is in the link.Right under the first ad.The game is most famous here in Kongregate,but the author still is xdanond.
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*SPOILERS*
The fact that the story was disjointed from the gameplay was a little jarring... I would've liked to fight Mare in his training, or be shot at by the Firebolt... But all in all, I loved the game, and hope you make a sequel!
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Haha. Good game. A weird bug just happened. I killed the monolith at the exact same time he killed me. The game glitched like hell and went in a constant loop saying "warning" and doing a fast scroll through of each scene in the game... weird