I'm starting to notice a lot of similarities between DigiPen platformers, almost like they're running down a checklist of features that they need to have, including but not limited to 3 rewards per level.
But oh, where are my manners? I'm 3 lines into the review and I haven't picked apart the title yet. Obviously, the cleverness they were going for here is that if you say the names of all the letters individually, it sounds like "energy," but I think everyone's first instinct is to say "nerg," which sounds like something Buzz Lightyear would yell while falling down a death pit.
Anyhow, the game. I'm really running out of things to say about these platformers, because they really are starting to all look the same. Sure they have completely different visual designs, but when you put on your reviewer goggles that strip down every game to its basic mechanics, things can start to get really dull really fast.
NRG has its fair share of things that I like. It's polished as hell and centers itself around a mechanic that remains unique while not overstaying its welcome. However, I think those things were slightly overshadowed by the little things that annoyed me.
First off, I'm going to establish a new rule: you're not allowed to make the sides of spike traps as deadly as the tops of them. If you absolutely must program a hitbox into the entire spike, change it to a flame trap or something, because otherwise I find myself wondering how poorly built my robot has to be to die from walking into a metal bar.
Also, the level design doesn't really reflect that the devs know their mechanics too well. More than once, I found myself jumping straight into a spinning death wheel because my jump arc was way steeper than I thought it would be. From the perspective of any normal game, I did everything right, but I still lost. John Nash would be very upset.
Maybe if I'd encountered this game a bit earlier, its positive aspects would have stood out a bit more. As it is, though, this one's getting stored in my "fuhgeddaboudit" drawer, right next to my parents' anniversary and the entirety of Precalculus.
That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay polar.
Links
DUH: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=25442
