Shattered Core claims to "combine the best elements of successful platformers such as Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, and Mega Man with revolutionary new elements." So yeah, I pretty much hated this game before I even started it, but let it never be said that I let my biases impede my judgement. Upon actually playing Shattered Core, I felt there was a lot to love and very little to actually hate. There was plenty to get annoyed by, but the game has a whole has its head in the right place.
First, exactly what elements of Metroid, Ninja Gaiden, and Mega Man do the developers think they've combined? I'd have a hard time arguing that they even implemented the design features that made those games awesome, let alone that they combined them with "revolutionary new elements." By "best elements," do you perhaps mean that the main character has a sword, gun, and the ability to climb walls?....and is also a robot? Well whatever. These aspects are purely aesthetic, so we can call them simple innocuous homage.
My second question is, what exactly are these revolutionary new elements? I only got to play the first two levels before the game crashed on me (and, of course, there's no save feature, so that's as far as I'm getting), but I didn't see anything particularly striking about the game design. Certainly nothing worthy of being called "revolutionary." I'm assuming they're referring to the color-matching powerup system, which is fairly unique, yes, but revolutionary?
That said, let's get into more pointed criticism, shall we? The powerup system works like this: You collect 3 orbs of colors green, red and blue. These orbs determine how many attacks of what kind you can perform. For example, if you have a blue and red orb, you will be able to perform 2 consecutive attacks at the basic attack level. However, the more consecutive orbs you have of the same color, the more powerful your succession of attacks will be. So, for example, red, blue, blue will yield two attacks at the basic attack level and then one more powerful attack, etc. This keeps the gameplay engaging for the entirety of the first level, but afterwards it stops being noteworthy and starts just being how the game is played. The mechanics don't change at all depending on what orbs you've collected, so it amounts to nothing more than added spice on the fairly tasty meat pie that is this game's mechanics.
The thing that made me like this game twofold: first, I love the variety of your moves, and second, I love how that variety is presented to you. Much like in Nightfall, you use the arrow keys to move and WASD to attack. "D" controls your gun, "S" controls your sword, and "A" allows you to stride, which is a rather overpowered but immensely satisfying evasive attack. I'm sure "W" does something later on, too, but I didn't play enough to find out.
And that's the other thing I like about the game. It rewards your progress with more complexity, not just more of the same thing. Far too many games, platformer and otherwise, on this list and off it, are way too repetitive. This game gives you a new power each level, meaning the mechanics aren't going to get stale any time soon.
Final verdict: if this game had a save feature, I'd be interested enough to play it to completion. That's all I got for today. Until next time, stay versatile.
Links
https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=482
PS- when I went back a few pages in the game gallery to check the name of Nightfall, I noticed more than one game on the list that I hadn't reviewed, but were dated in past years. That's just not fair! There are 500 games on this list. I'm supposed to leaf through the entire gallery to keep up with the new entries? Whatever. I'm sure I'll figure something out...just an update...
