Sousui, or as I like to call it, Asteroids with Attitude, is a top-down space shooter wherein you shoot things in space. Nuff said. Sometimes you're escorting colonists to gates while shooting things in space, sometimes you're defending a base while shooting things in space, and sometimes you're just plain shooting things in space.
So, how fun is it to shoot things in space in Sousui? Well, could be worse. The sound effects are satisfying and all the weapons are very well designed and fun to use, but the enemies are just way too tough. I don't care that the big battle cruisers take a long time to kill, but even the little grunts that may as well have a big neon sign above them that says "we die with one hit," actually take several hits to kill.
Even though the weapons are varied and cool looking, they're still not going to be as fun as they could be if killing even the smallest baddies weren't a chore. There's a reason the expert mode in Starfox 64 only makes you more vulnerable rather than making the enemies more durable. The former increases challenge and demands better performance on the player's part, whereas the latter just adds another layer of tedium onto the experience.
Apart from that, there are some cool little details that make the experience more enjoyable than your typical Asteroids wannabe. first off, the graphics, music, and voice acting (voice acting?), yes, voice acting, are all well grounded in the second decade of the 21st century (but Sousui came out in 2008! Shut up, voice in my head...ahem). Also, the first level ends not with a proclamation of your awesomeness and victory, but with your enemy utterly destroying your entire base with one powerful attack. This adds a whole new level of threat to the experience in a way not a lot of shoot 'em ups can claim to. I don't know whether this or anything like it happens again, because I only played the first two levels.
But why did you stop after the second level, Dean? I'm glad you asked. Frankly, I thought the game had overstayed its welcome. As I said before, killing enemies isn't incredibly fun, and the game also just throws way too many of them at you. Because of this, I never really felt like I was progressing. The scenery never changed, I rarely got any feedback from the high-pitched "Daniel Floyd in Extra Credits" voice over man, and the enemies just kept on coming. It felt like I was stuck in one particularly long segment of the game.
I was so tired of picking away at enemies with my vastly inferior weaponry after the second level that I just decided to quit. Maybe the game gets better later, but I couldn't tell ya. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay pewpewin.
Links
So Sweet: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=1422
Monday, September 9, 2013
Sonace
Well guys, the school year is officially upon us, meaning I'm not going to have the time nor the energy to write reviews of the kind of length I was able to this summer. Be warned, my weekday reviews are going to be more like barebones outlines than actual reviews. As the old adage goes, I don't need em good. I need em by Tuesday.
Sonace is a 2.5D Mega Man-esque platformer. There's really only one interesting thing to talk about here, and that's the game's conveyance. Like Mega Man, it tries to convey all of its controls by using the mechanics alone. A worthy challenge to pose to oneself, I must say. Certainly a great exercise for any aspiring game designer.
At the end of my playthrough, I had learned and mastered about half of the game's controls. Not terrible for a game with no textual explanations for anything whatsoever, but it could have been better.
I will say that the game did a very good, if annoying, job at conveying the fact that pressing jump twice will allow you to hover Princess Peach style around the level at a constant altitude. There's one section about halfway through that I think is impossible to clear without using this technique, so the player is guaranteed to learn it. Also, the first enemies you face are all very high up, attached to the ceiling, so such a technique would be very helpful when aiming your default arcing weapon. Only problem is that the enemies are just as easy to kill with a simple jump-shot, and are even easier to simply skip past, even without using the dash.
Dashing, then, is a skill I had no idea existed until I looked at the controls screen after my first playthrough. There's no need to ever use it, so conveying it isn't really essential, but it makes the game a heck of a lot more fun to play, so why not create some kind of room where you have to dash through a section of floor or spikes come out of it or something?
Also, you can switch weapons, but why you would ever want to is beyond me. Your secondary weapon is short range, and with the exception of the final boss, all of the enemies are fought at medium-long range, because if they get too close, they hurt you. Even the final boss is easily defeated by the default weapon, however.
Or at least I think it was. I honestly couldn't tell whether I beat the game or I died. I was wailing on the boss for quite a while when my health got dangerously close to 0. I kept hitting the boss, however, and suddenly the game just cut to the credits sequence, which makes it seem like I won...I guess.
All-in-all, it's an interesting game and a valiant effort to capture the genius of Mega Man's design. Unfortunately, it does fall short, but that doesn't mean it's not worth checking out. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay afloat.
Links
So Nice: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=514
Sonace is a 2.5D Mega Man-esque platformer. There's really only one interesting thing to talk about here, and that's the game's conveyance. Like Mega Man, it tries to convey all of its controls by using the mechanics alone. A worthy challenge to pose to oneself, I must say. Certainly a great exercise for any aspiring game designer.
At the end of my playthrough, I had learned and mastered about half of the game's controls. Not terrible for a game with no textual explanations for anything whatsoever, but it could have been better.
I will say that the game did a very good, if annoying, job at conveying the fact that pressing jump twice will allow you to hover Princess Peach style around the level at a constant altitude. There's one section about halfway through that I think is impossible to clear without using this technique, so the player is guaranteed to learn it. Also, the first enemies you face are all very high up, attached to the ceiling, so such a technique would be very helpful when aiming your default arcing weapon. Only problem is that the enemies are just as easy to kill with a simple jump-shot, and are even easier to simply skip past, even without using the dash.
Dashing, then, is a skill I had no idea existed until I looked at the controls screen after my first playthrough. There's no need to ever use it, so conveying it isn't really essential, but it makes the game a heck of a lot more fun to play, so why not create some kind of room where you have to dash through a section of floor or spikes come out of it or something?
Also, you can switch weapons, but why you would ever want to is beyond me. Your secondary weapon is short range, and with the exception of the final boss, all of the enemies are fought at medium-long range, because if they get too close, they hurt you. Even the final boss is easily defeated by the default weapon, however.
Or at least I think it was. I honestly couldn't tell whether I beat the game or I died. I was wailing on the boss for quite a while when my health got dangerously close to 0. I kept hitting the boss, however, and suddenly the game just cut to the credits sequence, which makes it seem like I won...I guess.
All-in-all, it's an interesting game and a valiant effort to capture the genius of Mega Man's design. Unfortunately, it does fall short, but that doesn't mean it's not worth checking out. That's all I got for now. Until next time, stay afloat.
Links
So Nice: https://www.digipen.edu/?id=1170&proj=514
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