http404error's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Wilt: Last Blossom]

I loved it! The mechanics and controls were polished, and the atmosphere was great. The use of tone and color palette in the retro setting was brilliant, although the dirt was an eyesore (perhaps that was the intention?). I think that the darker tone was successful without being needlessly depressing or sacrificing the retro homage.
Music is fabulous, kudos to Calamaistr for a somber 8-bit soundtrack, which is no minor feat.
The game mechanics were quite nice
Cool little secret area, although I was hoping I would get something out of it other than a few lines. This is the kind of game I would have liked as a kid too, and my sis enjoyed it.
The built-in walkthrough was useful and informative in a type of game where getting stuck often causes frustration.
My only real gripe would be that I didn't get to use the grenades as weapons more than once and even then it was optional with no reward. In the same vein, each fight or puzzle only had one solution. I would have liked if I could use the wave blast to hit the bridge switch or the last boss.
Also, I felt that the consequences of my actions weren't clarified sufficiently in the ending, merely implied. Just a few more lines would have pulled this off.
Altogether a wonderful piece and a worthwhile use of my time. Good job.

[Hidden Dimensions Xyth]

Fun, deep, and addicting. Shows effort and care - easy 5.

[The Last Angel]

Original, fun, and well-made. Especially original. How could this not be amazing?

[Story of the Blanks]

Cannot get past third enemy. 14th try. Giving up.

[Stealing the Diamond]

I once did something like this.

10/10 for referencing The Neverhood!

PuffballsUnited responds:

That's a good game.

[Riddle Transfer]

Just plain amazing.

I don't think much else needs to be said beyond that.

[Outpost:Haven]

Reminiscent of Dead Space

Gripe #1: Enemies have no attack animations. They just stand there.
Sorry if some of these have been mentioned before.
All the loading screen tips that mattered showed up too late! You need to work on that. Maybe force a display order.
No block moving puzzles? Awww.... (just kidding)
Completed Objectives showed weird numbers, like Progress: -31100%. The bars were glitched too. I think you know about that, though.
Selecting weapons is really slow. Every... time... you have to wait for the cute little animation to finish. It would be better if the game didn't animate the weapons and didn't pause on weapon switching, so you could hold shift and select with the mouse, releasing to switch. Many games use a system like that, and pausing kills the tension.
I didn't have any issues with the door hacking segment.
I did like how you could fake out the turrets when they try to get a lead on you.
Charging money for timing failure is the dumbest part of the game. Other than that, however, the balance of money and XP flow was flawlessly balanced, something few games ever accomplish.
It's really annoying that you can't see the roach holes very well, yet you can't walk over them. The best way to fix that would be to allow walking over them.
All of the bosses were poorly designed and not very entertaining in general.
In Swarm Mode, I can't seem to get weapons that I bought in Story Mode. They are UNABLE to be bought. Period. Biggest problem by far.
Some weapons have trouble hitting enemies directly in front of you, even the Rocket Launcher... which also doesn't explode sometimes when you are being mobbed by large enemies.
Upgrading Mag Size increases ammo pickup amounts. Doesn't make much sense.
For a while, I thought Rapid Fire was a misnomer. The terminal names the stat 'Reload Speed', which I thought was synonymous to 'Mag Change'. Fix that to something like 'Rate of Fire' or 'Refire Speed'.
Objectives need to specify exact quantities, not just percentages.
The Pulse Rifle doesn't have a max ammo that is a multiple of clip capacity, with or without Large Mags. That's a little odd.
Swarm didn't get harder. Make it ramp into 'Impossible' as you progress so that high scores actually mean something. Swarm was boring. Boring.
------------------------
On the bright side, it was well-made and polished, with quality sound design and graphics. The story was good enough, no complaints there. The mood was well accomplished, especially for a top-down, although definite improvements are possible. Overall, it was a job well done, and fixing a few things will make it even better. This game could be given premium content to great success, if that's what you care about.

Squize responds:

I love your weapon selecting idea. I think it may well be too much of a ball ache to add it to this game, but I'm def going to use that.
Thanks for the bug report too. I'm on the beer all day tomorrow, so hopefully Monday I'll be able to sit down and fix all these ( So long as the hang over isn't too bad ).

With the secure terminals, I couldn't think of a way to penalise the player for getting it wrong. Losing health threw up so many problems, so taking cash was the easiest solution. Not ideal, and it'll teach me not to plan.

The thing about the pulse rifle ammo, I never even considered that :) I just put a spreadsheet together and played with values for all the weapons until they felt right. Even then I had to tweak the flame thrower at the last minute as it was just too powerful.

Great points, thank you.

[Random Heroes]

Hey, no big complaints!

Except that you cannot drop through platforms.