A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX

While the game is alright, it never really is able to get past just 'alright'. Boss fights often feel more annoying than they do challenging as they last way too long while you deal little to no damage, often having moments of dealing none as the enemy gets to use a 'super' move (Multiple times a battle) that is often capable of doing at least half your health with no realistic ability to dodge... Or not having a legitimate safe zone during phases (Whether it be due to the boss attack being unavoidable, or badly designed areas where the boss clips through the environment to damage you) Enemies often feel poorly designed due to their ability to stun lock you out of your abilities, especially abilities that are required to even damage some of them. Abilities often feel pointless with low damage output, very little situational purpose, and long wind up times that can and will be interrupted. Combining that with a cool down, abilities were rarely used or even relied on. Abilities like healing, which has a rather steep cost, only make this game feel needlessly grindy (Why this game even makes you feel you need to grind is bonkers to me) especially when dying in a fight does not reset the currency, forcing you to restart the level just to have enough saved up to possibly make it to the end of a fight (Or hoping the healing is even up). Upgrades only make it feel worse, as they are just useless enough to encourage grinding to make them slightly more useful (Healing to close the RNG gap and cool down, but not cost, mega attack to hit more targets with a little more damage, however no way to force it to attack through bosses often and annoying no-damage super attacks). End of the day, the game just doesn't feel recommendable. I am aware of it's age, and even when it originally came out, the many illogical design choices would not have been acceptable then.

Pretty simple side scroller game. I like it, got it from a bundle, so I’d say a pretty good hidden gem in that bundle!

Rage inducing. This is a sad thing for me. I have to leave a negative review for a game that really wasn't that bad except for one BIG rage inducing mechanic that has made me decide to leave this one alone until I feel like being curb stomped. The graphics are great, the controls are fairly solid, the story is ok, and the combat is ok. So, what is it that makes me want to throw my controller? It's the same sort of problem that old NES games used to pull. There are doors that are timed, and once you shoot the device to open the doors you have to jump/hover across platforms to get through them in time. So this by itself and with the little flying enemies are not a problem, but you have way too frequent downpour of garbage that not only damages you but pushes you. Yes, Knockback and pushing. This game's biggest flaw. It killed it for me.

It's a good Mega Man Clone, but pretty short (only 5 levels). Also has some weird difficulty. You almost never die from enemies as auto repair is broken as f, but at the same time there's annoying one hit kill platforming. All in all worth it, but only to kill a couple of hours. Get it on sale.

п.и.з.д.я.т жестко даже б.л.я.д.ь на казуале с.у.к.а как так на.х.у.я тут легкий уровень если он работает вообще не как легкий!

欢迎关注：[b][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/31425703/]Virtual Name Club[/url][/b] 鉴赏家（汉化组全部作品都在这里） [h1]进度：三次通关+全成就[/h1] [h1]语言[/h1] [b]发补贴[/b]：[b][url=https://keylol.com/t464588-1-1]《A.R.E.S.灭绝计划EX》绿色汉化补丁[/url][/b] [b]补丁说明[/b]：自制，游戏已全部汉化。 [h1]评测[/h1] 类洛克人游戏，动作有些僵硬，游戏还算可以。

[quote]Just saying, but I do have a curator page. If you somehow like my remarks about games, you can find more of them here: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/44130985-TDP%27s-Gaming-Escapades [/quote] A.R.E.S. Extinction Agenda EX is one of my longest owned games. I remember buying it, playing it for an hour or two and then just putting it aside. As I was going through my backlog, I wondered "Why not revisit this game as well?". But I don't think I was expecting to be literally clueless after playing it. And not because it's a bad game, but because it feels so normal. So I implore you to read on as I really need to explain the "Not Recommended" rating. One thing I have to address is that prior to reviewing this game, I had no knowledge of the major changes the devs made, going from the original to the EX version. I would have loved to get the previous version and cover the differences between the two; However, as I do not currently have the means to do that, I need to postpone it to the future and update this review if I ever decide to play the other one as well. [h2]Mega Man X8? Is that you?[/h2] Okay, I need to get this out of my system first. This game highly reminds me of MMX8. As if the devs saw that game and went "Yeah we can make something like this but better" and made their own version of it. The hit combo system, the metal parts that fall out of enemies, the areas where you get locked in with pre-set patterns of enemies and get rewarded afterwards, the animation that plays while obtaining new powers, strict and trial-and-error-based autoscrollers and hazards that OHK you upon making a tiny mistake... all of them are highly reminiscent of MMX8. Not to mention some specific environment design in the final level that really remind me of Optic Sunflower's stage. Is that a bad thing? Not really. Granted, I never finished MMX8 without cheating because of how BS the platforming got on final stages, but I liked playing it while growing up as a teenager. Now let's get to the actual part of this review. [h2]Just your usual 2D action game...[/h2] You know, I really cannot describe this game in detail. The game is just... alright. That's it. It's just your usual 2D action game that doesn't bring anything new to the table and doesn't blow you away, but is not a awful game either. It just does every established and accepted thing in the genre to make for a decent experience. The game consists of 7 levels, with one of the playable characters (Ares or Tarus) progressing through them, fighting bosses at the end of each of them and aqcuiring new weapons or abilities, which in turn can be used to get to previously inaccessible areas in past levels. When it comes to controls, it really feels like a touched up mixture of the main cast's moveset from MMX8: You can fire your weapon freely in any direction, with two methods of firing giving you the choice of either running and gunning whatever is in front of you, or having more precision. You can also double jump, hover in mid-air or use vertical and horizontal dashes to get around (which the last two are character specific). After defeating the enemies, some items will drop out of them that not only act as the game's currency for purchasing upgrades (which unlocking all of them requires grinding), but also charges up the characters' super bar in order to unleash their special skill. See? The game seems very normal for something in this genre. The character designs are nicely made, the music is really good and I commend the developers for going with decently-made animated cutscenes for their game, but the gameplay itself really doesn't have anything that makes it something you would like to recommend everyone else to play. It just feels like more of the same thing you probably have played in the past, but better in some aspects. [h2]It does have issues though...[/h2] Unfortunately, there are moments in the game when stuff don't work as you expect them to. Sometimes I failed to activate Ares' ultimate attack, with the animation suddenly getting cut off. Sometimes my super attack did zero damage to the bosses as their temporary shields cannot be broken and nullify all damage. Sometimes I get hit while attempting to use an ability, as the start up animation takes a while to finish and the enemies can attack you during it. Trying to jump off from the edge of a platform is incredibly janky, leading to my button presses not getting recognized and the main character falling to their doom. The reverse happens sometimes as well, with the jank making me unable to jump over an obstacle and getting crushed by the hazards or autoscroller events. None of these are game breaking, but are really annoying when you encounter them. But by far, the biggest misstep of the game is the implementation of the new playable character being highly lackluster. The new playable character, Tarus, follows a "what if?" scenario story-wise, has a different moveset and even their weapons have different firing modes compared to Ares. For example, The first unlockable weapon is a rapid fire machine gun for Ares, and a short-range stream weapon (something like a flamethrower) for Tarus. However, the level design doesn't change to accommodate for Tarus' abilities and everything (even the location of upgrades) will be the same for both of the characters, ultimately resulting in Tarus becoming the inferior character and the unfun way of playing the game. The very first noticeable instance for this issue shows itself in the third stage, when the game introduces switches that require rapid fire to be activated and while Ares can breeze through them, Tarus doesn't have such leisure thanks to limited range of his weapons. [h2]TL;DR[/h2] It's a game that's "alright" and never goes beyond or below that. It might provide 4 hrs of fun for those who haven't played a lot of games, but others will find it to be just another normal action game.