Ancient Mind

This game is absolutely fantastic so far! Loving the puzzles and enemy mechanics. Very creative and cohesive work!

[h1]FoxMania: The Quest To Review All Fox Games On Steam![/h1] [i]Conditions for inclusion: [list] [*] -The player character must be consistently a fox; the fox must not be merely a skin or a character option [*] -Must have 100% working Steam achievements [*] -Must not be a visual novel [/list][/i] [b]Game #34: Ancient Mind[/b] [i]Ancient Mind[/i] is an indie Zelda-like dungeon crawler game that, sadly, gets some of the basics [i]very[/i] wrong. I tried very hard to like this game. I saw it through all the way to the end, and then some. I took an honest stab at 100% achievements, and trudged through nearly everything this game has to offer. Sadly, at the end, I can't call it a positive experience. So, this is a Zelda-style game with 30 dungeons and no overworld. The overworld has been replaced by a generic and unhelpful level selection map of monotone dots and scribbles. If you want to backtrack to a previous dungeon, you have to remember its name or its location on the map. That’s a problem since this game is very much built around backtracking, replaying levels, finding alternate exits, and forced completionism. [b]Things I liked:[/b] [list] [*] -Pixel graphics were crisp and inviting, the game's biggest strength for certain. Stock music was fine, and at times even memorable. [*] -A totally unnecessary, but super cool, dynamic lighting system. [*] -I enjoyed the map and compass system, forcing you to actually read the hand-drawn maps to spot and understand some of the secrets. [*] -Absolutely brilliant hint system called “yellow paint”, enabled from the options menu, which draws helpful hints and navigational pointers right on the floor. I loved this. More games need this. [*] -I liked how pickups can be left on the floor and never despawn! (although I’d prefer if you can’t pick up health while you’re full) [/list] [b]Combat complaints:[/b] [list] [*] -The game’s most fundamental problem, in my opinion, that underpins everything else and makes the whole experience exhausting, is the combat. The very basic swordplay is janky, awkward, frustrating, and simply unfun. [*] -Enemies lack a death effect, like the satisfying and explosive CRUNCH of Zelda enemies. Instead, enemies start a long death animation that isn’t very distinguishable from their normal behavior, leaving you to keep swiping at an enemy that’s already dead. You have to count and memorize the number of sword hits it takes to kill each type of enemy so you know when to walk away. [*] -Health drops are rare, and sudden deaths from annoying hitboxes are common. Running around on 1HP is incredibly stressful. In copying Zelda, the game forgot to consider the importance of fairy drops, which exist in Zelda to counteract this very problem. [*] -Most enemies just run/swarm straight for you. The safest way to engage in combat, and to deal with the janky hitboxes, is to stand still, swiping at any enemy that comes close. In-place turtling, as I called it. The game seems to encourage a boring, highly defensive battle style. [*] -The game often over-relies on ambush enemies, like spiders that drop from the ceiling. It sometimes felt like unapologetic griefing of the player, especially in dark rooms where you can’t see the telltale shadow. [*] -Flying enemies have even worse hitboxes that don't align with their sprite, or their floor shadow, but exist somewhere between the two. You can’t even hit them unless you’re standing on the correct floor elevation. You often encounter rooms full of flying enemies at different floor elevations, which is just as fun as it sounds. [/list] [b]Gameplay design and progression complaints:[/b] [list] [*] -In a baffling and risky design choice, contrary to any Zelda game, your progress in a dungeon [b]resets[/b] whenever you enter it again. Puzzles unsolve themselves, doors re-lock, keys get replaced back in treasure chests. If you missed something in a dungeon, you have to play the whole dungeon over again. I gave this design choice an honest chance. My verdict is: this is unsatisfying and gets exhausting fast. Progress in a Zelda-like is satisfying when it’s permanent. Knowing your progress will just be undone makes every step feel hollow. [*] -Shops all exist inside of dungeons and force you to beat the whole dungeon to keep what you purchase. [*] -At the end of each dungeon, there’s a Crash Bandicoot-style hologram box that only opens if you got all the treasure chests in the dungeon, and a gem inside. If it doesn’t open, you have a choice between backtracking to find the remaining chests (sometimes impossible), or starting the whole dungeon over again later. Large numbers of gems are required at regular progress gates on the overworld map. Lots of forced completionism and backtracking. [*] -While I liked the map and compass system, I [i]didn’t[/i] like how the game lacked a highlight feature, like every single Zelda game, showing you what rooms you’ve already visited. Hunting for that last chest in a large dungeon is a GRUELING chore when you can’t check the map and easily see where you neglected to check. (The game really needs to add a “crayon” item to the dungeons that does this, filling in the map rooms as you enter them. It would be a HUGE help.) [*] -All the game’s items are clunky and boring. None of them make you feel more powerful or change the way you see the game. They only amount to an extra trip to the inventory screen when you encounter specific obstacles. (The Time Crystal was the closest to being really interesting, and made for some cool strategy during boss fights.) [*] -The game's story is a giant nothing sandwhich, often bothering you with cutscenes that basically say nothing. There's even an optional fake language to decipher, but it never said anything remotely interesting or useful. [*] -Quest design starts to get… a bit convoluted to the point of pretentiousness. Many dungeons you’re simply forced to play more than once, since you won’t have the required items the first time. Some dungeons cannot be fully completed unless you entered them from another dungeon’s alternate exit after near-fully completing [i]that[/i] dungeon. Some puzzles require you doing things [i]outside of the game[/i]. [*] -The game is really, really, really long. At points I was begging for it to be over with, but wasn’t even close. It took me about 25 hours just to beat normally, not even with achievement hunting. I had to take lots of breaks. [/list] [b] Technical Problems:[/b] [list] [*] -[b]THE SOFTLOCKS.[/b] You can softlock yourself in a room just by pushing a block sidways. You can glitch yourself into blocks. You can glitch blocks out of bounds and render puzzles impossible. This happened to me more than once at the end of multi-dungeon quests, and I lost ALL the progress. [*] -The fox doesn’t walk straight, even while using the D-pad or WASD keys. The camera movements seem at fault, sometimes making you walk in a slant. This is particularly frustrating when trying to thread the needle between spikes. [*] -At least one achievement, possibly two, are currently broken. [/list] This isn't even all my notes for the game, but there's just not enough space to keep going. I feel honestly bad tearing into this game because it was clearly made with a lot of heart and effort, and I feel proud of the developer for completing and publishing what was obviously a massive undertaking. It’s an ambitious project, it looks beautiful, and I [i]see[/i] the love and care in this game. If it weren’t for some of the egregious technical problems and strange rules, I’d give this a neutral vote. In fact, the last updates were very recent, and I’m silently hoping for fixes. I’d love any excuse to think more highly of this game. But as of now, it’s honestly not worth anyone’s time. I’m really sorry. 4 / 10.

A lower caliber knock off of Zelda. Why would you construct a game where if you leave an area you have to restart everything in that level back from the beginning including opening doors and gaining weapons that you already found? Even if you die, random chests are now closed again and you have to go back and find them all. Where is the logic in the decision to design the game in that manner? it is unnecessary and makes the game unenjoyable, especially when you realize that you have to redo everything. The "puzzles" are so trivial it doesn't really give much of a challenge. Overall, for a cheap price it wastes some time, but nothing to sing praises about. Zelda is far superior and I'd rather play that again then waste the time repeating stuff over and over in this game.

Finally an intelligent, polished, and fun take on 2D Zeldas! You probably love and miss old school Zelda-style games as much as I do. Over the years I often typed "2D Zelda-likes" and tried all the suggestions that were offered. However, I was mostly disappointed. In fact I feel that Nintendo itself let us down with the latest iteration. Dungeons no longer reach the level of sophistication of old school entries. Well, if you want a game with dozens of dungeons that start as complex as the very last levels of games like Link's Awakening, then Ancient Mind is the one for you! The game is incredibly polished! Animations are fluid. Dynamic lightning is used to great effect. The camera gently zooms in and out often, creating a very special coziness to the game. Many aspects of other similar games are handled better here: the map has mysterious symbols and useful information on it, so it is very useful and yet it leaves so much to the player to figure out! The way low hearts are handled (no noise, just a pulsating red around the screen) is a gentle but efficient reminder when you are about to die. The game is also quite challenging, and the way the enemies are placed is very strategic. One more thing: This game focuses mainly on the dungeon aspect of Zelda, so if there is one critique I have is that I wished it had more of a story, more characters, cities, etc. However, you will get a lot more dungeons than any Zelda game to make up for this!

TL;DR: Avoid this game. It has trivial "puzzles", terrible QoL, unfair and bugged movement and combat mechanics, and will invite you to potentially screw up your actual PC in order to get all achievements - and after you've done that, you will still not get all of them because the hardest achievement is bugged and crashes the game instead of awarding. The game consists of individual levels, accessible from the map, each independent from the other. You are supposed to wander around the dungeon, looking for keys to open the doors with, while fighting enemies like slimes and bats. The are "puzzles", like move a box over the switch plate next to it, but they are trivial and may have not been there at all. There are bosses. Some levels have secret exits that lead to otherwise inaccessible sections of other levels. The game actually invites you to write down on an actual piece of paper what you have noticed where, because it has zero QoL to remind you of that or to let you put a marker on a map. And you better listen and get that piece of paper ready if you go for achievements, because you will spend dozens of hours trying to find that door that you saw earlier and couldn't unlock but now can. Which is because you have to completely redo any level from scratch if you choose to reenter it. So looking for a door in a level requires beating the level again, and that is very time consuming due to all the backtracking with the keys. Is there a map to the levels, you may ask. There is, after you find it. Each level has a chest with the map to that level. Before you stumble upon it, and it can be very late in the level, you're on your own. If that "feature" alone is as strong a deterrent for you as it is for me, be warned. And after you find the map, you still have to figure out where on it you are. Because it won't show you that. That is, until you find a compass, in some other chest. The UI is terrible. You find various items that you need to use to get through certain obstacles, and in order to use them, you need to go to the settings menu and map the required item to one of the two available Item keys. You will be doing that all the time. There isn't a way to have more than two items accessible at the same time, and no way to scroll through them or quickly pick. It's the settings menu each time. And in there there is a slowly appearing dialog asking you to which button you want to map this item, button 1 or button 2. The seconds you watch this dialog appear and disappear will add up to hours. One of the items, the magnetic glove, is designed extremely poorly; thankfully, it's needed in just a couple of places. But in those few places it will make you restart the level because it will get you stuck without a way out. See, it draws metal crates to you, but it cannot push them back. You activate it, and there you are, pressed against the wall with metal crates, unable to move. Esc - Exit to map - [i]Do you want to completely lose your level progress and exit to map?[/i] - ... yes. The hit detection feels arbitrary and unfair, especially in the vertical direction. You will be hit by enemies that are below you on the 2D canvas, and you will not understand why. Eventually, through pain and cursing, you will learn to cripple your distance estimates in just the right way, and will get hit less often. You will find a shield. It is supposed to provide complete protection from one side when activated. It does not. The enemies will still hit you through the shield. This is a game programmed by developers whose skill may be described as "consistent". When they got their hit collision not right, they did so consistently across the board. You can only face and swing your sword / hold your shield in one of the four cardinal directions. The enemies however will attack you diagonally too, and with a perfect angle, there will be nothing you can do about it. They will hit you. You will get stuck in hazards, such as fires, be unable to move, and die. You will lock yourself in behind spikes that you no longer have means to remove, and will be forced to abandon the level and lose progress. There is an achievement for beating the most horrific level at 100% without taking a single hit, which you should be aware of if you go for achievements. This level is purposely stuffed with cheap dirty gotchas to make you take a hit, that are expertly hidden with the smoke aftereffect too that makes your eyes hurt from trying to make out anything at all. You will have to literally learn the level by heart, not just the tricky lengthy correct route, but also the location of every single cheap dirty gotcha. And even then you will still be getting hit - because of the poor hit detection, the hits protruding through your shield, and the cheap dirty tricks the skeleton heads play where they pretend to be hit by the lava beneath them and fling themselves right at you, as they do when you hit them with a sword, and catching you off guard. And to add insult to injury, each time you retry that level, you will have to reselect your items of choice. The game does not save even that when you "Exit to map". Across the hundreds of attempts you will have to make, this mandatory item reselection will combine in hours wasted, and will piss you off immensely. You want to persist your selection of items? Pick them and beat a level. Only taking the "finishing" exit of a level will save anything at all. Oh, unless you die! If you die, that is immediately persisted in your save file, so that you can never get the No Death achievement. The rest however, persisting that would be QoL, and this game is not having any of it. And the worst of all, the game invites you to screw up your actual PC by changing the actual system time in order to trigger some doors to open in the time temple (I do not consider this a spoiler. This BS should not be allowed and people should be warned about it). This type of meta puzzles was okay 30 years ago. Nowadays, changing you system time may result in all sort of things, from absolutely nothing to: [list] [*]your internet stopping working because you can't verify the SSL certificates anymore [*]your backup software overwriting your crucial data incorrectly because of the wrong timestamps [*]your background processes getting confused and doing something you will find out and regret only later [*]your licensed software detecting the tampering with the system clock and voiding your license [/list] That is why Windows for years has required administrative privileges to change the system time. This game expects you to have them and to use them in order to properly beat the time temple and get some more achievements. If you don't have or are unwilling to use them, you won't get all achievements and will not see the full game content. Thankfully, it is still possible to achieve the same by changing your time zone rather that the actual time, but not many people would probably know the difference or bother doing it (it requires some real world waiting, for up to an hour, while playing that level). Ambassador Mollari once told someone, "Arrogance and stupidity, all in one package, how efficient of you!". I cannot help attributing that to the developers of this game. I don't see how else they could come up with this technological marvel and nonchalantly expect you to mess up with your device, all at the same time.

For 10 bucks, you really can't go wrong here. If you ever played Four Swords Adventures on the Gamecube and liked it, then you are going to enjoy this game. At the moment, I'm just past the first boss and the game is great so far. The only two issues I have with the game so far are the [spoiler]aiming with the bow when using a control stick, since you can't really tell where you are aming[/spoiler] (item spoiler), and the boss being kind of repetitive.

Pretty much "Zelda link's awakening" spiritually. Its not super fancy but it does harness the charm and core concept of the gameplay mechanics in its own way. Worth the $10 spent on it.

This game is interesting! It's like if you took the Zelda-like dungeon-crawling gameplay, removed all the fluff around it, and treated the dungeons more like individual levels in a platformer. It works pretty well! Exploration is a big part of this game, getting to understand the layout of each dungeon is always interesting and there are a ton of secrets to find if you're clever and go off the beaten path. The levels start off simple, but they ramp up to some really substantial and challenging dungeons later on. The story is also interesting, and it invites you to figure things out yourself; I've only cleared the game any% and haven't seen everything yet, but I'm really liking how it's turning out so far. It really feels like you're digging through the ruins of a lost civilization and uncovering all sorts of neat tidbits along the way. I will say, the combat does get exhausting in the lategame, with lots of tanky enemies and limited health to take care of them. The last few levels felt like gruelling trials because of this, but at least the checkpoints are fairly forgiving as of the latest update. Overall, I was getting a bit tired towards the end, but this was still absolutely worth a play, and I'm looking forward to seeing what I find once I go back for 100%.

Fun zelda-like adventure game. There are a lot of interesting puzzles and a cipher language to figure out. I ran into a couple of bugs, but nothing game breaking. Plus, it has a native Linux port, which is nice.

Too hard. To progress in the game you must collect all the treasure chests in the dungeons, and some are really impossible to find. Its really not fun to have to go back through some of the same large dungeons tens of times, especially when everything resets each time you leave. This setup over multiple dungeons becomes super repetitive and frustrating. You really lose the story after a while. I often found myself lost and not knowing what to do or where to go next. The game is extremely sparse on clues. I really wanted to like this game and played it for many hours before my frustration won. Sucks to not be able to have closure after such a sizable investment in time. The battle play control is a little wonky. Its hard to hit enemies, especially the flying ones. Spatially speaking it seems inaccurate and is challenging to navigate when there are multiple enemies, which is frequently. Also, the speed of some of the enemies is so fast that its hard to recover and get away if they hit you. The graphics and overall aesthetic is solid, though. A good homage to the classic pixel adventure games. Its just not as fun.