Beast Modon

Reminds me of a game I used to play in high school. My friends and I took turns drawing various combat scenarios on a piece of paper. Then took turns drawing the actions we would take. One playing defense and one playing offence. Love it! +10 for nostalgia! Overall a fun game with a unique feel that I enjoyed playing.

Apologies if this review has formatting errors at all or just seems like a bad review in general, this is the first review I've written that I used more than 5% of my effort on. After playing and beating this game, I've come to the conclusion that I cannot recommend this game to other players. This is not to say you shouldn't buy it. Go ahead and buy it if you want to, I bought it even after playing the free version on the App Store and still having the same opinion about it then. Just be warned that this game is going to frustrate you in numerous ways. Some key details: [h1]The Visuals[/h1] The visuals are obviously the first thing to talk about. It has this hand-drawn style to it which I don't hate at all, but some of the sprites in the same tend to have these stray pixels that branch off them, as if you used one of the brush tools in MS Paint and then used the fill bucket, it's kind of an eyesore. Sometimes the graphics might even be cropped abruptly. While playing the game, some of the foreground elements might obstruct the view of the player and incoming threats, making it harder to play, most of the time this isn't an issue though. One very weird quirk is that some stages seem to zoom in the entire viewport so it'll crop off elements of the UI, very weird but it doesn't affect the gameplay. [h1]The Audio[/h1] Most of the music in the game is fine. Sometimes a fair share of music pieces make me want to cry when I hear them but other than that it really is just fine. The sound effects however are something else. Most of the sound effects in this game leave me quite confused. "Why do they sound like that" or "Why are they even there" are some of the confusions that roamed in my brain when I heard these sound effects. With those things in mind, I don't think the audio is that bad. It's not like it's constant screeching in my ear or anything, it's just tolerable. [h1]The Gameplay[/h1] The gameplay is probably the worst part. When starting a new game, you're treated to a selection between 4 difficulties. You can only choose the easiest which is properly titled "Easy." I've tried going down to select a different difficulty but it just doesn't work. Most enemies have placed themselves rent-free in my mind for having some notorious quirk that makes them frustrating. I bet that if you drew the movement paths for some enemies, it would look like a rubber band ball, especially bosses. Some enemies have huge hitboxes that move across the screen so fast and so frequently that it's frustrating and borderline unfair to navigate through especially while you're being pursued by a bunch of other enemies, some enemies will leave the screen and then come back on the other side in addition to the other enemies so that they basically stockpile until it's impossible to beat the stage, some bosses might have a lack of communication on whether or not they're being damaged, some enemies might do some jerky motion that's hard to predict or shoot a projectile the size of the entire screen if you don't kill them, some enemies or hazards might have hitboxes twice the size of their very own sprite. The player controls okay. I'm not a fan of the sword of accelerating feeling the player has but you could mitigate it by changing your speed mode. There are 5 different weapons each with 2 other stages you can upgrade them to through powerups. A level is lost each time you are hit. The only problem with a mechanic like that is if you lose a level, it could effectively worsen your chances of beating a stage as you might not have the firepower to beat a boss or take down a swarm of enemies. There are also things like a charge shot, which wasn't really useful [i]ever[/i], a "slam" attack that clears the screen, and also a "beast mode". The effect of beast mode changes depending on the weapon, some of these effects being vastly superior as they were able to one-shot bosses. There's also a pause menu where you can upgrade your ship, though I don't really notice anything different after upgrading. There's also poor communication with just how much you can upgrade your ship, you pretty much just try allocating upgrades and see if it lets you do it. [h1]The Story[/h1] I won't go into too much detail about the story in case you actually care about it, but let me tell you that after beating the game, there are [i]many[/i] plot holes. [h1]TL;DR[/h1] The graphics are questionable, the music not so much, the sound effects even more, and the gameplay just pretty much sucks. Only buy this if you [i]really[/i] want to.

Many of the technical aspects of the game are well done. The soundtrack is good and fits the atmosphere of the game. The controls are solid and responsive. The visuals are unique and distinct but the animation could be more fluid. The voice quality is decent. The game doesn't appear to count on different styles of play. This game needs instructions for controllers; the tutorial has no way of teaching how to use moves and power-ups on the controller. Some enemies can be really easy to aviod while some are near impossible. Some text bubbles are still solid and can block the player from view. There needs to be a way to skip cutscenes or mute dialog after hearing it the first time. Improving these features can make the game more playable ad enjoyable. The way the game is currently setup iii recomend playing with the keyboard to get the most out of your beast modon experience as the controller support is not explained for new players. Can still be enjoyed under the right conditions.

This is a side-scrolling shooter with some retro feel and a few things I haven't seen before. The basic gameplay is as expected:move right and shoot anything that moves and some things that don't. The weapon choice is nice because one can switch between different weapons mid-game. The difficulty ramps up well, but has the dark souls quality of no saves right in front of boss rooms and the knowledge that until you know every pattern you are going to be throwing lives at your problems. The art style gives a hand-drawn look to a genre that I see more 8 or 16 bit games for. This can be fun at times and confusing at others. I'm not entirely sure what I destroyed in some levels but if my bullets collide I'm going to keep firing. The level design is fun in that it stays interesting and each level is given at least some context by the overall story. Also the bosses are well designed and fun to fight although the battles can run a bit long with most bosses having a fairly simple pattern. The music for this game is interesting and keeps pace with the gameplay. Sometimes it feels a bit overwhelming though when combined with the sound effects and the sound of my character's pained grunts after being hit. I would recommend this game to those who enjoy a challenging shooter with an active developer who is concerned about the game even this far into the product's life-cycle. If you are anywhere near my skill level it will cost you fewer quarters on steam than it would've in an arcade.