Cally's Trials

There is really no reason to buy this game because Cally's Caves 3 is so much better in every aspect and they are the same price. If you've already played Cally's Caves 3 this game will likely feel very underwhelming.

[h1]Portable Description[/h1] Cally’s Trials is the updated, roguelite version of Cally’s Caves 2 that was released for free on the iOS Appstore, Google Play, and the Amazon Appstore. Permanent character and weapon upgrades, used alongside a leveling system, fuels this cute action-platformer through 110 levels of monster-packed mayhem. [h1]Story[/h1] [u][b]Cally’s Narrative[/b][/u] Set before the events of Cally's Caves 3, Herbert imprisons Cally’s parents in his massive lair deep inside the Caves. It is up to the young child to fight through Herbert’s nightmarish creations and rescue those she holds dear. Lloyd, a knowledgeable guitarist and occasionally helpful companion, aids Cally in her quest. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] [u][b]Roguelite Structure[/b][/u] Cally’s Trials utilizes a roguelite structure – entire game must be completed in one continuous run due to “perma-death” (shortcuts can be unlocked). Avoiding the roguelike vs. roguelite semantics, the core mechanics and features defining Trials include: [list] [*]”Perma-death” (sometimes an area/zone reset instead of a full reset upon game over). [*]Character and weapon leveling system that does not reset upon death. [*]Currency that does not reset upon death. [*]Permanently unlocked character abilities/health: triple jump, damage boost, etc. [*]Unlockable/purchasable shortcuts to each subsequent zone upon defeating the previous boss. [/list] [u][b]Cally’s World[/b][/u] Trials is a relatively vast world, containing 110 levels across 6 different zones each with a unique biome (water, ice, fire themes etc.). Cally’s move-set includes 2-D movement, jump, double/triple jumps, weapon fire, and sword swings (melee). Typical platformer elements are present, including: ledges, cliffs, stationary spikes, ranged/melee enemies, platforms, and triggered events. Regrettably, each level is not procedurally generated; upon death and resetting, the player will be re-creating the exact same experience trying to get back to the previous point before dying. Enemy and coin placements are pre-determined. Loot chests, however, do award random items. Although repetitive at times, the levels are fortunately not too long and getting back to the death location should not be too difficult. Roguelites/roguelikes traditionally employ full resets upon death. Although Cally’s Trials follows the same principles, it alleviates some of the mental anguish with such a system by using partial resets depending upon the manner of death. If Cally perishes by falling into water/spikes or succumbs to a boss, she will reset at the beginning of that particular level, instead of the beginning of the entire game, with a portion of her health missing. After defeating a zone’s boss (6 zones/biomes/bosses total), Cally has the option to purchase a shortcut bypassing that zone. To utilize the shortcut, Cally must have the triple jump ability unlocked. The coins required to purchase these shortcuts will require a little bit of grinding in addition to a normal play through by the time a boss is defeated. [u][b]Combat[/b][/u] Cally fends herself with ranged attacks in the form of firing one of her guns, or with short melee attacks in the form of a sword swing. Both actions may be performed simultaneously. Cally’s guns may be leveled up by continually using them (an experience bar indicating weapon usage is provided). Leveling up her guns have the possibility to increase: damage output, fire rate, accuracy or appearance. Specific gun levels act as milestones where a gun’s physical appearance and bullet animations get upgraded. [b]Guns[/b] There are 12 weapon classes to level up (pistol, shotgun, assault rifle, etc.) each specializing dominance in certain situations. Some of the main differences between each weapon class include: bullet damage, bullet scatter or projectile trajectory. Changing between weapons are instant which is a very helpful technique when jumping into a group of enemies. Although the fire button can be held down to automate shooting, doing so will lower the gun’s fire rate. There is also infinite ammo. [b]Sword[/b] Cally’s sword protects her when enemies get too close for comfort. Unlike her guns, Cally’s sword progresses differently. Sword upgrades do not follow a leveling system, but instead must be purchased. Her sword also has the ability to knock away most projectiles, handy for when sneaky shots are incoming. [u][b]Character Progression[/b][/u] Starting at level 1 with 3 hearts (each damage hit removes 1 heart), Cally progresses by leveling up. At each level up, Cally will fully heal herself, occasionally gaining another heart container. XP in order to level up is gained in the form of loot, dropped from defeated enemies. These loot drops may fall into the water or off of a cliff, so timing a kill is rather important. Lloyd’s shop sells other useful items/abilities (permanent and single-use) to help Cally with her progression. Some of these include: coin multiplier, damage boost, level up, sword enhancements, etc. [h1]Controls[/h1] [u][b]Controller Support[/b][/u] Although Cally’s Trials has full controller support, the shoulder buttons generally will not be used for anything, and the D-pad is used by default for character movement. At the moment, it isn’t possible to re-assign the button mapping for a controller, while using only a controller (DS3 used for this review). This makes it impossible to rebind movement to the analog sticks. [h1]Conclusion[/h1] [u][b]Possible Exploits[/b][/u] There are a couple, possibly unintended, “exploits” that may need to be addressed listed below. [list] [*]It is possible to continuously re-enter a level in order to repeatedly open a chest, skewing the expected gold-gain trend. Possible fixes to this include allowing a chest to only be opened once per life, or removing the ability to travel to a previous level/zone. [*]After entering the shortcut for Zone 2, it is possible to go back and repeatedly kill Mama Bear. The issue is that it is too easy to defeat her this way because her back is turned. This also allows the player to easily level up the newly acquired assault rifle in Zone 3. [/list] [u][b]Advised Suggestions[/b][/u] There are a couple suggestions that would improve gameplay; these are listed below. [list] [*]Allow camera control to a certain extent in order to see depth of a fall/ledge location or to time a long-double jump. [*]Change game over screens to differentiate between water death vs full death. [*]Make Lloyd's tips optional, or present it as a hovering dialogue box instead of an abrupt screen change. [*]Add achievements for defeating bosses: all current achievements are based upon the number of eliminated enemies. [*]Procedural level generation (if possible). [/list] [u][b]Verdict[/b][/u] With everything taken into consideration, Cally’s Trials is definitely recommended to fans of the action-platformer or roguelite genres. It is very important to note that Trials will periodically feel a bit repetitive at times, but progression is really fast and simple. [table][tr][td]Review copy provided by VDO Games and Dietrich Online Services[/td][/tr][/table]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nAF7sWz0o4&list=PLIb_a695uFXB3KOIPx0oEnZr2FbXw3bjB&index=2 [quote]Follow my Curator page, [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41363546-Fruit-N-Doggie-Reviews/]Fruit N Doggie Reviews,[/url] so you can be updated whenever I post a new review.[/quote] [h1]Overall Rating - Painfully Bad ★☆☆☆☆[/h1] [h1]First Impressions[/h1] Cally's Trials (CT) looked like it would be an enjoyable experience, as I'd shoot enemies like a straight up gangster, and build up an effective arsenal of weapons to play with. That impression wasn't exactly wrong, but it wasn't nearly as much fun as I'd have hoped for. It has all the basic features you'd want, such as boss fights, upgrades, and treasure, but the bare minimum doesn't always suffice. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] The game is a straightforward, run and gun platformer. It spices things up by having more weapons than you know what to do with, and basic RPG elements. Your weapons slowly level up from the damage they inflict, with your health bar expanding from killing enemies. Unfortunately, though weapons change at levels four, seven, and ten, they aren't the enemy slayers I was hoping for. For instance, I like the boomerangs. However, the only difference from levels one through ten is a slight damage increase, and you throw a few more of them than you did initially. That's all I get for maxing out a weapon? Similarly, the buzz saw gun seemed interesting, but with basic enemies still taking multiple hits to eliminate, it feels like a joke. A fully upgraded gun shooting ricocheting saw blades should be awesome, yet it has to be shot rapidly to even be useful. Max level weapons should have some pizzazz, and they all come off as lackluster. If enemies weren't such tanks, that'd improve CT quite a bit. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033254003 [h1]Controls[/h1] A simple issue I had with the controls was the sense that I wasn't getting the most out of my jumps, often thinking that they were falling short. It's enough to dodge enemies, but it felt a bit off. Another hassle is that you can hold down the fire button, but it's much more effective to rapidly mash the button to shoot faster. That somewhat defeats the point, and I'd have hoped after the NES era, this mistake would be a relic of the past, but here we are. [h1]Story[/h1] Cally's parents are kidnapped by some evil scientist, she sets out to save them, and some guy playing guitar gives tips, and sells things to her. Thanks? I kind of hate him because he's doing almost nothing to help a little girl in distress. The ending sequence is rushed and brief, but to be fair, it had little to build off of. There's so little plot in CT, it was clearly only included to have some explanation for a little girl packing heat. Maybe they should have just chosen a better protagonist instead. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2033253975 [h1]Visuals[/h1] One problem with the visuals is that the character design is lackluster, with sprites not looking crisp and smooth like I'd expect. Cally is only a little girl, but considering what task she's taking on, it'd be nice if she looked properly prepared, wearing something more adventure-oriented than clothes she'd wear to school. This makes her carrying weapons all the more jarring. Also, enemies lack originality, and with how often they're spammed, you'll quickly lose interest. Not that you ever had any to begin with. To be fair, the environments look more polished, but not enough effort was put in to make places look novel and engaging. It's hard to get immersed when you see patterned tiles like flooring you'd buy for the bathroom. [h1]Sound Design[/h1] Another contributing factor to the game's poor aesthetic is how everything blends together. With the various enemy types available, such as humans, wild animals, and monsters, it'd have been easy to create distinct worlds built around a particular theme. A greater sense of identity would make levels feel different, and could better develop into the boss fight. Since effort wasn't put into this idea, it makes sense how the songs they composed are played at random. They aren't connected to specific areas, but sporadically play one song after another. It's hard enough for tunes to stick with a player unless they're especially well made, and this disconnect from your current environment, or what's taking place, makes it even worse. [h1]Pros[/h1] 🌟 There are a variety of guns available, most of which feel distinct from one another. Some also have a unique, useful feature. For instance, the bow and arrows arc downwards, and the laser shoots through all walls. 🌟 The sword isn't used much, except to deflect projectiles. However, in specific situations, it's a good weapon, such as killing skull towers. Design-wise though, a shield would likely have made more sense. [h1]Cons[/h1] ❌ After beating the game, there's an optional area full of enemies and dangerous jumps. Your reward for getting past this is an announcement that the next Cally game is out. In a game loaded with guns, the final, optional challenge doesn't give you a great weapon, it pesters you with a lame ad. I was pissed when I saw this. ❌ There are blind jumps and falls. Sometimes, coins or other clues will guide you, but it's not uncommon to be unaware of your surroundings. With the large amount of hits you're able to take after leveling up in the game, most of your deaths stem from falling into water. ❌ Bosses pose no challenge, primarily because it's so easy to retreat out of their attack range. They hardly seem threatening when they can't even pursue you outside of their small fighting arena. [h1]Tips[/h1] 🔍 There are a few spots in the game optimal for grinding money and weapon levels. The best place to gain money is in area three, with a guide showing the exact location. If you want to grind weapon levels, fight the slime boss of area two. 🔍 Some guns are much more useful than others. For instance, the spike gun is necessary for platforming, and the ice gun freezes many enemies. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] Though the game functions properly, and ticks certain boxes you'd want for a run and gun platformer, it does nothing noteworthy. By the time I was finishing it, I refused to level up any new guns to even find out what they'd do, which is supposed to be a highlight in games like this. Instead, I ran from enemies, not fighting unless necessary, so I could be done with it. Platformers are an older genre, with plenty of excellent offerings out there. With so much competition, playing this game simply isn't worthwhile, so for me, Cally failed this trial. [table] [tr] [th]PC Specs[/th] [th]Performance[/th] [/tr] [tr] [td]Ryzen 2700 RTX 2070 16GB RAM ADATA SSD 1920x1080 [/td] [td]The game ran without incident on default settings. 💖 - CT is healthy [/td] [/tr] [/table]

The only "roguelike" aspect of it, it's the whole "die and retry" feel of it. You only lose money, that's it. The levels aren't randomly generated, ennemies are damage sponge (even with top level weapons) and once you reach and defeat the first boss, you pretty much seen the whole game. Weapons aren't quite different from each others, and you'll always ends up using 2 or 3 of the same gun once unlocked. Ennemies are a bit different, but they ends up having the exact same strategy to beat them; and it's painfully the same for the bosses: just find a way to attack them without them touching you. I really, really tried to like this game, but the whole repetitive nature of it makes me unable to. You'd be better off playing a REAL rogue-like.

I love this game. It's super challenging but really fun and learning the levels makes it easier. I prefer platformers with combat where the challenge is mainly in the combat rather than platforming puzzles and Cally's Trials does that perfectly. It can be frustrating at first but once you really get into it and start unlocking shortcuts to later stages it gets more fun. The weapon scaling is kind of odd, you can have a boomarang that's stronger than your shotgun for instance, but I don't find that a negative really. I highly recommend playing with a controller too.

7/10 Although it was released on Steam after Cally's Caves 3, Cally's Trials is actually an "updated, roguelike version of Cally's Caves 2", as described in the game's website. First of all, it's important to note that this game is a mobile-to-PC adaptation, as Cally's Caves 2 is originally a mobile game. Cally's Trials, in a nutshell, is a solid platformer game. The story is very simple - Cally's parents were kidnapped by a villain named Herbert and Cally sets out to rescue them, with the help of her friend Lloyd. The gameplay is simple as well: you use guns to defeat enemies, get XP to level up (more levels = more HP), get money to buy upgrades and find new guns during the game. Guns level up as they're used, going up to level 10, and at levels 4, 7 and 10 they "transform" and sometimes acquire new features (the shotgun, for instance, will fire more shells per shot). You progress through the game, find new enemies on the way, find some treasure chests, then defeat a boss in the end of each stage, until you reach the final boss, then there's one extra stage that's a little more challenging. It's not a very long game, but it's not too short either - there's a few good hours to spend playing it, a little more if you're aiming for 100% completion (max all guns + get all achievements). It's not without its flaws, however. Not really bug-wise (I only found two bugs throughout the game, one of which is that sometimes the characters gets stuck on walls but it's easily reversible, the other one was one enemy that went right through a wall and disappeared), more precisely in some weird game design choices the game has. First, the checkpoint system is very weird. Basically, you have to purchase shortcuts, which can only be obtained after you defeat a stage, then you can buy a shortcut to skip the stage you've already beaten. If you don't purchase the shortcut, you have to either use the last checkpoint you had or actually start from the very beginning of the game. And the checkpoints aren't cheap, either - actually, unless you farm for money, you'll probably spend most of your money buying shortcuts. There's an easy way to work around that, which is basically just farming easy gems in one specific level at the beginning of the game, but other than that, buying shortcuts will take most of the player's money. Adding to that, there's the issue with dying. If you die to an environmental hazard (water, lava, spikes - all of which will instantly kill the character), you get sent back to the beginning of that level with only 1 heart. If you die from losing all your hearts, you're sent back to the beginning of the game, unless you buy a Lamp, which is consumed upon use and makes you restart at the beginning of that level. Later on the game, dying isn't too much of an issue as you level up and your guns get stronger, but it still might happen from time to time, so you'll probably need the forementioned shortcuts. The bosses in the game are ridiculously easy. There is one exception, but for all the others, it's just a matter of knowing which gun to use. For most of the bosses, all I had to do was stand in place and keep shooting one guy constantly, only sometimes having to use the sword to deflect projectiles. The level design isn't bad, but it's not really interesting either. Pretty much every level is similar to each other - you kill enemies, avoid hazards, sometimes break some breakable objects, find chests, rinse and repeat. No secrets to find and only once during the game you get to choose between two different paths. The levels even look very similar to each other, usually there's only variation between stages. Last but not least, there are two issues with controls. The first is that, with the exception of the Flamethrower and the Assault Rifle, you have to keep tapping the shoot button to shoot guns faster - you can hold down the fire button, but then the guns will fire a lot slower and won't deal enough damage to enemies. Constantly tapping the fire button will make your arm tired pretty quickly. The second probably comes from this game being originally a mobile game - there's only one key to switch guns. It's not a problem at first but after you've accumulated a lot of guns, cycling through them becomes a problem when you're trying to switch to one specific gun. Despite all the issues, it's still a solid, fun game, with decent graphics, good animations and a good soundtrack.

Pixel Art: 2/5 Immersion: 2/5 Gameplay: 3/5 Controls: 3/5 Value: 3/5 (Cheap and can be purchased on sale) Difficulty: 1/5 (No real consiquences) -------------- Overall 2.6 (Difficulty not included) [url=http://store.steampowered.com/curator/31208751/]Please follow my Pixel Art Curation for other great games...[/url] This is a very simple double jumping & shooting pixelated platformer...Cute and capable, but a little bland. It is an OK game and I can say that it was worth a playthrough for killing time. There is nothing too exciting here, but OK level design. There is about 14 different weapons you will acquire and unfortunately, they were a little bland and you only needed 1 or 2 to solve different challenges. Otherwise, it is just a matter of which graphic you like more. The leveling system was too easy, resulting in maxing the level about 1/2 through. The boss fights are also very simplified and easy, unfortunately. This is one that I can recommend on the cheap and would rather have an OK option in Steam for. ACHIEVEMENTS: An easy 100%, just play through with maybe a little light grinding.

Cally's Trials is an action platformer that has 110 levels to go through with some boss battles here and there. Even a LOT of weapons you can pick up and level up over the course of the game. The story isn't anything special, you play as this girl who's parents have been kidnapped by an evil doctor looking dude because he is evil and you have to rescue your parents. This game does start off nice but the further you go on you realize some really annoying mechanics. But then that leads to my first problem with this game... Leveling up you weapons doesn't make sense how it works, we would know that when we level up something in a game we expect that thing to be better right? However in this game you will do a lot of button mashing with certain weapons to kill off enemies fast. When you level up weapons some might have better damage and what not but you still feel like your button mashing the same amount of time you did before, and worst when you get to a certain level it changes the weapon a bit and makes it seem much better but the damage is reset to like a default state... So does this really seem like a proper "level up" system? The beginning of the game has this annoying as h*** character who plays a guitar and has to tell you everything about the game in case you haven't realized something earlier. Every time you run into this character the game cuts off into a cutscene with the character dialogue that gets annoying since it happens often that makes me want to be with Navi the Fairy from OoT instead! The character with the guitar has a store where you buy abilities like a triple jump or sword upgrade or shortcuts to certain levels. However the currency in this game is insane because everything costs a lot of coins that makes you have to grind for like 2 hr. to get one of the more expensive things. And whenever you fall on spikes, bottomless pit/water and get a game over you loose some money as well. Until the game decides to bring you to the beginning of the game to the store because you can't access the store anywhere else which is a terrible design choice for a shop in games IMO. Now to me the most BS thing with this game is that whenever you get a enough game overs you restart all the way back to the beginning of the game. Thank god you still get to keep all your weapons and certain amount of money. Though like I said the last paragraph everytime you get a game over you loose money and gets worst the more you have. The only way to warp to certain levels like I said is to buy shortcuts at the shop which cost a LOT of money and it takes forever to get a good amount of money. The one thing I really enjoyed from this game is the soundtrack which honestly is really good that I would listen too every now and again that I do recommend you pick up the soundtrack! Conclusion: Cally's Trails isn't a terrible game, it has what it takes to be a good action platformer but it fails later on into the game when you realize some stupid design choices that makes the game annoying at some points. I only suggest you pick this up if you are into this genre and what to get some easy achievements but do pick up the soundtrack cause its really good. Rating: 4/10

I enjoyed cally's caves 3, but this one seemed a lot more meh. I later discovered that this is indeed cally's caves 2 remade. one of the biggest gripes i have with this game is the level 7 bomb gun where it has the most useless gimmicky add-on to any cally weapon ever. It APPEARS to break off into cluster bombs when it explodes, but it really doesn't, the clusters don't hit anything and the explosions themselves don't have a hitbox. They should have looked into this before they released the remake and try to make leveling the weapons a bit easier and more worth while. You'd be better off sticking with the sawblade gun as that's the most OP (and easiest to level) gun in the entire game. It's not a huge budget title i know but i still managed to get a little enjoyment out of it and i did get it as part of an indiegala pack. still, i'd reccommend playing cally's caves 3 over this one.

Спасение принцесс осталось в прошлом, нынешние барышни уже сами отправляются за поиском похищенного мужика. Cally's Trials абсолютно стандартный аркадный платформер с одной интересной особенностью - всё ваше оружие (а его не мало) способно апргрейдится, приобретая полезные перки. При чём каждый ствол необходим для успешного прохождения, некоторые пули позволяют разрушать препятствия, другие способны остановить атаки врагов, ну и есть банальные для убийств. Сама игра проходится часов за 6, но для скупки всех улучшений в магазине и сбора всех достижение пришлось потратить 25... так что в конце уже Cally's Trials меня напрягала. В итоге поставлю 6.0, рекомендую исключительно любителям жанров, остальным интересно не будет.