Candy Rangers

[quote]A review copy was provided by the developer.[/quote] [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] Initially, seeing four characters on screen at once, I thought Candy Rangers (CR) might have coop functionality of some kind. However, it clears this idea up quickly, because it's a single player experience where each character is matched with its own button you'll use to attack different enemies. This seemed like an interesting element to include in an on-rails shooter, so I picked up a review key. I don't find that it panned out very well though. [h1]Gameplay[/h1] Having played through only a few stages, I'd argue the biggest problem with this on-rail shooter is that it incorporates too many ideas into one game, or at least doesn't make it work with how it arranges enemies. Instead of following a character that walks automatically without having to consider the environment, you can jump or double jump at any time, temporarily halt, or dash forward. You're expected to respond to environmental cues, with varying degrees of advance notice, while also dealing with enemies that might show up out of nowhere. If you could shoot enemies with any attack, this wouldn't be a problem. However, in order to keep your multiplier maxed, you can't ever hit an enemy with the wrong color. Each one has to be shot with only the correct, corresponding bullets, even when they bunch up. For a game where you'd theoretically memorize the waves of enemies, there's not an obvious pattern to easily figure out. Enemies can show up from in front of you or behind, they may scroll in from off screen or appear out of nowhere, and what color is needed can be anything. Having so many options that can be used at any time isn't a positive, because the correct solution is only one or two of those choices. It gives the impression you should be strong, when you really aren't. Also, I feel it's worth reiterating that enemies can appear from anywhere on the screen without warning. Frankly, if your cursor is too far away from your characters when that happens, the chances you'll kill them in time without being hit is minimal. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3581869721 [h1]Controls[/h1] In this title, you don't only have to fire the correct bullets, but also have to use a cursor to aim at enemies. I'd argue that removing the need to aim, and making corresponding changes with that, would significantly improve the gameplay. You'd still have to react quickly, and with the correct attacks, but this would eliminate the penalty for hitting a stray enemy when it gets too close to enemies you're hitting with the right color, and reduce the problem of having too many factors to focus on. This would make the game about having good reflexes and coordination, which is the core fun factor in on-rail shooters. It's fair to point out that good aim is often a feature of those games, but they also don't have so many other variables to stay on top of, so this seems like a reasonable trade-off to me. [h1]Story[/h1] The group of four are new hires, who are meant to scour the area of monsters with their job-provided weaponry. It's an effective enough premise for a game of this nature. From the levels that I cleared, I didn't see the story line develop further than this though. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3581869269 [h1]Visuals[/h1] Oddly enough, the default settings for the graphics were at the lowest point, so everything was initially blurry and hard to see. Thankfully, I figured out pretty quickly that this could be changed in the settings, which helped significantly. However, since enemies just as often appear out of nowhere anyways, the screen could be zoomed in more so you can better see everything that's going on. It would be easier to tell without hesitating what color each group of enemies were weak to that way, and also increase the size of the control prompts that pop up. [h1]Sound Design[/h1] I'm a bit conflicted about whether the music fits or not. On the one hand, I'd say the perky, upbeat music fits the game's appearance and in some ways its concept, as the title would suggest a light-hearted tone. However, the opening story implies there's underlying darkness, and your main objective is killing off all the enemies around you. At the very least, it's not wildly out of left field, and a complete mismatch, even though I think it might fit better if it wasn't quite so jolly sounding. Some of the sound effects are a little annoying, such as when you hit an enemy a few times without destroying it. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3581870035 [h1]Pros[/h1] 🌟 The way levels are designed, there's some degree of replay factor built into the game. 🌟 If you are able to beat the game, you'll unlock more content to play. [h1]Cons[/h1] ❌ Early stages are more difficult than you'd expect simply due to having too many factors to focus on. Also, you don't have much time available before you're expected to respond appropriately. ❌ I wasn't really sure how to take alternative paths, as it's not just as simple as hitting left or right when you see a fork in the road. ❌ The visuals tease at the possibility of coop play, but there's no way to actually do that. [h1]Tips[/h1] 🔍 Even if you can't memorize an entire level, you can be aware of tough spots you need to watch out for. They seem to be set up for a specific response, such as using the parry to deal with a handful of foes at once. 🔍 Make sure you double check the settings shortly after starting the game. This is also where you go to quit when you're done. [h1]Final Thoughts[/h1] Ironically, with everything that you have to control and account for in the game, having no direct control over where your characters move feels baffling. Them moving forward constantly isn't to your best interest with how quickly enemies pop up and get in the way, but it's the one factor out of your hands. This is just another example of how quickly things can break down between concept and execution, as there was an interesting idea for this title, but I don't find it working very well as a game. Trying to clear levels doesn't feel like an engaging challenge, because I find it frustrating having to track so many variables. Even trying to exit out of the game is a pain, so I really don't recommend getting CR. [quote][url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/32732116-IndieGems/]Follow our curator page: [b]IndieGems[/b] if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.[/url][/quote] [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. 💖 - CR is healthy [/td] [/tr] [/table]

Very cute game, would be ideal for 3DS if it came out a decade ago! It's a simple-at-first on-rails shooter. You "control" 4 characters that go together almost all the time, but sometimes split up. Any action you do, the 4 do it at the same time, so it's more a matter of having to pay attention at several things when they split. You have a bit of platforming and, of course because it's 2025, a parry move. These things introduce a bit of variety so the game doesn't become just shooting. Speaking of the shoot, it's basically matching the enemies' colors and choose the best target so the shoot's properties kill more enemies in a chain. It has a very arcade-y feeling and it makes you want to retry the levels to get bigger combos. Sometimes the perpective gets a bit in the middle of making a chain on the first try, but it can be worked around by replaying the level and learning where to shoot. Give the demo a try and get the game if you like it!

This game oozes charm, bundled with a tightly designed on-rails shooter. A very unique system of the 4 characters representing the 4 formations your bullets spread when firing, the addicting high score arcade style suits it well. I find myself repeating already completed levels just to get a full combo, the music is fantastic and complements the very fun artstyle. It competently increases difficulty as more enemies in different formations start appearing, as well as mixing with your jumping and attack mechanics (and offers a hard mode as well for extra challenge).

О! Моя любимая демка с SAGE похорошела и дожила до релиза! А хорошеть там определённо было чему, поскольку концепт хоть и смотрелся интересно на бумаге, но его оставалось ещё сделать интуитивным и удобным для игрока, чтобы тому не приходилось страдать сразу с порога. В чём замут: четыре девочки стройной линией бегут по тропинке сами, а вы управляете прицелом. Стрельба же расположена — внезапно! — на WASD-блоке. Каждой клавише соответствует свой рейнджер. И на правильном выборе того, кто должен сейчас стрелять, строится абсолютно весь геймплей. У одной девочки патроны разлетаются вдоль, у другой — поперёк, у третьей — в высоту, у четвёртой — врассыпную. Видите ровный ужик из врагов или плотную их кучку — надо подобрать подходящее оружие, чтобы разом их всех прихлопнуть, а не вымучивать по одному. Желательно быстро, пока не сделали «кусь». В ранней версии игры приходилось заучивать, кто чем стреляет, чтобы получалось ну хоть как-то огрызаться от бесконечных орд негодяев. Стоило хоть раз потеряться в кнопках и затупить — ну-у-у... Ничего прям такого страшного не происходило, потому что Game Over ещё не успели придумать, но и удовольствия от такой игры получалось мало. Сейчас же разработчики перекомпоновали и разметили всё, что только можно, чтобы игрок мог вкатиться сразу. Виды орудия разделены по цветам прямо в прицеле, и этими же цветами отмечены «волны» врагов, чтобы реакция срабатывала на уровне ассоциации. Да, одновременно думать над четырьмя переменными и вовремя переключаться между ними всё ещё трудно и требует хоть немного набраться опыта, но играть стало точно комфортнее. Ах, я сказал «четыре переменные»? Как же я так! Авторы посчитали, что орудовать четырьмя видами оружия и ещё успевать целиться ровно игрокам будет слишком легко, и они добавили механику парирования. Даже место на клавиатуре ей нашли соответствующее: F. Когда на экране в одну малопонятную кучу смешиваются разные паттерны врагов, ещё и успевать реагировать на особые снаряды или просто «париребельные» элементы декора мне просто не хватало процессорного времени. Но это и не плохо, потому что всё удовольствие от игры в Candy Rangers строится на постепенном улучшении собственных навыков. Прошли уровень с первого раза? Тоже достижение, — но и пространства для развития останется много. И я ведь ещё не упомянул о том, что в игре надо успевать прыгать и тормозить. Девочки хоть и делают периодические остановки, расстреливая локальную нечисть с места, большая часть уровня проходится «на бегу». Никто не будет ждать, пока вы прицелитесь да шмальнёте да из правильного ствола — любой момент считается упущенным сразу же после того, как он покинет экран. Ну и не могу не отметить очаровательную графику, будто приехавшую из 3D-игр на стыке тысячелетий. Вайб Sega Dreamcast ощущается особенно явно. Модельки нарочито аляповатые, но при этом достаточно детальны, чтобы на них влезала хоть какая-то мимика, окружение выглядит минималистично, но вместе с этим ярко и сочно, чтобы не приедаться за пару игровых сессий.

I loved the demo and Mechano is a real one so this is an easy day one for me. I'm not into rail shooters but the visuals and sound effects are so lovely I can't stop playing!

おススメ度：★★☆☆☆(2/5) クオータービューのオートスクロールで進行するシューティング 設計思想がとても気になり購入 ゆるい雰囲気とは裏腹にかなり難しい。 またステージ解放のためのメダル回収ノルマが高すぎるので 何度も同じステージのやり直しを強要されます。 メダルはしっかりギミックを解かないと全回収はできないため 回収までやる気が起こらず先に進めずギブアップしました。 PVやスクリーンショットを見るともっといろんなギミックが待っていそうで それを体験したかったのですがギブアップです。すごくもったいないです。 コインのノルマいらなくないですか？なくしてほしいです。 -- 2025/10/07 追記 -- このレビューを見てくれたのか、即日緩和措置をしたそうなのですが ほんの数枚減っただけで私的には全く改善しておらず。 結局少し進んだところで再びギブアップしました。 収集要素がなくても十分すぎる程難しいので メダルのノルマはストレスにしかなっていません。 クリアしてもメダルのためにまた同じステージをやらされるという仕組みは 難しいステージに挑む意欲を失わせると思いませんか？

Really fun and colorful on rail shooter for anyone that is a fan of games like Sin and Punishment, Star Fox or Fantasy Zone, with some glaring design issues that make the experience not feel as polished as it should be. In terms of gameplay and level design, it stays fresh from beginning to end, it's as long as it needs to be so it doesn't really feel like it overstays its welcome. I'm especially fond of the multiple stuff you have to keep track of in most stages, it's engaging but not too complicated, it always feels like it's my fault when I get hit by enemies, although I feel the balance in some levels could use some tweaking (i.e. some levels where the score requirement feels too high, some where it feels too low, and in some cases dashing too much can make you break some scripted sequences). Let it be known that I played through the full game once and it was on Hard Mode, so I'm not aware of the differences between normal and hard, maybe Hard Mode is meant to be "♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ unbalanced mode" on purpose and I might have missed that, I can't tell. Another thing that's very praise worthy are the colorful visuals and wonderful music, I'm especially fond of all the gallery pieces, which inspired me to get (almost) all of the score requirements on every level; and the tracks for the bosses and map. The game LOOKS fun and inviting, and I value that heavily in any videogame regardless of gameplay. There are two aspects of the game that I think are very lacking and that's the boss fights and the medal requirements. The boss fights are tedious, have a pretty lackluster presentation (no cutscenes to show the boss, no visible health bar, and poor visual feedback on parriable attacks) and they drag on for too long, every boss in the game is a damage sponge (and again this might just be a problem with hard mode balancing, like I said, I don't know) and while some patterns are fun to dodge while you endlessly shoot at the bosses, they aren't fun enough for me to want to spend as much time as the game wants me on them. The other problem with the game and my opinion the biggest, is the medal requirements, this game did NOT need to make me replay levels just to keep progressing through the game, the game has roots in old school arcade shoot em up games and there's nothing arcade-y about making me go back to levels i've already beaten to look for collectibles that may or may not be easy to find, some of them require some paying attention which I find alright, but some of them are very out of your way and there's been multiple instances of me replaying a level multiple times to find a single medal and never understanding what the game wants me to do to either get to them or find them in the first place. I'm no game designer but I think the medal requirements should be drastically lowered or removed entirely, I get that the developer wants players to engage in more interesting ways with the levels but I don't think something like that is necessary in a game that isn't trying to be a collectathon. In my opinion, you could entirely remove the bosses and the medal requirements and the game would improve drastically. And the next thing I want to talk about isn't really a problem per se, just something weird about the game that I didn't really understand. Why exactly are the enemies not color coded? The game prides itself in its color coded protagonists and shots, and the tutorial even has me shooting color coded balloons, so that's what I'm also expecting from the enemies as well. However there's not a single enemy in the game that is color coded to indicate which character to shoot it with, most of them are gray. Instead every enemy gets a QTE-like indicator that tells me what button to press to shoot at them properly, and I just think that's really weird because that's not what the game prepared me for? I think it just makes sense to expect to have red enemies that are meant to be shot at by Candy but instead I just get gray enemies with red button displays on top of them. Which again isn't really a problem just a weird design decision. I get that it's probably meant to be an accessibility feature for color blind people but it's weird that there's no way to change it?? There's an option to not show markers on the enemies but that just makes the game impossible to beat because every enemy is gray and there's no way for me to tell which character to shoot it with. Again not a problem because at the end of the day you DO get a color indicator on each enemy, it's just not what you'd expect I guess? Weird. Despite my harsh criticisms on these things, I did not have a bad time with this game at all, it's a good arcade game for someone like me that likes colorful ♥♥♥♥ and funky music, but I feel it doesn't quite reach the full potential it could. Still, as the developer's first published game, I'd say it's a good success in terms of quality, it's no masterpiece, it has some stuff it could improve on, but it's a solid 7 out of 10. I especially take pride in the fact that the developer is from my country and I was not aware these types of games were being made around here TL;DR Pros: -Gameplay stays fresh all the way through -Colorful, visually pretty -Cute colorful characters -Great music Cons: -A bit unbalanced (might just be a hard mode thing) -Bosses are a drag -Medal requirements are unnecessarily steep, the game basically forces you to replay levels sometimes

Good vibes. Good Tunes. Good Scoring. Good Girls. What more could you ask for?

I love the way this game looks and plays. The overall presentation is fantastic, and the soundtrack is incredibly good. It has a strong 5th-generation console vibe that I absolutely adore. The whole experience feels playful and cozy, while still being a traditional on-rails arcade shooter that constantly encourages you to come back and chase higher scores. The difficulty ramps up at a steady pace throughout the campaign, making Story Mode feel engaging and satisfying. That said, I ran into a few issues. I tested the game on two different machines (one running Linux and the other Windows), and the same problems appeared on both. There are noticeable hiccups whenever the melee attack connects with enemies, and only during that brief moment. The game also crashes randomly during Arcade Mode, but that could be my own fault since I mess with my machines too much. One final feature worth mentioning (understandably not listed on the store page) is that the game supports a Wii Remote and Nunchuk. Just follow the developer's guide on the Steam Guides page to get it working.

Played this for an hour and already know it's straight up GAS. The reviews here are a great example for complete lack of genre literacy. I'll edit mine to be much more detailed when I clear arcade mode. Until then, play WIld Guns and Sin & Punishment on emulators and you'll know what this is. The fact that after the first boss you unlock arcade mode, which completely ignores all the modern progression gating nonsense for some intense, well paced rail shooter action is the cherry on top. Also the demo is outdated and sounds/plays worse than the full game.