The Ploshers

[h1] Featured in my Lost on Steam New Episode! [/h1] An unboxing for video games! You can watch the highlights of this game and the two others featured this week here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqFZBnXKTeQ I started a new short segment called "Lost on Steam" which features games that have few reviews for one reason or another. Definitely not necessarily negative, just games that slipped by people. This is one of the featured games this week! The Ploshers is actually a deceptively fun, simple and cute game. You move between the levels and attempt to basically fill the requirement of the different colored enemies. Some are quick and weak, some are strong and slow. Others will be shooting at you and making your life tough. You have to use a different color button on your controller to attack each different colored monster, so it keeps you pretty nimble. I honestly and truly was having a fun time playing the game, but it's pulled down by two different problems, maybe three. 1) The price is a bit high for the content of the game. On sale however I could absolutely recommend it. 2) The game has no options. You can't customize your video / sound / controls etc. This is actually a real problem. 3) The SIREN NOISE IS ABSOLUTELY AGGRAVATING. You cannot silence it or change it. It's maddening. If any of these issues get fixed it'd be an easy recommend. Please please please adjust the siren. Join the Curator group for more reviews and "unboxing" of unknown games! https://store.steampowered.com/curator/34634494/

I was given the beta key to try out before its public release. It's certainly the first game released by the developer, as it is an arcade game with pretty simple cartoon graphics and retro 8-bit sounds. The goal is to clear every stage by shooting down enemies with corresponding colors of your bullets (as this game seems to be made for game controllers, the buttons on my XBox controller matches with them). With progress made with each stage, new enemies are introduced and the levels are built with more complexity, adding to the challenge. The negative points with The Ploshers at its current stage is that you don't have any other abilities than just spamming bullets on bullet sponges of your enemies, so any extra abilities or power-ups would make the shooting a bit more satisfying. Some extra effects would make a better impact that you've endured maneuvering and shooting down the enemy monsters. I also think some sound effects could have been toned down a bit while still sounding punchy in the 8-bit way; it's grating to the ears when an enemy fires a laser at every turn. In the end, the simplicity of the arcade game works to the strength of monster diversity along with the star difficulty. For the way The Ploshers is as a debut casual game, I leave a recommended review to cater to curious niche players of the genre. Unless there are further plans to polish and buff the game with further feature additions, I hope it serves the developer to create more and better games in the future.

It's a great arcade game, style of the 80's. The objective of the game is to finish with five enemies of each color. There are 40 stages and three difficulty levels (5, 3 or 1 life). The ideal is to play in the silver star (3 lives) and it will take you a few hours to finish it. Pros: + It's a challenge. + The variety of enemies, each with different behavior and attack. + Graphic design. They are simple drawings, but they are very captivating. + The music is quite good and it is varied. + I have not found any error. Everything works very well and everything does what it has to do. + You can play in co-op mode, and it's fun. Cons: -In advanced levels it can become difficult, and it can disturb. - Some enemies must warn before attacking. For example, the one that has the ability to teleport. In short, a great arcade game. You can download a demo to decide. Recommended 7.5 / 10

gamesense

I guess I should congratulate the developers of [i]The Ploshers[/i] for managing to do what most games on Steam do not: having a game that works well. I didn’t encounter a single bug in my time playing it, and every mechanic does exactly what it’s intended to do. That said, this is a game that, at best, could be described as a pretty good ‘80s arcade game. That is, it would have been, if it had come out in the ‘80s or been an arcade game. The game is working with a primitive level of technology. We control a green copy of Q*bert on a 2D plane, blinking up and down between various levels like a [i]Game & Watch[/i] title and using each of the controller’s four face buttons to fire corresponding coloured projectiles, each capable of killing a matching enemy. It’s basic stuff; you’re just hopping up and down and killing a certain amount of each colour until the level ends and you’re launched into another, mostly identical level. Honestly, there are better games that do the whole retro arcade style, and some of them even have some actual [i]depth[/i]. Yes, it all works perfectly, but that doesn’t make it okay that the game has nothing at all going on. Functioning correctly should be the [i]standard[/i], not the goal, and there’s no reason to even make a game if you don’t have any original ideas.

7.5/10