This is an [b]honest[/b] review. At the time of writing, there are 4 other reviews that, quite frankly, do not seem very honest. They all have over 6 hours of gameplay and the reviews were written after at least 2.5 hours, which is, for a game like this, just nonsensical. One of them even mentions how "pleasant" the "plot" is (spoiler alert: there is no plot whatsoever). Also, the tags for this game are just plain wrong. This isn't "isometric", "tactical" or "roguelike".
I finished the game in about half an hour, including a smoking break and a lot of dying. I was very frustrated cos one of the achievements is broken, the one that is supposed to pop up first (get 500 points). So I tried playing the game a bit more to see if I could trigger it, to no avail. I really wish the developers fix this, although I won't hold my breath. Now to the game itself. This is a fairly challenging precision platformer (I wouldn't use the word "hardcore" here) where you basically have to reach the exit door on the other side of each level while trying to avoid fireballs shot by wizards and spikes on the floor and collect coins on your way there. I still can't figure out why it's called "Undead Menace", but that's OK. I just love this type of game. I find them charming in their own right, so I don't really have a lot of complaints.
I don't know if the developers will read this review or act on it, but there's a couple of things that I believe can be improved. Firstly, the aforementioned broken achievement. It's very frustrating to have finished the game and still have missed an achievement just cos it doesn't work. Secondly, the blind jumps. I think it only occurs a couple of times, but jumping blindly just to land on spikes cos you can't see what's ahead is never a good design choice. I also believe that the dying sprite can be improved a bit (when you die, the character very quickly changes to a horizontal position, as if fallen, even in mid-air, and then immediately disappears) and it's a bit annoying having to press a key to restart the level instead of just restarting the level automatically after you die. This is a flaw that is common to a lot of these games.
I would still recommend it, tho, if you're into this kind of games. The graphics are fine, the sound FX don't seem out of place, and the music is not particularly annoying (it doesn't change much, tho, I still have it stuck in my head, lol). I have a lot of respect for indie games, and I just love retro platformers, but, in part, I write reviews (either positive or negative) in the hopes of encouraging the developers to improve their work. I certainly hope I can achieve that.
