sonicmeerkat's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Wickebine Kigyouden]

well this was a surprisingly good game, honestly would of paid for it.

biggest problem i have is that the download version doesn't adjust to the screen, using a wisescreen moniter i saw the screen boundary all the time and the skills menu allowed me to unlock a removed skill that didn't have its description translated.

but other than that it's a brilliant experience with all of the equipment (particularly the auto charge band, that was pretty broken until the very next boss had a shield) and while the difficulty jumps around for the bosses, mostly the humanoids this had the most brilliant boss rush implementation i've ever seen and the post game boss switched up the mechanics in such a way it continued to challenge way after learning how to deal with 6 seperate minibosses tag teaming you.

also nice reference.

[Puzzle Expert: Bobble Pop, Match Fever, Line Connect, Dot Shooter, Bubble Zuma Collection]

the games themselves have perfectly functional physics and the graphics are nice and clean, very easy on the eyes. though the resolution is a bit weird but i could just zoom out, it's made to emulate the tall screens of the machines that played these types of games (weird memorys of me being stuck at the pup because my dad yay)

the only real issue is the lack of background music, you just hear the same pop sounds, that's all and it gets grating after a while, like i didn't wait to see if difficulty ramps up after a while, there's certainly no level states, just going on forever.

still though this is a faithful recreation of many puzzle games, an amazing tech demo just can't really give it any creativity points, though using the engine for an entirely new game could be quite a fun endevour if you're still making games at this point.

[Sonic Pacman]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SJz12lVnwx4
prepare for memes

seriously though plays like pacman, perfectly functional though the ghosts stay edible a little longer than the music lasts. perfectly functional reskin of the classic game.

[Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.]

i get the point of it, it's perfectly functional and a brilliant proof of concept of a game promoting patience over rushing things.

thing is the game has no music and it has a annoying jump sound, there aren't any meaningful gameplay mix ups on the third level with a stupidly precise start (again, patience and you'll master it, but once you've mastered it a checkpoint to keep the flow of the game moving would be nice).

the game is slow for the sake of being slow, how does the ball moving slowly across the screen add anything to the gameplay when you can implement the same trial and error patience gameplay with a faster ball and more frequent checkpoints, there's a point where patience stops being a build up to a reward like learning the patterns of a very hard boss and just tests the players patience to the point the player is just relieved to finish a level, not ecstatic that they perceived.

i'm probably being very harsh, this is probably a first project or something. i just want to see a game with an improved version of this concept, the ball bouncing in midair has potential, it just needs more variation in the gameplay and a big way to do that is to implement kinder checkpoints which gives more frequent progress and keeps the gameplay flowing and to add harder mini gauntlets to compensate so you're spending less time traveling to the part where you died and more time learning how to overcome it.

[Death vs Monstars 2]

i don't normally give 5 star reviews on this site but this game has something others with fantastic physics, graphics, music, and mechanics don't. optimisation.

so my computer is very old, it can barely run most browser games nowadays, yet this game ran fantastically, i assumed it was just because it was older so it was built for weaker computers then i realised the coins were laggy in their colklection and most of their frames skipped.

this game actually has processing priority unlike most games on this site, or even in general and that is impressive. cudos!

[Frantic 3]

okay why does area 2 look better than area 1?
and not in a good way like 2 has a black background and projectiles that are pure coloured making them pop while area 1 has a white grid.

other than that though the game is decently fun, it has the potential to be a good game but the amount of armour (playing on highest difficulty so take this with a grain of salt) the enemies have is quite absurd, you need to grind in the bonus if you want to kill enemies quickly which in a space shooter is where most of the flow comes from.

but other than every enemy being a tank and the background (in the first area at least) taking away from the other visuals it's a good game.

the various bullet colours help tell patterns apart, the shop system has a lot of options to play with (though i discovered a glitch where the left most null slot is actually usable but has no graphic aside from level) it's just a fun time kill, if not a bit of a slower paced one.

[Slush Tile Rush]

very nice tile based game.

the graphics are nice to look at (love your artstyle btw) and the music compliments the setpieces nicely, the controls are responsive for the most part, swiping can be a bit finicky though that may just be my computers slow performance leading to lost frames or something, so the game is very functional though lacks a bit of optimisation.

as for the gameplay itself, i like how there is no traditional healthbar (well for the player) you only lose when no more tiles can spawn and with the team creation system which allows you to strategise with character abilities the gameplay is very engaging. one complaint though and that's with the checkpoint system, you start at the very beginning of a level and you only have one life, so when you die at bosses it can be quite boring fighting the same enemies you've already beaten just for another chance to fight the boss which really destroys the flow of the game.
one way that could of been circumvented was by not locking out control when the tiles change to the gameover pose because quite often the gameovers are caused by a boss attack blocking spawning spaces and a little extra time to react can circumvent the frustration factor that a game over can have.

that or restart from the beginning of the fight instead of the stage but then that would diminish the reward of making it through in one run. in any case this is a fantastic game that i would highly recommend to people who like level based puzzle/reaction games especially because of the block and dodge mechanics.

[Echo Bullet]

very fun and intuitive game.

i really like how there's a slow down option and it shows you your hitbox, makes it so much easier to avoid damage, and with the amount of hitpoints it can give less skilled players a chance to practice harder patterns harder bullet hell games use, speaking of which i love how the bosses function, each have their own challenging patterns with their own phases, they feel really diverse.

also the game is really well optimised, my PC is really old (like i had it since secondary school and it could barely ran minecraft when i got it) and it didn't lag once, very well put together.

and the aesthetic of the graphics and music is also nice since i'm reviewing it.