nice sprites
i like the way how u tried to make the mage dude look like you made him yourself bit i know that u just drew over megaman sprites lol
Reviews for "BattleMage"
Arclite83 responds:
Heh, I know, I don't deny it. My own unassisted artwork is much worse; just look at the plant monsters!
great game
great game,but i think i found some bugs:from rynn i went to pecal first and when i arrived there i wanted to buy silver sword but it seems i already have all swords.dont know if you ment this.
second,when i cycled through all my weapons i come back on my first weapon but i cant do anything with it:no attacking,also no more cycling throug weapons
Arclite83 responds:
Yes, a lot of people are reporting problems with the weapon cycling - both of those sound like that is the issue. It's odd, because it's a fairly simple looping system. I'll have to look into what's making it fail so often and see what I can do.
A nice, long platformer with kinda dodgy gameplay.
Graphics: Yes, we do recognize rockman's walk when we see it. Backgrounds are nice-looking, everything's animated well, but a lot of the animations reminded me of other game sprites just traced using Flash's drawing tools. Because of this, different game elements each seem illustrated in a different drawing style.
Style: The opening theme and cinema scenes were done well, though a bit simplistic, it tells the story well. The characters don't look like they all came from or belong in the same world together, I suspect because they were all traced from different sprite sheets. Nothing really jumps out as being extremely well-done or original. I think a personal, unique drawing style (I.E. all characters drawn by the Flash artist from scratch,) might have made a lot of difference.
Gameplay: True to the Rockman/Megaman theme, there's lots of persnickety jumping where hitting your head on a ledge will make you start all over again if you don't do it exactly perfect. Enemies move a bit more like Castlevania, appearing far outside your attack range and then gravitating towards the ground where you are.
Unlike Castlevania, though, these bad guys aren't confined to their own limited areas, which means you're constantly surrounded and often have no choice but to take a hit in order to progress. They'll be swarming around on a ledge beneath you where you need to jump, and you have no way to hit them or take them out. If the enemies dropped random health powerups, maybe this wouldn't be an issue, but the way things stand, they only drop money, so every hit you take is permenent.
The boss moves in odd ways and you can't duck or stab upwards, so I was at a loss as to how to beat him. The only way I could ever hurt him was by trading hits when he cross the screen, and of course, I had been softened up by all the enemies underfoot in the first stage, so I died first. Maybe there's a trick to it. I dunno. You only get one life, then you have to start over, so I didn't have the patience to play through it again. That was a nice thing about Rockman. If you got to the boss with half health and then died, you could always call it a practice fight and try it again with FULL health.
Overall: I liked this game, but the gameplay was frustrating in some ways. I absolutely commend the author for actually telling a story! THAT aspect of the game RULED! I look forward to his next release. Hopefully something with more original graphics, and perhaps a more solid visual theme tying everything together. He's taking the gameplay in a good direction, and he's made a more competent action/platformer than I've seen in Flash. The health/lives mechanism kills it, though. A health meter is better than one hit, you're dead, yes, but a health meter with a limited number of lives that lets you continue right at the boss, is even better. That's just my opinion, though. There's a lot to like here, if you're not as easily frustrated as me.
To the author: Keep up the good work, and I hope to see more games of this caliber from you, perhaps with a bit more diversity and polish and a less severe margin of error.
Arclite83 responds:
Thanks for the great review; you make a lot of good points, and you've given me a lot to consider for BM2 in terms of mechanics. I did take shortcuts with the artwork, and while the originals were from different areas I feel the final style was my own (simplistic) interpretation of the sprites. It's hard to make something this bulky wihtout using more complex graphics, and I was seriously hindered to simplicity because of the engine (I already have a fix in mind for this).
All in all, you've made some great points, and I will definitely take some of this and run with it. I'm glad you like the story; I have the jyst of the next one complete, once I fill in the details and iron out all I hope to accomplish with my next engine revision, I should be on my way to making BM2.
Good Game!
Nice incorperation of so many MP3's, I could never get that kind of compression. The bosses are nice, and the graphics are ok, but overall you have a pretty good game here.
5/5 and 9/10
Meh
Not a bad game. Apart from the mediocre graphics, lack of AI, exorbitant prices, the ability of every projectile to go through walls, bad dialogue, and horrible spell targeting, you have something good and solid.
And Fireball looks so awesome.