Bard's Gold Review (Xennus)
What it is in few words : A decent nostalgia-fueled Platformer romp, short and slightly hard, sprinkled with some RogueLite elements.
Now for a more detailed approach. Starting not from the good, nor from the bad - But a fair warning about who this game is intended to. Ever wanted to feel that 90's buzz of poppin' a cart and playing an old-school Platformer, only this time you don't wanna plug your console or replay the same emulated game for the zillionth time, this game is for you. If you play recent, Retro-influenced Platformers inspired in older games but with polished modern gameplay in a pixel art casing, you might want something else for this one you'll likely find too raw.
First and foremost, the controls work fine and are responsive enough, but they are deliberatedly *clunky* in very subtle way. You'll find your jump is slightly shorter that most low height platforms, forcing you to master the double-jump early one. You'll find that when wielding Tri-Knives, the ones who shoot downward, almost always hit the floor and you'll have to stick out of the platform to high lower height enemies. And so on. All this made in a way which forces you to adapt, but never in a "I pressed this and it didn't work manner".
The level design goes for the good ol' "Hard(ish) but fair" formula. It is *VERY* solid. No death I had in this game I could describe as in "This map was poorly designed and it asked from me something it couldn't". No death I had in this game was even bad luck as in "This time, the enemy projectiles just lined up in a bad way" and that stuff can happen even in well designed games. But yes, every death I had in this game was for not being careful enough, for rushing. Protip : You have a look down button. Use it.
Gameplay is predominantly platform hopping and trap dodging while killing mostly harmless but inconveniently positioned enemies. Rarely their attacks will hit an average skilled player, but they often be in places where it's hard to hit them without risking exposure to a trap, another monster or the very thing you're trying to hit. Levels often have shops where you can buy weapons and upgrades using the treasures you plundered in the World. After a few levels you fight a boss and defeating it clears a World, allowing you to start from the next World in further games, except in Hardcore mode, where you must always start over. After finishing a run comes the RogueLite part, where regardless of success or failure, you get to access the Skill screen, where you get to spend all the currency you didn't use during the run in various passive effects that might help you on the games to follow. You get new things to invest in the form of skill books you find in the game.
So, the basic mechanics are done right. What about the audiovisual experience ? Ehhh, this is where things get slightly sour. Our hero looks the part mostly fine, true to 16-bit classics, but many enemies are crudely drawn and the backgrounds get progressively horrendous. Some levels, especially the last World and the Halloween-themed ones look like someone drew it with a mouse on MS Paint. Reminds me of the "Doujin" era of PC games, where fans of famous franchises made clumsy games on haphazard authorware such as The Games Factory and MultiMedia Fusion from ClickTeam. Another type of Retroness if you ask me, just not the one intended - Pixel art would be just fine, perhaps they though of it as unoriginal ? And those awful fonts straight from a text processor, very generic and unpolished. But hey, I assume that if you play Retro games, prolly not the case that you're looking for fine looking graphics, so that didn't have much bearing on my enjoyment.
Audio effects are serviceable. The music starts catchy and charming but the last two worlds have slightly annoying songs. The ending theme is alright though. Nothing to write home about, but not nearly as bad as the graphics. Music taste is quite subjective though, but if you ask me if it's atmospheric/immersive, not really. But not dissonant either.
Content-wise it's very short. You have 3 modes : Normal and Retro are quite similar. In the first you have more lives, but in the latter you have better loot. Also, there is the Hardcore mode, where there are no checkpoints and you have to play through the game with a single life (There are unique upgrades to it however, making it far easier than it sounds at first). As for the levels, aside from bonus areas, there are only 4 Main Worlds and a winning run takes around 30 to 50 minutes. So, you'll wrap up on this pretty fast even if you are a completionist as long as you're reasonably skilled. Still worth it though, since the pricetag is very modest.
All in all, it's a solid product. Not exceptional, but good enough to give you some hours of nostalgic fun.