Recent reviews by Lucas Tigy

this game looked very promising, but ends up disappointing.
it takes inspiration from classics like megaman, rastan, and a little of blaster master. these are all fine games except this game takes inspiration from their faults too.

the art style is your standard pixel art. it does a lot with what it has and gives you some interesting boss fights with interesting weapon designs. i really enjoy how each country has weapon drops based on that region and with all of the different properties on the weapons, gives you a lot to work with and plan out. using weapons to save for later and break to cast spells. even some special ones requiring a special maneuver or hidden in walls. you can even make your own with unique stats to upload to the internet for other players to find. the environments are all varied as well and it was enjoyable to play through the different stages.

the robot moves a bit clunky, but as you get used to it, the controls do feel as natural as piloting a large mech would be. your movements need to be more deliberate like in rastan or castlvania. you are given some agility though with a upwards attack to jump higher and a back-dash to dodge. overall, the game play is simple, yet gives you enough options for enjoyable combat... until you leave the mech.
leaving the robot is a cute idea, but it's never used in any interesting ways. it's usually just to find a secret life, which brings me to my first complaint.
this game has a pointless lives system. when you die, you either go back to a checkpoint or the start of the level, so having these lives just means if you lose them all, you have to start all the way over. this is what arcade games did to make you spend more quarters and was brought over to home consoles to make you replay levels to artificially extend your "Gameplay". the good news is that if you play right, managing your weapon spells, playing cautiously, upgrading your health, you shouldn't have any problems losing these lives. the game is challenging but fair... except when it isn't...
taking a page from megaman 9, they decided to fill the game with instant-death pits so you can lose all those lives you've been accumulating. remember those deliberate controls i was praising? well now they're working mostly against you and, if you die, you go back to the last checkpoint so you'll just end up replaying the level over again and hope your jump doesn't get interrupted the next time. that's not even mentioning the mandatory pilot sections that involves swinging over bottomless pits or spikes which will also kill you instantly. these sections are just filler that accomplish nothing but to try to make the pilot seem more useful. the swinging physics are wonky where you need the maximum amount of momentum or you just die, sending you back again.
overall, this game isn't hard. i would almost call it easy. although it's combat is fair and fun, it's platforming is ruined by the outdated mechanics of the past. cheating you of your your progress and the lives that shouldn't be there.

for the record, i have played all the levels except the finale. i do plan to finish the game, but i already feel i can't recommend the game due to it's terrible design decisions.

edit: it gets sooo much worse in the final stages and there's just more levels with deadlier death-pits. nothing against the developers, tribute has made good games in the past, but i don't even know why i have a health bar some of the time. i;m getting through levels unscathed, just to have my jump gimped and lose all my health in a pit.