MECHACAT: CRISIS

I really like this game overall, but I do have some gripes with it.

Full disclaimer, I helped playtest this game and the dev is a friend of mine, but I'm not gonna let that stop me from trying to give my serious thoughts on it.

Before I get into that, here's what I liked... First off, the art style. I actually kinda really like it? It's rather charming. The character designs are too. I am especially fond of Jeff. Everybody seems to be. Jeff is a good character. No, seriously, look at him, in the screenshots over there. Rollerskate bunny! Rollerskate bunny rollerskate bunny rollerskate bunny- ahem, anyway.

Also, I kinda like the soundtrack. Some good songs in here! Don't like it strongly enough to particularly have any favorites yet, but I can't say there was ever a song I felt didn't fit or a song which ever got grating in repeatedly attempting the game over and over and over again...

...Speaking of which... score attacking the game is also a pretty fun prospect, though one aspect of the game makes me unlikely to do that for the moment in practice (more on that later). The game has a quick way to restart back to the title screen to get a new game started, and the game is short enough to make restarting over and over again and refining your run down to actual perfection actually really really fun. I highly recommend anybody who plays this to go do that after they've done a regular run of the game.

Also? There's a nice variety of enemies and they're used well in combination with the level layouts, the platforming setups, etc.? It's some good stuff. They also have charming designs. Lots of robot dogs here!

I also mostly rather like the level design, though there is the occasional moving platform setup I'm very slightly iffy on whether I like it or not, and one pit placement (the dev already knows exactly which one I'm talking about btw lol) that is way too easy to die to when you don't already know the exact layout of the game.

But like, seriously. One minute you're fighting enemies in a larger area, the next you're fighting them in a more enclosed space, and then you're jumping across pits while trying to repeatedly jump over a laser back and forth and it's kind of a lot but like it's a late game level so it's okay because late game levels can be hard and that can be fun too.

Anyway, the story of the game is also quite charming. I won't say too much here in the interest of not spoiling it, but I rather liked the ending, and the implication that there's also more lore to the story here that we're not seeing. Please make a sequel, I really wanna see more of this!

...oh yeah! The core gameplay. Turns out shooting at stuff while jumping over projectiles and platforming and all that, is actually a pretty fun time! That's actually another reason I wanna see a sequel, while there are a few other games out there with some similar elements of the gameplay here this overall is a pretty unique mix of ideas that I'd really, really like to see more of.

Oh, and it's a relatively smaller thing, but. The UI? Charming, and overall clarity on it is pretty decent for the most part. The hearts on the UI on health are charming. The text on the level name uses an interesting font. And I like that the dialogue boxes make sure to tell you which button skips the cutscenes.

That being said... there's two things about the game that I'm really just not fond of here. One is a small but weirdly complex issue, and one is a large issue that's easier to explain the basics of and which I've already told the dev about in more detail so it can hopefully get fixed at some point, and so I won't waste too much time on explaining more than the basics of it here.

The first is the megashot. This is something I've kept trying to push the dev about, but she never really seemed to feel it needed changing for some reason. At first, my issue was mostly a matter of game feel. To me at least, the only thing about it that makes it feel more powerful is the fact that it's a larger projectile. The sound for it is kind of weirdly soft and it doesn't have much of an impact when it hits something.

But then after the game released, I decided, y'know, I'm gonna actually try to use the megashot more this time and see if maybe I was too harsh on the gameplay implications. Through that, I realized, maybe I should've actually done that sooner, because the megashot tends to get caught on walls and that turns it into somewhat a liability to try using.

The second issue is... the level 5 boss. Oh goodness me. Oh dear. Oh my. Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that a boss that requires this much multi-tasking in a game that previously did not require much multi-tasking at all is exactly quite the right note for a boss fight to hit with this gameplay style. It'd probably work fine over the span of a much longer game, but in a game this short it kind of comes across as a bit much. In my last run I got a D rank, having gotten hit 116 times and having spend 1094 seconds on the game. And I'm pretty sure that at least 800 of those seconds and 100 of those hits were just the final boss alone.

Also, that was the first time I was able to actually properly beat the game without turning on an auto-fire script that made me able to fire every frame and thus able to cheese the entire final boss, because I had that hard of a time with it and the dev wanted to see my reaction to the ending at least so I did it as a way to sort of skip the fight. The final boss, by the way, is why I'm a little iffy on whether I personally will score attack the game quite yet. I wanna at least give it some time and see if there might be a nerf to it in a patch or something.

Anyway, overall though, a pretty good, fun game! And a bit unique too! I definitely recommend you check it out. Just uh... if you also have a hard time with the final boss the way I did, maybe make a comment about it so the dev can better gauge if it's too hard or not. And if you don't find it too hard, also make a comment about it, again to help the dev gauge if it's too much or not.

Thanks for reading this if you got here btw. And thanks to the dev for making this game!