YSMQTHLQYH's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[_sheld[ON]]

Presentation is pretty solid, puzzles are a headscratcher at times but that's kind of the point.
No puzzle's solution was hard because "I didn't know you could do that", you did a good job at teaching the quirky mechanics with level design alone.
Levels 8 and 18 felt like trying out ever combination of moves until finding the one where you aren't one move short, you can blame that on a skill issue on my part.

Still, having some puzzles where the catch is that your solution is one move short but half the puzzles' correct solution leaves you with spare moves, kinda weird but ok.

Main complaint is the wire bot exploding, it's never explained and it feels completely random. What do you mean i made a move and a bot in the opposite side of the map explodes?? if it had something to do with stepping over the cable that it's connected to at least it would make sense.
Ultimately it doesn't matter, there's no puzzle that the catch is that your solution makes a wire bot explode, so it's just a weird thing that happens randomly. The mechanic might as well not exist. You should just remove the mechanic tbh, not even change the levels, just remove it to not be confusing for seemingly no reason

[Skatorio]

This game feel so inconsistent.
The main movement is free and smooth with sliding momentum mechanics yet the jump hard aligns you to the grid and 8 main directions in a jerky hard to predict motion that ignores all momentum.

Freezing the enemies is just get close to them and roll a dice.
You walk past them and half the time you freeze them half the time nothing happens.
You walk into them and half the time you freeze them half the time you just lose.
I have no clue what other mechanics could be involved in freezing them, by experimentation i figured already that jumping and the floor tiles being frozen are completely unrelated mechanically.

The scoring is... what am i supposed to do again?
The description promises speeding past foes in a fast-paced adventure so we are supposed to go as fast as possible, right?? WRONG time is not even a factor in score, try to go as fast as possible and you get an F score...
So maybe it's one of those game where grinding for score turns into a puzzle game of figuring out the optimal path. Maybe that's the intention but like the enemies that you have to kill all have random movements so there is no optimal path as it changes in every attempt.

At least the %tiles iced scoring is intuitive, has a in game ui tracking it for you and it all actually works. However the combo breaks... What even is a combo break anyways?? absolutely zero indication of one happening, the name doesn't give any clue of what you have to do (apparently what you *don't* have to do) and i have no reason to trust that whatever tracks them isn't as inconsistent as freezing enemies.

The point is, i have gotten S scores to F scores and the combo break score might as well be a random number.
Even if the ranking system made sense, would you like to grind S ranks in a game where every action requires you to win a coin toss?

Ok now for the positives, if you completely ignore the rankings on each level the gameplay works well enough, you can actually have fun playing the game and there is a good amount of level to play through.
And oh yeah the graphics and music and stuff, it's all good no complaints there.

[Gar-Type]

The presentation is an easy 10/10, most insane shit i have ever seen in newgrouds.
Too bad the actual game kinda sucks tbh.

The hitboxes are often dubious and the only feedback for taking damage is looking at your hp bar in the corner. It feels like you just play until the game decided that you lost.
The bullets are actually dodgeable as far as i have seen, however giant enemies ramming at you from offscreen at mach speed is just not fair.

The controls are... uncomfortable. The entire game is focused on fast precise mouse movements but that is harder to do if you have to hold the left mouse button the entire time for no good reason.
Good luck aiming the g-field in the quarter second before your unmoving ship gets hit by something, no i frames after the teleport so miss by a bit and you take damage from teleporting into a wall or getting sniped by a new enemy. It's probably usable if you get very good at it so maybe it's skill issue on my part. Still better off just not using it.

Harsh punishments for losing a life sure is a choice, not necessarily bad but at least consider putting a checkpoint halfway through the stages.
Also qol issues like no way to return to fullscreen if you press escape by accident and no way to pause at all.

Still the entire presentation, artwork, setting, etc. is so stupid and good i can't help but give a positive rating anyways.

[Touhou Fake Invitation]

This game is very scuffed, the framerate is choppy and inconsistent, loading screen is unbelievably laggy, audio cuts for a second every minute or so, lots of small bugs, artwork is fine i guess, music is not quite good but kinda close.

Beneath all that jank there is a game that is... very good????
The game design shown here is truly excellent.

The game is purposely hard but is very fair at that and is also very lenient at mistakes. The bullet patterns are very varied, are pretty to look at and are properly readable. Not a single "cheap shot" to be found (how many shumups can say that?)

Pacing? good throughout. Difficulty curve? mostly ramping nice and smooth, only issues with it being stage 5 boss being easier than bosses 3-4 and extra boss being somehow easier than the rest of the stage.
Deathbomb leniency? you might as well be guaranteed to hit it. Hitboxes? if there's any jank it's in favor of the player. Controls? even with the framerate no issues with it. The game is so forgiving overall you can't even be mad if you make a mistake.

The framerate was only becoming an issue in the bonus thing at the end of the main game, still got past it with spare hits to take so....

Yeah i got a 1cc on the main game on my first try, the extra stage took me like 4 tries to reach the boss, then i beat said boss on the first attempt. I can't deny i had a lot of fun throughout.

Overall despite the surprisingly bad performance and amateur presentation, the game is a blast.

[One Must Imagine Sisyphus Happy]

Waiter! There is a gameplay in my cutscenes!

[Voiceless Demo]

This is so much more forgiving than the first one, and yet the skill celling seems incredibly high and i keep getting D ranks lmao.
The good music, the cute artstyle, the overly goofy death sound effect, this game has such a personality.
Love this

[awesome calculator]

This is crazy lol.
There is one issue with it, it seems to think that 33+77 = 110 when it clearly should be 100

[Blue Vortex]

Man this is so trippy.
Flawless presentation, truly excellent.
Judging your hitbox on a first person view is hard, eventually got the hang of it and went from a 0:25 record straight to a 2:28.
soo... wish it was even harder

[Hyperlight Survivor]

Game is simple and you don't have much control over things, still fun to dodge around which is the game's entire focus.
The drop rate for pickups is all over the place and it's really dumb how the P drops does nothing if it had an upgrade you already have (which is most of the time as all but two cap out at 1 upgrade, and fire rate caps out eventually).
Also the heal pickups end up dropping more often as the enemies increase so it eventually gets easier to tank whatever.
The ship with the ultra that gives you invincibility for a while is by far the best, especially when the game goes late enough where the ultra reloads before the invincibility ends so you can take no damage forever.
Either way eventually when you get maxed out ship with like 50hp the game gets way too easy, you can just leave the game running and leave to do something else and you will be fine. (in the time it took me to write this comment my score went from 70000 to 82000 and only lost like a third of my hp)

Update: left it running to 120k and only lost like 5 hp and then i decided to actively try to loose, took a while and score 133475

[PRAXIS FIGHTER X]

Game is rather short and basic, yet it feels like the most competent shmup i have seen on newgrounds.
This is just a simple yet well executed game, idk how to explain it better