Dark Water : Slime Invader Reviews

I started writing a longer review, but accidentally hit the back button and lost it. This game is a unique platformer and worth checking out.

Intensely difficult to control on keyboard, and a little fiddly on controller. It's ok but the chase scenes are far too hard where 1 mistake costs you your life and you have to retry again and again and again. There needs to be more than 1 way to complete a level and when I haven't done it perfectly the one way you want it to be done 37 times in a row, it made me want to put down the game and not continue. The rest of the game is great however!

Mixed feelings. It could be a perfect journey for me if shorter. It is an interesting platformer with bullet-time archery shooting, each stage is well crafted, the gameplay is smooth and enjoyable. The gran and girl idea is very cool, just like Kratos and Atreus, Amicia and Hugo, we carry someone which seems a burden at first, but once we are ready to take care of each other, we may find they are really good companions. There are in total 46 stages, it clicked for me after 12 stages, kind of a slow beginning. It does introduce new powers and mechanisms gradually, but still slow, after 25 stages, it becomes complicated, but more importantly, it seems the develop doesn't want to miss any idea and ends up adding too much content, which inevitably makes some levels lengthy to me. For example, the throwing grandma part, the giant slimes, it is not difficult in terms of puzzle or action, just slow me down. It is a stage-based game, not metroidvania, but we sometimes have to go back to searching for stars without map, let alone there is no hint which stage has abilities. Arrow charge is slow, which requires waiting. Orb absorbing ability is hidden in later levels. These all harm the fun of a stage-based game. I wish I could see more stages like the one grandma is able to dash, fast and fluent. Like other stage-based platformer, it has limit checkpoints in stage, but I don't understand why some boss/final scene has no checkpoints nearby. There is no game saving midst stage, we have to finish each stage in one sit, it is frustrating after 30th stage, when there is more time-limited chasing. Some basic problems. 1. Can't rebind input, not a good idea for an action-heavy game. 2. Can't drop manually when we hold on to platform edge. 3. Met a bug in 45th stage, one platform disappears sometimes.

This is a puzzle platformer sprinkled with a little bit of combat. Combat is not the focus. The basis of the game is that you have to get grandma to the end the level, and collect enough stars to open the final door. Grandma cannot jump and move like your character which means some areas grandma will be stuck. You'll have to go forward to find a level or something similar to allow grandma to be able to progress. The graphics are simple, but look really good for this type of game. The controls are tight, movements are fluid, and there is some limited use of bullet time for the little bit of combat that there is. The sounds is not amazing, but is good enough for this type of game. The game does have some background music. Curiously, you can only turn it down so far. For this type of game, I usually keep the music going, but make it soft enough that it's still there but not dominating the game sounds. With this game, the softest background music level you can set is still louder than what I would expect. The main challenge with this game is that it will let you screw up. You can get to the end of the level, with all the needed stars but without grandma. You cannot get back to grandma and have to restart the whole level from scratch. While playing, there are mini saves within the levels but you can only restart from the last one ticked. If that was past the "mistake", you have to start the whole level over. For me, I dislike games that allow the player to get into a no win situation. These are supposed to be "fun". Outside of that, I do think it's a well done puzzle platformer. For those who play on handhelds, this works perfectly on the Steam Deck. The characters are not too small and you can see all the details needed. It does not require a lot of processing power so you can get really good battery life with a little TDP adjustments. There are some loading sequences that do not have screen animations which make you wonder if its loading. Just be patient.

The protagonist's village is invaded by slimes. The redhead archer girl and grandmother need to defeat the slimes, navigate loads of spike traps, and find the evil at its source to stop the slimes. The game is a puzzle platformer. In certain levels you play as a the grandmother, who can't attack, but can float. The game features boss levels, that are chase sequences, akin to the original Ori. There are a lot of extra skills to find in the hidden nooks of the map, as well as many, MANY, hidden “little stars” for the completionists. The platforming can get frustrating, and there's certainly some trial and error involved, but nothing was bad enough to make me want to quit. The story is delivered via comic panels cutscenes that make everything easy to follow. The game is essentially non-verbal, but this doesn't diminish anything. Overall, a pretty polished puzzle platformer with more than enough content. Well worth the asking price.

Definitely a recommend game. This is a beautiful puzzle game and I loved finding every last star before moving to the next level. Then came the part where you needed to throw the old lady around. The mechanics of this part were tiresome with you constantly needed to catch her aim her and shoot her all the while your stamina bar drops. Now and again this would be fine but it becomes constant and you get to points were you need to pull off five or six shots of these throws in a row or fall to your death. The thing is that up until this point the game was so good that I thought it was still worth the price so I'm keeping the recommend. They should make stamina infinite or find some way of fixing the throwing to make it a highly recommend.

I found Dark Water: Slime Invader to be very enjoyable. I have not played many platform games, so I know my knowledge is limited. With that said said, here are my thoughts: Pros: Very pretty and creates a good atmosphere. Overall - controls are good. I had a decent number of times where things didn't respond as I expected, but this is also noted in the cons section. challenge - the game kept adding new abilities that kept the stages and challenges fresh which not feeling either overwhelmed by too many options or getting bored with a skill/ability that can do everything. Cons: I found some of the bosses to be frustrating vs fun. But, it was borderline and so I can't complain much for this. Collecting some of the hidden stars without youtube would have been very frustrating. There are only so many times I can play a level and keep my sanity. Controls - I don't know if it was my system - but I often didn't get the control response I was looking for. There are only so many times I "accidently" jump into spikes before frustration sets in.

Full achievement clearance, as a single player development game is top grade, screen operation strike feeling is good, color is very bright. I haven't encountered any bugs. This kind of game won't bring anything new. In a word, good games are worth buying(๑•̀ㅂ•́)و✧

A hidden Gem. The platforming is very fun and it is surprising how many new abilities you aquire along the way. The combat is a little bit lacking as you have a time stop upgrade very early on that makes most enemies trival. The chase bosses on the otherhand are almost impossible to defeat without though. Overall a good platformer.

A pretty rare breed - a pure action platformer. It still has combat since it revolves around bow as a primary tool, but it's not a metroidvania which there are plenty - just an action platformer with some puzzle elements. And it's a pretty good one: good controls, good skillset, good variety of levels, perfect progression pace (how quickly you acquire new stuff, how quickly new mechanics are introduced etc), perfect difficulty curve. Overall, from my point of view the game has basically no flaws. It's a somewhat simple platformer, so it doesn't try to do too much, but what it does - it does very well.