Terrian Saga: KR-17 Reviews

This game reminds me so much of Commander Keen it's not even funny. Cons: -Limited control set up -Difficulty spikes -Ability loss cliche -Boss Fights are okay at best Pros: -DOS level design (Haven't seen that in a while. It's refreshing.) -Good platforming -Good Puzzles -Nice soundtrack -J1M is the happiest missile in the world Overall KR-17 is a good puzzle platformer. However it isn't perfect, If you can't stand difficulty spikes than I don't recommend it. But if you can over look that issue. Then I totally recommend it.

Has annoying sounds and harder than life. A few glitches. You might like if have no problem with playing Mega Man.

This game could be a rather enjoyable 16-bit action plataformer if it wasn't for the ocasional really bad and frustrating level design and gameplay balancing choices. It's a shame as some levels are okay, and some are awful, it would be easier to just not recommend it if it was all awful. Still, I don't think the good parts save the bad ones, as so far the lvl design has been "okay" at most. Still, if you really need the cards, or really want a 16 bit platformer and are liking what you see in the screenshots and trailer, go for it, it's a so-so game, there are much worse games around.

It could have been a good platformer, but the execution has too many mistakes: - Locked at 30fps. - Busy and confusing backgrounds. It is unclear what is background and what is a wall/platform. - Foreground foliage obscuring collectible items. - Very often I wished I could see more of the level at once (i.e. I wish the camera was more zoomed out). - Sometimes you carry over the jetpack from the previous level, other times you don't (and for no reason). - It is difficult to dash (double-tap a direction) when using the analog stick. Fortunately, it is also possible to use the digital one. - No Steam Cloud. I wanted to like this game, because I like platforming games and the screenshots looked very nice. However, I got bored very quickly, and got annoyed but those several issues.

Many indie platformers display a distinctive failure mode in which partway through, the designers clearly decided that the first part of the game has allowed you to master the controls and thus there is nothing wrong with now demanding prolonged spells of absolute perfect control mastery. [i]Terrian Saga: KR-17[/i], sadly, is not an exception, and I am glad I only paid 59p for it so I don't feel bad about deleting it from my system. For me, the last straw was "This long corridor has a lethal floor and ceiling, so you must use your jetpack - which only has two settings, 'off' and 'full throttle' - to keep yourself in mid air. There are barriers spanning half the height of the corridor at regular intervals, alternately protruding from the floor or ceiling. You must traverse this corridor fast enough to keep up with the NPC you are pursuing, but not so fast that you go off-camera (the camera is locked to the NPC rather than you)." I cannot recommend it, but if you don't mind that sort of thing, I dare say it's a good example of the style.

This is a pretty straightforward platformer with nothing really innovative going on. Controls are tight and responsive, but the dash is too easy to trigger when trying to make precise corrections, and the game sort of forces you into that kind of situation from time to time. In some places distinguishing between background and foreground tiles is impossible and you end up face-planting into a wall, which is frustrating. Overall the game isn't really shaky, but it's still far from solid. I feel like someone decided to make a platformer, then at the 80% mark they said, "Ah, that's good enough." It's not bad or anything, there's just nothing to recommend it when there's plenty of more polished platformers competing against it. If you're really hard up for a platformer then you may like it, otherwise you're probably better off looking for something else.

Pretty great arcade platformer in the style of old games. In the role of the only surviving robot - we must complete our mission to neutralize the "enemy agent". On the way we will meet many different robots - ready to sacrifice their lives for the sake of killing the hero. In addition, the game has small logical tasks and "boss battles". The game is made in the form of a retro game of the 90s - both in the graphic / musical component, and in terms of control. The only "innovation" that distinguishes the game from the background of old games can be called save points. Therefore, the player does not need to sit and go through the game from the very beginning to the final - in one go. [b]Pros:[/b][list] [*]+ Nice retro graphics [*]+ Atmospheric retro soundtrack [*]+ Difficulty [*]+ Trading cards [*]+ Achievements [*]+ Big discounts[/list] [b]Minuses:[/b][list] [*]- Difficulty - not suitable for every player, which significantly reduces the reach of the audience. [*]- Does not support gamepad. [*]- Cannot remap navigation keys.[/list] [b]Total:[/b] A complex, hardcore project - which will be appreciated by a rather small part of the audience. The game was promised to be the beginning of a whole series of games in this universe - but apparently the author was disappointed with sales. Since we did not hear anything more about the promised games. I recommend this game to fans of complex projects. p.s. To use a gamepad - I recommend using the Xpadder program.

Don't be fooled by the screenshots: This game is a nice 16-bit attempt but, unfortunately, it's incredibly amateur. The game has way too much going on in the graphics front. Colors are mishmashed and thrown together (why are background objects as bright as foreground ones), the environments have WAY too much clutter, sometimes it's hard to tell what is a platform or ground from the background, and at too many times there is foreground foliage that blocks too much of your view (If this is unintentional it's an amateur mistake, if it's intentional it is neither fun nor challenging). The cutscenes look awful as well. The controls are sometimes awkward and ANY area involving pushing moveable crates onto water is a headache. Why doesn't the robot simply move along with the crate? Why do I need to manually move him along with it? Again, this isn't fun and it's a terribly cheap challenge. There is a level in stage two where you need to do this for an extended amount of time without any checkpoints and it is unbelieveably frustrating (I have actually quit the game since this area and do not intend to come back). Apparently no one tested the levels for collision either as far too many levels with the jetpack allow to move behind walls or enviromental objects you're not supposed to, some of which trap you or kill you or all around mislead you. It doesn't help that certain enemies come in different sizes and are not easily destroyed by your guns. This is most noticeable in the spider boss level where you simply cannot shoot the green enemies blocking your path because they're at an awkward height. This would have been easily fixed simply by not having the grenade attack hurt you ala Metroid. And while you have multiple weapons at your disposal almost none of them are very useful outside of the grenade. And speaking of the spider boss, why is the boss level in the MIDDLE of the world? Why did the world just end a couple levels later when I went down a random sewer pipe? The pacing is just bizarre. I wanted to like the game, and I realize it's probably a first attempt at making a game, but this is just too unfinished and poorly thought out for me to enjoy. This could have easily used more time in the kitchen, first attempt or not.

To start: There used to be a much longer header to these reviews, but for the sake of brevity I've opted to leave it on my Backloggery page. Gameplay: The comparison has often been made in the past between this game and Commander Keen + some Genesis/Mega Drive-y stuff. As far as the level design goes, that isn't too far off base, although fortunately for most people this game controls loads better than the Commander Keen games ever did. This game's control scheme is pretty alright, even though I do have a few complaints. Movement is handled (and this will be written with respect to the 360 controller, as playing a platformer with a keyboard just isn't a good idea) with either the analog stick or the D-pad. Double tapping left or right will make you dash, which is one of my complaints. I would've much prefered a dash button as opposed to the double tap option, as I usually tap my directions a lot whenever I try to adjust my landing. Jumping is with A, shooting is with X... pretty standard stuff. As far as the level design goes, the first three levels are pretty much exactly the same: go destroy the thing, get keycards, shoot enemies, exit level, rinse, lather, repeat. The fourht level inexplicably changes things up, playing more like a traditional Megaman-inspired game. Beyond that... well, I didn't get further than stage four. Why? There was a puzzle room in which you have to maneuver two blocks around a small room to hold down a switch. These blocks are insanely glitchy. I broke that room eight different ways, all while still having not found the "proper" solution to the room. The blocks would sometimes fuse together, rendering them unpushable; sometimes fuse with the ceiling, land on top of you... sometimes they'll just not even bother with colission detection whatsoever. That's not really a good reason to not recommend the game, though. Why do I not recommend this game, then? It's not so much one huge terrible thing; it's more of a death by 1,000 papercuts, to where I was just looking for an excuse to not play it. For example, moving platforms do not have friction with your sprite, meaning that you've gotta tap a lot in order to stay on that platform (which can also lead to you dashing off said platform and into an arbitrary one-hit kill zone). One section of a level completely obscures the platform, leaving you to just guess whether or not you're still on the platform. Another section with these platforms has you inexplicably changing direction every time you drop to another waterway, leading to some cheap deaths. There's also another section in which platforms are sent out to you entirely on RNG, which can lead to you just kinda dying sometimes. Then there's the boss of area one that runs, launches bombs and knocks things down on you, only to stand still and just kinda die at the end of the level for no reason. I could probably go on for at least another few paragraphs, but suffice to say I don't think I'll be coming back to this one. Even barring those problems, this game didn't really have enough there in the first place to interest me. It's not a bad game to give to a kid who doesn't really care what they play, and they'll almost certainly get their $5 out of it. As for someone who thinks in terms of game design, this game probably won't be for you. 4/10. Story: The store page says that this game is story driven. Well, I suppose it kinda is, but it's not really too big of a deal. Of course, since I never finished the game, assigning a point value to the story would be silly, so I'm just not gonna do that. Graphics: Well, the graphics aren't bad. In fact, this is where I dare say a lot of the effort in the game went to. For the first three levels the pixel art is pretty rad, although it does drop off a bit in terms of quality around level four. Again, beyond that I can't really say much more. One thing I can say, however, is that this game seems to like adding motion blur every now and then (or as I call it, Cataract Vision). There's no way to turn it off, and if you've got motion sickness, I could see this being a bit of an issue for you. Regarding the technical side of the graphics, it of course runs at a perfect 60FPS, and it launches at a resolution which is around 1280x720, to then fullscreen to your native resolution. There didn't seem to be any resolution options other than fullscreen or not-fullscreen, so take that as you will. Given that I try to play games fullscreen at my resolution as often as possible, it wasn't too big of a deal for me. The game performs well enough (as one would expect) and the pixel art is quite good; I just wish there was a way to turn off Cataract Vision. 3/5. Sound: This is where the Genesis/Mega Drive comparison really comes into play. While it isn't exclusively using the Genesis/MD sound chip, it does borrow some samples such as the bass. Either way, if you're familiar with the Genesis/MD soundchip and enjoy it, you'll enjoy it. I'm impartial to the sound chip, so I didn't really feel that strongly about it. As for the compositions themselves, they're alright in the context of the stages, but it's not something I'd listen to particularly often outside of the game. Also, I do wish they had more than one song for stage four, as the stage doesn't have any level transitions, meaning that you get to hear the same song looping for about 30-40 minutes. As for the sound effects... it's a retro inspired game; what do you expect? I will say that the sound effects do have a tendency to stack and get a bit loud, which can be a bit annoying at times, although it happens pretty rarely, so it's not the biggest deal. Overall on the sound front, it's about average for an indie retro inspired platformer. People who go coocoo for chiptunes may find a lot to love here, but as for me, it's just kinda okay. 2/5. Overall scores are: 4/0/3/2; cumulative score of 4.5/10. It's biggest problems for me are its smaller problems and that even without said problems, there's not much else going on here. Again, if you want to get it for a kid or something, they'll probably be alright with it for a bit, but if you know some things about game design, this game isn't really gonna interest you.

Hah! This is a fun retro style platform game. I started having SEGA Genesis and Super Nintendo flashbacks! :O This game rocks! It's fun! You scoot and dash around as a little robot, shoot and blast your way through enemies (you even get a user guided homing missile) and even fly around with a jetback. One level I found the jetpack and just start flying non-stop up in the air... going and going... and I found coins! (or whatever they are) xD. Now I'm exploring everything. :D And the controls are awesome with the 360 controller. The 16 Bit style characters, backgrounds and details look great and the 16-Bit chiptune music is awesome. It's not repetitive and mixes up really well. If you like playing old school retro style shoot-em up platform games like back in the days of Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis and TurboGrafx-16, then you should get this game. For the price it costs, it is more than worth it. :D