October Panic Reviews

Video: https://youtu.be/wxJsrpRGJlw The game takes about 30 minutes to finish, so keep that in mind when you make a decision on what price you're willing to pay. I'm personally surprised that this isn't a more popular game. It has a very nice retro vibe with fun levels, great pixel art, and a fantastically Halloween themed soundtrack. You grab some masks which allow you to attack in different ways, and fight bosses at the end of each level. You also collect coins to purchase a ball which usually has nothing, but might have health or a life to add. It feels like I've gone back in time and found a reason to play on my Gameboy Color again. It does bring in some of the frustrating elements from those days though, which is either a pro or con depending on your view. There are several one-hit = death moments, and a few irritating enemies. But overall despite the many moments of frustration and rage inducing moments, it's a fun time.

I wanted to wait to review the game until I completely finished it. Overall, I'd 100% recommend this game! It's very cute and has nice vibes to it. There's a lot of subtle retro charm in the presentation and overall it's just a fun silly Halloween-themed experience, and for the price-point it's at it definitely has enough content. Lot's of enemy variety, nice artwork, and a cute story attached. Though, despite recommending this game as a fun retro-romp this isn't without it's faults - which I will list below. But I do just want to emphasize that despite me having these issues with the game it is overall a really nice experience and I DO recommend it. The biggest issue to me is the inconsistent difficulty presented in the game. I really enjoyed the first 2 levels, they were very well-designed and has a good balance of the elements. The third level (the Graveyard/Cemetery) is where most of my gripes are. Unlike the first two levels the third one seemed to take the approach of 'make it harder like retro games' by just making it almost unfair in some areas instead of it being designed difficulty. Unlike the other levels where knowing the mechanics of the game and properly using them to your advantage was the key to completing it, the third one just comes out of nowhere with elements that you won't really be able to dodge or overcome unless you play through it again after dying. It becomes less of a showcase of your skill at the game and more of a memory game which was very, very frustrating and not in the fun retro way. *Most* of my playtime on this game is on this third level, well over an hour was spent dying and restarting it, slowly figuring out how to deal with whatever random thing the game throws (sometimes literally, from off-screen) at me. I won't delve into spoiler territory but some standout points is one enemy that you actually cannot dodge without a specific powerup (that didn't even work two times I tried using it because the timing was slightly off) meaning I had to just brute-force it by hitting it and taking the damage. As well as one part near the end of the level where there's spikes placed in just the right way so that it comes out of nowhere near the end of an area you're supposed to move quickly through and insta-kills you. I almost quit playing the game at this level simply because of how frustrating it was and unfair-feeling on first playthrough. It was genuinely just a game of keeping a mental note where 'x obstacle' was and hoping I didn't mess up anywhere in the stage. I'm glad I did stick through and eventually beat the level, not because beating it was satisfying (which is usually the draw for retro-styled games) but because the levels after that felt more like the first two! They were very well designed in most aspects and it felt fun to play through. I honestly don't know what happened with the design between all of the levels' design and the third one. This really is the biggest fault for me. The only other one I have an issue with is that after dying you have ~5 seconds to press continue before the game boots you back to the beginning. Allllllll the way back. That's a big part of this game, it's very arcade-ey in that regard and for the most part that's okay! But the '5 seconds to continue before restarting' bit me more than once and was just frustrating. The first time I tried playing I got to the graveyard and had to take a phone call only to miss the prompt and lose all my progress which wasn't fun. In conclusion, despite some wonky difficulty 'curve' and potentially frustrating accidental progress deletion, I think this game is certainly worth checking out and is just a fun retro experience, despite some of the hiccups and bumps along the way.