The Way of the Pixelated Fist Reviews

First, the nice things: the game has vision and I really really like where it's going. Music and visuals feel good, and I am happy to have paid a couple of quid for it. The problem is: it has bugs: I got stuck into walls and sometimes the camera crops the wrong part of the screen (headless enemies). None of these are really bad, however the game could have been received better if those had been fixed before release. What I would recommend to the dev is to mark it as "early access" until those issues are fixed. Meanwhile I will leave the game there and try it again in a week or so to see if the issues have been addressed. I really like the game idea and I think there is potential to expand on it. I'd recommend to buy it anyway if you like the vibe as it costs less than a coffee.

I enjoyed this game. I love the blend of platforming and beat em up elements. There are times when it felt like the platforming bits weren't responding such as jumping off a wall to reach the next platform, but overall it is what it is. I also thought the letterbox style gameplay window in the beginning was creative. Overall, I would recommend it to those wanting go at your own pace type platformer. If your looking for speed or need the button precision to be spot on, you might want to watch some gameplay footage to decide. But really, for the price you can't go wrong.

Well the "throw you in the middle of a large open world" aspect is a bit scary, once you understand the game it's a lot of fun. I expected it to take a lot longer than it did as i beat it in under 2 hours. Blaze Epic makes a lot of short games so not really surprising. Anyway its original and its fun. Definitely reccommend. (The combat is a bit too easy though)

Tags: Platformer Additional Tags: Delete Local Content & Remove from Library TLDR: A 2015 release that chose, as its direct competitor, the 1989 original Prince of Persia, and comes out of the comparison looking none that better Strongest weapon in its arsenal is out of the box support for Xbox 360 remote. It also has quite a fair bit more color to to the levels,and has frequent use of music. It introduces a variety of parkour moves that are not present in prince of persia and divides the action between dungeon-style levels in dojos that have death traps, then introduces a little bit of diversity while navigating to the next dojo, beating up some guys on the way, and solving a bunch of smaller easier parkour sections while travelling. Things are not all rosey however. The game, despite the fairly complex lowkick highkick lowpunch highpunch block system that trumps prince of persia's simple swordfighting, has a noticeable input lag. Most noticeable in the combat actually, but also present during navigation, in by which if you press a key while another action is performed the key is flat out ignored. This is present to a less extent in prince of persia whom allowed change of directions on the fly. Also this game's combat is rather ridiculous, you can simply go punch punch kick, punch punch kick while going forward and you willl beat every foe every time. The music changes when going from inside to outside locations but the sampling is very short and loops constantly. The colors are, well colorful, but prince of persia had a distinctive aesthetic with its nearly monochrome presentation only adding in the rare colored element into the mix. The soundblaster era sound effects were clearly superior on prince of persia's part. Prince of persia had fairly solid exposition with a cool intro and mysterious persia setting. The animation work in both game come a wash as The way of the Pixelated fist as great animation work for the characters, but prince of persia has a near motion-capture like quality to the way the animation translates muscle and body movement of the protagonist that is not quite captured here. The death traps in prince of persia had sound effects and looked a lot nicer, and most damning of all, this game just spawns you back at the beginning of a level with no death animation. Getting impaled, crushing your character and getting sliced in half was half the fun of prince of persia and seeing it omitted here seems like a great missed opportunity. I could go on, but once you factor in the nostalgia factor. Prince of Persia 1989 comes out the winner hands down. Both games are equally frustrating in that you often know what you try to accomplish and struggle with the controls as you try to make it happen. Unfortunately the use of a controller did not help given the input lag, which prince of persia does not have but forces the user to suffer through a rather insane keyboard layout including arrow keys, shift and whatnot. So in conclusion this is a really nice homage style game, I probably would had kept it around just for kicks, but after beating the first dojo I was unable to enter the following dojo for levels 8-16 I button mashed the Y button, and every other button and no dice. Maybe I am missing something but this game has very little exposition and story so I doubt I am missing a plot trigger.

Fun little game. Most of the negative reviews were based on a earlier, bugged version of the game. The previous problems have since been hammered out. If you're a fan of 8-bit style beat-em up games mixed with a dash of platformer (a really unique type of platformer that is almost parkour like), you'll enjoy Way of the Pixelated Fist.

Has great gameplay with a slightly broken fighting system [spoiler] if you just spam down kick you can beat any of the basic enimies with 10 hits[/spoiler]. The music is great for setting the right mood, although I would like a different theme for the bosses. The only problems I have with the game are that it never explains wall running (more like a jump really), and the backgrounds, while charming, get repetitive. I got lost, user error though, so don't let that stop you from buying this great 2-3 hour game.

Short but sweet ninja platformer with a retro vibe. It's not great, and it's not bad, but it is a buck so yeah it's worth the dollar for a couple hours of fun. :-)

There is potential here, and the developer clearly had a vision for the game. Unfortunately, "cinematics" and "platformer" don't seem to be a good couple. Half the time you can't see where you're going or what you're jumping to next. There is incredibly limited UI and half the time you're wondering what button does what or if a ledge is even grab-able. Trust me, it sucks when you think you've jumped in the right place, only to fall to the city streets below. Plus, your character seems to get stuck... all... the... time. In just a 10 minute play through, I probably got stuck 4 times. Generally, to escape this invisible prison, you have to fall to your death. Thankfully, the game is relatively fast paced and checkpoints are frequent so you don't have to restart all the way at the beginning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQZcHGYVBTM In closing, I want to recommend this game because I feel like the lone wolf who built this game actually put time and effort thinking it would pay off in the end. Even then, the incredibly modest 1.49 supports that point. Unfortunately, this isn't very fun and I can't objectively recommend it. However, it wouldn't be a bad idea to support the dev anyway... who knows, he may decide to make a platformer without blackboxing that covers 80% of the screen.

[strike] This game has potential but I can't recommend it until all of the obvious bugs are fixed. The player frequently gets stuck on walls and stuff, then you have to restart the stage (back button on 360 controller). This happened to me a dozen times in the 5 minutes that I played. I quit after I jumped and flew into the sky.[/strike] FIXED and I'm loving it. Combat is decent. Reminds me of Kung Fu on the NES, but without jumping. It's fun to wail on people and I've even gotten my ass handed to me once so far. The parkour platforming is fun and controls well. It's kind of like the original Prince of Persia but more fluid. Some of the obstacles feel like Super Meat Boy in that I died many many times before getting the rhythm down. The sound effects and music are appropriate and enjoyable.

[h1]A David Lynch’s fragmented nightmare full of Kung-Fu poetry, constructed via the sampling of past retro-masterworks. Mixing [i][b]Prince of Persia[/b][/i] with [i][b]Mirror’s Edge[/b][/i], a Sega’s Master System color palette with NES tight controls, [i][b]Another World[/b][/i]’s influences with [i][b]Yie Ar Kung-Fu[/b][/i], a Radiohead inspired soundtrack with Bruce Lee’s awesomeness. A raised in the 80s kid’s warm dream that confirms Larry Stover as one of the most distinctive creators in the indie scene since Nicklas Nygren alias [i][b]“Nifflas”[/b][/i][/h1] If [i]The Way of the Pixelated Fist[/i] would have been published in the early 90s, it would have become one of my favorite games as a child. With its wise combination of frames extracted from 80’s hallucinatory martial arts movies, mixed with all the elements that made me love videogames. Its creator Larry Stover works with the same philosophy as a DJ, using a sampler structure to create remixes of old beloved classics with a contemporary approach. The game takes a clear inspiration from influential cinematic plattformers like [i]Prince of Persia[/i] or [i]Another World[/i], but while you are doing almost impossible jumps through the city skyline, you can feel this same sense of awesomeness of being playing [i]Mirror’s Edge[/i]. Its color palette resembles past Sega’s Master System games, but the minimalist approach taken in its graphic design is used to create a relaxed mood that evokes Nifflas classics such as [i]Knytt[/i]. Its combat parts are a homage to Jordan Mechner’s first creation, [i]Karateka[/i], that was the precursor to [i]Prince of Persia[/i], but its tight and accurate controls are more close to Konami’s [i]Yie Ar Kung-Fu[/i]. There is jumping parts that requires the same millimetric precision as the original [i]Prince of Persia[/i], but its controls are so responsive as modern indie plattformers. There is automatic checkpoints in every new screen visited, but to save the game you need to access the menu, like in the old PC titles. Its graphic style suggest old 8 bits titles, but its soundtrack has a modern drum’n’bass tempo with a floating line of melancholic keyboards that looks at Thom Yorke’s solo works You can feel this contrast and amalgam of influences also in its animations. The combats are inspired in classic Kung-Fu movies, so you can expect a lot of frames of animation, with every enemy infused with life and transmitting a constant sense of movement. But its jumping parts looks directly to contemporary deviations of the martial arts film genre, such as Ang Lee’s [i]Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon[/i] or Zhang Yimou’s [i]House of Flying Daggers[/i]. So these animations are intentionally static, with the main character floating suspended in the air. But the most distinctive part of [i]The Way of the Pixelated Fist[/i] is its original reinterpretation of the cinematic term applied to videogames. Instead of drawing all the screen, [i]The Way of the Pixelated Fist[/i] opts for showing its world from a camera angle perspective. Like if every shot was filmed by an invisible fixed camera, an then mutilated in the editing room by a schizophrenic and highly experimental filmmaker. This aesthetic approach submerges the game in a distant halo of unreality. And seeing other past games from Larry Stover like [i]Samurai Jazz[/i], seems as a characteristic trait that surrounds an immense part of his works. This fragmented visual approach creates one of the most controversial gameplay features in [i]The Way of the Pixelated Fist[/i]. Because all the city’s main map is connected in an illusory loop. And the mutilated film frames only serve to increase the confusion and disorientation in the player. Resulting in an experience similar to watch some of the most experimental movies by David Lynch, in the vein of [i]Mulholland Drive[/i] or [i]Inland Empire[/i]. With the concepts of time and space being heavily distorted. Personally, in a game that lasts for 4 hours, I don’t dislike the idea of being an entire hour completely lost. There is something hypnotic in describing constant circles through the city while you are doing gravity defying jumps in this Larry Stover’s hallucination. And I really appreciate that he has dared to make a game with this level of personality, which is so far from all of its contemporaries. Luckily, the 6 levels that we can access through the main map are single screen based and they use a lineal construction. Every set of chambers completely changes the focus of the gameplay. One set is based in the original [i]Prince of Persia[/i], using the same color palette and the same ground spike traps. Another set has a modern stealth approach, with robotic eyes that will shoot laser rays if they are able to detect us. And in its level structure, Larry Stover shows a lot of talent as a game designer. With a perfect difficulty curve not based in the frustration. I feel so fascinated with [i]The Way of the Pixelated Fist[/i], that I can’t wait to discover the rest of the games created by Larry Stover. One of these rare artists that is able to sculpt unique and distinctive universes surrounding his games. And with a certain sense of coherence between his different works. Thanks to his postmodernist approach to the martial arts genre, taking influences from the Nouvelle Vague, from Tarantino’s reconstruction of classic genres or from the characteristic contemplative gaze found in Jim Jarmusch’s films. [i]( The writer of this review is not an English native. So you should expect occasional grammar errors. I apologize in advance. )[/i]