Ravva and the Cyclops Curse Reviews

Great NES-style platformer. A little on the short side(took me 2 hours to beat normal mode), but the price is really low so I can't complain much there. Plus I plan to beat it on hard mode, or at least give that a shot. The graphics are good and there is a decent selection of filters so you can make it look more like a CRT TV. The music is catchy and reminds me a lot of the Mr. Gimmick music. Everything is really polished. Definitely worth the price if you like 2D retro platformers.

Made it to the final boss, gave up because my good will was killed by the over-long boss fight. If the controls didn't keep seizing up on me I may have bothered. But they did, so I didn't.

Really good 8-bit style platformer. The game starts out with a short story cutscene, done in a very nice style and is reminiscent of games like astyanax or ninja gaiden. The story is simple and to the point, mama summoner gets turned to stone by a cyclops, so baby summoner sets out on a quest to defeat the cyclops to save his mother. Your summoner controls nicely with a variety of different attacks. You have a standard attack, a freeze attack, a bomb attack, an attack that shoots diagonally upwards, and an eye that helps you uncover secrets. You can switch between these attacks by pressing the triggers and you will need to use all of the attacks at different points in the game, very often having to switch between attacks on the fly to deal with different situations. The control is tight and responsive but I can't help but think that rather than cycling through all the attacks using the triggers, each attach should have been assigned to a different button. Constanttly cycling through can get really annoying and there is more than enough buttons for each attack to have its own button. The graphics have a very nice 8-bit look and would fit right at home on the NES. The levels are generally fun to play with lots of hidden secrets to look for and some solid platforming. There are only 2 bosses, one in the middle of the game and the final boss. Both bosses are well designed and I wish there were at least one more boss in the game. The challenge level is on the easier side. You have 2 lives and unlimited continues. One hit kills you but when you die you immediately respawn from where you died if you have an extra life, if not, back to the start of the stage. Veteran gamers should not have too much trouble finishing this game, and there is a hard and easy mode to adjust the challenge as you see fit. I beat the game in about an hour, but for the price it is definitely worth it, if you are a fan of 8-bit style platformers you will enjoy this game.

This is a good 8bit platformer. It is a short game, a little bit more than 30min, but it is a good one. The controllers are tight, all the abilities are unique and fun to use, and there are some hidden things here and there. It is well worth the price.

This a short casual platformer. Reaching the end is easy except the stage right before the last boss. This game has a lot of re-playability: speed, 1cc, all bonuses, scoring, etc, runs. There, it can become quite hard I guess. The game is cute from all perspectives. no problem with the glibc/linux port into the steam runtime.

Sorry, I can't recommend this game. Mechanically, the game is poorly designed in how it mechanics encourage exploration and experimentation, but the level design immediately punishes it with a timer and how if you die, you halve your score. A game over completely erases your score, so there is never a sense of progression or improvement. You are supposed to spam a scanner mechanic every step of the way, which is clumsy and ridiculously restrictive, the game constantly mocks you with having INVISIBLE secrets, but will never give you the time, or reward you for seeking them out, as the game is meant to be rushed through to give a higher scores, creating a frustrating and patronizing gameplay loop. The game does not save your score, and if you die, you lose your entire score, making the game punishing without any reward or sense of learning. Which is GUARANTEED to happen, the FIRST BOSS CANNOT BE COMPLETED WITHOUT LOSING 3 LIVES, WHICH MEANS IF YOU GO INTO THAT BOSS WITH FEWER LIVES, YOU'LL RESET YOUR SCORE. Extremely poorly designed, all the boss does is rush you, and given you only have hp, means that you will lose lives. The only strategy is to spam your attack as fast as possible, but through experimenting, again, if you have fewer than 3 lives, you're screwed. I abhor games that force you to die or lose lives for no reason, as it implies that the story/plot was never meant to succeed, and will always end in failure, even dark souls you can complete without dying with planning and strategy (so the child in this game never saved her mother, the cyclops wins, and the child died hopelessly as there was never a chance of success (not spoilers, all this is in the first 2 minutes)). When the game finished, all I felt was relief that I wouldn't have to see this game again. And it's sad, I really like the developers and think this could have been at least a charming game, it has a very nice pixel art style, but in the end the gameplay mechanics, level design, and score erasure felt obnoxious, needlessly and senselessly counter-intuitive and condescending without a sense of purpose. I hope that the devs learn from this as they develop Meowja, as again, I like their aesthetic, but as of now, their design structure is really really terrible.

If you enjoy retro platformers that ramp up into ridiculous levels of difficulty, this is going to make you a happy player. Or frustrated. I'm not sure. I enjoyed it. Made it to the boss, died a few dozen times. It just became an exercise in futility, having to switch between different attacks constantly to survive while still laying some attacks on the boss. So, I gave up to save my sanity. The earlier levels aren't bad, and honestly most levels aren't bad at all. They just get cumbersome with the difficulty between avoiding obstacles, killing enemies, and trying to reach the end. Your goal is to get a high score which resets at the end of every death, so I'm sure I'd of finished the game with a score of 12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4u9c07pfKU

One of the worst platformers i have ever played. The basic movement feels off, it feels floaty and the one tiny jump they give you is not very satisfying. The combat is not much better, switching your powers is slow and tedious, and the game basically spams monsters that keep spawning until you can find the hidden way to stop the spam. Yes you read that right, hidden. The worst part about the the game is that it literally hides half the game from you, you are supposed to constantly use your scanner to reveal platforms, powerups or coins. If i want to search for hidden powerups and platforms and get bombarded by enemy spam i can go and play mario maker instead.

Ravva and the Cyclops Curse reminds me of Shovel Night graphics wise and the way the level's start. The game however is very different from Shovel Knight not only because no shovel but you don't need to upgrade your tools. 8/10 (please use the tutorial i was stupid and didn't)

Holy shit, this game is awesome!!! Being only 3 bucks this game is a STEAL too. Nicely detailed pixel art with an awesome soundtrack that fits nicely in the SNES/genesis days along with well designed levels and a cool yet simple weapon switching mechanic make this one of the best ( and FUN) modern action platformers I've played. Plus, it caters to both casual/kids, seasoned, and pro gamers with 3 difficulties, (I played in normal, but after finishing the game I'm going to see how hard master is). You get a few different weapon types to cycle through and they all play an important role in the level design. Getting more points to unlock things like a level with extra lives is cool, and if you get a certain amount of points you can actually skip the final boss, uh what?!?!? So basically finding extra point bonuses throughout the 10 levels and not continuing will give you a nice bonus at the end which encourages better playthroughs which is brilliant. Wish it had more level, number of enemies defeated and coins collected achievements but not gonna complain here, this game is really that good. Hope they crank out some sequels!