Panzer Paladin Reviews

Updating review after finishing the classic campaign on Hard mode, and I think I can cautiously change my original review to a thumb up. Pros - gorgeous pixel art, and the reason I bought the game in the first place - amazing soundtrack - you have unlimited continues so there is really no penalty to dying, and you keep all the weapons in the inventory as well so you could technically just farm your way to victory Cons - levels run long and gets somewhat boring due to copy/paste enemy designs - HORRIBLE default control settings - pretty bad tutorial that really doesn't prep you for the actual game - quite a few CHEAP DEATHS that can only be avoided if you memorize the stage - some boss attack patterns are quite cheap and almost impossible to dodge, though these are rare and often do lower damage than their normal attacks, but it's still annoying - controls can be unresponsive at times, which typically means you either fail into stage hazard and die, or eat a big attack because your character doesn't do what you want it to do For those that still want to push on despite what I have wrote above, I have a few notes that should make your life ALOT easier. Call it "Things I Wish I'd Known Before I Started This Game". 1. Rebind the default controls. Instead of having LB/RB as swapping weapons, instead map backstep to LB (GBA/DS Castlevania fans should be very familiar with this setup), and map throw weapon to RB, then use Y/B for weapon swap instead. This is because backstep is AMAZING. You can use it to cancel any action, including when attacking in midair! Therefore you really want to have this available at a moment's notice, and the default binding to B means it conflicts with jump(A) and attack(X). Backstep is your primary defense and mobility option during combat and will make boss fights as well as the mid-level horseman fight a breeze. I went from struggling to taking no damage from some the fights with this simple change. 2. Speaking of backstep, there is some iframes tied to it, though it's not something you'd want to rely on too much. On the other hand, a jump > turn around > back dash combo is an extremely useful movement tech. There are some later stages where you kind of have to use that if you don't want to practice pixel perfect short hops. 3. Up+Attack is basically also your double jump. It actually jumps a bit higher than your normal jump as well, and combined with normal jump, is how you navigate stages and dodge certain boss attacks. The input is covered in the tutorial, but it really doesn't make clear just how important this maneuver is. Just be careful of ceiling hazards when you use this so you don't accidentally jump attack into them. This can be combined into a jump > up attack > turn around > back dash combo that can be useful in navigating some stage hazards. 4. Get real good at doing midair Down+Attack, because so many enemies are vulnerable only to this, and you can get a ton of free hits in on bosses that otherwise are immune from below or are not vulnerable much on the x-axis. 5. Don't worry about the counter gimmick. It's just much faster and safer to speed kill the enemy. 6. Sometimes it's just easier to tank the damage, since it gives you a brief iframe window which may be used to cheese some instant death spike traps on the stage. Similarly, it's better to eat damage than falling into instant death stage hazards for the same reason. 7. When you see an energy tank on the stage, decide carefully whether you really want to use it. most of the time you really should *NOT* use it unless your robot was destroyed. This is because energy tanks do not refill when you die and respawn. It's more of a tool to "revive" your robot (the only way to revive your robot, actually) and less of a heal. Instead heal by breaking weapons with heal spells on them. Overall, decently fun game once you get used to the mechanics, which can take awhile, but it can still be frustrating at times. I finished the classic campaign on Hard in about 10 hours, and the first 6 or so hours was ROUGH. Past that things got a lot better. Original Review Below: This game somehow made piloting a giant robot tedious and boring. You move extremely slow and have a huge hitbox, so it's honestly alot better and smoother to play just as the pilot, whose basic attack also out-ranges some of robot's weapon attacks to boot. Boss fights feels like a tanking fight, there are moves that you simply cannot avoid because you cannot jump high enough to dodge a charge attack, for example. You have a shield, which doesn't work most of the time. While I figured out that it needs to be at the right elevation (stand to block high, crouch to block low), it still only works about half the time even if I have the shield lined up right. Level are long and boring. It doesn't feel good to play because due to the enemy attacks and stage hazards, you're forced to play extremely passively and react to the enemies rather than bringing the fight to them. Oh, and the death pits and enemies that love to bump you down into said death pits. All in all, I think this game was successful in recreating a clunky NES era platformer, which is also why I cannot recommend it.