Recensioni di Armed with Wings: Rearmed

EDIT: I was young (and foolish) when I wrote this review, so I am going to change it from a raving fanboy to a more... "measured" review. Original review below. --------- NEW ----------- This game is a good one. It is what happens when a guy who built one of the most iconic series on Newgrounds aside from Madness Combat and Project Nexus decided to make a game. I did play the Newgrounds original series, and this would supposedly be a more "professional" remake of the first episode of the series, AwW1. The premise is that you are the leader of a "resistance" movement against an extremely skilled and arrogant (and utterly badass) tyrant who managed to conquer the world, to the point that, when he thrusts his sword into your heart, God meets with you and basically gives you the equivalent of the 1UP mushroom, superpowers, and the goal to go and put the tyrant down. With a couple hundreds enemies to bring down along the journey. The ambience is beautiful. You wander in this eerie version of the world, where everything is basically destroyed or decaying, with a soundtrack that exacerbates the sadness and solitude. The dev in question has a great talent for music, and I would wholeheartedly suggest to try the Newgrounds series to get an idea of it (if Newgrounds is still around, it's been a while I checked...). Which brings to one of the main points of the game. EVERYTHING in this game is hand-drawn. And I don't mean just the background, but the character walking and combat animations too, they are animated photogram by photogram in Flash. This, coupled with the sparks and gusts and special effects flying around when you slam your sword, make for a satisfying visual experience, and an unique artstyle I saw only from this dev (of which I would love to see more). The combat being pleasing, it is fluid as well. Every move can be interrupted on the spot, and chained with another one, opening to very satisfying combos. However, the moveset is unfortunately a bit limited. The game comes in a "story" mode, but also a "horde" mode, where waves of enemies spawn to get at you. In this last mode, you choose an arena, a sword and a set of superpowers that you unlock by playing. Finally, another mode lets you kill enemies in hordes such as before, but with the twist that swords and superpowers drop to the ground after a certain level is reached, the objective being how much time you can survive. Overall, the game is a "tiny, but precious gem in the game industry". It is a game that had been made with love, passion and dedication. While not being a "AAA" mastodon, it is a indie game in its own right. I would say give it a go. --------- OLD ----------- Beautiful game, one of the little, but very precious, gems in the gaming industry! I played the Armed with Wings series on Newgrounds, I loved the story on there, but admittedly I started from AwW2, so this game is a nice throw at AwW1, despite having a few differences. unique artstyle. I strongly recommend not just to play this little masterpiece, but also the other games on Newgrounds for the whole thing to be more epic. The game is set into an unspecified time (which still today baffles me, it seems to be in an ancient era, but sometimes there seems to be destroyed skyscrapers in the background ... wat?); the story? a ruthless lord that must be defeated, a misterious, almost ... divine ( ;) ) being, and you, a defeated hero who thirsts for revenge... guess what happens next :D ? UTTER MAYHEM. One of the most satisfying things of this game is the combat system; feel free to dart into the enemy ranks and dance your blade so you can crush them to Mist (just be careful of the Elites, especially when they are in groups...), then switching your techniques mid-combo and crush the other hopeless grunts trying to give support... and when you play, you gain points that give you even more swords to play with, with various abilities you can choose from. The animations are top-notch, very different to what one expects; this game has (and currently IS) being made by a single guy, and he drew every single frame. The result is an unique, anime-like style, and you actually feel the love and effort the developer put into it. And the music can get even more praise! As a final note; this game, especially if you play the whole series, is one of those that will make you see the villain as a total badass. Of course there are still some issues (the aforementioned blob of Elites is one of them, damn if I hate that), but this game is pretty solid in my opinion, a very good game to easily spend 10-20 hours in.