| paleface [sys=PC; cat=Role_Playing; reg=NA] |
| | | | https://mason-lindroth.itch.io/hylics-2 |
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Tripping out of the PC version of RPG / platformer Hylics 2 by Mason Lindroth, developer of the similarly gorgeous-but-slippery play-in-browser free platformer Muldulamulom (see entry 1639).
Didn't find it as nice to play as it is to look at and quit just over halfway through, about 4-5 hours in.
Mundane design pitfalls cramped hybrid weirdness:
- Slippy-slidey 2D isometric jumping puzzles
- Clumsy navigation
- Interminable surprise action segments
- Forcefully nonsensical story
- Blank characters
- Multiplying, self-healing, auto-countering enemies showering you in long-lasting debuffs throughout frustratingly prolonged turn-based battles
- Main character skills exhausting your skill points in a single use, leaving you with the generic poke attack
- Repetitive music
- Kludgy UI
My party of abstract humanoids gained skills but not skill points; they squeaked along tropical silly putty micro islands chugging life-giving burritos more than every other turn. The burritos--and less-humorous resurrection items--cost mere pennies so maybe this was the intent.
Switching to "Easy" after the first few hours failed to alleviate burrito stuffing. Had I left my characters underpowered by avoiding too many see-them-coming encounter triggers? Almost every battle felt overlong, but you can't try to rush through them, because aside from being interrupted w/o warning by enemy turns, your left-right targeting doesn't necessarily cycle through the anonymously weird enemies in their left-right visual order. You can't load a save during a battle, maybe to discourage trying to sneak past them again. Could'a been a warning sign that the first fight came along only after an hour of meandering around picking up weirdly named battle items.
By that point, slipping off cliff edges while trying to navigate the play-maze-style maps and their vertical, winding, narrow, 3D but seen in beautifully colored bafflingly depthless 2D, railing-free paths already had me moaning "whyyyy." Characters slide down funnel holes and "jump" up ladders--press Jump repeatedly to navigate a ladder--in a stiff standing pose. Fear the spiral staircases.
Unlocking at least several key items involved plunking characters down at a lumpy arcade machine to launch a new extended 2D platforming stage playing like Muldulamulom except w/ twice as many buttons to manage, much tinier platforms, and constantly respawning swarms of enemies; far longer than you'd think, their loose layouts allow jumping over big chunks but not the worst ones.
A maze draws itself in as you wind along strange paths in another action-style sequence; looks super cool but goes on forever with no saving allowed and increasing numbers of dead ends and huge floating enemies triggering more long, pointless-feeling battles. The maze-running notably sported a different musical style, imitating an escalating countdown timer; I did not enjoy the contrast.
The game forgets your selected camera zoom level when reloading or enter a new area, resetting to medium range--nice for seeing the sharp if generically blobby visuals closer up but bad for navigating and avoiding enemies.
Battles award HP-raising items requiring teleporting to the afterlife aka another bumpy island.
1/3rd through you get an airship flown in 3rd person 3D. Like the action segments, feels like an absurd amount of work went into another dazzlingly clunky and tedious side mode--amazing looking from afar, but not fun.
The graphics could impress but the over-the-top indexed color stylized pre-rendered claymation-ish battle animations, especially the unending debuffs, often verged on incomprehensibility. Gibberish names and the nearly invisible visual indicator for your currently at-bat personality-free character didn't help.
Some battles would have gone much faster if I'd more quickly taken to heart a stray hint from some nameless NPC to light the later ubiquitous self-multiplying Poolmen enemies on fire w/ an expensive acquired skill--seemed to stop them from cloning themselves, thank goodness.
Discordant beach music aged rapidly. |
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