TharosTheDragon's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Don't Catch the Herp!]

Not particularly amused

I get that it's supposed to be all funny and everything, and offensive Newgrounds content is widely accepted as the norm, but when you say it's based on true events it makes me think you actually were cruel and insensitive to someone just because they had herpes. Herpes is extremely common. I myself get cold sores from time to time, and they're usually barely visible. I just make sure I don't kiss anyone while they're active. Although if I knew they already had herpes then it would be okay.

So yeah. Stuff like racist humor can be seen as making fun of racism or whatever. But this doesn't seem like you're making fun of cruel and insensitive people. It just seems like you are a cruel and insensitive person. I hope I'm wrong though.

ItsTheAshtray responds:

Good review, and fair assumption. ITS NOT REALLY BASED ON ANYTHING REMOTELY CLOSE TO REALITY. So no, I'm not making fun of anyone in particualar or people with the disease in general. She's just a character.

[Pew Cubed]

Unplayable

The lag was just ridiculous. I'm guessing you need a gaming computer to have a decent experience with this game. I wasn't even playing in full screen. And the full screen button gave me a fatal error each time.

BryceSummer responds:

Yes, the system requirements for this game are higher than your average flash game.

Sorry to hear it didn't work :(.

[Trigger Knight]

Perfect game

This is the most addicting thing since Canabalt. I can't believe it only got daily 6th. This deserves to go on the front page.

People complain and make suggestions about how this or that enemy is overpowered or how you should be able to do this or that, but they don't understand how finely tuned this game is. The average gamer doesn't know crap about this sort of thing and their ill-conceived tweaks would just ruin it. The idea of something being overpowered only applies to cases like fighting games when all the playable characters are supposed to be equal. So it doesn't make any sense to say an enemy is overpowered. It's not necessarily supposed to be as powerful as you or as powerful as any other enemy.

Yes, I would agree that it's about 50% luck but that just means it's so perfectly balanced between luck and skill. Luck has always been an important part of gaming. Without an element of luck there wouldn't be an element of risk. This game is all about choosing between the safe bet or the dangerous one that pays off. Paying 500 gold for a gold ticket leaves you pretty vulnerable since you'll often have to forego healing in order to save up for it and you may not find any more healing items for a while afterwards. Someone suggested a warning system for when a dragon is coming up, but that would eliminate a major risk factor. The divine edge is only good against the dragon, but without it you may go up against one with full health and an elixir and still lose. So there's always that tough choice of whether or not you should buy the divine edge. I've found that dragons are generally preceded closely by Grim's shop so you might even take that as a sign that a dragon might be coming up.

Like Canabalt, the randomization engine is tweaked just right to provide just enough of a chance and just enough of a challenge. Also item costs, item powers, and enemy stats are all at just the right amount for a challenging and fun experience.

I've found that a good cut off point for the soul shrines is 30% life span. If I have more than that, I won't pay for the life, but if I have less than that I will. It always worked out that way. I got 6th place in the high score board and may try for an even better score.

[FvF]

Cool game

Really laggy for me though, even on low quality.

I thought it was funny when I played Megan and went up against Fox.

[Adventure Story]

Great game

Matt, you are a wizard. Excellent art, programming, and design as always.

Unfortunately it runs very slowly for me, even when I turn off the backgrounds. I get about 7 to 13 fps when it looks like it should be 30. The performance is actually about the same regardless of the backgrounds or the quality. This suggests to me that maybe the backgrounds are still being rendered internally even while invisible, or that it has nothing to do with the graphics and it's the hit detection or something that's lagging it.

Yeah, my computer ain't the greatest but other stuff runs fine, like Bullet Heaven.

[Geo Land: Dream Traveller]

Not bad

It's a decent Flash RPG, but the interface was not executed well at all. If you have to walk up to something to interact with it, you shouldn't have to click on it as well. You should be able to just press a key, and there should be an indicator that you're within range. Also there need to be hotkeys to make battles go more quickly.

[Legend of the Void]

Cool game

But it looks like the close call achievement is broken. I've won a battle when my ally was dead and my main character had only 1 health left and I still didn't get it.

[Electrikill]

Pretty cool

One problem is the amount of luck involved, especially on shotgun missions. There's the one where you're not allowed to hit a single gringo, which you have next to no control over. And then there's the one where you have to shoot down all the drones in 4 shots. Not only do your shots fire in random directions but the drones are in random places.

Another problem is grinding. Once you've got all the stars, it should just automatically unlock all the glossary pages. I'd like to read them but I don't want to have to just sit there shooting locusts until I have enough money to buy all the scatter upgrades. And I'm certainly not gonna sit around shooting stuff until I get all the achievements.

The art is certainly good. I like the all-female military squad. Kind of reminds me of rtil's Freetown.

VictorGrunn responds:

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to be tweaking the money earn rate along with the other patchwork needed later today, this is more out of whack than I realized. Glad you liked the art too!