Score: 9

"Superb!"

submission: Arcuz

date: December 22, 2009

I have been playing this game for a while now, and i can safely say that it's one of the best flash games I've ever played. This, given some work on balance, could easily have been a gameboy game a couple years ago. That said, some issues to work on:
1. Glitches in the scenery, lunges shooting you through walls etc.
2. Glitches with items--I found a bug where you can reuse a tome repeatedly. I found after doing this (by accident) that my one stone of holy had disappeared. Frustrating indeed!
3. Stat balance. Magic resist, for example, is not really worth the trouble. A 3% chance to resist an enemies magic, which can often kill you in one hit, is not effective. It's easier to invest in killing enemies faster. HP and SP recovery is weak. Points bonuses to attack and defense are weak. Bonuses to critical hits are (though this is debatable) overpowered.
4. Composition, in general, is a but unfeasible. You don't get stones very often, they are almost never for sale, and on top of that you risk losing everything should it fail. I find this to be very frustrating and a poor game mechanic, as it drives the player away.
5. clarity of game mechanics--I had to go to the help page (which I had trouble finding) to find out what alexipharmic (sp?) was. Element bonuses don't give you statistics, though clearly the mechanics functions on probability.
6. Drops (pt. 1)--I have played for over ten hours and have yet to find a gold drop (do they exist? There's an achievement for them). I assume they appear at later levels, or are extremely rare. Either scenario should be remedied. Look to diablo--they gave you rares and uniques at early levels. The flipside is that they were rather weak, as they should be. However, this system, while maintaining balance, gave the player a sense of progression and reward in the game.
7. Drops (pt. 2)--I can get more and better items from killing green slimes than I can from centaurs, due simply to the amount of slimes there are, the speed at which I can kill them, and the fact that they often give similar drops. I should get better items from higher level monsters. This is usually the case, but if I want money, I resort to farming slimes. This indicates a lack of balance, it shouldn't be worth my time to kill slimes at level 17.
8. Skill balance--Though this is the case even in games like Diablo, many skills are simply not worth it. Lifting more, sp and hp recovery, and the many of the active attack skills are not worth it when I can pump masteries, berserk and speedup. I realize this is difficult, but it's always something to strive for.
9. Lack of meaningful build choices--all paths are melee, and there is not much difference, as far as I can tell, between the three. Even following the first diablo's formula-melee, spellcaster and ranged--would add some much needed diversity. Again, I realize this is hard, but their addition would really improve the game.
10. monsters--In general the monsters are good, but the problem is that they can one or two shot me, even when I'm at their level. This is simply unfair, especially when most of the time it's based on luck (i.e. the probability that they will get an elemental hit). Often this makes the game simply not fun; There should be other ways of dying besides being hit once for 800 damage. Difficulty is good, but it's best when the player sees some feasible option to combat the problem. Besides getting more health(I pump 2-3 of my CP's into constitution every level), or getting lucky, there is no clear way to work around this.

The fact that I am even bringing issues like these up is a testament to how good this game is; I am being honest when I say that this could be a full game. Please consider these suggestions when making a sequel or patch. Looking forward to your next release!

Score: 8

"good, but almost impossibly hard."

submission: The Last Frontier

date: November 27, 2009

It was a great deal of fun, but there are several problems

1. As many have pointed out, the ability to focus fire is sorely missed. The suicide bombers, or the carriers, which you need to kill asap are often not killed in favor of the small bugs. This is really inexcusable.

2. The experience system. I have a feeling (though I may be wrong) that experience is rewarded by kills. I think this is the case because my second heavy infantry after five turns is still level 2, while my first has grown three levels in that time. It should be the opposite, my lower level character should eventually catch up to the first since he has less exp needed per level.

3. Not enough points are awarded per round. I eventually got to the point where very few of my men were leveling up, so I only gained about 200 per round. This was just about enough to repair my badly damaged walls, so I was essentially stuck in a rut.

In general, the game just needs to be better the balanced. The mortar was certainly not worth 1500 points, and the normal infantry did too little damage.

IN SUM: Good idea, was very good until it became frustratingly hard. Better balance for the next game, and better game mechanics.

Score: 7

"good"

submission: Dragon Boy

date: November 10, 2009

I played this game for a while, and I enjoyed it, but ultimately the combat is too boring to merit any extended play. Build on what you have--the Diablo-style gamplay is good, but add skills for the main character, and please make the hand to hand combat better!

Score: 9

"I liked it a lot"

submission: Lighting A Candle

date: October 3, 2007

I preferred this to the number one entry, i think it's called "your prelude"... I thought this was much more varied, especially with the dynamics. really nice music overall