Delicious FruitElCochran90's Profile
Send a PMJoined on: Aug 25, 2018
Bio:
About time I updated this bio.
Name: Edgar Cochran
Country: Mexico
Currently living in: Mexico City
-God's servant and one of his blessed sons (John 1:12; John 3:16).
-Lover of the entire animal and plant creation.
-Film lover and reviewer for Letterboxd.com (https://letterboxd.com/elcochran90).
-Adjunct professor and personal tutor of Statistical Inference, Business Forecasting, Marketing Research and Portfolio Theory.
Fangaming experience began in August 2018, so only modest achievements here. However, I'll describe some relevant FAQs here made to me during my stay here since 2018:
Q: Are videogames art?
A: Yes
Q: Are fangames videogames?
A: Yes
Q: Why are your reviews long and unconventional?
A: I am a film reviewer; in a way, I sort of unconsciously dragged my style of film reviewing to the world of fangames. I often involve personal experiences in my writing. Expect that structure; I'm not planning to change it.
Q: How are you rating games? Do you compare fangames as normal games that your ratings are lower than all other people ratings or are you just a critical person?
A: My ratings are not lower than people's ratings all of the time regarding fangames, but they are most of the time. However, this is not my intention. I am rating them as normal games, as in, I don't have a different spectrum for rating "normal", "official" games than fangames. They are in the same scale, because they are all videogames. I don't like to think myself as a critical person; ratings are just subjective numbers. However, I have realized that I rate games more harshly than I rate films/short films, which I do more often.
Q: What are your favorite fangames?
A: I have not played enough fangames to make a comprehensive and representative list, but this can be answered by going to my Favorites list. Anything getting 6.7 or higher will be considered immediately as a favorite.
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ElCochran90
For: I Wanna be the 512
For: I Wanna be the 512
*Cleared on 25/09/2023*
Perhaps it was the reviewing exercise of detailing my main complaints of 128 and 512 that will keep this review shorter, even if this is the entry that I found the most enjoyable out of the trilogy (does 724-ish count? Can we leave that as a “short-film-like” extension of the trilogy, like the godawful Disney’s Frozen short films?).
This was much easier and entertaining than 512. Many sins are still present: the Rukito-like aesthetics is an acquired taste and has never been my thing (not a sin, that’s more about me), there are traps, the last stages ramp up the difficulty, the are choke jumps right at the end of many saves, and the difficulty balance is not that balanced. Some random save in an intermediate section can be frustrating and harder than anything preceding it and following it within the stage: the most notorious example of this is the left vine jump you must pull off in Screen 3 of Stage 7, right at the bottom left. This overall save was so annoying (including this jump) it made me postpone finishing the game for like a week, and returning to it felt more like a self-imposed chore than what you’re supposed to feel when returning to a game. Also, the fact you must climb the vertical corridor with vines two times was just a no, and that is not even the ending of the save.
However, let’s get to the positive side and be less Cochran for a while. It has spirit, the bosses are a nice moment from 128-Up where you’re said “ye, here’s something different so take a break”. There are two bosses this time, so this is the game that follows even more the overall Rukito structure. 128-Up also places a lot of emphasis on what could be potential lazy level design: sometimes a gate has a wider window opportunity frame than 4 or 5 frames. The second screen of the first stage was an “oh-nah-a-carner-jamp” and we can’t even complain about it since it gives you the perfect align and positioning to make it. There’s a two-frame window, like a gate, for doing it, so it’s fun. This screen also has the best example I want to give about this: it’s considerate with the player. Consider the final save of Stage 1, which has said corner. When you go to the right side of the wall, you activate a trigger which opens a new route, and for coming back, the next thing you have to do is double jump all the way down to the bottom of the screen (beginning from the tile right to the middle cherry). If you’re observant, the trigger also did something convenient for your backtrack: the spike facing downwards (just left to the corner) gets nerfed, so it’s not a strict diagonal anymore: you can hug that wall and then time your arrival to the bottom block. Any lazy designer would leave it as it is and call it “added challenge”, but here, you see a creator aware of the length of the saves and the consistency required. This kind of “consideration” happens many times, but that’s the first thing you’ll find.
And to close this review, we have the core idea: this is a trigger game. Traps are less heavy, so I’m finally not tagging it as such. The path that opens with each new trigger is the way you head to, and it IS the place you were supposed to go. You then witness the screen reshaping to a new form: small arrangement changes can lead to big changes in platforming. This is how you do trigger. It’s well done. No more “jump all the way hugging this absolute random wall” or “I had a hidden fake block exit to pass the save lol” trash. Everything is intuitive and the trigger hitboxes are much more fair.
Ironically, while being the best of the series, this one doesn’t have something as grand as the last genius screen of 256, but it is what it is: the culmination of 128’s distinctive trigger implementation to Rukito’s (ugly) aesthetics.
[0] Likes
Perhaps it was the reviewing exercise of detailing my main complaints of 128 and 512 that will keep this review shorter, even if this is the entry that I found the most enjoyable out of the trilogy (does 724-ish count? Can we leave that as a “short-film-like” extension of the trilogy, like the godawful Disney’s Frozen short films?).
This was much easier and entertaining than 512. Many sins are still present: the Rukito-like aesthetics is an acquired taste and has never been my thing (not a sin, that’s more about me), there are traps, the last stages ramp up the difficulty, the are choke jumps right at the end of many saves, and the difficulty balance is not that balanced. Some random save in an intermediate section can be frustrating and harder than anything preceding it and following it within the stage: the most notorious example of this is the left vine jump you must pull off in Screen 3 of Stage 7, right at the bottom left. This overall save was so annoying (including this jump) it made me postpone finishing the game for like a week, and returning to it felt more like a self-imposed chore than what you’re supposed to feel when returning to a game. Also, the fact you must climb the vertical corridor with vines two times was just a no, and that is not even the ending of the save.
However, let’s get to the positive side and be less Cochran for a while. It has spirit, the bosses are a nice moment from 128-Up where you’re said “ye, here’s something different so take a break”. There are two bosses this time, so this is the game that follows even more the overall Rukito structure. 128-Up also places a lot of emphasis on what could be potential lazy level design: sometimes a gate has a wider window opportunity frame than 4 or 5 frames. The second screen of the first stage was an “oh-nah-a-carner-jamp” and we can’t even complain about it since it gives you the perfect align and positioning to make it. There’s a two-frame window, like a gate, for doing it, so it’s fun. This screen also has the best example I want to give about this: it’s considerate with the player. Consider the final save of Stage 1, which has said corner. When you go to the right side of the wall, you activate a trigger which opens a new route, and for coming back, the next thing you have to do is double jump all the way down to the bottom of the screen (beginning from the tile right to the middle cherry). If you’re observant, the trigger also did something convenient for your backtrack: the spike facing downwards (just left to the corner) gets nerfed, so it’s not a strict diagonal anymore: you can hug that wall and then time your arrival to the bottom block. Any lazy designer would leave it as it is and call it “added challenge”, but here, you see a creator aware of the length of the saves and the consistency required. This kind of “consideration” happens many times, but that’s the first thing you’ll find.
And to close this review, we have the core idea: this is a trigger game. Traps are less heavy, so I’m finally not tagging it as such. The path that opens with each new trigger is the way you head to, and it IS the place you were supposed to go. You then witness the screen reshaping to a new form: small arrangement changes can lead to big changes in platforming. This is how you do trigger. It’s well done. No more “jump all the way hugging this absolute random wall” or “I had a hidden fake block exit to pass the save lol” trash. Everything is intuitive and the trigger hitboxes are much more fair.
Ironically, while being the best of the series, this one doesn’t have something as grand as the last genius screen of 256, but it is what it is: the culmination of 128’s distinctive trigger implementation to Rukito’s (ugly) aesthetics.
Rating: 5.0 50
Difficulty: 82 82
Nov 12, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Azure
For: I wanna be the Azure
*Cleared on 03/08/2023*
I remember beating hours before the clock ticked midnight and the year of 2021 began, exactly like I finished Needle Satan around 18:00 CST during December 31st, 2019. What a throwback to good memories, back when I had a responsiveness in old fangames with Windows 7 because of something related to Windows Aero which ch...
I’m not even talking about Azure. My question is, why did I find out there was an extra extra stage to Locus 3 years later? If I had known back then, I would have done this immediately after Locus.
More accurately, why was this released separately? It makes no sense, but I have two plausible explanations with me doing zero research on the subject matter, and now that I think about it, possibly irrelevant since they are pure speculations, but oh well.
1) Both stages were planned for being in Locus, but felt repetitive having two extra stages, so one was left as a separate fangame for not having effort wasted
2) Laziness or a deadline that have to be met, but wasn’t
Still I find it troubling that I have to review and rate this separately from Locus when this has the actual final boss and the ENDING CREDITS OF LOCUS. Why? More than a “conglaturations for conquering all these previous stages”, it is more like “bro you didn’t know this was part of Locus, but now that you know, bro do you remember all these stages lol?”
For my two cents, if the first scenario is what happened, the best extra stage was chosen for Locus as it is the best part of the game and it contains the only avoidance boss (which I have spoken enough of in Locus).
This possibility of an extra stage is “45° platforming: the fangame”. It starts very rough, assuming you have beaten all stages of Locus quite recently, all decently warmed up, so there is not really a merciful difficulty curve. It’s whatever, and brutal. There’s a reason why the entirety of Locus and the “shortness” of Azure are rated around 70 of difficulty. The extra in Locus also had a lot of 45° hills with needle, but this one maximizes that challenge. You’re not used to tilted physics, and you move, to our perception, quite fast. Calculating 16px gaps is a horror story and is a must in this game. Granted, it’s not usual level design either and one appreciates an approach to creativity: none of the screens are the same. However, adding traps to many of the saves after 50% of their completion is the final insult. The gimmick is enough for the challenge so that now you have to time, adjust and adapt to traps.
The song? Amazing. Screw the Falcon Sound Team haters: Azure Arbitrator will always be insanely epic, and for this game, Mystic Core works terrifically: no loop, correlates with the game’s distinctive and pleasing color palette, and the colorful spikes. It just fits.
And yet, it is a short fangame with a final boss which difficulty has no relation to the brutal needle. It’ll take 20 minutes if you are not sufficiently skilled, and perhaps 3-5 tries to the ones used to respond quickly to attacks. The sprite is nice, the fight is just plain dumb. Why make something like this? And this is the point where you’re thanked for playing all Locus as well? What if you didn’t?
It is this disconnection with Locus, the game giving you zero room for warming up, the traps in 45° needle / platforming, the lack of correlation with the boss, and feeling more like a short extra stage of another fangame than as a self-sustaining, independent game which makes me not enjoy this.
I’d only recommend this for the ones that played Locus and want to theoretically 100% it, assuming you got all the items and the extra stage in the original Locus; otherwise, even the credits won’t make sense.
[0] Likes
I remember beating hours before the clock ticked midnight and the year of 2021 began, exactly like I finished Needle Satan around 18:00 CST during December 31st, 2019. What a throwback to good memories, back when I had a responsiveness in old fangames with Windows 7 because of something related to Windows Aero which ch...
I’m not even talking about Azure. My question is, why did I find out there was an extra extra stage to Locus 3 years later? If I had known back then, I would have done this immediately after Locus.
More accurately, why was this released separately? It makes no sense, but I have two plausible explanations with me doing zero research on the subject matter, and now that I think about it, possibly irrelevant since they are pure speculations, but oh well.
1) Both stages were planned for being in Locus, but felt repetitive having two extra stages, so one was left as a separate fangame for not having effort wasted
2) Laziness or a deadline that have to be met, but wasn’t
Still I find it troubling that I have to review and rate this separately from Locus when this has the actual final boss and the ENDING CREDITS OF LOCUS. Why? More than a “conglaturations for conquering all these previous stages”, it is more like “bro you didn’t know this was part of Locus, but now that you know, bro do you remember all these stages lol?”
For my two cents, if the first scenario is what happened, the best extra stage was chosen for Locus as it is the best part of the game and it contains the only avoidance boss (which I have spoken enough of in Locus).
This possibility of an extra stage is “45° platforming: the fangame”. It starts very rough, assuming you have beaten all stages of Locus quite recently, all decently warmed up, so there is not really a merciful difficulty curve. It’s whatever, and brutal. There’s a reason why the entirety of Locus and the “shortness” of Azure are rated around 70 of difficulty. The extra in Locus also had a lot of 45° hills with needle, but this one maximizes that challenge. You’re not used to tilted physics, and you move, to our perception, quite fast. Calculating 16px gaps is a horror story and is a must in this game. Granted, it’s not usual level design either and one appreciates an approach to creativity: none of the screens are the same. However, adding traps to many of the saves after 50% of their completion is the final insult. The gimmick is enough for the challenge so that now you have to time, adjust and adapt to traps.
The song? Amazing. Screw the Falcon Sound Team haters: Azure Arbitrator will always be insanely epic, and for this game, Mystic Core works terrifically: no loop, correlates with the game’s distinctive and pleasing color palette, and the colorful spikes. It just fits.
And yet, it is a short fangame with a final boss which difficulty has no relation to the brutal needle. It’ll take 20 minutes if you are not sufficiently skilled, and perhaps 3-5 tries to the ones used to respond quickly to attacks. The sprite is nice, the fight is just plain dumb. Why make something like this? And this is the point where you’re thanked for playing all Locus as well? What if you didn’t?
It is this disconnection with Locus, the game giving you zero room for warming up, the traps in 45° needle / platforming, the lack of correlation with the boss, and feeling more like a short extra stage of another fangame than as a self-sustaining, independent game which makes me not enjoy this.
I’d only recommend this for the ones that played Locus and want to theoretically 100% it, assuming you got all the items and the extra stage in the original Locus; otherwise, even the credits won’t make sense.
Rating: 3.6 36
Difficulty: 70 70
Nov 12, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I wanna be the Magnanimity
For: I wanna be the Magnanimity
*Cleared on 25/07/2023*
On the underrated vein of PomuRin’s most creative game, “Conscience”, Magnanimity is a solid and fun classic that is painfully unfinished. However, I still find it to be not appreciated enough by the community, considering my unpopular rating scale and the time this was conceived.
The game is quite Conscience-like in the way it concocts and amasses a respectable variety of environments from original video games like Kirby’s Dream Land for the Game Boy to Kirby Super Star Ultra for the DS. We also have Super Mario World, Kirby Super Star and Super Mario All Stars thrown in for good measure, as obligated and overused they might seem today; at least those are done in a better way than freaking Popularity.
The implementation of stages, bosses and gimmicks are cool, but the quality overall presents great variance. The lava stage, the one with Sagat as its boss for absolutely no reason, which had me laughing at the beginning to be honest, has standard screens and a gimmick that allows you to freeze fireballs. Also, we have the normal, generic and standard IWBTG stage, but what is a classic without it (except probably something better)? The Zombie boss is just whatever... There are some questionable decisions here and there, so expect no rhyme or reason.
Yet, this odd facet works in the favor of the game and keeps it fresh, unexpected and unpredictable: it’s better to go blind. Difficulty balance is not off, although you might experience some grinding with the later bosses compared to the overall adventure platforming.
This is the type of fangames that retains my favoritism for the adventure genre, and at the end of the day, that was the genre of the one that started it all. Yet, it is not a consistent experience overall, the last boss is really easy (and famous), and the latter combined with the whole unfinished business gives it a very anticlimactic “conclusion”. What a bummer.
[1] Like
On the underrated vein of PomuRin’s most creative game, “Conscience”, Magnanimity is a solid and fun classic that is painfully unfinished. However, I still find it to be not appreciated enough by the community, considering my unpopular rating scale and the time this was conceived.
The game is quite Conscience-like in the way it concocts and amasses a respectable variety of environments from original video games like Kirby’s Dream Land for the Game Boy to Kirby Super Star Ultra for the DS. We also have Super Mario World, Kirby Super Star and Super Mario All Stars thrown in for good measure, as obligated and overused they might seem today; at least those are done in a better way than freaking Popularity.
The implementation of stages, bosses and gimmicks are cool, but the quality overall presents great variance. The lava stage, the one with Sagat as its boss for absolutely no reason, which had me laughing at the beginning to be honest, has standard screens and a gimmick that allows you to freeze fireballs. Also, we have the normal, generic and standard IWBTG stage, but what is a classic without it (except probably something better)? The Zombie boss is just whatever... There are some questionable decisions here and there, so expect no rhyme or reason.
Yet, this odd facet works in the favor of the game and keeps it fresh, unexpected and unpredictable: it’s better to go blind. Difficulty balance is not off, although you might experience some grinding with the later bosses compared to the overall adventure platforming.
This is the type of fangames that retains my favoritism for the adventure genre, and at the end of the day, that was the genre of the one that started it all. Yet, it is not a consistent experience overall, the last boss is really easy (and famous), and the latter combined with the whole unfinished business gives it a very anticlimactic “conclusion”. What a bummer.
Rating: 6.1 61
Difficulty: 65 65
Nov 12, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I Wanna Possible
For: I Wanna Possible
*Cleared on 06/07/2023*
Like Needle Satan and countless other needle games, it consists of two stages with a few screens of needle each. Left warp gives a winter feeling and is a fan of corners. Right warp is neon-like and has the more creative-ish needle, but with one of the most intolerable, annoying and loud music choices for a needle. If we’re going to these extremes, I’d prefer the game to be silent. It is two screens but also the hardest warp by a dumb margin; the last jump of the last warp is pretty dumb difficulty-wise unless you immediately know how to cover that much of a distance. Personally, I would recommend playing the left warp and tossing this to the Recycle Bin.
Also, I could never see the clear screen because the game crashes. Everything I did was download the game and that’s it. Perhaps the error screen is the true clear screen.
It sucks.
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Like Needle Satan and countless other needle games, it consists of two stages with a few screens of needle each. Left warp gives a winter feeling and is a fan of corners. Right warp is neon-like and has the more creative-ish needle, but with one of the most intolerable, annoying and loud music choices for a needle. If we’re going to these extremes, I’d prefer the game to be silent. It is two screens but also the hardest warp by a dumb margin; the last jump of the last warp is pretty dumb difficulty-wise unless you immediately know how to cover that much of a distance. Personally, I would recommend playing the left warp and tossing this to the Recycle Bin.
Also, I could never see the clear screen because the game crashes. Everything I did was download the game and that’s it. Perhaps the error screen is the true clear screen.
It sucks.
Rating: 2.5 25
Difficulty: 65 65
Nov 12, 2023
ElCochran90
For: I Wanna Be the Butterfly
For: I Wanna Be the Butterfly
*Cleared on 06/07/2023*
Considering one thing takes to another, there are two main inspirations for the creation of Noesis: Butterfly, and Emperor. Butterfly is an adventure game like almost no other preceding it: borrowing the structure of many creators from ホネ。(End the Blood Festival, Buy the Crayon, White Cherry) and ていく (Device, Diverse) to 水鳥 (Competitor, Symmetry, Unknown, Make It Breaking Out), the guy that made us appreciate the meme-teor stream, vanish needles and challenged us to become the emperor, and that other guy that teamed up with the former guy to be the flower, make their duo peak adventure extravaganza. They take the structure from Unknown and Breaking Out, a structure that consists of evolving hubs and evolve into subsequent challenges, a universe that keeps expanding, and turn it into something of their own. The soundtrack throughout is absolutely fantastic and the production value is through the roof without overdoing it: for 2020s standards, it has aged like fine wine (even though I don’t drink).
The first hub has four main worlds:
-Red warp.- The most standard one, and the least fun due to its stupidly precise platforming; the first save is a good intro for this: there will be blood. The third screen, which is the second area of this world, is an infamous one as you are asked to shoot four switches in a row perfectly while falling and then do an A-jump. Then figuring out what to do with the moving spike is mysterious, but the trap after it literally makes your soul escape your body for three seconds. The fifth screen, which corresponds to the third area of this outer-space-like world, was the most difficult for me in the entire game and I don’t exaggerate: the ascending and descending water costed me 11% (rounded) of the total amount of deaths in the entire game, and do mind the game is very long. This screen, with all honesty, is AIDS. The seventh screen, which corresponds to the fourth area of this world, has two saves. The first required jump of the second save is unspoken of, but at least it gives you the proper align for the TAS landing. The last jump of the final screen of this world is also terrifying, but it looks more intimidating than it really is: if you have built the required memory muscle beforehand, you’ll pull it off correctly faster than you might think.
-Green warp: Trigger fiesta, but the first screen is the hardest by a ridiculous margin in the stage. The traps are brutal, and knowing what will happen does not tell you the very specific set of strats and inputs you must apply to pass the screen, and this applies even more to the very first save. Once past the two first screens, the game plays with terrific gravity and jumping gimmicks in screens 3-6 that amount for a fantastic experience. I found a funny glitch in screen 5 which allows you to walk in air infinitely, but the game still registers the shift inputs for jumping.
-Orange warp: For better or for worse, it happened: a v-string stage. Holy moly. Opening with 2 16px diagonals in a row, this stage obligates you to thing about your vertical velocity for making it through specific gaps. The precision is not the one you’re used to, as old fangames used to be ruled by 32px and 16px logic, but not here. It will be less memory muscle and more constant calculation. This stage is often hated the most by regular players, but the implementation is utmost effective: exploit the concept without being horribly unfair with it. Also, the song is beautiful and the overall atmosphere is engrossing.
-Blue warp: The Legend of Zelda time, with a fangame touch of its own! It’s a modest and short, yet fully fleshed out adventure quest within a greater game: puzzles, chests, items, secrets, and a map. Just, how? This is commitment for certain. Needle difficulty is lax as backtracks are required and you can sometimes take more than one route. It must be played to be fully grasped.
From here on, consider even heavier spoilers, as the rest of the game is encouraged to be played blind past this point at the least:
--
A new warp opens, and you enter a sort of underworld, creepy and colorless, where you have to replay a specific screen of each stage and gather items again: it gives the feeling that something became unstable, and its balance must be restored. I love open lore like this. Achieving this leads to a Destination-like buildup to a ridiculous cherry boss, which I am pretty sure is a parody of all the fangames that relied on this type of boss, tilesets and the theme of Megaman 2. Obviously, this can’t be the end? What lies ahead now?
Everything was just the opening. To put it in a way, it was the typical intro scene of the game for background or context, except you were not an NPC in it: you played it. The intro theme plays, introducing the lore of the butterfly: Kid has a crush for Gigachad Mario but doesn’t care for Remilia Scarlet. Maybe he gay??? Maybe canonical sequel of GB?
The variety displayed from here onwards is outstanding: low gravity in a huge scroller area, jump gimmicks involving triggers, and a brand new, very different hub divided into two challenges. The left one is, literally a new hub that sections into three parts: a New Super Mario Bros. tribute, a shoot-the-target collection of challenges (where a significant portion of your playtime will be spent as you figure out optimal routing strategies), and a sensational collection of minigames with the rules explained beforehand. The game keeps expanding upon its original premise and places the stakes higher and higher, and all stages genuinely seemed as planned to be playable and offer something interesting rather than a “let’s see if this works” brainstorm of concepts, such as Make It Breaking Out. The minigames test your memory skills, aim, speed, needle skills (punishing you per spike touched), and much more! This is a terrific concept for actually being self-aware about your skills and how it is affecting gameplay per second. Out of all levels, the latter one has a boss. If it’s not memorable at worst, it’s creative at best. It takes some time figuring it out, but it plays more as a minigame than as a normal boss.
Finish the new hub, and an extra challenge appears: a race that will certainly remain with you. Reading the smaller sprites of the enemy and how they dance around you is weird and inconsistent. Nevertheless, it’s a recap of most of the previous challenges and does wonders at creating tension. The final moment of the chase is terrifically animated. You’re transported, then again, to the hub referenced beforehand. The right side remains. This right portal has a continuation of the aforementioned jump gimmick triggers section, and a brand-new hub, like the left portal had. This one has five challenges.
For this right-side hub, my humble recommendation is: if you wish to have a true sense of final boss, as the game doesn’t really have one because it is more focused on being an adventure game of many ideas as trials and took less care of a climactic rendition for an adventure story, then take the upper teleporter last.
-Left teleporter is a creative crossover between Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’s three lifelines, and the fangames based on numbered, individual jump / needle challenges. This has a boss that I think is more a parody on how many fangames use the Suki Suki Suki bouncing cherry of LoveTrap as a boss than anything else, since it is the second type of boss in this game (the one in the Mario stage was more relevant).
-Right teleporter takes you to a Megaman stage. It’s brief and quite uninspired unlike many other fangame attempts to bring this concept to life, even if it’s not the core idea of the fangame such as Be the Rockman (take the secret challenges of Be the Overlord, for example). Also, the main save is really long. In spite of this, the boss works really well as an original concept instead of dodge and shoot, or memorize and dodge.
-Downwards left teleporter is nothing special: trap screens with only one notable gimmick. The real meat is the scoreless cherry avoidance. Fun to do, but might be tedious for some.
-Downwards right teleporter is the most generic and I would personally take this first. It consists in many generic screens with Kirby’s music in a heavy Carnival fashion that has a counter for every screen: either how many jumps you do, or how many pixels you’re moving left or right. The latter has a big opportunity window, but the former is stricter, as there’s only one way to do every screen. Boss is, well, Kirby, and has the quality of 2011 aqua’s fangames in average. Also really easy.
The top teleporter has the only vocaloid avoidance of the game and will be the second highest grind after the shoot-the-target one imo: Meiko. Much of it is pattern, which can throw some people off, and save for the long intro you can’t skip, attacks are in perfect sync and the balance between pattern and RNG is just fair. Pattern segments can be too precise at times, but they will never change, so it’s up to you to find the blind spots. The entire avoidance has the infinite jump gimmick and there are no platforms, utilizing the entire screen at its advantage, and yes, you will go throughout the entire screen. In short, it’s fun, creative and surpasses the memorable Rin “Benzen” avoidance of Flower.
After this, you’re taken to a final platforming section which is just the epilogue and lighter in difficulty, and the structure is bizarre as heck in the best way. Here, the game throws all the bizarre jokes in for good measure and finding the true exit becomes a task. It’s no daunting task as the game knows exactly what you will try to do and has a special trap or joke prepared in there, so it even gives you the feeling of hopefully not missing any. This is the epilogue of all times.
As a conclusion, the game is unique and most of the ideas work splendorously; the quality gap between Flower and this is pretty much doubled. Every continuous expansion the game makes will make you go “there is more!” instead of “please just end”. The inert underworld version of the first hub was great and just the intro for the grand variety that lied ahead. The game does consider you can go to any hub in any order, so this results in several difficulty curves being all over the place. These are minor observations and I am no game creator in any way, but if I could change the pacing and order of the game instead of giving too much freedom, I would lock the right warp of the third hub (the one after everything goes colorless underworld mode) and make it available until the left one is completed. Then, when you enter the right one, I would leave only the four teleporters at your sides visible and make the top one (Meiko’s) visible once you pass all four to give a feeling of a final boss. Anyway, this still can be done by yourself in this way, and for those willing to do it in a different order, well, what can I say?
Immediate favorite. If you haven’t played this, change that stat now!
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Considering one thing takes to another, there are two main inspirations for the creation of Noesis: Butterfly, and Emperor. Butterfly is an adventure game like almost no other preceding it: borrowing the structure of many creators from ホネ。(End the Blood Festival, Buy the Crayon, White Cherry) and ていく (Device, Diverse) to 水鳥 (Competitor, Symmetry, Unknown, Make It Breaking Out), the guy that made us appreciate the meme-teor stream, vanish needles and challenged us to become the emperor, and that other guy that teamed up with the former guy to be the flower, make their duo peak adventure extravaganza. They take the structure from Unknown and Breaking Out, a structure that consists of evolving hubs and evolve into subsequent challenges, a universe that keeps expanding, and turn it into something of their own. The soundtrack throughout is absolutely fantastic and the production value is through the roof without overdoing it: for 2020s standards, it has aged like fine wine (even though I don’t drink).
The first hub has four main worlds:
-Red warp.- The most standard one, and the least fun due to its stupidly precise platforming; the first save is a good intro for this: there will be blood. The third screen, which is the second area of this world, is an infamous one as you are asked to shoot four switches in a row perfectly while falling and then do an A-jump. Then figuring out what to do with the moving spike is mysterious, but the trap after it literally makes your soul escape your body for three seconds. The fifth screen, which corresponds to the third area of this outer-space-like world, was the most difficult for me in the entire game and I don’t exaggerate: the ascending and descending water costed me 11% (rounded) of the total amount of deaths in the entire game, and do mind the game is very long. This screen, with all honesty, is AIDS. The seventh screen, which corresponds to the fourth area of this world, has two saves. The first required jump of the second save is unspoken of, but at least it gives you the proper align for the TAS landing. The last jump of the final screen of this world is also terrifying, but it looks more intimidating than it really is: if you have built the required memory muscle beforehand, you’ll pull it off correctly faster than you might think.
-Green warp: Trigger fiesta, but the first screen is the hardest by a ridiculous margin in the stage. The traps are brutal, and knowing what will happen does not tell you the very specific set of strats and inputs you must apply to pass the screen, and this applies even more to the very first save. Once past the two first screens, the game plays with terrific gravity and jumping gimmicks in screens 3-6 that amount for a fantastic experience. I found a funny glitch in screen 5 which allows you to walk in air infinitely, but the game still registers the shift inputs for jumping.
-Orange warp: For better or for worse, it happened: a v-string stage. Holy moly. Opening with 2 16px diagonals in a row, this stage obligates you to thing about your vertical velocity for making it through specific gaps. The precision is not the one you’re used to, as old fangames used to be ruled by 32px and 16px logic, but not here. It will be less memory muscle and more constant calculation. This stage is often hated the most by regular players, but the implementation is utmost effective: exploit the concept without being horribly unfair with it. Also, the song is beautiful and the overall atmosphere is engrossing.
-Blue warp: The Legend of Zelda time, with a fangame touch of its own! It’s a modest and short, yet fully fleshed out adventure quest within a greater game: puzzles, chests, items, secrets, and a map. Just, how? This is commitment for certain. Needle difficulty is lax as backtracks are required and you can sometimes take more than one route. It must be played to be fully grasped.
From here on, consider even heavier spoilers, as the rest of the game is encouraged to be played blind past this point at the least:
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A new warp opens, and you enter a sort of underworld, creepy and colorless, where you have to replay a specific screen of each stage and gather items again: it gives the feeling that something became unstable, and its balance must be restored. I love open lore like this. Achieving this leads to a Destination-like buildup to a ridiculous cherry boss, which I am pretty sure is a parody of all the fangames that relied on this type of boss, tilesets and the theme of Megaman 2. Obviously, this can’t be the end? What lies ahead now?
Everything was just the opening. To put it in a way, it was the typical intro scene of the game for background or context, except you were not an NPC in it: you played it. The intro theme plays, introducing the lore of the butterfly: Kid has a crush for Gigachad Mario but doesn’t care for Remilia Scarlet. Maybe he gay??? Maybe canonical sequel of GB?
The variety displayed from here onwards is outstanding: low gravity in a huge scroller area, jump gimmicks involving triggers, and a brand new, very different hub divided into two challenges. The left one is, literally a new hub that sections into three parts: a New Super Mario Bros. tribute, a shoot-the-target collection of challenges (where a significant portion of your playtime will be spent as you figure out optimal routing strategies), and a sensational collection of minigames with the rules explained beforehand. The game keeps expanding upon its original premise and places the stakes higher and higher, and all stages genuinely seemed as planned to be playable and offer something interesting rather than a “let’s see if this works” brainstorm of concepts, such as Make It Breaking Out. The minigames test your memory skills, aim, speed, needle skills (punishing you per spike touched), and much more! This is a terrific concept for actually being self-aware about your skills and how it is affecting gameplay per second. Out of all levels, the latter one has a boss. If it’s not memorable at worst, it’s creative at best. It takes some time figuring it out, but it plays more as a minigame than as a normal boss.
Finish the new hub, and an extra challenge appears: a race that will certainly remain with you. Reading the smaller sprites of the enemy and how they dance around you is weird and inconsistent. Nevertheless, it’s a recap of most of the previous challenges and does wonders at creating tension. The final moment of the chase is terrifically animated. You’re transported, then again, to the hub referenced beforehand. The right side remains. This right portal has a continuation of the aforementioned jump gimmick triggers section, and a brand-new hub, like the left portal had. This one has five challenges.
For this right-side hub, my humble recommendation is: if you wish to have a true sense of final boss, as the game doesn’t really have one because it is more focused on being an adventure game of many ideas as trials and took less care of a climactic rendition for an adventure story, then take the upper teleporter last.
-Left teleporter is a creative crossover between Who Wants to Be a Millionaire’s three lifelines, and the fangames based on numbered, individual jump / needle challenges. This has a boss that I think is more a parody on how many fangames use the Suki Suki Suki bouncing cherry of LoveTrap as a boss than anything else, since it is the second type of boss in this game (the one in the Mario stage was more relevant).
-Right teleporter takes you to a Megaman stage. It’s brief and quite uninspired unlike many other fangame attempts to bring this concept to life, even if it’s not the core idea of the fangame such as Be the Rockman (take the secret challenges of Be the Overlord, for example). Also, the main save is really long. In spite of this, the boss works really well as an original concept instead of dodge and shoot, or memorize and dodge.
-Downwards left teleporter is nothing special: trap screens with only one notable gimmick. The real meat is the scoreless cherry avoidance. Fun to do, but might be tedious for some.
-Downwards right teleporter is the most generic and I would personally take this first. It consists in many generic screens with Kirby’s music in a heavy Carnival fashion that has a counter for every screen: either how many jumps you do, or how many pixels you’re moving left or right. The latter has a big opportunity window, but the former is stricter, as there’s only one way to do every screen. Boss is, well, Kirby, and has the quality of 2011 aqua’s fangames in average. Also really easy.
The top teleporter has the only vocaloid avoidance of the game and will be the second highest grind after the shoot-the-target one imo: Meiko. Much of it is pattern, which can throw some people off, and save for the long intro you can’t skip, attacks are in perfect sync and the balance between pattern and RNG is just fair. Pattern segments can be too precise at times, but they will never change, so it’s up to you to find the blind spots. The entire avoidance has the infinite jump gimmick and there are no platforms, utilizing the entire screen at its advantage, and yes, you will go throughout the entire screen. In short, it’s fun, creative and surpasses the memorable Rin “Benzen” avoidance of Flower.
After this, you’re taken to a final platforming section which is just the epilogue and lighter in difficulty, and the structure is bizarre as heck in the best way. Here, the game throws all the bizarre jokes in for good measure and finding the true exit becomes a task. It’s no daunting task as the game knows exactly what you will try to do and has a special trap or joke prepared in there, so it even gives you the feeling of hopefully not missing any. This is the epilogue of all times.
As a conclusion, the game is unique and most of the ideas work splendorously; the quality gap between Flower and this is pretty much doubled. Every continuous expansion the game makes will make you go “there is more!” instead of “please just end”. The inert underworld version of the first hub was great and just the intro for the grand variety that lied ahead. The game does consider you can go to any hub in any order, so this results in several difficulty curves being all over the place. These are minor observations and I am no game creator in any way, but if I could change the pacing and order of the game instead of giving too much freedom, I would lock the right warp of the third hub (the one after everything goes colorless underworld mode) and make it available until the left one is completed. Then, when you enter the right one, I would leave only the four teleporters at your sides visible and make the top one (Meiko’s) visible once you pass all four to give a feeling of a final boss. Anyway, this still can be done by yourself in this way, and for those willing to do it in a different order, well, what can I say?
Immediate favorite. If you haven’t played this, change that stat now!
Rating: 7.0 70
Difficulty: 80 80
Nov 11, 2023
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