#there is a metroidvania I dreamed up that I'd like to work on

[goldieclaws]

Me seeing a high fantasy-themed game jam that lasts for 3 whole months and it's tempting me to high heaven to make a demo of MEW's story in RPG Maker (bc I'm still a noob with Unity) which means I'll be forced to make pixel art but I will have a motivation to at least make something with him in it, but ALSO I don't want to make something in RPG Maker when the original intent was to always make his game in Unity bc transferring everything over will take A God Damn While.

[syrupspinner]

I defeated Endica VII: The Dream King

I wonder how many people can say that?

I have a weird history with this game. when I was a kid, I loved reading fan wikis, and one of my favorites was the magaman database despite never playing any of the games. since I was terrified of emulation ever since I got a virus from angelfire, my only hope was fangames. and the game that looked the coolest was... Mega Man Perfect Harmony!

id attach an image of the gameplay, but all kid me cared about was having a million (24) playable characters, thats really all you need. I'd check the website for it from time to time, and eventually I saw that it had inexplicably morphed into something called Endica, an original story. from what i can tell, its a pretty thorough reskin, but a reskin nonetheless, you can see stuff attacks and level layouts that were taken over wholecloth.

i think it was just a kcikstarter at the time, but i didnt donate. sorry dev guy. I bought it when it came to steam later though! before it was unlisted. but then it was put on the devs website for free, so you can still play it if you want.

that's it for the history. I just wanted to give a little background about it, because I'm not sure if anyone else would.

so, how'd the game turn out? I... have my criticisms. I promise I won't be some caustic asshole about it, but it's hard to recommend.

so it's pretty clearly inspired by classic megaman in the controls, only you have a melee attack zero-style. as for the graphics, I'm not sure what they were going for. it's like, kinda retro? but everything is super shaded and like... the only thing I can compare it to is the cdi. like, the gameplay sprites and backgrounds and stuff. it's kinda cool, like an oil painting on a crt, but I'm taken out of it by how the enemies squash and stretch, and how the coins look so unshaded and layered on top, and how healing is just an Adobe aftereffect... I can see what they were going for but it doesn't stick the landing

there was a huge multiplayer angle for the game too. it was designed to let you have four players simultaneously, nsmb style, so the levels are all really wide open to accommodate. I can't comment on this, BUT I can comment on all the characters they added to facilitate this. they all play just differently enough, and they all have upgradable moves, so it's pretty impressive and surprisingly fun to- holy shit is that the kid from shovel knight

so quick aside. I played this game before shovel knight, but I knew that there's no way shovel knight was referencing Endica, so I looked it up and it turns out that he's a backer character... in a loooooot of games. his creator, seizui, just funds his roleplay OC into a bunch of Kickstarter projects. it's awesome and I love him

anyway yeah, gameplay. it's kind of a metroidvania? you can get character upgrades but im pretty sure it's all combat stuff. my advice is to skip it whenever you can, I got a ring that let me crash the game at any time by hitting c

there's a plot, I've been told. it's a pretty basic "go here and kill evil" thing. surprisingly, reize gets the most character development, he has this whole subplot with his dad and stuff. yeah other than that it just kinda feels like characters say things, y'know? it's all written like a cartoon that just came back from a commercial. "oh, no! we have to stop the giant goblin before it destroys the town!" kinda thing, where it's more establishing basic stuff instead of setting up the characters

so yeah, it's hard to sugarcoat how unenjoyable this was. I respect the work that was put into it though! this game wasn't a waste of time, but it's hard to articulate why without it sounding backhanded. it's... charmingly flawed? there are games I've hovered between completely uninvensted and dispassionately frustrated the whole time, and this wasn't that. there's genuine heart here, an artistic vision with sincere effort behind it. if you have a tolerance for roughness, it's sincerely worth checking out, especially if you're a developer. since it's a game that's bad without being abysmal dogshit, I think it'll be really worthwhile to analyze what doesnt work and why if you're designing your own game.

also, check out the devs other projects! I haven't had the chance to try it myself, but Azazel looks like it'd be fun to try!