ProsciuttoMan's game Reviews on Newgrounds

[Waha's Circuit Break]

The softlocks are a huge problem: you can press R to reset areas, I know, but this is explained far later than it should be: you can softlock yourself on the first screen if you don't know what you're doing. It isn't stated in the game that resetting rooms is possible until about 10 minutes in!
Speaking of this, balancing is really odd. Techniques are explained after the player has already done them, making it jarring as to why these tutorials were included in the first place.
The Wario's Woods influence is palpable, but little is done to really evolve on that formula other than adding overworld exploration. I would have liked to see some more unique mechanics added or maybe making overworld progression more essential to gameplay or something like that. The collapsing ceiling isn't clear enough: I think it would have made more sense to make it more apparent because I didn't even know what the yellow bar on the bottom of the screen was for until like 4 battles in. Combat also becomes stale quickly: after the third or fourth fight, they got extremely mundane and uninteresting.
Art is solid, but it doesn't make up for the gameplay not being that great. I'm sure for people who just want to look at cute characters and nice art this is a good time, but as a game it needs a lot of work.

TharosTheDragon responds:

Thanks for the feedback! I just want to clear up a few things.

Failing a puzzle and needing to reset is not a softlock! It's a common game mechanic. While you're right that it is possible to get stuck in the tutorial, we were hoping it wouldn't be a common experience. And resetting is explained in the controls menu for inquiring minds, so hopefully people who need it can figure out how to do it even before they reach the NPC who explains it.

If the player reads the inscriptions on all the statues in the tutorial room, all the techniques should be explained before you need them.

I haven't played Wario's Woods but my understanding is that there are quite a lot of mechanics that set Waha's Circuit Break apart from it, such as the hostile bots and the omniballs and the components they can power.

The "danger time" bar is a pretty obscured game mechanic that's difficult to pick up on, so we're not really expecting anyone to. It's just there in case you want to try and guess how the game is working behind the scenes. You're supposed to be able to play normally while ignoring it, and that's okay!

Anyway, thanks again for the review!

[Blood Gauntlet]

I know people tend to vote lower for challenging games, but I thought it was pretty damn fun and rewarding! Reminds me of old school Castlevania.

[Twigi's Twisted Costumes]

It’s a decent little dressup project that isn’t very well optimized: I encountered multiple bugs (for example randomly grabbing objects when scrolling) without trying too hard and it didn’t load for me the first few times.
The best games like this do something unique with the idea, but this is just painfully average and brings nothing new to the table.
EDIT: The game should justify itself by being entertaining, it shouldn’t be justified by you feeling the need to explain to me the context of its existence.

Nebulate responds:

Yeah we are aware that having 100+ uncompressed assets issnt that optimised. We were fully aware of that along side the object-scroll grab thing. It is a gamejam game so its not supposed to be the next Elden Ring or somthing. But i do apreciate some constructive critisism

EDIT: This game was made for a jam about making dressup games. What the fuck did you expect?

[Madness Clean Code]

This is embarrassingly unpolished, and just not fun whatsoever. The cutesy sound design, while charming, doesn't save the game from just being forgettable and bland.
I'm sure the intention was to create a Metal Gear-esque stealth game where you're constantly trying to hide and accomplish tasks while staying out of sight, but the enemies are rarely if ever a threat, and there is no tension.
The art looks like it was lifted from a Unity asset pack, and the environment design does not make up for this in any meaningful way.
Overall, it's a decent concept that you can tell was extraordinarily rushed and just comes off as extremely jank as a result.

[Kill the Crazy Frog v2]

You know what, FUCK YOU man!
That wacky little froglike character got me through my parents divorce, my dad's alcoholism, and through high school. The fact that you would make a "game" out of killing my hero: Carl Zachary Frogman is not only crude and tasteless, but an affront to all that is holy in this country!
The only thing "Crazy" about this frog is the haters (like you). Could YOU put a crusty, ancient-ass "ring ding ding" soundbite into a shitload of copyrighted music? Yeah, I thought not.
In short: fuck you.

[Portal Re:/ Flashed]

I usually enjoy unconventional control schemes, but there's a point where it's just added after-the-fact to make your game seem more interesting than it actually is.
I get that it's meant to be a remake/reimagining, but I feel like part of that is modernizing the game for a new audience: here, I don't really see any reason to recommend this over the original other than for the novelty. It adds nothing, and in almost every aspect is a downgrade.

ThePixelDud responds:

The control scheme was reworked a few times throughout development, but we only had a d-pad, a, b, start , and select button to work with, as this was made for a game jam and that was a requirement. It will be fixed in a later update, along with any other issues that have been found.

[NewGrounds must DIE (Demo beta)]

Controls feel overly-slippery, art is extremely unpolished and assets rarely feel cohesive with one another...
Overall, it's palpable just how rushed this game was. While it's cool to see a game that uses characters other than the FNF cast, I'm really struggling to find any positives to this one.

Oxim responds:

Is for the "platformer object" extention, I fix this mecanic in clickteam fusion with the values active code so you can feel more fast tha mechanics of the player, I restart the game in this moments.
So thanks for your positive coment, we stay restart the game for a fine optimization

[Meaty Mayhem (DEMO)]

Pretty fun little precision platformer! Can't wait to see more.

BakethedBean responds:

and more there shall be!

[Heroes of Pico's School]

This game runs like shit for me (I have a fairly high-end PC that can run modern games like Baldurs Gate 3 pretty smoothly at max graphical settings, so I don't imagine that's the issue), but otherwise it's a decent little block push puzzle game. It doesn't really do anything all that new or unique with the concept, which is fine, but still it leaves the game not feeling particularly distinct: I believe there was a game using extremely similar mechanics to this for Pico Day a few years back.